24816	----	None 
36435	----	Transcriber's Notes: The original spelling and minor inconsistencies in the spelling and formatting have been maintained. The ligature oe has been marked as [oe]. A list with all corrections applied to the text has been added at the end of the text. Formatting: Text in italics has been marked with underscores (_text_) and bold text using the equals sign (=text=). [Illustration: COLUMBIA RIVER, LOOKING EASTWARD FROM ROCK BLUFF.] Wonderland; OR ALASKA AND THE INLAND PASSAGE BY LIEUT. FREDERICK SCHWATKA. WITH A Description of the Country Traversed by the Northern Pacific Railroad. BY JOHN HYDE, Author of "The Wonderland Route to the Pacific Coast," "Alice's Adventures in the New Wonderland," etc., etc. Copyrighted, 1886, by CHAS. S. FEE, General Passenger Agent Northern Pacific Railroad, St. Paul. [Illustration: Rand McNally & Co.] PRINTERS AND ENGRAVERS, CHICAGO INTRODUCTORY. "Multi discurrent, et augebitur _stultitia_." Thus did one of the profoundest of modern thinkers parody the prediction of the Hebrew prophet who foretold the time when, with increased facilities for travel and intercommunication, there should come a great enlargement of the bounds of knowledge, and a corresponding amelioration of the condition of humanity. It would, however, be strange indeed, if the complex process of social evolution, even in its present stage, were not marked by some of the indications of a retrograde movement. The age in which we live has undoubtedly its peculiar follies and foibles, which are but thrown into relief by the qualities that more generally distinguish it. But many are running to and fro, and knowledge is being increased. Nature is revealing herself to the traveler in new forms and aspects, and disclosing to his wondering gaze mysterious pages of her great book hitherto hidden from him. And while extensive tracts of country, presenting physical features to which the entire known world furnishes no parallel, have been brought by railroad enterprise within reach alike of the curious sight-seer and the inquiring student, a vast region, of almost unexampled wealth-producing capabilities, has, by the same agency, been thrown open to that advancing tide of civilization which is rapidly overspreading the world. Hence the traveler journeying to Wonderland--to that enchanted realm where the most extravagant creations of the fancy appear trivial and commonplace beside the more extraordinary works of Nature--sees also, in process of solution, some of the hitherto most perplexing problems of economics; observes, as he can not do with like facility anywhere else in the world, the well-ordered plan upon which the bounty of Nature is distributed; and witnesses the unlocking of vast storehouses of good, to supply the increasing needs of the human race. It may be doubted whether the world affords another tour at once so delightful and so instructive as that which, beginning at the head of the Mississippi valley, and crossing the great wheat fields of Dakota and Eastern Washington, the stock ranges of Montana, and the gold and silver ribbed mountains of Montana and Idaho, embraces also the wonders of the Yellowstone National Park, and the incomparable scenery of the Columbia river, to crown all with the stupendous sights of that Great Land whose unique natural features have earned for it the well-deserved title of "Wonderland." No longer one of peril and hardship, but, on the contrary, one of absolute luxury, this tour has, within the last two years, attracted thousands of pilgrims from all parts of the civilized world. To them, as well as to all other lovers of the sublime and beautiful, and to the students of the mysteries of Nature in all lands, who may have the good fortune to visit the far Northwest in 1886, the following pages are respectfully inscribed. CONTENTS. PAGE The Advantages of Travel--Introductory 3 The Development of the Northwest--St. Paul and Minneapolis 7, 8 Minnesota Lakes and their Attractions for the Angler 8-10 Brainerd, Duluth, Superior and Ashland 10 Red River Valley 12 The Changes of a Half Century 13 Great Wheat Farms of Dakota, and the Capital of the Territory 14 "Bad Lands" of the Little Missouri 15, 16 Yellowstone River 16-19 Yellowstone National Park 20-22 Helena and the Romance of Mining 23-26 Main Range of the Rocky Mountains 26, 27 Butte City, the greatest Mining Camp in the World 27-30 The Flathead Country 30, 31 Clark's Fork and Lake Pend d'Oreille 31-34 Spokane Falls 35 Palouse and Walla Walla Wheat Countries 36, 37 The Columbia River 37-40 Portland 40, 41 The Willamette Valley and Southern Oregon 42, 43 The Lower Columbia and City of Astoria, with Fisheries 43-46 Western Washington: its Scenery and Resources 46 The Sovereign Mountain: Tacoma 47 Puget Sound 48-54 Victoria, British Columbia 55, 56 Discovery Passage 58 Queen Charlotte Sound 60 Varieties of Fish found in Inland Passage 62 Wrangell, Alaska 63, 64 Indian Life, Facilities for Studying 67-71 Sitka, Alaska 73-77 Hot Springs Bay, Alaska 77 Climate of Sitka 79 Land of the Chilkats 81-84 Juneau, Alaska, and the Mines of Douglas Island 84-86 Glacier Bay 86-92 Glaciers of Alaska 93-95 Mount St. Elias 95, 96 INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Alaska's Thousand Islands, as seen from Sitka 78 An Alaska Indian House, with Totem Poles 66 Chancel of the Greek Church, Sitka 75 Chilkat Blanket 81 Columbia River, looking Eastward from Rock Bluff Frontispiece Detroit Lake and Hotel Minnesota, Detroit, Minn. 11 Falls of the Gibbon River, National Park 29 Floating Fish Wheel, Columbia River 42 Hotel Tacoma, Tacoma, W. T. 47 Lake Pend d'Oreille, Idaho 33 Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel, National Park 21 Mount Hood, from the Head of the Dalles, Columbia River 38 Mount Tacoma, W. T. 44 Old Faithful Geyser, National Park 18 Scenes among the Alaskan Glaciers 89 Scenes in the Inland Passage 59 Sitka, Alaska 72 T'linket Basket Work 68 T'linket Carved Spoons 85 T'linket War Canoe 83 Yellowstone River, National Park 25 FROM THE GREAT LAKES TO PUGET SOUND. "=To the doorways of the West-Wind, To the portals of the Sunset.=" While, in the old world, armies have been contending for the possession of narrow strips of territory, in kingdoms themselves smaller than many single American States, and venerable _savants_ have been predicting the near approach of the time when the population of the world shall have outstripped the means of subsistence, there has arisen, between the headwaters of the Mississippi and the mouth of the stately Columbia, an imperial domain, more than three times the size of the German empire, and capable of sustaining upon its own soil one hundred millions of people. What little has been done--for it is but little, comparatively--toward the development of its amazing resources, has called into existence, on its eastern border, two great and beautiful cities, which have sprung up side by side on the banks of the great Father of Waters. It is there, at St. Paul and Minneapolis, that the traveler's journey to Wonderland may be said to begin. And what could be more fitting? for are they not wonders in themselves, presenting, as they do, the most astonishing picture of rapid expansion the world has ever seen? But it is not their magnitude that excites the greatest surprise. If there is a single newspaper reader in ignorance of the fact that the State census of 1885 found them with a population of 240,597? or that the 23,994 buildings erected within their limits since the beginning of 1882, represent a frontage of over 100 miles and an expenditure of $69,895,390, or that their banking capital considerably exceeds that of either San Francisco, New Orleans, Cincinnati or St. Louis, it is through no fault of the cities themselves. But the visitor may bring with him a just appreciation of their size and commercial importance, and yet have had no conception of their beauty, nor of the abounding evidences of public spirit and private enterprise that will confront him at every turn. The position of St. Paul, at the head of navigation, and as the focus of the railway activity of the Northwest, commands for it an extensive wholesale trade, its sales aggregating, in 1885, the large sum of $81,420,000. The surprise with which the visitor views the stately piles that are the outward and visible signs of the vast commercial and financial interests of the city, the creation of a few brief seasons, is no greater than the astonishment with which he realizes the absence of all appearance of immaturity. In no city in the Union are the business quarters more solid and substantial; in none is the domestic architecture more attractive. Nothing is crude, nothing tentative, nothing transitional. Clustered around the great Falls of St. Anthony, stand those colossal flouring mills that have been more than ever the pride and glory of Minneapolis, since they enabled her to pluck from Chicago's crown one of the brightest of its jewels. It is a startling commentary upon the much vaunted supremacy of the great metropolis of the West, that, while the wheat attracted to its market fell gradually from 34,106,109 bushels in 1879, to 13,265,223 bushels in 1885, the amount handled by the millers of Minneapolis increased, within the same period, from 7,514,364 bushels to 32,112,840 bushels. The mills have a total flour-manufacturing capacity of 33,973 barrels per day, an amount equal to the necessities of the three most populous States of the Union, or of one-half the population of Great Britain. But to turn from the romance of figures to that of song and story. Should the traveler have any desire to visit the far-famed falls of Minnehaha, it is now he should gratify it. Situated almost midway between the two cities, they can be easily reached, either by train, carriage or river steamboat. The poetic interest with which they have been invested by their association with the legend of Hiawatha constitutes but the least of their claims upon the traveler's notice; and, should he turn aside to visit them, not even the sublime scenery of Wonderland will entirely efface the memory of their laughing waters. The residents of St. Paul and Minneapolis are fortunate in having, within easy access, two of the most beautiful of Minnesota's ten thousand lakes, White Bear and Minnetonka. Justly celebrated for the beauty of their scenery and the excellence of their hotel and other accommodations, they are resorted to annually by thousands of visitors from far and near. Minnetonka is not inappropriately called the Saratoga of the Northwest; but no designation, however high-sounding or significant, can do justice to the exquisite beauty of its scenery or the sumptuousness of its hotels. It is time, however, that we were directing our steps toward that scarcely less luxurious hotel which is waiting to convey us to the fir-clad slopes of Puget Sound! While holding in honorable remembrance the names of Watt and Stephenson, surely posterity ought not altogether to forget those of the inventors of the sleeping car and dining car; for the railway train of early days was hardly a greater advance upon the old stage-coach than is the completely equipped train of to-day over its predecessor of even twenty-five years ago. The journey from St. Paul to Puget Sound may be said to fall into eight geographical divisions, with well-marked natural boundaries, and corresponding in the main to the divisions into which the line has been formed for operating purposes. The first extends to the Red River of the North, a distance of 275 miles, lying wholly in the State of Minnesota. The great attractions of this State are its pine forests, covering nearly one-half of its entire area, and its numerous beautiful lakes. Of the latter, there are no fewer than 215 within twenty-five miles of St. Paul, and they extend right through the central part of the State, on both sides of the railroad, to the prairie region bordering upon the Red River. Many of them are of exceeding beauty, especially in the district known as the LAKE PARK REGION, a richly diversified section of country, presenting the most charming scenery. Among the most famous, are Lake Minnewaska, on the Little Falls and Dakota division of the road, fifty-nine miles from its junction with the main line; Clitherall and Battle Lakes, on the Fergus Falls and Black Hills branch; and Detroit Lake, on the direct line to the West, 230 miles from St. Paul. All these have fine pebbly beaches, lined with beautiful borders of timber, and their accommodations for all classes of visitors--anglers, sportsmen and families--are exceptionally good. Like all the waters of Minnesota, they teem with fine, gamey fish of many varieties. The accomplished editor of the _American Angler_, writing in his well-known journal, after a visit to the Northwest in the summer of 1885, stated, that, during a life of nearly a quarter of a century as an angler, no experience with a rod had equaled in variety and weight the two days' fishing he had had on Detroit Lake. Nor was Mr. Harris' success exceptional. A score of one hundred pounds per day on two rods, is, as he goes on to state, considered quite a modest record. For what is locally regarded as a good catch, we must turn to that of the three gentlemen who, on the afternoon of June 1st, 1885, brought in, as the result of less than three days' work, 603 pike, 138 black bass, 178 rock bass, 28 cat-fish and 25 pickerel; the entire catch weighing 2,321 pounds. This "fish story" is well authenticated. Eastern anglers can have no conception how full of fine fish, of many varieties, these Minnesota lakes are. For black and rock bass, maskalonge, pickerel, wall-eyed pike, and an infinite variety of smaller fish, a recent writer in the _American Angler_ pronounces Detroit Lake the finest fishing ground on the continent. Nor need any angler or sportsman--for prairie chickens, ducks and deer are abundant--expect to have to look to sport to make up for the deficiencies of accommodation; for the Hotel Minnesota is said, on the highest authority, to be a gem of a hostelry for anglers, every facility and convenience they could wish for being obtainable at moderate charges. The scenic attractions, also, are of a high order, the natural features of the surrounding country being of the most diversified character. The air is pure and invigorating, and hay fever and malarial diseases are absolutely unknown. Lake Park is another delightful resort in this region, having good fishing and boating within easy distance, and a first-class hotel adjoining the depot. Before arriving at Detroit, the traveler from St. Paul passes through Brainerd, the "City of the Pines." The selection of this city for the location of the machine shops of the railroad has given a great impetus to its growth; nevertheless, for deer and bear hunting, it is still one of the best localities in the State. There is fine fishing, too, in its immediate vicinity, and its hotel accommodations also are very good. Here it is, also, that travelers from the East, coming by way of the Great Lakes, join the west-bound train. The distance to Brainerd from Duluth, the point of debarkation, at the west end of Lake Superior, is 114 miles. The traveler, who, in 1886, visits Mr. Proctor Knott's "Zenith City of the Unsalted Seas," will find the straggling village of five years ago a busy city of 20,000 inhabitants, with abounding evidences of the commercial importance it has attained. By reason of the advantages afforded by the great waterway of the continent, for the direct shipment of wheat to the Eastern States or to Europe, Duluth has become almost as formidable a rival of Minneapolis as that city is of Chicago. It handled last year no fewer than 15,819,462 bushels of wheat, while its saw mills cut up 125,000,000 feet of lumber, and an extensive trade was also carried on in coal, salt and lime. A few miles distant, and connected with it by a railway whose construction involved the building of an exceedingly fine iron bridge, is the city of Superior, also with excellent terminal facilities. The eastern terminus of this, the Wisconsin division of the railroad, is Ashland, an important town and favorite summer resort on Lake Superior. Midway between this town and Duluth the line crosses the Brule river, whose excellent fishing grounds its recent opening has, for the first time, rendered accessible. The Brule river proper is a large stream, averaging 100 feet in width, of clear, cold water, flowing, its entire length, through one of the great forests of Wisconsin. With high banks, and free from low or marshy ground, it is an ideal trout stream. The best fishing on the river is to be had in a stretch of fourteen miles, extending six miles above, and eight miles below, the crossing of the Northern Pacific Railroad. The trout attain a large size, catches of three and four pound fish being an everyday occurrence. In the surrounding forest, game, including moose, deer, beaver and pheasant, is found in great abundance. Large quantities of venison were shipped hence by rail during the winter of 1885-86, the shipments from November 1st to December 15th alone exceeding 13,000 pounds. [Illustration: DETROIT LAKE AND HOTEL MINNESOTA, DETROIT, MINN.] Almost equal to the exciting pleasures of the chase is that of shooting the Brule river rapids in a canoe. Accompanied by an experienced guide, the visitor performs this feat without danger; let him attempt it alone, and he is sure of a ducking. For the angler and sportsman, the Brule possesses an additional attraction in the fact, that, while most excellent accommodations are to be had at the railroad crossing, including boats, fishing tackle and guides, there is no settlement of any kind within a considerable distance. The line from Duluth to Brainerd follows, for many miles, the winding valley of the St. Louis river, through scenery for the most part stern and wild, yet not without an occasional suggestion of the gentler beauty of the far-off Youghiogheny. Between Fond du Lac and Thompson the river has a descent of 500 feet in a distance of twelve miles, tearing its way with terrific force through a tortuous, rock-bound channel. The best point for observing the fine effect of these impetuous rapids and cascades, known locally as the Dalles of the St. Louis, is near the twentieth mile post westward from Duluth. Pursuing its way in the direction of Brainerd, the train traverses a country comparatively little known. Its scanty population is engaged almost entirely in logging, lumber manufacturing, and hunting, the immense forest covering the face of the country abounding with deer, bear, wolves, foxes and other game. Emerging from the deep recesses of the forest, and passing swiftly through the lake region already referred to, we find ourselves in a level prairie country, and can dimly descry, in the far distance, the thin, dark line which another hour's ride will show to be the narrow fringe of timber that marks the course of the famous Red River of the North, that true Arimaspes, with whose golden sands thousands and tens of thousands have been made rich. This, then, is the renowned Red River valley, the story of whose amazing fertility has attracted, from older States and still older countries, one hundred and fifty thousand people. The greatest influx has taken place since 1880, the increase in population between the census of that year and that in the spring of 1885 being 38,719 on the Minnesota side of the river, and 54,918 on the Dakota side. Although there are vast tracts of land still uncultivated, the general appearance of the valley is that of a well-settled agricultural country. But this will occasion no surprise to those who remember that its annual wheat crop has now reached 25,000,000 bushels, and its crop of other cereals 15,000,000 bushels. Not a little surprise, however, is occasioned by the discovery that the "valley" of which the traveler has heard so much is not a valley at all, but a great plain, whose slope toward the river is so slight as to be wholly imperceptible. Where the railroad crosses the river, have sprung up the cities of Moorhead and Fargo, the former in Minnesota, the latter in Dakota. With such advantages of situation as they possess, and with the days of booms, with all their unhealthy excitement and fictitious values, gone, never, it is to be hoped, to return, these cities must continue to increase in commercial importance, with the development of the rich country surrounding them. Fargo is, indeed, the largest city in the entire Territory of Dakota, and will probably retain its position as such for many years to come. It is needless to repeat here the oft-told story of Dakota's marvelous growth. Time was when it was capable of being wrought up into a mosaic of wondrous interest and beauty; but, with the multiplication of agencies for giving it publicity, its charm, for the present generation at least, has passed away. It will, nevertheless, afford the historian of the nineteenth century material for one of the most interesting and instructive chapters of his work. Writing, in 1828, his "Principles of Population," the great historian of Europe said: "The gradual and continuous progress of the European race toward the Rocky Mountains has the solemnity of a providential event: it is like a deluge of men rising unabatedly, and daily driven onward by the hand of God." But at that time the State of Illinois, but half way toward the Rocky Mountains and one-third of the way to the Pacific Ocean, was almost the limit of its mighty flow. Wisconsin, with no noteworthy settlements of its own, formed part of the Territory of Michigan; Iowa was an altogether vacant region, without any form of organized government; while other great States of to-day were still either mere parts of the Louisiana purchase, with as yet no separate identity, or were comprised within the then far-extending territory of the republic of Mexico. The traveler to the Northwest, by the Northern Pacific Railroad, traverses that section of the far-extending dominion of the American people that was the last to be overspread by that great tide of civilization. He sees its evidences in the happy and prosperous homesteads that dot the fertile plains of Dakota, and nestle under the sheltering bluffs of the winding valleys of Montana; he is able to bear witness, also, to its having penetrated the fastnesses of the Rocky Mountains, and converted the hillsides of Eastern Washington and the fair lands of Oregon into smiling wheat fields and fruitful orchards. But, notwithstanding the hundreds of flourishing settlements scattered along the great highway of travel, with here and there a goodly town or city, he can not but wonder at the apparent sparseness of population when he remembers that one and a half millions of people have their homes between the Great Lakes and Puget Sound. But let him consider the vast extent of the country; let him call to mind that Dakota, with her 415,664 inhabitants, has yet 230 acres of land to every man, woman and child within her borders, her population averaging less than three to the square mile; that the density of population in Oregon and Washington is but two and one-half and two to the square mile, respectively; while both Montana and Idaho have considerably more square miles than they have inhabitants. The county of Cass, which stretches westward from Fargo, is one of the best settled sections of the Northwest, there being no land whatever subject to entry. It contains some of the largest wheat farms in the world, and it has produced more than one wheat crop of 5,000,000 bushels. This county has an actual wealth of over $20,000,000, and, with its 120 school houses and numberless churches, it may be taken as admirably illustrating both the capabilities of the country and the character of the people who are building it up. At Dalrymple, eighteen miles from Fargo, and at Casselton, two miles farther west, are the GREAT WHEAT FARMS of Mr. Oliver Dalrymple, comprising some 50,000 acres. Continuing westward, we pass, in rapid succession, various flourishing settlements, among them being Valley City, on the Sheyenne river, the judicial seat of Barnes county. Presently the train descends into the valley of the James, or Dakota, river, and the prosperous city of Jamestown is reached. From this point a branch line extends northward, ninety miles, to Minnewaukan, at the west end of Devil's Lake. This remarkable body of salt water, with its deeply indented and richly wooded shores, where the briny odor of the ocean mingles with the fragrance of the prairie flower, is surrounded by some of the best farming lands in Dakota. Its attractions for the tourist, angler and sportsman have obtained wide recognition, fish and game being very plentiful, the climate highly salubrious, the scenery picturesque, and the hotel accommodations good. The James river is said to be the longest unnavigable river on the continent, if not in the world, its flow, for hundreds of miles, being distinguished by scarcely any perceptible increase of volume. Crossing a high table land, 1,850 feet above sea-level, and 950 feet higher than the Red river at Fargo, and known geographically as the Coteaux de Missouri, the train rapidly pursues its way past various large and well-managed farms to Bismarck, the capital of the Territory. This city has long commanded an important trade with various settlements on the Upper Missouri, the steamboats employed having transported as much as 45,000,000 pounds of freight within a single brief period of navigation. It is the shipping and distributing point of a vast area whose only railroad facilities are those afforded by the great transcontinental line that here crosses the Missouri river. With the various important settlements that have been established in that great tract of country, Bismarck has either stage or steamboat communication. While, however, river navigation is limited to a comparatively short season, the stages run regularly all the year round, having even been known not to miss a single trip, or to be more than a few hours late, during an entire winter. But it is not the Fargos, the Jamestowns or the Bismarcks with which the tourist chiefly concerns himself. They attract his attention only because of the evidence they afford of the development and stability of the country, and the enterprise of the people, and he is far more interested in the crossing of the Missouri river, than in either of the two cities that frown at each other across its turbid waters. The bridge, by which the railroad is carried across the great river, here 2,800 feet in breadth, although 3,500 miles from the Gulf of Mexico, is a structure of immense strength, and not more substantial than it is graceful. It consists of three spans, each of 400 feet, and two approach spans, each of 113 feet, with a long stretch of strongly built trestle work over the gently sloping west bank of the river. Here the train runs into Mandan, a pleasant little city, nestling under low ranges of hills which encompass it on three sides. This is the terminus of the Missouri and Dakota divisions of the road. The change from Central to Mountain time is made at this point, and the west-bound traveler sets his watch back one hour. The country west of the Missouri river presents an entirely different appearance from that through which the tourist has been traveling since he entered the Territory at Fargo. It is more diversified; its numerous streams, with handsome groves of cottonwood upon their banks, meandering through pleasant valleys, clothed, where still uncultivated, with that nutritious bunch grass, which, but a few short years ago, made them the favorite feeding grounds of the buffalo. The vast beds of lignite coal that underlie this portion of the Territory crop out at various points, twelve car loads being mined daily at Sims, 35 miles west of Mandan, for shipment by rail. The most important settlements on this division of the road are Gladstone and Dickinson. Twenty miles west of the latter town, the line enters the singular and picturesque region known as the Bad Lands of the Little Missouri. For a full hour the train pursues its way through scenery of which the whole world is not known to afford any counterpart. The product of natural forces, still working to the same end, the picture that meets the astonished gaze of the traveler, suggests, where it does not utterly bewilder, either supernatural agency or the operation of laws whose reign has ceased. Reasonable hypotheses all failing, one's imagination connects the weird and mysterious scene with some early geologic epoch when, perchance under the brooding darkness of night, the yet plastic earth was tortured by some wild spirit of Caprice into the fantastic forms in which we see it to-day. But evidences of intelligent design are not altogether wanting, and we turn from mounds of wonderful regularity and symmetry of form, standing like Egyptian pyramids, to reproductions of the frowning battlements of Gibraltar or Ehrenbreitstein, or the dome and towers of some great cathedral. Marvelous as they are, however, these forms and outlines excite even less astonishment than the wealth of coloring in which they are arrayed. Composed largely of clay, solidified by pressure, and converted into terra-cotta by the slow combustion of underlying masses of lignite, each dome and pyramid and mimic castle is encircled with chromatic bands presenting vivid and startling contrasts. Huge petrifactions and vast masses of scoria contribute to the weirdness of the scene, and, as if to complete its plutonic appearance, smoke goes up unceasingly from unquenchable subterranean fires. It is a mistake to suppose that these lands are worthless for agricultural or stock-raising purposes. The valleys and ravines are covered with nutritious grasses, and thousands of cattle may be seen grazing where the buffalo and other herbivorous wild animals were wont to roam in days gone by. The term "Bad Lands" is a careless and incomplete translation of the designation bestowed upon the country by the early French _voyageurs_, who described it as "_mauvaises terres pour traverser_." At the crossing of the Little Missouri, the Marquis de Mores, a wealthy young French nobleman, has established the headquarters of an extensive stock raising and dressed meat shipping business. From this point, Medora, excursions may be made to Cedar Cañon, one of the most interesting localities in the Bad Lands; or to the burning mine, where may be seen, raging, perhaps the most extensive of the subterranean fires of the entire region. It is also a good point from which to start out on hunting expeditions, large game being by no means exterminated. Sixteen miles beyond the Little Missouri, the train passes Sentinel Butte, a lofty peak rising precipitously from the plain on the south side of the railroad. One mile more and the Montana boundary is crossed, at an elevation of 2,840 feet above sea-level. In crossing the great Territory of Dakota, the tourist has traveled 367 miles; in traversing that of Montana, he performs a journey of no less than 800 miles, almost equivalent to the distance from New York to Indianapolis. Fortunately, the luxurious appointments of the train render weariness well nigh impossible, and the trip hourly becomes more interesting and enjoyable. At Glendive, 692 miles from St. Paul, the road enters the valley of the Yellowstone, the windings of which famous river it follows, more or less closely, for 340 miles. The valley, from five to ten miles in width, is inclosed by high bluffs of clay and sandstone, their curious formations occasionally reminding the traveler of the Bad Lands, though they have but little variety of color. If the Red River of the North may justly be regarded as the true Arimaspes, the Yellowstone may, with equal propriety, be designated the modern Amphrysus. It is upon its banks and those of its tributaries that there has been developed, since the opening of the Northern Pacific Railroad, that vast grazing interest which has given Montana as great a reputation for its stock as Dakota has for its wheat. For many years,--up to and including the winter of 1881-82,--this was the finest buffalo hunting country on the continent. But the slaughter that season was enormous, 250,000 hides being shipped East, principally from Miles City. Few have been seen since that time. There are hunters who believe that small herds might still be found north of the international boundary; but, so far as the United States is concerned, the buffalo is practically extinct. There is, however, a small herd in the National Park. Safe from the hunter's deadly repeater, they will probably multiply rapidly, as it may be supposed that they will soon know instinctively the limits within which they are unmolested. Miles City, a few years ago the principal rendezvous of the hunter, is now the great resort of the grazier and cowboy, it being the metropolis of the stock interest of the Territory. The development of this interest within recent years has been as rapid as that of wheat raising in Dakota, and the economist who should turn to the United States census reports for 1880 for the present condition of any considerable section of the Northwest would be led seriously astray. In 1880, Montana contained 490,000 cattle and 520,000 sheep. According to a recent report of the Governor of the Territory, it contains, at the present time, 900,000 cattle, 1,200,000 sheep, and 120,000 horses. The grazing interests of the West are moving steadily toward Eastern Montana; for, so rapidly do cattle thrive on the nutritious grasses of these northern valleys, that a yearling steer is worth $10 more in Montana than in Texas. Glendive, already mentioned as the point at which the railroad enters the Yellowstone valley, is second only to Miles City in importance as a shipping and distributing point. It is also a divisional terminus of the railroad. Two miles west of Miles City is Fort Keogh, one of the largest and most beautiful military posts in the United States. It was established in 1877 by Gen. Nelson A. Miles, as a means of holding in check the warlike Sioux. There are but few Indians to be seen now along the line of the railroad, and those are engaged in agricultural and industrial pursuits. The extinction of the buffalo has rendered the Indian much more amenable to the civilizing influences brought to bear upon him than he formerly was, and very fair crops of grain are now being raised at the various agencies. At the Devil's Lake Agency, 60,000 bushels of wheat were raised in 1885, and purchased by the United States Government at $1 per hundred pounds. The Crows, along the northern border of whose reservation--nearly as large as the State of Massachusetts--the road runs for two hundred miles, are said to be the richest nation in the world, in proportion to their numbers, their wealth aggregating $3,500 per head. This, however, is due to the natural increase of their live stock, chiefly ponies, rather than to their own industry and thrift. Out amid the solitudes of the far Northwest--for it must not be supposed that the entire country is a succession of settlements--it is wonderful with what interest the traveler regards that trivial event of daily occurrence, the meeting of the east-bound train. But, as he peers through the car window, or stands out on the platform, in critical survey of its passengers, it probably does not occur to him that he is as much an object of curiosity to them as they are, each of them, to him. He represents the far East of this great continent, they the far West. He, perchance, is making his first trip to the Pacific slope, they theirs to the Great Lakes or the Atlantic coast. Among them, however, may be distinguished merry groups of returning tourists, while, reclining in a luxurious Pullman car, or tempting dyspepsia with the rich and varied dainties of the dining car, may be seen one of the early settlers of California, a weather-beaten pioneer, who reached the Pacific slope by way of the Horn, twenty years ahead of the first transcontinental railway, and now goes east, by the Wonderland route, to revisit the scenes of his childhood. [Illustration: VIEWS OF "OLD FAITHFUL" GEYSER, YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK.] Twenty-nine miles east of Billings, the next divisional terminus and important trading point on the line of the road, the traveler will observe, rising from the right bank of the river, a huge mass of sandstone, interesting as bearing upon its face the name of William Clarke, cut in the rock by the veteran explorer himself, when he visited the locality in 1806. He will, about the same time, be able dimly to descry the peaks of the Big Snow Mountains, which, at first scarcely distinguishable from the fleecy clouds that hang around them, subsequently loom up grandly, constituting one of the most beautiful pieces of scenery in the Northwest. The disciple of Izaak Walton will not have traveled 225 miles along the banks of the Yellowstone without having seen many an inviting spot for indulgence in what his great master called the most calm, quiet and innocent of all recreations. His arrival, therefore, at Billings, the largest town on the upper river, and the metropolis--notwithstanding that it has a population of only 2,000--of a region larger than Maine, South Carolina, West Virginia or Indiana, affords a not unfitting opportunity for a brief reference to the incomparable trout fishing afforded by the numerous streams accessible from points on the Montana and Yellowstone divisions of the road. The Yellowstone river itself, west of Billings, has no superior as a trout stream. It contains trout of four distinct varieties, and fishing is so easy as at times to be in danger of losing its charm. The individual scores of various tourists, reported in the _American Angler_ during the summer and fall of 1885, and not containing any that were phenomenally large, averaged twenty-five trout per hour for each rod, a record with which the most ardent angler ought surely to be satisfied. A majority of these scores were made in the vicinity of Livingston, near which town another visitor is reported to have caught twenty-one fine, large trout "after supper," while two others are stated to have brought in 160 as the result of "a day's sport." The Yellowstone also contains a gamey fish known to local anglers as grayling, but pronounced by Mr. W. C. Harris to be the whitefish (_Corregonus tullibee_). That gentleman refers, in a recent article, to the abundance, in these waters, of the celebrated "cut-throat" trout, whose size and abundance, in conjunction with the picturesqueness of its habitat, will, he adds, when generally known, "make a visit to the Yellowstone imperative to the angler who aspires to a well-rounded life as a rodster." Among other waters, mention may be made of Rosebud Lake, a beautiful spot reached by wagon from Billings, where the trout fishing is declared to be splendid; Little Rosebud Creek, near Stillwater, where eighty-seven trout are reported to have been caught in four hours with a single rod; Prior Creek, near Huntley; Mission Creek, twelve miles east of Livingston; and Sixteen-Mile Creek, sixteen miles from Townsend, all of which are said by visitors to afford excellent sport. It must not, however, be supposed that the angler enjoys a monopoly of sport in this country of varied attractions; for grouse and ducks are plentiful, as are also, on the mountain ranges, deer, elk and antelope. Passing Springdale, where the traveler will observe hacks in readiness to convey visitors to Hunter's Hot Springs, two and one-half miles distant, the train approaches, amid scenery increasing in grandeur, the little city of Livingston. Whatever interest may, in the near future, attach to this place as a resort of the gentle brotherhood from all parts of the continent, it will certainly fall short of that which will belong to it as the gateway of that world-renowned region, the YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. "Situated," to quote the distinguished geologist, Professor John Muir, of California, who recently visited it, "in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, on the broad, rugged summit of the continent, amid snow and ice, and dark, shaggy forests, where the great rivers take their rise, it surpasses in wakeful, exciting interest any other region yet discovered on the face of the globe." While it contains the most beautiful and sublime of mountain, lake and forest scenery, its fame rests, not upon that, but upon the extraordinary assemblage of the curious products of Nature's caprice, and the infinitely wonderful manifestations of almost extinct forms of her energy that are found within its borders. Approached by a branch of the Northern Pacific Railroad, extending southward from Livingston to its northern boundary, and the only railroad within one hundred miles, this remarkable region has, by a judicious expenditure of public money and by admirable individual and corporate enterprise, been rendered so easy of exploration that the tourist may within the brief period of five days visit all its most interesting points. So majestically do the snow-capped mountains tower above the lesser hills that inclose the charming valley whose various windings the railroad follows, from Livingston to Cinnabar, that the traveler can scarcely believe that still more magnificent scenery lies beyond. And truly the cloud-piercing Emigrant's Peak, with its famous mining gulch; the yet loftier Electric Peak; the colossal Sphinx; and that most singular formation, the Devil's Slide, form the most fitting introduction that the human mind can conceive to the wonders of the National Park. Conveyed by an excellently equipped Concord coach from the terminus of the railroad to the hotel at Mammoth Hot Springs, six miles distant, the tourist finds himself surrounded by all the conveniences of modern hotel life. And within full view of the hotel, from which they are distant but a few hundred yards, are the exquisitely filigreed and richly colored terraces formed by the Mammoth Hot Springs, not the least of the wonders of this famous region. Here one hardly knows whether to admire more the delicacy of the formation or that of the coloring, the former not being excelled by that of the finest lace, while the latter surpasses, both in brilliancy, harmony, and subtle gradations, any chromatic effects known to exist beyond the limits of this enchanted ground. The keenest interest of the newly arrived tourist, however, usually centres in those constantly recurring evidences of tremendous force, the geysers. With few and unimportant exceptions, these are found within the limits of certain distinctly marked areas, known as the upper, middle, lower and Norris basins, to which one or two days' time is devoted, according to circumstances. The most celebrated of the geysers--those with whose names the world has been made familiar by the pen, brush or camera of author or artist--are in the upper basin. Here are found the Giant and Giantess, the Castle and Grotto, the Bee Hive, the Splendid and the Grand. Here, too, is Old Faithful, the constancy of whose hourly eruption makes it impossible for even the most hurried visitor to the upper basin to leave without witnessing at least one display of its tremendous energy. [Illustration: MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS HOTEL--YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK.] The reader, who, not having visited the National Park, has yet gazed into some of the profound gorges to be found in the great mountain ranges of the far West, will read with astonishment, if not with incredulity, that there is but one cañon in the world,--the Grand Cañon of the Yellowstone. Perhaps slightly exceeded in depth, as it certainly is in gloom, it is yet made to stand pre-eminent among the natural wonders of the world by the majesty of its cataract and the gorgeous blazonry of its walls. To say that the former--no mere silver ribbon of spray, but a fall of great volume--is a little more than twice the height of Niagara, would, by means of a familiar comparison, enable almost any one to form a not altogether inadequate conception of its grandeur. But for the matchless adornment of its walls, we have no available comparison; naught but itself can be its parallel. One great writer describes it as being hung with rainbows, like glorious banners. Another, borrowing from Mr. Ruskin, likens it to a great cathedral, with painted windows, and full of treasures of illuminated manuscript. But, as we take our stand on the brink of the Falls, with twelve miles of sculptured rock spread out before us, rising from 1,500 to 2,000 feet in height, and all aflame with glowing color, we have to acknowledge, with a distinguished writer and a no less celebrated artist, that, neither by the most cunningly wrought fabric of language, nor the most skillful manipulation of color, is it possible to create in the mind a conception answering to this sublime reality. For countless ages, frost and snow, heat and vapor, lightning and rain, torrent and glacier, have wrought upon that mysterious rock, evolving from its iron, its sulphur, its arsenic, its lime and its lava, the glorious apparel in which it stands arrayed. And the wondrous fabrication is still going on. The bewildered traveler would scarcely be surprised to see the gorgeous spectacle fade from his vision like a dream: but its texture is continually being renewed; the giant forces are ever at work; still do they-- "=Sit at the busy loom of time and ply, Weaving for God the garment thou seest Him by.=" For the minor wonders of this world of marvels, the formations of geyserite and the petrified forests, Tower and Gibbon Falls and the cliffs of volcanic glass, the caldrons of boiling mud and transparent pools of sapphire blue, the reader is referred to special guides to the Park. It only remains to be stated that there is regularly established transportation daily between all the principal points, that the distances are not fatiguing, that the charges are reasonable, and the equipment everything that could be desired. The angler need scarcely be reminded that this is the far-famed region where the juxtaposition of streams of hot and cold water enables him to cook his fish as fast as he can catch them, without moving from his seat or taking them off the hook! WESTWARD STILL. Resuming his westward journey at Livingston, the traveler finds himself ascending the first of the two great mountain barriers that had to be surmounted by the engineers of the Northern Pacific Railroad. By a grade of 116 feet to the mile, the line reaches, twelve miles from Livingston, an elevation of 5,565 feet above sea-level. Here it is carried under the crest of the range by a tunnel 3,610 feet in length, from which it emerges into a fine, rocky cañon, at the western portal of which is the military post of Fort Ellis. A few minutes more, and the train runs into Bozeman, a beautifully situated and flourishing little city of twenty years' growth. Few cities can boast of more magnificent scenery, majestic snow-capped ranges standing out against the sky on every side. Westward for thirty miles extends the rich and fertile Gallatin valley. It is no uncommon thing to get forty bushels of hard spring wheat, or sixty bushels of fall wheat, to the acre in this valley, and its barley is of such superior excellence as to be in great demand for malting purposes at Milwaukee and other Eastern cities. Twenty-nine miles west of Bozeman, are Gallatin City, and the bright little town of Three Forks, commanding the valleys of the Madison and Jefferson, the agricultural lands of which, now being brought under cultivation, are not inferior to those of the older settled valley of the Gallatin. Four miles more, and the tourist comes upon a point of considerable geographical interest, the three mountain streams just mentioned pouring their waters into a common channel, to form the Missouri river. It is through a rocky cañon, abounding in wild and magnificent scenery, that the greatest river on the continent enters upon its long course of 4,450 miles. For nearly fifty miles, the line follows its various windings, until finally the river runs away northward through that profound chasm known as the Grand Cañon of the Missouri, or the Gates of the Rocky Mountains. Visitors to Helena will find an excursion to the Grand Cañon, occupying not necessarily more than two days' time, one of the most delightful experiences of their transcontinental journey. The most important town between Bozeman and Helena, is Townsend, the shipping and distributing point for no inconsiderable portion of one of the best counties in Montana. It has daily communication by coach with White Sulphur Springs, a health resort of great local repute. This coming rival of older and hitherto more famous spas, lies in a beautiful valley, 5,070 feet above sea-level, and surrounded by the grandest of Rocky Mountain scenery. Its accommodations for visitors of all classes are most excellent, including, as they do, one of the best hotels in the Territory. Six miles distant are Castle Mountain and Crystal Cave, the latter a cavern of great extent, having twenty-three separate chambers, full of curious and beautiful stalactitic and stalagmitic formations. The town, mountain and cavern were all fully described and admirably illustrated in the _West Shore Magazine_ for July, 1885. Not so much by way of tribute, either to its own beauty or that of its situation, as in recognition of its wealth, its commercial importance and the commanding position it has so long occupied in the mining world, Helena, the capital of the Territory, is called the Queen of the Mountains. Situated on the eastern slope of the continental divide, 1,155 miles from St. Paul, it became a great distributing point and financial centre, even when hundreds of miles of mountain and prairie separated it from the nearest railroad. Dependent upon the Missouri river for its commercial intercourse with the world, it was in a state of well-nigh complete isolation during the greater part of every year. Under other conditions, this comparative isolation would have stunted its growth and cramped the energies of its people. But with the assured product of their labor such a commodity as gold, with its universality of demand and stability of value, the sturdy settlers in Last Chance Gulch had always the most powerful of incentives to restless energy. With the steadily increasing production of the precious metals, if not in its own immediate vicinity, at least in the country it dominated, Helena grew rich, until now it claims to be the wealthiest city of its size in the United States. It was on the afternoon of the 15th of July, 1864, that a party of four miners, weary and sick at heart, pitched their tents in that desolate-looking gulch where now stands this flourishing city. Disappointed at not being able to secure claims in the then prosperous camp of Virginia City, and reduced to great extremity, they regarded the little gulch on the Prickly Pear as their "last chance." Finding gold in paying quantities, they resolved to settle down; and it is said, that, before two years had elapsed, each of them was worth $50,000. In the meantime, the little camp in what was thenceforward known as Last Chance Gulch had attracted miners from all parts of the Rocky Mountains. It is stated, in a recent official publication of the Territory, that the gulch yielded $30,000,000 during the first three seasons it was worked; but these figures so far exceed the popular estimate, that they are repeated only under reserve. The present annual production is said to be about $50,000. It would seem to the visitor as though every square foot of ground had been dug up, and, if it be his first experience of a placer mining district, its appearance will strike him as singularly novel. The romance of mining is well illustrated by the story of the citizen of Helena who was digging out a cellar to his house, when a passing stranger offered to remove the pile of earth that was being heaped up in the roadway, and promised to return with one-half of whatever dust he might obtain by the washing to which he proposed to submit it. Permission granted and the earth removed, the citizen thought no more of the matter. Great, therefore, was his astonishment when, a few days later, the half-forgotten face of the stranger appeared at the door, and he was handed, as his share of the yield of that unpromising dirt, the equivalent of $650. Possibly, however, a story involving only a paltry sum of three figures, may not answer to the reader's conception of the romantic. It does not excite his imagination. He expects to read of millions. If so, let us turn to the story of the miner, who, confident that he was the possessor of a valuable claim, held on to it in spite of the most adverse circumstances, hiring himself out in winter that he might have a little money wherewith to work upon his claim in summer, until, at last, after eight years of indomitable perseverance and patient toil, he was able to sell his property for $2,250,000; or that of the weary and penniless wanderer, who, having tramped all the way from Nevada, began a toilsome search, to be continued through much suffering and privation for several years, but destined to be rewarded at last by the discovery of one of the richest veins of gold in the Territory, a vein that has yielded, up to the present time, $4,000,000 worth of gold. The tourist will find an hour's chat with an old-timer an interesting and not altogether unprofitable exercise, albeit he may find it hard to discriminate between statements that he may venture to repeat and those made for his especial benefit as a tenderfoot. He need not, however, discredit such stories as that a four-mule team once hauled to Fort Benton, for transportation down the Missouri river, two and one-half tons of gold, valued at $1,500,000; nor yet, that in the early days potatoes were worth fifty cents per pound, and flour one dollar, or that oranges were sold at a dollar each, and small pineapples at seven dollars. These are facts not more startling than many others that might be quoted. In the mining world, at least, truth is positively stranger than fiction. [Illustration: YELLOWSTONE RIVER, NATIONAL PARK.] The annual production of the precious metals in Montana has increased enormously within recent years, doubling itself between 1880 and 1882, and trebling between 1882 and 1884. The annual output now approaches $30,000,000, and the Territory stands at the head of the gold-producing regions of the world, notwithstanding that upward of $200,000,000 worth has been extracted from its soil. Among the many famous mines on the eastern slope of the mountains are the Drum Lumon, shipping $80,000 worth of bullion per month, of which fully one-half may be set down as profit; the Gloster, shipping $50,000 worth per month; the Whitlach Union, long the most celebrated gold mine in the Territory; those of Red Mountain, said to be the most important undeveloped mineral field in the United States; the Clark's Fork, bordering on the National Park, and now yielding, and with no railroad facilities, 855 tons of ore per day; those of the Helena Mining and Reduction Company at Wickes, reached by a branch of the Northern Pacific Railroad from Prickly Pear Junction, and known to have shipped as much as $125,000 worth of ore in a single month; and the Lexington, which has produced silver ore averaging in assay value from $15,000 to $20,000 per ton. Visitors to the New Orleans Exposition of 1884-85 will remember the magnificent exhibits from the last-mentioned mine, as also those from the Cable and Drum Lumon mines, the latter including one solid chunk of high-grade ore weighing 1,715 pounds. The most valuable gold nugget ever found in Montana is said to have been worth about $3,200. There is a nugget in the vault of the First National Bank at Helena, weighing 47.7 ounces, and valued at $945.80. But the most interesting sight in the city is, undoubtedly, the process of assaying at the United States Assay Office, where may also be seen those marvelously adjusted and delicately graduated scales, by which the weight of even an eye-lash can be exactly determined. The next stage of the traveler's journey westward from Helena lies across THE MAIN RANGE OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. It is by way of the Mullan Pass--so named from the fact of Lieut. John Mullan, U. S. A., having built a wagon road through it in 1867, to connect Fort Benton, Mont., with Fort Walla Walla, W. T.,--that the railroad is carried over the continental divide. The highest elevation of the pass itself is 5,855 feet; but, by the construction of a tunnel 3,850 feet in length, the line was made to reach the western slope without attaining a higher elevation than 5,547 feet. It is not until Butler is reached, thirteen miles from Helena, that either the scenery or the construction of the road calls for special notice. But at that point the scenery becomes exceedingly picturesque, the rocks towering above the pines and spruce like the ruins of some ancient stronghold. From now on, too, the tourist will find constant employment in observing how the gigantic barriers, which seem to forbid all further progress, are, one after another, overcome. Amid scenery increasing in wildness and grandeur, the train pursues its tortuous course; through Iron Ridge Tunnel, near which the track forms an almost perfect letter S; across innumerable ravines; along rocky shelves and through deep cuttings, until at last it enters the eastern portal of the Mullan Tunnel. A few minutes later the traveler is looking out upon the grassy hills and pleasant valleys of the Pacific slope, the approach to the tunnel from the west presenting a singular contrast to the savage grandeur that distinguishes the approach from the east. Following the valley of the Little Blackfoot, the train presently arrives at Garrison, where passengers desirous of visiting the most flourishing mining city on the American continent, if not in the world, must change cars. "The most flourishing mining city on the American continent, if not in the world!" exclaims the reader. Even so; and yet we are not in Nevada, nor yet in Colorado; and, besides, the former is about played out; and, as for Leadville, every one remembers the disasters that overtook her, culminating, as they did, in the failure of all her four banks. The city is Butte, that, at the last United States census, had a population of only 3,363, but now claims six times that number, and has a monthly mining pay-roll of $620,000. The line from Garrison runs through the beautiful Deer Lodge valley, in which are many fine farms. Deer Lodge City, the judicial seat of the county, is pleasantly situated 4,546 feet above sea-level. Being well laid out, it presents, with its wide streets and handsome public buildings, an exceedingly attractive appearance. It is at the head of this valley, on the western slope of the main range of the Rocky Mountains, and fifteen miles from the Pipestone Pass, that there has been witnessed, during the last three or four years, that rapid growth of population and wealth that is without parallel, even in the marvelous annals of mining. Here, encompassed on three sides by lofty ranges of mountains, Butte pours forth the smoke of its innumerable furnaces; for not only is its production of silver so great that it has come to be designated the "Silver City," but its copper mines are such as to give employment to the most extensive smelting works in the United States. Its total production during 1885, valued at $15,000,000, viz., $5,000,000 worth of bullion and $10,000,000 worth of copper matte, was twice that of Utah, and three times that of Nevada. It also exceeded that of the whole of California, or the combined production of Idaho, New Mexico and Arizona. The leading silver mines of the district are the Alice, Moulton, Lexington and Silver Bow, which alone employ 210 stamps and produce 230 tons of ore daily. The magnificent appliances of the Alice mine, including the great Cornish pump that cost $40,000, are the wonder of every visitor. The process of reduction, here as elsewhere, is somewhat complex, especially in the case of the baser ores, being in part chemical and in part mechanical. It involves the crushing of the ore to powder, under the pressure of enormous bars of iron, weighing 900 pounds each, and known as "stamps," and its subsequent roasting in large, hollow cylinders, salt being largely employed in the former, and quicksilver in the latter, stage of the operation. The roasting mills of the Alice mines treat 100 tons of ore per day, and their bullion product approaches $100,000 per month. The great Lexington property, which has produced $1,000,000 per annum for four years, is owned by a French company. It claims to be the most complete mine in the entire West, and it is certainly one of the richest and most extensive. The Moulton and Silver Bow have a daily capacity of forty and thirty tons of ore respectively. They are magnificent properties, well developed and exceedingly productive. The former makes the proud boast of working its ore to a higher percentage of its value than any other mill in the district. But it is the copper mines and smelters that represent the largest capital; give employment to the greatest number of men; have the largest production, both in tonnage and aggregate value; and, it may be added, make the most smoke. At the head of the rich and powerful companies engaged in this industry, stands the Anaconda,--its mine at Butte, the greatest copper property in America; its smelting works, at the neighboring town of Anaconda, the largest of their kind in the world. Sold, five years ago, for an amount that would not now be more than sufficient to pay its employés a week's wages, its property is roughly estimated to be worth $15,000,000. With certain contemplated additions to its smelting capacity, it will handle daily 1,200 tons of ore, yielding 180 tons of matte, or 108 tons of pure copper. Its entire machinery run by water-power, it yet requires for its furnaces no less than 180 cords of wood per day; in view of which enormous consumption it is stated to have recently let a contract for 300,000 cords, representing upward of $1,000,000. Second only to this gigantic concern, is the Parrott Company, whose total matte output for 1884 was 14,856,323 pounds, containing 9,324,805 pounds of pure copper, valued, including its silver contents, at about $1,250,000. With largely increased capacity, its production of pure copper will probably have reached 15,000,000 pounds in the year just drawing to a close. Among other leading companies, may be mentioned the Montana, owning some of the richest and most steadily productive mining property in process of development; Clark's Colusa, said to have in sight, above the 300-foot level, at least 150,000 tons of valuable ore; and the Bell and Colorado, two of the richest copper-silver mines in the district. So much for the mines and smelting works of Butte. What of the city itself? Briefly, it may be said to be a typical Western town, as seen in flush times; nothing too big for it, nothing too good; its quivering energy finding expression, now in the erection of a $150,000 court house, and now in that of the finest opera house on the Pacific slope, outside of San Francisco; its business enterprise filling magnificent stores with costly goods, suited to the tastes, pocket-books and spending proclivities of a community that on last Christmas eve spent $6,000 in presents in a single one of its stores. [Illustration: FALLS OF THE GIBBON RIVER, YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK.] There are several good trout streams in the vicinity of Butte, and it is pleasant to know that, in a city whose amusements are mainly of a very different character, there are those who know how to handle the rod. Proceeding westward from Garrison, the traveler will have some fine views of mountain scenery, including the snow-clad peaks of Mount Powell. Drummond, twenty-one miles west, is the station for the rich mining districts of New Chicago and Phillipsburg. Granite Mountain mine, near the latter place, is exceedingly rich. A vein of ore, six feet wide, and assaying from 125 to 2,000 ounces of silver to the ton, is now being worked, the output reaching $120,000 per month. Soon the train enters Hell Gate Cañon, at first a beautiful valley, from two to three miles in width, but narrowing as we go westward, until from between its stupendous walls we suddenly emerge upon a broad plateau, where stands the city of Missoula. Formerly a remote and isolated frontier post, Missoula is now a place of considerable importance. Extending southward for ninety miles is the valley of the Bitter Root river, well watered, exceedingly fertile and thickly settled. Here are raised fine crops of wheat and oats, as well as vegetables, apples and strawberries. The tourist has now entered the finest game country in the Northwest. At any point along the line, for a distance of nearly three hundred miles, he will find deer, elk and bear in great abundance. Let him but place himself on their trail, and he will certainly soon have them within gunshot. Even in the vicinity of Missoula there is excellent sport, one local trapper obtaining $160 bounty for bear last season. Ducks and prairie chickens are also plentiful, and various species of trout abound in the mountain streams. The most interesting, as it is the most accessible, of the Indian reservations contiguous to the line of the Northern Pacific Railroad, is that of the Flathead tribe, through which the line runs for many miles in the course of its north-westward sweep from Missoula. At Arlee station, the visitor is within five miles of the agency, and at Ravalli a like distance from St. Ignatius mission. For a full account of the excellent work carried on among the Indians by the Jesuit Fathers, together with an exceedingly interesting description of the Flathead country generally, the reader is referred to an article in the _Century Magazine_ for October, 1882, from the accomplished pen of Mr. E. V. Smalley, as well as to sundry articles in that gentleman's own magazine, _The Northwest_. From a point about 500 feet from the summit of Macdonald's Peak, a few miles north of Ravalli, there is a remarkable view of a deep mountain gorge known as Pumpelly Cañon, which has many of the striking features of the Yosemite valley, in California. Two waterfalls, having an apparent height of about 800 feet, leap into this profound rocky cañon, and form a small circular lake of a dark blue color. This lake falls, by another cataract, into a second lake of exactly the same size and shape as the first, while still another cataract leaps from the lower lake into a deep ravine filled with magnificent forest trees. An excursion to Macdonald's Peak may be made from the mission in a single day. Tourists are, however, recommended to take blankets and provisions, and encamp upon the crest of the mountain to witness the sunrise. Saddle horses are obtainable at the mission, and there is a good trail all the way. Thompson Falls, 101 miles west of Missoula, is the starting point for the C[oe]ur d'Alène mines. The distress that followed the arrival in this district, in 1883, of several thousand half-starving adventurers, who, expecting to pick up in a few hours' time nuggets enough to make them rich for life, brought neither blankets to protect them from the cold of winter, nor the means of returning to their far-distant homes, or even of reaching less remote centres where work could be obtained, gave the C[oe]ur d'Alène mines a blow from which they were slow to recover. The development that has since taken place, especially since the introduction of hydraulics, has, however, abundantly demonstrated that former claims as to the richness and permanence of the mines were well founded, and we shall probably soon see here the richest placer mining camp in the world. The matchless river scenery that has done so much toward placing the Northern Pacific Railroad system in the proud position it occupies to-day at the head of the scenic railways of America, is not alone that of the peerless Columbia. For 140 miles of its course, in Western Montana and the Panhandle of Idaho, it follows the windings of a stream that for grand and imposing scenery is second only to that renowned river itself. Should the traveler wake up in the morning, anywhere between the point at which the waters of the Missoula empty themselves into the bright green flood of the Pend d'Oreille river and the head of Pend d'Oreille Lake, he will almost certainly suppose that it is in the current of the far-famed Columbia that he sees reflected, perhaps hundreds of feet beneath him, the varying forms of those stately mountains that soar thousands of feet above. But he is as yet almost a day's journey from the classic regions of the Columbia, albeit the lordly stream, whose scenery will be, hour after hour, a succession of surprises and delights to him, is one of the principal forks of that mighty river, whose still grander scenery it may be said to foreshadow in miniature. Between the Yellowstone National Park, on the one hand, and the Columbia river, on the other, Clark's Fork and the beautiful lake into which it widens out before turning northward to the British possessions, have been almost completely overshadowed. But their ten thousand beauties will assert themselves. They have not to be sought for in out-of-the-way places, nor are they so localized that a mere passing glimpse is the only reward of strained attention as the train flies onward. On the contrary, from an early hour in the morning until long past noon, there is a continuous unfolding of scenes in which are combined, with Nature's inimitable skill and infinite variety, all that is grandest in mountain, all that is most graceful in woodland and stream. So evenly distributed are the beauties of this long stretch of river scenery, that it is not easy to single out particular points as calling for special notice. There are, however, two that must arrest the attention and command the admiration of every traveler. The first, one mile east of Cabinet, where the river, which has been flowing for some distance considerably below the level of the railroad, enters a magnificent rocky gorge; and the other, about the same distance east of Clark's Fork, where it flows, without a ripple, through a forest of stately pines, whose forms are, with singular fidelity, reflected in its clear and tranquil waters. Soon it is lost to view, but only to reappear, after a short interval, in the form of the lovely LAKE PEND D'OREILLE. One of the largest sheets of fresh water in the West, Lake Pend d'Oreille will certainly yield to none in the beauty and variety of its scenery. Fifty-five miles in extreme length, and from three to twelve miles in width, it has an irregular shore line of probably 250 miles, richly diversified with rock and foliage, and surmounted by lofty ranges of hills. The railroad follows the north shore of the lake for about twenty-five miles, passing several little settlements, among which are Hope, Kootenai and Sand Point. Such accommodations as have hitherto been available to the visitor have been provided by respectable residents of Sand Point; but for the season of 1886 arrangements will be made that will constitute Hope the more convenient halting place. That, also, will be the point of arrival and departure for steamers making the tour of the lake. While the view from the car windows is not to be compared with the scenery at the southern end of the lake, it must, nevertheless, be pronounced superb. In the immediate foreground, the green waters break soothingly upon a pebbly beach, or fall in crested waves. On the right and left recede into distance the deeply indented shores, here clothed with luxuriant forests, there bare and precipitous. Yonder, nineteen miles away, is Granite Point, rising perpendicularly from the water 724 feet, with Granite Mountain behind it, towering 5,300 feet above the level of the lake, itself surmounted by the snowy peaks of Pack Saddle Mountain, and they, in turn, by the great purple range of the C[oe]ur d'Alènes. Not a few Eastern travelers passing over the Northern Pacific Railroad have remarked upon the resemblance borne by the scenery of Lake Pend d'Oreille to that of their own famous Lake George. It is, however, if possible, even finer, the mountains being loftier, and the forests more luxuriant, than those inclosing the hitherto unrivaled lake in Northern New York. To fully set forth the attractions of this region for the sportsman, or to do anything like justice to its waters as fishing grounds, would require more space than is devoted in this pamphlet to the entire country between the Great Lakes and Puget Sound. Nowhere, probably, in the United States, is there such an abundance of large game as in the forests of Northwestern Montana and Northern Idaho. Within a few miles of any of the stations on Lake Pend d'Oreille may be found mule deer, white-tailed deer, elk, caribou and moose, black and cinnamon bear, and mountain sheep. Of winged game, geese, ducks and partridge are plentiful, and they may be shot at any season of the year. Various applications have been made to the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, by local hunters, for special rates for the shipment of game East; but the Company has steadfastly refused to encourage the wholesale destruction of game for commercial purposes, preferring that it should be reserved for legitimate sport. [Illustration: LAKE PEND D'OREILLE, IDAHO.] The true sportsman will immensely enjoy an excursion into the Kootenai country. The best route is from Kootenai station to Bonner's Ferry, on the Kootenai river, a distance of thirty-three miles by wagon road, and thence by boat, either down to the lake, a further distance of ninety miles, or up into the mountains. Complete camping outfits may be obtained from Spokane Falls, the nearest town on the line of the railroad. That the waters of Clark's Fork and Lake Pend d'Oreille are full of fine fish of many varieties, is established by overwhelming testimony. The want of a common nomenclature, however, is somewhat embarrassing to one whose opportunities for personal observation have been limited. Perhaps, therefore, it will be best to allow the local anglers to tell their own stories. Beginning with the town of Thompson's Falls, to which reference has already been made, we find a recent correspondent of the _American Angler_ claiming for Clark's Fork an abundance of salmon trout, of a species of large lake trout, and a species of whitefish, known locally as "squaw fish." Salmon trout are, he says, caught at all times of the year, except in midwinter and during high water in the month of June. They average from one-half to two pounds each, and the fishing is best during early spring and late fall. Lake trout have been caught weighing as much as eighteen pounds each; but the average is about six pounds. The "squaw fish" is said to be gamey, but of comparatively little value for the table. The same correspondent says that the mountain streams emptying into Clark's Fork in the vicinity of Thompson's Falls, afford excellent mountain trout fishing, and he quotes large scores made by local anglers. At Heron, which, by the way, is a divisional terminus of the railroad, with a first-class hotel operated in connection with the dining car department, trout is said to be so abundant as to be thought nothing of; "grayling," sometimes reaching ten pounds in weight, are almost as plentiful; and it is said to be no uncommon thing to see them jumping out of the water, pursued by large whitefish. Bull River, eight miles distant, yields salmon trout weighing up to twelve pounds. The waters of Lake Pend d'Oreille contain, in addition to the common lake trout, a species weighing from five to ten pounds each, and occasionally caught weighing as much as twenty pounds, speckled on both back and sides, and generally resembling Mackinac trout. They are a fine table fish, being much superior to lake trout. The "squaw fish" of this lake are said to resemble the pike. They weigh from one pound to five pounds each. From about the middle of August until the snow flies, the trout fishing is "the best in the world." There is also a fish resembling the herring, found in one part of the lake in immense shoals. Soon after leaving Lake Pend d'Oreille, the line enters a dense forest containing few settlements, and little that is interesting or picturesque, beyond the beautiful Lake Cocolala, a long but narrow sheet of water on the north side of the track. On the borders of the forest the train pauses a moment at Rathdrum, the nearest point on the railroad to Fort C[oe]ur d'Alène, on the lake of the same name. This lake even rivals, in the beauty of its waters and the grandeur of its mountain scenery, its more accessible neighbor, Lake Pend d'Oreille, while its conveniences for boating and fishing are equally good. At the station of Idaho Line, the train enters the Territory of Washington, pursuing its way in a southwesterly direction across the great Spokane Plain. A short run, and we are at Spokane Falls, a bright and busy little city, charmingly situated on the Spokane river, near the celebrated falls from which it takes its name. Built upon a gravelly plateau, sloping gently toward the river, overlooked by beautiful pine-clad hills, and with lofty mountain ranges in the far distance, Spokane Falls can not but produce a favorable impression upon the passing traveler. Its falls, which are its chief natural attraction, and will be the secret of the great commercial and manufacturing importance that undoubtedly awaits it, are situated on the north side of the town. The river is divided by basaltic islands into three great streams, curving toward each other, and pouring their floods into a common basin, from which the united waters come surging and foaming to make their final plunge of sixty-five feet into the deep chasm below. The tremendous force with which the river tears through its rocky channels, and hurls itself over the falls, is perhaps best illustrated by a comparison with the Falls of St. Anthony, at Minneapolis. While the latter represent a force of 135,000 horse power, the former represents one of 216,000 horse power, utilizable with equal facility. Several extensive flouring mills, as well as saw mills, are already in operation; and there is no doubt that, with the development of the rich wheat country of Eastern Washington, there will come an immense extension of the manufacturing industries of Spokane Falls. It is probable that the town will soon have two important feeders in branch lines of railway, extending, the one northward to the Colville mining region,--the other southward to the Palouse wheat country. These lines will open railway communication with two of the richest sections of country west of the Rocky Mountains. Until within the last year or two, the settlements of the Colville valley have been confined to the scattered homes of ranchmen. But recently the tide of immigration that has been flowing into the Territory has reached this remote region, and agricultural operations of a general character are being engaged in. The valley is as fertile as it is beautiful, and not only fine wheat, but fruit of excellent quality, is being raised there. In the Chewelah district there have recently been found so many rich veins of silver that Mr. E. V. Smalley, who visited it in November, 1885, declares that it is almost certain to become, within a few years, the greatest silver camp on the continent. Sixteen and forty-one miles respectively westward from Spokane Falls, are Cheney and Sprague, in a good agricultural country, whose rapid development is building them up as solid and substantial towns. Cheney has a large hotel, and is, moreover, the nearest railway station to Medical Lake, a large sheet of water possessing remarkable curative properties, and situated nine miles west. Good hotels and bathing establishments having been erected, Medical Lake is now an exceedingly pleasant resort, the surrounding country being very attractive. From Palouse Junction, sixty-nine miles west of Sprague, a line extends eastward into the Palouse country. So far as regards scenery, a ride over this line to Colfax and Moscow is as uninteresting a railroad journey as could well be found, the line following a series of valleys that have the appearance of having once formed the rocky bed of some considerable stream. Colfax is a busy little city in the Palouse river valley, hemmed in so closely on both sides that one of its rivals recently suggested that it might find it an advantage to be roofed over. But it does a considerable business for so small a place, shipping a large proportion of the agricultural produce of the valley, estimated, in 1885, at two million bushels of grain. The agricultural methods of Eastern Washington will strike most visitors as somewhat peculiar. It is not in every State of the Union, nor in every Territory, that the farmer can plow and sow "just when he gets ready." But here plowing and seeding may be seen in progress ten months out of every twelve, and instances have even been known of winter wheat being sown every month in the year, and all coming to harvest in its proper turn. And such crops! Thirty, forty and fifty bushels to the acre are raised so easily, that, had the farmer a nearer market, he would soon get rich. The construction of the proposed branch southward from Spokane Falls will, however, give him facilities for shipping east over the Northern Pacific Railroad that will certainly pay him better than exporting to England by way of Portland, as he does at present. The self-binding harvester, so familiar an object in many other parts of the country, is here unknown, the grain being cut by immense "headers," propelled by from four to eight horses each. This strange-looking machine, an exemplification of the old saying, "the cart before the horse," is better adapted than any other to the peculiar conditions of the country, straw being of no value, and threshing usually going on simultaneously with the cutting of the grain, although the wheat may, after cutting, lie in the fields for many weeks without detriment. The climate of Eastern Washington, to which alone this remarkable state of things is due, differs entirely from that of the western half of the Territory, from which it is divided by the Cascade range of mountains. It is a mistake to suppose that the humidity which characterizes that portion of the Territory bordering on the Pacific Ocean, distinguishes it as a whole. On the contrary, the eastern half is remarkably dry, and that, too, without those extremes of temperature that usually accompany a dry climate. Should there be a spell of severe cold during the brief winter season, it is invariably cut short by the "Kuro-Siwo," or Japanese current, which, striking the coasts of British Columbia and Washington Territory, sends a warm wave over the entire Northwestern country, sometimes extending even to the valleys of Montana. Continuing westward from Palouse Junction, a run of little more than an hour brings us to Pasco, the eastern terminus of the Cascade division of the railroad. This important division, intended to establish direct communication between the magnificent harbors on Puget Sound and the Eastern States, is already operated to the extent of 122 miles, or ninety miles westward from Pasco, and thirty-two miles eastward from Tacoma. Its eastern section has given a great impetus to the development of the agricultural capabilities of the Yakima, Klickitat and Kittitas valleys, which are well adapted, not only to stock raising, but also to the cultivation of fruits and cereals. In this section wool growing is also engaged in with great success. This industry is one of considerable importance both in Washington and Oregon, the entire clip for 1885 being no less than 13,000,000 pounds. There are few revelations more surprising to an Eastern tourist than that of the magnitude of some of the great Western rivers. The Snake river, for example, is known to him, if at all, merely as one of the various tributaries of the Columbia; and, when he finds himself crossing its mighty flood by a bridge 1,672 feet in length, and learns that its force and volume are such that it drives itself like a solid wedge into the waters of the Columbia, he is apt to wonder that he knows so little about it. Future tourists will not regard this tributary stream with any the less interest for being told beforehand that it is longer than the Rhine, more than three times the length of the Hudson, and that, straightened out, it would reach from the Missouri valley to the Atlantic ocean. It is, moreover, a great commercial highway, being navigated by steamers of considerable tonnage for 150 miles. It flows for a long distance in a deep cañon, the sides of which are so precipitous as to render the river almost inaccessible. Immense shutes have therefore been constructed for the transfer of the wheat that forms the staple product of the country from the warehouses on the high banks to the boats and barges anchored below. Another section of the famous wheat country of Southeastern Washington, identified with the unmusical name of Walla Walla, borne by the oldest and best town east of the Cascade Mountains, is reached by a branch line extending from Wallula Junction. With 100,000 acres of land cultivated to cereals, with 800,000 apple trees, 100,000 pear, plum and peach trees, 25,000 grape-vines, large herds of cattle, and still larger flocks of sheep, the county of which Walla Walla is the judicial seat may be taken as fairly illustrating the varied capabilities of Eastern Washington. Scarcely less prosperous is the adjoining county of Columbia. These counties, however, being well settled, reference is made to them only as foreshadowing the future condition of those younger counties, adjacent to the Northern Pacific Railroad, which are now in course of settlement. In many of the latter the cultivation of the soil presents even fewer difficulties than in these older settled regions, in many parts of which there is scarcely an acre of level land to be found. Returning to Wallula Junction, and there resuming our westward journey, we at once enter a region of surpassing interest, none other than the famous land-- "=Where rolls the Oregon.=" Its navigable waters within 450 miles of those of the Missouri river, the great Columbia drains an area almost equal in extent to the united area of France and Germany. Excluding the portages at the Cascades and Dalles, with several less important rapids, the river is navigable to Kettle Falls, 725 miles from its mouth. These falls, on the upper river, are not accessible by rail, being a considerable distance above the point at which the railroad enters its valley. They are said to be more impressive even than the famous Cascades on the lower river, there being a perpendicular fall of twenty feet, and then swift rapids between rocky banks of quartz and porphyry. It is on the upper river, also, that there occur the Little Dalles, where the waters tear through a contracted channel with terrific force, constituting, at least at high water, an impassable barrier to navigation. [Illustration: MOUNT HOOD--FROM THE HEAD OF THE DALLES, COLUMBIA RIVER, OREGON.] From Wallula to within a few miles of Portland, a twelve hours' ride, the tourist enjoys an uninterrupted succession of views of that superb scenery which has given the Columbia river its world-wide reputation. Never for more than a few moments does he lose sight of its mighty flood,--now flowing onward with all the majesty of the lower Mississippi, and now surging through the rocky barriers that impede its course; here confined within lofty basaltic walls, there inclosing numerous beautifully wooded islands; and here again marked by long stretches of bare white sand driven continually by the unceasing winds. For some miles west of Wallula the banks of the river are low, and possess no special object of interest. It is not, indeed, until he reaches the Great Dalles that the tourist sees any indication of the magnificent scenery he is approaching. There, however, he has his first glimpse of the queenly Mount Hood, whose snowy peak, soaring 11,225 feet above the sea, stands out sharply against the sky at a distance of thirty-five miles. The Dalles themselves, scarcely noticeable, except when the river is at flood, constitute one of the most curious and interesting sights in the world,--nothing less than that of the mighty Columbia turned on edge. Here, within a gorge so narrow that a child may fling a pebble from bank to bank, is confined the greatest river of the Northwest. The chasm through which it flows has never been fathomed, and can only be approximately determined by an inversion of the grand proportions of the river where it flows through its ordinary channel. At Dalles City, the eastern terminus of navigation on the middle river, the tourist finds himself in an attractive town of nearly forty years' growth. Here he may with advantage make a brief stay, resuming his journey either by train or by steamer, the fine boats of the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company plying daily between this city and Portland. From the heights commanding the town, magnificent views are to be obtained, Mount Hood looming up in the southwest, and Mount Adams, another of the great peaks of the Cascade Range, in the north. We have now left behind the low-lying shores that extend for so many miles between the Dalles and Wallula. Henceforward the scenery increases in interest every mile, the mountains becoming loftier and more precipitous, the rocky shores more rugged, and the intervening foliage more luxuriant. It should be stated that the scenery, especially on the south side of the river, appears to much greater advantage when viewed from the deck of a steamer than when seen from the train. In consideration of this fact, railway tickets are available by steamer without extra charge. The boat leaving the Dalles early in the morning, there is a loss of one day involved in taking the steamer on the westward journey; but, returning from Portland, the tourist is able to reach the Dalles in time for that day's east-bound train. Forty-three miles from the Dalles are the Cascades, where the river changes from a placid lake to swift rapids and a foaming torrent. Before the completion of the railroad every pound of freight had to be transferred, at this point, from a steamer navigating the river above this insurmountable barrier to one navigating it below, or _vice versa_. The railway portage of six miles on the Washington side of the river is still operated, and the transfer of such passengers as choose to complete their journey by water is made so speedily and conveniently as to enhance, rather than otherwise, the pleasure and interest of the river trip. In view of the importance of the river as a free commercial highway, Congress has made several appropriations for the construction, at the Cascades, of a system of locks. It is certainly a gigantic undertaking, and many years will probably elapse before its completion. To a great convulsion of nature, of whose occurrence there is abundant evidence, may be traced a singular Indian tradition, that Mount Hood and Mount Adams formerly stood close to the river, connected by a natural bridge. The mountains, so goes the story, becoming angry with each other, threw out fire, ashes and stones, and so demolished the bridge, choking the river, which had previously been navigable. The present remoteness of the mountains is attributed to the anger of the Great Spirit, who hurled them thus far asunder. Both, in common with other peaks of the Cascade Range, are extinct volcanoes; and the Indian tradition may have its origin either in some great eruption, or in some sudden movement of what is known as the sliding mountain, an immense mass of basaltic rock gradually wearing its way toward the river. After gazing in admiration at the fine scenery surrounding the Cascades, the tourist will scarcely be prepared for the announcement that the grandest of all is yet to come. But, after leaving Bonneville, not only is the general effect grander and more imposing, but the objects of special interest are more numerous. Here it is that the advantage of making the trip by steamer is most apparent; for, let the train travel ever so slowly, it is impossible for even the most quick-sighted traveler to take in all the points of interest that crowd one upon another. On the north side is Castle Rock, rising abruptly from the water's edge a thousand feet or more. Farther down the river, also on the north side, is Cape Horn, an imposing basaltic cliff projecting into the water. On the south side there descend from the lofty perpendicular walls that frown upon the river for many miles, numerous waterfalls, of indescribable beauty. Here is the lovely Oneonta, 600 feet of silver ribbon, floating from the dizzy height. A few moments more, and we are opposite the still more beautiful Multnomah Fall, which has a descent of no less than 820 feet. At this point the train stops fifteen minutes to enable passengers to ascend to the rustic bridge, there to enjoy the best possible view of this incomparable fall, and its wondrously beautiful setting, contrasting so strikingly with the wild scenery around it. At the Pillars of Hercules, two gigantic columns of rock, one on either side the track, and forming, as it were, the western gateway to this marvelous region, the railroad leaves the river, and runs right on to Portland. The steamer continues its course, past the beautiful city of Vancouver, to the mouth of the Willamette river, by which great tributary of the Columbia, it soon reaches PORTLAND. Its phenomenal growth, its commanding position on one of the great waterways of the continent, its wealth, commerce and enterprise, and the singular natural beauty of its situation, render the capital of the Pacific Northwest one of the most attractive cities on the American continent. Fifteen years ago Portland contained a population of 1,103. By 1880 the construction of the western section of the Northern Pacific Railroad, and the approaching completion of the great transcontinental system, had so stimulated the growth of the city that its population had increased to 17,577. To-day it is estimated at 30,000, or, including the suburbs of East Portland and Albina, at 40,000, and a handsomer city of its size can not be found in the United States. In everything that distinguishes a great metropolitan city, the progress of Portland has been even more remarkable than the rapid growth of its population. The handsome business blocks that line its principal streets bear witness to the magnitude of its trade and commerce, while its churches, schools and other public buildings testify to the high moral tone and refined taste of its citizens. Although one hundred miles from the coast, Portland, like London, Rotterdam and Antwerp, is virtually a seaport, and its growth and progress are based upon the solid foundations of its natural advantages. Loading at its wharves, or riding at anchor on the broad bosom of the river, may be seen, not only river craft of all sorts and sizes, but ocean-going vessels of 3,000 tons. When the great wheat crop of Oregon is in course of shipment to Europe, there may be seen a fleet of as fine merchantmen as can be found in the world. The salmon exports alone, for the year ending August 1, 1885, required 120 large vessels, having a total capacity of about as many thousand tons. The total value of the exports to foreign countries for the year just mentioned, was $5,857,057, and that of domestic exports $6,699,776, making a grand total of $12,556,833. In addition to several hundred thousand tons of wheat, and the 120 ship loads of salmon already mentioned, the exports from the Columbia river included over eleven million pounds of wool, over two million pounds of hides, nearly five and one-half million pounds of hops, and twenty-nine million pounds of potatoes. Portland is said to number among its merchant princes twenty-one millionaires, and certainly there are few cities whose private residences are more strikingly indicative of wealth and refinement. The picturesque surroundings of the city render it an exceedingly desirable place of residence. From the summit of Robinson's Hill a view that it is no extravagance to pronounce one of the finest in the world may be obtained. At one's feet lies the city, nestled in rich foliage. Stretching away, for many miles, from where their waters unite in one common flood, may be seen the Columbia and Willamette rivers. But above all, bounded only by the limits of the horizon, is the great Cascade Range, with all its glittering peaks. On the extreme right, seventy-eight miles distant, as the crow flies, is seen the snowy crown of Mount Jefferson; across the river, fifty-one miles distant, rises Mount Hood, one of the most beautiful mountains on the coast, and the pride and glory of Oregon; to the northeast stand out the crests of Mount Adams and Mount St. Helens, and in the same direction, but one hundred miles away, may be descried the great Tacoma, the grandest mountain on the Pacific slope. All these five peaks are radiant with eternal snow, and it may well be imagined that the effect of the uplifting of their giant forms against the clear blue sky is grand in the extreme. Tourists coming northward from San Francisco have the choice of two routes and two modes of travel. They may either take one of the fine steamers of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, sailing every five days, and performing the voyage in from sixty to seventy-two hours, or they may travel overland by the Oregon & California Railroad, a line that traverses not only the most fruitful plains, but also the most beautiful valleys, of this rich State. For the benefit of such travelers, and also in view of the possibility of there being those who, both coming and returning by the Northern Pacific Railroad, would like to visit the garden of Oregon, and, if possible, obtain a glimpse of Mount Shasta, it may not be out of place to give a brief description of the line extending southward from Portland to the southern boundary of the State. For upward of one hundred miles our route lies along the Willamette valley. This is the largest valley in the State, being 150 miles in length, with an average width of fifty miles. Inclosed on the east side by the Cascade Mountains, and on the west by the Coast Range, it contains an area of about four and one-half million acres of rich and beautiful land. Some of the pleasantest towns in the Northwest are to be found in this valley. [Illustration: FLOATING FISH WHEEL, ON THE COLUMBIA RIVER, OREGON.] First comes Oregon City, sixteen miles from Portland; this is the oldest town in Oregon. It is situated just below the beautiful falls of the Willamette, amid highly picturesque scenery. Its chief interest for the tourist centres in the falls, which represent a force of over a million horse power, or about eight times that of the Falls of St. Anthony. They may be seen a few hundred yards south of the station, on the west side of the track. Hitherto there has been seen no considerable extent of fertile country; but in Barlow's prairie there appears a fine tract of agricultural land inclosed by tributaries of the Willamette. Others succeed it, and soon good homesteads, surrounded by shade trees and orchards, are seen in every direction. The next town of importance is Salem, the State capital, beautifully situated on the sloping banks of the river. The capitol, and other State buildings, may be seen from the train; and the entire city, with its broad streets and fine oak groves, presents a pleasing appearance. The twenty-eight miles intervening between Salem and Albany afford some fine views of the Cascade Range, Mount Hood being visible at a distance of seventy miles, and the nearer southern peaks in still bolder outline. Eugene City, 123 miles from Portland, is also charmingly situated and finely laid out on the edge of a broad, rich prairie overlooked by a ridge of low hills. Its geographical position, at the head of navigation, commands for it the trade of a large section of country. It is also the seat of the State University, and is otherwise an educational centre of great importance. In the course of the next seventy-four miles the railroad ascends about 2,000 feet to Roseburg, the judicial seat of Douglas county, traversed by another of the famous valleys of Oregon, that of the Umpqua. This was formerly a great stock country; but its pastures have gradually disappeared before the plow, and cattle have given way to grain. It is, moreover, a fine fruit growing region. The tourist is now approaching those intricate valleys which have made this line of railway from Roseburg to its terminus at Ashland at once so costly and so picturesque. Cow Creek Cañon, so winding that thirty-five miles of track had to be laid to attain twelve miles of actual distance, abounds with wild and beautiful scenery. From the valley of the Umpqua, the railroad passes into that of the Rogue river, in Josephine county. This county is equally famed for its natural beauty, its healthful climate and the wonderful productiveness of its soil. Grains, fruits and vegetables of every description, yield prodigiously, and their quality is not to be surpassed. The great attractions of the county for the tourist are the two limestone caves situated thirty miles south of Grant's Pass, and fifteen miles east of Kerbyville. There is said to be a good wagon road from the latter place to within five miles of these caves, and arrangements are in progress for the early completion of the road. According to an official publication of the county, there is another route, _viâ_ Williams Creek, by wagon road, to within eight miles of the caves, and thence, by a mountain trail, on horseback. The scenery along this route is stated to be grand beyond description, embracing many of the lovely valleys of this charming county, and, in the distance, the snow-capped mountains of the Cascade Range, terminating in the tremendous peak of Mount Shasta. The caves themselves consist each of a series of chambers, adorned with beautiful stalactites of prismatic colors, and other curious and delicate formations, presenting exquisite patterns, and sparkling with the lustre of diamonds. At Ashland, 341 miles from Portland, the tourist arrives at the southern terminus of the road. Connection is made with the California and Oregon Railroad, at Delta, California, by stage. This is an exceedingly enjoyable stage ride, the first twenty miles of the journey being over the Siskiyou Mountains, from whose summits the long Sierra Nevada and Cascade Range can be traced for nearly 200 miles. No tourist should return East without first taking a trip down the LOWER COLUMBIA to Astoria, that city of most interesting historical associations, and no little actual importance in these stirring days of trade and manufactures. Admirably appointed steamers, making fast time, run daily between Portland and Astoria. The trip need not, therefore, occupy more than two days. The distance from Portland to the point at which the Willamette discharges itself into the Columbia, is twelve miles, in the course of which opportunity is afforded for observing the progress being made by the city in its manufacturing and other enterprises. The busy wharves are also passed, and the stately ships riding at anchor. [Illustration: MOUNT TACOMA.] After the first few miles of the Columbia the tourist may be surprised to find that the scenery of the lower river is far from being tame or monotonous. The river itself winds considerably for so great a body of water; the forest, too, is luxuriant, and the hillsides are covered with heavy fir; numerous islands occur at intervals, wooded and exceedingly pretty. Where the river has worked its way through the Coast Mountains, the scenery, though not so abrupt, stern or impressive as that of the middle Columbia, presents many fine effects, the lofty walls of the river being surmounted by hills of considerable altitude. Not far from Columbia City, on the north or Washington bank of the stream, is an island rock known as Mount Coffin, and formerly an Indian place of sepulture. Here the tribes deposited the bodies of their noted chiefs and warriors. In his canoe, previously rendered useless, and with his bow and arrows, the dead hero was here laid to rest. After passing Kalama, the tourist comes upon some of the great canning establishments, which before long are passed at such short intervals that they seem to line the north bank, on which most of them are situated. The fisheries of the Columbia river are almost as famous as its scenery. The canning industry, which was first established in 1866, has within the last few years attained great importance. Producing the first year some 4,000 cases, representing, at the high price they commanded, $16 per case, a total value of $64,000, it has steadily increased its product, until now it has reached upward of half a million cases. The catch of 1885, which was 524,530 cases, fell short of that of 1884 by 132,000 cases, in consequence of the markets of the world being temporarily overstocked. It is remarkable that the supply should at all exceed the demand, when the gigantic extent of the industry is taken into consideration. The great perfection to which the methods employed in capturing the salmon have been brought, is probably accountable for the recent glut in the market. Among the most effective contrivances for the purpose, is the floating fish-wheel, by means of which the fish are literally scooped up out of the water in shoals. The industry gives employment to 1,500 boats, 3,000 fishermen, and 1,000 factory hands, the latter principally Chinese. The canning season is from April 1st to July 31st, when the lower Columbia is alive with fishing boats, and the canneries are in full operation. As we approach Astoria, the river widens out into a broad estuary, some seven miles across. Here is Tongue Point, a bold headland running out into the river from the Oregon shore. In a beautiful bay between this point and Point Adams, is Astoria, built partly on piles, and partly on the shelving hills. For the story of its early history, of the arrival of John Jacob Astor's trading ship, "Tonquin," and of its subsequent British occupancy, the reader is referred to Washington Irving's delightful volume. It is sufficient to say that it is to-day an exceedingly interesting city to visit, not more on account of its being the oldest British settlement in the Northwest, and the central figure in the salmon fishing of the Columbia river, than for the novelty of its construction. Its busy wharves and abundant shipping proclaim it a seaport of considerable importance, requiring only a railroad or the removal of the barriers to the navigation of the middle Columbia, to make it a great city. Opposite Point Adams is Cape Hancock, formerly known as Cape Disappointment. On the sea-coast, both on the Washington side, north of Cape Hancock, and on the Oregon side, south of Point Adams, are various summer resorts attracting crowds of visitors during the season. On the Washington shore is Ilwaco, beautifully situated on the north shore of Baker's Bay, with a long, crescent-shaped beach of fine, white sand sloping to the water, and heavily wooded hills in the rear. This growing place, with its hotels, stores, church and school house, is rapidly growing in popularity. Steamers meet the Portland boat at Astoria, where passengers are transferred without inconvenience or delay. They call, both going and returning, at Cape Hancock, affording tourists an opportunity of visiting Fort Canby, and the great lighthouse, from which there is one of the most extensive and magnificent views on the entire Pacific coast. On the Oregon shore of the ocean are Clatsop Beach, where there are good hotel accommodations and excellent hunting and fishing, and a popular resort known as Seaside, boasting a multitude of attractions, including a fine ocean beach and a trout creek. Should the tourist be unable to make a long stay at any of these places, he ought at least to pay them a brief visit, if only to cross the great bar of the river, and to see where its mighty flood discharges itself into the ocean at the rate of 1,000,000 gallons per second. The climate of this section is exceedingly humid; but its summers are delightful. Its rainfall is mostly in winter, when it is both heavy and continuous. It is said, that, if a barrel, with the two ends taken out, be placed upon its side with the bung-hole uppermost, the rain will enter by that small aperture faster than it can run out at the two ends. For this story, however, the writer can not vouch, any more than for that of the recent visitor to the National Park, who is said to have caught, in one of the lakes of that remarkable region, a fish so large that, upon his dragging it ashore, the water of the lake fell six inches. TO PUGET SOUND. The tourist has now become more or less familiar with the natural features and resources of that great country lying between the Snake river and the Pacific Ocean, and between the Columbia river and the Siskiyou Mountains. There remains only Western Washington, with its extensive forests, its rich coal mines, its hop gardens, and its far-famed inland sea, on which he is to embark on his voyage to the great land of the far North. The Pacific division of the Northern Pacific Railroad follows the Willamette river from Portland to its confluence with the Columbia, and the latter river from that point to Kalama, where trains are conveyed across the river by the finest transfer boat in the world, built expressly for the railroad company, and constructed to carry thirty cars at one time. From Kalama the track strikes almost directly northward for Puget Sound, passing through long stretches of dense forest, but also intersecting a tract of country containing a larger area of fertile agricultural land than is contained in any other county in Western Washington. The chief towns of this region are Chehalis and Centralia, and they give evidence of thrift and prosperity. But the attention of the tourist as he travels onward is largely occupied with the magnificent peaks of the Cascade Range, whose forms of dazzling whiteness constitute, with their background of deepest blue and the dark forests which clothe their base, a picture of marvelous beauty. For more than one hundred miles after we leave Portland, there looms up behind us the graceful contour of Mount Hood, while to the east are seen at intervals the majestic forms of Mount St. Helens and Mount Adams. But the grandest scene of all is yet to come. After leaving Tenino, there is a revelation of almost unequaled grandeur in the view of Mount Tacoma, the loftiest peak of the entire range. If Mount Hood can claim to be considered, as is generally admitted, the most graceful and beautiful mountain on the Pacific coast, Mount Tacoma can certainly claim to be the most majestic and sublime. Towering 14,444 feet above sea-level, and thus exceeding by more than 3,000 feet the height of any other mountain in Washington or Oregon, it seems to rear its massive head close to the very battlements of heaven. No other mountain, even in the Yellowstone National Park or in the main range of the Rockies, will have produced so great an impression upon the traveler as will the mighty Tacoma. As he gazes at its majestic form, he is inclined to doubt whether there is in the whole world one that could establish a better claim to universal sovereignty. In lines that will live as long as the English language itself, Byron declared Mont Blanc the monarch of mountains. But Byron never saw the matchless Tacoma. It, too, has its throne of rocks, its diadem of snow, and, though less frequently than Mont Blanc, its robe of clouds, an adjunct of doubtful advantage except in the exigencies of versification. [Illustration: "THE TACOMA" TACOMA. W. T.] Mount Tacoma has, embedded in its mighty bosom, no fewer than fifteen glaciers, three of which have been rendered accessible to visitors. Comparing them with the glaciers of the Alps, Senator Edmunds, of Vermont, declares that the finest effects he witnessed during the course of a long tour in Switzerland, fell far short of what he saw on his visit to Mount Tacoma. At the great hotel, at Tacoma City, guides and camping outfits are always obtainable. Excursion parties are frequently made up during the summer season, the trip being entirely free from difficulty or danger, even to ladies. It is at the city of Tacoma that the tourist first looks over the blue waters of Puget Sound. This is the western terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Occupying a commanding position upon a high plateau overlooking Admiralty Inlet, Tacoma has an excellent harbor, capable of receiving the largest ocean-going vessels. It has also some fine public buildings, among them being the Anna Wright Seminary for girls, a monument of the beneficence of Mr. C. B. Wright, of Philadelphia. Its luxuriously furnished hotel, the Tacoma, erected at a cost of $200,000, occupies one of the finest sites in the world, overlooking, as it does, the picturesque shores of the bay, and commanding a magnificent view of the imperial mountain. A few miles northward is Seattle, also with an excellent harbor, and the promise of becoming a city of great importance, an extensive section of rich country being naturally tributary to it. There is no more delightful climate than that of Puget Sound. The summers are cool, the maximum temperature at Tacoma in the summer of 1884 being eighty-nine degrees, and in that of 1885, eighty-five degrees only. The Cascade division of the railroad, extending eastward from Tacoma, is developing a very rich bituminous coal country, and great quantities of the mineral are being shipped from Tacoma, where immense bunkers have been erected to facilitate its exportation. This line also reaches the fine hop growing country of the Puyallup valley, whose product has steadily risen in Eastern markets, until now it commands as high a price as that of the State of New York. But never was the tourist less disposed than now to concern himself with agricultural or commercial statistics. With eager expectation, impatient of delay, he is hastening toward that veritable Wonderland of the World that constitutes the Mecca of his pilgrimage. He is about to enter upon the final stage of his long journey, in that far-famed Inland Passage, whose incomparable scenery, extending in one unbroken chain for more than a thousand miles, alone surpasses those stupendous works of Nature upon which he has so recently gazed. JOHN HYDE. ALASKA AND THE INLAND PASSAGE. Man travels for business and pleasure. The former can be easily described, by a slight interpolation in a well-known mathematical definition, as "the shortest distance and quickest time between two points." The latter bears to this mathematical rectilinear exactness the relation of the curves,--Hogarth's "line of beauty," the rotund circle and graceful sweep of the Archimedean spiral, and bends of beauty beyond computation; and, as any of these are more pleasing to the eye than the stiff straight line, so any tourist's jaunt is more pleasing to all the senses than the business man's travels. But, as all straight lines are alike, and all curves are different, so are their equivalents in travel, to which we have alluded. One tourist, as a Nimrod, dons his hunting shirt and high-topped boots, and, seeking the solemn recesses of the Rockies, slays the grizzly and mountain lion, and thus has his "good time;" another drives through the grand old gorges of the Yellowstone Park, and the deep impressions left by a lofty nature are his ample rewards; and yet again, where physical exertion is to be avoided by delicate ones or those averse to its peculiarities, one may float down the distant Columbia, with its colossal contours, and, without even lifting a finger to aid one's progress, view as vast and stupendous scenery as the world can produce. Thus each place suits each varying disposition, from the most roystering "roughing it," developing the muscles in mighty knots, to where the most ponderous panorama of nature may be enjoyed from a moving mansion, as it were. Could we conceive a place where all these advantages would be united into one, or where one after the other might be indulged at pleasure, we would certainly have a tourists' paradise, an ever-to-be-sought and never-to-be-forgotten nook of creation. Such a tour is to be encountered on "the inland passage to Alaska," as it is called by those knowing it best. In this rough, rocky region, Nature has been prodigal of both land and water,--making the former high and picturesque, and the latter deep and navigable, and running in all directions through the other, apparently for the purpose that it might be easily viewed. From the northwest corner of Washington Territory, through all of the coast line of British Columbia, and along Alaska's shores to the long-cast shadows of Mount St. Elias, stretches for nearly two thousand miles a picturesque panorama that seems as if the Yellowstone, the Yosemite, Colorado, and Switzerland and the Alps, were passing in review before the spectator; and, when the greatest northing is gained, Greenland and Norway have added their glacier-crowned and iceberg-bearing vistas to the view. It looks as if the Yellowstone National Park had sunk into the sea until the valleys were waterways, and the feet of the high mountains had been converted into shores. A grand salt-water river it is that stretches from Puget Sound, itself a beautiful sheet of water, to our distant colony of Alaska, a good round thousand miles, and whose waters are as quiet as an Alpine lake, even though a fierce gale rage on the broad Pacific outside. Beyond the parallel of Sitka, though the grand scenery may be no more imposing than that through which the tourist will have passed in coming from Washington Territory, he will find some of the curiosities of nature which are to be found only in the dreaded frigid zones,--icebergs and glaciers. Before the waters of Northwestern Washington Territory are out of sight, great patches of snow are to be seen on the highest of the grand mountains bordering the inland passage. These little white blotches in the northern gullies become larger and larger as the excursion steamer wends her way northward, until the loftiest peaks are crowned with snow. Then, across connecting ridges, they join their white mantles; and, in a few more miles, the blue ice of glaciers peeps from out the lower edges of the deep snow. Lower and lower they descend as the steamer crawls northward, until the upper parts of the passage are essayed, when they have come to the ocean's level, and, plunging into the sea, snap off at intervals, and float away as icebergs, some of them higher than the masts of the large, commodious steamers that bear tourists to this fairy-land of the frigid zones, if one can be allowed such an expression. Glacier Bay, which the excursion steamers visit on their summer trips, has a great number of these frozen rivers of ice debouching into it; and its clear, quiet waters, reflecting the Alpine scenery of its shores, are ruffled only by the breaking of the icebergs from the terminal fronts of the glacier, that send waves across its whole breadth, and with a noise like the firing of a sea-coast cannon. Muir Glacier is the greatest of this grand group, and surpasses anything nearer than the polar zones themselves. There is no use in going into mathematical measurements,--its two and three hundred feet in height and its breadth of several miles; for they but feebly represent its grandeur, the deep impressions that figures can not measure when viewing this frozen Niagara of the North. Not until the blue Adriatic has pierced its way into the heart of the high Alps, or some ocean inlet has invaded the valleys of the vast Yellowstone Park, will we ever have an equivalent to this display of Nature's noblest efforts in scenic effects. Were the other scenery as monotonous as the ceaseless plains, a visit to the Alaskan glaciers and icebergs would well repay any one's time and effort; but, when the tourist travels through the greatest Wonderland of the wide West to reach these curious sights, he or she will be paid over and over tenfold. So far everything may be seen from the decks of an elegant steamer; but, should the tourist want a little "roughing it," let him stop over in Glacier Bay, from one steamer's visit to another, two weeks to a month apart, and clamber over the glaciers and row around among the icebergs to his heart's content, and until he almost imagines he is an arctic explorer. He will descend from the tumbled surface of the frozen seas of ice on the glacier's surface, only to wade through grass up to his waist, that waves in the light winds like the pretty pampas fields of South America. In these fields of grasses he may pitch his tent, which, with a cook stove and a month's rations for each person, is all that is needed, beyond the baggage of the other tourists. Hunting is found in the mountains back of the bay, fish in the waters, and small game in the woods near by. Or, if longer and rougher jaunts are wanted, ascend the Lynn Channel, and then the Chilkat, or Chilkoot, Inlet, hiring two or three Indians to carry one's camping effects on their backs to the lakes at the source of the great Yukon river of the British Northwest Territory and Alaska,--the third river of America. Going by the Chilkoot trail, over the Alaskan coast range of mountains, which will furnish Alpine climbing enough to suit the most eager, on snow and glacier ice, one comes to a series of lakes aggregating 150 miles in extent; and along these he may paddle and return, shooting an occasional brown or black bear, moose, caribou or mountain goat, while aquatic life is everywhere on these pretty Alpine lakes. Throughout the whole inland passage, one is passing now and then some Indian village, of more or less imposing appearance and numbers. In Alaska they all belong to a single great tribe, the T'linkit, bound together by a common language, but by no stronger ties, for each village, or cluster of villages, makes a sub-tribe, having no sympathies with the other, and they often war against one another. It is not often that one would want to call a tourist's attention to an Indian village, for the average encampment or habitation of the "noble red man" is not the most attractive sight or study; but, in the T'linkit towns, we have no such hesitation, for, in the curiosities to be seen in their houses and surroundings, they are certainly one of the strangest people on earth. They are the artistic savages of the world. In front of each log house, and often rearing its head much higher than it by two or three fold, are one or two posts, called "totem poles," which are merely logs on end; but, on the seaward face, the savage sculptor has exhausted all the resources of his barbaric imagination in cutting in hideous faces and figures, that, with a hundred or so such terrible "totems" in front of a village, makes one think of some nightmare of his childish days. The houses, too, are carved inside and out. Every utensil they have is sculptured deep with diabolical but well executed designs, and their spoons of mountain sheep and goat horn are marvels of savage work. All these are for sale to tourists, and every excursion steamer brings numbers of these romantic remembrances of a yet more romantic journey back to civilization. But the inland passage to Alaska is not the only grand and picturesque part of that great territory visited by the excursion steamers; for beyond and as far as Mount St. Elias, they often sail to this the greatest cluster of high mountains on the Western Continent,--Lituya Peak, 10,000 feet high; and Fairweather and Crillon, a third taller; then beyond, Cook and Vancouver cluster near sublime St. Elias, nearly 20,000 feet above the ocean that thunders at its base, and whose jagged top may be seen a hundred and fifty miles to sea. How disappointing are the Colorado peaks of 12,000 and 14,000 feet to one, for the simple reason that they spring from a plain already 6,000 to 8,000 feet above sea-level, and seem, as they are, but high hills on a high plateau. How like pygmies they appear to Hood, Tacoma, Shasta, and others not so high above the ocean base line, but whose nearly every foot above sea-level is in mountain slope. How grand, then, must be hoary-headed St. Elias, whose waist is the waters of the wide sea, and whose 20,000 feet above sea-level springs from the Pacific Ocean, from whose calm waters we view its majestic height. But let us commence at the starting point of our journey, and take our readers step by step over the whole route. For many years the people of our great Northwest country, Oregon, Washington and Idaho Territories, have spoken familiarly of "the Sound" as one of their great geographical features,--in much the same way as the people of Southern Connecticut or Long Island speak of "the Sound,"--referring thereby to Puget Sound, that cuts deep into the northwestern corner of Washington Territory. Many have visited it, and sailed on its beautiful waters; beautiful enough in themselves or their own immediate surroundings, but thrice grand and gorgeous in their silver framing of snow-clad peaks and mountain ranges, surrounding them on all sides. The long, narrow, picturesque sound, that looked not unlike a Greenland fjord, or close-walled bay at the mouth of some grand river,--one of those bays so slowly converging that a person can hardly define where it ceases and the river commences,--was considered one of the most beautiful and scenic places of the Northwest; and its people delighted to show it to strangers, with its enhancing surroundings, reaching from the prettily situated capital of the Territory, Olympia, at the head of "the sound," to where the broad Juan de Fuca Strait leads to the great Pacific Sea. Then Alaska was known only as Russian America, when it was spoken of at all, so seldom was it heard, and seemed to be as far away from the United States on that side of the continent, and as little thought of, as Greenland or Iceland is to-day with our people of the Atlantic coast. An occasional Hudson's Bay Company trading boat steamed out of Victoria harbor, and disappeared northward, crawling through a maze of intricate inland channels and Alpine-like waterways to some distant and seemingly half-mythical trading post of that lonesome land; but, as to anything definite as to where she was going, as little was known by the people as if an arctic expedition was leaving the harbor of New York or Boston, and not one hundredth of the _furor_ was made about the departure, if, in fact, any notice was taken of it at all. With the accession of Alaska, through the efforts of Secretary Seward and Senator Sumner, the discovery of the Cassiar mines, in British Columbia, but which must be reached through Alaska, and a few other minor incentives, set many people to looking northward; they then found that they could continue their trips on a long inland salt-water river, of which the well-known Puget Sound was but a small part,--hardly the equivalent of Narragansett Bay taken from Long Island Sound, or Green Bay from Lake Michigan. Not that these were the first explorations and discoveries of importance in the inland passage and its surrounding woods and waters, by any manner of means. Cook and Clerke, as early as 1776; Dixon, from 1785 to 1788; Langsdorff, in 1803-8; La Perouse, in 1785-88; Lisianski, from 1803 to 1806; Meares, of the Royal navy, from 1788 to 1789; and especially Vancouver, from 1790 to 1795,--had all peeped into this part of the country, and many of the explorations and surveys were of the most extended nature; but, at about the time of which I speak, the knowledge of the inland passage to the bulk of the people, even in these parts so near to it, was nearly as musty as the old volumes on the library shelves that gave the most information. In fact, but little knowledge or interest was to be found regarding these parts. Their history of development from that embryonic state where everything told is regarded as bordering on the mythical, to where a line of ocean steamers visits them with crowded passenger lists, is the usual history of such developments. The inland passage to Alaska may be said to practically extend from Tacoma, in Washington Territory, at the head of Puget Sound, to Chilkat, Alaska, at the head of Lynn Channel, a distance of nearly 1,100 miles, where the tourist taking a sea voyage has high shores in close proximity on either side of him, except a few places here and there, where a short communication with the ocean outside is to be had. But this "inland passage," so called, is not the only one leading between the points named. It is, rather, a Broadway in New York City, a Pennsylvania avenue in Washington, State street in Chicago,--i. e., the main way; but every few miles a vessel could turn off down another passage as readily as a pedestrian or vehicle could down a side street, and, continuing a short way, return to the main thoroughfare again. Probably all the channels and straits and sounds and inlets in this part of Alaska, British Columbia and Washington Territory, susceptible of navigation by fair-sized ocean and river steamers, and all of them connecting with each other in a perfect network of waterways, would, if placed end to end, reach from a quarter to a third of the way around the world. Many of them are so illy charted--or not charted at all--that no craft of value would trust herself to follow their courses, while some of the smaller ways, but probably none the less picturesque, have yet to bear the first white man on their bosom. The most picturesque of all the ways through this intricacy of picturesque channels has been selected, carefully surveyed, and experienced pilots conduct the vessels to and from Alaska on its waters. The whole length of the passage is heavily timbered with various kinds of pine, fir, hemlock, cedar and spruce. Here and there avalanches from the mountain tops have swept through the dense timber, like a sickle through so much grain; and, although in a few years the growth is restored, yet the varying shades of green in the old and new growth of trees, running in perpendicular stripes up the steep hillsides, plainly show the ancient and recent devastations. Prettily situated Indian villages dot the narrow, shelving shores at rare intervals along the passage; and, when these nomads of the Northwest are seen, which is not infrequent, the chances are more than likely that it will be in a canoe, where they spend two-thirds of their out-of-door life. Says the "American Cyclopædia," speaking of this interesting part of Washington Territory, the southern part of the inland passage: "Washington Territory possesses a great multitude of harbors, perhaps more than any other country of equal extent on the globe. Puget Sound, which has an average width of two miles, never less than one nor more than four, and a depth never less than eight fathoms, runs 100 miles inland in a southward direction from the Straits of Fuca; and Hood's Canal, twelve miles further west, with half the width, runs in the same general direction about 60 miles. These two great estuaries, or arms of tidewater, have depth sufficient for the largest vessels, and numerous bends and corners where the most perfect protection may be found against the winds." Captain Wilkes, in the report of his famous exploring expedition, writes of Puget Sound: "I venture nothing in saying there is no country in the world that possesses waters equal to these." The Coast Range and Cascade Range of mountains are plainly visible from the sound. Near the Columbia river the Coast Range is not very high; but west of Hood's Canal it rises, in abrupt, beetling ridges, 7,000 to 9,000 feet high, called the Olympian Mountains, many of the peaks being snow-crowned throughout the year. The Cascade Range fairly bristles with snow-clad peaks from 8,000 to over 14,000 feet in height, and in every direction, almost, may be seen the grandest Alpine scenery in the distance. Steaming northward through Puget Sound from Tacoma, with Seattle and other towns upon our right, and Port Townsend, the port of entry to the sound, upon our left, we come to Juan de Fuca Strait, which would lead us to the Pacific Ocean were we to follow it out. It is the most southern of all the waterways that connect the great sea with the network of channels inside, and formerly was much used as a part of the route to Alaska or Puget Sound from Portland, Oregon, or San Francisco, California; the steamer putting out to sea for a day if from the former port, and for four or five if from the latter, the passengers having all the discomforts of a sea voyage for that time. Where Magellan sailed over the Pacific Ocean it well deserved the name; but along the rough northern coast the amount of stormy weather increases, and a voyage on this part of the Pacific is not always calculated to impress one with the appropriateness of the great ocean's name. The construction of the Northern Pacific Railroad from the Columbia river to Puget Sound has made these sea voyages unnecessary to reach a port on the inland passage; and, unless a person's stomach is built on "nautical lines," so that he really enjoys an ocean trip, he can save this discomfort by a cut across lots on a railroad train. In fact, it must be kept in mind, that, while the trip on the inland passage is an ocean voyage, equal to one from New York City to Havana and return, it is, as far as sea-sickness is concerned, as if the Hudson river was turned around in the opposite direction, and we sailed on its waters from New York to Havana and return; while the inland passage, in its southern part, is as accessible by railroad travel, to the people of the United States and Canada, as any point on the Hudson river. Therefore, broad Juan de Fuca Strait, where the pulsations of the ocean's life outside are even felt to its eastern end, in much diminished waves, however, carries fewer persons than formerly, and especially of that reluctant class who look uncomplainingly at the terrors of the sea, from the basis of dire necessity. Crossing this strait, which has led to so many controversies as to whether the old Greek from whom it is named actually discovered this beautiful body of water, or only made a lucky guess in publishing to the world a mythical journey of his, we sight and bear down on the beautiful British island of Vancouver, whose metropolis is Victoria, and alongside of whose docks we shall soon be made fast. Victoria, the city, was built on the site of old Fort Victoria, a Hudson Bay Company trading post of that great British monopoly that held nearly all British America under its control for two hundred years, and, although broken as a monopoly, has yet an influence to assist or retard the development of the country which is incalculable. The Fraser river gold mine excitement in the '50's did much to build up Victoria, and send it forward into the front rank of Pacific coast cities, a position which she has held with varying fortunes, though now, in common with the whole Northwest, once more on the ascending wave. Cities, like individuals, have their "hobbies," although seldom so prominently marked; and the municipal "hobby" of Victoria is her splendidly constructed roads, leading through the town and far beyond the suburbs, and in which she has no superior on the Pacific coast of North America, and but few in the world. If the steamer remains long enough in the harbor,--and during excursion times in the summer months they always do,--a drive should be taken on the Victoria roads, and especially the one leading to Esquimalt harbor and return, some two or three miles in all. It is but one, however, of the many beautiful drives; but it is only necessary to mention them in a general way for any one who would desire to test them, so readily can all needed information be found on the spot. In quaint little smoke-stained and dingy-looking stores in out-of-the-way nooks and corners of the streets are to be found the Victorian curiosity shops, crowded with relics of the fast-disappearing Indian tribes that once formed a much denser population in this part of the country than at present. Pretty little mats and baskets are made from the sea-grass, dyed with the juices from berries and other natural dyes, and sold for the merest trifles. Curiously carved steatite houses, in miniature imitation of the Indian dwellings, and "totem poles" made by the Hydah or Haïda Indians, are to be seen for sale. Sometimes they carve plaques with spread-eagles and other fanciful designs upon them; rude but serviceable mats from the inner bark of the cedar tree, and all the known--and unknown--knick-knacks that can come from the barbaric ingenuity of Indian art, and which would require a pamphlet larger than the one in the reader's hands to chronicle half. This is the beginning of such curious wares that will be temptingly displayed before the tourist at every town and stopping place on the route, and from which may be selected such mementoes of the journey as will please the individual fancy. Says a writer in the _Overland Monthly_, the _Century Magazine_ of the Pacific coast: "Victoria, in a rock-bound and land-protected cove, is the most attractive and the largest city on Vancouver's Island. During the days of the Fraser river excitement, Victoria was a much more energetic city than it is to-day. There were exciting times there then, and, because of the great expectations which everybody indulged in, land was bid up to an enormously high figure, and the town's prospects were considered wonderfully brilliant. But the Fraser was a fraud, comparatively, and its mines were quickly exhausted, so that Victoria received a setback, from which it is only just recovering. It is a picturesque town, thoroughly English, staid and conservative, and its location is an enviable one. In the distance rise the blue-hued heights of the Vancouver ranges, and nearer at hand lie the waters of Fuca Straits; beyond which there can be seen the snowy peaks of the Washington Territory mountains. Rounding the long point of land which juts out into the sea to form Victoria harbor, the town lay all revealed to us at last. In one direction were red painted shops set upon a high bluff overlooking the bay, and eastward there were green fields and trimly built cottages. "'Coming ashore?' we were asked at length. "'Not to-day,' the artist said. "'Then, don't judge Victoria until you see the place,' came the word from the dock. "We promised, and said that when homeward bound we would make a call." Returning, the narrator continues, "On the wharf at Victoria stood our friend of a month ago. "'Coming ashore?' he said, when he saw us. "'Yes.' "'Good, we can show you a pretty town. Disappointed in Alaska?' "'No; it's the grandest country for scenery I--' began the artist. "'Yes, yes, I know,' said our friend, interrupting him. 'Big glaciers, fine sailing, curious sights, no sea-sickness. Same old story; hear it every trip.' "Victoria is picturesque in every detail," continues the narrator. "The land faces a land-locked bay, and behind the place stretch dense forests, through which roadways extend to the various suburbs. During our stay the frosts of early fall began to color the leaves, and at night the air grew sharp and chill. But still the air was clear, and down in the harbor white-winged yachts still moved over the bluish waters." Vancouver Island, which forms the outlying barrier to, or seaward side of, the inland passage from Juan de Fuca Strait to Queen Charlotte Sound, is one of the largest islands in that vast archipelago which forms the passage, and is the largest under British dominion. It was called Quadra Island by the Spaniards, who held it by descent from Mexico (then a Spanish colony) until the latter part of the eighteenth century, when Vancouver, of the Royal navy, was sent from England to receive its surrender from the Spanish; it having been ordered by the home government at Madrid,--which he did from the Castilian governor, Quadra. Vancouver called it Quadra and Vancouver's Island; but the Spanish title has slowly disappeared under British rule. Vancouver pushed his discoveries from here to Cook's Inlet during his two or three years' cruise on this coast, and many of the names in the inland passage and adjacent lands and waters are due to his explorations made nearly a hundred years ago. Leaving Victoria and its picturesque surroundings behind us, we swing in a huge circle around the southeastern coast of Vancouver Island, until we are pointed northward once more. Strictly speaking, "the inland passage to Alaska, as defined by nautical men, now begins, Puget Sound only belonging to it in a geographical sense, but as similar thereto as 'peas in a pod.'" We shortly after pass through a congerie of pretty islands, like the Thousand Islands of the St Lawrence on a greatly magnified scale, when we come to the Gulf of Georgia, one of the widest portions of the inland passage. The islands we have left to the right (although it may change by the pilot not taking the usual route, so many are they to choose from) are the San Juan Islands, of far more importance than one would believe, looking at the unpopulated shores; at least, they were so in 1856, when the United States and Great Britain came very near coming to national blows about their possession. The matter was finally left to arbitration in the hands of the Emperor of Brazil, and then transferred to the present Emperor of Germany, who awarded them to the United States. The British troops then withdrew, a post of them having been on one end of the large island, with an American post on the other. As we steam through the Gulf of Georgia we leave the highest point (Point Roberts) of the United States off to our right, in the distance, on the forty-ninth parallel. Some forty or fifty miles farther on, and we enter the first typical waters of the inland passage,--Discovery Passage,--a narrow waterway between high, mountainous banks; a great salt-water, river-like channel, about a mile in breadth, and twenty-three and a half miles long by the British Admiralty charts. A huge yellow bluff, projecting into the sea, greets the eye as the passage is approached, and the great, wide channel to the east is the one the tourist has selected as a matter of course for the steamer to pursue; but she agreeably disappoints him, and enters the narrow, picturesque way. This Discovery Passage is a Yankee "find," having first been entered by a Boston sloop, the "Washington," in 1789. The broad right-hand passage could have been taken, as the land to our right is an island (of which the yellow clay bluff is the southern cape), called Valdez Island after an ancient mariner who visited this part of the world in 1792, in the Spanish galleon "Mexicana." At first one is slightly nonplused at the frequency of Spanish names in these quarters; but, as the early history of the country is closely searched, the conclusion is forced on one more and more that these old Castilian navigators have not even got their dues, and, where their names once formed an honorable majority, they have slowly disappeared before the constant revisions of the geographers and hydrographers of another people, who have since acquired possession. We will come to many such changes of nomenclature on our interesting trip. About two miles from the entrance to Discovery Passage we come to the Indian Village of Yaculta, on Valdez Island. It is the first of many we will see before we return to Victoria again, and, like most of them, it is on one of the narrow, level places between the high hills and the deep sea that happens here and there in this Alpine country; or its inhabitants would have to live in the trees on the steep hillsides, or in their canoes on the water. The large river coming in from the Vancouver Island side, some five or six miles from the entrance to the passage, is Campbell river, and is navigable for some distance inland by boats and canoes. About half way through Discovery Passage we come to the Seymour Narrows, a contracted channel of the passage, about two miles long, and not much over one-fourth the previous width, where the tides rush through with the velocity of the swiftest rivers (said to be nine knots at spring-tides), a current which is so strong that it is generally calculated upon in departing from Victoria so as to reach this point about slack water. In the narrows is a submerged rock, with the pretty-sounding alliterative title of Ripple Rock, on which the United States man-of-war "Saranac" was lost in the summer of 1875. Ripple Rock is now so well marked that it is no longer dangerous to navigation. Northward from the narrows the hills rise in bold gradients, making the change quite noticeable, and more picturesque. Chatham Point marks the northern entrance to Discovery Passage, and here the tourist apparently sees the inland passage bearing off slightly to the east from this cape, when, with a sudden swerve to the westward, the ship swings around at full right angles to her original course, and enters a channel which a minute before seemed to be but a bay on the west side of the original water-way. The new channel is Johnstone Strait, and is over twice as long as Discovery Passage, that we have just left; or, to be more exact, about fifty-five miles in length. The shores are now getting truly mountainous in character, ridges and peaks on the south side bearing snow throughout the summer on their summits, 4,000 to 5,000 feet high, and the pilot will tell you that the waters on which you are sailing correspond in their dimensions, in many places 100 to 150 fathoms of line failing to reach bottom. The rough and rugged islands which we pass to our right, about three or four miles beyond Chatham Point, are the Pender Islands. The high mountains to the left and front are the Prince of Wales range. About fifteen to twenty miles after entering Johnstone Strait, a conspicuous valley is seen on Vancouver Island, the only break in the high mountain range on that side. It is the valley of a stream called Salmon river, named from that delicious fish, which here abound, and in the pursuit of which the Indians have shown this stream to be navigable for canoes for a number of miles inland. A conspicuous conical hill, probably a thousand feet high, rises in the valley and marks it to the traveler. Just beyond Salmon river's mouth, some three miles, the strait widens, another joining it from the north. The mountains to our left are now the New Castle range, Mount Palmerston attaining the height of 5,000 feet. At the northern end of Johnstone Strait we have a number of channels to choose from,--Blackfish Sound, Weynton Passage, Race Passage and Broughton Strait, the longest of all, and only fifteen miles in length, which we take. All these channels simply indicate that there is a cluster of islands where Johnstone Strait swells out into Queen Charlotte Sound, which we enter as Broughton Strait is left behind, and that as we select between different islands we take a different-named channel. These particular islands are the Malcolm Islands, sometimes confined in its application to the largest island. About half way through the Broughton Strait comes in the Nimpkish river from the Vancouver side. Mount Holdsworth is the high, conical peak we see to the south from here. At the mouth of the river is the Indian village of Cheslakee. It is said that an ascent of this river reveals the most picturesque scenery in lakes and falls, a saying to which all the surroundings in the inland passage itself, at this point, would give the most ample corroboration. Directly north from the river's mouth is Cormorant Island, which we leave to our right; and the bay in its side is Alert Bay, where exist a salmon cannery, an Indian mission, a wharf at which ships can land, and other signs of civilization. [Illustration: SCENES IN THE INLAND PASSAGE. From Schwatka's "Along Alaska's Great River," Cassell & Co. New York. Publisher] Queen Charlotte Sound is one of the few openings to the Pacific Ocean. It is about fifty miles long, and, in some places, nearly half as wide, and looks like getting out to sea after having passed through the narrow channels just left behind. It was entered and named by Wedgeborough in the summer of 1786; so those visitors of 1886 to its grand waters may celebrate its centennial, and drink a toast to Queen Charlotte, the queen of King George III., and queen for fifty-seven years. About nine or ten miles on its waters, and to our left, is Fort Rupert, a Hudson Bay Company's trading post, with a large Indian village clustered around it. Here fruits and vegetables are grown for the local demand. About half way through Queen Charlotte Sound, and we pass through a narrow channel, twenty-two miles long, named Goletas Channel. Emerging from it, we leave Cape Commerell on our left side, and bid good-bye to Vancouver Island, for this is its northernmost cape. Near the exit from Goletas Channel, but by another passage, now seldom used, is where the United States man-of-war "Suwanee" was wrecked, on a submerged rock, in July, 1869, when the inland passage was not so well known by pilots as it is now. We can now look out to sea toward the Pacific Ocean; but a short journey plunges us into one of the many passages ahead of us, the smallest, or one nearest the mainland, being taken, called Fitzhugh Sound. It was named in 1786 by Captain Hanna, is about forty miles long, and with a width of about three miles. The first island to our left on entering is Calvert Island. About ten miles from its southern cape is an indentation in the island, called Safety Cove or Port Safety, probably a mile deep. It was while delayed in this picturesque little harbor, in 1885, that Mr. Charles Hallock, the well-known author on piscatorial pursuits, penned the following lines, descriptive of the inland passage, which we find in the _American Angler_ of September, 1885: "The mainland is flanked throughout nearly its entire extent by a belt of islands, of which the majority are sea-girt mountains. Of course, throughout this extended coast-line there are many islands of many different phases,--some of them mere rocks, to which the kelps cling for dear life, like stranded sailors in a storm; while others are gently rounded mounds, wooded with fir; and others, still, precipitous cliffs standing breast deep in the waves. Most aptly has this wave-washed region been termed an archipelago of mountains and land-locked seas. Steaming through the labyrinths of straits and channels which seem to have no outlets; straining the neck to scan the tops of snow-capped peaks which rise abruptly from the basin where you ride at anchor; watching the gambols of great whales, thresher-sharks and herds of sea-lions, which seem as if penned up in an aquarium, so completely are they enclosed by the shadowy hills,--one seems, indeed, in a new creation, and watches the strange forms around him with an intensity of interest which almost amounts to awe. "In this weird region of bottomless depths, there are no sand beaches or gravelly shores. All the margins of mainland and islands drop down plump into inky fathoms of water, and the fall of the tide only exposes the rank yellow weeds which cling to the damp crags and slippery rocks, and the mussels and barnacles which crackle and hiss when the lapping waves recede. * * * * * When the tide sets in, great rafts of algæ, with stems fifty feet long, career along the surface; millions of jelly-fish and anemones crowded as closely as the stars in the firmament; great air-bulbs, with streamers floating like the long hair of female corpses; schools of porpoises and fin-back whale rolling and plunging headlong through the boiling foam; all sorts of marine and Mediterranean fauna pour in a ceaseless surge, like an irresistible army. Hosts of gulls scream overhead, or whiten the ledges, where they squat content or run about feeding. "Here and there along the almost perpendicular cliffs the outflow of the melting snow in the pockets of the mountains leaps down in dizzy waterfalls from heights that are higher than the Yosemite. From the cañons which divide the foot-hills, cascades pour out into the brine, and all their channels are choked with salmon crowding toward the upper waters. I could catch them with my hands as long as my strength endured, so helpless and infatuated are these creatures of predestination. At the heads of many of these rivulets there are lakes in which dwell salmon trout, spotted with crimson spots as large as a pea; and the rainbow trout, with his iridescent lateral stripe; and his cousin germain, the 'cut-throat trout,' slashed with carmine under the gills. And there is another trout, most familiar to the eye in Eastern waters, and doubly welcome to the sight in this far-off region--the _Salvelinus Canadensis_, or 'sea-trout,' which I have recognized these many years as a separate species. * * * Here he is in his garniture of crimson, blue and gold, just like his up-stream neighbors of New England and the Provinces. * * "The seas are full of strange species. Here the family _Percidæ_ is regnant and supreme among the food fishes. The number of species and varieties is remarkable. Here are the _Embiotocidæ_, or _viviparous_ perch, which bring forth their young in litters, like cats or dogs, to the number of eight to forty at a time. There are no less than seventeen known varieties of them. Here, also, are at least fifteen varieties of _Scorpænidæ_, all fine table fish, which are locally known as rock-cod, groupers and snappers, but having no close relations at all to the family of _Gadidæ_. I send herewith the differential characteristics of four of them taken near our present berth, in latitude 51 degrees 30 minutes. The scarlet snapper seems very closely allied to the _Lutjanus Blackfordi_ of Eastern Florida and the Gulf of Mexico, from which he could scarcely be distinguished in appearance. The others are all fish of brilliant colors. No. 2 can scarcely be distinguished from the fresh-water bass of the lakes lying west of the Mississippi,--the _Micropterus_,--either in form, fin system or color. At Sitka I found a fish of exactly the same shape, but black as a sea-bass of the Atlantic (_Centropristis atrarius_). No. 4 belongs, I believe, to the family of _Chiridæ_, and is locally known as a sea-trout. * * * These fish take salmon roe, clams, sand-worms, crabs, meat and cut-fish bait. The black bass of Sitka is taken alongshore with a trolling spoon. * * * The other fish were taken chiefly in thirty fathoms of water on the young flood tide. "Besides these fish, we have taken halibut, two kinds of flounder, skates, dogfish of several kinds and strange shapes, sharks, sculpins, etc.; some of the sculpins were beautifully marked in blue, red and brown. * * I have had several of the species painted in oil, and will forward them to the Smithsonian, with descriptions." But let us leave this piscatorial paradise, as painted by one who is an artist in his line, and wend our way through the forty miles of Fitzhugh Sound. Then comes Lama Passage, contracted, winding and picturesque, about fourteen or fifteen miles long. About half way through we pass very near the Indian village of Bella-Bella, and which is also a Hudson Bay Company trading post. The Bella-Bellas were once a large tribe living in these parts; but the little village, of about twenty Indian houses, that the tourist passes on his left, represents the greater portion of the tribe at present, and gives one a practical and forcible illustration of the disappearance of "the noble red man." A mission residence and a church, with the cattle on the cleared hills, give the place quite a civilized aspect. After Lama Passage comes Seaforth Channel, just as winding and pretty; the swingings to the right and left, in places where the passage is apparently right ahead, increase your respect for the pilot, and you wonder, in all these intricacies, like Goldsmith's village schoolmaster, "how one small head could carry all he knew." At Milbank Sound we look out to sea for a brief half-hour, and then plunge into Finlayson Channel, a typical waterway of the inland passage, like a great river. The sides are very high mountains, densely timbered nearly to the top, where snow exists the year round, forming a base of supplies for the beautiful waterfalls that dash down the precipitous heights, like silvery columns, on a deep green background. It is said that all the little streams of this region swarm with salmon, giving the Indians a most bountiful supply. Then comes Graham Reach, about twenty miles long; then Fraser Reach, of ten miles; and McKay Reach, of seven,--that could all have been given a single name, and much trouble have been saved. A little, irregular sheet of water, called Wright Sound, and Grenville Channel, "as straight as an arrow," gives us nearly fifty miles of rectilinear sailing. We are now getting far enough north to make the sight of snow a familiar one, and the dense timber is striped with perpendicular windrows, where large avalanches have cut their way through them in the winter, when the snow falls heavily in these parts. Chatham Sound is the last channel we essay in British domain, and a royal old sheet of water it is, with a width of nearly ten miles, and about three or four times as long. After about three hours on its bosom a great channel is opened east and west before us, on which the swells from the broad Pacific enter. This is Dixon Entrance, and the boundary between British Columbia and Alaska beyond, whose blue mountains we see in the distance. The islands still continue; and the number, in this part of Alaska alone, has been estimated at eleven hundred, and this, too, excludes the rocks and islets. Clarence Strait is the main channel as soon as Alaskan waters are entered; but there are others on both sides of it which may be taken. It is a little over a hundred miles long, and somewhat variable in its width. It was named by Vancouver, nearly a hundred years ago, after the Duke of Clarence. From Clarence Strait we enter Stickeen Strait; for most of the steamers call at Wrangell, and this bends us off of our course. Wrangell is a tumble-down, dilapidated-looking town, in a most beautifully picturesque situation, and the first impression is to make one ashamed of the displays of the human race compared with those of nature. It is the port to the Cassiar mines; or, better speaking, it was, for they have seen their palmiest days, a fact which is quite evident on looking at their dependency, the town of Wrangell. The Cassiar mines are in British Columbia, and to reach them the Stickeen river, emptying near Wrangell, must be ascended, itself a most picturesque stream, and one well worth visiting if the tourist can catch one of the little boats that yet occasionally depart from Wrangell to ascend the rushing, impetuous river. Says one writer of it, in the Philadelphia _Dispatch_: "The Stickeen is navigable for small steamers to Glenora, one hundred and fifty miles, flowing first in a general westerly direction, through grassy, undulating plains, darkened here and there with patches of evergreens; then, curving southward, and receiving numerous tributaries from the north, it enters the Coast Range, and sweeps across it to the sea through a Yosemite valley more than a hundred miles long, and one to three miles wide at the bottom, and from five thousand to eight thousand feet deep, marvelously beautiful and inspiring from end to end. To the appreciative tourist, sailing up the river through the midst of it all, the cañon, for a distance of one hundred and ten miles, is a gallery of sublime pictures,--an unbroken series of majestic mountains, glaciers, falls, cascades, forests, groves, flowery garden spots, grassy meadows in endless variety of form and composition,--furniture enough for a dozen Yosemites! while, back of the walls, and thousands of feet above them, innumerable peaks and spires and domes of ice and snow tower grandly into the sky. About fifteen miles above the mouth of the river you come to the first of the great glaciers, pouring down through the forest in a shattered ice-cascade nearly to the level of the river. Twelve miles above this point a noble view is opened along the Skoot river cañon--a group of glacier-laden Alps, from ten thousand to twelve thousand feet high. Thirty-five miles above the mouth of the river the most striking object of all comes in sight; this is the lower expansion of the great glacier, measuring about six miles around the 'snout,' pushed boldly forward into the middle of the valley among the trees, while its sources are mostly hidden. It takes its rise in the heart of the range, some thirty or forty miles away. Compared with this, the Swiss _mer de glace_ is a small thing. It is called the 'Ice Mountain.' The front of the snout is three hundred feet high, but rises rapidly back for a few miles to a height of about one thousand feet. Seen through gaps in the trees growing on one of its terminal moraines, as one sails slowly along against the current, the marvelous beauty of the chasms and clustered pinnacles shows to fine advantage in the sunshine." Wrangell's log-cabin backwoods stores are good places to search for Indian relics, the Stickeen Indians living in the vicinity being the most prolific in the manufacture of these savage curios. Leaving Wrangell, a westward-trending strait (Sumner Strait, after Senator Sumner) of forty or fifty miles carries us directly out to the Pacific Ocean; but an hour's run finds us turning into another passage,--Chatham Strait,--one of the largest of the almost innumerable channels of the inland passage, and which points squarely to the north. It is nearly one hundred and fifty miles long, and about five or six miles wide. It was named by Vancouver, about the end of last century, after the then Earl of Chatham, and is a most noble sheet of water. Formerly the pilots used to go around Cape Ommaney, and put out to sea in order to reach Sitka, although there was a channel leading from Chatham Strait thereto which saved the roughness of a sea voyage. It was shunned, however, by most of them, and, in getting the ominous name of Peril Strait, certain supposed dangers were thought to be lurking in it. Captain Carroll, who has spent half an ordinary lifetime in these waters, and done much toward practically determining their navigability, found that most of the peril was in the name,--at least to ships under his management,--and Peril Straits[A] are used nearly altogether now, making Sitka, though facing the Pacific Ocean, practically on the inland passage. [A] The Russian name is Destruction or Pernicious Straits (the reason for which appears further on), and, in its improper translation to Peril Straits, many people supposed the name was given on account of its dangerous navigation. Just before entering Peril Straits,--by the way, one of the most charming of the many channels described,--we stop at a little place ensconced in a narrow inlet of Chatham Strait, called Killisnoo. At Killisnoo the Northwest Trading Company, of Portland, Oregon, have erected quite extensive works for the capture and curing of cod-fish, which has made this something of a port, at least for Alaska. There is also a phosphate factory here, where phosphates are made from herring, after the oil is extracted. This company formerly caught whales in this strait; but I understand the enterprise has been partially, or wholly, given up as not paying; or, at least, in proportion to the new enterprises they have more recently opened. Around this part of Admiralty Island are the Kootznahoo Indians, who have been quite a warlike band of savages in the past, but have been quite mollified by an incident in their troubles, which I will give in the language of a correspondent to the New York _Times_, of November 23, 1884: "The Kootznahoo village, near the fishing station of Killisnoo, was the scene of the latest naval battle and bombardment on the coast, two years ago. A medicine man of the tribe who went out in a whale-boat was killed by the explosion of a bomb harpoon, and the Indians demanded money or a life as an equivalent for their loss. The Killisnoo traders did not respect this Indian law of atonement, and the Indians seized a white man for hostage. Finding that the hostage had only one eye, they declared him _cultus_ (bad), and sent word that they must have a whole and sound man, or his equivalent in blankets, to make up for their lost medicine man. They threatened the massacre of the settlement, and word was sent to Sitka for help. Captain Merriman, United States navy, went over with the revenue cutter 'Corwin' and the steamer 'Favorite,' and made a counter demand for blankets as a guarantee for their future peace and quiet. Failing to respond, he carried out his threat of shelling their village, the Indians having improved their hours of delay by removing their canoes, valuables and provisions. Most of the houses were destroyed, and the humbled Indians came to terms, and have been the most penitent and reliable friends of the whites ever since. They have built their houses now around the Killisnoo settlement; and, although Captain Merriman left the Territory some time ago, they all speak of him as the best of _tyees_, and the settlers say that the naval battle of Killisnoo has made life and property more secure throughout the Territory." [Illustration: AN ALASKA INDIAN HOUSE WITH TOTEM POLES.] At present the inland passage in the Territory and British Columbia is as safe from Indians as Broadway, in New York City, or State street, Chicago. In no place in the world of which I know, or have ever heard, are the facilities for studying Indian life so good for those who only spend a tourist's jaunt among them. Many people along the far Western railroads will remember seeing here and there a dirty group of assorted Indians, begging for alms, and taking full advantage of all the silver-plated sympathy showered upon them in that metal; for they were parts of the curious scenes to behold. Generally they were a slim delegation from some far-away agency, and a person living in Washington, where the Indian chiefs occasionally visit in their full regalia, would have a better chance to see typical Indians than the tourist, unless he left the road and visited their agencies, a journey of toil and trouble, and less welcome if the agent be a stranger. Alaska is widely different. From its mountainous, Alpine nature, living inland is out of the question; and the Indians seek the few narrow beaches and low points scattered here and there through the inland passage as the places whereon to build their little villages, and these are in as full view to the passing steamer as New York and Brooklyn are to a boat going up or down the East river channel. At rarer intervals more extensive plats of level or rolling land have been found; and at some of these, in proximity to certain places where business pursuits are carried on, white men have erected their little towns; and around these, again, the Indians have clustered their curious cabins in the most friendly way, giving the greatest access to tourists during even the short time that vessels stop at the ports to load and unload their freight. At Wrangell, Sitka, Pyramid Harbor, etc., are to be seen villages of Stickeens, Sitkas, Chilkats, Kootznahoos, etc., in close juxtaposition. In the _Polaris_, of Portland, Oregon, under date of November 19, 1881, I find the following description of the old Stickeen village, just below Wrangell, from the pen of the Rev. Dr. Lindsley, a well-known divine and missionary of the Northwest: "The next day we went to the site of the old Stickeen town. It was a beautiful situation, looking out upon the sea, sheltered and with sunny exposure. In the bay were several islands. One of them was kept sacred as a burial place. The tombs were visible at a distance. These were strong boxes raised above the ground for protection, built in the shape of houses, sometimes painted, and within which the remains are deposited. We could not but admire the rude taste, as well as the sentiments which were thus conveyed. The buildings were falling into decay; but enough remained to impress us with the fact that their mechanical skill was of no recent origin. The Stickeens have occupied the site for generations past; and here were immense wooden houses that might have been standing a century ago, judging from the condition of the wooden buildings which I had examined on the Atlantic coast, and which are known to have been erected before the Revolutionary War. Those buildings were frail; these, built of massive timbers and posts of from two to three feet in diameter, some round, and others squared. The planks for the floors were several inches thick. The mortise and tenon work in the frames joined with accuracy, and other mechanical contrivances appeared in these structures. All were large, and some immense. I measured one house sixty by eighty feet. [Illustration: T'LINKET BASKET WORK. (Made by the Indians of the Inland Passage.)] "The domestic life is patriarchal, several families being gathered under one roof. Genealogies were kept for ages, and honors and distinctions made hereditary. To mark these, insignia, like a coat-of-arms, were adopted, and in rude carvings they strove to represent them. I could decipher, also, the paintings that once figured these upon the posts and sides of houses. The eagle, the whale, the bear and the otter, and other animals of sea and land, were the favorites, ofttimes coupled with a warrior in the attitude of triumph. Gigantic representations of these family emblems were erected near the house, on posts, twenty to thirty feet high, covered with carvings of animals, and the devices stained with permanent pigments of black, red and blue. [See illustration on page 66, which is the front of a chief's house at Kaigan village.] Imaginary creatures resembling griffins or dragons, and reminding you of the mammoth animals that flourished in a distant geological period, were carved on the posts or pictured on the walls. Raised figures resembling hieroglyphics and Asiatic alphabets were carved on the inside wall. Some of the posts containing the family coat-of-arms, thus highly carved and decorated according to the native taste, were used as receptacles for the remains of the dead, gathered up after cremation. Great sacredness was attached to them. To injure one was to insult the family to which it belonged; to cut one down was an unpardonable offense. "The description which I have now given will answer, with some unimportant differences, for the native houses as they are found elsewhere." Of the readiness of these Indians to give exhibitions of their savage manners and customs for their visitors,--and which one will seldom see elsewhere, and never with so little trouble and effort on the spectator's part,--Dr. Lindsley says: "By previous invitation, the missionaries and their guests assembled at the house of Tow-ah-att, a _tyee_, or chief of the Stickeen tribe. An exhibition of manners and customs had been prepared for us, to show us what Indian life had been. * * * The insignia on Tow-ah-att's house were the eagle and wolf, marking the union of two families. A brief address of welcome introduced the entertainment. Among the customs shown to us by the dramatic representation, were a warrior with blackened face, with spear and helmet, and with belt containing a two-edged knife, or dagger; a chief in full dress made of skins and a robe made of the wool of a mountain sheep. [For this robe see the illustration on page 81.] Each of these presented an imposing appearance. After these, masks and effigies appeared; next, a _potlatch_ dance, in which a large number of the natives of both sexes engaged. This was followed by dances which were used only upon notable occasions which might be called sacred or religious. These dances and the chants were regarded by the natives with a species of veneration. We were struck with the comparative excellence of the singing which accompanied these dances, displaying a considerable amount of culture. Evidently much practice had been bestowed upon the art, as the large number, young and old, who engaged in them, observed the musical rests and parts with great precision. A large number of whites and Indians were present at this entertainment, and the house was not crowded. Our entertainers observed some formalities which could do no discredit to the most enlightened assemblies. After an address of welcome, and short speeches from visitors, one of the chiefs, Tow-ah-att, delivered a formal discourse." Mr. Ivan Petroff, a Russian, of Alaska, who was deputized by the Superintendent of the United States Census of 1880 to collect statistics for his report regarding Alaska Territory, finds the following interesting items regarding the Indian tribes which the tourist will encounter in his trip to Southeastern Alaska: "The outward characteristics of the T'linkit tribe may be enumerated as follows: The coarse, stiff, coal-black hair, dark eyebrows, but faintly delineated over the large black eyes full of expression; protruding cheek bones; thick, full lips (the under lips of the women disfigured by the custom of inserting round or oval pieces of wood or bone), and the septum of the men pierced for the purpose of inserting ornaments; beautiful white teeth; ears pierced not only in the lobes, but all around the rim. To these may be added the dark color of the skin, a medium stature, and a proud, erect bearing (this only applies to the men). The hands of the women are very small, and large feet are rarely met with. "Before their acquaintance with the Russians, the only clothing of the T'linkits consisted of skins sewed together, which they threw around their naked bodies without regard to custom or fashion. In addition to this, they wore, on festive occasions, blankets woven out of the fleeces of mountain goats. From time immemorial they have possessed the art of dyeing this material black and yellow by means of charcoal and a kind of moss called _sekhone_. The patterns of these blankets, wrought in colors, exhibit an astonishing degree of skill and industry; the hat, plaited of roots, is also ornamented with figures and representations of animals. "Both men and women paint their faces black and red with charcoal or soot, and vermilion (cinnabar), which are their favorite colors. They are mixed with seal oil, and rubbed well into the cuticle; subsequently, figures and patterns are scratched upon this surface with sticks of wood. The wealthy T'linkits paint their faces every day, while the plebeians indulge in this luxury only occasionally. As a rule, the T'linkits of both sexes go barefooted. "The men pierce the partition of the nose, the operation being performed in early childhood, frequently within a few weeks after birth. In the aperture thus made a silver ring is sometimes inserted large enough to cover the mouth; but the poorer individuals insert other articles, such as feathers, etc. They also pierce the lobes of the ear for the purpose of inserting shark's teeth, shells, and other ornaments, while through the holes around the rim of the ear they draw bits of red worsted or small feathers. Veniaminoff states that each hole in the ear was pierced in memory of some event or deed. "The ornamentation of the under lip of a female (now almost obsolete) marked an epoch in her life. As long as she remained single she wore this; but, as soon as she was married, a larger piece of wood or bone was pressed into the opening, and annually replaced by a still larger one, the inner side being hollowed out. It was, of course, impossible for these individuals to close their mouths, the under lip protruding, distended by the disk of wood or bone. "Veniaminoff states that among the T'linkits the married women are permitted to have what are called 'assistant husbands,' who are maintained by the wives. Among the T'linkits the office of vice-husband can only be filled by a brother or near relative of the husband. "The T'linkits burn their dead upon funeral pyres, with the exception of the bodies of shamans, or sorcerers, which are deposited in boxes elevated on posts. The dead slave is not considered worthy of any ceremony whatever; his corpse is thrown into the sea like the carcass of a dog. When a T'linkit dies his relatives prepare a great feast, inviting a multitude of guests, especially if the deceased has been a chief or a wealthy member of a clan. The guests are chosen only from a strange clan; for instance, if the deceased belonged to the Raven clan, the guests must be from the Wolf clan, and _vice versa_. No certain time is set for the cremation or for the festivities; this depends altogether upon the magnitude of the preparations. Poor people who are unable to defray the cost of such ceremonies, take their dead to some distant cove or bay, and burn them without any display. When the guests have assembled and the pyre has been erected, the corpse is carried out of the village by invited guests, and placed upon the fagots. The pyre is then ignited in the presence of the relatives; but these latter take no active part, confining themselves to crying, weeping and howling. On such occasions many burn their hair, placing the head in the flames; others cut the hair short, and smear the face with the ashes of the deceased. When the cremation of the body has been accomplished, the guests return to the dwelling of the deceased, and seat themselves with the widow, who belongs to their clan, around the walls of the hut; the relatives of the deceased then appear with hair burned and cropped, faces blackened and disfigured, and place themselves within the circle of guests, sadly leaning upon sticks with bowed heads, and then begin their funeral dirges with weeping and howling. The guests take up the song when the relatives are exhausted, and thus the howling is kept up for four nights in succession, with only a brief interruption for refreshment. During this period of mourning, if the deceased had been a chief, or wealthy, the relatives formerly killed one or two slaves, according to the rank of the dead, in order to give him service in the other world. At the end of the period of mourning, or on the fourth day following the cremation, the relatives wash their blackened faces and paint them with gay colors, at the same time making presents to all the guests, chiefly to those who assisted in burning the corpse. Then the guests are feasted again, and the ceremony is at an end. The heir of the deceased is his sister's son, or, if he has no such relative, a younger brother. The heir was compelled to marry the widow." While I was at Chilkat the chief of the Crow clan was cremated with most savage ceremonials, no doubt well worth seeing, to which I was invited; but my preparations for my expedition kept me from accepting the invitation. [Illustration: SITKA, ALASKA.] Leaving Killisnoo, we cross Chatham Strait almost at right angles to its course (or due west), here about ten miles wide, and enter Peril Straits, about thirty-five miles long. They sweep boldly to the north in a great arc, and, like all winding and rapidly and alternately widening and narrowing of the inland channels, they are extremely picturesque, more from the contrast of different scenes so swiftly changed before one's eyes, than from anything radically new so presented. The old Russian name for them was Paboogni (meaning "pernicious") Strait, and they got this title rather from an incident of appetite than bad navigation. In the latter part of last century the Russians used to import the poor Aleuts of the Aleutian Islands, far to the westward, as mercenaries to fight their battles for them against the T'linkit Indians of this region; and, while encamped here, they partook of a large number of mussels, which proved poisonous, killing some, and putting many on the sick list for that particular campaign. In some of the very contracted places the tides run with great velocity; but, by taking advantage of the proper times (which the nearness of Killisnoo on one side and Sitka on the other makes easy) and a more thorough knowledge of the few impediments, the dangers to navigation here are now about _nil_. Once through Peril Straits, we can look out on the Pacific Ocean through Salisbury Sound for a few minutes before turning southward through a series of short straits and channels "too numerous to mention;" and then, after twenty to twenty-five miles of sailing, we come to Sitka, the capital of the Territory. It is most picturesquely located at the head of Sitka Sound, through which, looking in a southwest direction, the Pacific Ocean is plainly visible. Looking in this way, its bay seems full of pretty little islets, sprinkled all over it, that are almost invisible as seen from the ocean when approaching, so densely are they covered with timber, and so exactly like the timbered hills of the mainland, against which they are thrown. The steamer, after winding its way through a tortuous channel, finally brings to at a commodious wharf, with the city before you, which is in strange contrast with the wild, rugged scenery through which the tourist has been sailing. To our left, as we pass on to the wharf, is the Indian village of the Sitkas, one of the largest among the islands of the inland passage. To our front and right stretch the white settlements of the town. At the large Indian village, which is near--or, really, part of--Sitka, there are estimated to gather fully a thousand Indians in the winter time, the summer finding them partially dispersed over a greater area to gain their sustenance. These houses are like those described as being near Wrangell. In one way they have somewhat patterned after white men, in partitioning off the ends and sides of these large rooms into sleeping apartments by canvas and cloth drapery. It is said that the most fiendish ceremonies and diabolical cruelties were practiced at their "house-warmings," so to speak. Before the white men put a stop to these ceremonies, a slave was killed, with the greatest cruelties, under each of the corner uprights; and, as a house could not have less than four of these, and sometimes had more, by its irregularities, one may contemplate the suffering with which a large village like that at Sitka has been baptized. In the town proper the Greek Church is the most conspicuous and interesting object to the tourist, and especially those who have never seen one of this religion. It is built in the form of a Greek cross, in plan, and is surmounted by an Oriental dome over the centre, which has been painted an emerald green color. One wing is used as a chapel, and contains, besides a curious font, an exquisite painting of the Virgin and Child, copied from the celebrated picture at Moscow. All the drapery is of silver, and the halo of gold; so, of the painting itself, nothing is seen but the faces and background. The chancel, which is raised above the body of the church, is approached by three broad steps leading to four doors, two of which are handsomely carved and richly gilded, and contain four oval and two square _bas reliefs_. Above is a large picture of the Last Supper, covered, like that of the Madonna, with silver, as are two others, one on each side of the altar. Across the threshold of these doors no woman may set her foot, and across the inner ones to the innermost sanctuary none but the priest himself, or his superiors in the general Greek Church, or the white Czar, can enter. The doors, however, usually stand open; and the priest in residence, Father Metropaulski, is exceedingly courteous to visitors, showing them the costly and magnificent vestments and the bishop's crown, almost covered with pearls and amethysts. The ornaments and the candelabra are all of silver, the walls are hung with portraits of princes and prelates, and the general effect is rich in the extreme. Next to the church in interest--with some visitors, probably, ranking before it--is the old Muscovite castle on the hill. Here, in days gone by, the stern Romanoff ruled this land, and Baron Wrangell, one of Russia's many celebrated Polar explorers, held sway. It is said that it has been twice destroyed, once by fire and then by an earthquake, but was again erected with such staunch belongings that it will probably stand for ages much as it is to-day. It is now used as an office for United States Government officials, and it has a ball-room and theatre, with the same old brass chandeliers and huge bronze hinges that adorned it in its glory. The whole building has a semi-deserted and melancholy appearance; but it is of exceeding interest, speaking to us as it does of a grander history, when Sitka was the metropolis of the Pacific coast of North America, and it was the centre from which such power emanated. To sentimental tourists I will relate a tradition that has been published concerning the stern old castle; and, whether it fits the truth or not, it fits the sombre surroundings of the ancient pile. It runs, that, when Baron Romanoff was governor, he had living with him an orphan niece and ward, who, like all orphan nieces in feudal castles, especially those who figure in tradition, was very beautiful. But, when the baron commanded her to marry a beautiful prince, who was a guest at the castle, she refused, having given her heart to a handsome young lieutenant of the household. The old baron, who, like the rest of his race in traditional accounts, was an accomplished diplomate, feigning an interest in the young lieutenant which he did not feel, sent him away on a short expedition, and in the mean time hurried on the preparations for the marriage of the unhappy girl to the prince. Deprived of the support of her lover's counsels and presence, she yielded to the threats of her uncle, and the ceremony was solemnized. Half an hour after the marriage, while the rejoicing and the gayety were at their height, the young lieutenant strode into the ball-room, his travel-stained dress and haggard appearance contrasting strangely with the glittering costumes and gay faces of the revelers; and, during the silence which followed his ominous appearance, he stepped up to the hapless girl, and took her hand. After gazing for a few moments on the ring the prince had placed there, he, without a word, and before any one could interfere, drew a dagger from his belt, and stabbed her to the heart. In the wild confusion that followed, he escaped from the castle; and, overcome with grief, unable to live without the one he so fondly loved, yet ruthlessly murdered, he threw himself into the sea. And now her spirit is seen on the anniversary of her wedding night, her slender form robed in heavy silk brocade, pressing her hands on the wound in her heart, the tears streaming from her eyes. Sometimes, before a severe storm, she makes her appearance in the little tower at the top of the building once used as a lighthouse. There she burns a light until dawn for the spirit of her lover at sea. [Illustration: CHANCEL OF THE GREEK CHURCH, SITKA.] Almost directly west from Sitka, about fifteen miles distant, is Mount Edgecumbe, so named by Cook, it having previously been called Mount San Jacinto by Bodega in 1775, and Mount St. Hyacinth again by La Perouse. Tchirikov, before all others, I believe, got it chronicled as Mount St. Lazarus; and it looked as if it would go through the whole calendar of the saints, and their different national changes, if it had not gotten pretty firmly rooted as Mount Edgecumbe. It is nearly 3,000 feet above the level of the sea, and looks like a peak of 5,000 feet cut off by a huge shaving plane at its present height. This truncated apex is a crater, said to be, by those who have visited it, some 2,000 feet in diameter by one-tenth as deep. In the early and middle summer time, the snow from its table-like crown has partially disappeared, and the bright red volcanic rock projects in radiating ridges from the white covering that is disappearing, making a most beautiful crest to a mountain already picturesque by its singular isolation. When in this condition, with the western setting sun directly over it, and its golden beams radiating upward, and the royal red ridges radiating downward, both thrown against their background of blue sky and water and white snow, it makes a superb picture that the brush of a Turner could hardly copy, let alone a feeble pen describe. Lieutenant C. E. S. Wood, who visited this portion of Alaska in 1877, and gave a graphic description of his travels in the _Century Magazine_ of July, 1882, gives therein the following interesting Indian legend concerning Mount Edgecumbe: "One drowsy eve we saw the peak of Edgecumbe for the last time. The great truncated cone caught the hues of the sunset, and we could note the gloom gathering deeper and deeper in the hollow of the crater. Our Indians were stolidly smoking the tobacco we had given them, and were resting after the labors of the day with bovine contentment. Tah-ah-nah-kléck related to us the T'linkit legend of Edgecumbe. "A long time ago the earth sank beneath the water, and the water rose and covered the highest places, so that no man could live. It rained so hard that it was as if the sea fell from the sky. All was black, and it became so dark, that no man knew another. Then a few people ran here and there and made a raft of cedar logs; but nothing could stand against the white waves, and the raft was broken in two. "On one part floated the ancestors of the T'linkits; on the other, the parents of all other nations. The waters tore them apart, and they never saw each other again. Now their children are all different, and do not understand each other. In the black tempest, Chethl was torn from his sister Ah-gish-áhn-ahkon [The-woman-who-supports-the-earth], Chethl [symbolized in the osprey] called aloud to her, 'You will never see me again; but you will hear my voice forever!' Then he became an enormous bird, and flew to southwest, till no eye could follow him. Ah-gish-áhn-ahkon climbed above the waters, and reached the summit of Edgecumbe. The mountain opened, and received her into the bosom of the earth. That hole [the crater] is where she went down. Ever since that time she has held the earth above the water. The earth is shaped like the back of a turtle, and rests on a pillar; Ah-gish-áhn-ahkon holds the pillar. Evil spirits that wish to destroy mankind seek to overthrow her and drive her away. The terrible battles are long and fierce in the lower darkness. Often the pillar rocks and sways in the struggle, and the earth trembles and seems like to fall; but Ah-gish-áhn-ahkon is good and strong, so the earth is safe. Chethl lives in the bird Kunna-Káht-eth; his nest is in the top of the mountain, in the hole through which his sister disappeared. "He carries whales in his claws to this eyrie, and there devours them. He swoops from his hiding-place, and rides on the edge of the coming storm. The roaring of the tempest is his voice calling to his sister. He claps his wings in the peals of thunder, and its rumbling is the rustling of his pinions. The lightning is the flashing of his eyes." Looking inland are the glacier-clad summits of the interior mountains, Vostovia predominating, where few people, even among the Indians of the country, have ever been. Taking all its surroundings, it may be well said, as has been written, that Sitka Bay rivals in scenic beauty its nearest counterpart, the far-famed Bay of Naples. Near Sitka comes in a beautiful mountain stream called the Indian river. A most picturesque road leads out to this rambling brook, and a less frequented trail winds up its valley; but, if the steamer stops long enough to warrant the tramp, no one should fail to stroll along its two or three miles of winding way, embowered in absolutely tropical foliage, so dense and deep is it. It is the only road worthy of the name in Alaska; and, if one wends his way through it, and then combines his information acquired thereby with a view of the Alpine country of this part of the Territory, he will plainly comprehend why there are no more roads than this particular one, and feel willing to give full credit to its makers. It is near the half-way point of the journey, also; and this warrants a little inshore exercise that can be had at no other stopping place so well. About ten or eleven miles south of Sitka, on the mainland, but protected seaward by a breakwater of (Necker) islands, is Hot Springs Bay, on whose shores are springs which give it its name. About six or seven years before we obtained the Territory, the Russian American Fur Company, whose headquarters were at Sitka (since Baron Wrangell established them there in 1832), built a hospital at Hot Springs, which was said to have had wonderful remedial powers in skin and rheumatic diseases; but, for some reasons, the place has been abandoned (probably the lack of government by the United States), and the buildings are reported to be in a state of decay. The Indians used the waters for illness, and thus called the attention of the Russians thereto. The temperature of the water is from 120 to 125 degrees, and it contains a number of elements held in solution, as sulphur, chlorine, manganese, sodium and iron, besides combinations of these, and with other elements. It is worth a visit to see these hot springs, with the thermometer soaring up above the hundreds; for, in a day or two, by way of strange contrast, you will be among glaciers and icebergs towering as far in feet above your head. [Illustration: ALASKA'S THOUSAND ISLANDS, AS SEEN FROM SITKA.] The only way out of Sitka harbor, without putting to sea, is back through Peril Straits again; and, passing back, one can hardly realize that it is the same waterway, so radically different are the views presented. In the harbor of Sitka is Japonskoi (Japanese) Island, which may be identified by the captain's chart of the harbor, and which has a curious history. Here, about eighty years ago, an old Japanese junk, that had drifted across the sea on the Kuro-Siwo, or Japanese current, was stranded, and the Russians kindly cared for the castaway sailors who had survived the dreadful drift, and returned them to their country, after an experience that is seldom equaled, even in the romantic accounts of maritime misfortunes. The drifting of Japanese junks, and those of adjacent countries, is not so infrequent as one would suppose, and this fact might set the reflective man to thinking as to the ethnical possibilities accruing therefrom, the settlement of North America, etc. This Kuro-Siwo, or Japanese current,--sometimes called black current, or Japanese black current, from its hue,--corresponds in many ways to the Gulf Stream of the Atlantic: like it, its waters are warmed in the equatorial regions under a vertical sun; and, like it, a great portion of these waters are carried northward in its flow, and their heat poured upon the eastern shores of its ocean, till their climate is phenomenally temperate compared with the western shores in the same parallels. Sitka is said to have, as a result of facing this current, a mean winter temperature of a point half way between Baltimore and Washington, or slightly milder than the winter temperature of Baltimore. It is said to be no unusual thing to suffer from an ice famine in Sitka. A short way inland the winters are not so temperate, more snow falling at that season, while rain characterizes the coast face; but during the summer, or excursion season, these rains are not unpleasantly frequent. I take the following from a letter from Sitka, and published in the San Francisco _Bulletin_ of January 9, 1882, before this country was really opened to excursionists, although the subject was being discussed, so much had been heard of this wonderland: "The climate, as shown by the meteorological data collected by the signal service observers, is not of such a disagreeable character as some would have us believe. The scientific data collected and tabulated for the year 1881, as shown by the records at Sitka, Chilkoot, Juneau and Killisnoo, disprove most emphatically the seemingly malicious assertions in reference to its climate. ========================================================================= |April.|May.|June.|July.|Aug. |Sept.|Oct. |Nov.| Dec. --------------------+------+----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+----+----- Mean Temperature | 42.5 |45.4|51.2 | 54.2|56.7 |54. |46.3 |41.8|34.8 Max. Temperature | 56.5 |61. |65. | 67. |79. |63.8 |57.8 |52.8|44.9 Min. Temperature | 31. |31. |41. | 43. |43.9 |40.5 |32. |22.5|14. Total rainfall, | | | | | | | | | inches | 4.21| 3.1| 1.54| 4.4| 1.98|12.11| 5.04|13.5|10.52 --------------------+------+----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+----+----- "A study of the above data, combined with an actual experience, compels the writer to admit that the summer weather of Southeastern Alaska is the most delightful that can be enjoyed throughout the length and breadth of this vast territory, and throws in the shade all the boasted claims of many, if not most, of the famous summer resorts in the 'States.' There were only two days during the long, pleasant summer, that were rendered disagreeable by that feeling of oppressiveness caused by heat. The nights were cool and pleasant; the days always warm enough for open windows, through which the invigorating breezes from the snow-capped mountains or the broad Pacific, would blow at will; the long, bright days, when the sun disappeared only for a few hours, when twilight, after sunset, seemed to mingle with the rays of early dawn; the nights beautified by the dancing beams of the _aurora borealis_, and the myriad stars that seemed as if hung on invisible threads in the deep blue firmament. * * In regard to the summer weather, I reiterate that no one could possibly choose a more delightful place in which to spend a portion of the heated term than in making a trip through this portion of the Territory." "In Alaska, in midsummer," according to a late letter, "the almost continuous light of day shines upon bright green slopes, shaded here and there with dark timber belts, rising up from the deep blue waters. An endless variety of bright-hued flowers, the hum of insects, and melodious song of birds, * * * would cause a stranger, suddenly translated there, to think himself in any country but Alaska."--_Chicago Herald, 1885._ When we are some five or six miles back on our northward way to Peril Straits, a pretty little bay, on Baronoff Island, is pointed out to us, on our starboard (by this time all the passengers are able seamen) side, called Old Harbor, or Starri-Gaven, in Russian. It was there that Baronoff built his first fort, called the Archangel Gabriel, in 1799, which, after a number of rapidly recurring vicissitudes, was annihilated, and its garrison massacred, by the Sitka Indians, three years later. Baronoff re-established his power at the present site of Sitka, calling the new place Archangel Michael,--Archangel Gabriel having failed in his duty as a protector; and from this name it was called New Archangel, which changed to Sitka with the change of flags in 1867, although American maps had dubbed it Sitka before this. Once more in Chatham Strait, with the ship's head pointed northward, we are on our way to the northernmost recesses of the inland passage, and with the greatest wonders of our wonderland ahead of us. At its northern end, Chatham Strait divides into two narrow waterways, Icy Strait leading off to the west, to the land and waters of glaciers and icebergs, while Lynn Canal continues broad Chatham to the north. Lynn Canal is a double-headed inlet, the western arm at its head being called the Chilkat Inlet, and the eastern arm the Chilkoot Inlet, after two tribes of T'linkit Indians living on these respective channels. It is a beautiful sheet of water, more Alpine in character than any yet entered. Glaciers of blue and emerald ice can be seen almost everywhere, peeping from underneath the snow-capped mountains and ranges that closely enclose this well-protected canal, and render it picturesque in the extreme. Here is the Eagle Glacier on the right, and dozens that have never been named, and a most massive one (Davison's) on our left, just as we enter Chilkat Inlet. At the head of Chilkat Inlet is Pyramid Harbor, so named after an island of pyramidal profile in its waters. It marks the highest point you will probably reach in the inland passage, unless Chilkoot Inlet is entered, which is occasionally done. [Illustration: CHILKAT BLANKET.] We are now in the land of the Chilkats, one of the most aggressive and arrogant, yet withal industrious and wealthy, Indian tribes of the T'linkits. It should be remembered that all the Alaskan Indians of the inland passage (except the Hy-dahs of Dixon Entrance) are bound together by a common language, called the T'linkit; but having so little else in sympathy that the sub-tribes often war against each other, these sub-tribes having separate chiefs, medicine men and countries, in fact, and being known by different names. We have already spoken of the Stickeens, Kootznahoos, Sitkas, etc.; and by these names they are known among the whites of this portion of the Territory, the title T'linkit being seldom heard. At the salmon cannery, on the west shore, a small but recently built village of Chilkats is clustered; but, to see them in "all their glory," the Chilkat river should be ascended to their principal village of Klukwan. Of this country,--the Chilkat and Chilkoot,--Mrs. Eugene S. Willard, the wife of the missionary presiding at Haines Mission, in Chilkoot Inlet, and who has resided here a number of years, writes in the _Century Magazine_, of October, 1885: "From Portage Bay (of Chilkoot Inlet) west to the Chilkat river and southward to the point, lies the largest tract of arable land, so far as my knowledge goes, in Southeastern Alaska, while the climate does not differ greatly from that of Pennsylvania * * * Here summer reaches perfection, never sultry, rarely chilling. * * * In May the world and the sun wake up together. In his new zeal, we find old Sol up before us at 2:15 A. M., and he urges us on until 9:45 at night. Even then the light is only turned down; for the darkest hour is like early summer twilight, not too dark for reading. "From our front door to the pebbly beach below, the wild sweet pea runs rampant; while under and in and through it spring the luxuriant phlox, Indian rice, the white-blossomed 'yun-ate,' and wild roses which make redolent every breath from the bay. Passing out the back door, a few steps lead us into the dense pine woods, whose solitudes are peopled with great bears, and owls, and--T'linkit ghosts! while eagles and ravens soar without number. On one tree alone we counted thirty bald eagles. These trees are heavily draped with moss, hanging in rich festoons from every limb; and into the rich carpeting underneath, one's foot may sink for inches. Here the ferns reach mammoth size, though many of fairy daintiness are found among the moss; and the devil's walking stick stands in royal beauty at every turn, with its broad, graceful leaves, and waxen, red berries. "Out again into the sunshine, and we discover meadows of grass and clover, through which run bright little streams, grown over with willows, just as at home. And here and there are clumps of trees, so like the peach and apple, that a lump comes into your throat. But you lift your eyes, and there beyond is the broad shining of the river, and above it the ever-present, dream-dispelling peaks of snow, with their blue ice sliding down and down. * * "The Chilkat people long ago gained for themselves the reputation of being the most fierce and warlike tribe in the Archipelago. Certain it is, that, between themselves and southern Hy-dah, there is not another which can compare with them in strength, either as to numbers, intelligence, physical perfection, or wealth. * * * The children always belong to their mother, and are of her to-tem. This to-temic relation is considered closer than that of blood. If the father's and mother's tribes be at war, the children must take the maternal side, even if against their father. * * * In very rare cases a woman has two husbands; oftener we find a man with two wives, even three; but more frequently met than either is the consecutive wife. "The Chilkats are comparatively an industrious people. On the mainland we have none of the deer which so densely populate the islands, owing, it is said, to the presence of bears and wolves; but we have the white mountain goat, which, while it is lamb, is delicious meat. From its black horns the finest carved spoons are made, and its pelt, when washed and combed, forms a necessary part of the Indian's bedding and household furniture. The combings are made by the women into rolls similar to those made by machinery at home. Then, with a great basket of these white rolls on one side, and a basket on the other to receive the yarn, a woman sits on the floor, and, on her bared knee, with her palm, rolls it into cord. This they dye in most brilliant colors made of roots, grasses and moss, and of different kinds of bark. [Illustration: T'LINKET WAR CANOE.] "It is of this yarn that the famous Chilkat dancing-blanket is made. This is done by the women with great nicety and care. The warp, all white, is hung from a handsomely carved upright frame. Into it the bright colors are wrought by means of ivory shuttles. The work is protected during the tedious course of its manufacture by a covering resembling oiled silk, made from the dressed intestines of the bear. Bright striped stockings of this yarn are also knitted on little needles whittled from wood." An illustration of a dancing-blanket is given on page 81. These are made by several of the T'linkit tribes; but the Chilkats so predominate in the manufacture, both in numbers and excellence, that you seldom hear them mentioned in Alaska, except as Chilkat blankets. Nearly all of the T'linkit tribes, as the tourist will have seen by this time, spend most of their out-of-door time in the water, in their canoes; and this constant semi-aquatic life has told on their physical development to the extent of giving them very dwarfed and illy developed lower limbs, although the trunk and arms are well developed. When walking, they seem to shamble along more like an aquatic fowl on land than a human being. The Chilkats are noticeable exceptions. Although their country is much more mountainous in appearance than others lower down, yet here are some of the most accessible of the few mountain passes by which the interior, a rich fur-bearing district, can be gained. The Chilkats have yearly taken trading goods from the white men, lashed them into packs of about a hundred pounds, and carried them on their backs through these glacier-clad passes, and traded them for furs, bringing them out in the same way. They monopolized the trade by the simple process of prohibiting the interior Indians from coming to the sea-coast to trade. The Chilkats therefore are probably the richest tribe of Indians in the Northwest, the chief having two houses full of blankets, their standard of value, at the village of Kluk-wan. To those who find their greatest pleasure in a rough, out-of-door life, let them leave the steamer at this point, hire three or four Indians to carry their company effects on their backs, and make an Alpine journey to the head of the Yukon river, where lakes aggregating 150 miles in length can be passed over in a canoe. The route leads up the Dayay river, over the Perrier Pass in the Kotusk Mountains. The trip could be made between visiting steamers, and I will guarantee the persons will come back with more muscle than they took in. Bidding good-bye to the picturesque country of the Chilkats, the steamer's head is turned south again; and, when just about ready to leave Lynn Canal, we entered an intricate series of channels bearing eastward, and which bring us to the great mining town of Juneau, where many Alaskan hopes are centred. This is what a correspondent of the Chicago _Times_, under date of February 23, 1885, says of this Alaskan town and its curious history: "The centre from which radiates whatever of excitement and interest there is in Alaskan mines is Douglas Island. The history of the discovery of ore near this island, which eventually led to the location of the present much-talked-of property, is similar to that attending the finding of most of the large mines in the West. It seems that some half-dozen years ago two needy and seedy prospectors named Juneau and Harris arrived at an Indian village that still remains visible on the shore across the bay from Douglas Island, in search of ore. They prospected the country as thoroughly as they could, with but little success, and were about to return home when an Indian said that he knew where gold existed, and that he would reveal the place for a certain sum of money. Hardly believing, but yet curious, Harris and Juneau accepted the offer, and, with their guide, set out on a pilgrimage into the interior to a spot now known as 'The Basin.' After a long tramp through the forests, and up a deep valley, the Indian showed them a place where there were nuggets of free gold and dirt, which, when panned, yielded a handsome return. Claims were immediately staked out, and the adventurers began their work in earnest. Later, the fact of the discovery became known, and other miners entered the valley, and the region gained no little celebrity, and became the scene of much animation. Four years the work progressed, and a town, which to-day is of respectable size and great expectations, was founded, and christened Juneau. "The Douglas Island mine is located within fifty yards of the waters of Juneau Bay, and was discovered by a man named Treadwell, who sold his claim a year or two ago to a San Francisco company. The new owners set up a fine stamp-mill to begin with, and made thorough tests of the ore. It is a 120-stamp mill, the largest in the world, and the company has refused, it is said, $16,000,000 for the mine." [Illustration: T'LINKET CARVED SPOONS. (Made from the Horns of Mountain Goats.)] Since the above was written, and as late as last August, reports from there gave the astonishing showing of enough ore in sight to keep the 120-stamp mill "running for a lifetime." The uninitiated in mining mills, ledges and lodes, may grasp the value of the mine by saying its output for a twenty-days run of the stamp-mill was $100,000 in gold, or at the rate of $1,800,000 per year; which, estimating its value on an income of five per cent. annually, would make the mine worth $36,000,000, or just five times the amount we paid for the whole Territory. There is no doubt whatever in the minds of many experts, that there are a number of such places as the Treadwell mine yet to be found, the great difficulty of prospecting in the dense, deep mass of fallen timber covered with wet moss and thick underbrush on the steepest mountain sides, coupled with the little probability of the Treadwell being an isolated case in such a uniformly Alpine country, amply justifying them in coming to such conclusions. A visit to the mines is one the tourists can readily make. At Juneau we find the Takoo band of T'linkits in a village near by, where nearly all that has been said regarding Alaskan Indians may be here repeated. The very curious spoons they carve from the horns of the mountain goat, which are figured on page 85, and beautifully woven mats, and the baskets shown on page 68, may be purchased; and, in leaving a few pieces of silver among them for their own handiwork, little as it is that we have thus done for them, it is far more than the extremists of either side in the Indian question have done, those who would exterminate, or those who would sentimentalize in print over their wrongs. Bidding the mining metropolis of Alaska farewell, our bowsprit is once more pointed for the Pacific Sea; but, before we reach it, or get quite to it, we turn northward and enter Glacier Bay, its name signifying its main attractions. Glaciers, which are great rivers or sheets of ice made from compacted snows, are functions as much of altitude as of high latitude; and both unite here, with an air charged with moisture from the warm Pacific waters, to make the grand glaciers which are to be seen in this bay. In the immediate vicinity are the Mount St. Elias Alps, a snowy range which culminates in the well-known peak from which it derives its name; and, radiating from their flanks, come down these rivers of ice, reaching the sea-level in the greatest perfection in Glacier Bay, the largest one of the grand group being the Muir Glacier, after Professor John Muir, the scientist, of California, who is said to be the first to discover it. I will give the language of the man who claims to be the second to arrive upon the scene, and who gives his account in the St. Louis _Globe-Democrat_, writing from Glacier Bay, July 14, 1883: "When Dick Willoughby told of the great glacier, thirty miles up the bay, the thud of whose falling ice could be heard and felt at his house, the captain of the 'Idaho' said he would go there, and took this Dick Willoughby along to find the place and prove the tale. Away we went coursing up Glacier Bay, a fleet of 112 little icebergs gayly sailing out to meet us as we left our anchorage the next morning. Entering into these unknown and unsurveyed waters, the lead was cast through miles of bottomless channels; and, when the pilot neared a green and mountainous little island, he made me an unconditional present of the domain, and duly entered its bearings on the ship's log. For a summer resort my island possesses unusual advantages, and I hereby invite all suffering and perspiring St. Louis to come to that emerald spot in latitude 58 degrees 29 minutes north, and longitude 135 degrees 52 minutes west from Greenwich, and enjoy the July temperature of 42 degrees, the whale fishing, the duck hunting, and a sight of the grandest glacier in the world. "But one white man had ever visited the glacier before us, and he was the irrepressible geologist and scientist, John Muir, who started out in an Indian canoe, with a few blankets and some hard-tack, and spent days scrambling over the icy wastes. Feeling our way along carefully, we cast anchor beside a grounded iceberg, and the photographers were rowed off to a small island to take the view of the ship in the midst of that arctic scenery. Mount Crillon showed his hoary head to us in glimpses between the clouds; and then, rounding Willoughby Island, which the owner declares is solid marble of a quality to rival that of Pentelicus and Carrara, we saw the full front of the great Muir Glacier, where it dips down and breaks into the sea. At the first breathless glance at that glorious ice-world, all fancies and dreams were surpassed: the marvelous beauty of those shining, silvery pinnacles and spires, the deep blue buttresses, the arches and aisles of that fretted front, struck one with awe. In all Switzerland there is nothing comparable to these Alaskan glaciers, where the frozen wastes rise straight from the sea, and a steamer can go up within an eighth of a mile, and cruise beside them. Add to the picture of high mountains and snowy glaciers a sapphire bay scattered over with glittering little icebergs, and nature can supply nothing more to stir one's soul, to rouse the fancy and imagination, and enchant the senses. The vastness of this Muir Glacier is enough alone to overpower one with a sense of the might and strength of these forces of nature. Dry figures can give one little idea of the great, desolate stretches of gray ice and snow that slope out of sight behind the jutting mountains, and the tumbled and broken front forced down to and into the sea. Although not half of the glacier has been explored, it is said to extend back 40 miles. "What we could know accurately was, that the front of the glacier was two miles across, and that the ice-wall rose 500 and 1,000 feet from the water. The lead cast at the point nearest to the icy front gave eighty fathoms, or 240 feet, of water; and, in the midst of those deep soundings, icebergs filled with boulders lay grounded with forty feet of their summits visible above water. At very low tide, there is a continual crash of falling ice; and, for the half-day we spent beside this glacier, there was a roar as of artillery every few minutes, when tons of ice would go thundering down into the water. After the prosaic matter of lunch had been settled, and we had watched the practical-minded steward order his men down on the iceberg to cut off a week's supply with their axes, we embarked in the life-boats, and landed in a ravine beside the glacier. * * * We wandered at will over the seamed and ragged surface, the ice cracked under our feet with a pleasant midwinter sound, and the wind blew keenly from over those hundreds of miles of glacier fields; but there were the gurgle and hollow roar of the water heard in every deep crevasse, and trickling streams spread a silver network in the sunshine. Reluctantly we obeyed the steamer's whistle, and started back to the boats. "A magnificent sunset flooded the sky that night, and filled every icy ravine with rose and orange lights. At the last view of the glacier, as we steamed away from it, the whole brow was glorified and transfigured with the fires of sunset; the blue and silvery pinnacles, the white and shining front floating dreamlike on a roseate and amber sea, and the range and circle of dull violet mountains lighting their glowing summits into a sky flecked with crimson and gold." Since the above was written, in July, 1883, Glacier Bay has been one of the constant visiting points of the excursion steamer, and the experience of two or three years has shown the company how to exhibit this great panorama of nature to its patrons to the best advantage, and one will now be astonished at the ease with which the whole field may be surveyed in this the most wonderful bay on a line of steamboat travel. Our same correspondent speaks of an unknown passage down which they traveled in a way that will delight the heart of a Nimrod; but he should have added that almost half the inland passage is of that character so far as the general world is wiser concerning it, and half of this, again, may be wholly unknown, offering one of the finest fields for short explorations without any of the dangers and difficulties which so often beset greater undertakings, and rob them of all pleasure while they are being prosecuted, and only compensating the explorer in the results attained. Here is what he has to say: "For the twenty miles that we had come down the beautiful inlet, the coast survey charts showed an unbroken stretch of dry land. To the sportsman that unknown inlet is the dreamed-of paradise. When we went out in the small boats, salmon and flounders could be seen darting in schools through the water; and, as we approached the mouth of a creek, the freshening current was alive with the fish. The stewards who went to the shore with the tank-boats for fresh water, startled seven deer as they pushed their way to the foot of a cascade, and the young men caught thirteen great salmon with their own inexperienced spearing. The captain of the ship took his rifle, and was rowed away to shallow waters, where he shot a salmon, waded in, and threw it ashore. While wandering along after some huge bear tracks, he saw an eagle at work on his salmon, and another fine shot laid the bird of freedom low. When the captain returned to the ship he threw the eagle and salmon on deck, and, at the size of the former, every one marveled. The outspread wings measured the traditional six feet from tip to tip, and the beak, the claws, and the huge, stiff feathers were rapidly seized upon as trophies and souvenirs of the day. A broad double rainbow arched over us as we left the lovely niche between the mountains, and then we swept back to Icy Straits, and started out to the open ocean." But we will not confine ourselves to the description of one person in considering this the most fascinating and curious scene presented to the Alaskan tourists. Grand, even to the extent of being almost appalling, as are the Alaskan fjords, they are but the Yosemite or Colorado Parks, with navigable valleys, as they would appear greatly enlarged; much as we are awestruck at the feet of Mount St. Elias, it is but Tacoma or Shasta in grander proportions, and so on through the list of scenes we view: but in the glaciers we have no counterpart that can be viewed from a steamer's deck, unless the polar zones themselves be invaded; and here, in fact, we view the grandest sight to be seen in that dreary zone, without any of its many dangers. Says Professor Denman, of San Francisco, who has devoted much of his attention to glaciers, and especially these of Alaska, compared with which he pronounces those to be seen in Switzerland and other parts of Europe to be "babies:" "Muir Glacier is a spectacle whose grandeur can not be described,--a vast frozen river of ice, ever slowly moving to the sea, and piling the enormous masses higher between the mountain banks, until their summit towers hundreds of feet in the air. Where the point of the glacier pushes out into and overhangs the water, vast fragments breaking apart every few moments of their own weight, and falling with a thundering crash into the sea, to float away as enormous icebergs, it affords a spectacle which can only be understood and appreciated by one who beholds it with his own eyes. From the summit of Muir Glacier no less than twenty-nine others are to be seen in various directions, all grinding and crowding their huge masses toward the sea, a sight which must certainly be one which few other scenes can equal." [Illustration: SCENES AMONG THE ALASKAN GLACIERS. (From Photographs.) No. 1 (Top). A Near View of the Terminal Front of the Muir Glacier. No. 2. Looking Seaward from the Surface of the Glacier. No 3. The Excursion Steamer at the Front of the Glacier. No. 4 (Bottom). On the Great Frozen Sea; a Near View of the Surface of the Glacier.] Says a writer, Mr. Edward Roberts, in the _Overland Monthly_: "I do not know how wide, nor how long, nor how deep Glacier Bay is. One does not think of figures and facts when sailing over its waters and enjoying the novel features. Flood Switzerland, and sail up some of its cañons toward Mont Blanc, and you will have there another Glacier Bay. But until the sea-waves wash the feet of that Swiss peak, and until one can sail past the glaciers of that country, there will never be found a companion bay to this of Alaska. Norway, with all its ruggedness, has nothing to equal it; and there is not a mountain in all the ranges of the Rockies which has the majestic gracefulness of Fairweather Peak, which looks down upon the bay. "Imagine the view we had as we turned out of Lynn Canal and moved into the ice-strewn waters of the strange place. Above hung the sun, warm and clear, and lighting up the wide waste of waters till they glistened like flashing brilliants. Away to the left and right ran sombre forests, and long stretches of yellow-colored stone, and rocky cliffs that now ran out into the bay, and, again, rose high and straight from out it. No villages were in sight; no canoes dotted the waters; but all was desolate, neglected, still; and cakes of ice, white in the distance and highly colored nearer to, floated about our ship. And there, in the northwest, rising so high above the intervening hills that all its pinnacles, all its gorges, and its deep ravines of moving ice were visible, was Fairweather, loftiest, whitest, most delicately moulded peak of all the snowy crests in this north land. From a central spur, topping all its fellows, lesser heights helped form a range which stretched for miles across the country, and on whose massive shoulders lay a mantle of such pure whiteness that the sky above was bluer still by contrast, and the forests grew doubly dark and drear. All through the afternoon we sailed toward the glorious beacon, while the air grew colder every hour, and the ice cakes, hundreds of tons in weight, grew more numerous as the daylight began to wane. The glaciers of Glacier Bay are the largest in Alaska. Formed among the highest crags of the Fairweather range, they gradually deepen and widen as they near the sea, and end, at last, in massive cliffs of solid ice, often measuring three hundred feet high, and having a width of several miles. The surface of the glaciers is rough and billowy, resembling the waves of a troubled sea frozen into solid blocks of ice at the moment of their wildest gambols. Constantly pressed forward by the heavy blocks that gradually slide down the mountain ravines, the great frozen river keeps pressing seaward, until the action of the waves crumbles away gigantic cakes, that fall into the waters with a noise like the booming of cannon, and with a force that sends columns of water high into the air. The scene was one of arctic splendor,--white, ghostly and cheerless; while the light was that so often described by visitors to the polar sea,--uncertain, bluish, and strongly resembling a November twilight in New England, when the sky is overcast, the trees are bare, and the clouds are full of snow. Gaining at last a point barely three hundred yards from the glacier, the ship was stopped short. Before us rose the towers and solid walls, forming an embankment higher than our mast-head, and towering upward in dense masses against the leaden sky. Taken to Switzerland, the glacier of Alaska would cover that country three times over; for the frozen rivers of our largest purchase are not only fifty miles in length and three in width, but often twice that distance long and ten times that distance wide." Lieutenant Wood, whom we have quoted before, in speaking of the T'linkit Indians in the ice, says: "I noticed that, when journeying through the floating ice in good weather, our Indians would carefully avoid striking pieces of ice, lest they should offend the Ice Spirit. But, when the Ice Spirit beset us with peril, they did not hesitate to retaliate by banging his subjects. After picking our way through the ice for three days, we came upon a small, temporary camp of Hoonahs, who were seal hunting. We found little camps of a family or two scattered along both shores. One of the largest glaciers from Fairweather comes into the bay, and thus keeps its waters filled with the largest icebergs, even in the summer season, for which reason the bay is a favorite place for seal hunting. The seal is the native's meat, drink (the oil is like melted butter) and clothing. I went seal hunting to learn the art, which requires care and patience. The hunter, whether on an ice floe or in a canoe, never moves when the seal is aroused. When the animal is asleep, or has dived, the hunter darts forward. The spear has a barbed, detachable head, fastened to the shaft by a plaited line made from sinew. The line has attached to it a marking buoy, which is merely an inflated seal's bladder. The young seals are the victims of the T'linkit boys, who kill them with bow and arrow. These seal hunters used a little moss and seal oil and some driftwood for fuel. * * * After about forty miles' travel, we came to a small village of Asónques. They received us with great hospitality, and, as our canoe had been too small to carry any shelter, the head man gave me a bed in his own cabin. He had a great many wives, who busied themselves making me comfortable. The buckskin re-enforcement of my riding trousers excited childish wonder. I drew pictures of horses and men separate, and then of men mounted on horses. Their astonishment over the wonderful animal was greater than their delight at comprehending the utility of the trousers. The Alaskan women are childish and pleasant, yet quick-witted, and capable of heartless vindictiveness. Their authority in all matters is unquestioned. No bargain is made, no expedition set on foot, without first consulting the women. Their veto is never disregarded. I bought a silver-fox skin from Tsatate; but his wife made him return the articles of trade and recover the skin. In the same way I was perpetually being annoyed by having to undo bargains because his wife said '_clekh_;' that is, 'no.' I hired a fellow to take me about thirty miles in his canoe, when my own crew was tired. He agreed. I paid him the tobacco, and we were about to start, when his wife came to the beach and stopped him. He quietly unloaded the canoe and handed me back the tobacco. The whole people are curious in the matter of trade. I was never sure that I had done with a bargain; for they claimed and exercised the right to undo a contract at any time, provided they could return the consideration received. This is their code among themselves. For example: I met, at the mouth of the Chilkat, a native trader who had been to Fort Simpson, about six hundred miles away, and, failing to get as much as he gave in the interior of Alaska for the skins, was now returning to the interior to find the first vender, and revoke the whole transaction. "From the Asónque village I went, with a party of mountain goat hunters, up into the Mount St. Elias Alps back of Mount Fairweather,--that is, to the northeast of that mountain. For this trip our party made elaborate preparations. We donned belted shirts made of squirrel skins, fur head-dresses (generally conical), sealskin bootees, fitting very closely, and laced half way to the knee. We carried spears for alpenstocks, bows and arrows, raw-hide ropes, and one or two old Hudson Bay rifles. Ptarmigan were seen on the lower levels where the ground was bare. The goats kept well up toward the summit, amid the snow fields, and fed on the grass which sprouted along the edges of melting drifts. The animal is like a large, white goat, with long, coarse hair and a heavy coat of silky underfleece. We found a bear that, so far as I know, is peculiar to this country. It is of a beautiful bluish under-color, with the tips of the long hairs silvery white. The traders call it 'St. Elias silver bear.' The skins are not uncommon." This little mountain trip of Lieutenant Wood's is especially spread before the attention of those who find in this form of exercise their best recreation from their regular duties. But, however much the tourists may want to dwell amidst the curious and marvelous scenes of Glacier Bay (and so great has been this demand that it is contemplated building a summer resort near by, that passengers may remain over one steamer), yet a time must come when we will have to bid good-bye to this polar part of our wonderland, and pass on to the next grand panorama in view. Southeastward out of Glacier Bay into Icy Straits, and we turn southwestward into Cross Sound, headed for the Pacific Ocean, and for the first time enter its limitless waters. Cross Sound was named by Vancouver, in 1778, in honor of the day on which it was discovered, and is about fifty-five miles long. It corresponds on the north to the Strait of Juan de Fuca on the south, these two waterways being the limiting channels north and south of the inland passage as it connects with the Pacific Ocean. As the Puget Sound projects much farther to the south from Fuca Strait into the mainland, hemmed in by snowy peaks, so Lynn Canal, "the Puget Sound of the North," continues the Sound of the Holy Cross far to the northward, embayed by glaciers, icebergs, and fields of snow. Recently, a trip out of Cross Sound, and northwestward about two hundred miles along the Pacific coast, has been occasionally added to the scenes of the inland passage, the new views presented being the Mount St. Elias Alps, directly facing the Pacific, for the distance noted, and containing within those limits the greatest number of high and imposing peaks to be found in any range in the world. The inland passage (by the use of Peril Straits to Sitka) became so perfect a river-like journey, absolutely free from sea-sickness, that no one felt like breaking this delightful trip by a sea journey, in any of its parts, however tempting the display might be. A trip or two, however, soon convinced the company that the mildness of the sea during the excursion season would warrant them in taking it as a part of the journey; and since, as I have said, it is taken occasionally, I think a short description of it would be appropriate here. Should the hotel in Glacier Bay, or near vicinity, be completed soon, it would be a good stopping-point for those who are sure to feel sea-sick with the least motion of the waves; while, to all others, the chances for good weather on the Fairweather Grounds, as they are not inappropriately termed, are very good, and, conjoined with the grand mountain scenery, should not be missed. Rounding Cape Spencer (_Punta de Villaluenga_ of old Spanish charts), the northern point of the Pacific entrance to Cross Sound, the journey out to sea is commenced; a view about ten to fifteen miles off shore being the best, or on what is known to the fishermen who here used to pursue the right whale, "the Fairweather Grounds," being so named, it is said, from Fairweather peak being in sight of most of it; and this, again, was named by the indomitable Cook, in 1778, as a monument to the fair weather he had cruising in sight of the grand old chain, a name which most tourists may congratulate themselves is well bestowed. Almost as soon as Cape Spencer is doubled, the southern spurs of the Mount St. Elias Alps burst into view, Crillon and Fairweather being prominent, and the latter easily recognized from our acquaintance with it from the waters of Glacier Bay. A trip of an hour or two takes us along a comparatively uninteresting coast, as viewed from "square off our starboard beam;" but all this time the mind is fixed by the grand Alpine views we have ahead of us that are slowly developing in plainer outline here and there as we speed toward them. Soon we are abreast of Icy Point: while, just beyond it, comes down a glacier to the ocean that gives about three miles of solid sea-wall of ice, while its source is lost in the heights covering the bases of the snowy peaks just behind. The high peak to the right, as we steam by the glacier front, is Mount La Perouse, named for one of the most daring of France's long list of explorers, and who lost his life in the interest of geographical science. His eyes rested on this range of Alpine peaks in 1786, just a century ago. Its highest point reaches well above 10,000 feet, and its sides are furrowed with glaciers, one of which is the ice-wall before our eyes, and which is generally known as the La Perouse Glacier. The highest peak of all, and on the left of this noble range, is Mount Crillon, named by La Perouse, in 1786, after the French Minister of the Marine; while between Crillon and La Perouse is Mount D'Agelet, the astronomer of that celebrated expedition. Crillon cleaves the air for 16,000 feet above the sea on which we rest, and can be seen for over a hundred miles to sea. It, too, is surrounded with glaciers, in all directions from its crown. Crillon and La Perouse are about seven miles apart, nearly north and south of each other. About fifteen miles northwest from Crillon is Lituya Peak, 10,000 feet high; and the little bay opening that we pass, between the two, is the entrance to Lituya Bay, a sheet of water which La Perouse has pronounced as one of the most extraordinary in the world for grand scenery, with its glaciers and Alpine shores. Our steamer will not enter, however; for the passage is dangerous to even small boats,--one island bearing a monument to the officers and men of La Perouse's expedition, lost in the tidal wave which sweeps through the contracted passage like a breaker over a treacherous bar. Some ten or twelve miles northwest from Lituya Peak is Mount Fairweather, which bears abreast us after a little over an hour's run from Lituya Bay. It was named by Cook in 1778, and is generally considered to be a few hundred feet shorter than Mount Crillon. It is in every way, by its peculiar isolation from near ridges almost as high as itself, a much grander peak than Crillon, whose surroundings are not so good for a fine Alpine display. Fairweather, too, has its frozen rivers flowing down its sides; but none of them reach the sea, for a low, wooded country, some three or four miles in width, lies like a glacis at the seaward side of the St. Elias Alps, for a short distance along this part of the coast. The sombre, deep green forests add an impressive feature to the scene, however, lying between the dancing waves below and the white and blue glacier ice above. Rounding Cape Fairweather, the coast trends northward; and, as our bowsprit is pointed in the same direction, directly before us are seen immense glaciers reaching to the sea. From Cape Fairweather (abreast of Mount Fairweather) to Yakutat Bay (abreast of Mount Vancouver), no conspicuous peak rears its head above the grand mountain chain which for nearly a hundred miles lies between these two Alpine bastions; but nevertheless every hour reveals a new mountain of 5,000 to 8,000 feet in height, which, if placed anywhere else, would be held up with national or State pride as a grand acquisition. Here they are only dwarfed by grander peaks. The glacier which we are approaching from Cape Fairweather was named, by La Perouse, _La Grande Plateau_. It is a very low lying glacier, its grade as it fades away inland being very slight, more like a frozen river than the precipitous masses of ice which we have been used to seeing. Little is known of it, beyond the seaward aspect; but it is probably the largest glacier in Alaska, and the largest in the world, south of the polar regions themselves. Wherever these glaciers reach the sea, or connect with it by draining rivers,--and all large glaciers, at least, do this,--there is seen a milky sediment floating in the water, which these "mills of the gods" grind from the mountain flanks in their slow but rasping course down their sides. Wherever they find calcareous strata to abrade, the water is almost milklike in hue for miles around. The glacier of the Grand Plateau is the last one facing the Pacific itself, as we move northward; but, where little bays cut back through the flat lands at the foot of the range, they may reach the glaciers which exist everywhere on the mountain sides. Off the Bay of Yakutat,--a name given it by the resident T'linkit tribes,--we have our best view of imperial St. Elias, the crowning peak of this noble range, and the highest mountain in all North America,--nearly 20,000 feet above the sea-level, and all of this vast height seemingly springing from the very sea itself. No good picture has ever been given of it, and no words have ever fully described it. All of the superlatives of our language have clothed so many lesser peaks that they fall flat and mentally tasteless in the presence of this Alpine Titan, rearing his crest among the clouds as if defying description. This want of words has been felt by so many who have visited the grand scenery of Alaska, who saw that, in illustrating a fjord here or a glacier there, they have but duplicated the word-painting of some other writer describing a puny antagonist, compared with their subject, that I will give it in the words of one who expresses the idea more closely than I. It is from the pen of a correspondent in the Kansas City _Journal_, under date of September 14, 1885. "The difficult thing for the tourist to do in regard to Alaska is to describe what is seen for the general reader. Everything is on such an immense and massive scale that words are diminutives for expression, rather than--as travelers have been credited with using them--for exaggerated descriptions. For example, people cross the continent to sail for an hour or two among the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence, and word-painting has been exhausted in exaltation of their beauties. But here is a thousand miles of islands, ranging in size from an acre to the proportions of a State, covered with evergreen forests of tropical luxuriance, yet so arctic in their character as to be new to the eye, and in regard to which botanical nomenclature but confuses and dissatisfies. And in all this vast extent of mountain scenery, with summits ranging from one thousand to fifteen thousand feet in height, there is not enough level land visible to aggregate one prairie county in Western Missouri or Kansas. Day after day there is a continuous and unbroken chain of mountain scenery. I can not better impress the character of the landscape, as seen from a vessel's deck, than to ask the reader to imagine the parks, valleys, cañons, gorges and depressions of the Rocky Mountains to be filled with water to the base of the snowy range, and then take a sail through them from Santa Fé to the northern line of Montana. Just about what could be seen on such an imaginary voyage is actually passed through in the sail now completed by our party of enthusiastic tourists for the past ten days. You may divide the scenery into parts by the days, and just as it was successively passed through, and any one of the subdivisions will furnish more grand combination of mountain and sea than can be seen anywhere on the globe. It is this vast profusion of scenery, this daily and hourly unrolling of the panorama, that overwhelms and confuses the observer. It is too great to be separated into details, and everything is platted on such a gigantic scale that all former experiences are dwarfed, and the imagination rejects the adjectives that have heretofore served for other scenes: to employ them here is only to mislead." "As one gentleman, a veteran traveler, remarked to me, as we stood looking north at the entrance to Glacier Bay, with the St. Elias Alps in full view, and Mounts Crillon and Fairweather overtopping the snow-covered peaks of that remarkable range: "'You can take just what we see here, and put it down on Switzerland, and it will hide all there is of mountain scenery in Europe.' And then he added: 'I have been all over the world; but you are now looking at a scene that has not its parallel elsewhere on the globe.' "I cite this incident, as it is more descriptive, and gives a better idea of contrast than anything of my own could do, giving, as it does, to the reader, a conception of the vastness and immensity of the topographical aspect of the shores of the inland seas through whose labyrinthine passages we have for ten days past, and for ten days more to come will be lost to the outside world, where nature reigns undisturbed and unfretted by the hand of civilization." Here, under the solemn influence of Mount St. Elias, and in the northernmost waters of the greatest ocean of our planet, we turn southward to repeat in inverse order the things we have seen; or perchance, as often happens, down a number of new channels, with their varied scenery, before home is reached again. I have given a certain order in which the few ports of Alaska are visited; but the reader must not for a moment think that this is always rigidly followed. Sometimes some of them are left for the return journey, and much depends on the amount of freight, and the number and character of passengers. In the winter the trips are made wholly with reference to mails, freight, and the few passengers; but in the spring, summer, and fall these are wholly subordinate, and the trips are converted into excursions in the broadest sense of the word. While thousands of little channels remain almost wholly unexplored, which probably would make the fortune of excursion companies if transported elsewhere, yet it is evident that the greater attractions of the great inland passage have been discovered, and are now shown to the tourists to the Wonderland of the World. FRED'K SCHWATKA. * * * * * The table below lists all corrections applied to the original text. p 5: Glaciers of Alaska -> shift after Glacier Bay p 9: rock bass, mascalonge -> maskalonge p 34: Bull river -> Bull River p 39: it below, or vice versâ -> versa P 46: and the great light-house -> lighthouse p 72: SITKA, ALASKA. -> period added p 85: running for a life-time -> lifetime p 87: with a pleasant mid-winter -> midwinter 
15188	----	Proofreading Team. [Illustration: FILLED WITH MAD RAGE, HE WAS GALLOPING STRAIGHT TOWARD THEM!--_Frontispiece_.--_Page 66_] THE OUTDOOR CHUMS AFTER BIG GAME OR Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness BY CAPTAIN QUINCY ALLEN AUTHOR OF "THE OUTDOOR CHUMS," "THE OUTDOOR CHUMS ON THE LAKE," ETC. _ILLUSTRATED_ NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS THE OUTDOOR CHUMS SERIES BY CAPTAIN QUINCY ALLEN THE OUTDOOR CHUMS Or The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club THE OUTDOOR CHUMS ON THE LAKE Or Lively Adventures on Wildcat Island THE OUTDOOR CHUMS IN THE FOREST Or Laying the Ghost of Oak Ridge THE OUTDOOR CHUMS ON THE GULF Or Rescuing the Lost Balloonists THE OUTDOOR CHUMS AFTER BIG GAME Or Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness _12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Price, per volume, 50 cents postpaid._ GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS NEW YORK COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY GROSSET & DUNLAP _The Outdoor Chums After Big Game_ CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I GLORIOUS NEWS 1 II THE MOTORCYCLE THIEVES 14 III HOMEWARD BOUND BY MOONLIGHT 22 IV STARTING HANK RIGHT 31 V WESTWARD BOUND 40 VI AT THE VALLEY RANCH 49 VII THE GRIZZLY AT BAY 60 VIII BLUFF MISSES SOMETHING 67 IX FRANK HAS HIS TURN 76 X THE YOUNG HUNTER AND THE ELK 87 XI THE ELK AND THE YOUNG HUNTER 96 XII HARD LUCK 105 XIII AN INVADER IN CAMP 116 XIV THE COWBOY GUIDE 125 XV IN THE RAPIDS 134 XVI THE NEW CAMP 143 XVII AT THE CAMPFIRE OF THE CREES 153 XVIII AN INVITATION TO COME OUT 162 XIX A STRANGE DISCLOSURE 173 XX "WE MUST CUT AND RUN FOR IT!" 182 XXI NEVER GIVE UP 191 XXII THE WAR OF THE ELEMENTS 198 XXIII THE STAMPEDE 206 XXIV A MYSTERY SOLVED 215 XXV HOME AGAIN--CONCLUSION 225 THE OUTDOOR CHUMS AFTER BIG GAME CHAPTER I GLORIOUS NEWS "Hello, there, _Red Rover_! Come alongside!" "What's the row, fellows? This dandy breeze is too good to be wasted loafing." "Frank's coming in the _Jupiter_, and coming like a streak!" "Yes, and more than that, Bluff, he waves his hat as though he had great news!" Will Milton and Jerry Wallington sat in the double canoe, that with flapping sails pointed its stem into the wind; while their chum, Richard Masters, known among all his schoolmates as Bluff, manipulated the dainty fifteen-foot cedar craft in which he had been speeding over the surface of Camalot Lake. Another midget boat, constructed on the same lines as that in which Bluff was seated, came flying down before the wind, and presently brought up alongside the other craft. It contained a single young fellow, upon whose frank and open face rested a broad smile that seemed to prophesy pleasing news. "What makes you look so happy, Frank? Evidently you've heard that your examination papers were up to the standard, and it's college next year for yours," remarked Bluff with eagerness, and, it must be confessed, a tinge of envy in his quivering voice. "Right for you! But that is only the beginning of my news!" cried Frank Langdon as he reached out and caught Jerry by the arm. "Am I in it?" demanded that worthy, seeming to catch his breath. "Well, I should say you were, and with even better honors than poor me. Now, the rest of you fellows, don't look that way. It's all right, I tell you," went on the bearer of news, trying to control his own voice, but succeeding only a little better than Jerry. "Say! do you mean it? Did Bluff and I get through, after all?" exclaimed Will. Frank nodded his head enthusiastically. "Careful, now, you wild Indians! Just remember that you're in canoes that can be upset easily, and unless you want a ducking out in the middle of the lake, restrain your enthusiasm a bit, please. It isn't the easiest thing in the world, climbing over the stern of a canoe with all your clothes on," he warned them. "But is it really true?" pleaded Will. "Have I crawled through decently? Well, I'm glad; not only because it will keep four chums together a while longer, in college, but my mother has set her heart on this thing. Yes, I'm mighty well pleased." Will's mother was a rich widow, and as he had only a twin sister, Violet, for whom Frank entertained a pronounced liking, the two were more than ordinarily dear to Mrs. Milton. "Well, fellows, let's give one mighty cheer because of our good fortune," said Jerry, his face beaming with delight; for the chums were very fond of each other, and had a single one been left behind on the following year, when the college term opened, there would have been many a keen regret. "Hip, hip, hurrah! Hurrah! hurrah! Tiger!" No doubt, many persons ashore, who heard that lusty shout come ringing over the clear water of the beautiful little lake on which the town of Centerville was located, wondered what the burst of enthusiasm meant. But then they knew these four boys were built along the right lines, and that while they loved the whole outdoors, with its attendant exciting times, never had they been known to indulge in mean pranks. After the cheer had died away there was a shaking of hands all around. "Fellows, it begins to look as though our great trip to the Gulf of Mexico last winter might not be our last grand outing, after all. You know what our parents promised us if we went through all right?" "Hear! hear! Frank has the floor!" cried Jerry. "We were to have our choice of an extended tour through Yellowstone Park to California, and return by way of the Canadian Rockies; or a grand hunt in the wilderness, wherever we chose to take it. That was the idea, wasn't it?" went on the happy occupant of the _Jupiter_. "Talk to me about your personally conducted tours all you please, nothing appeals to me like a real old hunt in the Great West," said Jerry ecstatically. "Haven't I just longed for a chance to look at a big elk in his native wilds, for years? And the thought of a grizzly bear sends a thrill of pleasure through me." "And as for me, haven't I lain awake nights without number thinking about what bliss it would be to actually snap off a few pictures of those same animals right where they live? How tame to go to a menagerie and get a photo of a poor old bear behind the bars, when a fellow has a chance to take him in the open!" Of course it was Will who made this remark. He was the official photographer of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club, as our four boy friends called themselves, and his ambition to secure striking scenes, with wild game in the center of the stage, had already led him into quite a few scrapes, just as it would again when the opportunity presented itself. "But what I have told you isn't quite all," remarked Frank presently, when the chatter of voices allowed him a chance to get in a few words edgewise. "What else have you got up your sleeve?" demanded Bluff. "Yes, confess everything, and perhaps we'll forgive you," came from Will. "Well, I've had a letter." And Frank held something up. "From that old side partner of Jesse Wilcox, the trapper whose camp we used to visit during our fall hunt?" cried Jerry. Frank nodded his head. "And what does he say? Hurry up, and tell. Can't you see that Bluff, here, will be overboard? He's leaning so far over the side that the water is ready to pour in over the gunwale. Will Martin Mabie take us out?" asked Jerry. "He says he will be glad to do so, for old friendship's sake. I'm to wire when to expect us, and leave the rest to him," Frank explained. "I hope he has told you what we are to fetch along. We've done some hunting, fellows, in our time, but that sort of thing, with big game in prospect, calls for heavier gear. None of your repeating shotguns need apply this trip, Bluff, you understand?" Jerry could never become wholly reconciled to the modern gun Bluff owned. He professed to be such a clean sportsman that he always believed in giving the game a chance, and declared it to be next door to murder to have six shots in hand when hunting birds. With big game, it was all right, because then a fellow's life might often be in danger. "Oh, Martin Mabie has written quite a long letter. He seems to be an educated man, and not at all the brand we figured out from hearing Jesse talk about him. Boys, we can now lay our plans, and make a start inside of a week," declared Frank. "Isn't it just great? Did ever a set of grads get such a chance for fun as this?" "I don't believe they ever did, or ever will, Bluff. And our folks have been mighty good to give us this glorious opportunity to enjoy an outing such as we've hankered after for a year, remember that, fellows," remarked Frank seriously. "You can just wager that I make it a point to let the pater know my sentiments. He's the best dad going, and I mean to make him proud of me some day. But tell us more about it, Frank. Where is Martin Mabie to meet us, and what does he tell us to fetch along?" "I'm not going to say another word, Jerry, until we get to the clubhouse, when every one of you can have a chance to read his letter," remarked Frank as he prepared to cast off and throw his sails to the breeze again. "A week, did you say? Oh! what a long time to wait!" groaned Bluff. "Still, there are lots of things to be done. I think it may be necessary for one of us to run down to the city to lay in some things in the way of ammunition, and a few articles of clothing for mountain wear." "Then we'll appoint you as a committee of one to see to such traps, Frank," called Jerry as the other shot away with the wind, his canoe gliding over the little wavelets like a phantom craft. Frank smiled. It was certainly nice to know that his chums felt such sincere confidence in him at all times. There was nothing he would not do to give them pleasure. So the three cedar boats were soon heading for the clubhouse, and while they are thus employed it might be well for us to understand just who these chums were, and what they had been doing in the past to make them such firm friends. Frank was from Maine, but his father, a banker, had come to Centerville a few years back; and among all the boys attending the Academy Frank had soon picked out as his especial friends these three, Will Milton, Jerry Wallingford and Bluff Masters. After the Rod, Gun and Camera Club had been formed they had taken their first outing, using their motorcycles to reach the woods beyond the head of the lake. What befell them on this occasion has been told in the first volume of this series, called "The Outdoor Chums; or, The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club." Later on, a storm having done considerable damage at the school, they were given an unexpected fall vacation, and the chums decided to spend it on Wildcat Island, situated at the foot of the lake. There were several strange things connected with this island, such as a mysterious wild man who had been seen there; and besides, it was shunned because of the fierce bobcats that had possession. How our boys camped on this island, and what wonderful adventures they met with there, can be learned by reading the second volume, entitled "The Outdoor Chums on the Lake; or, Lively Adventures on Wildcat Island." When the Easter holidays came around they had laid out another charming campaign. This was nothing more nor less than an expedition to Oak Ridge, that lay some ten miles back from the lake, amid the Sunset Mountains. Report had it that there was a real ghost to be seen there, and the boys were bent on discovering the truth of this weird story. It can be easily understood that they must have had a glorious time on that trip, viewed from the standpoint of an eager, adventure-loving boy. But the story is set down in full in the third volume, and you can read it for yourselves in "The Outdoor Chums in the Forest; or, Laying the Ghost of Oak Ridge." No further long jaunts came the way of the quartet during the school term, up to the Christmas holidays, when they received permission to undertake a trip to the Sunny South. Just how this came about, and what wonders they saw and experienced on a Florida river, as well as upon the great Mexican Gulf, have been told in the fourth book of the series, called "The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf; or, Rescuing the Lost Balloonists." And now it seemed as though, less than six months later, they were ready to embark on what promised to be the most exciting trip of all, a visit to the wilderness of the great Northwest, in search of big game. Reaching the clubhouse, they quickly stowed their boats away. From this time on there would probably be scant time for aquatic sports. The tremendous undertaking they had in view would, very likely, occupy all their spare moments. "Now let's have that letter, Frank. We want to con it so that every word will be photographed on our brains from this time on. Didn't old Jesse say that Martin Mabie was a big stockman now, and had really quit being a guide and hunter? Then it's mighty kind of him to undertake to convoy a raft of tenderfeet into the wilderness. Money didn't enter into it, that's sure," said Bluff. "He mentions having had a long letter from Jesse," remarked Frank. "That settles it, then. Our good old friend has been telling him everything we ever did, and got him interested. We must make it a point to run up and see Jesse before we go, and thank him." "You're right about that, Jerry," said Frank warmly. "I was thinking the same, myself. But here's the letter. Read it for yourselves." Various were the comments after this had been done. "Talk to me about your good fellows! That Martin Mabie stands in a class of his own," observed Jerry. "Think of him offering to take us into the mountains for weeks, and see that we have the time of our lives! And he warns us not to mention the word money to him unless we want to break up the game. I sure am anxious to shake hands with that same friend of old Jesse." "I move we start up there right now and see Jesse. The day is fine, and when can we spare the time better?" suggested Will, who secretly wanted just another chance to try a snapshot of the queer cabin which the trapper occupied. "Second the motion!" cried Bluff eagerly. "I'm some cramped, myself, from sitting so long in that canoe. Perhaps a run on our motorcycles might give me relief. So I say go," came from Jerry. Frank himself believed it would be a good idea. He knew that once they started making preparations for their Western trip nothing was apt to tear them away. "All right, boys. It's going to be a full moon to-night. Suppose we stop over and have a parting supper with Jesse? He'd be dreadfully tickled at the notion. Tell your folks at home, and meet me at the Forks in not more than half an hour." Frank hustled the others out of the boathouse, locked the door, and then the four chums hastened to their various homes. Ere the half hour was up they came together at the forks of the road, just out of Centerville. Frank was first on hand, as usual, but even laggard Will showed up on time, camera and all. In single file, and with a little space separating them, they started off, the motors soon popping merrily as the boys entered into the spirit of the occasion. The air was fresh as they sped along the dusty road. The leader was ever ready to signal a slow-down in case they met a farmer with a load of hay, going to market, or any other vehicle. This was rendered necessary because the cloud of dust might blind the eyes of those who came after, and a collision be the result. In this fashion they arrived at the lumber camp, which was deserted at this time of year. From there on the pace had to be slowed down, for the road was only used by logging teams, and hardly suitable for motorcycles. They were plugging along, each keeping his eyes open for obstacles apt to present themselves, such as roots cropping up above the surface, when the leader gave a sudden toot upon the little horn attached to his machine that warned the others a stop was imperative. CHAPTER II THE MOTORCYCLE THIEVES "What's gone wrong, Frank?" demanded Bluff, dropping off his seat. "In luck again, for I'd have banged up against that big root if Frank hadn't given the signal just then," chuckled Will, holding up his machine. "A puncture, Frank?" demanded Jerry, who had been in the rear. "Not at all. I thought I heard some one shouting. Perhaps I was mistaken, for with a lot of motors popping away it's hard to be sure. Still, we can stop for a minute and listen," remarked Frank seriously. "Shouting--for help?" repeated Will, looking around nervously. "That's queer," cried Bluff, "that we seldom go out anywhere but what somebody calls on us for assistance. Think of it! There was the town bully, Andy Lasher, who was caught under that falling tree in the storm, and rescued by Jerry." "That's a fact; and then there was Jed, the bound boy, you remember, fellows," went on Will eagerly. "Not to mention the saving of the aeronaut from the burning hotel by Frank, here; and last, but not least, our giving that little Joe the glad hand down South," observed Jerry, joining in with enthusiasm. "Yes, but there are a few rescues you seem to forget, Jerry. How about that time when the wild dogs had you chasing around the tree?" asked Bluff, grinning. "Oh, that isn't in the same class. You forget that I got out of that scrape by my own exertions," replied the other. "But there was another time when we hauled you out of a hollow tree in which you found yourself caged. You didn't crawl out of there alone and unaided, if I remember right," persisted Will. "Some things are better buried in oblivion. You and your camera want to remind a fellow constantly of events that ought to be forgotten. But Frank, that must have been an owl you heard. I haven't caught any call for help yet." "Perhaps we'd better go on, then. Look out how you mount here, for it's a hard proposition, Jerry, with these roots and stones." Frank had just started to move forward with his own motorcycle, when all of them heard a sound issuing from the woods alongside the "tote" road. "Help! help!" They looked at each other. "Somebody's in trouble there. Who can it be?" said Frank as he leaned his machine up against a tree, as though eager to hasten to the assistance of the one who had cried out. "No hunters around at this time of year," remarked Will as he followed suit. "And the loggers have been gone some months," went on Bluff. "Tell me about that, now! It wasn't a child's voice, or I might think a kid had got lost up here. Perhaps some man has cut himself badly with his ax," suggested Jerry. "Or dropped down into some old abandoned mine shaft," spoke up Frank, with a wink toward Will; for one of the chums had gone through with just such an experience during one of their outings, and had to be rescued. "Shall we all go?" demanded Bluff, given to caution. "Why not? Nothing can happen to our machines here. For one, I decline to stay out of the rescuing party. Besides, perhaps I may get a chance to snap off a lovely picture of the Good Samaritans at work." Will had hastily unfastened his camera, and held it in his hands as he spoke. "All right, then. Come on, boys!" With these words, Frank led the way into the woods. "Sure the sound came from this direction?" asked Bluff. "That was my impression. What do you say, Jerry?" and Frank turned to the chum on whose knowledge of woodcraft he felt he could rely. "Straight in there. You're heading all right, Frank," he replied. "How far did it seem to be?" went on the leader. "That is hard to say. The man may have been weakened from loss of blood. If he was shouting, then it may have been several hundred yards, perhaps a quarter of a mile off; but I think we'll come across him closer than that." "I agree with you, Jerry," said Frank, stopping short. "What did you hear?" demanded the other, for Frank had bent his head, and seemed to be listening over his shoulder. "I don't know. Perhaps it was a bush springing back into place after our passage. But suppose we shout occasionally? It may encourage the poor fellow, and besides, guide us to where he lies," returned Frank, once more pushing on. Accordingly they lifted up their voices and gave a series of calls. "Why doesn't he answer us?" asked Will, astonished when only the echoes came back from the surrounding forest. Frank stopped in his tracks. "Can he have fainted from loss of blood?" said Bluff, still having in mind a picture of a woodsman who had severed an artery by a misblow of his ax. "There's Frank listening again, and he seems to be paying more attention to our rear than ahead," remarked Will, puzzled. "I bet you he thinks somebody is playing us for a lot of fools; that there isn't any one hurt, or in need of help at all. What's that?" The distinct and well-known "popping" of a motor was heard. "It's a trick, fellows! Somebody is meddling with our machines! Back to the road!" shouted Jerry, turning and plunging through the under-brush recklessly. A wild scramble followed. The four chums were so excited, and filled with a determination to stop the unknown miscreants from making way with their machines, that they gave little heed to their steps. The consequence was that more than once a collision with a tree ensued, and various bumps afterward gave mute evidence as to the reckless manner of their chase. "There's two of 'em!" shrieked Will from the rear, as he caught the sound of a second series of erratic poppings. Evidently those who were meddling with the motorcycles did not have a thorough knowledge of how to work the same, for the sounds would suddenly cease and then start up again. "Oh! don't I wish they'd just take headers over some nice fat root!" gasped the perspiring Will, still hugging his precious camera to his heart as he followed in Frank's wake. The latter had made for the road in as direct a line as possible. Progress was bound to be slow through the dense undergrowth, and the sooner they struck the open the quicker they could hope to gain on the thieves. In this fashion they came upon the road at last. Of course, their eyes immediately turned down its sinuous way to the quarter whence the excitable popping sounds still continued to come. The sight that met their eyes amazed them. All of the chums had naturally expected that they would discover some mischievous school companions, who, seeing them coming, had hatched up this little game with the intention of playing a practical joke. Nothing of the kind. On the contrary, they saw two of the motorcycles bobbing along in the most erratic manner possible, moving from one side of the rough road to the other, and mounted on the same were a couple of roughly dressed men, either tramps, or journeymen on the road looking for a job. "Tell me about that, will you!" gasped Jerry. "Why, the blooming idiots mean to steal our machines!" cried Bluff. "Oh! what luck that I thought to take my camera with me!" came from Will. Frank only made one remark, but it was characteristic of the boy: "After them, fellows!" Then began a mad chase. Had the road been half-way decent, the boys would have had no chance of overtaking the thieves; but those exposed roots, while not bothersome to the lumbermen, proved extremely so to the men who were trying to make off with the motorcycles. They dared not put on great speed. More than this, much of their time was taken up with dodging the stones and other things that threatened to bring sudden disaster upon them. Hence it was that the boys, having considerable sprinting ability, began to rapidly overhaul the fleeing rascals. The two men dared not cast a single glance behind, and consequently the only means they had of knowing how close their pursuers might be would lie in any shouts given by Frank and his chums. As he ran, the leading boy cast an occasional look alongside the path. He was in search of a good stout cudgel. Knowing that the chances were the affair would presently come to a face-to-face issue between the two parties, he wished to be prepared as well as possible. "Bully stunt!" exclaimed Jerry as he followed suit. They were now drawing close upon the fugitives, who were having a nerve-racking time dodging those numerous roots. Knowing that the angry owners of the wheels must be close upon them, the men endeavored to increase their speed, with disastrous results. "Wow!" shouted Jerry, as he saw one of the riders suddenly shoot out of his saddle and take a header, to be followed by his companion a second later. CHAPTER III HOMEWARD BOUND, BY MOONLIGHT "Jump 'em!" shouted Frank as he threw himself upon the first fellow, floundering in the road. "I'm on!" echoed Jerry, suiting the action to the words by propelling himself straight at the second motorcycle thief. This fellow happened to have come through his fall without getting hurt. The consequence was, he felt disposed to put up a much better fight than his confused companion, upon whose prostrate form Frank had straddled. He rolled over once or twice with remarkable agility, causing Jerry to miss his guess when he thought to drop on him. Then, scrambling to his knees, the man, who turned out to be a rough-looking chap, indeed, pulled something out of his pocket, which he aimed at the two boys about to pounce upon him. "Keep back, you!" he roared, his mouth being half filled with dirt after he had plowed up the earth of the roadway with his face. "He's got a pistol!" shrieked Will, who was fingering his camera nervously from a point somewhat in the rear; and they immediately heard the little suggestive click that announced the pressure of a finger on the trigger. Bluff was the quick-witted one on this occasion. He had his stick upraised at the time, ready to strike. Instead, he sent it from him suddenly with all his power, and as the cudgel was no light one, when it struck the extended arm of the kneeling thief the shock was so great that the shining object he had been gripping was hurled about five feet away. Jerry instantly took occasion to possess himself of the same. The man was nursing his wounded arm and muttering to himself, his face screwed up with pain. "Talk to me about your quick work! What could beat that, fellows?" cried Jerry as he stood over the grunting and disgusted rascal who had attempted to hold them off. "What had we better do with 'em?" asked Bluff, frowning at the several scratches upon his machine caused by the accident. "Any damage done?" asked Frank. "Well, this man here has a sore arm, I guess; and the one you're sitting on looks as if his face might be a map, from the scratches," replied Jerry. "Oh! I mean the machines," laughed Frank. "Nothing serious here. How about yours, Will?" answered Bluff. "Mine seems to be all right. They weren't going fast enough to cause a real wreck. A little paint will fix it up," was the answer Will made. "Do you know either of these fellows?" went on Frank. The boys took a better look at the men. "Why, the one with the scratched face is Hank Brady, I'm sure. He used to live in Centerville. The other is a stranger to me," remarked Bluff. "Well, I've seen him before. He was working in the office of the town paper as a tramp compositor a week ago. I suppose he got uneasy, and wanted to be on the move again, and seeing a fine chance for hooking a couple of motorcycles, they yielded to temptation. If we took them back they'd be locked up for this little job," observed Frank sternly. "I hope you won't do anything of the kind, kids," said the fellow whose arm had been stung by Bluff's stick. "We only wanted to have a lark with you. Sure you don't think we'd be fools enough to run away with such valuable things as them motorcycles, when the telephone would get us at the next town? It was done for fun, but I reckon we paid the piper, all right," and he scowled at Bluff as he spoke, nursing his arm as though it were still painful. Frank laughed. He was not of a vindictive nature. Besides, it did seem as though the two fellows had been punished enough already. "No matter, it was a mean trick, and you deserve all you got. Get up, Hank. You took a lovely cropper that time. Where did you learn how to run a motorcycle?" he asked, helping the prisoner to his feet. "I was a chauffeur a little time back. Sure we never thought to run off with the gas-wheels. Saw you comin' along, and Flimsy said it would be a good joke to make you fellers think somebody was sick in the woods. Then, when we seen you all go by, I said to him, 'Let's run a couple of them machines down the road a bit, just to tease the boys.' Flimsy he rode one once in his travels, and so we jumped on. The rest is history, and I got the map that goes along with it, on me face." "What say, boys? Shall we let it pass?" asked Frank, winking at his chums. Jerry, for reply, started to fire the revolver he held, until the entire six shots had been discharged. "Here! Take your gun, mister, and next time don't be so quick to pull it on a stranger. Think what would happen to you if you'd fired and hit one of us? Some time you may even be glad that Bluff, here, was so quick with his stick." He handed the empty weapon over to the tramp printer, who let his head fall, as though really ashamed of his action. The boys started back to where the other machines had been left, while the two men slunk into the shelter of the woods, to patch up their hurts as best they might. "Say! that was a queer ending to a rescue, wasn't it?" asked Bluff. "I only hope my picture comes out all right. It ought to show Frank sitting on top of Hank, while Bluff and Jerry surround the other tramp, who is on his knees, aiming his old gun. Then my machine is lying there. Fellows, what need of words to explain what happened?" chuckled the gratified Will. Whenever he succeeded in securing a coveted picture the ardent photographer was the happiest boy in the county. His pleasure caused him to fairly bubble over with good nature. "Tell me about that, will you!" said Jerry, pretending to scorn such an exhibition of joy over so trivial a matter. "Why, you'd think the chap had knocked over some big game, to hear him chatter." "And so he had," declared Frank quickly, "according to his light. All of us are not made alike, Jerry. One man's food is poison to another. You and I are fond of fishing and shooting, but Will is more of an artist. He delights in stalking the timid deer in the close season, and shooting him with his camera. Lots of people believe his way of securing pleasure beats ours all hollow." "Anyhow, it doesn't thin out the game," asserted Will stoutly. Jerry stopped short to turn a look of pity on his comrade. "Think how hungry we'd all go out in camp if we depended on your blessed old box for supper," he suggested witheringly. "All very true," remarked Frank as they reached the other motorcycles, and prepared to continue their interrupted journey to the camp of the trapper; "which is proof of what I say, that many men, many minds. There's room for all kinds in a party." "Yes; and nobody likes to look over my prints more than Jerry," grumbled Will, feeling quite offended. "Don't pay any attention to him. He doesn't mean anything by it. You know how he likes to joke every one. Now, we're off again, boys." Once more they made their way along the rough road. The sight of those two unfortunates sprawling upon the ground was a lesson, warning the riders against trying for speed under such conditions, so they made haste slowly. Upon arriving at the cabin home of the trapper they surprised him very much; and when Jesse Wilcox learned the object of their visit he was more pleased than ever. They spent some hours with him, and even assisted in getting the evening meal. From their long experience now the boys had become quite proficient in this line, and were able to show old Jesse quite a few tricks that delighted him. With the campfire blazing merrily, they ate supper alongside his rough cabin home. Of course, they fairly deluged him with questions about the habits of the big game of the West, which he answered to the best of his ability. "Wait till we get out with Martin Mabie, fellows. He's on the ground, and can set us straight. Jesse has been trapping these little animals around here so long now he's a back number," joked Jerry, at which the trapper laughed, for he was very fond of these four lads, and nothing they said annoyed him. As they had planned, the run home was made by moonlight. This necessitated that they walk with their machines until the good road was gained, below the lumber camp. "I wonder whether those two tramps hit the high places, and got out of this neighborhood for keeps?" Bluff was saying, after they had mounted and were bowling along merrily toward town. "The chances are that way. That tramp printer must be a bad sort of chap, it seems to me, and if Hank keeps along in his society I can see his finish," answered Jerry over his shoulder. They had not made more than a mile when once more Frank gave a quick toot of his horn that brought the little procession up in a hurry. "What ails us now?" demanded Bluff. "Frank's bending over something in the road, as sure as you live!" called Will. "Tell me about that, will you! Seems as if our lively times haven't stopped yet. It never rains but it pours, fellows. Hi! Frank, what's the matter? Say! Would you believe it? There's a man lying in the road!" Jerry made haste to push his heavy motorcycle forward so as to reach the side of his kneeling chum. "It's Hank Brady, boys, and he seems to be in a bad way. Something has happened to him since we saw him last," said Frank, looking up. "Goodness gracious! Is he dead?" gasped Will, his eyes dilating in horror. "I don't know yet, but I'm going to find out," replied Frank, bending over so that he could press his ear upon the breast of the man in the road. "And that tramp printer, where's he at?" asked Jerry suggestively. "Tell me that, will you?" CHAPTER IV STARTING HANK RIGHT "He's alive, all right!" was the announcement of Frank presently. "I hear water close by. Hold on, and I'll get some," said Will hurrying away. Even Jerry was desirous of helping as best he could. He took hold with Frank, and the insensible Hank was carried alongside the road, to where some grass grew, and offered a softer resting place. Had it been a friend who was thus in need of succor, they could hardly have shown more energy in attending to his wants. "He's coming to," said Bluff after Frank had sprinkled the scratched face with some of the cold water. There was a deep sigh, then Frank saw that the fellow's eyes had opened, and were surveying him with a troubled stare. "Feeling better, Hank?" he asked quietly. "Oh, I'm all right, I reckon. What brought you fellows here? Where am I, anyhow? Did I just drop off that motorcycle? No. I remember, now. Flimsy took the last cent I had while I lay in the road. The meanest skunk I ever met up with. If ever he crosses my path again I'll get even with the cur," he growled, sitting up and holding a hand to his head. "What happened to you, Hank? Why were you lying in the road? Did you have a fight with that tramp printer?" asked Frank, suspecting the truth. "Yes. I told him I was sick of keeping with him. He's a bad one, and some fine day he'll land in the stone jug. He scared me the way he talked. I started to tramp back home, and he kept nagging me all the way here. In the end he made me so mad I just tackled him. That was what he wanted. Why, he put me to sleep the easiest way you ever saw. I just remember him fumbling in my pockets before he hoofed it." "Well, it was a lucky thing for you, Hank, after all. If you'd kept with that rascal you'd soon have been just like him. Did you say you meant to go back home now?" "That's what I meant to do, but he's fixed it so I can't," muttered the other, grinding his teeth in fury. "How's that?" pursued Frank, believing there must be a story back of his words. "He took the ten dollars I stole from my dad. I won't never dare face him and say I lost it. I thought I could put it back in the bureau drawer, and he'd never know. I'll have to foller that Flimsy, and make him give it back." "You can't do that for he'd only laugh at you, and perhaps beat you again." "The thief ought to be arrested," grumbled Bluff indignantly. "That would blow the whole thing, you see, and dad he'd know I grabbed it. I'm gettin' all I ought to have, I reckon. P'raps I might earn that ten some way, and hand it over. If I could only get another job as chauffeur it'd be all right," Hank Brady was mumbling to himself dejectedly. "Perhaps you can," said Frank quickly. "I remember, now, that our man had to go away suddenly the day before yesterday. Look here, Hank! Do you really mean to do the right thing now? Have you had your lesson pounded into you?" "I sure have. Never again for me, I give you my word. I guess my folks has been worried some on my account, but they don't need to any more. I've reformed, I have. I'm goin' to walk a straight line after this." The fellow spoke as though he meant it, and Frank believed he could detect the ring of sincerity in his voice. "All right. Shake hands on that, Hank. Don't you forget it, that you'll find plenty of fellows willing to give you a lift, just as quickly as some others want to give you a drag down. It all depends on where the other chap is standing himself. You come and see me to-morrow, some time. I'm Frank Langdon, and my father is the president of the First National Bank." "This is mighty white of you, fellers," muttered the other, apparently ashamed. "You can never pay it back to us, Hank, but some time pass it along; hold out a helping hand to some other poor chap in trouble. I guess if you know how to run a car decently you will get the job, if I speak to my dad. Now, another thing--that ten dollars you wanted to put back, was it in one bill?" "Two fives," replied Hank, catching his breath. "Then perhaps we can fix it up. I've got one here. Jerry, can you help me out?" asked Frank, who believed in doing the whole thing, once he started. "Just happen to have it, by good luck," replied the other cheerfully. "Say! that's too much, fellers--an' after I played that mean trick, too!" "Don't worry about that. I'm not giving you this, Hank, only loaning it to you. You can pay it back out of your first month's salary. Here you are, and don't think for a minute that you're getting the best of all this. We're enjoying it, in our own way, more than you ever can. See you to-morrow, then. Good-night, Hank!" They left the fellow standing there, quite dumb. He had tried to answer them as they rode off, but not a sound could he utter. "Talk to me about the queer things that crop up with us, will you!" laughed Jerry as he kept close at Frank's heels. "Did you ever really hear the equal of that, now?" "Oh, it's an old story. The only decent thing about it is the fact that of his own free will Hank was breaking away from his evil associations and heading back home, when he met with this last trouble. I say, Bluff!" "Hello, Frank! What is it?" came from the rear, where the party addressed was following in the wake of his chums. "How about Hank? Do you know if he ever played chauffeur half-way decent? I'd hate to risk the pater's neck with a greenhorn." "Come to think of it, he used to run old Cragin's car for quite some time. Had an accident, and was discharged; but some people said Hank wasn't to blame; that it came about because the old man was too stingy to buy the right kind of tires, and always picked up job lots." "Glad to hear it. He won't have that fault to find with the governor. Well, here we separate, fellows. To-morrow morning, at the boathouse, about eight, to lay our plans and arrange for the trip to the city." With a cheery good-night the chums separated, and each headed for his home. In the morning they once more came together, and for some hours there was an earnest talk, during which many ideas were put forward, and order gradually took the place of chaos. A knock at the door took Frank thither, for he suspected who the visitor might prove to be, as he had left word at home to send Hank Brady there, if he called. Hank was now decently dressed, and his face did not look so very bad, though it bore a number of scratches. "All right, Hank. I'm going with you to the bank. My father knows all about it, for I thought it best to start square, so that you need not fear about his finding out anything about your past," he said, shaking hands with the other. "And he don't give me the shake on that account?" asked Hank eagerly. "Of course he doesn't. He even said that what we did was right, and that he could look back to a day in his boyhood when a kind word started him along the straight and narrow path. My dad's the right sort, Hank. Serve him decently, and you'll never want a better friend. But at the same time he hates deceit, and will not put up with a sneak. You've got the chance of your life to make good." "And I'm going to make good, all right, or bust tryin'. I'll never get over the white way you fellers acted with me, never, if I live a hundred years!" said Hank in a broken voice. Frank took him over to the bank, where Mr. Langdon was favorably impressed with his looks, and engaged him, after he had learned what he knew about the running of a car. Hank had worked in a garage for a year, and this knowledge was invaluable to him in his business as a chauffeur. That afternoon Frank and Bluff started for the city, with a list of things they believed should be purchased before they went forth upon their journey. Bluff had in mind a wonderful hunting-knife, with an ivory handle, a picture of which he had seen in the catalogue of a sporting goods house, and he was secretly determined to possess such a magnificent tool. "The time might come when a fellow would have only his trusty blade between himself and death, and then you just bet he wants a good one. Think of a big grizzly trying to hug you! Where would your little knife be, then? You'd soon wish you had that Cuban machete that hangs on the wall of your father's den, Frank," he said, when the other expostulated with him about purchasing such a murderous-looking weapon. And Bluff did buy it, too. All the way home he kept tabs on that package, and often, when Frank was not looking, he would go through certain gestures with it gripped in his hand, as though practicing against that day when the aforesaid grizzly and he would have their little heated argument for supremacy. Jerry, too, either felt shocked at the enormous size of the wonderful hunting-knife, or else pretended to be. He shrugged his shoulders in that scornful way he had, and turned his back on the prize Bluff had drawn. "What else could you expect of a man who goes after quail with a Gatling gun? Why, the poor innocent grizzly will faint dead away at sight of that cavalry sword. It gives me a cold chill just to look at it," he observed. Bluff only laughed. "Rank envy eating up your soul, that's all, my boy. Wait till you see me in action with that razor-edged tool. I'll have you all turning green with envy yet," he said, fondling the ivory-handled weapon ere he thrust it back into its sheath. The days dragged along. Will counted them, and each night heaved a sigh of relief that they were a notch nearer the time of departure. Finally the last night arrived, and their coming tour was to be marked by a little gathering at the home of Frank, which was intended to be in the way of a send-off. CHAPTER V WESTWARD BOUND There were just eight people gathered together that evening to have a good time. Besides Nellie Langdon, of course, Will's twin sister, Violet, graced the occasion with her presence; then there came Mame Crosby, the vivacious girl with the auburn locks, who was so fond of teasing Jerry; and last, but not least, pretty Susie Prescott, a dainty, prim little blonde, whom Will considered a bundle of sweetness. What a splendid time this congenial little company had! For many a day the memory of it would follow the four chums while far away. All of the "material of war," as Mame called it, had been brought to Frank's house, so that it might be packed in one big trunk. Thus the boys would be bothered with only a suitcase and a gun apiece in the long journey across the continent. The girls insisted upon being shown the wonderful aggregation of clothing and weapons. It was to them very much like a shopping expedition, and many were the exclamations of awe and curiosity as they looked upon the exhibition. Bluff, of course, was very proud of that wonderful hunting-knife of his. He even smiled to see the perceptible shudder with which Nellie surveyed him as he cut imaginary circles in the air with the keen-edged weapon. "Oh! I hope you won't have to use it very often, Bluff! It makes me shiver just to think of you meeting one of those fierce grizzly bears, such as I have seen in the menagerie," she said confidentially to him. "But you wouldn't have me leave this jewel at home, would you, Nellie?" he asked in dismay. "Oh, no! Not for the world!--since you say that perhaps your very life may depend on having it; but please, Bluff, be very careful. You might cut yourself by accident, you know, and then--well, your mother and father would grieve so much if anything happened to you." "Well, would you care?" asked Bluff boldly. Nellie gave him an arch look and ran down-stairs, as she said that she was needed just then to superintend the placing of the refreshments on the table. Bluff laid the wonderful hunting-knife, sheath and all, back on the stand where his things were gathered, and smiled as if pleased. He had occasion, later on, to recall each little incident of that evening, when worrying his mind over a most mysterious thing that puzzled him. The little company separated about eleven, for the boys expected to leave home long ere noon on the following day, and had a strenuous journey before them. After an early breakfast they gathered at Frank's, where the last packing was done in hot haste, as the time was short. So it happened that none of them had more than a confused idea of what was done during that last hour, save that, some way or other, their things were crammed into the big trunk. "We should have taken two, hang it!" grunted Bluff as he tugged at the metal catches, while a couple of his mates sat on top to induce the lid to come down. "There! It's all right now!" cried Will, as the click of the catch announced the desired union. So the trunk was snatched up by the waiting men and carried off, to be taken to the station. Frank and his chums quickly followed. Quite a gathering of relatives and friends were on hand to see them off. Frank was taking a last look into the automobile, to make sure nothing had been forgotten, when Hank Brady, who seemed to be making good with his job, plucked at his sleeve. "Hello! Came near forgetting to say good-by to you, Hank! Hope you get on fine and dandy while I'm gone," said the boy, holding out his hand. "Thank you, Mr. Frank; but I only wanted to say a few words to you about a brother of mine who is out there somewhere, we believe. Now, I know the Northwest is a big place, and you might as well think of lookin' for a needle in a haystack as for a certain feller there; but accidents do happen, and by some sorter luck you might just happen to run across Teddy," said Hank quickly, and with a wistful look on his face that held Frank's attention. "And if I do, what then?" he asked softly. "Tell him his mother's still a-grievin' after him. You see, he is her baby, though a big feller for his age, which is seventeen about. He left us in a huff two years back. We heard in an indirect way several times, but never straight. She worries when she thinks nobody is a-lookin'. If Teddy would only write to her I think she'd be kinder reconciled," went on Hank, heaving a deep sigh. "All right. If by any good luck I happen to run across your brother, you can depend on it I'll do my best to make him write. But how am I to know him among the thousands of people I meet?" remarked Frank as he was about to turn away. "Well, he has--" Just then some one pounced on Frank, and dragged him off, so that he never really knew how he was to recognize this wandering brother of Hank Brady in case he should meet him. The train was almost due, and general good-bys were quickly said. Such a chattering as ensued, which kept up until the four chums climbed into the car that was to take them to the nearest city, where they would board the through train for the Northwest. After the last glimpse of their loved ones had been lost by a sudden bend in the road, they settled down to making themselves comfortable. It was expected that they would make connection in St. Paul with the western through train bound for Seattle. Then would begin the grandest ride on the whole American continent, over boundless plains, and finally up into the majestic mountains. Day and night they would be carried swiftly onward across the many miles of entrancing scenery. Wonderful sights would fall to their portion. St. Paul was reached in due season, and once more they started forth, this time headed west, with the hunting-land beckoning them on. "Tell me about this, will you!" remarked Jerry, after they had crossed the broad prairies and were climbing the tremendous heights that lie like a barrier between the center of the continent and the Pacific Slope. "How much more of it do we have before us, Frank? I'm getting so filled with wonder and awe that my tongue is getting into a rut with saying 'Ah!' so much." "Less than a day will see us through now. Once we get over this range there lies a long valley, and in that is where Martin Mabie has his ranch." "Then we'll do our hunting along the sides of the mountains?" suggested Will, who had used up nearly half his supply of films already, taking views of the wonderful things they saw on the trip. "That's my impression, from what he wrote," replied Frank. "And he also said game was fairly plentiful, if I remember aright," remarked Jerry. "Well, he did say that they had been so busy of late on the ranch that no one had had time for hunting, and consequently the game had not been bothered very much; which, I suppose, amounts to the same thing." "H'm! I hope he won't be so rushed with work that he can't take the time to go with us. Half of the fun would be lost if Mr. Mabie couldn't be along; for Jesse says he is the most entertaining man alive," grunted Bluff. "Oh, you forget that he said by the time we got there the work would slacken up, and he promised himself a vacation, just to renew his old pleasure of camping out in the wilderness, away from all mankind," laughed Frank. "That relieves my mind some," declared Bluff, brightening up. "You're getting tired of all this travel, that's what ails you," said Jerry. "No; it isn't that," remarked Frank. "Bluff has confessed to me that for the life of him he can't remember putting that beautiful hunting-knife in the trunk along with his other traps; and if he left _that_ behind, half his pleasure would be lost. Now you know what's the matter." "Not that I wish it to be so, but if such should prove to be the case, there'll be one delighted grizzly bear out in these same mountains--the chap Bluff calculated on carving with that big sticker," remarked Jerry jocosely. But Bluff would not even smile. Truth to tell, he was counting the hours until he could open that trunk and relieve his distressed mind. "Did you ever see a wilder bit of country?" said Frank, peering out into the gathering dusk, and trying to imagine those wooded hillsides populated with elk and buffaloes, and all the big game of the past, when a white man was never known west of the Great Lakes. "Well, to tell the truth, I was thinking of that account I read in the paper we bought, about the work of a sheriff's posse in this region, chasing the bad men who held up a railroad train not a hundred miles away from here. It wouldn't be a pleasant experience for us to meet with, eh, fellows?" asked Will, who was known to have a timid streak in his make-up. "Talk to me about your croakers!" jeered Jerry. "Will, here, is enough to freeze the marrow in one's bones. There isn't one chance in a thousand that such an adventure will come our way, and he knows it." "Goodness! What a jar! The engineer must have thrown the air brakes on then in a big hurry! We're coming to a sudden stop, too! Oh! I wonder if anything can have happened? Are we going to have an accident, fellows?" cried Will. With much creaking of the wheels the heavy train came to a stop, and at the same moment the four chums, listening with considerable apprehension, caught the sound of many loud and excited voices just outside the car. CHAPTER VI AT THE VALLEY RANCH "Listen!" exclaimed Frank, holding up his hand. "Talk to me about your Tower of Babel! It wasn't in the same class as that row. Twenty men trying to talk all at once!" growled Jerry, starting up. "Oh! Where are you going?" asked Will. "Outside, to find out what the trouble is," replied the other. "But you may get hurt if those bad men start to shooting up the train," expostulated the official photographer anxiously. Jerry gave a hoarse laugh. "Tell me about that, will you! He actually believes we are going to be put through a course of 'stand and deliver' by the merry gentlemen of the road. Why, bless you, my boy, didn't you hear one man say something about a trestle burning just ahead? It spells delay for us, but that's the worst of the whole affair." "Then I'm going out, too," declared Will, with sudden zeal, as he snatched up his camera and threw the strap over his shoulder. He scented a chance for a striking picture, and to obtain that Will would have risked even a possible encounter with train robbers. Frank and Bluff would not be left behind, and quickly the entire quartet had reached the platform. They found that the stop was at a little country station. A signal had suddenly flashed before the eyes of the engineer, telling him he must not think of running past, which accounted for the quick work of the compressed-air brakes. No need to tell what was wrong. Up the track a quarter of a mile could be seen a fire, and one glance was enough to tell the chums that, just as Jerry had said, a trestle of some sort seemed to be burning. Loud shouts attested to the fact that every available man was hurrying to the scene, in the hope of saving the trestle before it was so far gone that nothing could be done. "Come on, fellows! Our train must stay where it is until this thing is done burning, one way or the other. Perhaps we can help put the fire out with buckets." That was the first thought Frank had, to be of some assistance. The four of them ran with the rest of the passengers. Such a spectacle could not be witnessed every day, and every one was desirous of getting closer to the scene of action. "How did it catch?" asked Frank of a railroad man who was hustling about, handing buckets to a line of men extending down to the water of the creek far below. "Don't know. Perhaps from sparks left by the six-seventeen freight. Lend a hand here, lads; we need all the help we can get," replied the other. "Sure! That's what we came for. Get along, boys, and pass these buckets!" cried Jerry, suiting the action to the words. Once the string of buckets got to going, and the contents began to be cast upon the creeping flames, there sprang up a hope that the trestle might be saved. Seeing this, the workers redoubled their efforts, and faster rose the full buckets, the empties going down at the same rate. It is really astonishing what a large amount of water can be carried by such an endless chain. "Hurrah! We're besting it, lads! Keep it up!" shouted the agent, who was the man Frank had first addressed. Will had not joined the relay. There seemed to be plenty of recruits without him, and, truth to tell, he was bent on getting a picture of the scene. Doubtless many present were startled by a sudden brilliant illumination as he set off his flashlight cartridge; but those who were in ignorance as to what it meant were soon set wise by others. Once they began to get the upper hand of the fire it became easy. Fortunately, there was not a breath of wind at the time. Had it been otherwise, no efforts on their part could have saved the trestle. "I should think they would have them all of steel!" gasped Bluff, as he labored away, passing endless buckets up and down. "Most of them are, I understand, but in this case, you see, it is a long stretch, and perhaps it wasn't thought necessary," replied Frank. "We're going to save it, all right; but I wonder if our train dare pass over? It seems to me the fire must have weakened the structure more or less," remarked Jerry. "Oh, well, they'll find some means of strengthening it in that case. I'm only worrying about the delay. Mr. Mabie will have to wait so long." "But, Frank, they must wire the news, and he will know the reason for our hold-up," said Will quickly, and the others all agreed that this must be so. Less than an hour later the last spark had been extinguished. Then men climbed all over the trestle to ascertain just how much it had been weakened by the fire. There was a difference of opinion among them, some declaring that it was as good as ever, and the others shaking their heads solemnly, as they prophesied all manner of dire things if the through train, with its heavy sleepers, attempted to go over. While some gangs of men were hastily bracing up a weak spot with what material lay close at hand, kept for an emergency of this sort, a freight train that happened to be on a siding at the station, was pushed out on the trestle to discover how the situation stood. The chums watched operations with their hearts in their mouths, figuratively speaking; but no catastrophe followed, and it began to appear that, after all, the express might pass over in safety. Another trial was given, this time with the heavy freight engine attached to some of the largest flats, laden with steel beams. The trestle bore the strain handsomely. "That settles it, fellows. Back to our car for us. We're going across!" sang out Jerry as he turned and made off down the track. "How long were we here?" asked Bluff, sighing, and they knew he was thinking again of the weary hours that must elapse ere he could open that big trunk in order to ascertain whether his fears in connection with that beloved hunting-knife had any foundation or not. "Three hours, about. Give them another half hour to get moving, and there you are. Hark! The engineer has started to whistle. That is to tell the passengers a start is intended; and here they come, rushing pell-mell, fearful of getting left." And Frank laughed at the energy displayed by some of those who had been aboard. It was a critical time when the train slowly pushed out upon the long trestle. Everybody doubtless held their breath, and doubtless many a heart throbbed with suspense. "It's all right, boys! We're safely over!" exclaimed Jerry, as, looking out of the open window, he could see that they had passed the critical stage. "Oh! I'm so glad! I don't know when I've felt such a flutter about my heart. But, anyway, I secured a cracking good snapshot of that burning bridge. Every time we look at it we can remember our hold-up," observed Will, sighing with relief. It was now about ten o'clock at night, and on account of the delay, travel was more or less congested along the line. Frank, upon making inquiries, learned that they would not arrive at their destination until about daybreak, and so he and his chums went to their berths to secure what sleep was possible. Frank had them up in good time, and long before dawn they were fully dressed, awaiting the arrival of the train at the valley station with impatience. "Another hour now, and then I shall know," Bluff was saying to himself. "Thank goodness!" exclaimed Jerry, who happened to overhear him. "And for the peace of the party, I do hope the first thing you see when you open your bag will be that awful sword." "We're stopping, fellows!" cried Will, trembling with eagerness. Five minutes later they jumped down from the train. "Hello, boys! Glad to see you! Better late than never!" said a hearty voice, and then they found themselves shaking hands with a big man, whose gray-bearded face seemed to be a picture of good nature. Of course, this was Mr. Mabie, the ranchman. He saw to it that their big trunk was dropped off the baggage car, to be seized by a couple of cowboys and hustled on to the back of a long buckboard wagon, drawn by a couple of skittish horses. Then they were off, not five minutes after the train had pulled out. "Here, Reddy," said Mr. Mabie to the young driver, "let me make you acquainted with some good fellows about your own age," and he introduced them one after another. Frank saw that the cowboy was well named, for he had quite a fiery thatch; but his freckled face seemed one of the sort that invited confidence, and Frank believed he would like the other right well. Of course, Reddy was attired as all well-ordered cowboys should be. Will was secretly wild for a chance to introduce him in some picture. "It will give such a pleasing variety to our book of views, for we haven't got a single cowboy in between the covers," he said in an aside to Frank. They followed up the valley for over an hour. The ranch was miles removed from the railway, and surrounded by the wildest scenery the boys could remember having looked upon, and that was saying a good deal, after such a journey. Martin Mabie was a widower, without any family. Still, he had a number of women folks on the place, a sister keeping house for him, with a Chinese cook to attend to the kitchen part of the establishment. "Ain't this immense?" remarked Bluff, as he waited impatiently for the men to carry the big trunk indoors, so that he could satisfy his soul about the one object that had been worrying him ever since leaving Centerville. Somehow or other they seemed slow about doing this. The horses had to be attended to first of all. Then there seemed to be some sort of excitement in the neighborhood of the corral, for the boys noticed a mounted cowboy come dashing up and jump from his steed, which was blowing hard, as if from a rapid dash. He wondered if this sort of thing was of daily occurrence on the big ranch, which took in the whole valley for miles, and extended even up along the sides of the mountains on either hand. "What ails the fellow, I wonder?" observed Jerry, who, it seems, had also noticed the rush of the newcomer. "From the way he bolted into the office where Mr. Mabie went, I imagine he must have brought important news of some sort," remarked Frank. "Perhaps our very introduction to the Big M Ranch is going to be in a whirl of excitement, fellows. I've noticed that somehow we seem to stir up things wherever we go; not that we mean to have things happen, but they just pick out such a time to play hob," said Jerry, shaking his head as if thoroughly convinced. "Here comes Mr. Mabie, hurrying this way!" declared Bluff, beginning to forget his other anxiety for the time being in this new mystery. "And there goes the cowboy back to the horse corral. He's shouting something, too, and as sure as you live every man is jumping to get a horse handy between his legs. Look at them slapping saddles on! Why, they'll be off like the wind! Boys, something is up! I know it!" Frank and his chums saw several cowboys dash away as though possessed, shouting, and waving their hats in a reckless manner, as if about to charge an enemy who had designs on the cattle of the ranch. "Whatever can it mean?" said Will again. "For the life of me I can't imagine," returned Frank, sorely puzzled. "But we'll soon know, fellows, for here comes Mr. Mabie, and he's swinging his hat as though just as excited as the balance of the crowd. Whatever it is, he means to tell us!" cried Jerry, his eyes glowing with the nerve-racking anxiety. CHAPTER VII THE GRIZZLY AT BAY "Boys, do you want to see some fun?" called the ranchman as he came up. "Always ready for that sort of thing, sir. What's going on?" asked Frank. "An old friend of ours, whom we call 'Mountain Charlie,' has broken bounds at last, and is even now trying to drag one of my best yearlings off to the mountain canyon where he has his den," replied the other. "Mountain Charlie?" repeated Frank, mystified. "And has a den in the mountains, too! What sort of a beast is that? Or can it be a wild man?" asked Bluff. The ranchman laughed heartily. "I forgot you were tenderfeet, boys. We call a grizzly by that name out here. This fellow we have known for some time. Hunting him has never proven a profitable business, and, as a rule, he has never before come so far out in the open; but hunger tempted the old chap, and the man who galloped in told me he was even then dragging the yearling he had killed in the direction of the hills." "Oh! if we could only get there in time to see them shoot him!" exclaimed Will, hitching his camera a little closer to his body. "That's just what you're going to see. I sent word that he was not to be hurt until we arrived. Horses are being hitched up for us all. I suppose you can ride, boys?" inquired the owner of the ranch. "To a certain extent, though I suppose your cowboys will think us pretty punky at it," answered Jerry. "But we mean to learn everything we can while here," piped up Bluff earnestly. "Good for you! These horses are only old plugs, however, so there's no fear of them running away with you; and here they come." Several cowboys came toward them, each leading a number of horses. Frank thought that for "old plugs," the four intended for himself and chums possessed considerable of the fire that had animated them in other years. "Up you go, boys. Take your pick. Then we're off." Each seized upon the nearest animal, and, making use of the stirrup, threw himself into the saddle. As Jerry had said, all of them had frequently ridden at home, and indeed considered that they knew as much about a saddle as the average boy of the East; but that amounted to very little out here, where every one almost lived upon the back of a broncho. "Wow! But this is going some!" said Jerry as the whole group dashed madly up the valley. "I only hope I don't lose my camera in the rush," came from Will, who was having troubles of his own in the rear. "Look ahead, fellows! You can see what's going on, now!" called Frank, who kept alongside the ranchman in the lead. "Why, there's the bear, as sure as you live!" Bluff gasped. "But what's he trying to do? First he rushes one way, and then turns around to make a bolt at the other side. He must be getting rattled." "Don't you see, Jerry, they've got him lassoed? He wants to tackle any one of those three cowboys, but he just can't, with as many ropes pulling him in three directions." "Talk to me about that, will you, Frank!" cried Jerry. "I never expected to see a grizzly bear held up in a rope like a steer. Look at the game little ponies on their haunches, and holding like fun. They seem somewhat scared, too, pard. Between you and me, I don't blame 'em a bit. I'd hate to think that big beast was aiming to get a grip on me." It was just as Jerry said. The cowboys had headed the grizzly off so that he was unable to gain the safety of the wild mountain gorges. Doubtless he had been loth to leave his prey at the approach of the riders, and this had contributed to his final undoing. One after another three of them had dropped their ropes over the head of the grizzly as he reared himself on his hind legs. The lariats stretched like piano wires under the strain, and as the cowboys had taken up positions in a sort of triangle they could keep the bear from making any sort of rush. "Watch and see the fun," said Mr. Mabie, who had made sure to fetch his rifle along when coming from the ranch house; but he did not seem in any hurry to utilize the same. Will, of course, immediately made good use of his camera. Meanwhile, wilder grew the exertions of the trapped grizzly. He was snarling with rage. The foam gathered about his mouth, and Frank shuddered as he saw the cruel teeth, not to speak of the long, deadly and poisonous claws. "Hey, Bluff! If you only had that gentle little knife of yours handy, now would be a fine chance to rush in and have a tussle with that meek grizzly! You know you told us all just how you meant to slay the jabbercock with one straight blow." Bluff did not make any verbal reply to this unkind thrust on the part of Jerry, but Frank, looking at him, saw that his face was deadly pale, and that he was staring at the terrible monster with whom the reckless cowboys were playing as a cat does with a mouse. He knew Bluff was feeling a chill at the thought of such a tragedy happening as his having an encounter with a beast like that. "What if the ropes should break?" asked Frank as the captive made a more ferocious rush than usual, and the pony on the other side was dragged several feet. "Then there would be somewhat of a mix-up, and a case of every man for himself. They'd expect me to show that I hadn't altogether forgotten my craft in connection with handling a rifle. Once I used to be a crack shot, but lack of experience plays hob with a man's nerves," replied Mr. Mabie, as he sat upon his steed and played with the repeating rifle he held. "I see you are enjoying the situation, boys. Would one of you like to wind him up?" and the ranchman turned to Frank. "I don't believe I would, sir," laughed that worthy. "How about you, Jerry?" "I've often dreamed of shooting such game, but excuse me, Mr. Mabie, it would be too much like the butcher business to please me," observed the other. At this the stockman laughed. "Oh, I can understand that principle of honor in a true sportsman, my lad, and I must say it does you credit; but when you come to know grizzlies better, and appreciate their terrible strength, you'll agree with the rest of us that a man has to forget such things when he gets a chance to puncture the hide of so fierce a monster as this old rogue. He could kill a horse with a single blow, or tear one into shreds with those claws. If I can get my mount to go a little closer, I'll try to wind him up with a single ball, but it's difficult to shoot from the back of a nervous pony." He began to speak to his steed, which was striking the turf with its hoofs, and champing at the bit, as if terrified at such close proximity to, an animal so greatly to be dreaded. Then suddenly there was a wild shout from the cowboys, and Frank, looking, saw one of them whirling his horse in wild flight, and dashing toward the group. He seemed to guess instinctively what had happened--the rope of the opposite rider must have broken under the tremendous strain. This really left the grizzly free, and, filled with mad rage, he was galloping straight toward them! CHAPTER VIII BLUFF MISSES SOMETHING "Look out there!" shouted one of the cowboys. "Run, boys!" exclaimed Frank as he started to turn his pony around so as to get beyond reach of the rapidly advancing bear. He had just succeeded in doing this, and even started to gallop away, when he saw a sight that almost froze the blood in his veins. Jerry had, of course, intended doing a similar vamoosing stunt. It happened, however, that his horse was more frightened than those of the others. When he jerked at the bridle the beast whirled with such a vicious fling that the boy, totally unprepared for such a move, and unable to get the grip with his knees that a cowboy always secures, went toppling over his head. Frank, looking over his shoulder as he was borne rapidly away by his own alarmed steed, saw Jerry scramble to his knees. At any rate, he thought with relief, the other had escaped a broken neck in his ugly tumble. Still, with that enraged grizzly bearing swiftly down upon him, in spite of the one rope that still held taut, the position of poor Jerry was not the most pleasant in the world. Frank's first and only inspiration was to turn his horse around and rush back to the assistance of his chum. It never occurred to him that being without his own rifle, he would only be adding to the trouble by offering Bruin a double sacrifice. His pony, however, offered serious objections to facing that roaring hurricane of a beast. Despite Frank's most strenuous efforts, he could only twist the animal's head around, but not a step would the frightened beast approach. Dancing there, he snorted his distrust and alarm. But Frank plucked up new hope. He at the same time saw something else that gave another aspect to the case. Jerry was not to be left alone to his fate. "Hurrah for Mr. Mabie!" In his excitement Frank let out this shout. It was caused by seeing the ranchman leap from the back of his own horse and rapidly run back toward the spot where Jerry crouched, apparently too winded to get to his feet and try flight. Now Mr. Mabie had reached the boy, and the barrier of his heavy repeating rifle would be between Jerry and the grizzly. Frank expected to see the stockman drop on one knee and take aim at the bear, now very close to the two dismounted ones. Nothing of the kind occurred. On the contrary, he saw Mr. Mabie thrust the rifle into the hands of the boy, who seemed to seize it eagerly. Jerry had declined to shoot the grizzly when the beast was held by a cordon of riatas. The conditions were now considerably altered, for the huge animal was rapidly bearing down upon him, with the fire of destruction in his small, blazing eyes. It was a case of bringing his advance to a speedy stop, or suffering the consequences. Frank's heart thrilled with pride as he saw his chum throw the rifle up to his shoulder and glance along the glistening barrel. Mr. Mabie had shown wonderful confidence in the boy's nerve to thus place the solution of the problem in Jerry's hands. Holding his breath, as he still tugged at the mouth of his refractory mount, Frank saw the smoke shoot out from the muzzle of the gun as the report sounded. "Whoop! He's down!" shrieked a cowboy curveting near by. "Take care! He's coming again, Jerry!" shouted Frank. The bear had rolled over at the shot, but being one of the toughest animals in the world, he had immediately gained his feet again, and was once more advancing. But Jerry knew what to do, even though he had never met quarry of this caliber before. He pumped another cartridge into the chamber, deliberately took aim, with apparently little show of excitement, and fired again. Once more the grizzly stumbled and fell. When he tried to get up again he did not seem equal to the effort. Mr. Mabie was shaking the hand of the young Nimrod with great enthusiasm. Perhaps he had purposely tried the nerve of Jerry, to find out what manner of boys these were, of whom old Jesse Wilcox spoke so well. Now that the monster was dead, the ponies consented to draw somewhat closer; but the boys had to dismount, and hand over their steeds to a cowman when they wished to reach the spot where the victim of the hunt lay. Will, with his camera, was, of course, in evidence. "I wouldn't have missed that for a cookie!" he declared. "And if that frightened horse had only allowed me to take a crack at the time the old hermit toppled over, I'd be ever so much happier." Frank, remembering how the other had been forced to clasp his arms around the neck of his frantic steed at the time, smiled at the impossibility of such a thing coming about. "Give us a grip of your paw, old fellow!" cried Bluff, rushing up, brimming over with enthusiasm and admiration. "I'll sure never forget that sight! And he did the Rod, Gun and Camera Club proud when he used your weapon, didn't he, Mr. Mabie?" "I knew he would," was the quiet remark of the stockman; and Frank understood that the other had been forming a favorable opinion of the chums from the minute he saw them come off the train. "Would you like that skin to remember the event by, Jerry?" Mr. Mabie asked, a little later, while they were watching the cowboys remove the hide. "It would give my mother a cold chill to see it, if she ever heard the story; but then we have a clubroom over our boathouse, and I guess it would look nice there. So, since you are so kind as to offer it, I'll say yes, Mr. Mabie." "Well, I should remark that we'd never forgive you if you let that chance slip. It looks as though our big-game trip might pan out something worth while, after all," observed Bluff. "You do everything on a big scale out here in the Northwest, sir. The fields of wheat are tremendous, the distances immense, the mountains higher than any in the East, by long odds; and the game the biggest in the whole country," remarked Frank. "And in this bracing air we hope to raise the finest crop of boys in the world. But let's return to the house, lads. It's time we had a bite, for I'm sure your appetites must be sharpened by this little adventure." The ranchman cast many a secret admiring glance toward Jerry as they rode home. He fell back with Frank on purpose to speak his mind, while the other three galloped on ahead, laughing and shouting, as boys off on a vacation always do. "I like that chap, Jerry," he remarked earnestly. "He's a lad after my own heart. What he said about not wanting to shoot defenceless game gave me a wrench, for we cherish notions along that same line up here in the wilderness. Of course, the grizzly, as I said, does not come under that law, for he's too terrible a customer to be given much rope." "Sometimes he takes his own rope," laughed Frank, secretly delighted to hear this honest praise of his chum. "Which is quite true for you, Frank. That cowboy will not soon get over the humiliation of having his lariat give way. He feels very sore about it now," remarked the stockman, casting a side look toward where a couple of his herders were wrangling over something as they brought up the rear. "I'm so glad you gave Jerry that chance. He's the most enthusiastic sportsman I ever met, and so honorable in his dealings with the wearers of fin, fur and feather. No danger of the woods ever being depopulated while he's around," Frank said, with his customary generous view of anything that concerned his chums. "It was what you may call an inspiration. My first idea, of course, was to cover the boy and face the bear. I did not doubt my own ability to down him, but somehow I was tempted to take chances with the lad. I'm glad now I did it. He stood the racket like a veteran. I'd be a happy man if I'd only been left a boy like your chum for my own." The ranchman spurred on ahead at this, and Frank made no effort to overtake him, for he felt sure he had seen tears glistening in the other's eyes, and could appreciate his feelings, for the stockman's only child, a boy, at that, lay with the mother in the ranch cemetery. Breakfast was ready for them, and what a glorious meal the boys made! Just as Mr. Mabie had said, they proved as hungry as wolves. That clear mountain air seemed to tone them up after their long railway journey, and Frank laughingly declared their host had better send away for a new stock of provisions if he expected to keep them satisfied. Bluff was the first to leave the table. Frank had seen him eating hurriedly toward the close of the meal. He knew without being told what ailed his comrade. "He'll never be happy until he gets it, fellows!" sang out Jerry, who, of course, had also noticed the hurried departure of the anxious one. They could hear Bluff tossing things around hurriedly in the other room, where they expected to bunk, and to which the big trunk had been finally carried. Ten minutes later, Frank, remembering that a great silence had fallen over the neighboring apartment, stole softly to the door and looked in. He saw a picture of abject dejection there--Bluff sitting on the floor, in the midst of piles of garments, clothes bags, and all manner of things, frowning and shaking his head, as if he had lost his last friend. "What's the matter?" demanded Frank, drawing nearer. "Matter enough," answered the disconsolate one, sighing heavily. "Why, after all my trouble and everything, I've gone and left that knife at home, and now my whole trip is going to be spoiled for me. I just seemed to feel that something was bound to happen to upset my calculations. I might as well go back, that's what," said Bluff, gritting his teeth in his spasm of disgust. CHAPTER IX FRANK HAS HIS TURN "Oh, humbug! There are other knives," remarked Frank cheerily. "Not like that one," said Bluff dismally. "No doubt Mr. Mabie will lend you a good one while you're here." "Yes, he's awfully kind, but it wouldn't be that knife," groaned the bereaved Bluff. "When do you remember seeing it last?" demanded Frank, as a suspicion darted into his brain that was connected with Jerry. On one of their former camping trips Jerry had professed to entertain a decided antipathy toward a repeating shotgun of modern make that Bluff had bought. He declared that it was a shame for one who called himself a sportsman to handle so destructive a weapon. When a chance came, he hid the gun in a box that held some of their superfluous things. Later, upon trying to find it, in order to give it back, he learned that it was missing, and Bluff had to go without his gun until the hunt was nearly over, when it was discovered in the woods, where the thief had dropped it. Frank wondered if Jerry was concerned in the mysterious vanishing of the wonderful hunting-knife. He had laughed at its tremendous proportions and ornate handle. Still, it did not seem reasonable to believe that Jerry would be guilty of a second trick along those same lines. "I was trying to remember. You know we were showing our things to the girls?" "Yes, I believe we were," smiled Frank; for he could still see Bluff flourishing his precious knife, sheath and all, for the entertainment of Nellie. "Well, I can't remember for the life of me seeing it again after that. You know we packed in a big hurry in the morning. I may have laid it aside, intending that it would go in on top, and then overlooked it. Such a fool play, too, when that was the prize of the whole collection!" groaned Bluff. "And you've looked over the whole outfit here, have you?" Frank continued, surveying the piled-up mess of stuff. "Yes; three separate times. Oh, there's no getting around it, I've made a goose of myself, and you know how I wanted to use that trusty blade so much. Of course, I won't think of moping in my tent. I'll borrow a knife, and perhaps it will do me good service; but nothing can ever take the place of that beautiful piece of steel." "Well, let's get these things in something like order before the boys come in. Sort out what belongs to you, and chuck the balance of your extra clothes in your own bag, for I see that you've had most of them out" "Yes. I even wondered if I could have stuck that knife in among my other shirts and underclothes, but it isn't there. I'll have to stand it, but you fellows will never know what a loss this is to me. Coming all this distance, too, just to get a chance to use it on an elk, or something worth while." Frank thought that if Bluff had his way his mates would at least never have a chance to forget about his great loss, for he was apt to remind them of it every little while. Will now came bustling in, anxious to ascertain if his little developing outfit came through safely, together with his packages of hypo and other necessities. It was decided to put in that day around the ranch seeing how Mr. Mabie ran his business. Then on the following morning a party of them intended to set out for a camp in the mountains, where game would likely be found. "We'll occupy three camps I have in view. From the first we can go to the second by taking several bullboats that will be waiting for us, and shooting the rapids in the river. That would be an experience you boys might enjoy," remarked the stockman as they rode around the valley to get a comprehensive grasp upon the way in which this enterprising settler carried on a big cattle ranch. Reddy seemed to have been picked out by the owner to keep with them. Frank was glad of this, for somehow he had come to entertain a fancy for the smiling young cowboy. "Rapids, did you say?" exclaimed Jerry, his face lighting up with rapture. "Why, that would tickle us from the ground up. I've always wanted to run through some little Niagara. Frank, here, has done it up in Maine, so he tells us. I hope what you have will beat his experience all hollow." "Well, they are some rapids, I understand," replied the other, smiling. "And if I could only be on the shore, to see you shoot down, it would afford me the greatest pleasure in the world. Not that I don't want to go through, too, but my first duty is toward securing all these wonderful events in an imperishable way by taking a picture. Some scoffers may doubt a story, but pictures never lie." "That shows your innocence, Will," remarked Jerry. "Why, I've seen fellows standing beside the fish they caught, which I knew myself to be only ten inches long, and yet the cunning photographer had arranged it so that it looked all of two feet." "I'm surprised that you, with all your experience, shouldn't know that," said Frank, pretending to frown. "You mistook my meaning, that's all. What I intended to say was that _my_ pictures would never lie," affirmed Will sturdily. "Hear! hear! Somebody rub him on the back, please! But joking aside, Will, I'm ready to back you up on that score. The only fault I find with you is your ambition to take a fellow in every pickle he happens to drop into," and Jerry made a wry face as he remembered a number of scenes in which he had figured, that were wont to excite his chums to uproarious laughter at such times as they looked at the faithful reproductions in their album at the clubhouse. In this pleasant way the day passed, and evening found them eager to complete their preparations for the morrow. Mr. Mabie answered every question fired at him by the anxious young sportsmen, especially Bluff, who wanted to know everything connected with the game they expected to hunt. "He's trying to forget his great disappointment," said Frank as he and Jerry watched the other plying Mr. Mabie with these queries; for Bluff was the son of a lawyer, and would never take things for granted. "What's that?" asked Jerry, for no one had been told about the loss that had come to Bluff. "Can't find that knife of his anywhere, it seems, and believes he must have left it behind. He was looking mighty blue when I found him in the room, with all our stuff tumbled, pell-mell, out of the trunk." Frank eyed his chum as he spoke. Jerry turned a little red. "Not guilty, Frank! I give you my word I never touched the measly old knife. I'm sorry for him, too, for he seemed so bent on doing great stunts with it. I'll take a look myself," he said hastily, and yet meeting his chum's gaze in such a straightforward fashion that Frank never doubted his word for an instant. "No use doing that. He rooted the whole outfit over. The knife is gone, and that's sure! I've been thinking some about it." "And had a bright idea, I warrant. What's your solution of the mystery?" "Why, you see, Jerry, I can clearly recollect Nellie's startled look when Bluff showed her that terribly large knife. She's afraid of such things. I'm sure she must have worried some about it, and I was thinking--" "What?" "That perhaps she may have considered it prudent to hide it away so that he couldn't find it again. I believe she would in my case, anyhow. It would be just like Nellie." "Oh, well, it doesn't matter much, only Bluff is such a fellow to hang on a thing he'll never give us any peace about it. Have you asked Will?" said Jerry. "No. I will, though; but I don't think he would bother his head about a dozen knives. If it were a camera, now, or a rapid-action rectilinear lens, you could depend on him to take notice." Frank was as good as his word. Will denied having touched the article in question, and said he was sorry to hear Bluff would be deprived of a pleasure. And so for the time being the mystery remained such, with Bluff occasionally digging into that trunk in a vain search, and always sighing mournfully because he failed to bring the lost treasure to light. The boys bunked in one big room. It was very much like a picnic for them, and would often bring back pleasant memories whenever they looked at the rather clever view Will managed to get of the interior, with his chums and himself lolling there. In the morning there was pretty much of a bustle around the ranch house. "Ready, boys?" called Mr. Mabie, as he appeared with his gun strapped across his back, as the easiest way of carrying it. A chorus of affirmatives greeted his question. "Then mount, and we'll be off. They've gone on ahead last night with the tents and foodstuff, so that we'll find things in pretty much shipshape when we get on the ground." "Say, they do things right out in this big country, eh?" said Bluff to Frank as the two of them galloped off in company. The morning was fair and the air sharp enough to be bracing. "Never saw anything to equal the atmosphere here," remarked Frank as their host came alongside. "There seems to be a tonic in it that even we do not have up in Maine or the Adirondacks. It makes you feel like shouting all the time." "Everybody says the same when they first come. Presently you will grow accustomed to its invigorating tone, and quiet down. It is caused by the dry air. We are a long way from the Atlantic, and these mighty mountains to the west act as a buffer to the moisture-laden air from the Pacific." Crossing the valley, they were soon penetrating among the foothills at the base of the great uplifts, the tops of which bore eternal snow. Wilder grew the scenery as they penetrated deeper into the wilderness. Frank and his chums were almost awed by the grandeur of their surroundings. At the same time, Jerry kept an eager eye on the watch for signs of game. The sportsman spirit was strong in his nature, and generally forged to the front. It was Frank, however, who first chanced to spy something that excited his attention. "What is that moving up yonder, Mr. Mabie? There! Look! I declare if it didn't jump straight across from that high rock to the other! Is that a Rocky Mountain sheep, sir?" he asked. "Just what it is, my lad; and if you feel inclined, there is a chance for you to get a shot at it," came the quick reply. "I would like it, first rate," declared Frank, immediately changing his rifle from his back to his hands. "All right, then. Listen, and I'll tell you how it may be done. We'll rest our horses right here, for the last climb over this rough ridge to the bank of the swift river lying between. You drop down here and make your way along until you can get a chance to shoot. It will be a long shot, remember, so make allowances; and the wind is with you, not against you." "I'll try my best, sir," said Frank, slipping off his horse. "Be very careful as you crawl along, for a slip might cost you your life," were the last words he heard the stockman say as he began to descend the little declivity in order to make his way along its base, so as to remain concealed from the quarry. Frank was careful as well as quick in his movements. Again and again he peeped out to see what the mountain sheep was doing. So far as he could learn, the animal seemed to be centering its attention on the caravan that had halted. Three times it moved its position, and once he was just in time to see it make a most dazzling leap, which he hoped Will might have caught with his quick-action lens. Finally, having gained a place where he had a fine view of the animal standing there across the gorge, Frank sank down so as to get a good aim. Not quite satisfied, he crawled forward a little further, and then proceeded to put his fortune to the test. Never had he calculated more exactly just how he should aim in order to bring the success he craved. When he pressed the trigger he was thrilled to see the mountain sheep give a wild spring into the air and then fall over the edge of the platform. This time its spring lacked the buoyancy of life, and Frank knew that his bullet had reached its billet. But he had no time to exult, for as he moved he felt the ground slipping from under him, and realized that nothing could interpose to prevent his falling into the deep gorge! CHAPTER X THE YOUNG HUNTER AND THE ELK There are times when one acts from instinct alone. Frank had no time to think, when he felt himself going down with some loose earth and stones into the wide canyon. He simply threw his rifle back of him, so that he might save it from falling, and at the same time have the free use of both hands. He fell a dozen feet or so, along with the loose soil and rocks he had caused to give way under his weight. Then, by some happy accident, his outstretched hands closed upon a bush that was growing from the rough face of the wall, and to this he clung with desperation. It threatened to come loose with each movement he made, and yet he was bound to find some niche for his dangling feet, so as to relieve the bush from a part of his weight. He had heard the loud outcries of his friends, and knew they must be hastening to his relief. If he could only hold on for five minutes all might be well. Below lay quite an abyss, and a fall was apt to bruise him very much, even if he were fortunate enough not to have any bones broken. It was, therefore, with considerable gratitude that he discovered he could dig his toes into crevices in the rock, and thus hang on. Jerry afterward declared that Frank presented all the appearance of a fly plastered against a wall; but it might have been noticed that he was the first one to reach the edge of the platform and breathe encouraging words to his endangered chum. Mr. Mabie knew what would be needed before he made the first movement. "Bring your rope, Reddy!" he shouted, and the agile cowboy had obeyed. This was quickly lowered until the noose dangled below Frank. "Use one foot to draw it in, my boy. We want you to get both legs inside the loop, and then gradually let us draw it up under your arms. It's all right. We're going to have you out of that, so don't worry!" called the ranchman. "You can depend on it, Frank isn't frightened. If that bush threatens to go, get a quick grip of the rope! Do you understand, Frank?" called Jerry. A quick nod of the head told that the one below realized he was as good as drawn up already. One foot was cautiously withdrawn from its support and the loop caught; then the second also passed inside the circle; after which a tightening of the lariat brought it up to where Mr. Mabie wanted to have it. "Now here you come, my boy!" he called cheerily. Frank let go his frenzied clutch, and swung into space; but willing hands quickly drew him up until he stood with his chums. "Did I get him?" was the first question he asked, at which the stockman laughed heartily and patted him on the back. "Spoken like a true sportsman, I declare! How about it, Reddy?" he said. "There's his game, sir, lying just at the foot of that old slide. It was as neat a shot as I ever saw," declared the young cowboy, pointing. "Which is the truth, old fellow!" exclaimed Jerry, seizing Frank's hand and wringing it warmly, without a touch of jealousy, even though his own laurels as the admitted best shot of the club seemed in jeopardy. "But what a pity we can't get it! I hate to think of killing game and leaving it for the wolves," said Frank. "Oh, that's soon remedied. Reddy will promise to land that sheep here for you in double-quick order, eh?" Reddy was already fastening one end of his lariat to a projecting stone that resembled a saddle-horn. This done, he tried it, to make sure that it would hold. Then he tossed the balance of the rope, loop and all, over the edge. "Does it reach down?" asked Mr. Mabie. "Just gets there, and no more," replied Will, craning his neck to see. Reddy flung himself over in what struck Will as a most reckless fashion; but he discovered in time that these free riders of the ranches do everything in that nervous manner. It is a country where men quickly learn that often their lives depend on their ability to act promptly and like a flash. "He's down already," announced Will, half a minute later. And it was not ten minutes before they saw the cowboy coming back again. He had Frank's first mountain sheep upon his back, and though the way was rough he jumped from stone to stone with surprising agility for one who spent so much time in the saddle. In due time the journey was resumed. "How much further do we go?" asked Will, as he followed behind the guide, Reddy. "Here's the top of the ridge. Now you can see the other valley, and the noise you hear is made by a cataract in the river. We camp just below that. Fishing is good there, and I guess you'll like it," was the reply. They soon headed down, and the end of their day's work seemed close at hand. It can be easily assumed that none of the boys were sorry. Quite unused to riding, they began to feel the effects already. "I'm glad it's a camp after this. I've sure got a cramp in my legs that it'll take a long time to get out," grunted Bluff. "Rome wasn't built in a day, son. Each time you ride you'll notice that cramp less and less, until after a month you will be entirely free from it. But here we are at our journey's end, and I, for one, don't feel sorry, because for ten minutes I've been scenting that coffee. The boys have seen us coming, and started to have dinner cooked." It proved to be just as Mr. Mabie said. A most appetizing camp dinner was ready for them when they arrived. Perhaps Jerry and Frank may have thought it did not fully come up to some similar feasts they had helped prepare in the woods, but of course they never hinted at such a thing; for those cowboys, while the most accommodating of fellows, were also thin-skinned in some respects. Will was fairly delighted at the romantic looks of the camp, back of which the waterfall came tumbling down. He could hardly wait to eat his dinner before he set to work to secure a _fac-simile_ of the picture, with the party gathered around the fire, and the three tents making a pleasing contrast to the dark green of the piñon trees. Most of the party were contented to remain quiet during the balance of the day, but Bluff developed an unusually ambitious spirit for action. Truth to tell, he secretly considered that his chums were having more than their share of good luck in making a record at bagging game, and thought it time he started in. Mr. Mabie had made him accept the use of a spare hunting-knife. It was a short, though serviceable weapon, and had doubtless done splendid execution in days gone by. Bluff used to take it out when he thought no one was looking, run his finger over the keen edge, gaze sadly at the dim blade, and shake his head. He could not get the memory of that other grand specimen of the cutler's skill out of his mind, and his soul was filled with bitterness because of its strange absence. "Look out for wolves!" called Reddy, but Bluff only waved his hand in derision as he walked away down the valley. Of course, he knew that the stockmen were more or less troubled with these hungry marauders in the winter time, and often had to organize grand hunts in order to keep their number down; but it hardly seemed reasonable to expect trouble from such a source in the summer season. Elk and moose had not as yet come under the protection of the game laws, so that they were at liberty to shoot what they pleased. As a rule, however, Mr. Mabie did not believe in hunting such animals save in the fall of the year. Bluff had asked numerous questions before leaving camp, so that he knew something about the lay of the land in the vicinity. He had started out with all due regard to the way the wind was blowing, so as not to alarm any quarry that might be sniffing up the breeze. Climbing among the rocks, and passing through dense patches of timber, he kept on the alert for signs of game. Now, Bluff did not make any pretence at being a skilful sportsman. In fact, until a year or so back he had been the bungler of the party when it came to a knowledge of woodcraft; but since then he had studied up on various subjects, and was now anxious to air his knowledge. When he caught sight of a large animal with towering antlers, feeding in a little glade, he knew it must, of necessity, be an elk, for a moose was built along different lines entirely. It might have amused Jerry to see the way in which Bluff crawled closer and closer to the expected quarry. No doubt he did make some ridiculous efforts, which were not at all according to the usual rules of the game. However, as Bluff would say, the proof of the pudding lies in the eating of it, and he certainly did manage to creep up quite close to the feeding elk. Thinking he was now near enough, and that the animal was beginning to act uneasily, Bluff stretched himself out, balanced his gun on a stone, took a long aim, and then pulled the trigger. The elk certainly dropped, at which the young hunter gave a bellow of delight. That was where he made a foolish blunder, for believing that his bullet had done for the game, Bluff started recklessly forward, bent on bleeding the same, and only regretting the fact that he could not initiate his precious new blade. To his astonishment, the wounded elk scrambled to its feet, and instead of bounding away it shook its antlers in an angry fashion and started straight toward the young hunter! CHAPTER XI THE ELK AND THE YOUNG HUNTER "Hey! Hold on, there! That isn't in the game!" The elk did not seem to care whether it were so or not, but came rushing straight on. Like many another, more experienced in the ways of the woods than himself, Bluff almost forgot that he had other charges in his gun. He was so amazed to see the animal he had fully believed to be dead show such surprising signs of life, that he stood there for a few precious seconds, gaping as if in a dream. Then he made a wild spring to one side and gained the shelter of a tree. "Oh! What a socker!" he exclaimed, as the enraged and bleeding animal came full tilt against the trunk of the tree. Before he could say more, or try to form any plan of action, he found himself obliged to spin around that same trunk with all the rapidity he could command, for the elk was apparently determined to overtake him, and those towering antlers seemed pointed with spikes, in the eyes of the startled lad as he strained every effort to keep beyond their reach. Bluff was really alarmed by this time. He knew that any unfortunate slip on his part would precipitate a tragedy. "I laughed at Jerry and the wild dogs that chased him around and around, but never again for me!" he gasped, as he kept up the weary circle, hugging the trunk as closely as possible. This, however, caused him to remember that on the other occasion his chum had finally managed to gain the victory through his own gun, and Bluff suddenly came to a knowledge of the fact that he did have a gun gripped in his hand, and which also contained five more shots. "Hold on! Give me a breathing spell, hang you! I'll fix you yet!" he managed to exclaim, though he would better have husbanded his breath to better purpose. The elk was not a bit accommodating. Perhaps the animal understood that so long as it kept Bluff in rapid motion the human enemy could not find a chance to use that fire-stick again, that shot out such burning missiles. At any rate, it persevered, and poor Bluff's tongue fairly hung out with fatigue. In desperation, he was about to turn around, trusting to luck to get in a shot that would put an end to this awful chase in a circle, when the elk tripped and fell. "Now!" gasped Bluff. You would have thought he must have leveled his gun and fired. Jerry or Frank would, in all probability, have done that very thing. But Bluff seemed to go back to the first law of Nature, which is self-preservation. He dropped his gun, and seizing a limb that happened to be within reach, climbed into the tree with the agility of a monkey. Fear spurred him on to do his best work just then. "Don't you wish you could?" he shouted derisively down at the elk, which was jumping up, and making all manner of threatening movements with its antlered head, much after the fashion of an enraged goat, Bluff thought. He was safe enough, but somehow Bluff did not like the idea of having to wait in the tree until his chums, drawn by his calls, came to the rescue. Why, he would never hear the end of the thing! It was too horrible to contemplate, and in some fashion he must secure possession of his gun to end the career of that pugnacious old bull elk. [Illustration: "DON'T YOU WISH YOU COULD?" HE SHOUTED DERISIVELY DOWN AT THE ELK.--_Page 98_. _The Outdoor Chums After Big Game_.] Bluff had read more or less about the strange adventures that befall hunters of big game. He also remembered how one man had fished for his gun, and successfully, under similar conditions. Having no cord in his pocket, he deliberately tore his handkerchief into strips and knotted them together. When this failed to reach the ground, he fastened it to the end of a long and stout "sucker," or sprout, which he cut from the body of the tree. A running loop was made at the other end, for he could see that his gun lay in such a position that the barrel was tilted. Bluff then began to angle. Many times he came near accomplishing his purpose, when something occurred to break up his plans. "I'll never give up," he declared, when the elk moved forward, as if suspecting something, and endeavored to catch the dangling noose in its antlers, which Bluff would not have happen for anything. "If I was trying to catch you, I'd want something stronger than this rag. Now please wander away again, and let me have another try," he said; and then, as the animal did walk off a dozen paces, as if encouraging him to descend, he courteously added, "Thank you." A minute later he was thrilled to find that his erratic loop had actually dropped over the end of the gun barrel. A quick jerk at the proper instant tightened the clutch, and after that it was the easiest thing in the world to pull the weapon up within reach of his trembling hands. "Now, we'll see if you're going to have the laugh on me, you old scamp! Hi! Hold on, there! Who said you could walk away? Come back here, and have it out! I dare you!" The elk, as if suspecting that all was not well, had indeed started to move off. But when Bluff made a great feint of coming down, he succeeded in exciting the animal's anger again, and caution was flung to the winds. Bluff watched for his chance, and when it came he made sure work of it by sending a bullet through the heart of the fighting elk. Even then he waited a little while. "Going to try getting up again? This time I'm ready for you, old fellow!" he said to the fallen beast; but presently it became patent, even to his inexperienced eyes, that the elk had breathed its last. "Now, if Will were only here," Bluff remarked enviously, as he put one foot on his prize and tried to look very unconcerned, as if knocking down such big game might be a matter of almost daily occurrence with him. Not knowing how to go about cutting the elk up, Bluff headed back toward the camp. Before leaving the spot he thought to bleed the quarry, after a fashion, for he understood that such a thing was always done to make the meat taste better. Half an hour later he showed up in the camp. It was next to impossible to get lost in that valley, which might account for Bluff finding his way back with comparative ease. Jerry was lounging alongside one of the tents, engaged in getting his fishing tackle in order, for a try in the pool below the falls. "Shall we send the horses out to tote it in?" he asked, after the usual fashion of greeting greenhorns when they come back from a hunt apparently unattended by success. "Did you hear me shoot?" asked Bluff carelessly. "Why, yes, twice; and some time apart. What was it--a crow or a jack-rabbit?" Bluff only smiled as Mr. Mabie came out of the tent and glanced at him. "What would you say that was, sir?" he asked, thrusting something in front of the old stockman. Starting back, Mr. Mabie looked hastily at the hairy object. "An elk's tail, as sure as you live!" he remarked, his face relaxing in a smile. "What's that?" roared Jerry, springing to his feet. "Oh, you needn't get excited about it. Do you see the dull spots on my knife? Well, I bled my game, all right, just as I wanted to do with that bully good blade that was left behind; and if Reddy will only go back with me, we can bring the old fellow in on a horse," said Bluff coolly. "Count me in on that!" exclaimed Will, rushing out of his impromptu dark-room, and waving the bottle in which he was making a solution of hypo. "I think I'll go along, too," remarked Frank, appearing from some other place. When the party started forth presently, there were six of them with the horse--the chums, Reddy, and Mr. Mabie himself. "I am beginning to believe you boys will corral everything in sight if you keep on the way you've started. A grizzly, a sheep, and now an elk; and only thirty hours with me! H'm! Perhaps I may not be able to show you as much about big-game hunting as I expected," said the stockman, who seemed vastly amused at the energy shown by his young guests at the ranch. "Oh, we can pull a trigger, all right, sir, but there are a thousand things we want to know about these natives that books never teach. I'm like a sponge, and can keep on soaking up information all the time," laughed Frank. Incautiously, Bluff let fall certain words that gave Jerry a clue as to the true situation. "A tree! Shot him downward from a tree, eh? Now, since you've so frankly confessed that much, why not tell the whole blooming story, Bluff?" he cried. "There isn't much to it. I saw the elk. Then I shot him, and he fell over. After that the elk saw me. He chased me about a tree. I remembered how fast Jerry said he ran around when those wild dogs were after him, and I wanted to go him just one better. Then I found a chance to climb when the wounded elk stumbled. After that I made a rope out of my handkerchief and fished with a loop until I caught the barrel of my gun. That's all." "A whole history in a nutshell. But we must be getting near the place, according to what you said at the start. There are the three oaks growing in a clump. Now where's your dead elk?" As Frank spoke he turned to Bluff. That individual was staring around in evident bewilderment. "It was sure here I met him. There's the little glade, and this big tree is the one I climbed up into. I saw him lying there. I _know_ he was dead when I bled him. But I must be blind, for the elk certainly is not here now. Oh! Did he come to life again, and run away?" said poor Bluff, in despair, looking at the tail, which he had thrust into his belt. CHAPTER XII HARD LUCK "Talk to me about your dreamers!" muttered Jerry, shrugging his shoulders. "But I tell you it was so!" asserted Bluff, firing up. "The boy is right," said Mr. Mabie, as he stepped forward and fastened his eyes upon the ground. Frank saw immediately what the stockman had in mind. These things mentioned by Bluff could never have happened without leaving some tangible traces behind. Where a big elk had been slain there must be signs of the blood that had flowed. "Look here, and see for yourself, Jerry." And Mr. Mabie pointed to the ground at his feet. "There's some marks of hoofs around, I admit, and they seem to circle about the tree, just as Bluff says; and--yes, that's blood on the ground, as sure as you live! I guess I'm on the wrong track. He did have a merry circus. He did shoot an elk, but where has the blooming thing gone?" exclaimed the scoffer. "That's just what I'm going to find out through Reddy, here. He has some local reputation as a tracker. Put your nose down to it, and let us know what happened, Reddy." In accordance with the request of the ranchman, the cowboy threw himself upon his hands and knees. "Indians!" he announced, before they had taken half a dozen breaths. "What?" cried Bluff, staring hard. "Cree Indians been here. I can see the print of their moccasins plain as day; and here's where they dragged the elk along, heading toward the river!" Reddy seemed to have not the slightest trouble in reading the signs, and yet to the boys there was not the faintest vestige of marks. Presently, however, Frank was able to make out the print of a foot in the soil, and he noted that the one who made it wore no heels. His footwear must be moccasins. "H'm!" remarked Mr. Mabie. "Just what I suspected. The thieving Crees have robbed our young friend of his prize. Too bad! But there are more elk around, Bluff, and I hope you'll have other chances." "But that one chased me so hard I wanted revenge. I calculated on eating a bit of his flank for my dinner. What's the matter with our following up the scamps, and making them give up some of my game, anyhow?" demanded the disappointed hunter. "Impossible just now. The river is close by, and they undoubtedly had boats in which they fled, carrying off your elk. By this time they've shot the rapids, and must be miles below. Possibly we may run across the rascals later, when we also go down the river," replied Mr. Mabie. Reddy had gone off, his head bent low, and they understood that he was following the trail, much as a hound would have done, with this one difference, that whereas a dog pursues by scent alone, the cowboy had to depend on his eyes. "But if game is so plentiful, why should these Crees want to steal my elk?" pursued Bluff, who could not be easily satisfied. "That bothers me to answer. Perhaps they happened to be out of ammunition. There are several other explanations, but in my opinion the most probable is the natural meanness of certain dusky bucks; just as your able tramp refuses to do a lick of work, while he'll walk twenty miles for nothing," smiled the other. "There comes Reddy back. Perhaps he knows more about it now," said Frank, who was decidedly interested in the enigma. They waited until the cowboy joined the circle about the tree. "Boats, Reddy?" asked Mr. Mabie. "Three. Must have carried around the falls without our knowing it. Hung about here, waiting to steal something from our camp. Had a snare set for jack-rabbits. Saw some torn skins in the camp," was what the cowboy replied, in his jerky way. "Oh! Then I guess they must have been here before we came, and all you say makes me believe I was right. They have no arms, or else their powder and shot have run out; and for some reason they are afraid to meet whites. Well, the elk's gone, and we can't mend that. Let's return to camp. You have the tail to show for your little adventure, my lad." "Yes, sir; and the memory of it all, which will haunt me for a good long time," said Bluff, with a shake of his head, as he contemplated the historic tree around which he had done a little Marathon. "But I mean to get a picture of this tree, anyhow, just to remind Bluff how valuable a good pair of sprinting legs may be sometimes," laughed Will. And he did, with Bluff standing alongside; for once the official photographer demanded a pose, he was bound to get it, or throw up his job, for such was the law of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club. Then they retraced their steps to the camp, Frank more than usually thoughtful, for anything in the shape of a mystery always set him to puzzling, and he more than once wondered whether they would ever learn just why those Crees stole the elk Bluff had downed after so much trouble. "How many did there seem to be?" he asked Reddy, a little later. "You mean of the thieving reds? I counted nine in all, four bucks, two squaws and three pappooses," replied the other. "But if I understand rightly, these Indians never take their families when they go on the war-path. Is that so, Reddy?" Frank asked quickly. "Say, get that notion out of your head right away. They ain't no Crees lookin' for trouble these days. My idea is just this: This is a family travelin' acrost country, for some reason or other. P'raps they got kicked out of their pesky old village. I've knowed such things to happen. Then they run short of meat, and didn't have guns or powder. Under such conditions any redman would steal." "Well, who could blame them, with women and children to feed? I guess you hit the nail on the head that time, Reddy. Glad to think that way, too. We can spare the elk, and it will spur Bluff on to other hunting deeds. He's had a taste now, and the fever will work on him." Meanwhile, Jerry had started his fishing below the cataract. There were places just at the end of the foam-splashed outlet of the big pool where they had seen noble trout jumping, and it was here he dropped his flies. After trying them a short time, and ascertaining that the trout paid little attention to the feathery lure, practical Jerry actually descended to the plebian angleworm, though he blushed when Frank came over to watch him. "Got to have some for supper, you know," he remarked. "Now, if I was only doing this thing for the sport, nothing could tempt me to use live bait. I'm at it in the strict commercial sense this time." "I understand; and Jerry, let me tell you, the sportsman who, when trout-hungry, refuses to go back to first principles, and use grubs and worms after the fish refuse the fly, is to be pitied, that's all," laughed Frank. "Hey! That's a dandy, all right! See him jump, will you? Wow! He's all of two pounds, and as strong as an ox! I hope the leader holds. It's been frayed some by rubbing over rocks in the past. Please pick up that landing-net and attend to the beauty, if I can coax him close enough, Frank." Frank landed not only that beauty, but several more, ere he wandered off to do something else. Jerry kept on fishing until he could not get another bite, by which time he had quite a nice string of the speckled beauties. "Perhaps enough for a decent meal; though if Bluff develops his usual appetite, the rest of us would go hungry. I wonder if a fellow mightn't have some luck up above the falls? Guess I'll make a shift to try," he said to himself. The last view he had of the camp showed him Reddy amusing Bluff by making flying tosses of his rope and lassoing all sorts of objects, from the hat on the head of the admiring witness, to something tossed up in the air. Jerry labored up the hillside until he finally came to where he could look down at the water as it shot over the edge. It fell with a great deal of noise, striking the rocks below in many places with terrific force. "Ugh! It would just about bang a fellow to pieces to drop over there," he remarked, commencing to move upstream, looking for a promising place to begin his fishing operations. Presently he discovered a log that jutted out over the swift current. From this outlook he believed he could allow his bait to float down into an eddy that looked as though it might be the home of a big hermit trout. Jerry tested the log as he cautiously advanced. He realized that he was taking some chances in creeping out to its furthest end, but so far as he could ascertain it seemed to be firm enough. Straddling the log, he started to get his baited hook in motion. The wriggling worms sank a little in the swirl. At first, he was unable to just master the difficult problem of how to influence the bait to float into the eddy. Twice he failed to accomplish this, but studying the rushing stream a little, he fancied that by a certain throw in the start he could gain his end. Sure enough, it worked, and like a charm. The baited hook was drawn back into the foam-flecked eddy, and he saw it vanish from view. Then came a most tremendous jerk, that almost caused him to lose his balance and the log to quiver, with sickening possibilities. But Jerry glued his legs against the sides, just as he had been told to do with a refractory pony, and managed to recover his balance. The trout was a gamey one, and the swiftness of the current made the task of securing him doubly hard. "I'll work, all right, for everything I hook here," panted Jerry, after ten minutes had passed, and he tossed his exhausted prize over to the bank. But he would not give up. Where one such fine, fat fellow held out there was certainly a chance for more, so he continued his fishing. Unknown to him, Will had also wandered up that steep hillside, searching for a new view of the wonderful cataract. Pushing through the dense thickets, he chanced to catch a glimpse of the lone fisherman. "Now, that's what I call a picturesque sight! Look at the chap perched out on the very end of that log, with the water rushing below like a mill-race! Here's where I get you, my duck. Fancy to what ends a fisherman will go in order to enjoy his favorite sport." Will seemed to forget entirely that he was willing to undertake just as long a pilgrimage and buck up against as difficult problems simply to get one snapshot that appealed to his soul. "There! He's got another fish on! My! How it pulls! I wouldn't be out on that log, doing such a job, for anything. But I just bet Jerry is as happy as a clam. He sets his teeth, and holds on as if he had a whale, and perhaps it is a big un! I must get him again in that position. Why, although he don't know it, he's just giving me the best thing of the day!" Will rapidly adjusted his camera, and looked down to see that he had the proper focus before snapping the shutter. The light was good up there, and he believed he must have the greatest success with such a picture as that. Besides, it had the genuine article of life in it, which he always sought in taking his views. Then he pressed his finger, in the belief that he was about to snatch a snapshot bound to give the four chums the keenest satisfaction in days to come. "Oh!" The startled exclamation broke involuntarily from the lips of Will even at the very second he took his picture, and he let his beloved camera fall to the ground, at the risk of doing it some material damage. It was not this seeming mishap that had brought the startled cry from his lips, but the crash of sundering wood, and the sudden disappearance of the lone fisherman below the rim of the river bank; for the log had finally betrayed Jerry, and dropped him into that swirling, maddening current above the high falls! CHAPTER XIII AN INVADER IN CAMP Will dashed madly toward the river bank. It happened that he was somewhat below the point where Jerry's mishap had come about. Hence, he was able to reach the edge of the stream in a dozen seconds. Even that short time had been enough to sweep the imperiled lad past the place. Will was thrilled with horror to see his chum in the midst of the churning current, trying to cling to a slippery rock, from which insecure hold he was being gradually but surely sucked by the fierce power exerted by the rushing stream. Never had the roar of the falls sounded more terrible to poor Will than when he saw Jerry suspended, as it were, above the great drop. Once he lost his hold, he must be swept irresistibly over the edge, down to those cruel rocks below. Will would have foolishly attempted to reach his chum had he chanced to be opposite the place where Jerry hung on with the desperation of despair. As it was, he could do nothing, which was just as well, for there must only have been two of them given over to the river once he ventured into that mill-race. "Help! Oh, help!" he shrieked. The roar of the cataract must have muffled his call, so that it might just as well have been a whisper. Just as Will was about to give up in despair, and count Jerry as good as lost, he made a sudden discovery. Another figure had appeared on the bank, and just at a point opposite the rock to which Jerry clung. "Reddy! Save him! save him!" cried Will, wringing his hands. Then he became mute with suspense. The cowboy did not recklessly rush into the boiling flood, for he knew only too well that such a course could not help the imperiled one. Instead, Will saw him whirling his rope about his head with lightning-like haste. His heart in his eyes, Will continued to stare, holding his very breath. He saw the coils of rope fly out just as when Reddy was giving his exhibition in camp. Not far did they have to speed, for Jerry was close to the shore. "Oh! what luck! He's done it! He's done it! Jerry has the rope now, and he is coming in, hand over hand! Bully! bully! bully!" Will was so excited that he fairly danced up and down as he shouted these words aloud. Then, bethinking himself of what a magnificent picture he was losing, he took several steps in the direction of the spot where his camera lay. Stopping hastily, as his affection for his chum more than counterbalanced his love for an effective scene, he turned around and hurried to join the others. Jerry was ashore, and wringing the hand of Reddy, when Will arrived. Regardless of the rescued boy's wet clothes, Will threw his arms around him. "Oh! you gave me such a fright, Jerry! I'm quivering all over! How lucky Reddy happened to be here, and with his rope, too!" After saying which he turned his attention to the smiling cowboy, and squeezed his hand ardently. "I sure beat my record that time, boys. I've roped some queer things, but never a feller that was going whoopin' over a falls. Don't know why I slung the old lariat over my arm when I started up here to see what luck Jerry had. Mighty glad now I did, though. It'd been purty hard to get him out with only a stick to stretch over." Reddy was extremely modest, and only too willingly agreed not to say a word about the mishap and rescue to any of the others; and Will was also bound to secrecy by Jerry. Back in the woods they made a fire, where Jerry succeeded in drying his clothes. "Anyhow, I saved that fish," he announced, with a satisfied shake of the head. Will looked at the cowboy inquiringly. "Sure thing he did. When he came ashore he had that line fast in his hand, and pulled the trout in before he'd even shake. He's a real sport, all right," said Reddy, with admiration in his manner. "It seems as though these things are born in one. Now, I'd have dropped my rod the very first thing, and howled for help," remarked Will. "How about your camera?" asked Jerry wickedly. "H'm! That's a different thing. But when I saw you go in I did let that fall. Luckily, no damage was done. My heart would be broken if the blessed little black box got out of shape. But I've one picture of you on that log," announced Will. "And that will be enough to give me a clammy feeling every time I look at it," nodded Jerry, who was in secret more shaken by his recent terrible experience than he cared to show. They went down a little later, Jerry carrying his two dearly-earned trout. And when the others praised the fisherman that evening at supper for supplying their camp table, they little dreamed how near their hard-working chum had come to disaster in his efforts to land the enticing finny beauties of the river. Besides the trout, they enjoyed mutton that night, for Frank's mountain sheep was brought into use. Perhaps it was tough, perhaps the flavor did not strike the boys quite as favorably as some mutton they had eaten at home, but such trifles could not dampen their enthusiasm a particle, and they voted the meal a grand success all around. Seated about the blaze afterward, they chatted until late. Bluff was inclined to be a bit moody, and sat by himself, listening to all that was said, but taking no share in the conversation. Frank noticed that he seemed to fondle his rifle more than usual, and he believed the other must be thinking of the elk he had shot, but which had been stolen by those wandering thieves of Crees. "He's still worrying about that butcher knife of his," whispered Jerry, nudging Frank as he spoke. "I wonder will the fellow ever forget it?" "Now, I was watching him, and, to tell the truth, I fancy Bluff has become aroused to the delight of bringing down big game. That elk was a revelation to him. See how he listens while Billy is telling of the panther tracks he saw not a great way off. I wouldn't put it past Bluff to aspire to knocking over a panther if the chance ever came his way. "Huh! I hope he is lucky enough to get a fatal shot in, then; for one of those gentry is apt to maul a fellow good and hard if only wounded. Billy has been telling of some fierce times he's had with the beasts. His arms are all scarred up from deep cuts made by the claws of a panther years ago," remarked Jerry. "Whew! Hear what he says? will you?" remarked Frank. "Why, yes, kid," observed the old cowboy, in answer to a question Bluff had put, "sometimes I've knowed 'em to jump into a camp and snatch the meat right from under the nose of a feller. Let a painter git good an' hungry, an' he ain't afraid of anythin' but fire. Then, ag'in, I've knowed 'em to act as cowardly as coyotes. I kinder reckon the season has considerable to do with their actin'." "But that was only one man. The beast wouldn't dare jump in a camp like this, no matter how hungry he might be?" continued Bluff, who seemed strangely interested in the subject, Frank thought. The old cowpuncher laughed as though amused. "That's somethin' I'd hate to commit myself on, younker. All I say is a painter ain't to be depended on. He might prove a coward, like some cats, and again you'd be fair astonished at his darin'. Long ago I made up my mind never to give him more of a chance than I could help. It's war to the knife between me and any such prowlin' critter. I can't git my gun workin' too quick to please me when I sees the yaller eyes of a painter hoverin' round my camp." "Are their eyes always yellow?" asked Bluff eagerly. "I reckons they are, kid; leastways all that I ever see was marked that way," replied the cowboy, reaching out for a brand with which to light the cigarette he had been rolling between his fingers, just as Reddy was also doing at the time. "Like those yonder, do you mean?" said Bluff, pointing behind Billy, to a point where the dense thicket came close to the border of the camp. Every eye was instantly turned in that direction. Frank himself was thrilled when he discovered that there were twin glowing eyes among those bushes, eyes that had all the attributes of the cat tribe. Various exclamations arose from the group. "By gum! It's a painter, sure as you live!" said Billy calmly. "Never heard of one so bold!" whispered Reddy hoarsely, feeling for the weapon he usually carried attached to his belt. "Everybody sit quiet, and see what he means to do. He won't attack us, but it may be you'll see him make a jump for the balance of that sheep over yonder. The scent of the game has aroused his hunger. Look at him raise his head to see!" Mr. Mabie spoke these words in a low but tense tone. He was more or less excited by the strange actions of the prowling panther. "I reckon it's a mother, with hungry cubs near by. She's just bound to get some grub for the kits, men or no men. Now, if you lie low, and watch, I reckon you'll see something you never expected to see in your born days." Billy sat there motionless. Only Frank saw the movement of Bluff when he raised his rifle, and while he would have warned his chum against the folly of firing, before he could frame words to carry his meaning, the quick report came, causing a sensation among those around the fire. The crouching beast, infuriated by receiving a sudden, painful wound, launched straight out, and landed in the midst of the campers! CHAPTER XIV THE COWBOY GUIDE Everybody was in motion at once. Some went over backward, regardless of appearances; others rolled aside, bent upon placing some little distance between themselves and the invader. Bluff was trying to work the mechanism of his gun in order to secure a second shot, but as so often happens when the hunter is excited, he failed to accomplish what should have been an easy change. The maddened panther had crouched again after landing close to the fire. Perhaps what acted more than anything else to keep the beast from leaping once more was the uncertainty of choosing among so many which he should attack. If he only knew from whence had come that sting which had given him such sudden agony there would have been no hesitation at all. One, however, did not join in the almost universal retreat. This man was Reddy. He had been leaning forward at the time, as stated, about to pick up a brand with which to light his cigarette. Some impulse urged him to seize a flaming, heavy stick that stuck out of the fire, and make a frantic attack upon the crouching panther. Frank never forgot that spectacle. The panther, with ears flattened back, and fangs exposed, snarled and carried on just like a big house cat when assailed by a small but saucy dog, striking out from time to time, as though trying to reach the arm that wielded the cudgel. The flaming brand caused too much fear to allow of an attack. Still, the ugly beast would not give way, and leap out of its perilous position. "Where's my gun?" At least three different shouts arose. "Get out of range there, kid!" bellowed Billy, who had drawn a heavy revolver, and, on hands and knees, sought to get a line on the common enemy. "But that's my panther!" cried the voice of Bluff. Frank saw him once more bring his rifle up to his shoulder. Although hardly in a position to see what was going on, Will seemed to be fumbling with something in a desperate fashion. The fellow, as usual, was thinking only of what a grand thing it would be if he could only get that scene for posterity to gaze upon. "I hope Bluff aims straight!" Frank was saying to himself, for he knew there was more or less danger of the bullet doing some damage to one of the campers who might happen to be on the other side, partly screened by the brush. The crash of the gun followed. "Wow!" shouted Reddy, falling back as the panther tumbled over in his direction, for he knew what damage those poisonous claws might do in the dying agony of the beast. Then the rest of the scattered company appeared. Some crawled out from the brush, others arose from flattening themselves on the ground, while still another group made their exit from under the canvas of the tent close by. The beast was writhing in its last hold on life. "That's my panther, I told you!" said Bluff, jumping to his feet, and still holding on to his gun. He was as white as a ghost, but a fire shone in his eyes telling of the spirit that had finally been aroused there. Jerry would soon have to look to his laurels now. Mr. Mabie laughed as he patted Bluff on the back. "I reckon it is, youngster; but you took big chances that time. I'd advise you to slow up a bit in the future, when shooting in the dark. That impetuous nature will sure get you into more than one scrape, otherwise," he said soberly. Bluff hung his head. He knew now that he had been too hasty, when there were so many older campaigners than himself around; but the loss of that elk had rankled in his heart, so that he could not resist the sudden temptation to redeem his reputation. Jerry, for once, had nothing to say, at least to the successful one. He bent over the dead panther, and examined it with curiosity. Will was loudly lamenting the fact that once again he had found himself left in the lurch. "You fellows move too fast," he declared. "Now, if Bluff hadn't put in his oar, I was just about ready to shoot off a flashlight picture. Just think what it would mean to see Reddy, here, banging that big cat over the head with his torch! Oh! it's just too mean for any use! Everything goes wrong just when I'm going to squeeze my bulb, and get the best picture there ever was! Even a rotten old log has to go and break off short--" "Hey, Will! Let up on that whining, won't you?" cried Jerry, just then, fearful lest his secret was about to come out. Frank looked suspiciously at both his chums. Perhaps he may have entertained a dim thought that there was something between them that they did not want known; but other things soon put this out of his mind for the time being. "We must keep an eye out the rest of the time we're here," said Billy, after the company had settled down again around the fire. "Why?" asked Bluff, looking up from admiring the sleek fur of his prize. "The brutes often hunt in couples, you know. This was the mother, just as I had an ijee, and she's got half-grown cubs around somewhere. If the mate's near by he may give us a call sooner or later." Bluff's hand had stolen out toward his gun at these words. "Here! No more of that, my lad!" said Mr. Mabie. "You've had your fling, and come out of it mighty lucky. Don't try it again while I'm around, please. If any more uninvited visitors drop in, you leave them to the rest of us." But there was no further alarm. During the night some of them declared they heard strange cries off in the woods, which Mr. Mabie said must have been the whining of the panther cubs, looking in vain for their mother. Frank was distressed. "I hope they're really big enough to forage for themselves. If there's anything I dislike it's to shoot bird or beast that has young depending upon it. Perhaps the old male may look after them," he suggested. "Well," smiled Mr. Mabie, "I hardly think that will prove to be the case; at least they don't, as a rule. But I've got an idea the cubs are of a good size, and can find some means of subsisting. For my part, I wouldn't care if every panther in the Northwest were rubbed out. I've no love for the sly beasts. They've robbed me of more than one fine calf, I can tell you." After breakfast a hunt was organized. "We ought to get an elk before leaving up here," said the stockman as they prepared to go forth again in a squad; "and as this will be our last day in camp by the falls, we must look sharp." "Then we make tracks to-morrow?" asked Frank. "Hardly that, since we go by water. You've seen the three bullboats yonder. We send our tents and all other things around with the horses, while we shoot the rapids, and enjoy the most exhilarating boat ride you ever dreamed of. Just wait and see, boys. It will be something worth while." After all, the stockman was unable to start out with them. He was subject to attacks of rheumatism, due to his age, and many exposures in the past. When one of these came on Mr. Mabie was unable to walk any distance, and, unfortunately, he experienced such an attack that morning. "Sorry, boys, but it can't be helped. Reddy, here, will have to take my place. You don't need me, that's plain. Only don't be too reckless, now. That's the fault with most youngsters," and he shook his head at Bluff, who turned fiery red as his eyes fell upon the panther, which Billy was skinning at that moment. Of course, Reddy was to act as guide to the party. He had been around the vicinity a number of times. Besides, he knew the habits of the elk, which used this valley for their feeding grounds, and if any one could lead them to success in their hunt it was the young cowboy. Frank used to look at Reddy, and wonder if he had ever seen him before; but as that was out of the question, he came to the belief that it was simply a matter of resemblance. "Look there!" exclaimed the guide, before they had gone two hundred steps from the camp, and pointing as he spoke. "What was it?" asked Jerry eagerly. "I saw a gray critter slinking away into that thicket!" "The panther's mate!" cried Bluff excitedly, as he fingered his gun. "I reckon it was; but we ain't lost no panther, and anyhow, this is a hunt for elk meat. Come along, boys," remarked Reddy hastily. They tramped for half an hour steadily, going far beyond where Bluff had had his strange adventure with the wounded elk. Will trailed along in the rear, holding on to his beloved camera. The woods looked as though the recent dry weather had seared the leaves more or less, but they lacked the splendid gorgeous tints of autumn. More than once the others had to wait for the straggler, or else call to him. He grew so interested in his surroundings, especially when trying to get a view that particularly appealed to his fancy, that he was apt to forget their mission entirely. Once he aroused himself to the fact that he could no longer see his comrades, or catch a sound of their voices. This disagreeable idea caused him to hurry, and no doubt he became less cautious in navigating some of the various narrow paths, for before he realized that he had started a small avalanche, he was caught up in its gathering swoop, and found himself being carried swiftly down a rather steep declivity, unable to stay his rush. CHAPTER XV IN THE RAPIDS "Give him another call, Frank!" "That fellow beats all creation for lagging! I believe he'd rather snap off his old camera than eat, any day. If he doesn't look out, that panther may get--Glory to goodness! What's that, Reddy?" cried Jerry. "Sounds like a bit of an avalanche, though this here is a queer time of year for that. Generally comes, you know, in snow time, or when the rains arrive," was the cowboy's ready answer. "But--Will--he may have started it, and gone down into one of these beastly holes!" observed Bluff uneasily. "Let's go back, fellows, and make sure," remarked Frank instantly. They retraced their steps, Reddy leading the way, and every one on the lookout for any signs of an unusual happening. "There's where it fell, and it looks like quite a lot of stuff had gone down the slope," said their guide presently. "Hello, Will! Will!" shouted Frank. "Well, I'm waiting for you," said a quiet voice close at hand. "Where in the world are you, pard?" burst out Jerry. "Oh, here," came the reply. "Ginger! I believe he's down the bank!" cried Bluff. "Just what he is! Come here, fellows! Did you ever see anything to beat that? Talk to me about your lucky dogs! Here's one that takes the cake every time!" sang out Jerry, as he thrust his head out beyond the edge of the platform where the slope began. "Oh, I don't know. There have been cases where people have been saved from all sorts of disasters by the fortunate presence of a rope. Chuck us a loop, Reddy, will you, please?" said Will, and Jerry became as dumb as an oyster. No wonder Frank laughed, even while he watched the cowboy dropping his lariat down as the other so coolly requested. Will had slid some twenty feet down the steep bank, along with the loose surface stuff, which gathered force as it proceeded. Then a projecting stone had caught the bag of his coat, and he was supported in this fashion by the stout fabric. "What are you trying to do down there? Expect to cut me out of my job as the cliff climber of the party?" asked Frank jokingly. "Not so that you'd notice. Thought I might get a better view down along here. But first of all, save my precious camera, before I consent to come up," answered Will, and he insisted upon fastening the same to the dangling rope. Bluff saw his chance to get back at his chum for more than one indignity along the same line that he had suffered in the past, so he called out: "Here, you! Just hold your horses! I'm going over yonder and strike you off as you hang there. It will do to amuse the girls when we get home. We don't often have a chance to bring the photographer into these pictures. Now, here you are. Look pleasant! There! That job's done! Now yank him up, fellows, and don't be too easy with him. He deserves a good digging for scaring us so." But Will had suffered no material harm from his little slide. "Glad I stopped part way," he observed, looking down, "for it's quite some distance to the bottom, and then those rocks would have bruised me more than a little. Yes, I agree with Bluff, there; it's better to be born lucky than rich." After that they saw to it that Will did not lag behind. He was not to be trusted any more than could be helped. Reddy was as good as his word. He eventually brought them within sight of several feeding elk. They carried out his further directions to the letter, and were thus enabled to approach within easy gunshot of the unsuspicious animals. A program had been arranged, and every one knew just what part in it he was expected to play. Consequently, there was no confusion. Frank, Jerry and Bluff had their chance to aim. To each was assigned a different quarry, though after the first shot they were to fire as they pleased. "Ready?" whispered the master of ceremonies, after Will had performed his little, necessary operation with his camera that would produce happy results. "Yes," said Frank. "Ditto!" from Jerry. "Same here," came from Bluff. "Then go!" There followed a crash of firearms. Instantly confusion broke out among the little herd of feeding elk. One was down, another went limping off, to fall as Frank sent in a second hasty shot; while the balance fairly flew off in their fright. "Hurrah!" shouted the hunters, as they saw that they had met with splendid success, since two of the big animals had fallen to their guns. Bluff looked grimly disappointed. "I hit my buck, for I saw him go down on his knees," he asserted moodily. "Oh, that ain't anything. An elk often runs off with several bad wounds. I only hope he don't die in the woods somewhere," said Reddy, examining the tracks of those that had escaped. "Will it pay us to follow them up and see if Bluff's buck fell?" asked Frank, more to please his chum than because they needed the game. "Nope. The buck runs like he wasn't even hurt much. No ketchin' up with them fellers after that riot call. We'd best pay attention to what we've got, and return to camp," replied the guide; and Bluff shrugged his shoulders, saying: "But I hit him, anyhow, I'll tell you that, fellows." Frank found that all Reddy meant to do was to hang the two elk up, after they had cut some choice portions for immediate use. The other cowboys would come with the horses, on their way down the river, on the morrow, and secure the game. "We got fooled out of elk steaks once and don't mean to again, I tell you," said Jerry, as he shouldered his portion of the load. So they returned to camp. "What's this?" said Mr. Mabie as they came filing in. "Back already, and only out two hours? Got some meat, too, I see. That's good. Such appetites as you boys are developing threaten to eat us out of house and home soon, unless we eke out with game. Who cut up the elk?" "The boys all took a hand. They wanted to learn," smiled Reddy. "I kind of thought they had," nodded the stockman, who could easily see that it was not the work of an experienced hand. Bluff failed to catch the twinkle of humor in the other's eyes. "Yes, and I could have made even a better job if I'd had the knife along I foolishly went and left at home," he remarked disconsolately, whereat Jerry, Will and Frank exchanged looks, and shrugged their shoulders, but said nothing; for in a case of that kind words are useless. They were all very enthusiastic that night over the feast. The cook had dutifully pounded the steaks before placing the same on the fire, so that if they seemed tough it was not his fault. The meat, however, was sweet and tasty; and besides, with hunger serving as the best-known sauce, who could complain? Bluff kept on the lookout for the mate of his panther, but if the old fellow was prowling around he had more discretion than to show himself while these hunters were near by. With the morning the camp was to be abandoned. Tents came down while they were eating breakfast, and everything was packed away in as small a compass as possible, for carrying on the backs of the pack horses, which were brought in from the pen, or corral, where they had been kept all this while, in charge of a guard. The three bullboats awaited the adventurous ones. These were of the type much used in this far region of the Northwest, being fashioned of tough hides of bulls, and impervious to water. Besides their guns, which were strapped to their backs, the voyagers carried little or nothing. In case of an upset they did not stand to worry over anything except saving their own lives. So they quitted the camp under the cataract, where they had spent several very enjoyable days. [Illustration: IMMEDIATELY THE TWO ADVENTUROUS CRUISERS WERE IN THE RAPIDS.--_Page 141_. _The Outdoor Chums After Big Game_.] Swiftly they descended the stream for several miles. Then, according to agreement, they hauled in at the head of the rapids for a little rest and consultation before making the riffle. Will had declared his intention of going down the shore and taking up his position about midway of the drop, so as to snap off the two descending bullboats as they came flying along in the midst of the churning water. Afterward he and Mr. Mabie would enter the last boat and make the plunge. When he was ready, with his camera focused, he waved his arm as a signal. Immediately one of the boats started forth, containing Bluff and Reddy. When they got fully into the swirl the second craft appeared in sight. Jerry sat in the bow of this, and Frank in the stern, the more responsible position. Immediately the two adventurous cruisers were in the rapids, and shooting down with incredible swiftness. The leading boat managed to pull through all right, for Reddy knew the route; but disaster awaited that containing the two chums. Whether they struck a half-submerged rock, and were capsized, or made a miscalculation, and found themselves seized by the cross-current, no one ever knew. "Look out!" shouted Jerry, and the next instant both he and Frank were overboard, and trying to keep away from the threatening snags while they went whirling down the rapids. CHAPTER XVI THE NEW CAMP "Well, how did you like it, Jerry?" "Talk to me about your shooting the whirlpool at Niagara in a barrel! That was bad enough for me! I swallowed enough water to float a ship! And here we are yet, each perched on a measly old slippery rock, in the middle of the rapids. Say! tell me about that, will you, Frank? How are we going to get ashore?" The situation was comical as well as tragical. Just as Jerry said, each of the late inmates of the overturned bullboat, after being buffeted about furiously for several minutes, had succeeded in wildly scrambling on to an exposed rock. There in midstream they sat, dripping wet, and with the foaming water surrounding them on all sides. In spite of his recent scare, Frank could not help laughing. "What ails you? Perhaps you think I look funny?" exclaimed Jerry, who had received a few bruises, and was not feeling quite as cheerful as usual. "Well, if you could only see yourself just now, you couldn't help laughing. Do you know you just put me in mind of that little god of good luck, Billikin!" called Frank, and in spite of his soreness Jerry had to grin in sympathy. "Well, all right, then; there are two of us, and I guess you look as silly as I do. But there's that fellow, Will, getting his work in, as usual. A nice pair of geese we'll look like in his book of martyrs." "Oh, that doesn't bother me one little bit just now. All I'm thinking about is how under the sun we're going to get out of this pickle," said Frank, sweeping his hand around, as if to call attention to the angry water that leaped and boiled in a frenzy of eagerness to get at its expected victims. "Can't swim to the shore, that's sure. I suppose we'll just have to slip in again and make another turn of it. Thank goodness! the bottom of the old rapids is in sight, and as Bluff and Reddy have picked up our boat and the paddle, they could turn their hands at life saving when we came bobbing along." "Hold on! Don't be rash, Jerry!" called Frank. "Well, have you got anything better to say about it--any bright scheme to propose that offers to soften the blow?" demanded the other, pausing in his movement toward slipping off his unstable seat. "I've just thought of something," answered Frank. "Good for you, then. I guess I'm too badly rattled just now, for once, to do much thinking. What's the game, Frank?" "Why not let Reddy and his reliable old rope come into play again?" "Say! we'll have to beg or buy that clothesline from Reddy when we go away from here, and hang it up in our clubroom, as the most valuable asset we have. Without it what would become of us, eh? Talk about your trained nurses! That fellow is a whole hospital to the tenderfoot crowd. Call to him, please, and enlist his sympathy in the noble cause of yanking us in out of the wet." So Frank did shout to the cowboy, who, having beached the two boats below the rapids, was hurrying up the shore. Mr. Mabie, too, had joined Will, so that presently the entire balance of the little party had gathered opposite. Reddy entered into the game with spirit. He seemed to believe that these tragic occurrences must have just happened to give him a chance to show his skill in launching his rope. "Jerry first, please!" called Frank. "And why? Is it because I'm more valuable, or better-looking?" demanded Jerry. "Oh, perhaps I want the pleasure of seeing how you look as you flounder through the rapids; and then, again, I may pick up a few points as to how _not_ to do it." "Tell me about that, will you! Some people have all the nerve!" shouted Jerry, for the rushing water made so much noise that an ordinary call could not have been heard. Nevertheless, he accepted the flying noose that came shooting straight toward him, placed it under his arms, made sure that his gun was still fast to his back, and then fearlessly dropped off his perch. There was considerable floundering on the part of the swimmer, much straining among the others who manipulated the rope, after which Jerry was assisted up the bank. His first act, after coughing up a lot of water, was to shake his fist at the grinning Frank, and then call out: "Now you come on, and see how you like it!" Frank did not wait upon the order of his going. As soon as he had the rope secured under his arms he slipped down into the foamy water, and began to buffet the current like a water spaniel. After an exciting experience he, too, was drawn ashore, really none the worse for his adventure. "Shake hands, Frank. You did nobly. I might have laughed, only I didn't seem to have breath enough," said Jerry, but the look in his eyes told how he had enjoyed seeing his chum passing through the same experience. A fire was made, so that the soaked ones might dry off. Meanwhile, Mr. Mabie and Will succeeded in successfully shooting the rapids, though the latter was wise enough to leave his precious camera in the care of Bluff. As noon found them still there, they took a "snack" before resuming the water journey. Below the fierce rapids the current was still swift, but there were places where the stream widened, and here the scenery was very fine, although the leaves looked more or less parched on account of the scarcity of rain during the summer that was passing. An hour later, and they saw signs of smoke below. "The boys have arrived ahead of us," said Mr. Mabie, pointing to the wreaths that ascended above the trees. "All on account of our mishap. We lost three hours that way," remarked Frank, who felt a little provoked over the accident, since he aspired to be a capable canoeman at all times. "Those things will happen to the best of guides at times," consoled the stockman. "I've often been in the drink myself. There are some cross-currents in our rapids, that one can only learn by experience. I rather expected you would go over, and instructed Reddy to be on the watch below." "I wager I wouldn't get caught in that same way again, sir," asserted Frank. "And I'm sure you wouldn't, lad. Experience is the best teacher, and if we didn't have some of these bad turns we'd grow too confident." The camp was soon looking quite cozy again, when the tents had been placed and everything made snug. "I'm going to like this place almost as well as the one under the cascade," remarked Will, who had been rather skeptical all along. So the first evening came along, and supper was the same hearty, enjoyable meal they had always found it. The camp appetites worked overtime, the coffee tasted splendid, the elk steaks were just what each one had been hungering for, and as the cook supplemented these with a heaping platter of flapjacks the contentment of the four chums seemed complete. "How long do we stay here, Mr. Mabie?" asked Bluff, never hesitating when in search of information. "Possibly a week or so. Then back to the ranch, and a new line of experiences. This terribly dry weather is making me anxious, for the range is drying up, and we shall be hard set to find pasture for the cattle soon, unless rain comes along." "Do you have such a dry spell in summer often up here?" asked Frank. "Never saw the equal of this since I settled in the valley, many years ago. Now, down in Ohio, where I originally came from, they have drouths even in May, at times, and I've seen things go to the dogs more than once, gardens dried up, and even a forest fire in July, but never up here," replied the stockman. "The woods look as though it wouldn't take a great deal to set them going," declared Frank. "One of the men threw a match down to-day, after lighting his cigarette, and it seemed like magic the way the fire flashed up. He had to be quick to jump on it before the breeze carried it along." Mr. Mabie frowned. "I won't ask you which man it was, Frank; but I must warn them again to be more than ordinarily careful about throwing matches around and leaving a fire burning anywhere in the woods. Many a grand forest has been ruined by such carelessness," he said. "How does that happen, sir?" inquired Bluff. "It is easy. The careless hunter or trapper leaves his dying fire when he breaks camp. Then up comes a sudden wind and some of the red cinders are blown into the dead leaves or punk grass. Fanned by the breeze, they become a roaring flame in a minute, and the mischief is done. Be careful, boys, please." "We certainly will, sir," replied Frank sincerely. "Not to speak of the damage done, it must be mighty unpleasant to be caught in a forest fire. I've read of such things, but never hankered for a personal experience." On the following day they started to look into the possibilities for big game around the new camp. "Reddy, here, says he knows of a bear den that we ought to visit some time later. While at it, you boys must see all there is going in the way of sport, for you may never come out this way again, though I hope that will not be the case. To-day, however, we will take things a bit easy," remarked the ranchman. Although the stockman did not speak any plainer, Frank knew just what he meant. "He thinks we must be feeling the effects of our little excitement yesterday, Jerry, and that the soreness in our muscles will take our ambition away for to-day," he said aside to his chum. "Tell me about that, will you! To prove that we're tougher than Mr. Mabie thinks, let's you and I engineer a little hunt of our own?" proposed the other quickly. Accordingly, they started out, going down the valley. "The walk will do us good, anyhow," declared Frank, "even if we don't run across any big game." "I was asking Mr. Mabie about moose, and he said that occasionally one is seen in this region, though generally they hang out further east. I've always wanted to get a moose, but was never able to be up in the woods where they are found, when the law was off. How about you, Frank? Ever shoot at one?" "Never had that luck, though I've seen many in the summer time, in Maine. Somehow, it seems to go against the grain doing this hunting at such a queer time. I guess it won't be long before they have as strict laws up here as we have to protect such game as deer and elk." "How about panthers and grizzlies?" asked Jerry. "They don't want to protect those fellows. You've got a right to knock one over, or a wolf, any time you want, if he doesn't get you first," laughed Frank. An hour later they separated, Frank to look along one ridge, while Jerry had taken a notion to see what the other might have in the shape of game. Frank spent quite a long time scouring the woods that covered the side of the valley. He had not put up anything worth while, and was even thinking about heading back to the place where he had agreed to meet his chum, when a distressing little accident occurred. Just as he was hurrying down a steep bank his foot caught in a vine, and he was hurled forward with such violence that his head, coming in contact with the hard ground, received such a blow that he was rendered unconscious. Frank never knew just how long he remained insensible. It might have been only a few minutes, or perhaps half an hour slipped by while he lay there. When he finally opened his eyes he looked up into a dusky face, and realized that it belonged to an Indian! CHAPTER XVII AT THE CAMPFIRE OF THE CREES Frank was not at all alarmed. In the first place, he had been assured by Mr. Mabie that these Crees were not inclined to be hostile. Then, again, he saw that it was no fierce face of a warrior that bent over him, but the pitying one of a child. "Hello! Who are you?" he asked, a little weakly, for his head was still swimming more or less from his shock. "Little Mink," came the reply, though the boy apparently had to nerve himself to keep from running away. "And you found me knocked out, did you? What are you doing here, Little Mink?" Frank sat up as he spoke, though he realized that he would be unsteady on his feet when he tried to stand. "Teepee down by river, not far off. Little Mink have snare for rabbit. Him go see if ketch one, find paleface here. Think dead, then him open eyes. Good!" Frank was amused at the air of the little fellow. He knew something about the ways of civilized Indians, having been among them in Maine, hence he could see that this boy was endeavoring to ape the manners of his elders. "Would you help me get down to your camp, Little Mink? I feel weak after my tumble, and my own camp is far away," he said. Now, Frank knew very well that a loud shout would, in all probability, have fetched Jerry to the spot. He had an object in making this appeal to the Indian lad, and watched his dusky face closely as the other considered the proposal. Perhaps Frank, fearing a refusal, may have put on more agony than the state of his feelings really warranted. At any rate, he succeeded in swerving the boy from a condition of caution to that of sympathy. "Little Mink help. Him lead paleface to teepee," he said, and the look that accompanied the words told Frank as plainly as words could have done that the boy was trusting in his honor not to betray them. Accordingly, he hung on to the lad, and in this fashion they went for half a mile or so, when the river was reached. Presently Frank discovered signs of a camp not far in the distance. A little pale smoke was rising over the thicket, and he also saw a conical skin teepee, while on the shore were three bullboats. As Little Mink came into camp, assisting the white hunter, several squaws began an excited jabber that brought out a couple of bucks. "A hungry-looking lot all around," was the mental comment of the young hunter. He had seen that Little Mink did not look as though he had enjoyed a bountiful share of food lately, and the rest of the party were certainly no better off. One of the bucks was an old man, yet he seemed to have a certain dignity about him. Frank's curiosity was now greater than ever. He made up his mind that there was something singular about this party of Crees who seemed to be wandering in the wilderness without guns, or any means for obtaining food, and, if possible, he meant to discover what the secret could be. The old Indian approached, looking suspiciously at him. Frank put out his hand at once in a cordial manner. "How!" he said, smiling in his engaging manner. The other at once fell under the charm of Frank's smile. "White boy much hurt?" he asked, looking at the dirt and blood on Frank's left hand, where he had cut himself slightly. "No. I had a bad fall, and feel weak. Little Mink found me lying there, and let me come with him to your camp. I have friends above, a hunting party under the charge of Mr. Mabie, the stockman." He saw the old fellow move uneasily at mention of the name. "Shoot elk?" asked the other, nodding. "Yes, sometimes, with gun," and Frank purposely held up his repeating rifle. He saw the black eyes glitter enviously at sight of it, which made his curiosity only the stronger. "Bad! bad!" muttered the Indian, though he did not explain what he meant; but Frank believed he must be thinking of the theft of the elk some days previous. "You no guns here?" he asked, and the old Indian shook his head sadly, though a look of sudden anger also flitted across his strong face. "Nothing, only hatchet and one knife. Take all else away when send us out from village. No care if squaw and pappoose die from hunger. Bad! bad! But some day p'raps Running Elk go back and make change. Wait! wait! No sleep on trail!" Already was Frank beginning to see behind the mystery. For some cause this old brave and his immediate family had been chased out of the Cree village, many miles to the northwest. Deprived of weapons, they had been started on the river in the bullboats, to meet what fate had in store for them. No wonder, then, that coming unexpectedly on the dead elk Bluff had shot, they had stolen it, for hunger stalked in their miserable camp, and the pappooses cried for the food the braves could not supply. The only thing that still puzzled Frank was why they had not appealed to some of the whites. But there must be some good reason, he argued, for this. Perhaps it was only the natural pride an Indian feels, and which prevents him from admitting to the palefaces that he is helpless to supply the wants of his people. "Name Frank," he said, touching his breast "What call you?" "Running Elk, chief among Crees. Long he lead them in the hunt and in battle. But a serpent come among my people and poison all against Running Elk. Now they think the half-breed Pierre La Motte best man to follow. Him talk, talk, all time, and warriors dream. Some day they wake up and know him for bad man. Then p'raps they ask Running Elk come back again. Wait, see!" That was the Indian idea of patience. Frank could understand it all now. Plainly, a smart half-breed had managed to hypnotize the braves in the Cree village, and influence them to turn against their own chief. When he and his family resisted they were ignominiously exiled, and sent forth to face the world without means for providing food for the squaws and pappooses. Somehow, Frank felt a strong sense of sympathy for the old exiled chief. "You see the rancher, Mr. Mabie. I think he can do something for you," he said. "I know him. He no like Running Elk and the Crees. Once they take some cattle that stampede and wander far away. Never forget or forgive that wrong. Better not see rancher. Go on down river soon, sell few pelts, and buy gun. Mebbe all right." "No! no! Don't be in a hurry. I'm sure Mr. Mabie won't hold that old grudge against you now, and he's a good man. He will give you gun and powder. Wait and see." Half an hour later, as he was sitting there, with a rude bandage around his throbbing head, and talking with Little Mink, who had taken a great fancy for the paleface hunter who owned the beautiful gun, Frank heard a startled exclamation from the border of the thicket near by. "Hello, there, Jerry! Come in and get acquainted!" he cried out, as his eyes fell upon the astonished face of his chum thrust from the scrub. "Talk to me about surprises! What could equal this? Here, after getting the scare of my life, thinking my chum had been carried off by the redskins, I find him hobnobbing with them in their camp. Sure they ain't dangerous, Frank?" asked Jerry, advancing cautiously, with his gun held ready. "As mild as an old lady's cup of tea. Wouldn't hurt a fly. Sit down, and I'll tell you all about them," said Frank. "First, I want to know are you hurt much? I happened on where you fell, and just imagine my alarm when I saw the print of little moccasins. Why, I was sure some frisky red had knocked you over the head with a warclub, and then toted you off to be burned at the stake. I followed as well as I could, bent on rescuing you at the peril of my life, to meet up with a reception like this." Frank was compelled to laugh at the look of evident disgust that came over the countenance of his comrade. But when Jerry had heard all his chum knew concerning the little band of wandering Crees, his generous heart was stirred at the thought of their wrongs. "That greedy half-breed ought to be made to walk the plank, that's what! Just to think of the nerve of him chasing the genuine dyed-in-the-wool chief out into the cold and taking his place! Why, he's a usurper, that's the truth! And look here, Frank, didn't you hear what Mr. Mabie said about a fellow named Pierre La Motte?" "I must have been away at the time. What did he say?" asked Frank eagerly. "Why, there was a detachment of the sheriff's posse at the ranch house just before we came, looking for that same fellow. Seems that he's wanted badly for something or other." "Hurrah! That's just what I was hoping would happen. We can put them wise about Pierre, and they'll go after him. Then, perhaps, as old Running Elk says, when the man with the smooth tongue has gone away forever, the Crees will send and beg their chief to return, and forgive the past. It's all right! I'll bring him here to see you." But Running Elk had already learned that another stranger was in camp, and even then he was approaching, looking considerably embarrassed, for he feared it might be Mr. Mabie himself. However, he was soon set at his ease. What Frank had to say about the bad half-breed also gave him new pleasure. "Not wait long now," he said, nodding his head sagely, while his beady eyes fairly glittered with satisfaction, as in imagination he saw his hated foe being taken away from the Cree village by the much-feared sheriff's posse. CHAPTER XVIII AN INVITATION TO COME OUT "About time those boys were showing up, eh, Bluff?" "There they come now, Mr. Mabie, and--Jerusalem!" "What ails you now?" asked the stockman, coming out of the tent. "They've got an old Indian in tow, as sure as you live!" cried Bluff. "Where is he? I've just been wanting to get an Indian picture the worst way. Show him to me, please!" And Will came crawling hastily forth, of course clutching his beloved camera in his hand. "H'm! I guess I know that old buck. It's Running Elk, the chief of the Crees. Something must have happened out of the usual order," said the ranchman. When he learned what Frank had to say Mr. Mabie proved himself just such a man as the others had believed him to be. He advanced to the Indian, who was standing there in stoical silence, with his blanket thrown over his shoulder, and held out his hand. "I'm glad to meet you again, Running Elk, and sorry to hear about your trouble. But it will soon be all right. I'll see to it that the authorities learn about Pierre, and they'll get him before long. In the meantime, I'm going to give you a letter to my foreman. You take your little party to the ranch, and they'll see to it that you have plenty to eat until I come back home," he said. The chief shook his head sadly. "Bad! bad! Young braves no think when kill runaway steers. Never more can happen after this. Send skins to pay when get um. Glad get meat for squaw and pappoose." That was the extent of his remarks. "I guess Injuns ain't got much of a supply of words," remarked Will aside to Bluff. "But he means all right. I like the old chap's looks. Come along, Frank, and tell us all about it. You look like you've been in a fight. Say! the reds didn't tackle you, did they?" exclaimed Bluff. "One did; a little chap about hip-high. Ho was out trying to snare a jack-rabbit, when he found me. I'd taken a header down over a root, and was lying in a state where I didn't care whether school kept or not. He led me to their camp, and Jerry found me there later. That's all of it in a nutshell. Now I'm going to have Mr. Mabie wrap up my hand and take a look at my head, for it still rings." After an examination, the ranchman declared that there was nothing serious the matter. "It may take a few days for that lump to subside, and these cuts to heal, but you came out of it better than an old fellow like me could have done," he said, and Frank felt relieved. "What are you going to do with Running Elk?" he asked. "Send him back to his people with some food. Then he will carry this letter to my foreman, who will look after the party until we get back. After that I'll see to it that Pierre is taken care of and the chief recalled to his own." "I knew you would. I told the old fellow that, but he was sore afraid that you could never forgive what his young braves had done a year or two ago." The old Cree chief soon departed, with a grin on his face, and his arms full of bundles. He might have been proud, but there were hungry mouths to feed, and for their sakes he must forget that he should die sooner than beg favors. Frank felt rather stiff and sore on the following day. He was satisfied to hang about camp, and let his chums do the hunting, for once. Jerry could not be restrained, for his sporting blood demanded that he keep going all the while. Will was just as eager to do his style of shooting, and even wandered down the river to get a view of the Cree teepee before the family of Running Elk broke camp. Bluff took a notion to try fishing, and with considerable success. Later in the day Frank also wet a line, and between them they managed to secure a decent mess of fat trout for the whole party. When Jerry came in he reported that he had had a shot at an elk, but failed to stop his flight. He also declared that he had seen what he believed to be a wolf skulking through the timber. "Oh, I don't doubt it," said the old stockman, when Frank looked questioningly at him. "The pesky critters like to hang around here, looking for a nice calf that happens to stray away from its mammy's side. Winter and summer, it's all the same to them, so long as we don't get after the pack too hot. Never lose a chance to knock over a wolf, my boy." "I never mean to," said Jerry, holding up a piece of gray fur. "That's wolf, all right; and look here, what did you do to him?" demanded Mr. Mabie. "I was very kind to the scamp, and hung him up in a tree, where the rest of his tribe couldn't get at him to tear his hide to pieces. You see, I had a notion that I'd like to have that skin for a rug, and that later on, perhaps, one of the boys might go out with me and remove it much better than I could," grinned Jerry. "Thank you, my lad. I feel that you've done me a favor. Every wolf that goes across the Great Divide means more calves to grow up; and you shall have your rug, I pledge you my word." Mr. Mabie shook the hand of the successful wolf hunter with emphasis, showing that he felt deeply on the subject. Just as he expected, Frank was still rather sore on the following day. He let the others do the hunting that morning, Will tagging behind the bunch with his ready camera. They came in at noon, having covered some new ground, and brought the best part of an elk with them. Mr. Mabie laughed, and wished it might have been an antelope instead. He was not partial to elk meat, which was perhaps natural in a stockman, who could kill young beef whenever the spirit moved. "How about that bear den, Reddy?" asked Jerry, as they lounged about the camp in the early afternoon. "Any time you say the word. I was only waitin' till Frank felt himself again," was the other's reply. "Oh, don't let my condition keep you from that little entertainment. Besides, I feel much better now. Perhaps a little excitement might put me in just the right kind of trim," declared that individual promptly. "Hear! hear!" exclaimed Bluff, making a pretense of clapping his hands. "Talk to me about your dyed-in-the-wool sportsman! Frank, here, could give any fellow points," declared Jerry. "I understand the principle he works on. It's the same as what they call homoepathy, that 'like cures like.' I've seen a man, when struck by a rattler, chase the reptile, kill him, and apply his crushed body to the wound, in the belief that one poison would counteract the other," said the stockman. "Did it succeed?" asked Jerry, eager for information along these lines. "Well," said Mr. Mabie, "the poor chap died, I'm sorry to say. In another case, the fellow insisted on filling himself up with whiskey. He lived through it, too, which proved the rule, though I believe there are better things to save a man than liquor. But Frank has the right idea. The excitement of the chase will cause him to forget, and take some of the stiffness out of his joints." "Then we go this afternoon?" queried Reddy anxiously. "Whenever you're ready," answered Frank. They set out within half an hour. Of course, the whole four chums insisted on being in the party. Besides, there were the guide, Mr. Mabie and Billy. Each of the cowboys carried his rope, for of late it had seemed as though a lariat might be a very necessary accompaniment to these side hunts. They headed in a quarter where, as yet, none of the boys had been. This led them directly into the thickets that lay at the base of the mountain barrier, stretching away up against the blue heavens. None of the chums had forgotten the fierce appearance of the grizzly that had fallen before the rifle which Jerry wielded so cleverly. "Remember, lads," said Mr. Mabie, as they trailed along through rocky gulches, "every Mountain Charlie isn't going to keel over as easily as the one Jerry got. He was lucky to send his lead to a vital point. I've seen veteran hunters shoot a bear a dozen times, and then have to finish him with a knife." "I've always read that they can stand a tremendous amount of shooting without caving under," admitted Frank. "And it isn't considered at all disgraceful, when stirring such a terrible monster out of his den, for the hunters to post themselves in trees near by. While at first blush such a procedure might seem silly or cowardly to you, take an old hunter's advice, and give the rascal no more chance than you can help. Even then I've known him to shake a fellow out of a small tree, and only for the assistance of the others he must have killed the youngster." "A grizzly can't climb a tree, then, sir?" questioned Will uneasily. "Not ordinarily. He might manage to swarm up if the trunk was inclined about forty-five degrees. Select straight ones, and of some size; then you're safe." "Thank you, Mr. Mabie. I'll follow your advice. You see, I'm only the photographer of the club, and they could hardly afford to lose me," remarked Will, thinking some sort of an apology might be necessary for his seeming timidity. But the others did not laugh. They knew their chum too well for that. He had proven more than once that when it came to a pinch he could conquer his natural weakness, and show the right spirit of bravery, especially if it were one of his comrades who was in peril. "Well," remarked Reddy a short time later, "we're close to the place now." "I imagined as much," said Mr. Mabie, with a significant look around. "You mean that this is an ideal spot for a grizzly to have his den?" asked Jerry. "Fine. Look at the tumbled-down rocks, making many a cave that affords shelter from the elements, winter and summer. Then, of course, the old rascal has a nice short cut through some canyon to the open country. He uses that when he feels sharp set for veal. Oh, yes, I've no doubt he's been the cause of many a calf disappearing from the herd," said the stockman between his teeth. "I don't wonder, then, you are so keen at wanting to get rid of all such neighbors as grizzlies, panthers and wolves. They make an expensive boarding-house," laughed Bluff. "They take their toll right along. This region would be a paradise for a stockman only for that. The grass is heavy, and while the winters are severe, we know how to carry our stock over; but we can never calculate our profits, because of the losses on account of hungry wild beasts." "Then I'm glad we came here to get our taste of big-game shooting, for it will not only be fun for us, but a benefit to civilization," remarked Bluff, who, being in training to succeed his lawyer father, often liked to indulge in imposing sentences. "Now look over yonder to where that cleft yawns," said Reddy at this juncture. "I see it; and is that the den?" asked Jerry. "Sure as you live. You fellows be choosing your trees, and let me take a peek." "He isn't going in, I hope!" exclaimed Will as the cowboy moved away. "Well, hardly. Reddy doesn't want to commit suicide just yet. He's only going to make sure the old chap is at home, then he'll make preparations to smoke him out." As Mr. Mabie said, Reddy was soon back, and from his actions it was positive the bear was at home. He began collecting dry wood and all manner of material calculated to make a big smoke. The boys knew something about such a scheme themselves, and were deeply interested. Mr. Mabie insisted that each one seek an asylum in the branches of a tree that commanded the black cleft. Presently, Reddy had his pile of wood and brush ready, and he put a match to it, after which he beat a hasty retreat, climbing into the tree with Frank. "Listen!" he said presently. Frank could hear a sound like sneezing. This was followed by a scrambling noise that arose above the crackling of the fire. Then came a terrific roar, succeeded by a sudden scattering of the brands, and the enraged grizzly rushed into the open! CHAPTER XIX A STRANGE DISCLOSURE "Hello, there, Charlie! How's your health?" Reddy swung himself down from the limb on which he had been perched, and kicked out with his feet in such a way that he attracted the attention of the beast. "He's coming! Look out, Frank!" shouted Will, who, secure in his perch, had, of course, been manipulating his camera with burning zeal. Bang! It was Bluff who had fired, but if he hit the great beast at all, the latter minded the wound no more than he would a flea bite. Jerry also took a turn as the grizzly passed the tree in which he was hidden. "I hit him!" he whooped as the grizzly gave a snap backward at his flank. But the enticement offered by Reddy's swinging form proved too much for the enraged animal. Doubtless he imagined that all his troubles came from that biped or monkey hanging up yonder, just within reach of his claws if he arose on his hind legs. Hence his eagerness to make the attempt. "Pull up, quick!" exclaimed Frank as the grizzly rushed under the tree and immediately started to rear up. The daring cowboy had held out until the very last second, meaning that nothing should balk his design of enticing the enemy under their refuge, where Frank could get in his work. Afterward Frank understood his motive. Reddy was especially fond of him, though he also liked all of the other chums. He believed that Jerry had secured enough honors in being given the chance to knock over the other bear, and it was his desire to see Frank even up the score. Just in the nick of time the cowboy swung his legs up around the limb. The horrible claws of the grizzly swept through the air not a foot below where he had hung. Frank shuddered at the consequences had anything happened to bring Reddy within reach of such a powerful beast. "Now get him, Frank!" gasped the one who hung on with arms and legs. Neither Bluff nor Jerry thought to shoot a second time. They seemed to understand that the game had passed them by, and that it was Frank's turn. When he saw the right chance the young sportsman pulled the trigger. He had not made any mistake in judging just where he should aim, for with the report of his rifle the grizzly floundered, and fell over. "Wow! That did the business!" shouted Jerry. "Hold on, boys! Don't get down yet!" called Mr. Mabie hastily, as he thought he detected a disposition on the part of either Bluff or Jerry to drop from their secure perches to the ground. It was well they refrained, for already the monster was once more on his feet, and, roaring with fury, endeavoring to reach the enemies who clung there so tantalizingly, just beyond his extended claws. "Give him another!" cried Reddy promptly. Frank did; and wishing to end the beast as quickly as possible, he aimed to send the lead straight to the heart. But he was compelled to use every bullet in his six-shot repeater before the giant received his quietus, and rolled over, to rise no more. Frank had a queer feeling as he dropped to the ground and stood over his big game. Deep down in his heart he envied his chum, because Jerry had been able to kill _his_ grizzly while the beast was charging him. "It may be all right," he said to Mr. Mabie, "and it's a good thing to get rid of these savage animals in any old way, but I hope I don't take part in another affair like this. He had no chance, poor old chap." The old rancher looked admiringly at the boy. "Those sentiments do you proud, lad, and I appreciate them, too; but business, in my line, must go ahead of sentiment, and this old Charlie was doing me a bad turn. My herds will rest easier now that he is gone," he said feelingly. Leaving Billy and Reddy to secure the hide of the second grizzly, the others returned to camp. Restless Jerry tried the fishing again, and as before, success came his way. "I'd give something to have my little _Red Rover_ here, in that swift water," sighed Bluff, as he and Frank sat on the edge of the bluff, listening to the rush of the river while it sped on its way to the lower country. "Well, a canoe might be fine for shooting downstream, but I don't believe you'd find it as safe in the rapids as those hide boats. The rocks can't smash in their sides, like cedar or canvas craft. Better to do as the natives do, I find, whenever I go anywhere. They know by experience what's best," returned Frank wisely. "Look there! A cowboy coming like the wind up the river, waving his hat over his head! Say! d'ye suppose anything's gone wrong at the ranch, and we'll have to cut our hunt short?" exclaimed Bluff anxiously. "Oh, I guess not. You see, those fellows are built that way. They never can do anything without excitement. See! He's holding up something that looks like a mail pouch," said Frank composedly. "Why, of course that's it! I heard Mr. Mabie say he expected mail to-day, and, for one, I'll be mighty glad to hear from the folks," sighed Bluff. "What? Not getting homesick already, I hope?" smiled his chum. "Certainly not, only a fellow naturally likes to hear from his mom and dad when he's away so far," declared Bluff stoutly. "Yes, and also from some other fellow's sister, in the bargain. Nellie never finds time to write to me when I'm away, leaving all that to the old folks; but I notice that you always manage to get a letter in her handwriting." "Well, I made her solemnly promise to write every other day, you see," explained Bluff, while he suddenly became red in the face, hurrying off to get his mail. There were letters for all the boys. Jerry was called in from his entrancing sport to receive his share, and Frank noticed that he, too, had a sweet-looking missive in a schoolgirl hand. Of course, it must be from Mame Crosby, for Jerry and she were great friends. "Here's something enclosed in my letter, and directed to Mr. Frank Langdon. Does anybody know a fellow by that name?" asked Will, holding up a delicate envelope that seemed to exhale a fragrance all its own. "And sealed, too! What a breach of etiquette!" jeered Jerry. "Now, _will_ you be good?" observed Bluff, glad of a chance to return the favor. "That's all right. Possibly Violet wants to make some inquiries concerning her twin brother, how he behaves, and if he has developed any rash spirit calculated to get him into trouble. I remember telling her that if she felt anxious just to drop me a line, and I'd answer." Frank unblushingly took the envelope from the extended fingers of Will. "Open it!" commanded Bluff. "You'll have to excuse me, fellows. That wouldn't be hardly fair to my correspondent, you know. She expects me to keep her secrets." And Frank coolly sauntered off as he spoke. Nor did he ever take them into his confidence with regard to what the contents of that scented missive might be. Even Will was not told. However, like most brothers, it can be said that he did not seem overly anxious to learn. He had, perhaps, secrets of his own. Once again they were seated around the campfire. Supper had been, as usual, a great success, and while the older members of the party smoked, our boys amused themselves in various ways. Will was, of course, busy with his photographic outfit. His field dark-room was a success, and he developed his films, and did all other things necessary, with little or no trouble. Indeed, he had an apparatus whereby he could carry on this operation successfully even in the daytime; but he usually worked at night, because there was nothing else going on then. The others had fallen into a conversation connected with their home life. Reddy hovered near, listening, and Frank wondered why that wistful look had come into the eyes of the young cowboy. Possibly he had a home somewhere--perhaps memories of a mother or father had crowded into his mind while the boys were talking of the sacred ties that bound them to Centerville. Frank had always believed there must be something of a history attached to Reddy's past. He had even hoped that some time the other might take such a liking to him as to speak of his own folks. His manner gave Frank the impression that the dashing cowboy might have had a new longing spring up in his breast since their coming to the ranch, a desire to once again visit the scenes of his boyhood. So, as they talked, referring to many of the events of the past, names were often mentioned, and as a thought came to him, Frank happened to say: "I wonder how Hank Brady is getting on with father's new car?" He saw the cowboy start and turn white. "Who's Hank Brady?" he asked, his voice trembling. "A fellow we met under strange circumstances. Hank was on the road to the bad, but he got his eyes open just in time. Now he's our chauffeur, and we think he's going to make good," replied Frank, watching the other with sudden interest. "Huh! Did you ever hear anything about his family?" asked Reddy, trying to act in a natural manner, but hardly succeeding very well. "Yes. He's got a father and mother who were mighty anxious about him." "And there's that good-for-nothing brother Ted he told you to keep your eye out for up here!" broke in Bluff. "Yes; how about that, Frank? Have you ever asked about him?" exclaimed Jerry. "No; but perhaps I'd better begin now. How about it, Reddy?" questioned Frank. "You needn't go any further, for I can tell you all about that scalawag. If you had asked Mr. Mabie, he'd have told you my name was Ted Brady," was the astonishing reply. CHAPTER XX "WE MUST CUT AND RUN FOR IT!" It was surprising to see the effect of the cowboy's announcement. Frank was in some measure prepared for it. He had entertained a sudden suspicion as he noticed the emotion of the other. But his chums seemed almost thunderstruck. "Tell me about that, will you!" said Jerry, feebly waving his hands. "Did you ever hear of such luck?" ejaculated Will. "Beats a story all hollow. Here's the prodigal son found at last, eating his dinner with the--" began Bluff, when Jerry pounced on him. "Don't you dare finish that, on your life! Of course, you can call yourself swine, if you please, but I object. But is it really true, Reddy? Are you Hank's long lost brother?" he asked, turning to the other. "I certainly am, although I ought to be ashamed of the way I've treated my folks. All for a measly little matter, too. My eyes have been openin' lately, and I was mighty near headin' Eastways before you came," said the cowboy, hanging his head. "Then perhaps you'll go back with us, and surprise the folks?" suggested Frank eagerly. "Well, now, I'd like to do that same, if so be you fellows mean it. You see, my folks ain't always lived in Centerville. I thought that lots of things you talked about seemed kinder familiar to me, for I was brought up in that part of the State. Yes, I'll go home, and try and make up for what I done to hurt the old folks. Somehow, just the idea of it makes me feel better." He eagerly questioned the boys about his people. Of course, they did not have much news to tell him. Hank was only a year or so older than his brother, and the absent one was very much interested in hearing how they had met him, and what awakened Hank to a consciousness of the terrible mistake he was making in associating with unscrupulous men. After that Reddy assumed a new place with the boys. He seemed to be closer to them than ever, and Frank no longer wondered why the other's sunburned face had seemed partly familiar to him when he first met him. "You and Hank are very much alike," he said, later on, to Reddy. "They used to say that at home. I was just big enough to be accused of many of Hank's tricks, and once I got a lickin' he deserved." "And another thing," laughed Frank, "I know now what he was about to tell me at the time I was dragged away by my folks. I was asking him how I could ever recognize you, in case we met, and he put up his hand to his head, but I never heard the rest of it." "Why, of course, he was going to tell you that I had a mop of beautiful red hair, and that Teddy went with Reddy. I guess you'd have known me if you'd heard that," was the good-natured remark of the found one. On the following day the four outdoor chums determined to set out in a bunch to have a grand hunt, following the dense woods far down the valley. The last words of the old stockman were a caution in connection with the dry grass. "Be careful about a fire, lads. If you make one, be sure the last spark is out before you leave it. A forest fire would play the mischief just now, with everything so dry. But somehow, I've got hopes that the rain is coming soon," and he looked into the west, as though the few low-down clouds gave him encouragement. When noon came the boys had put up a couple of elk, but at such a distance that no one but Bluff fired, and he because he knew no better. "Do you think I wounded him?" he had the nerve to ask, whereat Jerry looked at Frank and just smiled broadly. "Anyhow, they ran off faster after I fired," asserted Bluff confidently. "I should think anything would," was all Jerry said, and if there was malice in the remark Bluff did not know it in his innocence. While they sat down to eat the lunch they had carried along Frank called attention to the fact that the wind had risen. "Perhaps Mr. Mabie was right, after all, and there is a rainstorm coming before long," suggested Will. "Then I hope it'll have the decency to hold off until we get home," said Bluff. "Oh, a little wetting wouldn't hurt us. We're not made of sugar or salt. But perhaps we'd better not go any further. We've come a long way since breakfast. This valley seems to have no end, and it broadens out down here, too." "Yes; and, Frank, have you noticed how thick the trees grow, too? Why, in some places a fat man would have trouble getting through between the trunks," said Jerry. "What ails Frank? He seems to be sniffing the air like a hound," asked Will. "Oh, he always declared he had a fine scent, and I've noticed that he knows when dinner is ready, ahead of the rest of us," remarked Jerry. Frank laughed good-naturedly. "To tell the truth, I was wondering, fellows, whether we could be near another camp," he remarked. "Did you hear anybody shout?" asked Will. "No; but when there came a sudden shift to the wind I thought I got a scent of fire. No, it wasn't cooking, this time, Jerry, so don't get ready to accuse me of that weakness again; just something burning." "Say! you don't think it could be the woods afire, do you?" "Talk to me about your ghost-seers, will you! Will, here, can jump on to trouble quicker than any fellow I know. Why, if the woods were on fire, don't you think we'd have found that fact out before now, Mr. Faint Heart? I guess such a thing couldn't happen without a heap of smoke that would look like a pall, and appal us, in the bargain." "Well, all I can say is, I'm not hankering after any forest fire experience after what Mr. Mabie told us about those friends of his who were nearly burned to death seven years ago; and that was a prairie fire, too," observed Will, continuing to cast anxious glances around. "Amen to that," remarked Bluff. "Why, you must think I'm just wild to try my legs, with a healthy blaze jumping after me; but I'm not, all the same. Come along, Lazy-bones! We're going to have the delightful pleasure of covering those ten miles back again," and Jerry pulled Will to his feet. "Ten miles!" groaned the other dismally, making a pretense of hobbling, as if his muscles had given out. "How in the world can I ever do it?" "Well, sing out when you want to stop. We'll hang you up in a tree, safe and sound, just as I did that wolf I got; and later on one of the boys can come for you with a horse," was Jerry's cheerful remark. "Oh, I'd hate to put you to any additional trouble, so I'll try my best to limp along," replied Will, who, of course, was only shamming, in that he was not half so tired as he tried to make out. So they turned their faces toward the home camp, and started trudging along, now and then calling to one another as something caught their fancy. Will had had little opportunity to make use of his picture-taking machine this trip. His stock of films was beginning to run low, and only special subjects must claim his attention from now on. Besides, he had several views of the great woods, and the light was so poor under the trees that it required a time exposure to bring out the details. "I think it's a mean shame none of you fellows think enough of me to get up some sort of excitement, in order to let me snap you off," he was saying as he tramped along. "Tell me about that, will you! The chap really thinks that it's our duty to do all sorts of remarkable stunts, in order that he may have the pleasure of snapping us off in ridiculous positions!" "Hear! hear! That was the finest speech I ever knew Jerry to put up. As a rule, he leaves the heavy talk to me, and is satisfied to just grunt out his ideas. But look here, Frank, I believe you were right," said Bluff, stopping to elevate his nose in a significant fashion. "Oh! dear me! Do you smell smoke, too?" demanded Will. "Why, so do I, now that you mention it. And say! just cast your eyes back of us, fellows! Don't it seem as though there was more or less smoke in the woods over yonder?" asked Jerry. The four boys now showed sudden animation. "Hark to the wind, too! It's beginning to make a sound up there in the tree-tops. Which way is it coming, Frank?" asked Will. Frank's face began to assume a serious look. The wind was fairly growing stronger with every passing minute. If the woods should be afire, this would whip the flames furiously, and send them speeding along at a dangerous pace. "It begins to look bad for us, boys," he remarked. "What! Do you really mean it, or are you just trying to play a joke?" "You know me better than that, Will. There is certainly a brush fire back there. Some camper has left his fire, and the rising wind has carried it into the dead leaves," said Frank soberly, surveying his surroundings. "Could we push forward and put it out before it does any damage?" asked Bluff. "I'm afraid it's too late for that now. See there! The smoke is getting thicker and thicker all the time. Boys, we might as well look the matter straight in the face." "What do you mean, Frank?" asked Will in a trembling voice. "We must cut and run for it, that's all, for the fire is coming swiftly!" CHAPTER XXI NEVER GIVE UP At first, the boys made light of the flight. All of them were pretty fair runners, and although the weather was warm for such exertion, they did some clever work. "It's getting worse back there!" said Will, who brought up the rear. Frank had known this for several minutes, and was correspondingly worried. The wind had risen to such an extent that it rushed through the tree-tops like an express train, making a doleful sound. Nor was this all, for they could plainly hear a crackling from the rear that was gradually becoming a subdued roar. "Oh! I saw the fire then!" called Will a minute or two later. Looking over their shoulders as they ran, all of them had glimpses of the flames leaping hungrily upward. What Mr. Mabie had feared all along had actually come to pass. All of them were glad, however, that it had not been through any fault of theirs, since they had built no fire that day. "Frank, it's catching up with us! Whatever shall we do?" panted Bluff, close beside the one he addressed. Frank had been considering this same question. He at first thought they might outrun the fire, but now he changed his mind. The woods were so dense, and the vegetation so thick, that whenever they tried to make fast time they kept tripping over trailing vines, or else banging up against the trunks of the forest monarchs, sometimes damaging their noses by the contact. "What was he telling us about fighting fire with fire?" asked Jerry, who was by this time feeling not quite so jaunty as usual, but ready to seize upon any opening that promised safety. "That was out on the prairie. I don't think the scheme would work here in the woods. It would take too long for the second blaze to get a start, and we'd be caught between the two fires," was Frank's reply. "But we must do something pretty soon!" cried Will. [Illustration: "FRANK, IT'S CATCHING UP WITH US!"--_Page 192_. _The Outdoor Chums After Big Game_.] Indeed, it would appear so. They were now enveloped in a pall of smoke, that, entering their eyes, made them smart fiercely. Not only that, but the fire could be seen in a dozen places behind them, leaping up into the trees as the dried foliage offered such a splendid torch, and the wind urged the conflagration along. "Will's right. The old thing's running us neck and crop. I believe it's gaining on us right along!" exclaimed Bluff. "Look for a hollow tree!" cried Jerry. "Humbug! Just because you once got in one during a storm you think a hollow tree can be used for nearly anything. Why, we'd be smothered in a jiffy, even if we didn't get burned to a crisp! Say something else!" shouted Bluff. "What is it, Frank--you know?" demanded Will, who, in this time of need, somehow turned to the one whose cool head had many times managed to extricate them from some impending danger. "We've just _got_ to head another way, and try and get out of the path of the fire, if we can. Besides, the river lies to the left," he answered, as cheerily as he could. "The river! Hurrah!" shrieked Will in sudden elation, for the very thought of water was a blessed relief when threatened by fire. "We can duck under, and save our bacon!" cried Jerry. "There you go, confessing to the swine again," declared Bluff. But in spite of their light words the boys were by this time thoroughly alarmed. The appearance of the burning woods in their immediate rear was appalling, to say the least. High sprang the flames, and their crackling could now be plainly heard. Indeed, the sound began to assume the proportions of a continuous roar, such as a long freight train might make in passing over a trestle and down a grade. Now that they were running almost sidewise to the advancing fire, it approached much faster than before. "I felt a spark on my face, fellows!" Frank was not at all surprised to hear Will say this, for he, too, had experienced the same thing not half a minute before. He had not mentioned the fact, for fear of alarming his chums still more. "Keep on, fellows!" was all he said, for he needed every bit of breath he could muster. Desperately they tried to increase their pace, but found it hard work with so many obstacles confronting them. Will tumbled more than any of the others, somehow or other. Perhaps it was because he was carrying his camera so carefully, and thinking more about it than his own person. Finally Frank missed him entirely. "Where's Will gone?" he demanded. The others, turning, were horrified to find their chum missing. "Keep right on, you fellows! Don't you dare stop, or follow me! I'll get Will! The river's close by!" he called out, and then turned around, retracing his steps directly toward the advancing fire. Never had Will seemed so precious in the sight of the boy who thus placed his own life in jeopardy in order to save that of his chum. In imagination Frank pictured his agony of mind if he had to tell Violet that her twin brother had perished miserably in a forest fire, while he escaped. "Will! Will!" he was shouting frantically, as loud as he could, and this was not anything to boast of, for the smoke choked him, and he could hardly keep from coughing almost constantly. "Hi! Here I am! Lost like the babes in the woods!" sang out a voice. Frank pounced on his friend, who, with smarting eyes, was fairly staggering about, hardly knowing which way he was trying to go, having become more or less rattled by the impending peril and the state of his own feelings. "Run for all you're worth, Will!" he said, as he clutched the sleeve of the other almost fiercely, for they had little chance of eluding those hungry flames now. Together they rushed along, Frank's eyes doing double duty, for Will seemed by this time half blind, and the one free hand was constantly rubbing his smarting orbs. "A little further, and we're safe!" he kept calling in the ear of his nearly exhausted chum. The heat was beginning to be terrific now. Blazing branches flew through the air, and set trees on fire all around them. "It's like the fiery furnace!" Will said three times running, and Frank really began to fear his companion's mind was getting unsettled from the fright of their desperate condition. Oh! if the river would only show up ahead! No doubt the others had, ere now, gained the glorious haven, and were settled up to their necks in the water, ready to defy the power of the opposing element. But it was an open question whether the halting pair could ever make the shelter of the friendly stream. "Let me go, Frank! You can make it alone!" pleaded Will. "Shut up! Keep on running! I tell you we're going to get there, and don't you think for a minute we ain't!" replied Frank furiously, as he pulled Will along. CHAPTER XXII THE WAR OF THE ELEMENTS "This way, Frank! Turn a little to the left!" "That's Jerry shouting! Do you hear him, Will? Keep up your heart! We're going to cheat the old fire yet!" cried Frank. His companion seemed to pluck a little new spirit from the encouraging shout, and his lagging feet began to show more animation. In this way they hurried out of the already burning forest, and found themselves on the brink of the swift current of the valley stream. "Jump in! The water's fine!" shouted Jerry, who, with Bluff, had submerged himself up to his shoulders. "But my camera! I can't ruin it in the water!" shouted the obstinate Will, as he looked eagerly around for some place to conceal the object which he held in so much reverence. "Under those rocks! We chucked our guns there!" called Bluff, pointing out the spot, in his eagerness to help matters along. Will hastened to thrust the beloved camera into the cavity that lay beneath the rocks, and Frank, nothing loth, also pushed his rifle into the same place. Then it was ludicrous to see how quickly they made a plunge into the river. Their immersion did not come a minute too soon. Frank knew that Will's garments were on fire in several places, and did not doubt but that his own must be in the same condition, for the sparks were raining all around them. "This is all right," said the irrepressible Jerry, jumping up and down as he tried to hold out against the strong current. "All I know is that we are in luck to have this blessed old river handy," said Frank, with more or less feeling in his voice, as he watched the fire flash from tree to tree in pursuing its course. "Yes, it's a queer world. Only a few days ago it came near ending my life up at the cataract, and now it makes amends by saving it," remarked Jerry. "The fire doesn't seem to jump across the river," observed Will. "No; and I don't think it will, unless the wind changes quickly," said Frank. "But it seems bound to get to our camp inside of an hour or two. What d'ye suppose they'll do with all the duffle?" inquired Bluff uneasily. "I'm not worried about that. Mr. Mabie will scent trouble a long way off, and find a refuge among the rocks, if necessary; but I'm inclined to think the fire will never get to him," replied Frank. "Do you believe the wind will shift, then, and blow back on us?" asked Will. "I'm not a wind prophet. What I had in mind was that the fire would be put out before it got three miles from here." "Put out! Do you mean to say they've a fire department up here?" demanded Will. "Why, certainly; but it doesn't cost them a cent to maintain it. Somebody just pulls the string, and the water comes down," laughed Jerry. "Oh! I see now what you mean! It's going to rain!" "Hear! hear. He's tumbled to it at last! Sometimes it seems to me that we'll just have to get out a special dictionary for Will, so he can find the answers to conundrums without waste of time or energy," declared Bluff. "That's the penalty every genius has to pay," remarked Will composedly. Every now and then the boys were compelled to duck their heads beneath the surface of the river, for the heat became unbearable. When the worst of the fire had gone by on the wings of the furious wind, things began to change a bit for the better. "Say! don't you think we might be getting out of here now?" demanded Will, whose teeth, strange to say, were rattling together with the chill of the mountain stream even while the air was still heated around them. "I suppose it will be safe, and we can stand the heat if it will assist to dry our clothes. Though for that matter, fellows, it's ten to one we will be soaked through and through again before we get to camp." "This is mighty unhealthy, I think. Such rapid changes always encourage dangerous ailments," remarked Will, whose father, now dead, had been a physician. "All the same, I know several fellows who were very much pleased to make a sudden change a little while back," asserted Jerry. They crawled out on the bank. Will, of course, made straight for the rocky niche toward which he had cast many an anxious look while standing in the river. "Good! Everything is all right, boys! Not a bit of damage done, that I can see!" he called out. They kept close to the river in making their way along. Perhaps the main idea in this was to have a handy refuge in case a sudden need arose. "There she comes!" remarked Bluff, in less than ten minutes. "What? Where?" asked Will, staring around. A deep bellow of near-by thunder answered him. Then the rain began to fall in torrents. Will always carried a piece of waterproof cloth, to be used for wrapping around his precious camera on occasions when it was threatened with rain. This he brought into use, and at the same time tried to keep the little black box sheltered as much as possible under his coat. From one extreme they had jumped to the other. First it was a superabundance of fire, and now water began to trouble them. "I'm soaked through again," announced Jerry dolefully, as he allowed the wind to carry him along through the blackened timber. "And I just bet that old fire has been squashed out before this," spluttered Bluff. "Don't you say so, Frank?" "If it hasn't, it soon will be. Did you ever see it come down harder?" "Must be trying to make up for the drouth of the last two months. Mr. Mabie said that when it did come we'd likely get a drencher. We're getting it, all right," declared Jerry. For another half hour they kept on, though the walking was very hard. "A fine-looking crowd we are," declared Frank, as he surveyed his blackened leggings and sodden coat. "But it seems to me things don't look quite so bad around here," observed Will. "Well, they don't, for a fact. Frank, we've reached the fire limit, I do believe!" cried Bluff. Everybody was glad to know it, for many reasons. The walking would be better, they could by degrees wash off the black stains that had been covering their clothes, and last, but far from least, the camp would be safe. "I'll never forget this day's experience, that's sure," Jerry was saying, half an hour later, as, they still plodded on, with some miles still ahead of them that must be gone over before they reached camp. "And every time I look at the picture of the fire it'll bob up before me and make me shudder," remarked Will. "Talk to me about that, will you! Do you mean to say you had the nerve to stop and snap off some views of that hot old fire while the rest of us were shinning it as fast as we could?" demanded Jerry. "Why, of course I did! What do you take me for? Who else would have preserved that exciting episode for future generations to enjoy, if I hadn't? That's what I'm here for," replied Will in surprise. "And I suppose that was what made you so late Frank had to go back and hunt you up, eh?" "I suppose it was, Bluff; but don't you scold now. I guess you'll enjoy those views as much as any one. There's only one thing I regret, fellows." "And I can guess what that is. You wish you had taken the rest of us up to our chins in the drink," remarked Frank, whereat Will nodded eagerly, crying out: "Oh! it would have been a great sight! Think how many times it might chase the blues away when some of us felt downcast! I wish, now, I had asked you to go back and give me the chance." "Tell me about that, will you! Was there ever such an indefatigable--hey, Bluff! Is that the word I want?--artist as our meek little pard here? Sometimes he seems so timid, and then again he shows more nerve than the whole bunch put together. I thought I knew him to a dot, but I confess I'm puzzled," grunted Jerry. "The rain has stopped, fellows," announced Frank a little later. "But just look at the river! Must have been a cloudburst, as they call it out in the Rockies, Mr. Mabie says. It's just rising right before our eyes!" "Then they'll have to change the camp, because by this time the water must be up to where the tents were pitched. Why, see there, Frank! Isn't that water over yonder, too, on the right of us?" asked Bluff, pointing through the woods. "As sure as you live, and rushing madly on, too. We are between two rivers, it seems, with the water rising like a tidal wave. Perhaps we may have to take to a tree yet, fellows," announced Frank after a long look. "H'm! These trees are sure handy to have around! We shin up one to avoid all sorts of dangers, it seems to me. And by the looks of that wall of water coming down on us just now, the sooner we climb, the better for us!" cried Jerry, suiting his actions to his words, and seizing the lower limb of a friendly oak, into which he clambered hastily, followed by his three chums, just as a five-foot wave swept under them, for all the world resembling a "curler" rolling in from the ocean and up the beach. CHAPTER XXIII THE STAMPEDE "What d'ye call this, anyway?" exclaimed Bluff, panting with his exertions. "I'd say it was crowding the mourners, for these things to chase each other so fast, and the elements to make playthings out of four confiding chums," said Frank. "Tell me about that, will you! First a scorching, then put to soak, after which comes another hot experience, and now treed by a flood! Upon my word, things are happening a little too rapid even for me," put in Jerry. "There!" remarked Will, with a satisfied chuckle. "I think you three fellows will make a splendid showing, perched along that limb like a lot of crows, and the water rolling along below." "Talk to me about the industrious photographer! If that chap hasn't taken our pictures in this ridiculous attitude! Why, they'll believe we've gone back to the old days, when our ancestors used to live in trees." "Speak for yourself, Jerry. I refuse to admit that I am descended from a monkey," declared Bluff indignantly. "How long do you suppose we may have to hang out here?" asked Will. "Oh, a day or so, I suppose," replied Jerry, keeping a straight face. "A day or so! Listen to him say that without a show of feeling! Why, long before that time elapsed I'd grow so weak from fatigue that I'd have to be strapped to my limb to keep from falling into the treacherous water," stammered Will. "And what of me?" burst out Bluff. "I'd waste away to a mere shadow from hunger. Sooner than submit to that, I'd try swimming ashore." "Do you think the water will get any higher? Could it possibly overwhelm us in this tree? We could climb up twenty feet if necessary." "Well, I hardly think that emergency is going to arise, Will; not at this time, at least. To tell the truth, the water is already receding," announced Frank, taking pity on Jerry's victims, both of whom looked worried. "Oh! do you really think so?" cried Will. "Then Jerry is only up to some of his old foolishness. Yes, I can see that it does not quite come up to the wet mark on the trunk of the tree. Then perhaps we won't have to stay up here all night." "Well, I guess not. I expect that in less than twenty minutes we'll be once more afoot, and on our way to camp. This must have been a genuine cloudburst, and they tell me those sort of things, while severe at the time, are quickly over." "Bully for you, Frank! You always look on the bright side of things, while Jerry tries to dash a fellow's spirits. Things have come out pretty well, after all. We've had some strange experiences, come through them all in decent shape, and to cap the whole thing I've captured some dandy views. I can hardly wait to develop them." "Go ahead, then. Plenty of water at hand for washing off the hypo," suggested Jerry wickedly. By the time the twenty minutes had expired the water had subsided so far that the imprisoned chums were able to lower themselves from the tree and once more resume their journey. Of course, they were an uncomfortable lot, being soaked to the skin, and, as Will declared, looking like a lot of hoboes. Brisk exertion kept them from feeling cold, however; but they were one and all delighted to set eyes on the familiar tents of the home camp. Their welcome was a warm one, for Mr. Mabie had been more or less worried concerning them, owing to the forest fire and the fierce cloudburst. "We hoped you were safe, and tried to believe it, boys; but at the same time, even a veteran hunter in these parts might have been caught napping, and I tell you we're mighty glad to see you back safe and sound. Now, tell us how it happened," was Mr. Mabie's greeting as he squeezed a hand of each. "If you mean the fire, sir, we know nothing about it. We have not struck a match since leaving here, and only Bluff shot once. The fire came from an entirely different quarter, I assure you," said Frank. "I never doubted that, my lad. I've seen enough of you boys to know that after all I've said none of you would be careless enough to endanger things. But perhaps, after all, the fire was more of a blessing than otherwise, for it probably helped to hurry that rainstorm along, and that has saved our pastures." Of course, the boys were for getting into dry clothes at once. The fire was heaped high with fresh fuel, so that a delightful warmth would be diffused around the immediate vicinity, after which there was a general change of garments. "I feel better than I thought I would after all that rumpus," admitted Bluff, as he capered about, trying to keep his muscles from getting stiff. "We'll look back to this day as one of the strangest in all our experience," remarked Frank, hanging his wet garments where the sun would fall upon them, for the clouds had passed away, leaving a clear sky overhead. "How much longer do we stay here?" asked Will, who had been doing some figuring. "Because my films are getting low. I have three rolls still at the ranch house, and when they're exhausted my business is done." "Sorry to tell you, lads, that I had word from the house while you were gone, and it's absolutely necessary for me to start back in the morning. Now, if you would like to remain a little longer in camp, why, Reddy and Billy will keep you company. Don't give up unless you're satisfied with what fun you've had," said the stockman just then. The boys looked at each other. "I think we've seen enough of this life, and that there are dozens of things about the ranch we ought to know more about. So I vote that we return with Mr. Mabie," was Frank's suggestion. "Count me in that," echoed Jerry. "And I'm just wild to print a few of the remarkable pictures I've made up here, which I can't do until we get back to the house; so I'm only too willing to say yes to the proposition," put in Will. "And I'm just as happy one place as the other, so long as the cook doesn't strike, or put us on short rations," added Bluff. In this spirit of humor it was therefore decided that on the following morning they would break camp and return to the ranch. "I feel that I'm cheating you out of some of your expected fun, boys," apologized the stockman that evening, as they were packing some of their stuff, so as to lighten the labor in the morning. "Why, I don't know what else we could do here. Seems to me we've about exhausted the list of excitements. We've shot elk, grizzlies, a panther, a wolf, met up with Indians, been chased by a forest fire, soaked in the river and treed by a cloudburst. There could hardly be anything more, sir," laughed Frank. "Well, I admit that you have made hay while the sun shone; and such a pushing lot of boys always will get all the fun there is going. It's been the happiest event of my last ten years of life to have you with me, and when you see my old side partner of long ago just tell him that I'll never get over being thankful to him for having sent you up here to break the dreadful monotony of existence on a stock ranch." They passed a delightful evening. The boys sang many of their school songs, and Bluff was induced to give a recitation, which called forth vociferous applause from the cowboy audience. "I can see very plainly that you are going to make a worthy successor to that lawyer father of yours, Bluff," declared Mr. Mabie as he clapped his hands. "And I expect to live to see him on the Supreme Bench yet," said Jerry seriously. In the morning preparations for their departure were soon completed. The tents, and all material connected with the camp, went in the wagon, while the boys, together with Mr. Mabie and Reddy, rode horseback. It was an invigorating gallop back to the ranch house, and on the way the chums indulged in a number of little races. But Will would not allow himself to enter as he was afraid that something might happen to his precious camera, which he carried by a strap over his shoulder. Once back in their old quarters, for several days the boys took life easy, each being busily engaged in some favorite pursuit. Will developed all his films, and made copious prints of the same, which kept him in a feverish state of mind. When one turned out especially fine he was in the seventh heaven of delight; and if he met with disappointment, which was seldom the case, his laments were dismal indeed. Thus a week more passed, and the boys were beginning to think of turning their faces toward the East again. They would leave the ranch with many regrets, for Mr. Mabie had certainly quite won their youthful hearts by his genial ways. Frank was the last one to meet with an adventure on this occasion, which was fated to be written down in his logbook as worthy of remembrance. He had been out riding, and his horse, stepping into a gopher hole, threw him. Frank was not seriously hurt, but the horse went lame, so that he could not be ridden. As this happened miles away from the house, and night was coming on, with a storm threatening, Frank knew he was in for an experience; but even then he did not dream of all that was down on the bills for that special occasion. Through the darkness he went, leading his limping horse. Then the storm broke, and the crash of thunder, as well as the vivid lightning, was something such as he could not remember ever meeting before. He was just thinking that the pony had recovered enough to enable him to mount and make his way slowly along, as the ranch house was not more than a mile off, when something came to his ears that arrested his attention. For half a minute he wondered what it might be, sounding like increasing thunder. Then the appalling truth flashed upon him. There was a stampede of cattle, and he seemed to be directly in the way of the madly galloping herd! CHAPTER XXIV A MYSTERY SOLVED Frank, after that one spasm of alarm, gritted his teeth, and thought fast. He had heard the rancher, as well as the cowboys, speak of the terrors of the stampede, when the cattle were in a frenzy, through fear, and utterly beyond all management. He knew that frequently experienced cowmen, caught in the rush of a thousand lumbering steers, had been ground to death under countless hoofs. It was so in the old days, when bison dotted the plains of the great West. Mounted on a good horse, one might hope to ride clear of the advancing avalanche of hoofs and horns. But his steed was lame, and hardly able to limp along. The situation was one calculated to arouse a boy as he had never been awakened before in all his life. Frank jumped upon the back of his horse. He knew instantly that his one hope must lie in getting clear of the immense herd; and that this could only be done by either riding faster than they were going down the wide valley, or in making for the nearest hillside, where trees would offer him a refuge. He chose the latter. Flight in a straightaway course was utterly out of the question with a cripple between his knees. "Get up, Hector! Do your prettiest now!" he called to his horse. The poor beast was trying his hardest to run well, but making only a pretense, after all, since that lame leg kept him from speedy progress. Doubtless Hector, being a cow pony, knew full well the nature of the peril that menaced them, and if it lay in his power he would bear his young master to a point of safety. Frank's heart seemed to be in his throat as he leaned forward and listened to the rapidly approaching roar of hundreds upon hundreds of hoofs, mingled with the horrid clashing of horns. Added to this was the deep-toned thunder and the dazzling flashes of lightning. Once, when he looked to the left, he could see the moving mass that was sweeping horribly close. After that he resolutely kept his attention riveted in front, where the ridge loomed up against the darkened heavens. Everything depended upon how far he was from the nearest trees. Seconds counted with Frank just then. The lightning flashed every quarter of a minute, and yet it seemed to him that they were ages apart. With his heart in his throat, as it seemed, he stared ahead, and waited for the next flash to show him the worst. Unless the trees were close by, his case seemed hopeless, for the main herd appeared to have pushed over to this side of the valley, unfortunately, showing that he had picked the wrong course when he started. Hector stumbled more than once, and Frank feared he would be thrown. He even wondered whether it would not be better for him to throw himself to the ground while he had the chance, and trust to his own legs to carry him to safety. Then came the eagerly anticipated flash. Hope sprang anew in his breast, for he had discovered the trees close at hand. One more gallant effort on the part of the crippled pony, and they managed to pass behind the outposts of the timber, just as the beginning of the terrible rushing stampede swept by. There Frank sat upon his pony, breathing hard, and patting the poor animal reassuringly. He could hear the loud cries of the cowboys and Mr. Mabie as they circled about the terrified cattle, trying by every means possible to influence them to mill; but in that gloom it was impossible to carry out the usual tactics, and by degrees the sounds died away far down the valley. Frank walked with his lame pony to the ranch house. Here he found his chums in a fright because of his absence. They were afraid he had been caught in the mad stampede and ground under the hoofs of the steers. Mr. Mabie did not show up until long after midnight. The storm had passed away, and the sky cleared by that time. The boys were sitting up, waiting, none of them thinking of seeking his bed. "Hello, Frank, my lad! I'm mighty glad to find you here, safe and sound. I saw your pony at the stable, and that you had bound up his leg, showing a sprain. But I was afraid that something more serious had been the matter. You don't know how relieved I was to see your horse; and Reddy, too. The poor fellow has been in a sweat with fear ever since the stampede broke out," was the hearty way the rancher greeted Frank as he came bustling in. "Oh, I was right in the line of the rush, but by clever work on the part of my pony managed to reach the trees before they caught me. But what's the report about the cattle, sir?" asked Frank eagerly. "The boys have halted them about ten miles from here. Thanks to the storm stopping, and the animals getting leg weary, we managed to head them off. Little damage done, except to our feelings. These things happen once in a while, and are really unavoidable. Steers in a panic are crazy; but then I suppose the same would apply to human beings, if all accounts are true that I read about theater fires and such things." He asked many questions concerning Frank's adventure. "You just happened to choose the wrong side, lad. Had you headed the other way you would have had little trouble. The storm came from that quarter, and a cowboy must have known that cattle always run _away_ from the lightning and rain. But fortunately you made the timber, and; as the subject is unpleasant, we'll drop it for the present. Now get off to bed, the lot of you. In the morning, if you want, I'll take you down with me, and show you how we drive a big herd." "I've got my last roll of films in the camera, and that would make a mighty fine set of pictures to finish up with; but, oh! what wouldn't I give if I could have caught Frank, here, riding for life on that crippled pony, and the stampede sweeping down on him!" said Will enthusiastically. "Talk to me about your cold-blooded savages! Does anything equal a crank with a camera, bent on snapping off everything that happens?" muttered Jerry, shaking his head in real or assumed disgust. "That is the fate of every genius, to be misunderstood and misrepresented when ready to sacrifice comfort and everything to his art. But I am not the only one who is a crank. I have known fellows so proud of their lungs, that night after night they insisted on filling the air mattresses of the party just to prove which could blow the harder; while the other two members of the party sat by and laughed." Frank chuckled at hearing this, and both Bluff and Jerry looked daggers, for the shot hit home with them. In the morning the boys did accompany the rancher down the valley. Frank showed them his course on the previous night, and they followed his line of travel until the trees were reached. Trail there was none, for hundreds of cloven hoofs had pounded the soil about that spot, showing how narrow had been his escape. The cowboys were found to have the big herd well in hand. It was even then on the way back to its former feeding ground. Some of the steers showed the effects of the mad rush, in various cuts from the horns of their fellows; and several had tripped and gone down to death in the panic, the herd trampling them into an unrecognizable mass. Of course, Will satisfied his longing, and secured what pictures he wanted. "I'm happy in having carried out my plans. Won't the home folks stare when they see the panorama of views I've gathered!" he said jubilantly. "I should think they would," remarked Jerry, shrugging his shoulders, "for you certainly have a collection of freak pictures, some of which would take the prize." "But all of this lot are genuine. Nobody had to prance around a tree with a dead yellow dog on his feet, pretending to chase after him," asserted Will. "Whose doing was that, eh? Tell me that! Didn't you just plead with me to make a fool of myself, and to save you pain I consented. I suppose I'll never hear the end of that fool joke," growled Jerry. "Oh, yes, you will. It's all in the family. Others don't know the dog was dead when he had his picture taken. They all say he looks as though about to snap a piece out of your leg. Now, I think we've just had a glorious time of it up here, with nothing to mar our pleasure," remarked Frank, the peacemaker. "Except that miserable job of mine in leaving my knife home," sighed Bluff. "Talk to me about that, will you! He hasn't forgotten it yet!" exclaimed Jerry. "I never can. Hello! Here comes Reddy with a bag of mail, the last we'll get, I suppose, before we go home. A letter for me? Now just keep your eyes to yourselves, fellows. I admit it's from Nellie, but no doubt the dear girl is anxious about her brother Frank, and wants information from a thoroughly reliable quarter." Bluff sought out a lonesome corner of the big piazza in front of the ranch house, and presently all hands were absorbed in their letters. Suddenly the others heard Bluff utter an exclamation, and looked up just in time to see him sprint into the building. "What d'ye suppose ails the fellow?" asked Will. "Give it up. He seemed to have a broad grin on his face, as though Nellie must have written something especially sweet. But here he comes out again, dancing like a wild Indian. What's he waving above his head, fellows?" said Frank. "It's his lost hunting-knife, as sure as you live!" echoed Will. "Just to think of it, boys! The beauty was in my clothes bag all the time, and I didn't know it! Nellie did it. She mentions the fact in this letter, and says she was so afraid I'd hurt myself with that knife, by accident, that she rolled it up in this new flannel shirt, which I've never thought to put on as yet, and thrust it down at the bottom of my clothes bag. I never thought to pull it out; and now that the big-game hunt is over I get my trusty blade." "Tell me about that, will you! And you thought I was to blame," remarked Jerry. "For which I beg your pardon. After all, perhaps no harm was done, and since Nellie only did it from the best of motives, why, I would be foolish to be angry." "Sensible for once," observed Frank, winking at the others. "And so we will leave the ranch without the slightest cloud on the horizon. Fellows, all I can say is we're a lucky lot of boys," observed Will positively. CHAPTER XXV HOME AGAIN--CONCLUSION Saying good-by was harder than the boys had anticipated. They had really enjoyed themselves so immensely up there at the ranch in the wilderness that the thought of never seeing it more brought gloom upon their spirits. Of course, the fact that they were heading toward home, and the dear ones awaiting their coming, made their sorrow lighter. They had sent their trunk away on the previous evening, so that it would be at the far distant station awaiting their coming. On horseback, then, they were to cover the route that on their arrival they had done on a buckboard. Mr. Mabie, Reddy and Billy accompanied them, the stockman and Billy to bring back the mounts after the train had borne their young friends away. Reddy, of course, expected to accompany the boys East, to at least visit his family. He could not promise to remain at home, for the magic of the magnificent country of the Northwest called loudly to him; but he was taking home his savings, and meant to make his parents happy. "I'll never forget all the good times you've given us, Mr. Mabie," said Frank, as he squeezed the hand of their good friend when the whistle of the approaching train was heard as it came booming out of the cut, a mile away. "My dear boy, on my part I can never thank you and your jolly chums half enough for the delightful time you've given me. It will seem dreary here after you're gone. I haven't been so happy for years," was the reply of the stockman, as he beamed upon the cluster of bright faces around him. "But you know you promised to make us a visit when we're home from college next Christmas. Don't forget that, sir!" declared Will. "I certainly will not, if I'm alive. And Will, one of the inducements for such a long journey is the expectation of seeing that remarkable book of interesting views, containing reminders of so many of the exploits of the Outdoor Club. I'm sure that alone would repay me for the trip," laughed the other. "You won't forget about shipping those skins and things, sir? We want them for reminders of the happiest trip this club ever took. Every time we look at those rugs we'll think of you and your Big M ranch," remarked Bluff. "They'll go in a few days, boys, just as soon as the skins are in proper shape for transportation, depend on it. And I'll let you know when Pierre is placed under arrest, and the exiled chief, Running Elk, goes back to his people with all honor." The last they saw of Mr. Mabie and Billy, they were waving their big hats vigorously on the little station platform. Then a curve of the road shut them out, and the four chums settled back in their seats to talk over the thousand and one matters that claimed their attention. It is not in youth to grieve for long. They felt bad at leaving the scene of these recent happy events; but presently, in anticipation of the reunion with loved ones at home, this was temporarily forgotten. Will bemoaned the fact that he had not one single film left. "And there are so many things I'd like to take on the way home," he sighed, "and which I let slip on the way up." "Yes," remarked Jerry laughingly, "it's wonderful what game you see when you haven't a gun. But what's the matter with you trying to get a roll at the first town? Perhaps we may stop long enough, and they may have photographic supplies at the station." "Thank you for the suggestion, Jerry. It was a bright thought--for you; but I mean to take advantage of it, and make inquiries." Jerry gave him a queer look. Will was a fellow he could not fully understand. He seemed to be made up of contradictions, sometimes simple, and again shrewd; now as timid as a girl, and under certain conditions showing the bravery of a lion. Jerry knew Bluff as he did his own nature, and could dispute with him with energy, but in the case of Will he was always glad to drop the subject before he found he had burned his fingers. Nothing of moment happened on the journey, at least nothing worthy of mention. Will did manage to secure a roll of films at the first town. A messenger came to the car with it, and Frank always supposed from that that his eccentric companion must have wired ahead for supplies. When Will wanted anything he meant to get it, if there was any possible way of so doing. In due time they arrived at the station in Centerville, where a host of relatives and friends awaited their coming. There was a roar of many voices as the four chums appeared in view, and our boys quickly found themselves being hugged and kissed in a most indiscriminate fashion. If some of the girls, in the confusion, kissed the brothers of their friends, as well as their own, that was not to be wondered at, and everybody seemed as happy as could be, despite these natural blunders. Finally they managed to push outside the station. "Where's Hank Brady?" called Frank aloud. "Here!" said that worthy, stepping forward from the motor-car, and holding out his hand eagerly to the friend who had been so instrumental in assisting him to get his slipping feet on steady ground. "Hello, Hank! Here's your brother Teddy!" In this abrupt fashion did he bring the two face to face. Hank turned white, and stared hard at the bronzed young cowboy for a moment; then he caught hold of him, and the long separated; brothers were in each other's arms. "Sure, the old folks will be happy this night, Ted, to see you again! I never hoped they'd find you when I asked Mr. Frank to keep on the lookout," was what Hank was saying, as he turned a moist eye in the direction of the boy who had done so much to bring happiness to his home. Bluff and Nellie were seen talking earnestly close by. Probably he was telling her about the surprise she gave him in that last letter when revealing what she had done with his wonderful hunting-knife. Now that they were home again, with vacation nearing an end, the boys would not have so much time to indulge in their pastimes on the lake, so that they were keen to make hay while the sun shone. Consequently, they fairly haunted the lake, and the canoes were in use every day from that time on. Nor were they alone in this love of the open, for many an evening each canoe had its complement of fair ones, whose sweet voices blended with those of the four outdoor chums as they paddled in the moonlight over the rippling water. College was ahead of them, but as they expected to keep together still, the Outdoor Club was not to be disbanded by any means. Often in future days they expected to once more sit around a campfire in company, enjoying the delights of an outing, and recalling many of the wonderful experiences that came their way in days that were past. And there, written down in Frank's diary, or logbook, were the accounts of their first camp above the loggers' settlement, at the head of the lake; the one on Wildcat Island; then the third, among the Sunset Mountains, when they solved the mystery of Oak Ridge's ghost; and also their wonderful cruise down a Florida river and along the border of the great Mexican Gulf; while this journey to the cattle ranch of Mr. Mabie, in the wilderness of the Northwest, would complete the list. How many times, as they read of these exploits, and surveyed the splendid pictures Will had secured during their various campaigns, would the scenes of the happy past come before their mental vision! They could hardly expect to equal these glorious days in the times to come, but no one who knew their love for the open would dare predict that the Outdoor Club would cease to exist with the going to college of its four members. Perchance they may yet have other camps in strange places, and perhaps it may be our pleasant duty to chronicle the happenings of the four chums when again they erect their tents, or it may be, paddle their canoes on other waters. Wherever they go, and in whatever line of business they may find their life work, it can be taken for granted that the lessons learned when living this life of self-reliance in the open must always prove of the greatest value to The Outdoor Chums. THE END 
49371	----	Transcriber's Note: Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals. * * * * * THE WATERWAYS OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST BY CLARENCE B. BAGLEY SEATTLE, WASHINGTON REPRINTED FROM "THE PACIFIC OCEAN IN HISTORY" BY H. MORSE STEPHENS AND HERBERT E. BOLTON. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK Copyright, 1917, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. THE WATERWAYS OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST CLARENCE B. BAGLEY Recently, as I have studied this subject its magnitude has grown more apparent. The space allotted my paper will permit little more than a historical sketch. It has been my life work to gather together the written and printed history of the Pacific Northwest, but I am not a professional writer of it. For my purpose this caption refers to the Columbia River and its tributaries, and Puget Sound and the rivers emptying into it, including the Fraser, and their watersheds. The Columbia and Fraser are the only rivers that break through the great mountain ranges which parallel the shore of Washington and Oregon. With the Pacific Ocean only a few miles away, with its intricate network of great and lesser rivers, and its inland tidal waters whose aggregate littoral exceeds the distance between Cape Cod and Cape Flattery, it is remarkable how much of the exploration and industrial and commercial development of the Pacific Northwest has come from the East towards the West. Alexander Mackenzie in 1793, when he discovered the upper reaches of the Great River; Lewis and Clark in 1805; Simon Fraser and John Stuart in 1805-6; Daniel W. Harmon in 1810; David Thompson in 1811, and a little later Wilson Price Hunt, and thereafter nearly all the leading men of the Northwest Company and the Hudson's Bay Company, braved the hardships and dangers of the trip over the Rocky Mountains and down the turbulent waters of the Columbia or the Fraser. John McLoughlin, James Douglas and Peter Skene Ogden, Nathaniel J. Wyeth and the first missionaries, John C. Frémont, B. L. E. Bonneville, all led expeditions westward. Astoria was founded from the sea, and the expeditions of Astor's party to establish inland posts went up the river from the west, but they were all failures. For nearly seventy years the canoe and the bateau, the ox team or the horse team attached to the prairie schooner, were the instruments whereby the pioneers searched out the country and peopled its valleys and plains. During the period between 1842 and 1855, old Oregon was mostly peopled by immigrants from the Mississippi valley, who came overland. After the completion of the railroad across the Isthmus in 1855, immigrants from near the Atlantic seaboard took steamer at New York City for Aspinwall, crossed the Isthmus by rail, thence to San Francisco by steamer and to Oregon and Washington by sailing craft or steamer. Troubles with Indians between the Missouri and Columbia, of frequence in the later 'fifties, followed closely by the great Civil War period, materially checked the influx of population overland. In fact, not until the completion of the Northern Pacific in 1883, and soon afterward of the Oregon Shortline, did the real development of Oregon and Washington begin. In 1850 there were in old Oregon only 13,000 white settlers, 1049 of whom lived north of the Columbia River; in 1860 Oregon had 52,000, Washington, 11,500; in 1870, Oregon 91,000, Washington 24,000; in 1880, Oregon 175,000, Washington 75,000; in 1890, Oregon 314,000, Washington 349,000. The Northern Pacific Railroad had been completed in 1883, quickly followed by the Oregon Shortline, and Washington had gained nearly fivefold in a decade and had passed her older sister in population. In 1900 Oregon had 414,000, Washington 518,000; in 1910 Oregon had 673,000, with Washington 1,142,000, or a gain by the latter of more than 100 per cent in ten years. Oregon had an assessed valuation of 905 millions and Washington, 1025 millions. Neither had a bonded debt. The Canadian Pacific, Great Northern, Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul, Northern Pacific, Oregon Shortline and Southern Pacific railroads had all reached Pacific coast terminals, and in consequence the great Northwest had gained remarkably in population, wealth and volume of trade and commerce. In the Willamette valley the water power afforded by the streams of the Cascades and Coast ranges served to operate the early wood working and flouring mills, the woolen mills and small manufacturing plants, but on Puget Sound it was more economical to operate the saw-mills by steam where the ships could reach the docks easily and quickly. Almost immediately after their arrival at Tumwater, the first American settlers began building a saw-mill and a grist-mill on the bank of the Des Chutes River. The irons were bought from the Hudson's Bay Company and the millstones were made from a large granite boulder near by. Both mills were run by water power. A few other small mills were constructed elsewhere on the Sound, but all were financial failures. No large city has grown up in the Northwest on the site of the great water powers of the Columbia, Fraser, Willamette or smaller streams. Also, excepting Victoria and New Westminster, no large city has grown up on the site of the trading posts of the Hudson's Bay Company or the villages first started by the American settlers in the Willamette valley or on Puget Sound. Seattle, Portland, Spokane, Tacoma, and Vancouver in British Columbia, appeared on the map years after a dozen of their early rivals had been thriving little towns, and the most successful were founded by farmers from the Mississippi valley who, perhaps, had never seen a large city. A regular transportation line was established on the Lower Columbia in 1843; and in 1845, deep sea vessels began to frequent the harbor of Victoria and the Columbia River. These included many war vessels of the United States and Great Britain. Steamship communication, more or less irregular, began between San Francisco and the Columbia River in 1850, and between the former city and Puget Sound about 1857, though the _Otter_ and other steamers had made occasional trips on the latter route long before that time. Also, about 1850, steamers began to operate on the Lower Willamette and on the Columbia below the Cascades. After Vancouver's day little is reported of the Puget Sound region for about thirty years. As early as 1827 the schooners _Vancouver_ and _Cadboro_, owned and operated by the Hudson's Bay Company, are known to have sailed from the Columbia River to Puget Sound and engaged in traffic with the natives as far north as Sitka. In 1836 the Steamer _Beaver_ arrived in the Columbia River from England, but in a short time she left the Columbia and began running up and down the coast in and out of the rivers, bays, and inlets between Puget Sound and Alaska, carrying grain and other food stuffs northward and bringing back furs and skins and at times towing sailing vessels to and fro. During all the early years, down the waters of the Willamette and Columbia came considerable wheat and other grains, but freight rates were so high that little profit was realized by the grower and the acreage in consequence increased but slowly. The lumber exports of the Columbia River region also were large. On Puget Sound, until metal supplanted wood in shipbuilding, numerous cargoes of ships' spars went to the Atlantic seaboard and to Europe, but sawed lumber and piles, with shingles and lath to complete the stowage, were the chief articles of export. Good coal was mined on Vancouver Island earlier than on the American side of Puget Sound, but no considerable shipments abroad began until after 1870. For more than thirty years thereafter the coal mining industry of the Puget Sound country ranked closely after the lumber business and a large fleet of seagoing vessels was constantly employed in the trade. During recent years the use of oil in competition with coal for fuel has curtailed greatly the output of the northern coal mines. It is more than 1650 miles from the mouth of the Columbia to the uppermost point of navigation, but rapids and falls occur at frequent intervals. Until quite recently no continuous navigation of more than three hundred and fifty miles was practicable. Traffic between Portland and Lewiston, Idaho, required the operation of three separate steamers on as many stretches of the stream and still another on the upper Willamette. This made necessary artificial methods of getting freight and passengers around the breaks in the river, and it was not long before an absolute monopoly was held by one company on the Columbia and by another on the upper Willamette, though attempts at independent operation of boats on the latter were frequent. To-day, a steamer can run from Lewiston to Astoria, or, if of light enough draught, to Eugene on the Willamette. In 1850 a wooden tramroad was built on the north side and later another on the south side around the cascades of the Columbia. Late in the 50's the Oregon Steam Navigation Company gained control of them and installed a steam railroad on the north side. About 1860 that company began the construction of a railroad from The Dalles to Celilo, which commenced operations in 1862, during a period of intense mining activity in Idaho, Eastern Oregon and Northern Washington. Thereafter it practically owned the Columbia above the Cascades. The history of its operations and exactions and of the colossal fortunes it piled up for its stockholders reads like fiction. The first actual improvement of a waterway that I remember was at Oregon City. In 1860, at the west side of the Willamette River, the local transportation company constructed basins above and below the falls, so that a long warehouse covered both landing places, making it a comparatively easy matter to transfer freight up and down, while passengers walked. About 1870, the company replaced this system by a short canal with locks. For a great many years the United States has made liberal appropriations to be used in overcoming the difficulties of navigation of the Columbia River and its main tributaries. Under date of August 6, 1915, Major Arthur Williams, United States Engineer of the First Oregon district, furnished the following list of original expenditures: Snake River, in Oregon, Washington and Idaho, including $85,000 appropriated by the state of Washington, $338,786.43; Columbia River and tributaries above Celilo Falls to the mouth of Snake River, Oregon and Washington, including $25,000 from the state of Washington, $494,600.84; Columbia River at The Dalles, Oregon and Washington (Dalles-Celilo Canal), $4,685,855.79; canal at the Cascades of the Columbia River, Oregon and Washington, $3,912,473.33; Columbia River between Vancouver, Washington, and the mouth of the Willamette River, $97,532.16; Oregon Slough (North Portland Harbor), Oregon, $34,437.60. In addition to the foregoing $390,921.58 have been expended in operation and maintenance. In a letter of recent date from Chas. L. Potter, Lieutenant Colonel, Corps of United States Engineers, are tabulated the amounts heretofore expended in the second district on all river and harbor improvements to June 30, 1915, as follows: Willamette River above Portland, and Yamhill River, Oregon, $857,671.92; operating and care of lock and dam in Yamhill River, Oregon, $43,426.95; Willamette River at Willamette Falls, Oregon, $83,441.71; operating and care of canal and locks in Willamette River, near Oregon City, Oregon, $344.22; Columbia and Lower Willamette rivers below Portland, Oregon, $3,577,958.35; mouth of Columbia River, Oregon and Washington, $13,156,162.52; Clatskanie River, Oregon, $18,867.34; Cowlitz River, Washington, $102,208.63; Lewis River, Washington, $39,587.19; Cowlitz and Lewis rivers, Washington, and Clatskanie River, Oregon, dredge and snagboat, $36,138.04; Grays River, Washington, $3,857.23. Had this opening up to navigation been completed prior to the building of the railroads along the banks of the rivers and across the mountains, it would have been of inestimable benefit to the tributary country, but until its present population shall have increased ten fold, perhaps twenty fold, and the railroads shall be unable to handle the traffic; when the waterway craft shall be aids to the railroads, not competitors, I believe transportation of freight by steamboats or by barges with tugs will be impracticable. Steamboat service up the swift current with little cargo will fully offset any cheapening that may be possible down stream, so that most of the business will continue to be done by the railroads. However, the open river will undoubtedly be a check upon the railroads. A few weeks ago, at Lewiston, during the rejoicings over the opening of the upper Columbia to free navigation, one of the leading speakers remarked that the party in steaming up the river had seen but one other boat and she was tied to the dock. The state of Washington was in some measure benefited jointly with Oregon by the work in the Columbia basin noted above. The actual expenditures by the United States in Washington have been small in comparison. On Willapa Harbor they have been $241,878.39; at Gray's Harbor, $3,231,906.78; on Puget Sound they have been, at Olympia, $197,701.35; at Tacoma, $324,784.10; at Everett and Snohomish, $664,752.59; at Bellingham, $149,834.69; Skagit River, $101,455.54; Swinomish, $217,652.29. In addition to the work done at Tacoma by the United States, the railroads and the municipality have spent large sums in providing docks and other shipping facilities, and it is equipped to handle its full share of the Sound and seagoing traffic. The foregoing figures were furnished me from the office of the resident United States Engineer, Major J. B. Cavanaugh. Portland is the overshadowing city of the Columbia basin, and has always handled most of its business, while on Puget Sound trade and commerce have been divided. It is all a vast harbor and its cities have had access almost equally to the sea. Seattle, Tacoma, Vancouver, Victoria, New Westminster, Everett, Bellingham, Anacortes, Olympia, and Port Townsend are credited with an aggregate of nearly three-quarters of a million of inhabitants. During the last ten years there has been expended in Seattle more than fifteen millions of dollars in harbor improvements. By the operations of the Seattle & Lake Washington Waterway Co. there have been 1400 acres of land filled, much of it now covered with buildings of a most substantial character. When this company began operations these lands were covered twice a day from six to sixteen feet with tidal water. Through them it dug waterways forty and fifty feet deep at low tide two and one half miles long, 1000 feet wide, and two miles additional five hundred feet wide. This has required the construction of seven miles of bulkheads, all at a cost of a little more than five millions of dollars, all paid by the owners of the filled-in lands. Some four hundred additional acres of land, at times covered by the tides or by high waters of the Duwamish River, have been reclaimed. A ship canal between the waters of Puget Sound and Lake Union and Washington is now nearing completion and is expected to be in use during the current year. It will admit the passage of ships drawing thirty feet of water, directly into the lakes. The locks at the outer entrance have been constructed by the United States government. The larger is 850 feet long and is the second in size on the American continent, being exceeded in size by one of the locks of the Panama Canal. They cost $2,275,000. The state of Washington, county of King and city of Seattle contributed $1,250,000 to pay for condemnation of the necessary land and dredging and digging of the canals. Add to this $6,000,000, raised by the sale of longtime bonds voted by the people and expended by the Port Commission of Seattle for docks and warehouses, refrigerator plants and other facilities for speedy and economical handling of cargoes of grain, fruit, fish, lumber, coal, etc., and the above aggregate of $15,000,000 has been passed. John W. B. Blackman, Esq., City Engineer of New Westminster, B.C., has supplied information regarding Victoria, Vancouver, and New Westminster, British Columbia, as follows: Expenditures in Fraser River in opening, deepening, straightening, etc., $1,399,645.05; in Vancouver, mostly in widening the Narrows, $2,174,148.45; at Victoria in recent years, $750,000 in round numbers, has been spent in blasting and removing rock from the inner harbor, and a new break-water is now being constructed at an estimated cost of $3,000,000. The canoe and bateau gave place to the steamboat, the steam cars took away from the steamboat much of its business, and in the last quarter century the city and interurban electric cars have taken over much of the short haul traffic, while to-day the motor car is dividing the passenger service and almost monopolizing the transportation of garden and dairy products into and about the cities. Who shall predict how soon some other method of transportation shall make the land and water traffic of to-day seem as archaic as the ox team compared with a high power racing car? The streams of Oregon and Washington afford one-third of the available water power of the United States. A small part of this is now being used to develop electric energy, transmitted at long distances at high voltage, though not comparable with one line in California that is transmitting electricity at a voltage of 150,000 a distance of about 250 miles. The potential possibilities are so vast they can scarcely be estimated. In the North one of the transcontinental railroad lines is formulating plans to operate its trains electrically between the Rocky Mountains and Puget Sound. The first cost will be great, but when the new service begins its greater economy and comfort will undoubtedly compel all competing lines to follow the lead of their rival. The Panama Canal has been in operation only a year and it is too soon even to predict its influence upon the ocean commerce of the North Pacific, but so far little of the lumber, fish, or other commodities from the Northwest have gone through it eastward. Its influence has been almost negligible, and while considerable freight has gone from the Middle States eastward fifteen hundred miles to Atlantic ports and thence around by water, the railroads of the Pacific Northwest have not as yet seen cause to alter their tariffs because of it. Doubtless, when the great war in Europe is ended, and normal conditions are regained, the Pacific Northwest will enjoy in full measure the benefit of this great ocean waterway. To-day passenger ships leave Puget Sound for Alaska ports on an average of every eighteen hours, and nearly as many freighters ply on the same route. The ocean commerce of the North Pacific with eastern Siberia, Japan, China, the Indies, and the Philippines across the Pacific, and with San Francisco, Hawaiian Islands and through the Panama Canal has, in the last few years, reached enormous proportions. Already the resources of six great transcontinental railroad systems are taxed to the uttermost to handle their part of it. On the floor of the United States Senate, January 24, 1843, in the course of debate upon "The Oregon Bill," participated in by Senators Archer, Benton, Calhoun, Choate, Linn, Morehead, McRoberts and Woodbury, Calhoun gave utterance to the following: "But it may be asked, 'what then? Shall we abandon our claim to the territory?' I answer, no. I am utterly opposed to that; but, as bad as that would be, it would not be as much so as to adopt a rash and precipitate measure, which, after great sacrifices, would finally end in its loss. But I am opposed to both. My object is to preserve and not to lose the territory. I do not agree with my eloquent and able colleague that it is worthless. He has under-rated it, both as to soil and climate. It contains a vast deal of land, it is true, that is barren and worthless; but not a little that is highly productive. To that may be added its commercial advantages, which will, in time, prove to be great. We must not overlook the important events to which I have alluded as having recently occurred in the eastern portion of Asia. As great as they are, they are but the beginning of a series of a similar character, which must follow at no distant day. What has taken place in China, will, in a few years, be followed in Japan, and all the eastern portions of that continent. Their ports, like the Chinese, will be opened; and the whole of that portion of Asia, containing nearly half of the population and wealth of the globe, will be thrown open to the commerce of the world and be placed within the pales of European and American intercourse and civilization. A vast market will be created, and a mighty impulse will be given to commerce. No small portion of the share that would fall to us with this populous and industrious portion of the globe is destined to pass through the ports of the Oregon Territory to the valley of the Mississippi, instead of taking the circuitous and long voyage around Cape Horn; or the still longer, around the Cape of Good Hope. It is mainly because I place this high estimate on its prospective value that I am so solicitous to preserve it, and so adverse to this bill, or any other precipitate measure which might terminate in its loss. If I thought less of its value, or if I regarded our title less clear, my opposition would be less decided." The present witnesses the culmination of this remarkable prophecy made by one of America's ablest statesmen more than seventy years ago. * * * * * Transcriber's note: Minor typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as printed. The cover for the eBook version of this book was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain. 
36999	----	THE LAND of LURE A STORY OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER BASIN By ELLIOTT SMITH Author of "THE BELLS OF THE BOSQUE," "HULL 97." 1920 PRESS OF SMITH-KINNEY COMPANY Tacoma, Wash. Copyright, 1920 By ELLIOTT SMITH _DEDICATED TO MARIE SMITH--HIS WIFE Although I was one of those who "Tried, failed and went away to try and forget, if possible," her unfaltering faithfulness, and endurance, made it possible for me to see and feel the things that I have written in this--HER BOOK. --ELLIOTT SMITH._ [Illustration: _Misshapen and dwaft by the pitiless rays of the desert sun._] INDEX TO CHAPTERS Chapter I. 9 Chapter II. 20 Chapter III. 29 Chapter IV. 37 Chapter V. 42 Chapter VI. 57 Chapter VII. 64 Chapter VIII. 70 Chapter IX. 80 Chapter X. 90 Chapter XI. 96 Chapter XII. 104 Chapter XIII. 113 Chapter XIV. 123 Chapter XV. 136 Chapter XVI. 149 Chapter XVII. 163 Chapter XVIII. 179 Chapter XIX. 193 Chapter XX. 206 Chapter XXI. 223 Chapter XXII. 236 The Land of Lure CHAPTER I. The early March wind was blowing with its usual force, and white wisps of clouds were scurrying across the barren waste that lay between the rough canyon, through which the raging torrents of the Columbia River forced its way to the Pacific Ocean, and the range of hills thirty miles farther south. The clouds seemed to mount higher, and take on greater speed, while crossing this scene of desolation, and graveyard of buried hopes, as if anxious to leave behind them the glare of the desert sands, and the appealing eyes of the few unfortunate homesteaders, who were compelled to remain on their claims until they had complied with the demands made by a beneficient Government before they could become sole owners of the spot upon which many of them were now making their last efforts for a home of their own. The ever present sage brush and tufts of scant bunch grass, dwaft by the ages of drouth and the pitiless glare of the hot sun's rays, bowed before each gust of the sand ladened wind and emitted weird and unearthly sounds, as if the deported denizens of the desert were warning the white man against the hopeless task of trying to wrest from the jack rabbit and coyote the haunts over which they had held undisputed sway for ages. Deserted shacks, formerly the homes of earlier settlers, broken fences posts, with tangled strands of barbed wire, each told their story of a struggle for existence, defeat and departure, more pitiful than all the stories of Indian massacres ever written. Here was a battle field, the opposing forces being poverty, courage and determination, arrayed against the elements. Reinforcements, in the way of hardy homesteaders, were being constantly drawn into this unequal contest, armed with no other weapon than the ever abiding hope that nature would so alter her laws as to conform to this particular locality, lured by the sound of those magic words: "A home of your own," were ready to come into this deserted territory and take up the legacies of blasted hopes, equipped with new ideas, and seemingly fortified by the unfortunate experiences of others who had made the trial, failed and gone their way to try and forget, if possible, the ordeal through which they had passed. Trusting that the touch of the magic wand, in the form of irrigation, would cause the crystal water to flow, and convert the region into a garden of untold wealth. The winter preceding the March, during which our story opens, had been an exceptionally hard one in the Central and Middle Western states, floods and other unfortunate conditions having almost completely destroyed the crops and thereby entailing a loss that was keenly felt throughout the region, and causing a spirit of unrest among the poorer element; a desire for a chance to throw off the yoke of dependents, as wage earners, and to seek fields of greater opportunities. The newspapers and magazines were filled with articles lauding the "Back to the Soil" movement, and the country was flooded with pamphlets and folders, in which glowing descriptions of the opportunities afforded the homeseekers in the far Northwest was given. The railroads whose lines reached this vast territory were making special rates to prospective home builders, and daily homeseekers' excursions were being run over these routes. Trains loaded with eager tourists, bound for the land of their dreams, the mecca of their hopes, the happy land of somewhere; firmly believing that they, at least, had within their reach the goal for which they, and many of their fathers, had striven for years. To some, and in fact to a great many, this dream was to become a reality, and to those whose hardy constitution and indomitable determination has made such a transformation possible, is due the development of an Empire in the far Northwest. It is with one of these tourist families that our story has to deal. Travis Gully, a man of middle age, had been born and reared in the county of Champaign, Illinois, and had lived but a few miles from the town of that name, he had seen it grow from a small village to its present state of importance. In the neighborhood where he had lived he was well known, and generally liked. He had taken but casual interest in things socially, and had mingled but little with the young people of his set. He had always worked as a farmhand, and had acquired but little in the way of an education. At the age of twenty-three, he married Minnie Padgitt, the daughter of a country minister, and had settled down to the life of a farmer, on a rented farm. At the age of thirty-eight he was the father of four girls and one sturdy boy, and was still renting, having made but one change in location since his marriage. Content to toil for his family, never having had aroused in him a desire for a better lot in life. The ambition for a home of his own, having lain dormant for so long, it is not surprising that, when once awakened, it was all consuming. The awakening came suddenly during one of his regular weekly visits to town. On this occasion, being attracted by a crowd on the station platform, Gully wandered down toward the center of excitement, and beheld a number of his friends, shaking hands and bidding goodbye to others of his acquaintances, who he judged from their dress and excited appearance, were evidently leaving on the train, that had just pulled in and now stood with engine panting and clanging bell, waiting for the signal to leave with its long string of coaches, the windows of which were raised on the station side, regardless of the cold snow-laden March wind that came in fitful gusts into the eager faces that peered in twos and threes from each window. Faces that bore the smile of comradeship, whether beaming on friend or stranger. Some were an enigma; back of the smile could be seen traces of sadness, sorrow at leaving old homes and friends, combined with expressions of firm determination to go brave-heartedly into the great unknown country. With questioning gaze, Gully approached a group of his acquaintances, who stood apart from the crowd. As he came up, and before he could ask the cause of the excitement, he was greeted by one of the party: "Hello, Trav! Going with us?" he asked, with outstretched hand. Gully seized the proffered hand of his friend, William Gowell. "Going where?" he asked. "I did not know you were leaving, Bill." "Sure," replied Gowell, "hadn't you heard about it? Going to the Northwest to take up a homestead. Lots of the people from here are going," and he named over several of their mutual friends, who had sold their possessions and were taking advantage of the homeseekers' rates. He told him of the great advantages offered by the new country, and added: "Better come on, Trav." Travis Gully, after talking with his friends, was astonished and bewildered by what he learned. A special car had been sent into Chicago, loaded with a display of the products of this new country, specimens of timber, minerals, grain and fruit, apples, pears and peaches, the like of which had never before been seen. "And just think, such land as produced this fruit was free, open for settlement. All one had to do was to live on it for a while, and it was theirs." As he listened to these astounding statements, he asked himself: "Why was it not possible for him to take advantage of this golden opportunity? Why could not he, like so many of his friends, sell out and follow in a few weeks? He would see what could be done." And with this resolve, fired by this new ambition to possess a home of his own, prompted by the advice of those of his friends who were casting their lot with those of the homeseekers, he eagerly sought out each source of information, even to making inquiry as to the probable cost of tickets for himself and family, and after bidding those of his friends who were going goodbye, he watched the train until it rounded a curve that hid it from view, and promising himself that he would follow at the earliest possible moment. With pockets bulging with folders, maps and descriptive literature, he hurried home with the eagerness of a child, to prepare his family for their first move into the land of unlimited possibilities. Gully, upon his arrival home, was met at the gate by his two eldest girls, who, after opening the gate, received the few small bundles brought by their father, and scurried away to the house to announce his arrival. He watched them as they raced to the door. Ida, the eldest, a slight girl who had just entered her teens, had been her mother's help in caring for the younger members of the family, had taken up her share of the household duties since she could stand upon a chair at the kitchen table, and wash the few dishes after each meal, and then care for the ever present baby, while her mother took up the never ending duties of her sordid existence. This constant strain on the girl had robbed her of her natural childhood and aged her prematurely. This fact was noted by the father in his present frame of mind as it never had been before. He thought of the advantages of the freedom of the far Northwest, and pictured to himself the fields of waving grain, and over-burdened orchards, as shown in the booklets he had hastily scanned, and thought of them as his own, as a play ground for his children. Driving into the barn yard, Gully cared for his team; each little chore, as it was done, was accompanied with thoughts that heretofore had never been taken into consideration. As he hung up the harness he viewed it critically, and wondered how much it would bring at a sale. He walked around his faithful team and asked himself if their age would impair their value. When he went to the crib for corn he estimated the quantity on hand, and calculated its probable worth. Never before had he considered his small possessions from such a view point. So absorbed was he in this new mental activity that he took no note of time, and he was suddenly aroused by the children, who had been sent to tell him that supper was ready. On the way to the house, in response to the summons, his hand constantly clutched the papers in his pocket. Nervous and abstractedly he entered the kitchen, where his wife was busily engaged placed the supper on the table. So absorbed was she that she failed to notice his coming in; not until they were seated at the supper table did she note the change in his appearance, and then only after he had made some reference to the fact that he had seen William Gowell while in town, and that he was leaving the country; that the Moodys and Lanes and several others of their acquaintance had also gone on the same train. He then told her of all he had heard of this great country to which so many of their friends had gone, of his wish to go with his family and share the opportunities. He went into detail and explained what the cost of going would be; what he hoped to realize from the sale of their possessions, even if sold at a sacrifice. He talked on feverishly, forgetting the frugal meal set before him, forgetting the tired children, who, little knowing the important part this proposed move was to play in their future, had eaten their supper, and all but the two eldest were nodding in their chairs. He showed his wife and the two oldest girls the illustrations in the folders, showing the pictures of just such farms as the last few hours had convinced him he might own. Seizing a teaspoon from his untouched cup of coffee, he used the handle to point out rows of--to them meaningless--figures, compiled to show the millions of feet of timber, tons of grain and fruit produced. To him it was equally meaningless, except in a vague way. His untrained mind was incapable of grasping the extent of the information conveyed, but he had accepted it all as simple facts, for had not Gowell, Moody and Lane acknowledged their faith in it by going. Thus he talked on until exhausted. The family retired at an unusual hour, the wife and children to wonder what it was all about, and he to toss restlessly from the effects of an over exhausted mind. He arose early the following morning, having formulated his plans during the restless night, and immediately began to put them into execution. He had decided to hold a public sale the following Saturday, and if successful, would be on his way to his future home the next Monday, on which date he had learned another homeseekers' excursion would come through his home town. To accomplish this would require rapid work, and before breakfast on the morning following this resolve, he was up assembling his few belongings, getting them in shape for the sale. Old farming implements were pulled from long forgotten nooks and corners, incomplete sets of harness and bridles were being over hauled and made fit to bring the best possible price, the flock of poultry was counted and an estimate made of their probable value, the two cows, with their calves, the three pigs, kept over to provide the following winter's supply of meat, his team, wagon and harness, together with his household goods, constituted his earthly possessions. The few days following the hastily made plans were filled with incidents that tried the patience of the tired wife and mother. To her it was all like a dream. It was the first time she had ever been taken into her husband's confidence or been consulted as to his plans for the future. She did not realize that she was expected to express an opinion as to the wisdom of the proposed move; if he said it was advisable the matter was settled. The constant demand on both her and the older children for assistance in assembling the various articles intended for the sale was met with unquestioning silence, and not until her aged father and mother came to see if the rumors of their departure which had reached them were true, did she realize to the fullest extent what her going away really meant; that it meant the leaving behind those aged parents, from whom she had never been separated except for a few miles; that it meant the severance of all the ties and scenes with which she had been associated from her earliest recollection to the present time. The realization of this fact came upon her with a sudden shock that stirred within her the first semblence of rebellion that her simple nature had ever shown. To this feeling of remonstrance she gave way but for a moment, then with violent weeping she threw herself down at her mother's knee, and with her head buried in the aged woman's lap, the cradle of comfort she had always known, she vowed she would not go. "Travis was wrong; they were doing well enough where they were; father must stop him, and not let him sell everything and go away," but when the aged mother placed her trembling hand upon the bowed head and assured her that "Travis knew what was best, it was probably a wise move, she and father had talked the matter over as soon as they had heard that they were going, and regretted that they were not at an age, to accompany them. She must do as her husband said for his and the children's sakes, and then too," she added, "perhaps father and I can come later, after you are settled in your new home." With this assurance the kind old mother comforted her weeping daughter, who, after recovering from her first and only outbreak, arose and resumed her duties with such an attitude of utter indifference that her husband and father, who had been looking over the articles arranged for the sale the following day, saw no evidence of her grief upon returning to the house a few moments after the occurrence. Gully's enthusiasm, as he discussed with his wife's father and mother the advantages of the new country to which he was going, knew no bounds. He had acquired from his constant reference to the descriptive literature he had in his possession a fund of facts and figures that were most convincing, and he referred them unhesitatingly to persons who had seen this exhibition car while on its tour, and who could verify the statements as set forth in the circulars. Thus he talked on until long after the supper, to which the old people had stayed, was over, and after promising to return the following day to be present at the sale, they had driven home. CHAPTER II. The notices of sale, which had been posted throughout the neighborhood, was held the following day. The attendance was good, and its success, financially, exceeded Travis Gully's expectations, bringing him a much larger amount than he had hoped to realize. This was no doubt due to the spirited bidding of numerous relatives and friends, who chose this method of aiding the departing family. After the last of those who had bought had taken their purchases and departed, and but a few of the idle curious remained, viewing the small pile of articles that had proven unsalable, the reaction came to Travis Gully in a manner that fairly staggered him. As he beheld this remnant of his years of accumulation of personal effects laying discarded and rejected by all, he glanced in the direction of his huddled wife and children, who were awaiting the departure of the vehicle which was to carry them to her parents home. Haggard and dejected they looked. He had not counted on the effect on them, and it smote him. "Oh, well, they would soon be settled again, and in a home of their own, where every nail that was driven, every tree that was planted, would be for them, and would be theirs." With this consoling thought, he thrust his hand into his pocket and walked toward the barn. He started as his finger tips came in contact with the money, the proceeds of the sale. Drawing it forth, he held it for a moment and stared. This, then, was the price of his wife and children's content; t'was for the acquirement of this that he had dispoiled their poor little home, and they were, at that very moment, looking regretfully at the little pile of rubbish, each and every article of which, though refused by others, could be associated with some pleasant moment of their lives. Returning the money to his pocket, and with such thoughts as the above filling his mind, he entered the barn. There, too, he was overcome with a feeling of loneliness; the empty stalls where for years his team had stood, the unfinished feed of hay in the manger just as they had left it when those faithful creatures had been led away by the hand of new owners; the cobs from which the corn had been eagerly bitten were still damp from contact with the mouths that had yielded so willingly to his guiding hand. Noting each little detail as it gnawed its way into his soul, he broke down, and with bowed head he wept as only a grief stricken man can, and thus they found him when he was sought, to tell him that they were ready to take him and his family, for the last time, from the home they had occupied for so many years. The few unsold articles of household goods and those reserved to be taken on the trip, together with the family, were taken to the home of Mrs. Gully's parents, where they were to remain until final preparations for the journey were completed. The evening after and the day following the sale were both long to be remembered periods in the lives of those concerned. At intervals friends or relatives would call to bid farewell, and to wish the Gullys Godspeed on their journey. At such times the subject of the trip was taken up and discussed, but was referred to at other times as seldom as possible. The term "The Northwest" was usually applied in a general way. None of those directly interested seemed to appreciate the vast area comprising this territory. Their conception of it was confined to an area about the size of the county in which they lived, or at best, a portion of their home state. They readily received and promised to deliver messages to those of their neighborhood who had preceded them on the journey. The selection of a final destination was the question of most importance. The states of Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon each offered exceptional opportunities to the homesteaders with limited means. So after deciding to buy through tickets to a coast point, with stopover privilege, there was nothing to do but await the day of departure. At last the Monday came that was to be an epoch in the lives of Travis Gully and his family. It being but a few miles to the station, an early noonday meal was eaten, bounteous supplies of lunches were stored neatly away for the travelers who, with their various trunks, satchels and bundles, were loaded into a wagon and sent to the village earlier in the day, the family following after lunch. The intervening time between their arrival at the station and that of the train upon which they were going was one of intense excitement. The unaccustomed ordeal of purchasing tickets, reserving berths in the tourist sleeper, and checking the baggage, together with constant interruptions with offers of well meant advice and suggestions from their friends, kept nerves strained to the breaking point. At the sound of the whistle of the incoming train, hearts throbbed wildly, or missed a stroke; the children were hurriedly embraced, the parting kiss and tender final pat given; the mother and father came forward to bid Gully and his wife goodbye; then pent up feeling broke their bonds and mother and daughter wept in each others arms. Amid this scene of sorrow, excitement and flurry the train, with grinding brakes, hissing air valves and clanging bell, drew up to the station and stopped. The time between the stopping of the train and the conductors deep, gutteral, "All aboard," seemed but the briefest, yet 'twas ample, and with final good-byes said and tears hastily dried, they were bundled helter skelter into their seats, and with the waving of many hands from the station platform, they were on their way. As the train's speed increased and familiar objects were being rapidly left behind, with new and strange landscapes being reeled off, the children, with eager faces pressed closely to the car windows, gave joyous expressions of childish delight, while the mother sat silent, oblivious to her surroundings. Travis Gully, with his newborn spirit of independent manhood struggling within him, sat stolidly awaiting the approaching conductor, as if uncertain of the fact that he was really going, until he had submitted the mass of yellow and green strips of cardboard, which he was firmly clutching in his hand, to that official for inspection. Settled down at last for the long journey over new country, the constant change of new scenes and experiences kept the family entertained and their minds diverted from their personal discomforts, and they soon gave evidence of interest and delight. The wife's spirits being thus revived, she viewed the panorama of passing scenes with ever increasing interest, and discussed her future plans and hopes with feverish eagerness. As their first night as tourists approached, and the outer world was shut out by darkness, the berths were made ready by the deft hands of the train porter, and both upper and lower sections were huddled full of drowsy and fretful children. The unaccustomed noise and noisome atmosphere gave but little promise of rest for the tired father and mother. Long into the night they lay awake, their minds filled with hope, fear and uncertainty, that crowded their way to the front with such rapidly changing sensations that exhaustion finally overcame them, and with the constant rattle of the train, as it crossed the joints in the rails, dinning its way into their benumbed brains, they sank into unconsciousness. Morning found them but little refreshed, but after partaking of the steaming coffee, prepared on a stove with which the car was equipped for the purpose, and eating a hearty meal, they took note of the changed appearance of the country through which they were passing. Miles and miles of flat level country, partially covered with snow, drifted by the winter wind, with an occasional spot swept bare, which showed the brown stubble of the wheat field or plowed ground made ready for the spring planting. Fences were rare, and looking out across the country, the home could be seen, and they appeared miles apart; straw stacks, around which frowsey haired horses and cattle stood, dotted the landscape. The afternoon of their second day out the blue foothills of the Rockies could be seen in the distance, and as they gradually drew nearer, they were whirled through miles of barren waste of sage brush, the shrub that was to play an ever active part in their future lives. The three days following were much the same; over mountains, valleys, plains and steams they were speeded until, becoming inured to the constant changes, they ceased to comment. The grandure of the scenery did not appeal to their undeveloped finer senses; they were simply awed by its vastness. The morning of their arrival at Wenatchee, Washington, the point chosen for their first stop, was bright and clear. The fresh mountain air swept down from the pine covered slopes of the hills that surrounded one of the most fertile valleys in the state, in the heart of which nestled the little city, justly famed for its magnificent fruit. Miles of splendid orchards, starting at the very threshold of the business blocks, extended back to the hills on both sides of the valley. The low drone of the bees as they swarmed forth among the fast swelling buds in quest of the first sip of nectar, mingled with the roar of the turbulent Columbia river, and made music that soothed the tired travelers as nothing else could. Travis Gully was impressed with the signs of plenty that were visable at every hand. By inquiry, he learned that hundreds of acres as valuable as that contained in the surrounding valley were available for homesteading. All it needed was water. He soon made the acquaintance of a professional "Locator," a human parasite that hovers around the border of all Government land. In this particular instance the "locator" was a venerable patriarch, with flowing white beard and benign countenance, who assured Gully that "He had just the place for him. It was about fifty miles back over the route he had come. Did he not remember that beautiful stretch of rolling land through which he had passed? That was the place. Thousands of acres of this fine land was now being taken up by homesteaders. He must act quickly or his opportunity would be gone." After listening to a glowing description of this paradise, Gully agreed to accompany him to see the land, which he did the following day. There are times when it seems that fate plays into the hand of the trickster, and on this particular day nature was extremely lavish with her blessings. Never had the spring sun shone more brightly, the balmy air was laden with the elixir of good will and contentment, every soothing draught taken into the lungs spread like an intoxicant, filling the brain with dreams of success and achievements that danced just ahead, almost within reach, yet still to be striven for. Gully, whose mind was filled with the contents of the circulars he had read, and who had seen the statements made therein, verified in the locality he had chosen to make his first stop, firmly believed in the possibilities of the land shown him, and made filing on it immediately upon his return to the town. He did not question the possibilities of irrigation or take into account its remoteness; neither did he investigate the results of past efforts put forth by others in this conquest of the desert. It was not a desert to him. The winter's snow, that had just disappeared, had left abundance of moisture in evidence. Grass was springing up in profusion, and countless wild flowers attested the fertility of the soil. So after the necessary arrangements had been made, he came with his family, all eager to do their part in the preparation of their future home. Kind neighbors, though few there were, came with offers to help erect the house. The family was provided with shelter until such time as the structure was habitable, and they were happy under these new conditions; they who had never known a harsher fate than the demands of an exacting landlord for his annual toll, the regular routine of settling the yearly account with the trusting merchant in the nearby village, and a frugal existence through the winter on what remained of the year's yield. Oh! happy renter, there; should his yield be scant or insufficient, there was someone to appeal to for assistance, which was gladly given. The homefolks were there, and others to extend help and sympathy at the time of misfortune, but on the desert, what? A home of your own. At last the home was completed; just two rooms, with a board roof, the outer walls adorned with tar paper held in place with laths, and when they moved in joy reigned in this primitive home. A rough board table, two benches and a cook stove, cooking utensils, still shining with the burnish of new tin, shone upon the walls just outside the kitchen door, a shelf with new tin basin and water pail were provided. The remaining room was furnished with two beds, built of scraps of lumber, the corners of the room forming one side and the head, discarded balewire, woven across, took the place of springs; three family portraits, done in crayon, a gaudy calendar of the year before, bearing the general merchandise advertisement of the faithful old merchant at home, a nickel alarm clock upon a shelf, and the home was furnished. But it was a home of their own. CHAPTER III. The journey of thousands of miles, the excitement of getting settled, and cool fresh breezes that swept down from the snow capped peaks of the Cascades, made sleep easy, and no thought of the morrow disturbed the rest of this emancipated renter. Morning came, and with it the bright sunshine and oppressive silence of the desert; not a dog to bark, nor a noisy fowl to break the stillness. As the sun rose from the horizon, and before it assumed its brassy glare, a mirage formed across the level plain, magnifying the humble homes of the neighboring homesteaders into palatial mansions, and the sage brush into forests, and glistening lakes with twinkling waves upon their surfaces. Travis Gully, with his family, stood awed by the magnitude of the panorama unrolled before their gaze, and looked with feverish expectancy into the vista of possibilities the future held in store for them. The sun mounted higher into the blue dome, the mirage passed, and objects assumed their normal proportions, while the faithful wife told of the hopes for good this vision foretold. The weeks that followed, each day of which was fraught with hours of patient toil, clearing away the brush for the first spring planting, the honest father hewing a spot in the wilderness of sand and sage brush, the eager children rushing in at each stroke of the mattock, seizing the uprooted particles of brush and bearing them triumphantly away, to be placed on one of the many piles of rubbish that marked the path of this industrious toiler; the patient mother, appearing at the doorway, looking out across the miles of unchanging gray toward the far east with that indefinable expression of homesickness depicted upon her face. Of such scenes as this is the material made of which the everlasting monument, in the form of a prosperous farming district is built. _Every fruit tree that grows in the far famed Northwest should be looked upon as a sprig in the laurel wreath with which to crown the brows of the sturdy homesteaders--those departed and yet to come._ At the close of each day, and after the evening meal, huge bonfires were lit in the clearing, around which the children danced gleefully, their shadows casting fantastic shapes in the background, where the gaunt and hungry coyote lurked, and at intervals mingled its voice in discordant note with their merry laughter, as if in vain endeavor to impress upon their minds the narrowness of the space that lay between their joyous anticipations and deepest gloom. Planting time arrived with all its hopes for a bounteous yield. Each day was devoted to preparing the ground and planting. The winter just passed had afforded sufficient snow and moisture to produce perfect planting conditions, and many were the plans made for the expenditure of the proceeds of this first harvest for a good home, farming implements, and other necessities for successful farming. The grain was sown, and the kitchen garden planted in precise rows and nicely shaped beds. A wagon load of scabrock was hauled from a dry coulee that wended its way diagonally across this vast area of sand and sage. These were used to form the border of prim walks and flower beds, each stone being placed in position and carefully embedded in the soft sand, _each a cornerstone for the castle of hope_, soon to be displaced by an inexorable nature, and to allow the upper structure of dreams to fall about the builder, a pall of utter disappointment. Just a few days of alluring sunshine, only a few balmy nights, and the tiny plants were raising their tender shoots above the surface of the sand, which through its ages of shifting now refused to remain under control of mere man, and was growing restless, rolling in fiendish glee down the sides of the nicely formed flower beds and rollicking in sparkling bits across the walks, filling, with maddening persistance, every opening made in its surface by the upspringing plants. The age worn battle between the Goddess Flora and the relentless desert was being fought over. She with all her garlands, was trying to wreath the brow of this gray monster, while he, with his withering sunrays and constant battering with tiny particles of sharp, flinty sand, was repulsing her every advance. The Gods, Jupiter, Pluvius and Boreas, standing sponsors for the contending forces, intervened and changed at times what seemed certain victory. One with his gentle showers or torrential downpour would rush to the scene of the fray, settling the tiny grains of sand and thereby quelling the galling batteries that were assailing the tender plants, at the same time administering to their bruised and quivering stems and foliage; then, conscious of a kindly act, he sails away, seated upon his fleecy crafts of air, emitting an occasional growl, warning his enemy, the wind, against his return. Scarcely has his frown disappeared over the brow of the hills to the south, followed by his majestic guard of chariots, with billowing gold and silver plumage, when a faint whisper is heard in the grass. Hark! 'tis louder! See the tops of the bunchgrass moving restlessly; Old Boreas is stalking his enemy. He creeps prone upon the ground, like a serpent he raises his head with a hissing sound; on, upward to the top of the tallest reeking sage brush he crawls; maddened by the presence of those hated sparkling drops of crystal water that bedecks this misshapen shrub, he shakes them in myriads to the ground and laughs with glee. But in so doing he is restraining one of the arch fiends of the desert, the sand. At this discovery he shrieks with anger, and seizing the precious drops, hoists them into the air, scattering them in misty spray and hurries them miles through space, back to their natural haunts, where they are left to assemble themselves and await another call. Thus left to their own, again the sun and sand renew the attack, and wear down, by constant onslaught, every particle of vegetation not originally intended to laugh to scorn their every effort. But the fortitude of those alien plants was noble; gallantly they withstood the siege. For days and weeks, constantly scorched and blistered during the day, they came up smiling in the morning, with heads erect, to greet the same sun their parent plant had known and throve under, but stung, whipped and tortured by the never ceasing, ever shifting myriads of cutting particles of sand, bleeding to the last infinitesimal mite, they had to die; they hung their noble heads, became discolored and withered, and when the morning sun shone forth it was upon the same dwarfed sage brush and hissing bunchgrass it had always known. The scabrock border, the horned toad that sought shelter beneath the protecting edges, all one color, gray, monotonous gray. Small indeed would be the area of reclaimed land in the great northwest if each homesteader had given up hopes and abandoned his dreams with his first disappointment, and had he not awakened to renewed effort at each stroke of misfortune administered by what seemed to be a relentless fate. Nature, in her lavish distribution of blessings, had not wholly forgotten this seemingly neglected spot. The nights were cool and refreshing, the air pure and uncontaminated, and both he and his family being blessed with rugged health. Travis Gully looked upon the havoc wrought with undaunted courage and determination. He submitted to the loss of his first planting with resignation, and hastened to seek means whereby he might provide food and other necessities for his family. To the north lay the never failing wheat fields of the Big Bend country; east, the Couer d'Alene mining district; and west of the Cascade Mountains the lumbering industries of the Puget Sound region. These each offered a solution of a means of livelihood, ample employment and good wages; but with the departure of the family from the homestead went the cherished dream of a home. Often at night when the children, now grown sunburned and inured to the intense heat and blistering sands, were on their pallets, enjoying the peaceful sleep of tired but happy childhood, Gully and his wife would sit for hours and try to devise means whereby the coming winter might be lived through with some semblance of comfort. During these heart to heart talks, while seated before the door of their humble home, Gully's gaze would wander out across his broad acres, which under the pale starlight in this clear desert air, could easily be transformed, in vision, to fields of waving grain; conversation would cease; a restless move made by one of the children would attract the attention of the watchful mother, who, upon entering the house cautiously stepping with stealthy tread among the little sleeping forms, would approach the table, give the flame of the one small kerosene lamp a gentle turn upward and throw into bold relief every evidence of abject poverty within the confines of that one sparsely furnished room. With wide staring eyes she would hastily scan the face of each sleeping child as if in dread of finding the fiendish hand of hunger clutching at some innocent throat; but all is quiet. Passing a trembling hand across her weary forehead, she slowly turned, and as she did so, read in every object that met her gaze one word, _sacrifice_. The little blue overalls, with their numberless patches, and frayed and tattered hem, the little gingham aprons, worn threadbare by the constant nipping, picking and catching on the scraggling branches of the despised sage brush, all shrieked sacrifice. Suddenly, with a quick movement, a little foot is thrust from beneath the scant cover, and at the same time a varicolored sand lizzard scurries across the bare floor and disappears through a convenient crack. Seizing the lamp, she hurries to the side of the sleeping child, takes the little brown foot in her loving hands and seeks in vain for some mark of injury inflicted by the frightened lizzard; finding none, she places the little foot tenderly on the pallet and reaches for the cover; stops, and stares. What does she see? Only a little toe, the nail gone, a partially healed wound, showing where the cruel snag of the hated sage brush had torn its way into her very flesh and blood. With a groan she bows her head for a moment, then hastily scanning the room, she misses the little shoes and stockings so much needed for the protection of those little feet. Arising, she replaces the lamp upon the table, turns it low, and returns to her husband's side, prepared to make one of the greatest sacrifices ever made by a woman, and one of which little has even been said or written. She must tell him to go, and leave her and the children alone and unprotected in the desert. He must go, that they might live, go until the winter snows drive him home. O God! it would be lonely, days of constant watching across the quivering sea of unchanging gray, nights of wakeful listening, broken by the sound of the ghoulish yip of the hungry coyote and the mournful hoot of the ground owl. _Give honor to the famous women of our land, if you must. She who first made our glorious flag, those who devoted their lives to nursing back to health and strength our nation's heroes, and the sainted mothers of distinguished men; but, oh! remember the wives of the pioneer and homesteader, and ask yourself; is she not entitled to a place among these?_ Travis Gully, being completely lost in his dreams of independence, had not missed her from his side. The good wife stole softly up to him, and placing her hand upon his knee, slipped down beside his chair. He, being thus suddenly aroused from his reverie, and noting her appearance of abject misery, assisted her to arise, drew her trembling form near him, and spoke cheerfully of the situation, assuring her all would be well in the end. He forbade her to discuss his departure at that time, and there beneath the broad expanse of star bedecked sky, surrounded by the vast and desolate desert, they renewed their faith in each other and resolved to continue the battle, and with revived hopes they planned for the future, and for hours rebuilt the castle so ruthlessly destroyed by the desert storm. CHAPTER IV. The month of June had arrived, and with it came the intensified summer heat, now almost unbearable in the shadeless glare, and as the time approached for Gully's departure, it was finally decided that the wheat fields of the north would be the easiest of access for his journey in search of work. The question of water for domestic use being the most difficult to solve, it was decided to build a cistern sufficiently large to hold enough to last until his return, and for the next few weeks the time was devoted to this work. It was while thus engaged that the family received its first ray of hopes for the ultimate consummation of their dream, and the hope to which their minds would frequently revert during the long fall and winter months that were to follow. After the cistern had been dug and Gully, with painstaking care, was trying to cement the interior, patiently replacing each trovel of wet cement as it rolled from the sides, as the sand gave way and allowing it to fall repeatedly to the bottom, each time being taken up and carefully replaced, gradually setting, inch by inch, until the task was accomplished; his wife on the surface, mixing the sand and cement in small quantities and handing it down to him, as required; doing her part to conquer the wilderness as valiantly as any man; when there was a hurried scampering of little feet, and the children came breathlessly up, calling to their parent that "Wagons were coming, lots of them." This announcement to the uninitiated would seem but small cause for comment, but to those who live for weeks and months without the advent of a stranger within miles of their habitation, the approach of an unknown horseman or vehicle is hailed with excitement and wonder. Gully hastily emerged from his work beneath the surface and looked inquiringly in the direction indicated by the excited youngsters, where a few miles to the west a dense cloud of dust could be seen. An occasional horseman, driving loose stock, or a covered wagon or buckboard, could be distinguished through the dense pall of dust that hung with maddening persistence over the approaching caravan. Speculation was rife among the now excited family, and many were the theories advanced as to the cause of this unusual sight. It being definitely determined that the approaching wagon train was wending its weary way along the road that terminated at their humble abode, hurried arrangements were made to greet the strangers, the children were assembled at the kitchen door, and their faces washed to remove, if possible, a small portion of the desert grime; their sunburned locks, that the wind had whipped into wild confusion, were hastily untangled, and arranged into semblence of order. When this task was completed and each little bronzed cheek shone with the too strenuous application of common laundry soap, that only resulted in bringing out in bold relief the myriads of copper colored freckles with which they were covered with generous profusion, they were admonished by their mother to "keep clean," and were allowed to scurry away, to watch in wide eyed wonder the approach of the strangers. The mother, with purely feminine instinct, removed all evidence of the white splashes of cement from her hands and shoes, changed her dress, and after these pitiful efforts at making herself presentable, joined with the waiting children. Many of my readers have, no doubt, waited with feverish expectancy the ringing up of the curtain on some notable drama, or looked forward with a mingling of joyous anticipation and dread to the arrival of a relative or friend whom they had not seen for years. But few indeed are left who can describe or define the sensation of commingled joy, dread and uncertainty that fills the heart of the lonely homesteader on an occasion like this. Hours seemed to pass during the interval between the discovery of their approach and the arrival of the strangers, the hundreds of questions that rushed, unbidden, to the minds of the isolated desert dwellers. Who were they, and what was their motive for coming? Were they transient visitors on an idle tour, or some wandering band of nomads, drifting derelicts, who had strayed from the beaten paths to evade if possible, contact with civil authorities; or better yet, were they new neighbors coming to cast their lot with them, to assist in the reclamation, the conquest of the desert? Such were the multitude of questions recurring to the minds of the anxious watchers, each, in its turn, being cast aside to be replaced by others, in bewildering succession. Travis Gully, who, owing to the narrowness of his self constituted domain and the wild desert environments, had allowed himself to drift backward, and contact with conditions with which he was unfamiliar had awakened in him the spirit of alert defensiveness of primitive man. He felt the sting of resentment at the approach of the strangers, and it was with a forced smile, and hesitating handshake that he greeted the foremost of the party, who had at last ridden within the front dooryard. Glancing over his shoulder, he assured himself of the safety of his family. The wife and three eldest children had remained standing near the door, while two little towheads, that protruded from behind the building, showed where the two youngest had taken refuge. Gully invited the stranger to dismount, but the latter, thanking him curtly, remained mounted until the entire party, consisting of some twenty-five or thirty men, equipped with a complete field outfit, wagons loaded with tents and provisions, abundance of stock, both draft and pack animals, had arrived within hailing distance. Turning in his saddle, the chief, or man in charge, raised his gauntleted hand with a commanding jesture, and with brakeblocks grinding against glistening and heated tires, rattle of chains and shouts from the teamsters, the procession came to a stop. Dismounting, he gave a few instructions to his men, who remained on their wagons; then returning to the waiting homesteader, asked as to the conditions for making permanent camp in the neighborhood. On being assured that there was no water for the stock nearer than three miles, the windmill overtopping the well at that point being in full view, was pointed out to him, and minute directions for finding the road that ran tortuously through the miles of sagebrush to this oasis, was given. With a courteous bow, the chief mounted, gave orders to his men to follow, and moved off in the direction of the well. As the last sound of the departing cavalcade was stifled in the muffling sand, Mrs. Gully came to where her husband was standing, gazing absently in the direction the strangers had gone. Who were they and what were they here for, was the absorbing and unanswered question; who was this clean, trim man, dressed in his khaki suit and neat leather leggings, who had such absolute authority over this thoroughly equipped expedition; not a homesteader, this was evident by his professional appearance; not a fugitive, because his manner was too gentle. Who was he, and what was his business? CHAPTER V. As the season approached for the exodus of homesteaders for the harvest field, hurried preparations for the departure was made, the cistern was completed, huge piles of sage brush was gathered for fuel and placed conveniently near the house. Thus was Travis Gully's time taken up for the next few days following the arrival of the campers at the well. Many were the inquiring glances that were cast in the direction of the group of glistening white tents. Parties of men could be seen going and coming, morning and night, some walking, others mounted or in vehicles. Once a band of what seemed to be loose horses was seen to be approaching the home of the Gullys, but when within a short distance of the house a mounted man, emerging from the tent village, followed them and turned them westward, soon being lost in the sea of gray sagebrush, but not before it was discovered that it was a pack train, going out for supplies. At last the day came when the mystery of their purpose was to be solved. On his first trip to the well for water with which to fill his now completed cistern, Gully noted a fact that had been overlooked by him on the occasion of their visit to his home; each wagon and all the equipment was stamped U. S. G. S. This fact, however, left no clue in his crude mind as to who they were, and not until he saw one of the party with an instrument on a tripod, mounted upon a small knoll near the road to his home, did he awake to the realization of the fact that they had something to do with a survey. The task of filling the cistern consumed many days, and required numberless trips to and from the well. During these frequent visits the acquaintance of some of the men around camp was made and the information was volunteered by one of their number that they were a party of United States Geological Surveyors sent out by the Government to make a survey of the desert with the view to ascertaining if it was feasible to irrigate the region by gravity from some of the numerous lakes and streams that lay hidden away in the mountains that surrounded the entire valley. Irrigation! So this was the reason for all this activity. Gully's heart leaped at the sound of this magic word. Here was the realization of his dream. It was to be--and why not? Was not the Government making the survey, had not the authorities awakened to the fact that here was a country of some seven hundred and fifty thousand acres of valuable land laying idle. Why not convert it into homes for thousands, who, like himself, though less venturesome, were dreaming of a home of their own. With gladdened heart, forgetful of poverty and past disappointments, he hurriedly filled his barrels with water and drove home eager to tell his wife the good news. "I knew it was coming," he told her. Had he not talked with the men who had been sent to bring about this transformation? "Just think, Minnie," he exclaimed, "we are among the first. Others may follow, but we have our land." Water, bright sparkling water, flowing in rippling streams; all they wanted; no more wearisome trips across the dry parched waste, with the constant drum, drum of the empty barrels dinning in his ears--no more return trips with the barrels filled at starting, but now sadly depleted, and the wagon box reeking and dripping with the waste caused by the splash, splash of the precious fluid. Irrigation--and a home of his own. A few days after the discovery of the object of the party encamped at the well was made, it became generally known, and the glad news was being discussed in every home throughout the sparsely settled neighborhood. Men could be seen loitering around the camp or mingling with the surveyors in the field, eagerly gathering such scraps of information as was given out and hastily departing to add fuel to the already inflamed imagination of the settlers. It never occurred to them that even though the survey resulted in a favorable report, it would probably take years before the accomplishment of the purpose for which it was being made, and the added strain of uncertainty, waiting and watching made the life of the homesteader more unbearable. When the morning came for the departure of the little band of harvesters for the broad wheatfields of the big bend country, it was an unusual sight that greeted the vision. It had been previously arranged that they should assemble at the well and make that the starting point for their journey. Small puffs of dust might be seen arising miles away, each marking the approach of one or more of the sturdy homesteaders, many of whom had made the trip the fall before and knew of the many long hours of toil that awaited them. Yet they were marching forth, with grim determination to put as many hours into each day as mortal man could stand. It was their harvest as well as the wheat growers; their season for retrieving the few hard-earned dollars lost in seeding and planting during the spring just passed; theirs, to accumulate the necessary food and clothing for the wives and little ones they were leaving behind in the desert, to watch longingly for their return when the harvest was ended. The party with which Gully was going had decided to take one wagon with four horses to convey their crew, with the camp equipment, to the grain fields. The men came in every conceivable means of conveyance, accompanied by a member or, in some instances, by the entire family, who were to return with the rigs to their homes, after seeing them safely on their way. Each came with his blanket roll neatly tied with a cord or strap. Two dilapidated telescope grips, made of canvas, were provided to carry the extra clothing of the party; a writing tablet and a package of plain white envelopes, by means of which the messages, scribbled with pencil, and often by lantern light, of love, sorrow, success or defeat, were to be conveyed to the lonely ones in the desert wilds; a spool of black cotton thread, some needles and a few extra buttons, for an emergency, were carefully stored deep in one corner of the grip. All to be used in common, all brothers in the wilds; there was no business rivalry, no competition there; just an equal desire that all might live. They were late in getting started, owing to the distance some of them had to come, and when the last of the party rode up, seated upon a horse fully harnessed, complaining that his delay was caused by the collapsing of one of the wheels of his vehicle, the poor old weather beaten buggy rendered unserviceable by its constant use on many trips to and fro across the sandy waste; the spiteful particles of sand, gnawing, cutting and grinding their way into each tiny crevice, between the rim and spoke, into the hub and under the tire, until its wheels, after days, weeks and months of rattling, squeaking and groaning, could no longer stand the strain, the inanimate thing sank helplessly down, to be cast to one side, among the harsh, rasping sagebrush, and left there to sizzle, shrink and bleach in the blistering sun rays, until called for and taken helplessly back to the home of its owner for repairs, in the way of having hard bits of sun parched leather, cut from well worn and discarded shoes, forced between its once perfectly fitting rim and tire, the whole being wound and rewound with the indispensable balewire. Such an end; what could be expected of a thing of flesh and blood? "Never mind," cried his waiting companions, cheerfully. "You can soak the old critter up in the irrigation ditch pretty soon." And with this merry jest, at the same time recalling to their minds the condition of their own means of conveyance, and also one of the many uses to which the abundance of water could be put when once turned loose, to run rampant across the stretch of barren waste. They prepared to start on their journey. Each of the party, with sad heart and quivering voice, all doing their best to present an indifferent exterior, bade the waiting members of their families, the gathered neighbors, and the members of the survey crew a hearty goodbye, and drove northward, knowing full well that their toilsome progress across the valley would be followed by tear stained eyes and aching hearts, until the evening shades settled and the thin spiral column of dust, watched for a time after the object which caused it to mount high into the heated atmosphere had been hidden by a cloak of darkness. The first night out the travelers spent at a small spring that flowed in a feeble stream down the rock ledge that formed the northern boundary of the desert, and sank from sight, being swallowed by the thirsty sands. It was a hard drive that brought them to this place, and during the hours that intervened between their departure from the well and arrival at their first camp, was spent in almost silence. Each of those present seemed lost in silent contemplation of the difficulties that confronted him. Various subjects had been brought up for discussion, followed for a few moments, and then were allowed to drop. All except Travis Gully, who was driving, seemed lost to their surroundings. It was a varied assortment of which this little group of men was composed, taken at random from various points, from different walks of life, no common interest in the way of mechanics or profession, yet bound together by stronger ties, a mutual understanding of each other's absorbing ambition to build a home; appreciating to the fullest extent the difficulties and hardships endured, the disappointments and suffering caused by the one common affliction, poverty. There was the muscular iron molder from Pittsburg, who would sit, with half closed eyes, and liken the heat of the desert to the fiery glow of the familiar furnaces; the clouds of dust to the dense smoke of his home city, and ask himself: "Had he moved wisely?" The pressman, from one of the largest printing establishments in Denver, who would in dreamy silence listen to the constant clatter of the wagon, and in fancy hearing the rumble of his once favorite machine, the press, rolling out in endless sheets items of news, gathered from all over the world; suddenly the wagon wheel strikes a stone, and with a lurch, he starts with outstretched hand to adjust a roller, replace a belt, or take up the torn web. Smiles feebly at his absentmindedness and resumes his seat. The professor, who for years taught in a college in Kansas, watched with earnest gaze each specimen of desert plant life that struggled for existence beside the dusty road, unable to release himself from the desire to increase his botanical knowledge. An exsoldier and Travis Gully, the farmer, completed this incongruous party. Upon their arrival at the spring just before sundown, they arose from their seats in the wagon, cramped and dusty from their long ride, and shambling to the rock ledge, relieved their parched throats with copious draughts from the spring. Knowing that the scarcity of water on the road over which their route lay would necessitate a forced drive on the morrow, they hastily unharnessed the horses, gave them water and picketed them to munch the scant herbage until sufficiently cooled to be given their ration of grain, they then prepared their own frugal supper, after which, with pipes lit, and each seated around the smoldering sagebrush fire, their faces turned homeward, watched the shades of evening settle, and noted the twinkling lights that shone from their humble homes miles away across the level plain. Conversation no longer lagged; each was eager to express his views as to the result of the survey now being made, and the certainty of the wealth to follow the reclamation of the thousands of acres of fertile land that lay stretched for miles to the south. No one doubted for a moment but what it would come. Was not each of the railroads that extended across the great Continental Divide, advertising the fertile valleys of the Northwest as the goal of the poor man? Was not every Commercial Club in the cities through which these avenues of commerce and forerunners of civilization ran, sending out and scattering among the inhabitants of the entire territory from the Atlantic seaboard to the Rocky Mountains, pamphlets in which was set forth, in glowing word pictures, accounts of the possibilities of the undeveloped lands now laying idle, yours for the asking? Were they not morally responsible for the welfare of each family who, lured by their flattering descriptions, had given up their means of a livelihood, and sold their small accumulation of personal property, in most instances for what they could get; frequently scarcely enough to reach this land of dreams, and at best with but a few hundred dollars? Would these mighty forces that were being brought to bear for the purpose of converting the undeveloped resources of this vast country into a merchantable article, going to accomplish their end by the sacrifice of thousands of human ambitions, and even lives? Certainly not; give them a chance. This survey was being made with the view to placing within the reach of the settlers the means whereby wealth and affluence might be obtained. Such was the opinion of all, and with optimistic views and hopes renewed, the blankets were unrolled and spread upon the bare ground, and with a cheery "Goodnight," each of these champions of right and justice lay down to enter the enchanted land of dreams, and live through the realization of all they had hoped for. Just before daylight the following morning all were astir and the horses fed, and with the never to be forgotten acrid smell of burning sagebrush permeating the cool air, which, gathered amid the eternal snows that lay undisturbed for ages on the glistening sides of the mountain peaks to the west, was wafted and filtered through miles of spruce and pine forests and delivered in all its exhilerating morning freshness to fill with health and vigor the lungs of these conquerors of the wilderness; breakfast was eaten, blankets rolled, and just as the rosy tint of the pitiless sun shone in the east, the start was made. The road which had led them for weary miles across the desert the afternoon before came to an abrupt ending at the spring. The solid cliff of basaltic rock formed an impassible barrier to the north. There seemed no reason for the road leading squarely up to the ledge other than to gain access to the scant water supply the small spring afforded, this spot having been for years the stopping place for weary travelers and hordes of thirsty stock. No road leading from the spring being visable, a return drive was made until a road leading directly east was encountered. This road was followed for several miles, when a break in the range of hills afforded an exit verging a little to the northeast. After a few miles the road turned directly north again, leading into a break in the barrier of hills and out through a coulee to the plateau, where lay the wheat fields that were the destination of the little band of harvesters. The trip through the coulee, once made, would never be forgotten. Immediately at the entrance of the funnel like gorge, with its precipitous walls of stone towering in heights from a few hundred to two thousand feet, the way seemed blocked by a lake several miles in length. Clear and cool it lay, constantly lashed into fury by the strong current of air rushing from the chasm above. The white, foam crested waves, spending their force upon the sandy shore at the lower end, retreating after each attack, leaving behind a deposit of white frothy foam that was picked up by the wind and scattered far beyond the reach of the next incoming wave, there to be dried by the sun, and the residue, a white crystal, powdered salts, left sparkling in the sunlight. Nothing in the way of vegetation except a species of harsh quackgrass grew within the radius covered by this deposit. The waters of this lake possessed strong mineral properties that were fatal to plant life, also rendering it extremely nauseating and unfit for drinking. Owing to this fact, it had been known to the Indians of Chief Moses' tribe as "Poison Water." Yet cool and sparkling it lay, a gem in the barren gulch, relieving the eye of those who chanced to pass that way, but often proving a sad disappointment to both the travel worn man and beast, who, unacquainted with its peculiar qualities, upon first beholding its rippling surface, hastened to its brink to appease a desert born thirst. As the lake was approached by the party, the members of which had previously heard of its existence and the nature of its waters, no stop was made. A passage around it was sought and soon discovered in a well worn trail that followed a dry ravine which led down to the lake, and extending around its head, reentered the coulee some miles above. They continued their journey along this ravine, the route being marked at intervals by the bleached bones of animals which had perished of thirst within a short distance of abundance of cool dear water that a caprice of nature had rendered, like fools gold, alluring, but of no value. For fifteen or twenty miles the road ran tortuously among the huge boulders that had fallen from the crest of the solid walls that arose hundreds of feet on either side, the crevices and nooks of which were the haunts of the rattlesnake and lizard. The projecting ledges that occasionally occurred showed signs of being the nesting place of hundreds of hawks that circled in an aimless manner at dizzy heights above this giant crevice. Limpid pools of alkaline water lay teeming beneath the blistering suns rays, their white salty rim unmarked by the footprints of any living thing, accursed by nature and abhorred by all God's creatures, wasting their contents by evaporation during the summer, and replenished by the torrents that rushed through this abandoned water course during the annual spring thaw. That it had been a water course was evidenced by the beds of well worn gravel, devoid of all soil, and the marks of the constant wash of the waves on the face of the cliffs on either side. Who knows but what at some remote period the mighty Columbia river had flowed through this grand coulee, emptying into an inland sea, the bed of which now formed the desert of almost a million acres, destined to be the home of half as many people? Flowing thus for ages, nourishing plants now unknown; its limpid waters, cooling and refreshing the prehistoric monsters that came daily to drink at its brink; sheltering beneath its rippling waves species of fish now extinct, their fossalized forms only remaining to remind us of the mighty changes that have taken place. Flowing peacefully on, secure in its mightiness, yet all the while somewhere along its course was being assembled the power that wrought this change, the terrific force in the nature of gases generated far in the depths of the earth. It might be thousands of miles away, conducted through unknown channels and crevices, seeking the point of least resistance, forced hither and thither by the ever increasing pressure, until a subterranean cavity is formed by a slight upheaval or displacement of the stratification. Into this rush the gases, followed by the raging fires, until further resistance is impossible. The imprisoned demon crouches in narrow confines, trapped at last; and with a mighty shudder, the effects of which are felt on the surface, causing the ponderous mastodon to halt unsteadily, and raising his gigantic head in alarm, sounds a note of warning, and followed by his herd, rushes madly through the mass of huge ferns in search of safety. The imprisoned force, no longer able to confine its strength, furiously gathers its reenforcement, and with terrific, thunderous roar, forces the crust and breaks through, tearing asunder this sphere that has taken eons to form, disgorging in fiery torrents upon the surface of half a continent the contents of its seething cauldron. Back rush the floods of the Columbia, as if aghast at the havoc wrought; stays its flow but for a moment, and charges this indomitable foe that dares to impede its progress, and pours its waters, now made black and muddy by the tons of ashes and stone sent hurtling into its waves, into the thousands of crevices and fissures trying in vain to throttle this fiery demon who greets the oncoming stream with flaming tongue, converts it into steam and additional power with which it throws out huge volumes of mud that seal the crevices and cool the lava about its glaring throat, thus using its enemy to erect a barrier against itself. Hopelessly defeated, the mighty river seeks a course whereby it may reach its former terminus, the inland sea. It wanders on with indefatigable persistence, taking the abandoned beds of some of its former tributaries; follows it until overtaking the original stream at some unaccustomed place, absorbs it and hurries on its way over boulders and through canyons and gorges, rapids and cataracts harrassing its waters in a manner heretofore unknown. In its wild flight it makes a detour of more than a hundred miles, appropriates the channel of another stream, and turns back toward the inland sea, still determined to do its part in replenishing this vast storage place. Upon reaching its western boundary, oh! what a change had taken place. Stretching away as far as could be seen was a mass of oozing matter, decaying seaweed and pools of slimy water, heated to almost boiling, reeking with the stench of dead fish, the whole being sprinkled with cinders and ashes, and teeming with muck and filth. A break in the southern boundary of the former body of water showed where a fissure had been opened up, through which its contents had drained, following the outlet until it had emptied into the Pacific Ocean. The noble Columbia, unable to gain access to refill the basin, took up the course of the liberated deluge and followed resignedly in its wake. CHAPTER VI. The third day out the harvesters reached the scene of action in the grain fields, and by noon of that day had found employment, the entire party being engaged for the season with promise of work for their horses. This was indeed an agreeable surprise. They had expected to remain in the same neighborhood, but to be employed together was more than they had hoped for. The afternoon of the same day they drove to the home of their employer. Here the scene that greeted them was something of a disappointment to them, as the home of the wheat grower was but little better than their own desert shacks, save that it had one redeeming feature, an abundance of water. A well, surmounted by a large windmill, was located near the center of a large enclosure, and was the attraction for a number of horses and cattle. A few lazy hogs wallowed contentedly in the mud beneath the long watering trough, into which flowed, with fitful gushes, at each stroke of the slender pumprod, a stream of pure cold water, which was consumed by the waiting stock or allowed to overflow at will from the trough. The large barn, the dilapidated machine shed, and the typical home of the wheat grower was complete. No, not complete. There was yet another object. It was located in the further corner of the barn yard. It was an old wagon, with huge frame mounted upon it. This frame was covered with flimsy, dirty canvas, and had a stovepipe protruding from the top. From a door in the back, three narrow rickety steps reached down to the ground as if inviting one to enter, and at the same time daring them to take the chance. Off to one side was a pile of sagebrush, with a broken handled axe near by, and a barrel of stale water with a tin cup hung by a piece of wire over its chime, two tin basins laying upon the ground, while to a nail driven in the corner post of the canvas covered structure hung a piece of sack twine with a twisted aluminum comb dangling at its ends, and a dirty towel which the constant action of the wind kept from becoming rigid and stiff. This was the "cook house," where the toilers were to get their meals during the harvest. With faint misgivings at the uninviting prospects the strangers, beholding the broad acres of grain now just turning to gold on the high ground, and gradually shading to a dark green in the swails and hollows, and extending over from one and a half to two or three sections of rich land, asked themselves why conditions were not better. The men already engaged at harvesting on this wheat ranch not yet having come in from their day's work, our party cared for their horses and strolled about the place, wondering at the absence of signs of life, but being unfamiliar with such conditions, among the stalks of heavily headed grain that reached to their shoulders, and taking the plump, well filled heads in their hands, fondled them lovingly, and their minds went back to their own desert homes, to their lonesome wives and children, and asked themselves if the time would ever come when their land would produce such a bounteous yield, and thought with proud satisfaction of how, in case of such an event, they would remain at home and enjoy the sweet sound of the harvest machinery as it garnered for them and theirs. Wonderingly they waited for someone to come, some friendly voice to greet them, if not in profuse welcome, to at least tell them where they were to put their few effects and where they were to receive the accommodation that, being strangers, they had every reason to expect. They had brought their blankets, it was true, but it was with the view to using them while camping out. They little realized that, had they not brought them, they would have been provided with little more accommodation than a beast of burden. The sun went down and they sauntered back to the barn yard, where they had left their wagon, and loitered around it with a fondness due the only familiar object in sight. Still no one came. From the grain field the clicking of the sickle as it mowed down the grain could be plainly heard, wafted from afar on the rapidly cooling twilight breeze. Travis Gully arose from his seat on the wagon pole as if moved by some uncontrollable impulse, and going around to the side of the wagon, threw back the rolls of blankets and drew forth the old canvas telescope grip. Taking it fondly in his rough hands, he knelt beside it on the ground, unloosened the straps, removed the tablet and envelopes, and taking from his overall pocket a stub of a pencil, resumed his seat and began to write, with a slow cramped movement, the first letter home. Slowly he poured out from his own burdened heart the cry of a distressed soul. The remaining members of the party, realizing that this was to be the anxiously looked for first news, sent loving messages to their homes. No mention was made of the tiresome trip, of the forbidding aspect of their first employment; just a letter of encouragement, reassuring them of their success, and hopes for a profitable season and safe return. "Simple enough," you might say, but oh! what relief to the pent up feelings of those sturdy homebuilders. Think, if you can, of what might have been written and read between the lines, of the anguish and uncertainty that was tugging at the heart strings of each of them, knowing, as they did, the conditions under which they had left their families; out alone on the desert, realizing that they, themselves, knew absolutely nothing of the duties they would be called upon to perform on the morrow, and tell me if you do not agree with me when I say that there, in the evening shades, under environments that would try the strength of the bravest, was not endured to the fullest extent, misery. The letter was finished, and after placing it in the envelope, Gully sat with it in his hand and gazed thoughtfully at the address. The iron molder lit his pipe and moved off in the direction of the barn; the professor and the soldier arose and strolled to the well; all silent, lost in their own thoughts, the nature of which can only be guessed. The sudden opening of a door at the main house aroused them from their reverie, and turning in the direction of the noise, they saw a woman come out and secure an armful of stovewood and reenter the building. In a few moments a dense smoke was emitted from the stovepipe, an indication that supper was being prepared. Darkness was fast obscuring the landscape, and from the distant field the conversation of the men returning from their work could be plainly heard, and mingling with it were the sounds of rattling chains and creaking harness. Upon their arrival at the barnyard, and while some of the horses were still drinking at the well, a man was seen to emerge from the house bearing a lighted lantern, and go to the barn, where other lanterns were lighted and carried about by the men. Our friends went to the barn and upon making their presence known, were greeted with a tired "Howdy do" from the workers, as they unharnessed and distributed grain among their horses. The owner of the wheat ranch, for it was he who had come from the house with a lighted lantern, came hurriedly up, and after pointing out a row of empty stalls, instructed the strangers to put their horses inside. This they gladly did, after which the lanterns were hung on pegs outside the barn and the workmen disappeared in the darkness. Our friends, hearing sounds at the well, went there and found several of the men stripped to their waists, washing the dust and perspiration in the trough and drying their faces on large red handkerchiefs with which they had mopped their faces during the heat of the day. As they completed their ablutions, they disappeared, until there was but one who, upon raising his streaming face from its immersion in the trough, inquired of our friends: "You fellows had supper." Upon being assured they had not, he advised them to "wash up, and come on down to the cook house," the location of which was easy, owing to the light which shone through the canvas cover, bringing out in bold relief the silhouette figures of several men seated at the table, with elbows in the air, working industriously, making way with generous portions of food, as was indicated by the shadows of dark objects before them. Thoroughly tired and hungry, not being accustomed to waiting until this unseemly hour for their evening meal, they followed their new acquaintance and mounted the rickety stairs leading up to the entrance of the cook house. They were astonished at the arrangement of the interior; every available inch of space was taken up and made to serve some purpose. The forward end of the canvas structure was partitioned off and used for a kitchen--the rear portion, with a table running the full length, served as the dining room--while boards, fastened with hinges to either side, could be either raised or lowered, doing duty as seats. The sides of the structure was so arranged that the upper portion could be swung outward and propped, thus being converted into awnings and at the same time affording ventilation. Immediately over the table and drawn up to the top of the canvas canopy by means of a rope fastened to each corner, and running through pulleys, was a woven wire bed spring. This could be lowered at night and was the sleeping place of "my lady," the cook, a haggard, sad-eyed individual, the widow of an unfortunate homesteader who, unable to endure the hardships of a pioneer, had gone to his reward the summer before. When the first two members of our party had entered the cook house the rest were compelled to remain outside until some of those who had finished vacated, for when the table was filled those who went in first had to remain seated until the last one who entered had finished his meal. The food was abundant and good, well cooked and served, when you take into consideration the difficulties under which it was prepared, and was eaten by the tired and overworked harvesters in a manner indicating a complete indifference to after effect. When supper was finished, there being no opportunity for gaining information, the hour being late, our friends returned to their wagon, unrolled their blankets, and lay down to ponder over this unheard of way of treating hired help. But not for long. Being fatigued to the limit of human endurance, they fell asleep, with the faint sound of the clatter of tin pans and cups that emanated from the cook house and the incessant rattle of the windmill dinning in their ears. CHAPTER VII. When morning came--not morning proper--but it was sometime after midnight, Travis Gully was awakened by the sound of someone cutting wood. Peering from beneath his blankets, he saw a lighted lantern at the cook house. Other lanterns were being carried to and fro among the horses in the barn. Sleepy individuals were crawling out from every conceivable place--from the hay mow and machine shed, carrying their inseparable blanket rolls. At the well men were busily pumping water by hand, the wind having died down during the night. Not being sufficiently awake to fully realize the meaning of this activity, Travis Gully stretched his tired limbs, rolled over, gave his blankets an extra tuck and drifted away in slumber. Not long, however, was he allowed to remain in this condition, for he was suddenly startled from his dreams by a gruff voice shouting: "Roll out, here, you fellows," and started to a sitting position, with tired sleepy eyes blinking in the bright glare of the lantern light, he beheld the boss standing over them, smiling amusedly at their bewildered looks. Their first day in the harvest field had begun, the first of many just such days that were to follow before they could return to their homes, and during the long winter evenings recount to the eager listening wife and children the varied experiences through which they had passed, embellishing each little incident with a tinge of humor that could not be appreciated at the time of its occurrence. Dressing hurriedly, they went to the barn to care for their horses and found them munching contentedly at their morning feed, which had already been given them. Seeing the other men busily harnessing their teams they, without question, did likewise, resolving to be governed in their actions by the example of the older hands; they waited expectantly for each move. One of the men, more congenial than the others had proven, asked them how they had slept. Upon being told, he suggested that they bring their blankets into the hay mow where, he assured them, they would be more comfortable. This was the first intimation they had that they were not to be provided with a bed, but must choose their own resting place. They were soon to realize that the hours for rest were as scant as the accommodations for enjoying them, and adapted themselves to prevailing conditions. So after converting the watering trough into a lavatory for making their morning toilet, they proceeded with the rest of the men to the cook house for breakfast; after which, having no special duty assigned them, they were at a loss to know how to proceed. It being yet dark, they stood awkwardly around, while some of the men brought out their teams, watered them, and springing upon one of the horses rode back in the direction from which they had come the evening before. They did not remain long in doubt, however, for the owner of the ranch came from the house and instructed them to follow the road over the hill, where they were heading grain, and to await his arrival, adding that their horses would be sent out later by one of the boys, who would drive them while on the job. This arrangement was a disappointment to Gully, who had hoped that he might be permitted to drive them, but he made no complaint, and they did as they were bidden. When they arrived at the place indicated by the owner, they found the header with the horses hitched ready for starting. Three header boxes were awaiting the arrival of teams and drivers. A circle had been cut in a large area of ripe grain and a few loads piled in the center, indicating where the stack setting was to be made. The driver of the heading machine, or "header puncher," as he was called, was groping around in the uncertain light, oiling up or adjusting the drapers or elevator canvas. In a few moments a wagon came from the house with a barrel of water, a few additional pitchforks, and some extra parts of machinery that might be needed in case of a breakdown. Our friends were assigned their respective duties; Gully was to be stacker, the molder as "spike pitch" or helper in the stack yard, the professor was "loader," and the soldier was given a pitchfork and sent to turn the grain in the "backswarth," a narrow strip cut around the entire field before the regular heading is begun. This is usually cut green and allowed to cure for hay. So with their horses being driven to a header box the siege had begun. For five weeks, each day being identical, days of constant grind, short nights, and three trips to the cook house, days of blistering heat, the sunrays being intensified by concentration and reflection from the shining surface of the glistening straw. The light soil, mostly volcanic ash, being pounded and loosened by the constant tramping of the horses in their many trips to and from header to stack; lifted high at each turn of the "bullwheel" of the header and sent flying in stifling clouds, clogging the eyes, ears, nose and mouths of the workers, while trickling streams of perspiration from beneath their hatbands washed furrows through the accumulated mass on their faces. The first week of this toil tried the spirit of our party almost to the breaking point. Night would find them bowed down with aching backs from the unaccustomed strain of pitching the heavy grain; hands numb and cramped, with blistered palms; throats dry and parched from the intense heat and dust from the straw. They would sink down upon their blankets in the hay mow and sleep the sleep of utter exhaustion, but the hopes of our homesteaders were being constantly revived by the receipt of encouraging letters from home. Opportunities for getting these letters mailed were few, it was explained, but by sending them to the camp of the surveyors they were taken to the distant town and forwarded; and such news as they brought. "All are well at home. Do not worry; we are doing splendidly. Of course we miss you very much and want you with us, but when you do come home, you can stay. Just think, a party of the surveyors were on our land today and have driven stakes showing exactly where the irrigation ditch is to run." Thus wrote Gully's wife, and others would tell of rumors of large land deals, whole sections and half of townships, being purchased by big companies, all to be immediately improved. Houses were being erected in every direction; parcels of land heretofore considered worthless were being filed on; a school house was being built and, really, things were beginning to be quite homelike. Upon receipt of these cheerful missives the disappointment of the first season was for the time forgotten, and the men entered into their daily toil with cheerful hearts, filled with the anticipation of the realization of their dreams. Thus on through the ensuing threshing season up until the later fall, when it seemed that a snowfall might occur any day, did our sturdy homesteaders toil on until the last of the golden grain was sacked and hauled to a place of safety. Then only did they turn their faces homeward, with the indispensable blanket rolls, the old canvas telescope grip, now more dilapidated than ever, thrown at random in the wagon; with overalls out a knee, the frazzled threads of many colored patches indicating the earnest efforts of their wearers to make them last the season through; hats out at crown, and well worn shoes, they were indeed a travesty on the party who had left their homes only a few months before. But each sun tanned face was wreathed in smiles, for securely tucked away in those well worn overalls was a snug sum, their harvest wages, that insured them and their loved ones against want during the coming winter. They were going to their "own homes." They did not have to move or worry about a new location for the following year; things were different now. This money they had earned, hard earned, it was true. Think of the many comforts it would buy--shoes for the little ones, and much provisions, and by judicious expenditure additions might be made to their homes. They could at least weatherboard them and make them more comfortable. Such were the thoughts and suggestions that filled the minds of these faithful home builders throughout the first day of their journey home. CHAPTER VIII. I have often wondered, as no doubt many of my readers have, what there is in a man's nature that makes him blush and feel ashamed of doing a little act that is in every respect perfectly natural, and one, that if publicly known, would raise him in the estimation of his fellow men, and yet while condemning himself for his weakness, his heart actually throbs with the pleasure he derives from doing as he has done. The first day on their return journey from the harvest field was a joyous one, the relaxation from the strain and the diversion acting as an elixir. Freed from the noise of clattering machinery out upon the highway, and relieved of the sight of miles of brown fields of stubble, our friends rejoiced at the sight of the desert with its thousands of acres of bunch grass and sagebrush that stretched far ahead of them to the foothills, there to be met by the dark green shade of the mountain pine and fir, above which shone in all its glittering splendor the eternal snow on the mountain peaks. They spoke in endearing terms of the mighty wilderness as theirs, as if little realizing that the small portion of that vast domain to which they actually held claim was insignificant. They had chosen a different route by which to make their return, one that led them through a small village situated at the edge of the desert. It was here that the last night out from home was spent, and here too was demonstrated the peculiar traits of man's character referred to at the opening of this chapter. After the establishment of the camp for the night and after the team had been cared for, Travis Gully was noticeably restless, and at length wandered away from his companions and entered the village store. No thought of his own disheveled appearance entered his mind. It was of the dear wife and little ones he thought. The morrow would see him with them, and the long summer's watching and waiting would be at an end. What more natural than that he should wish to take some little token to the children and to her, who had borne the burden of the long summer's separation that they might retain their homestead? He thought of her as he had last seen her, as she stood at the camp near the well, struggling to withhold the tears that he know too well had flown many times since he left. He recalled the pitiful effort she had made to dress for the occasion of his departure; of her brown dress, her best dress, the one that had been carefully made, stitch by stitch, in preparation for their long journey from their old home to the land of promise; how it had withstood the days of constant wear while she was cramped up in the tourist coach, being whirled away across the continent, and how guardedly she had spread the cloth upon her lap to protect the precious fabric from being soiled by the touch of many little fingers made greasy by clutching the huge sandwiches of fried chicken, ham and cheese, with which the spacious hamper, their traveling companion, was bounteously provisioned; and how after their arrival, and while seeking a suitable location, it had been subjected to countless brushings and spongings, until at last it bore all too plainly the evidences of the hard usages to which it had been called up to submit. And yet, it was still her best. She should have a new dress, one that he himself had bought, and without hesitating he approached the expectant merchant to make known his wants, and here his confusion was made evident. Never having made a purchase of this nature, he was at a loss as to quantity, quality and color. After numerous suggestions from the over-anxious merchant a selection was made, the required number of yards guessed at and measured off. Then after purchasing a small carton of animal crackers and some peanuts and candy for each of the children, he paid the amount of his purchase, and with his precious bundles tucked beneath his arm sought the camping place. As he approached the camp fire around which his companions were seated, he was seized with a desire to hide his bundles lest they might jeer him good-naturedly about his extravagance. He tried to reach the wagon by a circuitous route to avoid observation until he had hidden his bundles. In this effort he was partially successful, but the others had seen him in time to arouse their suspicions, and they accused him of buying a new suit. To this he entered a strenuous denial, but looked guilty and felt uncomfortable the remainder of the evening. He did not join in the conversation that followed his arrival, but sat, as the firelight died down, and watched across the barren waste for the first twinkling light that might give evidence that human beings inhabited this vast region of hidden possibilities. Thus he sat long after the other members of the party had gone to bed, sat dreaming, as his watchful gaze centered on the darkened space made more dense by the rays of the fitful flicker of the dying fire, space that for the lack of distinguishable form might be likened unto a yawning cavern, a bottomless abyss, whose only known content was stygian darkness. Was it into the unsatiable maw of this monstrous dungeon by night and inferno by day that he had allowed himself and loved ones to be drawn; unwittingly, it was true, but as irrestistably as a disabled craft into the vortex of some mighty whirlpool, carried around and around the outer circle, fascinated by the charm of the smooth gliding movement. Suddenly the arc of the circle decreases, and looking further toward the center, other objects are seen, but it is noted that they seem to be moving more rapidly. Why this increased speed? Is the goal in sight, or has their proximity to the desired end given them a vantage view? Ah! they will keep speed with the large object just ahead of their craft; perhaps they can learn what motive drew them to this delightful place. But a moment, a pause, a quiver and a plunge downward; one mighty wail of despair, followed by a gurgling sound of gluttenous satisfaction, and they realize too late their fate. Casting a despairing look backward to warn those in sight not to follow, but on they come, heedless of their warning, offering themselves unconscious sacrifices to the ever increasing demand for new territory for new outlets, for the ever populated districts of the world. It was the same old story. The pioneer fighting the first great fight, blazing the trail and marking the route with suffering, tears and even death, that future generations might follow at their ease. Travis Gully wondered if he, as its helmsman, had allowed his craft to be drawn into dangerous waters, bearing with him his family, the precious passengers whose lives had been intrusted to his care. Had he, at the first narrowing of the circle, gone and left them in this vast wilderness. Was it justice? Were they safe? A few more hours would tell. And let the conditions in the future be what they may, he would never leave them again. With this resolve, and with a feeling of comfortable assurance that his leaving would not again become necessary he, with one more look to see that his bundles remained where he had hidden them, went to his rest. Taking advantage of an early start, the following morning the party was well on its way when the sun shone above the jagged ridge of hills that marked the eastern boundary of the desert, shown as mellow and as soft as the spring sunshine in their old eastern homes. The lateness of the fall season had robbed it of its brassy glare and the cool wind that had swept over the valley during the night had driven out the quivering heat units with which the blistering sands had been surcharged. The drive home was a pleasant one and good progress was made. Everyone was intent on locating at the very earliest possible moment the windmill, surrounded by its village of glistening white tents, that they were sure could be seen for miles. Numerous windmills were in sight far across the plain, but none that they could distinguish as the one marking their journey's end. As they drew nearer to their homes, and after they had reentered the road over which they had made their outward trip, evidence of a changed condition was everywhere apparent. New houses, their unpainted outer wall reflecting the bright sunrays, could be seen for miles; hundreds of acres had been cleared of sagebrush, and small mounds of white ashes surrounded by charred ends of brush over which the reawakening bunch grass waved, showed where the bonfires had been made. In some instances many acres had been plowed and harrowed, made ready for the sowing of grain that would immediately follow the first of the winter's rains. This evidence of advancement gladdened the hearts of our worthy friends and speculation was rife among them as to the probable value of land under these changed conditions. In their eagerness to reach their homes no stop was made for lunch. Water for their horses was obtained from a newly made cistern at the edge of a large area of newly plowed land. Evidence of a recently abandoned camp was near at hand, but no sign of life. The journey was resumed after watering the horses and in a short while familiar objects could be pointed out, and in some instances their individual homes could be located. There was the old windmill, its weather stained wheel and vane contrasting strangely with other windmills that glittered with their newness on adjoining sections, the old landmark that had withstood the onslaught of the terrific wind and sand storms for years, warped by the intense heat of the blistering desert sun, drawing with tireless energy the cool sparkling water from the depths of the well over which it stood guard, and beckoning to the chance wayfarer to come and partake of its refreshing draughts. Thus it had stood, known as "The Windmill," the friend of every stockman, homesteader, land owner or wandering Indian that chanced its way since the day, many years ago, a progressive sheep man, seeing the value to his herds of this extensive grazing ground, had caused to be hauled for many miles, across mountain, stream and plain, the machinery for its erection, for the establishment of this oasis in the desert. Unconscious of the fact that he was erecting a monument to himself and a source of comfort and blessings to hundreds of human being for many years to follow. Upon their arrival at the windmill they were disappointed to find that the tents were gone; the party of surveyors had left the field. The only remaining evidence of their having been there was an occasional white stake driven into a mound of earth, marking a corner, or an iron pipe with a brass cap on which was recorded the elevation above sea level. The busy groups of men, the hurrying camp wagons and pack trains, were missing, so the anxiously awaited information as to the probability of irrigation in the near future was not to be gotten. The families of the homesteaders having been informed of the day and time of their probable arrival, had assembled at the well to greet them. Travis Gully's wife and three of his children were there. Being unable to find the horses that had gotten loose upon the range, they had walked the three miles to the well to meet him. Ida, the eldest girl, had remained at home to care for the youngest child, who was too small to take the trip. Here, at the same place where they had assembled a few months before, they separated and went to their several homes. A neighbor whose horses had been taken on the trip to the harvest field assisted Gully and his family to reach their home. As they approached the house the children who had been left at home came running out to greet them with joyous shouts of welcome. Thanking his friend for the ride, Gully threw his blanket roll from the wagon and sprang down, seized his boy in his arms, lifted him high on his shoulder and marched triumphantly into the house. His wife having taken possession of the canvas grip, and with the rest of the children eagerly crowding around, they followed him. A shaggy tramp dog who had come unbidden, a self constituted guardian of his family during his absence, came from beneath the kitchen table, sniffed suspiciously at Gully's overalls, and scenting no evidence of danger, wagged his tail in approval and returned to complete his nap. The three chickens of which Joe was the proud owner, feeling that some event of importance was taking place, crowded noisily around the door. All these little incidents were unnoticed by the tired father who, now being seated, was in a fair way of being smothered by the demonstrations of his devoted children. Boisterously they crowded around and over him, plying him with a constant volley of questions and recitals of happenings during his absence. The mother, forgetting for the time the long months of anxious waiting, beamed with satisfaction on this happy scene. Curiosity to know the contents of the canvas grip soon aroused the children, and after Gully had emerged from the mass of clinging arms and tangled locks, he directed Joe to bring the grip to him. Upon receiving the grip, and with his children seated around him on the bare floor, with eager and expectant faces, he opened it, and as he handed each their little bundle they scampered away to investigate its contents. He handed his wife the package he had brought for her and asked if she could guess its contents? After several attempts to do so, all of which ended in failure, she opened it, and realizing at a glance the nature of his gift, she was speechless with pleasure, and with her eyes filled with tears, she threw her arms about his neck and laughed with girlish glee. For the first time in the course of their married life Minnie Gully had a glimpse of her husband's heart. It was a happy family that gathered around the supper table that evening. After the meal was eaten and the dishes removed the smaller children brought their boxes of crackers, cut in grotesque forms of various animals, and arranged them in rows to correspond with their idea of a circus parade, of which they had once seen a picture. The mother and two eldest girls unrolled the goods for the dress, and holding it to the light, admired its beauty and discussed how it had best be made. Gully sat silently smoking his pipe, enjoying for the first time a feeling of absolute independence. He was in his own house, on his own land, with funds to provide for the winter, and being undismayed by the failure of his first effort on his homestead to raise a crop, dreamed peacefully of the future. Late into the night, long after the excited children had gone to sleep, Gully and his wife sat and planned for the expenditure of the sum he had earned during the harvest season. They talked of the many requirements of the children, of the supply of provisions that would be necessary to do their family until spring. Feed had to be purchased for the two horses with which it had been necessary for him to provide himself when he came upon the homestead. If the snowfall was light the amount of feed required would be correspondingly small, but should the snow become sufficiently deep to hide the bunch grass it would be necessary to feed the whole winter through. Thus they planned, making numberless lists of necessary purchases, and after comparing the amount required with the funds on hand, revised and readjusted the list until finally giving up, bewildered but happy, they went to their rest. CHAPTER IX. Travis Gully having acquired the habit of early rising during his sojourn among the harvesters, was awake the following morning before the rest of the family was astir. He lay for a short time drowsing and enjoying the unaccustomed rest, but being unable to content himself, arose, and after dressing stepped outside in the crisp morning air. Daylight was just appearing over the brow of the hills to the east, a narrow thread of silver light with a faint tinge of rosy dawn. The deep shades of night, disappearing behind the peaks of the Cascade mountains to the west, cast their purple hues over the snow covered expanse at their summit, faded away and were lost amid the gloomy blackness of the heavily timbered gorges that cut deeply down their sides to the Columbia river. Lighting his pipe, Gully strolled out near the cistern, where, seated upon an upturned barrel, he breathed with exhilerating delight the morning air and tried, in fancy, to picture to himself what the reclamation of the thousands of acres that lay before him would mean. He could see miles of just such grain as he had been helping to harvest, and long avenues of fruit trees, extending across the clearing he had made the spring before; trees like those he had seen growing in the orchards at Wenatchee, where he had made his first stop. The little strip of land that lay between his present humble home and the dusty road, then no longer dusty, but a glistening well kept highway extending away in the distance until lost to view by its ever decreasing narrowness; this little strip of land would be a waving mass of luxuriant alfalfa through which would wander his cows, horses and pigs. His flights of imagination suggested to his mind a number of comfortable cottages in close proximity to his own then pretentious home, in which were domiciled each of his children. They should have homes of their own. Travis Gully sat dreaming his delightful dreams of the future, when he was suddenly brought back to a realization of his surroundings by a hot breath, immediately followed by a cold, damp muzzle being thrust against his hand. Starting suddenly at this rude awakening, he frightened away the faithful old dog who, having discovered his presence, had approached to make his acquaintance. Appreciating the situation at a glance, Gully spoke kindly to the dog, calling him back; he patted him on the head and laughed good naturedly at his shaggy, woe begone appearance, and promised him better times for the future than he had evidently been accustomed to in the past. It was now day, and the smoke was coming from the stoves within the homes of some of his neighbors. Upon noting this fact, he went inside the house, and after kindling a fire in his own kitchen stove, called to his wife, who having been awakened by his movements, immediately came out and joined him in the kitchen door, where they together watched the rising sun shed its splendor over the scene. The delight of having their father with them once more clung to the family throughout the day. His every movement was followed by the joyous band of happy children. They led him to the point where the surveyors had set their instruments on their land and showed him the little stakes upon which the plumb bob had been centered, and which they had carefully preserved, telling him it was there the water was to flow. They told him of the many little kindnesses bestowed upon them by these good men who were to provide them with the much needed water, of how they had carried their letters to and from the distant post office, and had distributed pennies among the smaller children. Thus the constant chatter flowed, each little incident doing its part to reconstruct the tower of hope that was being built, and in which Travis Gully and his family were to fortify themselves during the coming long winter months. The remaining few days of pretty weather could not be wasted in idleness. The trip to the distant town for supplies must be made; the cistern must be refilled, and more ground gotten ready for seeding before the frost came. All this Gully realized, and with hopes and aspirations at their highest point, he was eager to begin activities. The horses that had been astray for several days returned for water and were taken up and held in readiness for daily use. The second day after Gully's return being Friday, it was decided by he and his wife that the trip to the town should be made first, as the supplies were running short. They were to go the following morning, and as it was to be a gala day the whole family was going. At this announcement the children danced with glee, as they had not been further from home than the well since they came the March before, and little realizing how tiresome the long trip across the desert would be, they anxiously awaited the arrival of the time to start. Everything was gotten ready that evening in preparation for the trip, Gully knowing that the going and coming over the long sandy roads would consume most of the day. It would require an early start to allow time for their trading. Sunrise the following morning found them well on their road to the town, which could be seen in the distance, although many miles away, and as the morning hours passed the enthusiasm of the children gradually exhausted itself, and the last few miles of the trip were made in almost complete silence, broken only by the monotonous squeaking of the harness and rattle of the wagon, the box of which was a home made affair, almost completely wrecked by the strain of being overloaded with barrels of water, but which had been wired together with bale wire in order that the boards extending from side to side would sustain the weight of those seated upon them. When they reached the town, which consisted of a few residences, a railroad station and some half dozen stores, Gully drove to a vacant lot a short distance from the main street, where a number of wagons were already standing, with horses contentedly eating hay while their owners were transacting their business. After assisting his wife and children to alight he unhitched his team, and then making them fast to the wheels, that they might eat, returned to where his family had assembled and assisted them to brush from their clothing the accumulation of sand and volcanic ash that had transformed them into gray figures that blended with the buildings, fences and sagebrush with which they were surrounded, all gray, the eternal gray of the desert. Had those of their friends who had known Travis Gully and his family in their old home met them in their present condition, it is doubtful if the most intimate among them would have been able to recognize them. The changes that had taken place were in some respects advantageous. Minnie Gully was no longer the tired, care worn mother of the year before. She had thrown off that spirit of lassitude that marks so unmistakably the drudge, the farmer's wife. That she had health was evidenced by the tinge of color that shone through the coat of tan produced by the desert wind and sun, and also by her buoyant step and actions. The children had grown hardy and rugged by their unrestrained freedom in the wilderness, and while showing a disposition to be more timid, were as yet unspoiled by their isolation. It was in Travis Gully that the change was most noticeable. He was no longer the disinterested slave, the irresponsible renter with no higher ambition than to grow an abundant crop for his landlord, that he might be allowed to remain on the premises another year and thereby avoid the exertion of a forced move. His summer spent in the harvest field had netted him other than financial returns. It had developed in him a firmer resolve to own a home of his own, and hardened his muscles for the fray. His bearing was more independent, and the fire of a newborn ambition shone in his eyes. He was now the aggressor, and had dropped the role of a passive follower. It was his first awakening, and never having been compelled to feel the sting of defeat, was as yet undaunted. Thus it may be seen that while the first year's planting on the homestead was a failure the venture, as a whole, had its element of success. The next few hours of their stay in the village was devoted to shopping, and were filled with many incidents both amusing and trying. The constant care of the children as they tugged at their mother's skirts, calling her attention to various articles that caught their wondering eyes, the trying on of shoes and selection of ginghams and calicoes, with one ever present thought, that the purchases must be confined to a certain amount, made the task a tiresome and nerve racking one. At last it was finished, and when Travis Gully, who had gone for his team, drove up to the store and loaded on his purchases, it was a tired and hungry family that climbed into the wagon and took their places among the many bundles and boxes with which it was piled and turned their faces homeward, to drive back over the same dusty road; to listen for hours to the rattle of the particles of sand as they were lifted high by the revolving wheels and then allowed to drop upon the paper wrapped bundles with which the bottom of the wagon was strewn; to listen to the continuous crackling of the dry sagebrush as the wheels passed over it, pressing it deep into the yielding sand, and which sprang back into position after the vehicle had passed and awaited, with a patience born of years of solitude upon the desert, for the next onslaught, continuing this torture until ground to powder and mixed with the sand that had lashed it for years. Take, if you will, a pinch of sand from the sage covered desert, and seek out from its many particles the tiny atoms of sagebrush and examine them. They are all the same misshapen, dwarfed and gray. It was far into the night before the Gully's reached their home and were greeted by the faithful old dog who had remained behind, but little notice was taken of his demonstration of welcome, so after he had assured himself that all were present, and had tugged at the blanket in which little Joe was brought, sleeping soundly, into the house, he retired to his place under the kitchen table. Gully lost no time, after caring for his horses and seeing that his purchases were safe for the night, in going to his rest, conscious of the fact that an eventful day in his life had passed. It now being late in November, Gully knew that but a short time could be expected before the first winter snow would come, and he had learned that it sometimes came in such quantities as to drift in the roads and make it very difficult to travel, and not caring to be caught unprepared in such an event, left the following Monday in search of a place where feed for his horses might be purchased. Accompanied by one of his neighbors, he went back into the hills, and there they purchased a sufficient amount to do them both. The roads being very sandy and the distance great, it required several days with both their teams to haul the hay to their claims. After this was accomplished and the winter's supply of wood procured, the rest of the time before the snow fell was devoted to clearing land in preparation for plowing the following spring. At last, upon awakening one morning Travis Gully found that the long looked for snow had arrived, several inches having fallen during the night, and it was still snowing quite hard. He looked out across the level plain, and thought he had never seen a more beautiful sight. Not a breath of air was stirring, and the huge flakes were coming down in myriads, falling on the high tufts of bunch grass and remaining where they had fallen. The unsightly sagebrush was transformed into every conceivable shape, and its stubby, unyielding branches bedecked with soft, fleecy snow that completely hid their identity and brought their grotesque forms out in cameo like relief. The changed color and altered conditions from its former sameness gave the landscape a weird, ghastly appearance. Gully stood fascinated by the dazzling whiteness, and wondered in a vague, uncertain way why, if such a change was possible in so short a time by a simple variation in climatic conditions, would it not be possible to make the change permanent and productive of some good. Why not change from the torturing dull gray to green and then a golden hue, to be followed by the spotless mantle of white? Was it within the power of man, with his advanced ideas and modern methods, to bring about such a transformation? If so, would the change be permanent? That they had in some instances, and over small areas, accomplished this feat it was true, but it was noticeable in every instance of this kind new complications had arisen to test their ingenuity, new difficulties were constantly arising for mankind to combat. Could it be possible that Dame Nature in her magnanimity in giving the greater portion of the earth had reserved these few, isolated places for the gratification of her whims, for reconstruction by her hand alone, to be handed down in ages yet to come to a different, better and wiser race. If it was possible for this once inland sea to be transformed into a blistering barren waste, why would it not be equally possible for this same power to tear down and remove the barriers that now arise between this desert and its natural source of water supply, the mountains that so change the currents of air and rend asunder the vaporous clouds, and thereby render condensation impossible. What right had man to dictate the conditions that shall obtain in certain localities, and would nature concede their demands? To Travis Gully the possibilities of irrigation were unknown. He had never seen its results, except on the one occasion when he had stopped for a few days in the little city, surrounded by its extensive orchards, that had marked the end of his journey in quest of a home. That similar conditions as those he was now called upon to combat once existed in that now fertile valley he well knew, and the scenes of beautiful homes surrounded by miles and miles of orchards, with occasional patches of green alfalfa, was so indelibly impressed on his mind that they were constantly recurring to his memory, and were easily within the bounds of possibility as applicable to the locality in which he had chosen to cast his lot. Would the change be made, would he and his neighbors be given an opportunity to demonstrate to the world, the results of intelligent handling of these greatest productive agents, water, sunshine and soil? He was sure they would. The coming of the Geological Surveyors was proof that the authorities were at last going to reclaim this arid district and bring it into a state of productiveness. That they had left the vicinity of where he lived was true, but he had learned that they had established a new camp farther into the desert, where their work was to be continued, and as soon as the result of their investigation as to the feasibility of the plan had been reported to the Department of the Interior at Washington, D. C., actual work would start, and he would soon see the realization of his dream, "A home of his own." CHAPTER X. The first snow was of short duration, although the fall was heavy. The sun shone brightly before the end of the week and as it melted the moisture was hastily consumed by the thirsty sands. The days that followed the disappearance of the snow were ideal. No clouds of dust arose to obscure the vision, and the quivering, dancing mirage that had transformed the desert into a veritable fairy land appeared regularly each morning and lingered, as if loath to deprive the desert dwellers of the pleasure of its hypnotic influence, until compelled to retreat before the advancing army of glinting sunbeams. The invincible bunch grass, aroused from its lethargy by the magic touch of moisture, sent forth from its withered roots tender shoots of green that peeped shyly from the mass of sun parched stalks that, unable to withstand the summer's heat, had fallen helplessly back, thus forming a shield for their parent turf. These days of sunshine were taken advantage of by Travis Gully and his family, and rapid progress was made in clearing the land. With the coming of the shades of evening his place, like those of hundreds of others, was aglow with bonfires, the pyre of the burning sagebrush that sizzled, crackled and fried as the blazing torch was applied, and when the last faint glow of the remaining embers had died out and only ashes were left, they could still feel the penetrating leer of the ghastly gray that would not down. As the winter approached every possible preparation was made for the months of enforced idleness, and when it finally came the family, who had never acquired the habit of reading, and were lacking in other forms of amusement, the time hung heavily on their hands. The letters that came from their old home at irregular intervals were anxiously awaited, and upon receipt of them a sense of homesickness seemed to overcome the family. Little incidents were recounted that recalled scenes and recollections that during the busy season would have been lightly passed and soon forgotten. They had never met any of their former friends since coming to the northwest, but had learned that the Gowells and Moodys had settled somewhere in Montana, and word had been received from the Lane boys, who had taken up a homestead in Washington, but the address given was a remote point from the Gullys. The letters stated that those mentioned were all doing well and were satisfied with the change. Not a word of complaint had ever been written by Travis Gully or the members of his family. They had failed the first year, but it was probably due to unusual conditions, they thought, so they made no mention of the fact. They had written home at regular intervals, stating that all were well, the happy, healthy growth of the children was noted, and an amusing description of their home, and experience in building the cistern and hauling water with which to fill it, was faithfully chronicled. An account of the trip to the harvest field was written, telling of the enormous yield and the methods used in saving the grain, also of how a sufficient amount was earned to meet the winter's requirements, but never a word of the heart breaking failure of their first planting nor of the tortures endured in the grain fields, feeling that the possibilities of a reoccurrence of these unfortunate conditions was remote. They looked only to a more successful future. The little district school house, the erection of which had been started early in the fall, was now complete, but no teacher could be found who was willing to come into the wilderness to teach the few children of which the district boasted. The neighborhood finally by common consent organized what they called a "Literary Society," and a Sunday School. The society met twice a month, and these meetings were looked forward to as events of great importance, the program usually consisting of debates by the older members and recitations, dialogues and songs by the children of the community. The Sunday School met weekly, and the homesteaders came with their families for distances of from ten to fifteen miles to be in attendance. As the holiday season approached; arrangements were made for a neighborhood Christmas tree, contributions were taken up at a meeting of the society, and a committee of arrangements appointed to take charge of the affair. Someone being the fortunate possessor of a catalogue from an eastern mail order house, it was brought into requisition and a selection of decorations and trinkets for the tree was made and the order for their shipment forwarded. A census of the community was taken and no one forgotten. [Illustration: _At dusk faint lights twinkled from the scattered homes in this sea of eternal gray sage._] For days before that memorable Christmas Eve an air of mystery surrounded the actions of everyone concerned. Packages that came through the regular mails from the home folks in the east were carefully hidden away, not to be opened until Christmas. The age worn spirit of the season's cheer had invaded the desert, bringing with it a feeling of comradeship not possible to engender in a community without the desert environments, the vastness and the solitude impressed upon the homesteader a sense of his individual smallness and the necessity of association with one another. They were there for a common purpose, the conquest of the desert and the building of a home. When the anxiously looked for package from the mail order house arrived it was left at the Gully home until time to get the tree in readiness. The morning of the day before Christmas was ushered in by a blizzard that drove the finely powdered snow in blinding sheets into the faces of Travis Gully and the two of his neighbors who had been chosen to meet at the school house and make preparations for the assembly in the afternoon. Gully, after hitching his team to the wagon in which had been placed the packages and bundles, covered them snugly with old blankets to protect them from the blowing snow, and drove to the school house, where he found his two neighbors awaiting his arrival. They came out to meet him with forlorn and hopeless expressions depicted on their faces. Noting this, he asked them the cause of their distressed appearance, when, both speaking at the same time, they exclaimed: "How about the tree? We have no Christmas tree." Gully was amazed. Here they had made arrangements for a befitting celebration, with the decorations to adorn a Christmas tree, the time was at hand, and everyone had forgotten to provide a tree for the occasion. With crestfallen expressions, the men turned slowly and allowed their gaze to sweep the plain in every direction, but could see no way out of their difficulty. Not a shrub in all that vast area raised its scrawny head to a height above four feet. What would they do? The wives and children must not be disappointed. They had set their hearts on this event as the nearest approach to a Christmas with the home folks. Here at this Christmas celebration would be opened packages containing tokens of love and thoughtfulness. The very knots in the cord that bound them, and the creases in the paper with which they were wrapped, had been made by fond hands that were separated from them by thousands of miles. No! they must have a Christmas tree. At this point in their dilemma, the resourcefulness of the true pioneer asserted itself. With an exclamation of "I have it, boys," Gully sprang from the wagon, and throwing back the blankets from the packages he directed that they be taken inside, and after using the blankets to protect his horses from the cold, he went to a huge pile of sagebrush that had been hauled into the school yard for fuel, drew from its midst and shook the snow from several of its largest branches. These he and his companions carried into the school room. Gully's friends, not knowing his ideas, fetched and carried at his command like eager children. From beneath the newly constructed building was procured a piece of discarded scantling which was appropriated and cut to the desired length. The branches of the sagebrush were then cut from the stalk and nailed with painstaking care to the smooth surface of one side of the two by six inch scantling. Starting near the bottom with short branches, the longer ones were worked in near the center and tapering as the top was approached, the whole structure being topped with one crowning bough; and thus completed, the crude affair was placed in position, with the flat side securely nailed to the back wall of the building. Upon stepping back to study the results of their efforts, the men were surprised at the effect, the oddity of its appearance. Procuring the box of trimmings, they proceeded with their task. By means of the generous distribution of cotton batting which was originally intended to create the effect of a snow drift at the base of the tree they succeeded in hiding the background and the rough bark of the boughs, and at the same time producing a decidedly wintery effect. Upon having completed the tree thus far they decided to return to their homes for their families, and to leave the final touches to the deft hands of their wives. CHAPTER XI. Owing to the great distance it was necessary for some of the homesteaders to come, it had been agreed upon to meet at the school building during the afternoon, bringing their lunch and eating, after which they would light the Christmas tree as soon after dark as would give the best effect, and to distribute the presents early that those who came from afar might return home at a reasonable hour. It was shortly after the noon hour that Travis Gully and his two friends returned with their families, as they were anxious to have the tree as nearly completed as was possible before the arrival of those from a distance. The wives of the designers of this novel Christmas tree, having been in a measure prepared by having been told of its nature, were astonished, upon entering the building, at the attractiveness of the tree. They had expected to find some crude arrangement as a substitute for the usual evergreen, but when they appreciated the possibilities of the unfinished work before them, they were delighted, and went eagerly at the task of its completion. Taking up the work where the men had left off, they readjusted the indiscriminate distribution of the fleecy cotton, sprinkling it with the glistening powder so commonly used to produce the sparkling, frosty effect, clipping an unruly bough here and there, placing the glittering tin candle holders, with their assorted colored candles, so as to avoid contact with the cotton when lighted, and after filling many small red, green and blue stocking shaped mosquito netting bags with candies and nuts, after which a tag bearing the name of some child of the neighborhood was attached, these they distributed among the branches of the tree, festooning the whole with a bewildering mass of yards of pure white popcorn strung on a thread for the occasion, tissue paper designs and sparkling tinsel that reflected the lights of the many candles in rapidly changing hues and giving it the effect of a dazzling fountain that persisted in its activities, though in the grasp of the frost king. Before the completion of the decoration of the tree and for several hours after the neighboring homesteaders began to arrive with their families, each bringing their share of the Christmas packages and boxes of lunch. Many and varied were the expressions of amazement and delight that greeted the workers upon the arrival of each family. "Isn't it lovely, and made of sagebrush, too. How did you do it?" Some, more inquisitive than others, would have to handle the branches to convince themselves that it was purely a local product. "Well, it beats the trees we used to have back home. I wish they could see it," many would exclaim. As the neighbors arrived, their packages were taken and either hung on the tree or placed conveniently near its base. It was a happy gathering of pioneers. The little school building, though being used for a purpose other than for which it was built, radiated with warmth from the one huge sheet iron stove that stood in its center and into which was being constantly fed handful after handful of crushed and twisted sagebrush. As evening approached and the last of those who were expected arrived and were met at the door and relieved of their bundles and wraps, places were made for them near the stove that they might warm their frosted fingers and toes. It was soon growing quite dark, and the excited children were eagerly clamoring for the candles to be lighted. Benches were drawn away from the walls, and after being placed together, the lunch was spread, and the Christmas festivities were begun. There was no snow white linen or sparkling silver nor cut glass, no wines or imported beverages, not a flower or sprig of green graced this banquet board. The benches were covered with the paper removed from such of the packages as had been unwrapped, and plain porcelain, granite and tin were the plates. The knives, forks and spoons were the iron handled or plated varieties. All evidence of stately ceremony was absent, but over all a spirit of good fellowship reigned. Faith, Hope and Charity were their guests and hovered close around this isolated gathering and directed their every thought, word and action. The plain food was eaten with a relish, and the steaming coffee, served from a granite pitcher that was constantly being refilled from a large boiler on the sheet iron stove, was drank with an appreciation of its warmth and invigorating effect. The supper over and all evidence of it removed, with the benches so arranged that all could get a view of the tree, the lighted lanterns that had been hanging upon the walls, were lowered, and the tree lighted. Breathlessly both young and old awaited the effect. Faintly the little candles flickered and sputtered, trying with their tiny wicks to allow the consuming flames to survive. A few went out, but were quickly relighted, and as the hand that applied the match was withdrawn and a slight current of air created, they flared and fluttered, but as the pointed tip of each candle was burned away and the little cups of molten wax formed around the wicks, they shot forth their flames. One by one they came, like stars as night rapidly falls; more quickly they came, and as the last one flared up and revealed the tree in all its sparkling brilliancy, bated breathing ceased, and with a sudden chorus of many childish expressions of delight and much noisy handclapping of their parents in appreciation of the spectacle before them, the little school room was filled with din that was taken up by the icy night wind and wafted for miles across the snow and mingled with the swish of the treacherous currents of the Columbia river, or mounting higher were lost amidst the phantomlike whispering of the soughing pines on the rugged mountain side. There were among those who had assembled there that Christmas Eve many who had in their earlier childhood attended many Christmas tree entertainments, both community and family trees, but none were present who could recall ever having seen one more beautiful. Their minds flew back for just one fleeting moment to scenes in the past, trying in vain to recall the most beautiful tree they had ever seen, that they might compare it with the one they now beheld, and wondered at the possible effect the sight of such a one as this would have upon the home folks. Travis Gully was chosen to distribute the presents, and this he soon accomplished. As each person's name was called they arose and the parcel was passed to them, and when the last of the packages had reached the hand of its excited owner and had been opened and admired, they were passed to curious onlookers for their inspection and comment. The tree was denuded of all its gaudy decorations. The candle holders, with their short bits of candle, were distributed among the children, and the long strings of popcorn and sparkling tinsel, together with the cotton, were carefully stored away in a box for future use. While mothers secured their wraps and shook to a state of wakefulness many sleepy little tots, each step they took resounding with the crunch of peanut shells with which the bare floor was strewn, the first Christmas tree the desert had ever known had come and gone. The men went out, and hitching their teams, drove to the entrance for their families, and as each stepped inside the building to say good-night and wish for his neighbor a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, he took a final look toward the back of the room and shuddered. One smoky lantern hung on a nail near the tree, now robbed of all its tawdry loveliness; sagebrush, just a skeleton of a thing, once made beautiful for a transient moment but now back to it original state, a product of the desert, a diabolical fiend clothed in its haunting gray. Gully with his family were the last to leave, and the hour being late, the drive home was made without comment by either he or his wife. The older children chattered away about what they and their friends had gotten from the tree. Little Joe, tucked snugly away among the blankets, one chubby hand clutching the now almost empty mosquito net stocking, the other, with fingers stuck fast together, was thrust beneath his head amidst a mass of towsled locks of sunburned hair, now smeared with red dye from a moist stock of peppermint candy, slept unconsciously throughout the trip home. Christmas morning, when it dawned, was accompanied by a terrific blizzard that kept Travis Gully and his family indoors. But being happy with the success of the Christmas tree, they were content to stay by the fire and discuss that event and plan for the weeks of fair weather that they hoped would follow the storm. Gully realizing that his family was comfortable, his only care was for his horses. These he had provided with as good protection as he had been able to construct after his return from the harvest field, but he knew that the flimsy structure he had erected and on three sides of which he had piled sagebrush as a windbreak, could not long withstand such a storm as was now raging. Upon going to the barn he discovered that the brush had already blown away and he set to work to replace it and to make it more secure by weighting it down with numerous old discarded railroad ties that had been hauled out for fuel. The stinging fine snow and icy blast of the blizzard made his task a most difficult one, and he was repeatedly forced to go to the house to thaw out his frosted fingers and toes. As evening approached the fury of the gale increased, and huge snowdrifts formed around the little home and completely cut off exit by means of the kitchen door. The front door opened directly facing the blizzard, and at its every opening the two small rooms were filled with the cold wind and drifting snow. The shrieking and howling of the wind warned Gully of the wild night through which he and his family had to pass, and he made ready by providing an abundance of sagebrush for fuel. He fed and blanketed his horses early, and after spreading the straw for their bedding, he left them as comfortable as was possible under the circumstances. Supper being over and he and his family seated comfortably around the roaring stove enjoying the genial heat that was now filling the rooms, and laughing merrily at the novel experience of being snowbound out in the desert. Incidents of other Christmas nights back in the old home were recounted by both Gully and his wife, to which the children eagerly listened. Laughing and chatting, the evening was spent in this snug little retreat, while outside the storm raged. One by one the children became sleepy and were tucked away for the night, and the fastening of the front door was made more secure by having a crude bench turned on end and braced against it, and the cracks around its casing, through which the cold wind was driving the snow, was stopped by an old piece of canvas that was fastened at the top with nails and allowed to extend down to the floor. Thus fortified against the elements, Travis and Minnie Gully returned to their places near the fire and sat for a long time in silence, listening to the regular breathing and dreamy mumbling of their sleeping children. For them the storm had no terrors. The wife placing her hand upon her husband's knee aroused him from his reverie, and she expressed her satisfaction with their changed condition, not that their material wealth had increased, but that she had been taken into his confidence and had become a factor in his life. In the old home she had been content to be the mother of his children, the keeper of his house. But now things were different. She was appealed to in all affairs, her suggestions were asked for the expenditure of the few dollars he had earned, she was consulted as to the plans for the improvement of their home, and she was happy in the thought that her ideas were of value, and were of assistance to him. She was experiencing her awakening, and while it was not as startling nor as sudden as his had been on that first day when he had determined to have a home of his own, it was just as real, and she was spurred on to new hopes and new ambitions, and was happy in their contemplation. CHAPTER XII. The wail of the wind grew louder as the night advanced, and the constant peppering of the particles of snow as they were being hurled in never ceasing volleys against the tar paper with which the outer walls of the building were covered could be distinctly heard. The old dog came from his accustomed place beneath the kitchen table, and going behind the stove seated himself amidst the shoes and stockings that had been placed there by the children. After sniffing the air he yawned, curled himself up, tucked his head with a contented sigh, blinked his watery eyes and was soon snoring contentedly. Scarcely had he dozed off when suddenly he sprang to a sitting position, and pricking up his ears, emitted a vicious growl. Gully, fearing that he would awaken the sleeping children, spoke to him, commanding him to lay down and be quiet. This order he disregarded, and hurriedly went into the kitchen, with hair bristling. Suddenly the startling yap of several coyotes was heard above the din of the wind and pelting snow. A pack of these skulkers, driven from their lairs by hunger and the biting cold, had in their desperation overcome their fear of mankind, and emboldened by numbers, had entered the very dooryard in search of food or shelter. Gully, after assuring his now thoroughly frightened wife that they were harmless, took the lamp, and going to the window pulled aside the curtain and allowed it to shine on the outside to frighten them away. At the same time he recalled the fact that little Joe's three chickens were roosting insecurely in a box in the barn and would fall an easy prey to the coyotes should they return. Taking his coat and hat, he pulled aside the canvas covering from the door and slipped out into the storm, returning in a few moments with the box containing the chickens, and put them in a place of safety in the kitchen. Saying nothing to his wife about the fierceness of the blizzard, he resumed his place by the fire, and wondered if their little shack would withstand the strain. He thought of his poorly protected horses and how they must be suffering with the intense cold, and consoled himself with the thought that he had done all within his power to make them comfortable, even to covering them with the sadly worn blankets that could be used to an advantage on his own poorly provided bed. As for him, he could stay awake and keep the fire burning, and provide warmth for himself and family. With this thought he suggested to his wife that she retire, as the hour was growing late, and he would replenish the fire and follow as soon as he assured himself that all was well. To this arrangement she protested mildly; she felt that should anything go wrong her place was by his side. After assuring her that everything was safe and that he would call her if she was needed, she finally consented, and going to where the sleeping children lay, placed each little straggling arm beneath the cover, and after smoothing their pillows she placed their scattered garments on the foot of the bed for additional warmth, and preparing her own bed, in which little Joe was sleeping soundly, she partially undressed and lay down. Travis Gully, left alone, sat dreaming by the stove, while outside the blizzard raged and tore at the walls of his home. Its intensity was increasing, he thought, or it might be that his loneliness made its varied sounds more audible. Blast after blast was hurled against the structure, and its every timber creaked and groaned with the strain. The canvas covering at the door became inflated and collapsed at irregular intervals, flapping lazily against the door, rising and falling like a sail amidst errant breezes. Gully was soon lulled to drowsiness by the warmth of the stove and varied sounds produced by the gale, and was soon dozing peacefully in his chair. How long he remained in this position he never knew. He was suddenly aroused by a call from his wife, who asked as to the cause of an unusual sound that had awakened her. Gully, thus awakened, noted the chilliness of the room, and renewed the fire, after which he listened intently for a repetition of the sound. He had not long to wait. A sudden fierce blast made the building quiver, and he could distinctly hear a lashing, tearing sound on the north wall. Approaching the window to ascertain, if possible, the cause, he noticed the crunching sound of the trodden snow upon the floor, and felt the cold wind. He instantly realized what had happened. The wind in its maddened fury had torn the tar paper from the outer wall and was driving the finely powdered snow through the cracks and was forming it in slender drifts across the floor. The break was slight at the time of its discovery, but each new onslaught increased the size of the rent and was opening new inlets for the snow and icy wind. Gully knew full well that to repair the break from the outside would be impossible, as the paper would be torn from his hands, and to drive nails in the dark, with numbed fingers, was out of the question. The havoc that was being wrought by the wind was rapidly growing in extent, and snow was being driven into the house through new openings at every gust. Sheets of paper were being torn off and could be heard rattling away across the snow and ice, being driven before the wind. Prompt action of some kind was imperative. The bed occupied by little Joe and his mother being built against the north wall of the room, it was necessary for them to move, as the snow was pouring in and covering the bedding, which would soon be made damp by the melting snow. Joe was placed in the remaining crowded bed with the other children and Minnie Gully, hastily dressing, came with the broom to sweep back the advancing snow drifts. The now vacant bed was hurriedly cleared of its bedding and the frame work torn from the wall to give access to the openings. Travis Gully worked feverishly, filling the cracks in the wall with paper and torn rags, pressing them in securely with a case knife, his wife bringing for this purpose every available scrap of material. The unused bedding was tacked up to temporarily stay the advance of the snow and wind. The melting snow in the room required constant sweeping back, the fire was kept burning brightly and the battle raged on. Not a complaint or wail of discouragement escaped either Gully or his wife. With set faces and determination they fought back the storm, and a smile of satisfaction greeted each successful effort, as inch by inch the cracks in the wall were closed and the advance of the enemy checked. The children having been awakened by the unusual commotion were told to keep quiet and stay covered up, as everything was all right. Being thus reassured, they were soon fast asleep. Daylight came with the Gullys victors, but brought with it no abatement of the storm. The blinding snow obscured the vision and no idea of the extent of the damage done could be had. Exhausted by the loss of sleep and the excitement, Minnie Gully had sunk into a chair near the stove. Her husband, noticing her tired look, tried to persuade her to lie down and rest for a while, but this she refused to do, so throwing an old coat over her shoulders to keep out the chill, he left her and went out to investigate the condition of his horses. These he found had fared much better than he had hoped. The drifting snow had been blown into the sagebrush windbreak and formed a solid and almost impenetrable mass, behind which the horses, protected by their blankets, stood in comparative comfort. The task of digging from his meager supply of hay, now almost covered by a huge snowdrift, a sufficient amount for their morning feed was a hard one, but upon its completion he felt fully repaid by the hearty manner in which it was eaten. Upon his returning to the house he found that his wife and daughters were up and busily engaged preparing breakfast. They asked eagerly as to the condition of the horses, and upon being assured that they had fared splendidly, they laughed and joked over their wild night's experience. All through that day and the day following the blizzard raged without any appreciable lull in its terrific force. No effort was made to repair the torn paper on the outer wall. The cracks that had been hastily filled with paper and rags were gone over and made more secure, the blankets that had been used as a shield in their emergency were taken down and dried, and the crude bed that had been so ruthlessly torn away from the north wall was temporarily reconstructed on the opposite side of the room and held out inviting prospects to Gully, who was now beginning to feel more keenly the effect of his long vigil of the night before. All efforts at accomplishing anything on the outside were abandoned, and meals were prepared and served at irregular hours. The chickens had taken kindly to their new quarters, and becoming quite tame, were a source of amusement to the children. Travis Gully devoted his time to the care of his horses and providing fuel, the latter occupation requiring most of his time, as the enormous quantity consumed soon exhausted the supply near the house, and as more could not be gotten while the storm raged he was forced to dig out the old railroad ties from the wind break at the barn and to use them for fuel. The storm spent its fury on the desert dwellers sometime during the third night. The lull came while Gully and his family, now inured to its sound, were soundly sleeping, and when they awoke the following morning they lay for several moments listening for the roar of the wind; not hearing it, Gully knew that the long wished for calm had come. Dressing himself, he kindled the fire, and calling to his wife that the storm had ceased, he went out to view its work. The sun had risen, but was unable to penetrate the haze of thin clouds and snow left floating along the horizon, and looked down on the desolate scene without warmth. The air was cold and penetrating, huge piles of snow had drifted behind every stationery object, and in places where the ground had been cleared of brush and grass the snow was swept entirely away and the wind had eaten its way into the sandy soil and scattered it over the adjoining snowdrifts, giving them a yellow, dingy appearance. Loose sagebrush that had been left piled and ready to burn had been taken up and blown before the wind until finding lodgement against some object, had become the base for the formation of additional snowdrifts that extended in long mounds in the direction the wind had blown. The whole landscape had a changed and unnatural appearance. Gully could see the homes of some of his neighbors, but they seemed far off, and no signs of life were visible except in one or two instances where streams of thin, blue smoke was issuing from their stove pipes. Not a horse nor cow could be seen upon the range, and the ever present hawks that were wont to soar at dizzy heights above the plain were missing. Noting these changes in detail, Gully wondered if these same conditions existed throughout the vast area. After feeding his horses, he returned to the house, where his breakfast awaited him. A few days after the passing of the storm the sun resumed its brilliancy, but with little increased warmth; the days were clear and the nights frosty. No effort was made by Gully toward venturing away from home. He replenished his supply of fuel and covered the exposed cracks in the wall of his shack by nailing over them laths. The space between the cracks where the tar paper had been torn away was left bare, and the new boards thus exposed glared in the bright sunlight. During the time they had been forced by the storm to remain in the house many letters had been written to the home folks, in which a description of the Christmas tree and the blizzard had been given. These Gully was anxious to get to the post office, as well as to receive the mail that he felt sure was awaiting his coming. Deciding one morning that he would try to reach the village, he set about arranging his plans to go the following day. To undertake to drive through he knew would be useless, as the snow was drifted so badly he could not follow the road. As the village could be plainly seen from his house and there were no fences to obstruct his way, he thought it best to take one of his horses on which to pack out some provisions, and go straight across the wide snow covered plain. Knowing that the trip, without mishap, would require the whole of the following day, he decided to start as soon as it was light enough to get his bearings. All preparations for the trip were made the night before, the little bundle containing his lunch, the letters that were to be mailed, and a list of the purchases that were to be made were placed where they would not be forgotten, and when Gully awoke the following morning he quietly arose, and after feeding his horses prepared for himself some strong, black coffee, which was all the breakfast he required, and without awakening the members of his family started on his trip. CHAPTER XIII. It was a strange sight to behold, in the dull gray of the winter morning, a man floundering through the snowdrifts, leading behind him an unwilling horse that could hardly be induced to leave its unattractive but comfortable stable. In Travis Gully, garbed as he was, the horse could not be expected to recognize its owner. Over his hat he had tied a large red handkerchief that held the brim down over his ears and caused a peak at front and rear like an old fashioned cockaded hat, his mackinaw was bound around his waist with a piece of rope, and strips of burlap wound around his legs extended over and completely hid his shoes. His appearance was more that of a typical tramp than the sturdy homesteader he really was. Owing to the many difficulties encountered, caused principally by the sagebrush that lay hidden beneath the snow into which his feet sank at every step, he did not reach his destination until shortly after noon. There were many in the village who expressed their surprise at his undertaking such a trip. None of his neighbors had been in, and no word had been received from the district that lay far to the south as to what the result of the blizzard had been. It was feared that there had been great suffering among the homesteaders, as it was well known that many of them were poorly prepared for the rigor of such a storm. After attending to his business no time was lost in starting on the homeward trip. With his few groceries securely wrapped in two compact bundles and fastened to each end of a rope, they were thrown across a comfortable canvas pad and lashed to the horse's back, the weight being as nearly equally divided as was possible, the crude pack was adjusted and the tedious retracing of their tracks begun. Gully had not taken time to eat his lunch, but had placed it in the pocket of his mackinaw, intending to eat it as he traveled, thereby avoiding the loss of time. The mail that he had found waiting for him was tied in a packet and placed securely in his inside pocket, that it might be kept dry in case he was overtaken by another blizzard. He had not read any of the letters or even glanced at the headlines of the little home weekly, several issues of which had accumulated at the post office, and as he trudged his weary way through the deep snow he tried to imagine to himself what messages they bore, whether their contents were joyous or sad, and in his wandering thoughts he compared his present plight with the winters he had spent in the East and asked himself if he would be willing to exchange the present hardships and inconveniences for the old condition, and laughed at the thought. "No, I will not go back to the life of a renter under any circumstances. I have hardly started on the task of making a home," he told himself, and the thought of abandoning the dream was ridiculous. "Minnie and the children are well and happy, and even if we did not raise good crops for the first year or so, think what it will be when the irrigation ditch comes through," and as he discussed these questions in his mind he ate his lunch, never stopping for a moment. The horse, now that he was headed in the direction of home, kept pace with its master, and with his nose at his elbow was ready to receive the occasional piece of crust that was given him, and not satisfied with his scant allowance, nipped at his sleeve and teased for more. Upon looking back Gully noticed that the pack had slipped and stopped to replace it and to tighten the rope. He then saw that evening was approaching, and glanced back toward the village to estimate the distance he had covered. His own home he could plainly see, and he noted the smoke as it poured from the stovepipe and realized that this meant the preparation of a warm supper with which he would be greeted upon his return. He pushed on. The constant snagging of the burlaps in which his feet were encased, as he sank deep in the snow and sagebrush, had torn it away until his shoes were exposed, and as he wore no rubbers, his feet were wet and numb, and he knew that later the cold would become more severe. The sky was overcast with clouds, and he realized the dangers of being lost on the desert on such a night as this promised to be, so he put forth his every effort to reach his home before the darkness fell. The horse, now eager to reach home and enjoy the long deferred feed and warmth of the stable, was crowding his master's footsteps and threatened at every faltering movement to be upon him. Gully was soon forced from fatigue to give up all hopes of reaching his home before dark, and was satisfied to think that he was near enough to be guided by a beacon light that he felt sure would be placed in the window. Stopping for a few moments to recover his breath, he looked longingly toward the little black dot that could be dimly seen against the background of snow, knowing that it was but a mere speck on the desert. Yet it was his refuge and contained his world. As he rested and watched the shades of evening settle and creep down the distant mountain side, he took his horse's nose between his hands and, caressing it, enjoyed the warmth of the hot steaming breath. Then he cast one more glance in the direction of his home; it had faded from his view and was lost in the corresponding darkness, but in its stead a small twinkling light gleamed feebly across the snow. It was scarcely larger than the flame of one of the Christmas tree candles and was many miles away; yet it warmed his heart as no other flame could have done. Speaking encouragingly to his horse, they resumed their toilsome journey, and never faltering or stopping, followed the guidance of the little light for another hour, and Gully staggered into his yard, his trip ended. But conditions had been reversed; the horse had led him home. Wearily he removed the pack, and placing it upon the ground near the kitchen door, was in the act of reaching for the mail to hand to his wife when his strength gave out and he collapsed. Numb with the cold, and with his trousers frozen fast to his shoes, he was helped into the house. The horse, upon gaining his freedom when his master's hand had released its hold on the rope, went to its place in the barn and munched hungrily at the hay that had been placed there to await his coming. The warmth of the room and a cup of steaming hot coffee soon revived Gully, and after being provided with warm dry clothing he ate supper with his family and listened in a dazed manner to the reading of the news from home. But the stupor induced by the exposure and tremendous exertion finally overcome him, and he was forced to retire. After Minnie Gully had assured herself that her husband was comfortable and sleeping soundly, she quietly slipped from the room, closing the door that led into the kitchen as she came out for fear that the chatter of the children might disturb him. Clearing away the dishes from the supper table she brought out the letters and papers that had been received that day and carefully reread every line of the letters from home. An occasional smile would brighten her countenance as she came upon some bit of homely advice or some suggestion from her dear old mother, suggestions that would have been applicable to the Minnie Gully of old, the tired, haggard daughter her mother had last seen, but to the robust, cheerful woman she had now grown to be they were amusing. After having read the last of the letters she dropped her hands upon the table before her and sat staring at the open pages, reading between the lines. How plainly she could see the old home, the very room in which this letter was written. 'Twas evening, probably Saturday. Yes, it was Saturday, for there was father's Bible and scattered notes. He had been preparing his sermon for the morrow. His spectacle case was laying on the loose pages. He had got up and moved his chair to the opposite side of the table, and was seated by mother, who with toil stiffened fingers was laborously writing this letter. How plain it all was, and how her heart ached, not from homesickness nor from a desire to see and be with them, but rather to cry out to them and tell them what they had missed. They, in their crowded communities, even in the rural districts, knew nothing of the wild delights of perfect freedom and unlimited space. She had always been crowded; she knew it now. She had never known or felt until now the exhilerating thrills of doing something, doing something worth while. Fighting, yes, that was the word; fighting the elements, doing battle with unadorned nature, free from the artifices of mankind. Oh! if she could only make them understand the inexpressable joy of conquest. The joy of breathing pure air; breathing it out in the open; air that had probably never come in contact with the nostrils of a living creature. Even though the air at times might be laden with sand that stifled and choked, it was dust that had been torn from a virgin soil, and was uncontaminated from having been trodden under foot by a hurrying multitude of human beings. And the mountains--how she loved them--she never tired of their ever changing beauty and grandeur. Still retaining the hold on the letter, Minnie Gully arose from the table, and going to the outside kitchen door, threw it open and stepped out. Not until she was met by the cold air and the blackness of the night did she realize how completely she had been lost to her surroundings. Laughing aloud at her foolish flights of thought, she hurriedly tossed back the few strands of hair that had been displaced by the cold breeze and returned immediately into the room. She gathered up the letters and scattered papers and put them away, after which she joined in the conversation and games with the children; but the thoughts of the home folks remained with her. She wanted them to feel as she felt and to reap some of the benefits of this land of health, and be a factor in its development. Long after she and the children had gone to bed she lay and thought of her girlhood friends, whom she knew would live their prosaic lives without ever having known the joys, miseries, delights and sorrows that enter into the daily life of a pioneer, and she wanted to help them; she went to sleep with visions of herself as a great benefactress distributing happiness to thousands of her kind. The passing of the blizzard marked the turning point of the winter, and the weather throughout the month of January was nice, and while the snow did not disappear, there was only an occasional flurry added nothing to the quantity on the ground. The social meetings at the school house were not resumed after the Christmas tree, owing to the extreme cold, but the neighbors visited with each other and met frequently at the store in the village. At such times when two or more were together the principal topic was the blizzard. Although the country was comparatively new in its settlement there was always the proverbial "oldest inhabitant" who could recall "Just such another winter," but to those who actually knew, it had been by far the worst blizzard the country had ever known since the advent of the white man. There was a legend told by the Indians of the Northwest of the winter of the long ago when the snow was so deep in the mountains that the deer, driven from their natural haunts in the mountains, had crossed on the surface of the frozen Columbia river in search of food and died by the thousands on the plain. This, to a certain extent, was verified by the occasional finding of antlers, bleached white by years of exposure to the rays of the desert sun. The matter of irrigation was now seldom mentioned. That the party of Government surveyors who had worked on the project the summer before had left with their equipment at the first approach of winter was known, but as to whether they were to return, or had completed their investigation, was left to conjecture. With the arrival of February came the first real spring weather. A chinook wind came, and after blowing for two nights and a day, had melted the snow to such an extent that the only traces of it to be found was where it had drifted into an abandoned badger or coyote den and escaped the warm breath of the chinook. There being no frost in the ground the moisture created by the melting snow sank deep into the soil and was stored away for future use. The sun, as it rose higher with each lengthening day, dispensed its increasing warmth, thereby reviving the earlier varieties of plant life with startling rapidity. Gully having cleared a number of acres of sagebrush, was anxiously awaiting seasonable weather for plowing, that he might sow his grain early and get it up and well rooted before the spring winds came, thinking that by adopting this method it would survive. There was plenty to do before the ground was in a condition for plowing. Seed grain and feed was to be hauled from the wheat growing district of the Big Bend country, and a supply of provisions procured, that a trip to the village would not be required of the team during the plowing and seeding time. The cistern was to be filled and as much more ground made ready for the plow as was possible before the rush. Plans for the accomplishment of all this had been carefully made by Gully and his wife, and they were eager to begin. As the roads were in excellent condition while the sand was wet and settled, Gully borrowed a team to work with his own from one of his neighbors and went for his seed grain, the trip requiring two days. Upon his return from this trip he and his entire family drove to the village. There was no great amount of shopping to be done, as Gully's funds were about exhausted, but one of the merchants in the town had promised to supply him with provisions until the harvest season. The family was taken along that they might enjoy the outing, and as the weather was bright and there was no dust or blistering sun, the trip was often looked back to as one of the most pleasant they had ever taken. CHAPTER XIV. By the last of March the grain had all been sown and the first of the planting was beginning to force its tender shoots through the surface. The sun was growing brighter with each day and everything pointed to an early spring. Travis Gully, with his wife and children, toiled early and late, making the best of the favorable season. Grudgingly they stopped for their meals and time for their horses to feed. Night brought no diminishing of their labors; brush was piled and burned, and even trips to the well for water were made by moonlight. It became the custom of the settler that when one of them went to town to bring out the mail for the neighbors who lived along their route home, and to call and deliver it when passing. Almost daily mail came to the Gullys by this means, letters from people with whom they had been but slightly acquainted, asking for information in regard to the Northwest, of the chances for a man with but limited means, and the possibilities of their procuring a piece of the free land for a home. Gully made no effort to reply to all these inquiries, nor did he feel justified in holding out alluring prospects to the writers, although he himself had absolute faith and confidence in the ultimate success of his undertaking. He was not certain as to whether all the anxious seekers for a home would be willing to endure, or could withstand, the hardships incident to the establishment of a home in the desert. He would sit and talk the matter over with his wife during the evenings and at other spare times, and they agreed that while it would be nice to have some of their old friends as neighbors, the pleasure of their coming would be marred should conditions prove unsatisfactory upon their arrival. They could recall a few of those among their former friends whom they felt assured would be easily convinced of the splendid future this country had, but there were others, many others, who they knew would expect to find conditions such as would guarantee immediate profitable results from their efforts. Of this latter class they were afraid, as evidence of their kind having been there and tried, failed and gone their way, was at every hand visible, and they did not care to be held to blame for their disappointment. So they finally decided to write a letter to the editor of their little home paper, that it might be published, a letter setting forth bare facts. Conditions as they existed, without embellishment, the good and the evil alike, and let those who might read choose for themselves. The preparation of this letter was a source of both worry and amusement to Travis Gully and his wife, and required several nights for its completion. Worry that in their enthusiasm and optimism they might make it too favorable in its tone, that they might infuse into it too much of their individual hopes and aspirations of which they had dreamed until they had become almost a reality. And again they would burst into hearty laughter at the recounting of some of their experiences, never realizing that these little incidents must be lived through to be appreciated. When the letter was written, and after having been read and altered and rewritten a number of times, it was finally pronounced satisfactory and sealed, ready for mailing. Nearly a week elapsed before an opportunity to send the important packet to the post office came, and then only by the merest chance. The news of the activities of the Government surveyors in the region the summer before had been spread broadcast throughout the East, and unscrupulous land boomers had announced that the reclamation by the Government of the vast area was an assured fact, some even going so far as to announce the exact amount of the appropriation made by Congress for this purpose and so, as a result of this, and also to the fact that the railroads had again put on a homeseekers excursion rate, the early spring brought an unusually large number of prospective settlers into the community. They came in parties, toiling their way across the level stretch of country, now still moist from the melted snow, showed no evidence of the clouds of sand and dust that would follow after a few short weeks of sunshine. The surface of the unplowed ground was thickly carpeted with a specie of fine grass, known as sheep grass, that always came first in the spring, to be followed by the more succulent bunch grass. Myriads of tiny plants were pushing their way through the surface and many were bursting into full blossom before they had lifted their dainty heads more than a few inches above the grass roots. Many and varied were their shapes and colors, each vieing with the other in hastening to bloom, that it might flaunt its beauty for the longest possible time before being forced to close its petals by the ever increasing heat of the sun. To those of the tourists who came at this season of the year the prospects were most inviting. Never had they, in their homes in the East, had such a range of vision, such an unlimited expanse to sweep with their bewildered eyes, and the kaleidoscopic changes came so rapidly, as they turned to admire it. It was like a dream. Starting with the snow capped peaks of the mountains, they could follow the scene downward past the snowline, over the barren space that intervenes between it and the timber, which starts in with its varied shades of green, the peculiar, yellowish green of the tamarack, that seldom grows at an altitude of less than three thousand feet. Intermingled with this would appear the spots of dull brown, showing the clumps of sarvic berries and choke cherries, the favorite haunts of the bear and deer. Towering above these thickets the slender white trunks and branches of the quaking asp could be plainly seen. Farther down the shades of green become darker as the forests of fir, pine and cedar come within the range of vision. Flaming patches of sumach adorn the edges of the rocky spots that occasionally occurred in the picture. On downward the dull gray of the sagebrush marks the upper rim of the breaks of the Columbia river, then a blank of smooth rock wall that drops for hundreds of feet to the water's edge. The river itself is hidden from view by the undulating hills that lay immediately adjacent to the plains. Here the scene changes from its wild rugged beauty to one indicating the presence of mankind. The vast expanse of sagebrush is dotted here and there with square patches of a new and different shade of green, the green of the freshly growing grain, each of these being marked by the presence of a newly constructed home. The green of the grain fields and the bare, unpainted walls of the homes refuse to harmonize with the color scheme of the desert and are easily distinguished as not being a part thereof, and do not figure in the picture. Passing them by with a hasty glance, barely sufficient to note their remoteness, one from the other, the beholder allows his gaze to gradually take notice of objects nearer at hand, and finally to lower his eyes, with a sigh of satisfaction, and looks with wonder into the faces of the little desert flowers blooming happily at his very feet, and asks himself what connection there is between these two, the glacial peaks and the tiny desert flower, so different in every way, and yet both so necessary for the completion of the picture. Travis Gully and his wife anxiously awaited the arrival of the copy of the paper in which their letter was to be published and given to the world, and when it came they reread every word, and felt reassured that it contained no misleading statements, no invitation to others to come unprepared to take up the hardships of the life of a homesteader, but the entire article teemed with the elements of hope and optimism that showed their faith in a successful end. During April and May the influx of homeseekers was at its height, and almost daily parties of prospective settlers stopped at the Gully home for information as to directions and locations of pieces of land they wished to secure. Gully's first year's experience had given him knowledge of conditions that had enabled him to overcome to a certain degree some of the difficulties with which he had to contend. During his enforced idleness of the winter just passed he had planned the course he proposed to pursue during the ensuing year. He had decided to introduce some of the dry land farming methods that had been successfully tried out in other sections of the Northwest, an idea of which he had gleaned from some Government Bulletins that had been given him by the postmaster of the village. As a result of his experiments along these lines, and due to a most favorable season in the way of absence of hard winds and seasonable showers, Gully's homestead presented a most creditable appearance. His field of wheat was by far the best in the neighborhood, and as he had planted nothing but the most hardy varieties of corn and vegetables his garden promised to be a success, and as a result of the showing he was making, his place became one of the points of interest to which most of the visitors were directed by the people of the village, or to which the real estate agents always brought their clients, and would exclaim: "What this man has done in this country others can do." Spurred on by his success and the ever increasing feeling of independence, Travis Gully toiled on thruout the spring. The constant recurrence of visitors to view their home was a source of diversion to the Gullys, and a means whereby many dollars came into their possession. They made no charge for the hospitality extended to the strangers who came their way, but the offering of a glass of water or, as was often the case, a lunch and an hour's rest to the tired, dusty travelers who could not but see and appreciate their condition, was always rewarded by liberal offerings of change, made in most instances to the children. Thus the immediate requirements of the family were met and a small amount saved. As the summer approached and the unusual showers became less frequent, the fitful gusts of wind started the restless sand, but too late to harm the grain that was now beginning to assume the golden tint that foretold an early harvest. The garden was beginning to wilt beneath the hot sunrays, but the ingenuity of Gully saved it. At the root of the melon vines and other plants empty cans were imbedded into which the waste water was poured and allowed to filter slow through, and by this method sufficient moisture was given the plants to mature them, and the yield was abundant. The favorable season in the desert region had renewed the hopes of those who had chosen to make it their home, and scenes of unusual activity were apparent at every hand. New tracts of land were being cleared and plowed, and new buildings sprang up overnight; their glistening bare walls could be seen in many directions. The services of a Miss Anderson as teacher for the little school had been secured, and though the season was late for starting, it was opened, and each school morning, early, the Gully children went joyfully across the sagebrush plain to the little school building, where they were joined by some half dozen other children who came from as many different directions. The glint of the sunrays on their brightly shining dinner pails flashed heliographic warning of their approach long before the small pupils could be seen. The Sunday School was reorganized and the meetings of the literary society resumed. The hardships of the past winter were almost forgotten and were seldom referred to. The middle of the month of June brought the harvest season. The grain in the desert maturing and ripening several weeks in advance of that in the grain belt to the north, thus affording the homesteader an opportunity to harvest their grain at home before leaving for the grain fields for their regular season's run. Gully, whose harvest at home had yielded exceptional returns for which he found a ready market among his neighbors, was undecided as to whether to make another trip into the Big Bend country or remain at home and improve his place. But the desire to have a well, with abundance of water, which would give him an opportunity to irrigate and develop his home, soon caused him to decide to go. He had not forgotten his experience of the fall before, and his firm resolve never to leave his family alone in the desert again, but conditions had changed since them. They were better provided for, and there were neighbors, many of whom would have to leave for the winter, but still there were among them many who would leave their families behind. Besides he had bought another team and what they could earn, together with his earnings, would enable him to secure the coveted well, and he would not have to leave again. As for the work, he was better equipped now and would know what to expect and consequently make the best of it. Thus he reasoned, and after fully determining to go, he wrote to the grower for whom he had worked the previous fall and arranged for work during the coming season. The summer now being on, the heat of the sun was terrific, and no effort was made to accomplish anything during the day. When trips to the village became necessary the start was made early, and the home coming frequently postponed until after sundown, to avoid as much as possible the midday drive over the hot dusty roads. Rains were a thing of the past now, and the desert began to assume its accustomed dry, parched appearance. Many of the newcomers who had moved in during the early spring, when conditions were most favorable, were now becoming alarmed, and questioned the wisdom of their choice, and had it not been for the positive evidence of the possibilities of the district as seen at the Gully place, many of them would have become discouraged and given up in despair. To many of these unfortunates the village was the only source of comfort. They would congregate there during the day and discuss the various subjects pertaining to home building in the wilderness. Many of them had had no experience at farming even under the most favorable conditions, and these presented a most pitiful appearance and woebegone manner. Fresh from within the confines of shop or office and launched upon a life of hardships and exposure, upon a sea of blistering sands, sizzling sagebrush and bunch grass, it was no wonder they blistered, peeled, freckled and tanned and seemed to shrivel and slouch when they had lain aside their neat fitting business suit and donned their overalls. It was a cruel test of stamina and manhood, and a surprising few that withstood it. Many of the earlier settlers adhered to the belief that help would come to them through irrigation, and the fact of the surveyors having been in the field the summer before was related to the new settlers with convincing arguments that it had to come. Still no one had ever heard the slightest intimation of what the surveyors had accomplished in the way of favorable results or the nature of their official report. The fact of this silence was looked upon by many as a good omen, and wild rumors were set afloat that the survey had been successful, and the plans for the installation of the gigantic system were then being prepared. On one occasion, while gathering driftwood along the shores of the Columbia, a homesteader saw a man working among the rocky cliffs far above him. He hastily drove home and reported his discovery to his neighbors, who added their ideas to the importance of this discovery, and by the next day it was a matter of common talk upon the streets of the village that work had started on the foundation for a huge power plant, to generate electricity for pumping. And so it went, every mysterious move or unusual occurrence immediately became the subject for speculation, and was supposed to have some bearing on the reclamation of the land with which they were now battling to bring into a state of productiveness. Travis Gully was looked upon as a wizard, and his accomplishments under the existing conditions were the wonder of the neighborhood. Each little real estate office and many of the stores contained specimens of the stalks of grain, corn or other varieties of products grown by him. Many articles appeared in the papers published throughout the territory telling of what he had accomplished under his system of farming, and he frequently received communications asking for information as to the methods or kind of seed he had used. To all such he could only reply that his success was as much of a surprise to him as to others, and he took no special credit to himself. But it pleased him to think that it had fallen to his lot to prove to the world that his faith in the productiveness of the soil was well founded. To Minnie Gully the effect of their success for the year was entirely different. She knew, or thought she knew, that it was due to the superiority of Travis' management. "Had he not studied the matter, and learned the exact time for plowing and seeding? Had he not so arranged the clearing of the land as to leave the sagebrush intact upon the high ground, that it might break the force of the wind, thus protecting the tender plants? And who but he would have had the forethought to save every condensed milk can that had been emptied, and had even brought hundreds of others to utilize in his novel method of irrigation for the vegetables and few nicely growing fruit and shade trees? Had she not saved every particle of waste water, even to the water used for the weekly laundering, and she and the children poured it carefully into the cans at the roots of the plants and covered them that the sand might not drift in and absorb the precious moisture?" It was not chance to her. She felt that if they had acquired the distinction of being the most successful homesteaders in the district, they were entitled to it, and she prided herself on the fact; and she resolved that in the event of their securing a well, with abundance of water, even though irrigation never came, she would show the world further proof of what could be done, and would devote her life to making their home an ideal one. Her blood would surge through her veins, and with flushed face and sparkling eyes she would go out into the yard and approaching one of the growing trees, then mere switches, would fondle its few green leaves and look upward, as if measuring the vast expanse above to see if she might imagine the height to which it would attain. She would go to the grain stack, and rubbing out in the palm of her hand a few of the well filled heads, blow away the husks and chaff, and admire the plump red grains, finally casting them to the patiently waiting chickens, and return singing joyously into the house and resume her household duties, a different Minnie Gully of a short year before. CHAPTER XV. By the last of July the heat had become so intense that it was decided to close the school until the cooler weather in the fall. The children had made good progress, and as Miss Anderson had taken up a homestead near by, her services for the winter months were assured. So it was planned that when the school was closed she was to visit her home for a few weeks, returning before the harvest season, and was to remain at the Gully home until his return from harvest, after which she was to take up her abode upon her own claim. This arrangement pleased Gully, as it assured him that his family would not be alone during his absence. The few remaining weeks before his departure Gully devoted to the improvement of his house. Material for this purpose was obtained by his having purchased a building erected upon a claim a short ways from his own by Jack Norton, a young man, who having become discouraged, had proposed to accompany Gully to the harvest fields and to use the proceeds of the sale of the building, together with his earnings while harvesting, to purchase a return ticket to the East, thereby abandoning his claim. The price paid by Gully for the material in the building was insignificant, but added very materially to his unpretentious home when reconstructed in connection with it, and assured him against the recurrence of his experience of the winter before. The conditions under which Travis Gully made his second trip to the harvest fields were entirely different. Now he knew where he was going and exactly what to expect upon his arrival. The horses he drove were his own, and he reserved the right to have absolute control of them during the entire trip. He had been requested by his former employer to bring as nearly as possible the same crew as had come on the former occasion. In this he was successful, with the exception of one of the party who had become discouraged and left the country soon after the passing of the severe blizzard of the winter before. The iron molder, the pressman, and the professor were there, and as the progress each had made on their homestead was fair, it was a more jovial party that had left on this occasion. The start was made from the Gully home, where the party had assembled the evening before, and instead of the tear stained cheeks and pitiful sighs that had marked their first departure from the well, there had been a happy gathering of all the neighbors for miles around who had assembled at Travis Gully's home to bid the harvesters farewell. This gathering was not only for those who were going with the Gully party, but was for all the men of the neighborhood who were going forth to replenish their funds ere the winter came. Each had brought their lunch basket, and the scene of the feast at the Christmas tree was reenacted, only under more favorable circumstances and on a much larger scale. The festivities continued until far into the night. Rollicking games of blindman's buff and others of its like were played out in the open under the brilliance of the huge, desert moon. Young and old alike joined in the spirit of the games, and merry peals of laughter proclaimed their evident enjoyment. When the time came for the merry makers to go to their several homes, and after the final good-byes had been said, those of the party who were to remain overnight and start the following morning chose their sleeping places, and unrolling their blankets, lay down and were soon lulled to sleep by the sound of the distant singing and talking of the departing guests which was wafted back by the cool night air for miles across the silent desert. The sounds were broken at intervals by the sharp staccato yap of the startled coyotes. The following morning the men were all astir just at the break of day. The horses were fed and harnessed and everything made ready for the start. Ample lunch was put up to last the entire party until they reached their destination, and when breakfast had been eaten the start was made. The sun had not yet appeared, but the jagged ridge of hills to the east was plainly outlined, and Gully, now being thoroughly acquainted with the lay of the country and not caring to lose time by making a long detour to reach the main road, went directly across the plain to the gap in the hills that he knew would afford him an exit. Minnie Gully and the children, as well as their guest, Miss Anderson, who had now returned from her visit home, were out to see them off. The old dog was leaping frantically at the horses' heads as if he too understood the importance of the occasion. His loud barking and frisky capers caused little Joe to shriek with laughter, and amidst all this din and shouting of good-byes they rolled away. Jack Norton, who had remained at the Gully home from the time of the sale of the building on his own claim until its removal and reconstruction as a part of the Gully residence, was seated with Gully on the driver's seat when the party started on their journey. Knowing the road as the party now did, the trip was not nearly so tiresome as on the former occasion. Time passed much more rapidly, and a constant flow of conversation and quips and jokes were kept up by those of the party except young Norton who, though usually full of life and ordinarily a good companion, was on this occasion sullen and morose. Travis Gully was quick to note this change in Norton's demeanor and watched him closely to see if he could find its cause. Thinking perhaps it was due to his disappointment at his failure at success as a homesteader, he jibed him good-naturedly upon his giving up so easily. Jack Norton turned, and taking one more long look at their starting point, allowing his gaze to wander out across the desert and after a few minutes pause answered Gully's remark by saying: "It might be that I have not given up." Travis Gully, who rather liked the young fellow, slapped him on the back and exclaimed: "That's the spirit. You might take a notion to come back with us. Well, if you do, your claim will still be safe. You know you have six months off." Jack Norton did not reply to this. He evidently did not know or had not thought but what his temporary absence from his claim would forfeit it. He sat silent for a few moments, looked back in the direction from which they had come, and remarked, "Looks good to me," and was noticeably more cheerful during the remainder of the day. The early morning start and favorable conditions enabled them to cover the worst of their journey the first day, and the camp for the night was made far up in the grand coulee, within a few miles of where they would emerge upon the plateau where the grain fields began. A small stream trickled down from the face of the bluff that formed the east wall of the coulee. The spring from which it flowed was inaccessable, so it was necessary to catch the water in pails as it dripped from the rock ledge far above, for it disappeared as soon as it reached the sandy bottom of the coulee. Beautiful grasses grew at the bottom of the cliff, where the water wasted away, and rare specimens of ferns adorned the face of the rock over which it flowed, far above the reach of man. The place had been noted by those of the party who were on the trip the fall before, and the professor had expressed a desire to obtain some of the ferns for specimens during their stay in the camp. Knowing that they had ample time, as they were not due at their destination for two days, and that they could reach it the following afternoon, they decided to remain in camp the forenoon of the following day and rest their horses. It was just before sundown when they went into camp, but knowing from past experience that the twilight between those towering walls was short, they hurriedly accumulated a sufficient quantity of sagebrush for fuel during the night, and after placing their only water pail beneath the drip of the trickling stream, awaited its filling for water with which to make coffee. After this was procured and the coffee set to boil, Travis Gully led his horses to the patch of grass and allowed them to browse while the water dripped into the pail, and as it filled he gave each horse in its turn a drink. The evening shadows were slowly creeping upward and could be clearly outlined upon the face of the cliff that formed the west wall of the coulee. An occasional bird fluttered into one of the crevices that marred the face of the cliff, seeking shelter for the night. The only sound that disturbed the oppressive silence was that produced by the horses cropping the succulent grass and the drip, drip of the water in the pail. The conversation at the camp fire had ceased. Gully noticing this glanced toward the small group of men assembled there in search of the cause; apparently there was none. The lunch box had been brought from the wagon and stood open near the camp fire; the blanket rolls had been thrown into a pile off to one side, and reclining against this, with his back toward the fire, young Jack Norton sat and gazed wistfully down the coulee. Gully noted the expression on the young man's face and wondered at its seriousness. He had never questioned Norton as to his affairs, and such knowledge as he had gained of the young man's life had been volunteered by him. That he was from the south, Texas he thought, and that he had left his home the year before, when he had reached his twenty-first birthday. No reference had ever been made by him as to his relatives or home. He had come into the neighborhood where Gully met him with a party consisting of several different families, none of whom had known or seen him until he happened to drive out from the station with a number of prospective settlers under the guidance of a real estate agent who had located the majority of them. His pleasing personality had won him much favor at the literary society, where he took an active part. Being the possessor of a splendid voice his singing was highly appreciated, and Travis Gully recalled the fact that Miss Anderson, the school teacher, had at one time expressed the opinion that his education was far above the average. Yet knowing as little as he did, Gully's heart went out to the lonely young fellow, and he attributed his failure as a homesteader to the lack of advice and encouragement, so he determined, if the opportunity presented itself, and it probably would on this trip, to speak to him and to try and persuade him to remain on his claim and try again the following year. Darkness had now fallen, and when additional fuel had been thrown onto the dying embers of the camp fire and flared up, illuminating the surroundings, Gully called to Jack Norton to come and lend a helping hand with the horses and to another member of the party to get the pail of water that had accumulated, after which he returned to the wagon, and when his horses had been fed he joined the others at the fire. No time was lost. After supper the blankets were spread and all were soon sleeping soundly. Nothing disturbed their slumber. The prowling coyote, scenting the remains of the supper on the cool night air, sent up its mournful wail to the dim stars, and the flutter of birds wings, as the owls routed them from their refuge in the rocks, were the only sounds to be heard. The campers were aroused the next morning by the restless pawing of the horses who, realizing that they were in a strange locality, were anxious for their feed, that they might be on the road. Travis Gully was awakened by one of his companions calling to him and saying that he was afraid something had gone wrong with the horses. Springing from beneath his blankets, he hurried over to where they were tied, but could find no cause for their nervous actions. He gave them their morning allowance of hay and after they had quieted down and begun eating he returned to the camp, and it being then broad daylight, he raked together the charred ends of the partially burned sagebrush and started the fire. Calling to his companions to "Roll out," he took the pail and started to catch some water at the dripping spring; as he did so, he noticed that Jack Norton was not in camp. His neatly rolled blankets were laying at the point where he had chosen to make his bed. Gully knew that he had slept there, for he had spoken to him after going to bed. Thinking that he had probably gotten up early and had strolled a little way from camp, he gave the matter no further concern. Upon his return from getting the water his companions asked him if he had seen Jack; replying that he had not, but that he had noticed his absence and that he supposed he had gone for a walk, they passed the matter by and proceeded with the preparation of the coffee for breakfast. No hurried preparations for their departure were made, as they intended to remain in camp until noon. The sun was several hours high before its rays reached the depth of the coulee, the walls of which cast their shadows across its full width. It was a delightful place to camp and while away a few idle hours. There were no trees or brush under which to lie and enjoy the shade, and the only spot of green that gladdened the eye was that of the grass at the foot of the cliff, but it was this very novelty that made the location so fascinating. Laying prone upon their backs they could gaze into the blue sky without being dazzled by the brilliancy of the sun or having a thing to obstruct their view, like viewing the heavens from the depth of a well without that same cramped or crowded feeling. After awaiting Jack Norton's return for a reasonable length of time without his coming, breakfast was eaten, and the coffee pot replaced near the fire that it might be kept warm. Travis Gully took the pail, and leading two of his horses to the grassy spot, was allowing them to graze while the bucket was being filled when someone called to him: "Bring the horses up here, Mr. Gully; there is lots of water." Recognizing the voice as that of young Norton, Gully tried to locate him, but the resounding echoes along the coulee walls made it difficult to catch the direction from which the call came. The professor, who had strolled over near the cliff and was picking up and examining the pieces of rock that had fallen from above, had also heard Jack Norton's call, and knowing that it came from the coulee wall above, was searching the face of the cliff in order to locate him. Gully, seeing the professor's gaze centered on the cliff, knew at once where the boy was and called to him to come down, lest he fall and get hurt. To this Jack replied that he would soon be down, and as he moved they could easily distinguish his form, a mere speck it seemed at that dizzy height, flattened out with his back to the wall as he worked his way cautiously along the slippery ledge over which the water flowed. His hands were filled with ferns and plants, and he shouted jesting replies to the anxious watchers as they called to him to be careful. After a few moments he disappeared behind a jutting point; a few minutes later only the top of his head could be seen protruding from a crevice; after a half hour he came into camp, disheveled, tired and hungry, but all excitement over his adventure. He ate his breakfast while Travis Gully and the others each took their turn at telling him of the dangers that lurked in those cliffs in the way of loose boulders, hidden crevices and rattlesnakes. Gully expressed himself in no uncertain terms about his leaving camp without first having told them of his intention, and pictured to him the possibilities of a fall or other accident that might have befallen him and they, not knowing where he was, could render no assistance. Jack Norton submitted gracefully to this scolding and explained that he had heard the professor express a desire to obtain some of the specimens of ferns, and as he too was interested in the geological formations of the coulee he could not resist the temptation to explore the bluff. He had left camp before daylight and gone down the coulee in search of a place where he might scale the wall; after he had reached the ledge he assured them it was no trouble to work back to the point where he was discovered. His only regret was that he had caused them any uneasiness, and that he did not have more time for his investigations, as the locality afforded splendid opportunities for geological research. He had brought back with him some beautiful specimens of rare ferns and other plant life for the professor, and his pockets were bulging with pieces of various kinds of stone with which, he told them, he proposed to amuse himself later. The professor was profuse in his thanks for the ferns, but expressed his regret that he had taken such a chance in getting them for him, and all the while his face beamed with his appreciation of the motive, the desire of the student, that had prompted young Norton to explore the coulee. He too could devote many happy days with these environments to the gratification of this same desire. The party resumed their journey immediately after the noon lunch was eaten and camped that night at the home of the wheat grower for whom they were going to work during the harvest season. When they entered the harvest field two days later, to commence the season's run, it was the same old scenes and endless days of toil and strain with which they had contended on their former trip, and nothing occurred to break the monotony. The professor and Jack Norton became inseparable companions, and planned many excursions together at some future time, when they proposed to explore the coulee. The idea of abandoning his claim and returning to the East was given up by Norton, and he talked incessantly of the wonders of the coulee and the desert. Travis Gully smiled at the young fellow's enthusiasm and encouraged him to renewed effort with promises of assistance to construct another building on his claim and with such other help as he might require. The party of homesteaders were not worried by the thoughts of the conditions at home as they had been during their first absence. They wrote and received letters regularly, and in every instance the reports received from their homes were most encouraging. Minnie Gully's letters to her husband were filled with recitals of incidents that showed very plainly that she was very much alive to his interests and had assumed the management of affairs on the homestead during his absence with a thoroughness of detail that was surprising. "I have bargained," she wrote, "with a new neighbor for two pigs and a half dozen more chickens," this neighbor having brought chickens and pigs into the newly settled district without first having investigated the source of the supply of feed for them, and was now compelled by its scarcity to sell some of his stock. Gully's wife, seeing the opportunity, had traded some wheat for the chickens and pigs, and as she wrote in her letter, had "made the place look more like a farm." Miss Anderson, she continued, "had proven herself a jewel. She did not see how she could get along without her. She had taken complete charge of the children and was teaching the girls to sew and cook, while she was leading a life of ease." Travis Gully read her letters with an amused smile and wondered at the change in her that had taken place. The constant flow of home talk kept him from getting homesick. And so the harvest season was passed, and when the morning came for the harvesters to return to their homes each had planned his work for the coming winter and was eager to begin. Travis Gully was to see the realization of his dream of a well on his claim and was anxious to reach home that he might complete arrangements with the well drillers and have them begin work before the snow fell. CHAPTER XVI. When the party reached the Gully home upon their return they found the members of their families had assembled there to await their arrival. Minnie Gully and Miss Anderson had prepared a good supper, which was waiting, and which was heartily enjoyed by the returned harvesters. They did not linger long at Gully's, however, as the men were worn out by their long siege and were anxious to reach their own homes. The second morning after their return Gully drove to the village in search of a man to drill his well. In this he was successful, and completed the deal before his return. The selection of a site for the well and the assembling of the machinery occupied his time for several days following. As the well drilling crew consisted of three men besides Jack Norton, who had arranged to stay with Gully until the well was completed, it would entail considerable additional work for Mrs. Gully, so Miss Anderson agreed to remain and assist her during their stay. In return for this service Gully was to haul the lumber and erect a small house on her claim. With these arrangements all complete and the arrival of the driller the work progressed nicely, and in less than a month from the time of his return from the harvest field, Gully's well was completed. The flow that was struck by the drillers differed but little from that reached in the dozens of other wells that had been sunk at various points throughout the area; the only variation was in depth, and this was due to the difference in elevation. The flow was abundant, as was proven by a test that failed to lower it, and the water was the purest. The sinking of the well had almost exhausted Gully's supply of funds, and fearing the recurrence of another severe winter, he was on the alert for employment. While hauling the lumber for the erection of the houses on the claims of Miss Anderson and young Norton he had learned of the intention of a large company who held extensive land interests in the desert to clear and prepare for seeding several hundred acres during the winter. Securing the address of the company, he wrote to them, proposing to take the work under contract. The small shack was soon erected on Miss Anderson's claim near the school house and school was opened for the winter. With her comfortably settled her earnings as teacher were ample for her requirements, and a sufficient amount was left to hire the necessary improvements made. This work was given to Gully, who cleared several acres, fenced it, and put her down a cistern similar to the one he had constructed on his own place. In the performance of this work he was assisted by Jack Norton, who had now settled down on his own claim, a determined and confident homesteader. The attendance at the little school had more than doubled since the winter before by the arrival of additional families with children. It had become necessary to erect another school house some miles distant to accommodate the increased population. This new school district was in charge of our old friend the professor, and the meetings of the Sunday School and literary society were so arranged as to alternate between the two districts, and debates and old fashioned spelling bees were conducted with the separate districts as contestants. Thus was the social life of the community kept alive and much simple pleasure added to the lives of the homesteaders. The arrival of a few young people in the neighborhood added to the dignity of the social functions, and as distance was a matter of secondary consideration with these hardy pioneers, it was no uncommon thing during the winter months to see a wagon being driven from the home of one settler to that of another, picking up a load of jolly people, both young and old, that were for some point, it might be ten miles distant, where a surprise party or some such gathering was to be held. They were always accompanied by an abundance of lunch. Ida Gully, who was not attending school, as she had grown to be quite a young lady, was a great favorite, and was always eager to attend these gatherings and was usually accompanied by Jack Norton on these occasions. The winter season was now well advanced and there had been no snow; the nights were growing colder but the days were yet clear and warm. Travis Gully had given up hopes of hearing from the company to whom he had written in regard to clearing their land and was working on his own place. He did not have sufficient funds to erect a pump and windmill over his well, but had substituted an old hand pump in hopes that he could make it answer his purpose for securing water for domestic use until the irrigating season came. He had installed this makeshift of a pump and was trying to devise some scheme whereby he could make its operation less laborious by attaching a longer lever, when upon looking up from his work he saw a party of men approaching in a vehicle that was being driven along the road that led to his place. The advent of a stranger being no longer a matter of interest he proceeded with his work after looking to see if he could by chance recognize the team. A few minutes later the barking of his dog announced the approach of the vehicle, and he saw that they had driven within his inclosure and were coming toward the house. Leaving his work at the well, he went to the house, where he awaited their coming. Gully did not recognize any of the occupants of the vehicle, of whom there were four. He supposed that they were some persons who were looking over the country, probably with the view to investing, as they did not look like the type of settlers he was accustomed to seeing. Three of the men had the appearance of business or professional men. One of them was well advanced in years, but the remaining three were very much younger. One of these he recognized, as they drew nearer, as a man whom he had seen on frequent occasions when he had visited the village, and supposed that he was only the driver. The party had by now driven up to the yard and Gully stepped out to meet them. Upon being asked if he were Mr. Gully, and after answering in the affirmative, the elderly man took from his pocket a card which he handed to Travis Gully, who, glancing at it, recognized the name of the company to whom he had written. He invited the visitors to "get out and come in." This they said was not necessary, as they had only a limited time in which to state the purpose of their visit, which they did by explaining to him that they had gotten his letter and had come with the view to looking the proposition of clearing the land over, and if they found him ready to undertake the work and his terms satisfactory they were prepared to enter into an agreement with him. First, however, they wished to visit the land in question, which they proposed to do before returning to the village. Taking from a wallet a blue print of the locality, they traced the lines and looked over the section numbers for a few minutes, and then asked Gully as to the roads leading to their lands. He gave them directions and stated that roads across the plains were not necessary, as a person could not get far out of the way. They explained further to Gully that they had brought with them from the East tents and surveying instruments which had been left behind in the village and asked that in case of an agreement being reached with them, if he was in a position to accommodate them with meals during the few days that would be required to survey the land they wished to put into cultivation. Gully explained that his means of accommodation were crude and limited, but they were entirely welcome to such as his home afforded. After arranging with him to come to the village with his wagon the following day, when they would talk the matter over, and if satisfactory would have him return with them and their equipment, they drove away in the direction of their land. Travis Gully stood and watched them for a few moments, his mind filled with the problem of the terms of the contract that he knew he would be called on to submit the following day. His wife having noticed the presence of strangers and seeing the thoughtful attitude of her husband after their departure came to him, and after learning the nature of their business, was greatly relieved and much delighted at the prospect of his securing the big contract. They both realized, however, that the success of the venture would depend very largely upon the continuance of the favorable weather, and spoke of the probability of it remaining fair. Returning to the well where he took up his interrupted work, Gully discussed the proposition of the contract with his wife. Never having undertaken anything of the kind, he was at a loss how to begin. He knew what it was worth per acre to clear and plow the land and approximately how long it would take, everything being favorable, but he could not get it in tangible form. Finally his wife suggested that he call on young Norton, who could probably assist him as to arranging the details. This was a happy thought! Gully had intended to give Jack employment if he got the work, so why not let him be a party to the deal, and let him handle the business part of the transaction? He would see Norton and talk the matter over with him, he told her. It was now getting well on toward evening and Ida had gone to Miss Anderson's to await the dismissal of school, as she frequently did, and would return with the children when they came home; and as Jack Norton usually walked home with them, Gully awaited their return in hopes he would do so on this occasion. In this he was not disappointed, for a short time afterwards the children were seen returning from school, and Norton was accompanying them home. Upon Jack Norton's arrival Gully told him of what had occurred, of the coming of the strangers and the arrangements he had made for the morrow, and told him if he would remain until after supper he would like to talk the matter over with him. Jack listened attentively to what Gully told him, but could not understand why he should be consulted in the matter. Thanking Gully for the invitation he told him he would be glad to assist him in any way he could. Continuing his work at the well, Gully did not again refer to the matter, and Norton went to the house, where he amused little Joe and the other children by romping with them until they were called to their supper. After the supper was over and Gully and Norton had strolled to the barn. Gully told him of his desire to have him take an active interest in the proposed deal, and explained why. He told him plainly that he needed the assistance of someone who was better equipped in the way of an education than he himself was, that they might look after the business features, and he made young Norton an offer of a partnership under the conditions of which Jack would greatly profit should they get the work. Jack Norton listened to the plans and proposal that Gully had to make. After Gully had finished he turned to Gully and asked: "Do you mean that you want me to take hold of this affair and look after your interest, and is it for this purpose that you are making me this liberal offer? If such is the case, Mr. Gully, I will tell you now that although I were only working for you by the day, as a laborer, I would still have your interests at heart as much as if I were your business partner." Gully being taken by surprise at the young man's earnestness, replied that such was his intention. "If you care to take an interest in the transaction, I need you to look after the accounts, the handling of the funds for the purchase of supplies that will be necessary, and securing the help that will be required, for you are worth more to me as a business partner than on a daily wage," he told him. Norton smiled, and extending his hand to Gully, said: "That being the case, I will help you," and added: "May I go into town with you tomorrow?" [Illustration: _For weeks they toiled with blistered palms and aching backs._] "Certainly," replied Gully, "I want you to draw up the contract, and be present at the signing." "Then you have drawn no agreement yet," asked Norton. "No," replied Gully. "Well, we will go to the house and see what can be done. We will at least have something ready in the way of a proposition to offer; and say, Mr. Gully, have you given them an idea of the charge per acre you are to make for this work." "No, I had not fully determined what it would be worth, and depended on your assistance in making an estimate," replied Gully. "Well, we will figure that out too when we get at it," and so saying, they returned to the house, and clearing off the table, sat down with pencil and paper to draw up the form of their first contract. To the uninitiated the process of removing sagebrush from and plowing land would be simple enough, and under ordinary circumstances and over a small area it would be, but in this instance it was different. The land was not a great ways off, a few miles at best, from Gully's home, but too far to go and come each day, as the working hours during the winter were extremely short, and too much time would be lost on the road, and besides, the amount of the land to be prepared was unusually large for one undertaking, as an entire section, some six hundred and forty acres, were to be gotten ready for seeding at the very earliest possible time. Gully and Norton had taken all this into consideration, and the extra preparation that was required for the work was an additional expense that must be considered. They knew that should they get the contract they must establish a camp on the land in question from which to carry on their operations. There must be shelter erected for both those engaged in the work and the stock that would be required for plowing, for they knew that the snow might come at any time. Gully did not expect another blizzard as severe as the one encountered the winter before, as he had learned that they were not of yearly occurrence, but he had told Jack of the terrible one they had experienced on that occasion, that in case one did come they would not be unprepared. Long into the night they worked, figuring out each little detail and drawing a diagram of the land. They allotted certain parcels of it to separate individuals on whom they expected to call for assistance. They knew that any of their neighbors on whom they called would be only too glad of the opportunity to earn the money by clearing their allotted portion. To those of their acquaintances who had no horses was assigned the task of gathering and piling the brush for burning. The arrangements as planned by Norton brought Gully to the front as a public benefactor, and the clearing of the land a community affair. He so arranged each little detail as to make Travis Gully appear as the moving spirit in this distribution of the opportunity for earning a few dollars among his neighbors, and so well did he contrive to eliminate himself from all but the responsibility that his own connection with the work was almost entirely lost sight of. Mrs. Gully and Ida sat quietly by and listened to the discussion of their plans long after the children had retired. At times Norton's enthusiasm and interest in the work he was doing would become so great he would forget his surroundings, and with shirt sleeves rolled back and neck band unbuttoned, he would sit drumming upon the table with pencil poised, ready to record the result of some mental calculation, muttering to himself. Unconsciously he would use expressions that were foreign to the Gullys, who would watch him closely. Travis Gully and his wife would wait patiently until Norton announced his solution of the problem, but with Ida the effect was different. She would watch his every movement, and as his thoughts became more concentrated the strain on her would become more tense and she would partially arise from her chair, with hands clenched until the nails left their imprint in her palms, and it would seem that she must call to him, and upon his first movement to record some figures or to announce some clause that he wished to insert in the contract, she would sink back in her chair, and glancing around nervously, resume her bit of fancy work, that she was learning under Miss Anderson's instructions. Travis Gully was too much absorbed to note his daughter's actions, but it did not escape the quick eyes of the mother, who suggested to her that perhaps they had better retire and leave her father and Jack to finish their work alone. Minnie Gully had never thought of Ida as anything but a child, and she had not taken into account the change this life in the open had wrought upon her oldest daughter. She watched her as she carefully folded her bit of embroidery in obedience to her mother's suggestion that they retire, and as she watched the knowledge was forced upon her that she was the mother of a fully developed, robust young woman, and the thought of the additional responsibility this knowledge brought with it was made more gratifying by others of comradeship. She now had a companion for the molding of whose character she alone was responsible. With a parting warning to the men, to "remember you are to start to town early in the morning and not to stay up too late," she and Ida went to their room. Gully and Norton needed no such warning. The fact of their going to town was a prime factor in the necessity for their working as they were, and as for staying up late, their work had to be completed before they could retire. As the work progressed, after the ladies had left them, Travis Gully was surprised at the knowledge of such work as Norton evidenced, and he realized that he had done wisely in taking him into his confidence and gaining his assistance. He listened without interruption to Jack Norton's plans as he outlined them, and to the results of his calculations as to the expense incurred and profits derived from the transaction as they were read with such an apparent familiarity with figures that he did not question their correctness. There was one question uppermost in Gully's mind that would persist in its recurrence, and that was: "Who was this Jack Norton, this waif of the sandy desert, who with the last few hours, with apparently no other incentive than a desire to help one who had befriended him, had developed into a thorough business man, with unlimited capacity for facts and figures?" While Travis Gully was asking himself these questions his wife, in the adjoining room, was busily racking her mind with the one thought: "Was Ida interested in Jack, and if so, to what extent, and had he noticed it?" She would know at the first opportunity. She would ask her, but she must be careful, and she smiled; Ida was such a child. Jack Norton, oblivious to the thoughts that were filling the minds of his friends, worked on at the formulation of his plans. It had been months, it seemed like years to him, since he had been given an opportunity to work at something worth while. It was true that the amount in dollars and cents involved in this entire transaction would be at best but a few hundred, but it was business, and recalled to his mind other days when he had worked out larger plans; yes, very much larger, where thousands of dollars were involved. He laughed whimsically to himself after he had handed the final product of his hours of work to Travis Gully to read. It was a recapitulation of the whole transaction, condensed and simplified in a manner that he was sure would bring it within his understanding, and as Gully read, his brow contracted with many wrinkles as his brain groped for an interpretation of the mass of figures, Jack Norton compared these existing conditions with other scenes in his past, when he had entered noiselessly through swinging glass doors and over dustless carpets into the presence of the older Norton, his "Governor," and submitted for his inspection a sheet of about the same dimensions containing, not a written agreement whereby one or more men do "agree to remove the sagebrush from, plow and make ready for planting certain lands beginning at, etc.," but a neatly prepared statement of his college expenses, supplemented with a request for an additional allowance for golf, yachting, etc. When Travis Gully had finished reading the paper Norton had given him he handed it back, asked one or two questions about things he did not fully understand, and upon their being explained, said: "It's all right as far as I can see." Norton took the paper, folded it neatly, and placed it on the table, and after assembling the scattered sheets upon which he had been figuring, he placed them in a neat pile, using an empty coffee cup for a paper weight, he handed Gully the folded sheet, together with the pencil with which he had been working, and after asking what time he proposed to start for town in the morning, remarked that "He guessed he would go home." To this Gully objected, telling him there was no need of his going; that he could sleep there and they would get an early start. This was agreed upon, and a few minutes later the Gully home was in darkness. CHAPTER XVII. Gully and Norton reached the village the following day about the middle of the forenoon, and driving directly to the one hotel of which the town boasted, found the strangers awaiting their arrival. The old gentleman was walking impatiently to and fro on the narrow board walk that did duty as a porch, and the two younger men were idly glancing through some well worn back number magazines with which the writing table in the one waiting room of the hotel was strewn. After tieing his team Gully approached the old gentleman who, having recognized him, had stopped his restless pacing and was nervously toying with his watch fob. Accompanied by Jack Norton, whom he introduced, he mentioned that "He regretted being so late, but the distance was great." This apology was offered more for the purpose of conversation than because he felt that it was due. The old gentleman acknowledged the introduction of Norton and remarked that their lateness had caused him no inconvenience, but added that he would like to get it finished as soon as possible. He invited them to enter the hotel, where his companions were waiting. These, upon recognizing Gully, bowed slightly, but remained seated when Norton was presented. The latter having noted their lack of interest in Gully merely bowed in acknowledgment, and remained standing. Upon a suggestion from the old gentleman that they repair to the room which he was occupying to discuss their business, his two assistants arose, stretched themselves, and lowering their trouser legs, which they had thoughtfully drawn up to prevent their bagging at the knees, they strolled leisurely toward the stairs to ascend. Jack Norton, who had noticed the actions of the younger men, one of whom could not have been much older than he, smiled indulgently as he thought how they, in their ignorance, did not deem it necessary to extend to them common courtesy, and mentally resolved to open their eyes on the first occasion that presented itself before their departure. Dropping back to allow the older man and Gully to precede him on the stairs, he had just started up when the youngest of the strangers turned at the head of the stairs and asked if it was necessary for "that fellow Norton to be present." Jack Norton stopped and awaited Travis Gully's answer. This was not long in coming. "It certainly is," he said, "Mr. Norton is my associate in this deal, and he is the one who will do the talking." This statement from Gully did not seem to create the impression on the young man that Gully had hoped, and as he turned and continued his leadership toward the room, Gully waited and taking Norton by the arm said "Come on, Jack." Norton only smiled and accompanied them to the room. Once inside the room, with the elderly man seated by a small table and Gully occupying the one remaining chair, the young strangers reclining lazily upon the bed, Jack was left to take care of himself, which he did by remaining standing with his hat in his hand. He realized that he was at a disadvantage. His name had not been mentioned in the original letter to the company, nor was he referred to during the visit of the strangers on the day before. The fact of his unexpected stay overnight at Gully's had deprived him of the opportunity to change his clothes, and he had worn his overalls and flannel shirt to this conference; but this fact did not annoy him in the least, for he felt that he had judged the calibre of the younger members of the party correctly, and he rather enjoyed the novelty of being underestimated by them on account of his wearing apparel. He was thoroughly familiar with the type of business man that he knew the old gentleman to be and felt no resentment toward him for his brusque manner. He had a bargain to drive, either for himself or the persons whom he represented, and the accomplishment of this was his object, even thought it took precedence over the demands of common politeness. There was no loss of time in coming to the discussion of the subject of the meeting, and without any preliminary remarks Gully was asked if he had prepared any bid on the work that he wished to submit, and in case his offer was accepted, what would be the nature of the agreement he would be willing to sign. As this volley of questions were fired at him unexpectedly, Gully did not immediately reply, but reaching in his pocket, he drew out the paper Norton had prepared, and after unfolding it answered that "He had brought with him this paper, that would give them an idea of what would be required and the probable cost of the work." Jack Norton, realizing that there was data embodied in the memorandum that he did not care to have come into the possession of the strangers just yet, stepped forward, intercepting the paper as it was being passed across the table to the old gentleman, took it, and refolding it, placed it in his own pocket, remarking, with a smile: "I think, if you gentlemen will allow me, that I can expedite matters by explaining existing conditions without the necessity of delving into figures just yet." The two men reclining on the bed, aroused by his action and speech, were now sitting up. The youngest, who had been introduced as Mr. Earl Stevens, had started to arise and interfere, when Norton, glancing in his direction, arrested his movements, and he had remained seated. Jack Norton, realizing instantly that he had the situation well in hand, could not resist the temptation to launch his first shaft at Stevens. He continued: "Your friend Mr. Stevens is no doubt a stenographer, and perhaps he would like to make notes during our conversation." Stevens flushed and admitted that he was not, and the old gentleman said he did not deem it necessary. Travis Gully, who was wholly unprepared for this byplay on young Norton's part, sat quietly by and awaited for him to continue. Excusing himself for a moment, Jack Norton stepped out into the hall, and entering an adjoining room, the door of which was standing open, he immediately returned with a chair, which he placed at the table, and began: "In the first place, Mr. Palmer," this being the old gentleman's name, "what is the nature of the improvements that you propose to make on this land?" "Well," Palmer began, "we intend to have it cleared of brush and prepared for sowing to grain." "What amount of land do you propose to have put into a state of cultivation?" Norton asked. "One whole section this winter, and probably more later," replied Palmer. "You have visited this land and are familiar with the conditions, are you not, Mr. Palmer?" asked Jack. "Yes, I was there yesterday." "Knowing that the land is isolated to a certain extent and that there are no buildings on it or water for the men and stock who may be employed by you, do you propose to make the necessary improvements in the way of shelter and water, or does the contractor have to provide these requirements?" was Norton's next question. "We had not contemplated improving the property to that extent until we had gotten some returns on our first planting," answered Palmer, "but should the prospect for a good yield look encouraging the company might put on substantial improvements in the way of buildings and wells in preparation for the coming harvest." "Then by your reference to the company, I am to understand that you and these gentlemen who are accompanying you are not the sole owners of this land. Am I right?" asked Jack, with a look in the direction of the two men on the bed. "I am the agent of the owners, and these two young gentlemen are surveyors who have accompanied me for the purpose of establishing the lines with the view to fencing, and to take notes of the topographical features of the land, which they hope at some time in the future will be irrigated," explained Palmer. And he continued: "These gentlemen have come prepared to remain until their work is completed. As for me, I shall return as soon as the details of the preparation of the land for seeding have been settled." And drawing from his pocket a bundle of papers, extracting one from among them and laying it upon the table, he leaned back in his chair and added: "My credentials." Palmer took the slip and glancing at the figures on it, turned it over and made some calculations, and seeming satisfied, asked if they had prepared an agreement. Norton replied that they had simply outlined it, and if the primary feature, the price, was satisfactory, the other details could be worked out later, as he understood from Mr. Gully that they were to return with them provided an agreement was reached. "Very well," answered Palmer, "if you gentlemen will remain and take lunch with us, we will be more fit for the long drive." They both thanked him and accepted the invitation. Gully suggested that it would save time if he loaded their equipment before lunch and be ready to start as soon as it was over. With this object in view, he and Norton left the room, remarking that they would get the team and return immediately. Travis Gully watched young Norton closely as they crossed to where the team was tied, but made no remark, as he knew that Jack was thinking and would soon express himself in regard to the interview that had just closed. As they were preparing to climb into the wagon to drive to the hotel, Jack stopped with one foot on the wheel and said, "Do you know, Mr. Gully, that I believe I've seen that man Palmer before," and then he added, "That fellow Stevens is a cad. Well I kept him out of it, anyway." Gully made no reply to Jack's remark about Palmer, but he thought Stevens was a "Smartalec." Norton, knowing that his opportunity for talking privately with Gully would be gone after they had joined the others at the hotel, apologized for taking the paper as he did, explaining that Palmer would see at a glance what a less experienced man would have to figure out, and there were certain figures on that paper that he did not want him to have until he had learned the extent of his authority. Gully told him that he had acted just right for he supposed that the paper was to be submitted as it was, and he told Jack that he would leave the arrangements of the details entirely in his hands. It still lacking a few minutes to lunch time, they drove to the store where a few purchases were made by Gully that had become necessary from the fact that the strangers were to be his guests for a time. When this was finished and the amount of the bill had been figured, Jack Norton asked that it be receipted, and paid the cash. Gully remonstrated with him and asked his idea for doing so. "We are partners are we not?" asked Jack. "In some things," Gully replied, "but--" "Never mind the buts," laughingly interrupted Jack, "remember you have the wagon and teams, while I have put in nothing and besides, their being there will make more work for Mrs. Gully and Ida. Understand that I intend to be a partner in every sense of the word." Gully made no reply to this, and loading on their supplies, they drove to the hotel and taking on the tents, baggage and instruments of the strangers, tied their team and entered the hotel to await the call to lunch, which was soon announced. The start after lunch and the long drive to the Gully home was devoid of interest. Norton had given up his seat with Gully to Mr. Palmer, and had contented himself with a less comfortable one in the rear of the wagon among the boxes and baggage. The strangers who had put aside their business suits and had donned their khaki, were being jostled and jolted in a most heartless manner by the rough wagon as it rumbled along, clattering over stones and bumping over the sagebrush that obstructed the road. Conversation was a burden to these men, who fresh from the East, were accustomed to more convenient means of transportation. Young Norton, who was secretly enjoying their discomfort, was inclined to be social, and in his efforts to entertain them, kept up a constant stream of conversation. He told them of the advantages of the locality, of the prospects of its being irrigated in the very near future by the government, and how, if they were wise, they would secure a claim before it was too late, and remain on it. He gave them a glowing description of his trip to the harvest field, and recounted his experiences while there, and as they showed unmistakable evidence of being bored he would point to the claim of some homesteader and tell them where they had come from and how long he must remain on his claim before he could make final proof. The noise of the wagon prevented Jack from hearing how Travis Gully and Mr. Palmer were passing away the time. He could occasionally see one or the other point at some object in the distance, and he supposed that they were getting along nicely. As for him, Jack Norton frequently remarked years after that he never had a better time, nor the road seem so short. They did not arrive at Gullys in time to establish their camp that night, as the road they had driven out necessitated slow driving. After the wagon had been unloaded and the horses cared for, supper was announced and the strangers accompanying Travis Gully to the house, were introduced to his family. Norton, who remained until after supper, knowing that Gully was not prepared to furnish beds for the three men, invited the two surveyors to accompany him to his shack, where he would make them as comfortable for the night as he could. He was careful not to mention the distance nor the scarcity of comforts at his home. The surveyors accepted his offer of hospitality for the night, and before they left to accompany him, it was arranged that they were to return for breakfast the following morning, and the day would be devoted to preparing their camp, and a trip to the company's land. It was less than two miles from Gullys to Jack Norton's shack, but to the surveyors who had been made tired and sore by the long rough ride of the afternoon, the walk through the darkness across the sage covered plain, with its numerous obstacles in the way of tufts of bunch grass, scraggling sagebrush and abandoned badger holes, into and over which they were constantly stumbling and falling in their efforts to follow Jack, who, taking advantage of the shorter route, had purposely left the road. To them the trip seemed interminable, and when they finally reached Norton's home they staggered in, and after he had lighted the small kerosene lamp, looked wistfully at the crude bed which Jack pointed out to them with the remark: "It does not look very inviting, but I suppose you gentlemen are tired enough to enjoy even these poor accommodations." To which Thomas Dugan, the eldest of the two strangers, answered: "I feel tired enough to sleep anywhere," and added, smilingly, "I wish you boys could see some of the places where I have bunked while surveying with the U. S. Geological survey party in Alaska." Norton's interest was immediately aroused, but knowing the hour to be growing late, and feeling rather played out himself, from the long hours of the night before, only remarked, "I would like to hear about it sometime, Dr. Dugan." Norton then asked his guests if they felt as though a fire would add to their comfort, if so he would kindle one, as it would not take a great while to warm the room. Earl Stevens replied that all he wanted was "To get to bed." "Very well," answered Jack. "How about you Mr. Dugan, are you chilly?" "Not in the least," Dugan answered. "Then you and Mr. Stevens may occupy my bed. I am sorry I have such limited quarters that to provide you with separate apartments is impossible." "But how about yourself, where are you to sleep?" asked Dugan. "Never mind about me, I am provided for," laughed Jack, and reaching under his bed drew out his roll of harvest blankets. "These," he said, "have been my only resting place for many long weeks during the harvest season just passed, and I rather enjoy the prospect of another night tucked comfortably away in their folds." Earl Stevens, who during this time had been busily unlacing and removing his leather leggins and removing his outer garments, was now ready to retire, and with the remark, "Any port in a storm," he rolled over to the side next to the wall and crawled beneath the cover. Dugan, after asking Norton if he could be of any assistance to him, in preparing his bed, and upon Jacks assurance that he could manage it alone, soon joined Stevens. Jack Norton, after putting out the light and bidding his guests good-night, was soon snoring contentedly. If they were not comfortable, restless or his snoring disturbed them, Jack was unaware of the fact, for he did not awake the following morning until the sun was well up. When he arose and went to the one small window with which his house was provided, and drawing back the piece of calico that Miss Anderson had neatly hemmed and with which she had presented him as a part of his furnishings, the room was filled with sunlight. His guests were sleeping soundly and were not awakened until the noise made by filling the stove with sagebrush aroused them. Jack lighted the fire and asked them if they were ready to get up. Dugan immediately arose and after dressing, followed Norton out to the bench, where he was provided with a brimming basin of ice cold water with which to bathe his face. Jack laughingly told him "The ice water was another reminder of his trip to Alaska." Stevens, who soon followed, was also provided with this primitive means of performing his morning ablution, and seemed much refreshed after its completion. Upon being asked as to how they had rested, both he and Dugan replied, "Splendidly." Norton realized that breakfast was probably awaiting their arrival at the Gully home and not wishing to cause any additional delay, pointed out Gully's house, and asked his guests if they would mind going there alone as he had some chores to do, before he could come, but would follow as quickly as possible. There being no objections to this, Dugan and Stevens left in the direction of Gully's. Jack Norton watched their departure for a few moments. He had made up his mind from the first that he did not like young Stevens but had decided that Dugan was a good sort, and was anxious to have an opportunity to know him better, and to hear of his experience while in Alaska. Going into the house, he straightened out the interior and supplying himself with pencils and paper for his use during the day, followed his guests to Gully's. Mrs. Gully was just serving breakfast when Norton arrived, and he noting that the places at the table were all filled, insisted upon her not arising to prepare a place for him, that he "Had much rather wait and eat with the children." As the girls and Joe clamored with their mother, that Jack's wishes in this respect be granted, she smilingly answered, "Very well then, just as you and Jack say, but run along now, and let us eat in peace." Jack was out near where the equipment of the strangers had been unloaded, preparatory to raising the tents, when a few minutes after, Ida came to where he was standing and asked if he had eaten breakfast so soon, she not having been in the room when Jack arrived, Norton answered that he had not, and that he proposed to wait and eat with the homefolks as he had gained her mother's consent to such an arrangement. Ida expressed herself as pleased and said she had avoided meeting the strangers and seeing him outside had taken this opportunity to ask him how he had managed to care for the two men as she knew his house was small. Jack told her that they got along nicely, and he supposed that they had rested well, as he had heard no complaint and he related how he had led them across the sagebrush in the dark and expressed the opinion that if anything would induce sleep, such a trip as he had given them surely would. Ida laughed merrily at Jack's description of the manner in which the two surveyors had stumbled along in the dark, but asked if it was not equally hard on him. Assuring her that he was familiar with the route over which they had gone they chatted on until Joe came running from the house calling to them, "Mamma said come to breakfast." As they went to the house in response to this summons, they passed Gully and the strangers, who were on their way out to where the equipment lay. Travis Gully, calling to Jack to wait a moment, came back and told him when he had finished eating, to send Joe out and let him know, as he wanted to arrange some plans for the day with him privately. Norton promised to do so, and as he turned to rejoin Ida, who was waiting, found her embarrassed and annoyed by the constant staring of Stevens, who had stopped to await Gully's coming, but as she did not mention the matter, Jack did not let her know that he had noticed it. After his breakfast was eaten, Jack sent Joe to tell his father, and when Gully, after excusing himself for a few moments, left the strangers, and came to the house, where Jack was awaiting him in the kitchen. He told him that he had been thinking the matter of the contract over, and thought it a good idea to have a talk with some of their neighbors and make sure of their help before binding themselves to an agreement. "How do you propose to manage it?" asked Jack. "I thought you might take one of the teams and go see such of those as you could, while I get the tents up, and upon your return we could drive over and see the land," answered Gully. Jack thought for a moment before he replied to this proposition. "I'll tell you," he finally said, "tomorrow night the literary society meets. We will attend the meeting, leaving these men here. They would not be interested, and while we are there we can take the matter up with those we want to see." "But how about the contract?" asked Gully. "Ought it be signed, or can it wait a day or two?" "Let it wait," replied Jack. So they went together where the strangers were waiting, and in a short time, two tents were raised, and made fairly comfortable, and the strangers had taken up their quarters. Mr. Palmer, with a rough board table, and his suit case containing maps and papers occupying one, and Dugan and Stevens with their surveying instruments, the other. CHAPTER XVIII. It was now approaching the Holiday season, and there was as yet no indications of a severe winter. There had been sufficient frost to kill the grass, but stock was doing nicely on the range and little feeding was required. No especial arrangements had been made for the seasons entertainment, everyone seemed to be interested in the progress of the preparations for work on the big contract. It was generally known that it was secured by Gully and Norton and the neighbors were anxiously awaiting the time for actual work to begin. The call for help among them on the night of the literary meeting, had been gladly responded to, and almost daily requests for work were being received from persons who lived many miles distant. The deal had been successfully consummated and Mr. Palmer had returned to the East. The surveyors Dugan and Stevens were eagerly endeavoring to complete their part of the work, in order to return to their homes in time for the Holiday festivities. Travis Gully and Jack Norton who had secured additional teams, were busily hauling material for the erection of shelters, and feed, to the point on the company's land, that had been selected for the establishment of the main camp. Fresh water was to be hauled daily from Gully's well in a huge tank that had been constructed for this purpose, and everything was to be gotten in readiness for work to begin immediately after the new year. Jack Norton and Dugan became great friends, and the latter spent many nights with Jack when they would sit for hours by the roaring sheet iron stove, while Jack listened in boyish eagerness to the older mans accounts of his experiences while in Alaska with the Geological survey. Dugan soon discovered that Jack's hobby was geology, and he could talk learnedly on that subject, so it welded their friendship all the stronger. Miss Anderson came almost daily after school, to assist Mrs. Gully in preparing a few trinkets for Christmas, and they would sit at night and plan for Ida's future. Miss Anderson was especially anxious to keep Ida, who was peculiarly adapted to, and took such an interest in fancy needle work under her care and instruction, and she also taught her how to prepare and serve such dainty dishes as the means at their hand permitted. Minnie Gully could see, and appreciated Miss Anderson's interest in Ida, for the girl had never until now, had an opportunity to learn, and no one could find fault with Miss Anderson as a teacher. In fact, Ida was rapidly developing into a very able young lady and was beginning to show the traces of refinement that she had no doubt, as Miss Anderson expressed it, inherited from her mother, although the latters natural inclinations in this respect had lain dormant up to within the last two years. She was proud of Ida and missed no opportunity to refer to the progress her pupil was making. The lines having been all established and nothing left but the topographical map of the land to be completed, and most of the data for this having been obtained, the greater part of young Stevens work consisted of draughting and the compilation of the data. He did not join in the conversation with the men, and his only occupation while not at his work, seemed to be seeking an opportunity of forcing his attentions on Ida Gully. In this he was frustrated by the young lady herself, who avoided him except at such times as he came to his meals. Occasionally he came to the house during the evening, ostensibly to talk with her father, but usually ignored Gully, but he gained no opportunity to speak with her except in the presence of either Miss Anderson or her mother. On one such occasion he asked Miss Anderson why so able a person as she should waste her talent by remaining in such a wilderness, and then fixing his gaze on Ida, busily engaged on her fancy work, quoted: "_Many a rose is born, To blush, unseen, And waste its fragrance; On the desert air._" Miss Anderson replied that she would not consider her time or talent wasted if she could restore to the world just one of these desert roses to which he referred, in all its native simplicity. For, she continued, without such talent as I possess, to protect it, the contaminating influence that surrounds the desert, might invade the retreat of the rose and cast its blight upon it. Stevens was not expecting this thrust, and parried by saying that the contaminating influence, civilization, to which Miss Anderson evidently referred, would probably invade their retreat within the near future, for from what he had seen and learned, during his stay in the locality, the country would soon make rapid strides and would become an active agricultural center. "We certainly hope so, and with that expectation, we shall continue to prepare ourselves to blend with the changed conditions, when it does come. But for the present we are contented," she answered. Ida cast an appreciative glance at Miss Anderson and secretly resolved to place herself completely in her hand, in hopes that she too might acquire her dignified manner and conversational power. At last the work of the surveyors was finished, and the tents were lowered and packed with their instruments, ready for their return. Gully was to drive them to the village. Dugan and Stevens had spent the last night of their stay with Jack, in his shack, under the same conditions they had the first, with the exception that they now knew Norton--Dugan to respect and Stevens to fear this young man who had surprised them both with his apparent business ability and his gentlemanly manner. Travis Gully drove away with the two men, after the family had bidden them goodbye. Norton and Miss Anderson were present to pay their respects to the departing guests. Norton requested that they lose no opportunity to speak a favorable word for the reclamation of the desert, and Miss Anderson expressed her hopes to young Stevens that his predictions for the future of the country would come true. The affairs at the Gully home soon resumed their normal stage after the departure of the surveyors, and as the preparations were completed for the work of clearing the land to be started, the matter of the holidays was taken up, and numerous suggestions for a befitting Christmas celebration were made. As only a few days remained before the time would arrive, hasty action was required. At Sunday school the next Sunday, the matter was discussed, and a committee consisting of Miss Anderson, Jack Norton and The Professor were appointed to take charge of the affair, and all felt satisfied that in these competent hands success was assured. The Holiday vacation of two weeks which Miss Anderson and the Professor gave their schools gave ample time for the preparations and a splendid time was had at the entertainment, but to those who were present the Christmas before at the old sagebrush tree, there was something missing. They could not define what, but the same neighborly feeling did not exist. This was probably due to their increased number and the introduction of new characters among them. Snow began to fall in small flurries during the Holidays, but not in sufficient quantities as to interfere with the plans for work. Immediately after the New Year Gully moved with his family to the company's land where Mrs. Gully and Ida were to cook for the men employed on the work. The fall of snow, though light, interfered with plowing, but the removal of sagebrush progressed rapidly. This was accomplished by hitching two or more horses at each end of a steel rail, procured at the railroad, and by means of which the sagebrush was dragged or broken from the land. The men and children followed this contrivance, gathering the brush and piling it ready for burning. Everything progressed splendidly, the favorable weather kept the range open and thus the supply of feed for the horses was conserved. Most of the land was cleared of brush before the season for plowing arrived, and when it came, which was at an exceptionally early date, every team was available for this service and was put to work. Travis Gully, whose duty it was to keep supplies in the way of provisions and water at the camp, was kept constantly on the road, either to the village or his well. Jack Norton looked after the allotment of parcels of land to be plowed and kept track of the work accomplished by each of those engaged. This, together with the accounts and correspondence incident to the work, required all of his time, but under his able management the work was so systemized that it was completed some weeks in advance of the time specified in the contract. Encouraged by this fact he suggested to Gully that they put in a bid with the company for seeding and fencing the land, which they did and were awarded the contract for this also. It was a very successful winter for both Gully and Norton. While they had been most liberal in their payments to their neighbors who had been employed by them, the final accounting showed flattering results. Travis Gully had sufficient funds to install a much better pumping plant at his well than he had dreamed of. Instead of the windmill he purchased a gasoline engine and one of the most recently invented pumps, the capacity of his pumping plant was sufficient to furnish water for irrigation of forty acres. Jack Norton bought a wagon and team for his own use, and made extensive improvements on his claim, among which was a well with a windmill, and a much needed addition to his house. The seeding of their own places to grain, was but a small task as compared to the one they had just completed, and was soon accomplished. As the spring season advanced and the young grain came up and began to show a faint tinge of green that was noticeable at a distance, Gully and Norton decided to visit the companys land and view the results of their work. The prospects there were even better than at their own homes. The grain having been sown earlier, was farther advanced and made a much better showing. As the two men strolled over the immense field of young grain they could recall to their minds the scenes in the harvest fields that they had witnessed the fall before, and shifted the scene of action to their own immediate neighborhood. Jack Norton, in his pride at the promising outlook, wrote to Mr. Palmer and gave him a glowing description of what the probable outcome would be. A few weeks passed during which time Gully planted a number of fruit trees and prepared a nice field of alfalfa which had just begun to come up. Knowing that the snow fall had been light during the winter and noting the absence of the seasonable showers of the spring before, he watched the small amount of moisture which the ground had contained, and saw it rapidly being absorbed by the increasing heat of the sun, and least the growth of his young alfalfa be retarded, he set his engine to going and gave the patch a thorough wetting. His trees were beginning to put forth their tender leaves, and as the ditch through which the water flowed to the alfalfa passed near the trees, it watered them also. The desert never looked more beautiful. The absence of severe wind storms during the spring and summer before had allowed the sand to remain smooth, just as it had been left beaten by the rains. Upon arising one morning, Gully noted far to the west, an occasional puff of dust, and then a spiral column of sand would mount heavenward and attain a height of several hundred feet, and scattering, would cause the air to become murky and hazy. Travis Gully's heart sank within him, for he knew too well the meaning of these signs. That it foretold a desert sand storm he knew, and his only hope was that it would not be a severe one. Saying nothing he went about his work, knowing from his experience during the first year in the region that it would be hours before its extent would be known. The children went to school as usual, but Gully kept constant watch on the approaching storm. By noon he knew by the increased movement of the clouds of dust that it was to be a terrific storm, and advised his wife of the fact. She suggested that he take the wagon and go to the school and bring the children and Miss Anderson home, which he did. On his way to the school he thought of Jack Norton, and knowing that there had been no real desert storms since he came, decided to drive by his place and warn him of its approach. He saw Jack clearing more ground, working contentedly in blissful ignorance of the impending calamity. Calling to him to come to the fence Gully told him of his fears and advised that he lash down his windmill and make such other preparations as he saw fit, as the storm would probably last for several days. Norton thanked him, and looking in the direction of the clouds, remarked: "I saw that coming, but thought it might mean a good rain." Gully smiled and answered: "Just the opposite my boy, and if you do not feel like being housed up alone for several days you had better hitch up your team and come over to my place until the storm passes." "O I guess it won't be quite that bad," answered Jack, "but if I see that I cannot weather the gale I'll try and work my way over, thank you." Gully drove off to the school house, and as he did so, he shouted back, "Better take my advice, Jack, and go on over to the house." Norton waved his hand and returned to his work. When Gully reached the school house he told Miss Anderson of the impending danger, and advised her to dismiss school at once as he feared some of the children who lived at a distance would have difficulty in reaching their home if not given time to do so before the storm reached them. Miss Anderson who had never witnessed one of these sand storms was now thoroughly alarmed at Gully's apparent earnestness, did as he had advised, and cautioned the children to hurry to their homes if they would avoid being caught in the storm. After hurriedly placing the school room in order and securely fastening the windows and doors she was ready to go to her own home, when Gully, informing her of the probable duration of the storm, insisted on her going home with him and the children. This she did and they had hardly reached the Gully home when the fitful gusts of wind started the restless sand in motion, and before night, the storm was raging. It was impossible to see any distance for the blinding sand and dust. All night it raged and as there was no sign of its abatement, Gully ventured out to attend to his stock the following morning. It recalled to his mind the winter of the terrible blizzard and it was just as severe, except that it was driving sand instead of snow, and they did not have the cold to contend with. Miss Anderson expressed herself as truly thankful that she had taken Mr. Gully's advice, and came home with him and the children. She tried to be as cheerful as possible but she now understood what had retarded the settlement of this beautiful country with which she was fascinated. She tried in vain to interest Ida in her fancy work, but this young lady persisted in standing at the window looking out in an effort to penetrate with her gaze, the mass of sand and dust, always looking in the direction of the school house and watching the road that lead to Jack Norton's home. Miss Anderson who noticed this, went to her and placing her arm around the girl, asked, "What is it dear, does the storm frighten you?" "No," answered Ida, "I was thinking of those in the desert who are alone and wondering if they were safe." "To whom do you refer?" asked Miss Anderson. "None of those that I can recall are alone." Ida's eyes instantly filled with tears and she exclaimed, "O Miss Anderson, had you forgotten Mr. Norton? He is alone and I know he would have been here by now if something had not happened to him." "Why bless your dear heart," exclaimed Miss Anderson. "I had forgotten him, but you may rest assured nothing has harmed him and it is probable because he is busy taking care of his stock and other property that he has not been over. This storm would not stop him, I am sure." And thus she comforted the much perturbed girl, but to herself she thought, "I knew it would come to this, and I do so hope that the feeling becomes mutual. Jack is so nice and I know I can prepare this dear child to make him a wife befitting the station in life to which I know he belongs." After this little scene at the window Ida clung closer to Miss Anderson, and while she had not confided in her, she felt that she understood and the bond of sympathy between them was established. The storm continued for two days, and when it had exhausted itself and before the atmosphere had cleared sufficiently to see any distance, Jack Norton came tramping across the plain to the Gully home. He was greeted with shouts of welcome by Joe and the younger girls. Coming into the front part of the house, he asked if all were present, and how they had stood the storm. He told Gully that he had wished a thousand times that he had come with him the first day. Travis Gully asked if he had been able to note the effect of the storm on the growing grain. Norton replied that he had not, for as he expressed it, "I have not been able to overtake the grain yet. The ground at my place is swept perfectly clean." Gully arose and went to the window, looked out for a minute, and turning to young Norton, said, "Let's take a walk, Jack." Norton, without replying, followed him out, and they walked down across the alfalfa patch. Occasionally they stopped and examined the ground and then came back to the trees. In a few minutes they returned to the house and as they entered, Gully was heard to remark: "Well, it's a good thing I put water on when I did." "What is it Travis," asked his wife. "Is everything ruined?" "No indeed," answered Gully. "I find that my alfalfa and trees have not been injured in the least. The water I put on the ground has held the sand and I now have the secret of farming in this country." "I shall get me an engine immediately," put in Jack. "Alfalfa, fruit and stock raising beats wheat anyway." "Do you suppose the wheat is all ruined?" asked Miss Anderson. "I am afraid so," Gully replied. "Gee," exclaimed Jack. "What a letter I have got to write Mr. Palmer now. Well, it is not our fault." They were right. The wheat was all killed and it was too late in the season to replant had they the means of doing so. A few days after the passing of the storm Gully and Norton drove to the company's land to view its effect. Not a sprig of grain could be found, and the soil had been blown from the surface to the depth of the plowing. The whole tract presented a most disheartening appearance. Both men expressed the deepest regret and sympathy for the unfortunate owners who had sustained such a loss and agreed that they should be notified of their misfortune. The letter was written by Jack, who in a plain, straightforward manner, explained to Mr. Palmer what had befallen the grain, and added that they were not alone in their misfortune, as those of the homesteaders who had no well equipped with machinery for irrigation, were also heavy losers. The more fortunate, however, among whom was included, their mutual friend Mr. Gully, who could get water on the ground, had suffered but little. He suggested to Mr. Palmer that he take the matter of irrigating their land from a well, equipped with pumping machinery, up with his clients. Sometime later Jack received a letter from Mr. Palmer, thanking him for the interest he had shown in their behalf, and assured him that in due time the company would realize the necessity of doing as was suggested in his letter. Sinking wells and drawing their water supply from the abundance that, it had been proven, lay beneath the surface. CHAPTER XIX. It was a bright November morning three years later that two heavily loaded automobiles were tearing their way along the Scenic Highway that had been constructed from St. Paul to Seattle. Each car contained three passengers besides the drivers, and piled high on the running boards and strapped on the back of each car was the baggage and camp equipment of the party. At a point in the desert along the eastern boundary of which the Highway ran, it paralleled the railway, and ran thus for several miles, and was intercepted by roads leading from homes that could be seen farther back across the sagebrush covered plain. These homes were not numerous, but each in the bright sunlight that caused the shimmering, dancing mirage to hover over the patches of dark green alfalfa and orchards that surrounded them, showed the tourists plainly that the conquest of the desert, in some instances, had been accomplished. On this particular morning, a wagon, drawn by four splendid horses and loaded high with bales of alfalfa that still retained the green of the field from which it had been cut, so perfect had been the process of curing, was being driven from one of these homes by a man by whose side sat a chubby faced boy of some eight or nine years. The wagon had just turned into the highway a short distance ahead of the rapidly moving cars, and as they approached with their horn coughing a dusty warning, the driver drew out to one side to await their passing. The first car rushed by and disappeared in a cloud of dust, and the one in the rear, seeing the trouble the driver was having with his now thoroughly frightened team, came along beside the wagon more slowly and asked if they could be of assistance in straightening out the tangled horses. Travis Gully, for it was he and Joe who were on the wagon, said if someone would go to the head of the leaders until he could get down, he thought he could manage them until the car had gone by. One of the men sprang from the car and was advancing to seize the horses bridles, when looking up, he stopped short for an instant and reaching his hand up to Gully, exclaimed, "Well, well, if it isn't Mr. Gully. How are you?" Travis Gully, taking his attention from the horses which had now quieted down since the car had stopped, looked at the man on the ground for an instant, and bursting into a laugh as he recognized Thomas Dugan the surveyor, he half climbed and half fell from the wagon, and grasped Dugan by the hand and shook it cordially. By this time another occupant of the car, who proved to be Mr. Palmer, came forward, and after greeting Gully, inquired as to the health of the rest of the family. Upon being assured that they were doing nicely, Mr. Palmer said, "I am certainly glad to hear it. We will probably be out your way tomorrow. We left Spokane early this morning and are going through to Wenatchee for lunch. The owners of the land you cleared are in the car that just passed." Dugan had helped Joe from the wagon, and was commenting on his growth, when Mr. Palmer asked Gully if they could assist him with his horses, if not they would go on as they wished to overtake the other car in the village just ahead. Gully assured him that he could manage the team, and with the promise that "we will see you tomorrow or the next day," Mr. Palmer and Dugan entered the car, and proceeded on their journey. Travis Gully watched them as they disappeared down the road in a cloud of dust, and wondered what motive could be bringing them back to the land on which they had already lost so heavily, but, with the hope that they probably had some information relative to the irrigation project that had now almost become a forgotten subject, he placed Joe back on the wagon and climbing back to his own seat, spoke to the horses and drove on to the village, with his load of hay. Travis Gully had prospered, and his dream of a home just as he wanted it, was fully realized. He had not developed all of his land, because the original forty acres upon which he had pumped water from his well, had proven so productive that it was more than he could handle alone, so he did not see the necessity of developing more. His home, as it was, seemed an ideal place. The trees which he had planted at the root of which he had buried tin cans, were now affording ample shade and serving the purpose of a wind break for his house--not that the wind had any terror for him now. It did not harm him now as he had mastered the situation and was reaping the reward of his perseverence. He could now gratify his cherished ambition for nice horses and his alfalfa fields and paddocks were the play grounds for some beautiful colts he was raising. Numerous cattle roamed at large over the open sagebrush range, and fattened on the succulent bunch grass, coming daily to the Gully home for water. They all bore the Gully brand and were a source of income to him. His wife and family were happy, and retained their health as all those who lived in this favored country did. Ida was now a finished young lady. She had gone to school in one of the coast cities, a school, the selection of which had been left to Miss Anderson, who had accompanied her during her first term. Jack Norton had fulfilled his threat made the morning after the storm three years before, to install a pumping plant on his place, and under the guidance of Gully was doing well. Miss Anderson, though never having put down a well, was residing on her claim, and with what she earned teaching the little school, was comfortable and happy. The main source of her happiness, however, was in watching the course of the lives of Jack and Ida, there was no longer any doubt or secret of their devotion to each other. It had come about as naturally as the other changes had come, and was looked upon as a matter of course. There had been no ardent wooing, no rivals with which to contend, just a companionship that had grown dearer as the year passed, and the time for its final culmination in a marriage had been set for the coming Holiday season. Minnie Gully was happy. She had never known that such happiness was possible. She only asked for one other blessing and that was that her parents would come and share their home. She and Travis had written repeatedly, making this request, but always the same answer came from the old people. They felt that they were too old to make the change, and wanted to spend their remaining days among the surroundings they had known so long. When Travis Gully returned from the village on the evening of the day that he had come so unexpectedly upon Mr. Palmer and Dugan as they were passing in the car, he eagerly told of what had happened, and upon his telling his listening family of their intended visit to the company's land within the next few days, they all expressed their satisfaction at the changed conditions that would enable them to extend to the visitors the hospitality that they had been denied on their former visit. Mrs. Gully and Ida, with true feminine instinct, immediately began to plan, and offer suggestions for the most befitting way in which to entertain. In this they were at a disadvantage, as they did not know whether they intended to make a visit of several days, or would return immediately after looking over the land. In any event, they decided that they would prepare for them one splendid meal, the material used in the preparation of this meal should be from the products of their desert home, and with an unlimited supply of fresh eggs, young and tender fowls, vegetables and milk and butter, the feast promised to be a bounteous one. In the mean time Joe had recalled the fact that Mr. Dugan promised him a ride in the automobile, an experience he had never enjoyed, and he was excitedly telling his sisters how much faster it ran than Daisy his pony could go. The morning after Gully had brought the news of the probable coming of the party he went to Jack Norton's to acquaint him of the fact and he and Jack discussed the probable cause of their visit, and agreed that it must be for the purpose of irrigation, as they had never attempted to cultivate the land since the first year that had proven such a dismal failure. So they decided to get together that evening and prepare a concise statement of their experiences and methods that would contain all the information for which the land owners would probably ask. For Gully and Norton this would be a comparatively easy task, for they had kept an accurate record of the items that effected the peculiar conditions in the locality in which they lived, and had applied them in a manner that had been very largely responsible for the success they had attained. The accumulation of this data, such as the varieties of seed to be used, time for planting and the conditions under which water should be applied to the land had been brought about by the introduction into their literary society, which still held regular meetings, of the reading weekly of a paper prepared by some homesteader as an educational feature. Miss Anderson was also told of the return to the neighborhood of Mr. Palmer and Mr. Dugan, and returned from school with the children that afternoon to learn more of their coming. And when young Norton drove over to the Gully home after supper that evening, his arrival completed the circle of faces that had gathered at the same place on the day of the surveyors departure three years before, and the thought that was uppermost in the minds of those present was: "What will they think of the change that has been wrought?" It was agreed that should the party of visitors arrive the following day, and their arrival could be plainly noted from both the school house and Norton's home, Jack was to come over immediately and Miss Anderson was to accompany the children home. After plans for their reception had been completed, Jack with Miss Anderson accompanying him in his buggy, left the Gullys, and after seeing her safely home, the night being fine, Jack drove for several miles along the dusty road in the bright moonlight, and as he allowed the horse to choose his own gait, he took no notice of his surroundings or the distance he had come. He wondered to himself what motive had prompted his actions, he might have remained at Gully's and spent a happy hour or more with Ida and plan for the future with her, as was their custom when together. But tonight he wanted to be alone. The announcement of the unexpected return of Palmer and Dugan had recalled his experience with these men on the first day they had met at the hotel and he smiled as he thought of the opportunity it had afforded him to match wits with them, and the satisfaction he had derived from the occurrence. Since their departure he had not allowed his mind to be diverted from his one purpose, the subduing of the desert sands and the forcing of the land to yield as his analysis of it had proven it capable of doing. He had, on two occasions during the past two years, accompanied the Professor on a trip to the Grand Coulee and had spent days of delightful research that had resulted in more firmly convincing him that the country as a whole was a wonderland. But this night, while alone on the desert, driving aimlessly along a most miserable road, his mind would dwell on his old home, on his past, and his old Dad, whose only child he was, of how he had left and had now for over four years, kept his whereabouts a secret, just to satisfy a hastily made resolve to make proper restitution for a boyish prank. Now that he was in a position to make good this resolution, another factor had come into his life--Ida Gully. At the thought of Ida, Norton's blood tingled, and tightening up his reins suddenly, stopped his horse. "I am foolish," he said to himself. "I must return and get some rest," and turning his horses head toward home, thought how proudly he would stand by Ida's side and receive congratulations of Palmer and Dugan for they should know of their engagement, and he would watch with pleasure, the expressions of astonishment their faces would betray when they noted the stately bearing she had acquired, and heard with what grace and ease of manner she acknowledged their expressed wishes for her future happiness. Reaching his home Jack cared for his horse, and going into the house saw that it was almost midnight. He smiled and said, "Quite a visit I have had with myself," and lost no time in retiring. Owing to the expected arrival of the strangers and the part he was to have in their entertainment, Jack had not planned any work for the morrow, so he lay and rested the following morning, much longer than was his custom. Upon arising, he went leisurely about preparing his breakfast. After eating he attended to his horses, and left the barn door open so that all except his driver could go at will into the alfalfa field. Returning to the house he dressed more carefully than usual, for he realized that the Gullys, whose real guest he was to be on this occasion, would put forth exceptional efforts in honor of the strangers arrival. His toilet completed to his satisfaction, he concluded that he would drive over to Gullys, in advance of the arrival of the party, and have an opportunity to explain to Ida his hasty departure of the night before, feeling that his appearance a little ahead of time would not be a breech of etiquette under the circumstances. Upon his arrival at the Gully home, he found the family assembled out in the yard, looking in the direction of the village a few miles out from which, along the Scenic Highway could be distinctly seen the dust being raised in clouds by two moving objects. Travis Gully turned at Jack's approach and pointed in the direction of the moving objects, and remarked: "Guess they are coming, all right." Jack answered that he supposed it was them, and bidding Mrs. Gully and Ida good-morning, approached Ida, and taking her by the hand led her into the house. Gully upon noticing that Jack had left his horse tied where the automobiles would probably be driven, and fearing that he might become frightened, took him to the barn, and after seeing that he was cared for, was just returning to the house as the first of the cars came up the driveway that led to his gate. Gully went out to meet them and recognizing Palmer and Dugan as the occupants beside whom a stranger sat. As they drove up and greeted him and introduced the third member of the party, Gully invited them to get out and await the arrival of the other car, and then go into the house. This they did, and as the driver of the car prepared to move ahead to make room, he, through force of habit no doubt, sounded his horn. Jack Norton, who was still in the house, was startled by the familiar sound of the auto horn. It was the first intimation of their arrival he had been given, so busy was he talking to Mrs. Gully and Ida. Being anxious to greet Mr. Palmer and Dugan, he asked the ladies to excuse him and went immediately out to the group of men who had now entered the yard. Recognizing his acquaintances he approached them with outstretched hand and was laughing and chatting. As the second car drove up and stopped, he turned slightly and seeing Gully approach to welcome them, continued his conversation with Dugan. The clicking of the latch on the gate, after the party had entered, reminded him that it was time for him to meet the new comer, and as he started to turn, someone remarked: "You have a nice place here, Mr. Gully." Jack Norton's face blanched, and the words of greeting stuck in his throat, for just one instant, and turning quickly around with a cry of "Dad," stood face to face with his father. The elder Norton stopped as if paralyzed, but instantly recovering exclaimed, "Jack, my boy," seized Jack in his arms and pressing his head back, the father brushed Jack's hat from his head and pushing his hair back, began rumpling and towseling it, just as he was wont to do when Jack was a small boy. Then recovering himself, glanced behind him as if in search of some thing, and simply said, "I must sit down." Jack Norton and Mr. Palmer assisted the old gentleman to the house, where they were met by Mrs. Gully and Ida, who had witnessed the meeting of Jack and his father, but not understanding the meaning of the strange proceedings, had started to come out, thinking something was wrong. They had only reached the door when they met Jack and Mr. Palmer, and returned to prepare a comfortable place for the stricken old gentleman they were supporting between them. Ida, immediately sensing that the occurrence had in some way materially affected Jack went, as soon as the old gentleman was comfortably seated, to Jack, and placing her hand upon his shoulder, inquired what was wrong. Jack laughingly assured her and told her that everything was far from being wrong, that the old gentleman was his father, and that they had met by the merest chance, adding that he would explain in a few moments, as soon as he was assured that his father was all right. Mrs. Gully hastily secured a glass of cold water, which revived the old gentleman, and the rest of the party came in with Travis Gully and Mr. Dugan. Introductions immediately followed the entrance into the room of the strangers, and as Mr. Norton had sufficiently recovered to be able to arise, he went to where Jack and Ida were standing, and with an amused twinkle in his eyes asked of his son: "Am I entitled to an introduction to this estimable young lady, Jack?" Jack was plainly embarrassed by his thoughtlessness in not having taken Ida to his father at first, and introduced his father to her, with apologies for his oversight. The occurrence had taken place in so short a time and so unexpectedly that the importance of it, except to Jack and his father, had not had time to impress those present. Travis Gully was at a loss to understand the situation, but felt sure that an explanation would be given in due time. His wife's greatest concern was that the excellent dinner which she had prepared for the expected guests was in a fair way of being spoiled by the delay caused by the occurrence. The simple fact of Jack and his father having met after an extended separation did not impress her as being very extraordinary. As for Ida, she realized fully the meaning of the happening, but did not take into account the probable effect it would have on the future as far as she and Jack were concerned. She had noticed, however, that Jack had introduced her to his father as Miss Gully instead of Ida, and in her simplicity she had not known that he had but conformed to the usages of polite society. She had never heard him speak of her as Miss Gully except in jest, and she was annoyed. The party of strangers, accompanied by Gully and Jack, the latter clinging to his father's arm, had again gone out in the yard and were admiring the beautiful scenery of the mountains that could be seen at an advantage at the noon hour under the bright glare of the fall sunlight. Jack and his father stood apart from the rest, and Jack was pointing with apparent pride in the direction of his place, while his father stood in an attitude of listening to his evident enthusiasm. CHAPTER XX. Burns Norton, Jack's father, was of Irish descent, and had been born and raised in the south. His father, who had been a prominent cotton broker before the war, had amassed a fortune that consisted principally of stocks and bonds, with occasional bits of land scattered throughout various southern states, that had been acquired by him through deals of such magnitude that frequently the land was absorbed and reverted to him in lieu of cash that he had advanced to his clients. The war was the cause of the loss of the fortune thus acquired, and the elder Norton, Jack's grandfather, had died soon after its close a poor man, having turned over to those who had tried to help him survive these strenuous times all the property, real and personal, that he possessed. Among the tracts of land thus acquired was one which consisted of several hundred acres situated in what was known as the Panhandle, in Texas, then arid and considered worthless except for range purposes. When he had turned the deed to this over to his creditors, the board of appraisers handed it back with the remark: "That is too far away. It is valueless and we will not take it into consideration," and then added: "Put it away for your boy; it may be worth something by the time he is a man." Burns Norton was just past fifteen when his father joined his mother, who had never recovered from the shock sustained when their fortune was lost, and with this tract of barren waste land, covered with curly mosquito grass, as his only property inheritance, he was set adrift in the world. He accompanied a party of human derelicts, who drifted hither and thither during the reconstruction days following the close of the war, and finally landed in Texas, where he worked on a stock ranch, and rode the old Santa Fe Trail from Quanah, Texas, to Topeka, Kansas, for years. As time passed, and the Fort Worth & Denver Railroad was being constructed, it passed through this land of Norton's. He had never mentioned the fact that he owned the land to any one, and it had been fenced as a part of an immense pasture, and when he went to the owners of this pasture and demanded that his land be thrown outside by the removal of their fence, they questioned his right to the land. Young Norton had no difficulty in proving his ownership, and went immediately to work improving it, and from this start sprung the immense wealth he now controlled. It was this experience that had prompted his investment in the land he had come to inspect at the time he discovered his lost son Jack, living over the life that he had led when he was Jack's age, and he understood where the adventurous disposition had originated, and he did not blame the boy. In fact, he had never blamed Jack for anything. He had been an indulgent father, and even now he was gratified by the boy's spirit, and although he felt that he had been badly treated he did not reproach him. Mrs. Gully came to the door and called to her husband that dinner was ready, and he invited his guests to come in. Mr. Palmer and Dugan, who felt more at home than the rest, answered the summons promptly, and as they were passing the well they noticed a barrel of fresh cold water which stood temptingly near, and jokingly called to Mrs. Gully that if she would provide them with a towel they thought they would enjoy washing outside as they had done on their former visit. Ida brought them towels and tin basins, and the entire party prepared themselves for their dinner at the well while Gully explained the workings of his pumping plant. Jack and his father were the last to come to the well, and as Mr. Norton splashed his face with an abundance of cold water he laughingly told Jack that he did not blame him for being so enthusiastic about the country if that was a fair sample of their water, "for," declared he, "although it seems to have been sitting here for quite a while, it is still sparkling and cool." Jack assured him that he had never seen or heard of a bad well of water in the country. Going into the house, they were seated at their dinners, while Mrs. Gully and Ida served. It was a revelation to these tired business men, this good wholesome food, that had been brought fresh from the soil and cool pantry and served in the simplest homelike manner, and they did justice to Mrs. Gully's and her daughter's culinary art by eating most heartily. After the meal was finished, Mr. Norton called to Jack and told him to look in the front of the car in which he had come and bring him the small satchel that bore his name on the tag. Jack secured the satchel, and upon his return and handing it to his father, the latter took from it a box of cigars, and after passing them around said that if the ladies had no objections, they would visit a while, and postpone their trip to the land. "You see," he continued, "with the discovery of this young rascal," with a fond look at Jack, "there has been a great burden relieved from my mind, and I want to enjoy it in my own way, for there is no dependence to be put in his next move." Mrs. Gully replied that she would be pleased to have Mr. Norton feel enough at home to choose his own method of celebrating the restoration of his son, but she did feel that she must protest the remarks about Jack, for they had always found him a most dependable young man. The old gentleman smiled at her defense of Jack, while that young worthy arose from his seat, and with mock gravity thanked her for her effort in his behalf, and turning to his father, quoted: "I stand at the bar of justice, Condemned in the cause that you plead; My only defense the simple request That you judge by the motive, not deed." Mr. Norton, now in the best of spirits, turned to those present and asked: "Shall we listen to his plea?" A chorus of voices exclaimed: "Go ahead; let's have the story." It was a trying moment for Jack Norton. He had not expected events to take this turn, but he saw that his father expected an explanation of his conduct, and there was no alternative. It must be made in the presence of those who had assembled at the home of his dearest friends, the Gullys, and he knew that in view of the relations that existed between him and the family, an explanation was due. Withdrawing his chair from the table, he placed it conveniently near for Mrs. Gully to be seated by her husband, and securing a seat for Ida, he stood directly facing her and began the recital of his story. "I do not know," he began, "that it was Dad's original intention that I should inflict upon you innocent persons present a recital of my boyish prank that has resulted in this self imposed exile for the past four years, and I wish to impress on your minds before I enter into details that I am not making a plea for sympathy or setting up a plea of extenuating circumstances. "For the suffering that I have caused him I am sorry, and I too have suffered. No one will ever know the hours of torturing remorse and regret through which I have passed. My own sufferings I have borne, I hope, with fortitude, as will no doubt be attested to by my very dear friends, the Gully family, who have never heard me mention in the slightest way my affairs, and who have been most considerate of my feelings in not asking, as they had a perfect right to do, for any information relative to myself or family, and for this evidence of their faith in me I wish to thank them most heartily. "With the circumstances attending my leaving him, Dad is thoroughly familiar. I had just returned from the Agricultural and Mechanical College of which my home state, Texas, is justly proud, and had joined him in Galveston, where he had moved his family to reside permanently after his retirement from the land and stock business, and at which place my poor mother lost her life at the time of the disastrous tidal wave which almost destroyed the city. "Dad, at the time of the terrible occurrence, had gone on a short trip to the northern part of the state to look after business interests, as he frequently did. Why I escaped and was not taken with my mother I never could understand, but by some caprice I was saved and cared for as an 'unknown' until Dad returned, which he did as quickly as he could. "After a search which lasted for days I was finally located by Dad, who has always been a most kind and indulgent father. Upon this occasion of my return from college, the event being my twenty-first birthday, I found him in a most generous mood, ready to grant my every wish. He took me to his office, he having resumed business activities after the loss of my mother, and led me through the various departments and told me that he was anxious to take me in with him and have me become familiar with his affairs, that I might succeed him, as he was growing old. "I thanked him for this generous offer, but being imbued with the idea that I was a thorough yachtsman, I changed the subject and began teasing him to let me take his yacht, the 'Magnolia,' for a few days' cruise with some half dozen of my boy friends. "The 'Magnolia' was a handsome craft, thoroughly equipped and furnished to accommodate ten or a dozen passengers, and as her crew usually consisted of three men, I had planned to take her out alone, with my friends as helpers, making two watches, there being six of us, and we would cruise to the coast of Mexico and return in about ten days. "The yacht was Dad's special pride and his only recreation, and he had bought and fitted her up at a very great expense. He had interests at various points along the coast and in Cuba, and this was his means of combining pleasure and business, by visiting these interests twice a year. I had accompanied him on all these trips, as he arranged to make them during my vacation from school or college, and I felt that I was capable of taking her out and returning her to her slip on the strand in perfect safety. "But Dad did not think so and told me I had better wait and accompany him later, at which time he would be pleased to entertain my friends on the cruise. This did not suit me, and right here I blame Dad for not being more firm with me. At any rate, he finally consented to let me have the yacht, but I was to take her regular crew to man her. This I agreed to do, but did so reluctantly. "Dad gave me an order to the watchman on board to have her provisioned for a ten days' trip, and to be made ready for sailing the following Monday, at which time she was to be turned over to me. Thanking him, I hurried to the slip and gave the watchman Dad's orders. He took it, and after reading saluted, and with the familiar 'Aye, Aye, Sir,' sounding in my ears, I left him. "It was then Thursday, and I had ample time to look up the members of my party and acquaint them with the success of my appeal to Dad. There was one among those who accompanied me on this memorable trip with whom I hope I may never come in contact. When I told him of the conditions under which Dad had given me permission to use the yacht, he laughed and said: That's easy; just forget to call her crew, and we'll take her out alone,' and I, feeling my newly attained manhood, answered: 'I'll attend to that; just you be ready at the appointed time,' and left him. But the seed had been sown that finally grew and produced the bitterest fruit I or any other misguided lad could ever taste. "I never mentioned the fact to the rest of the boys that we were supposed to have others than ourselves aboard, as I knew there were those among them who would have refused to accompany me unless Dad's requirements were complied with. "Well, to make a long story short, I did not call the crew, and as Dad was called away to St. Louis the Saturday before we were to sail he never knew of my failure to do so until after it was too late. I went with him to the station as he was leaving, and he took my hand and wished me a pleasant voyage, and handing me a generous check, he added: 'I shall expect you here on my return; be careful, Jack. Goodbye,' and that was the last time I saw or heard from him until a few hours ago. "We left the following Monday morning, and I will never forget the feeling of importance I experienced as the yacht drew out from her slip at the end of a hawser and was towed out into the bay by a noisy little steam tug which I had employed for the purpose. I knew that I was disobeying Dad, but felt perfectly sure of myself, and I had those among my party who were well experienced in sailing; besides, Dad was gone and would not return until we had completed our cruise. Then I would tell him of what I had done, how successfully I had managed the 'Magnolia' and he would feel proud of me. "When we were well out into the bay they let go the hawser and the little craft began to ride the swells. It was but a moment's work to run up a bit of canvas that soon picked up the breeze, and rounding to, we headed for Boliver Point Light, that marked the outlet to the Gulf, and as we entered the channel through which the huge ocean going vessels gained entrance to the bay, we navigated our craft successfully, and passed several of these, besides numerous tugs, lighters and revenue cutters, and this fact but convinced us more thoroughly of our ability as seamen. "I had not taken the helm yet, but at the request of one of my guests whom I knew to be an experienced yachtsman, had allowed him to see us safely through the narrows that lay between Boliver Point and the Jetties. After clearing the channel and entering the gulf proper I relieved my friend, and taking the helm, steered directly south, a course that almost paralleled the Galveston Island, but as the miles increased the distance from the southern end of the island became so great that we were almost in the path of the South American liners. "We were having a splendid time, and as the breeze was favorable, we decided to put into a little coast town whose buildings could be plainly seen glistening in the bright sunlight far ahead on the main land. We made this port, and after going ashore for a few hours, decided to follow the coast, laying close in, and to put into the next village, Port Lavaca, where we would tie up for the night. "I will not undertake to describe our trip, with its many stops and things of interest that we came in contact with at these quaint little settlements, half Mexican and half American, that lined the Gulf shore. "Passing over the next two days of our cruise, we arrived at Matagorda Bay, and being desirous of visiting the point at the extreme inner end of the bay, where the little village of Indianola had been almost completely destroyed by the great tidal wave, we put in at the entrance and spent the night at the town of Matagorda, intending to visit the scene of the devastated village the following day. "In this we were disappointed, for during the night a terrific gulf storm came up, and it became so severe before morning that we were compelled to abandon our berths aboard the yacht and go ashore. The next two days brought no signs of an abatement of the storm, and we were advised not to venture out until a more favorable time. Two days in this little fishing village caused us to lose interest in its novelty, and to a very great degree cooled our ardor and inclination to continue the trip. "The third day was very much better, and we decided to abandon our trip and return home, and as the force of the storm decreased in its severity, we started immediately after noon, intending to round the point of Matagorda Peninsula before night and put into the first harbor we could make on the leeward side. "We experienced no difficulty in getting well under way in the Bay, although the wind was against us, and by beating up first the inland shore and by tacking back and forth, we reached the point just at dusk, but we found the gale was almost as severe as it had been the day before, and we dared not venture too far seaward. As darkness came on we undertook to round the point to gain the leeward shore of the peninsula and thus be protected from the force of the wind. "I was at the helm and had given instructions to my companions, who were all alert to help, to haul down most of the canvas before we attempted to make the point. They were busily engaged at this when we glided out to where we caught the full force of the gale, and it required all of my time and strength to hold her off the point. It was now quite dark and it was impossible to distinguish the land. The light off the point was plainly seen, but it lay so far out, to mark the course of large vessels, I dared not attempt to round it, but must make the space between it and land, which I knew was ample, but I misjudged the distance and in a few moments we were hard aground on the shoals and were in a fair way of pounding to pieces. "Work as we would, she was immovable, except to plow further into the slimy mud, gravel and oyster shells of which the shoals consisted. We stripped her of every thread of canvas after trying to right her, thinking by so doing she would hold together for the night, but it was no use. We saw that she was doomed and prepared to leave her to her fate. "We could hear the surf breaking off to port, and knew that we could reach land easily, so when she finally rolled over on her side and her hatches went awash, we gathered what we could of our effects and went overboard. I do not know how my companions fared after they entered the water. I had no difficulty in reaching land, for after being hurled shoreward by the waves a few times, I found that I was not beyond my depth, and after being knocked down and almost strangled as the breakers came in, I scrambled ahead and finally found myself beyond their reach. "My first thoughts were for the safety of my companions, and I called to see if I could locate them. The sound of my voice was drowned by the roar of the surf, but in a few minutes I heard a voice calling very near me, and it proved to be one of the boys. It was no time for congratulating each other on our escape, so we set to work to try and locate the rest of the party. One by one we heard them answer our shouts, and as each came in they aided in the search, until the last was found. None seemed any the worse for their experience, and as we were wet and chilled, with no means of providing a fire, we did not know what to do, so we decided to move a little way back, and by keeping in motion dry our clothes as best we could, and at any rate keep warm. "We agreed to remain until morning and see what condition the Magnolia was in before we undertook to work our way back along the peninsula to the mainland. As the night advanced, I could hear the groaning of the timber in our disabled craft as it was subjected to the strain of the storm, and I thought of what I had done, and of poor old Dad, and I knew that the loss of the yacht would not hurt him as badly as my actions. I called my best boyhood friend, who had come as one of the party, off to one side and told him of my trouble, of how I had disregarded Dad's wishes, and confided to him that if the Magnolia proved to be a total loss in the morning, I would not return to Dad, and gave him a message to deliver to him saying that I would not return or write until, by my own efforts, I could replace the yacht. "My friends tried to persuade me to give up the idea, as such action would but add to Dad's trouble. But I was obdurate, and lest I be persuaded to abandon my purpose, I left them a few hours after our conversation without waiting to see the result of the wreck that had been caused by my folly. "After leaving my friends I followed the ridge of the peninsula back to the mainland and continued to walk until about noon the next day, when I was forced to seek rest, as I was completely exhausted. When I reached a little village, I purchased a flannel shirt and overalls, and my identity was lost. With the funds I had in my possession and the check Dad had given me, I managed to work my way out here, and you know the rest." Jack Norton had not been interrupted during the time he was telling his story. His hearers sat deeply interested, but when he reached the end of his narrative it brought them back to their surroundings. After a moment's silence, Jack's father, who had been seated with his chair tilted back, came down with a crash, and seizing Jack by the hand exclaimed: "Why, Jack, the 'Magnolia' was not hurt. Your friends brought her into port a few days later and she is now as good as ever." Young Norton was dumfounded. "How did they do it?" he asked. "By the aid of some fishermen and a small tug who sighted them in distress the following morning. She had only keeled over in the mud, and as there were no rocks upon which to pound she hung together and they soon had her righted and under sail. So you see, my boy, you have had all this suffering for nothing," explained his father. "No, not altogether for nothing, for I have learned a very great lesson; not to jump at conclusions and to abide by an agreement; and besides," he said, smiling, "I have acquired a home of my own and," stepping over to Ida's side and taking her by the hand, assisted her to arise, "Miss Gully has done me the honor to promise to share this home with me, which more than repays me for my sufferings. I ask but one other favor in this world, and that is your forgiveness and blessings, Dad." It was now Jack's father's turn to be taken by surprise, but he was too old a diplomat to be caught off his guard, and he wanted to know more of the step his son was contemplating before giving it his approval, so he bowed politely to Ida and answered: "As for my forgiveness, son, you have it, but it would be strange if I should go out into the world to look for a lost son and should return with both a son and daughter." But he did not commit himself. The rest of the party who had heard Jack's story and its happy ending came forward to congratulate he and Ida, and express their hopes for their future. Travis Gully and his wife, who had not yet been able to fully understand the situation, were happy because the outcome had seemed to please Jack, and they knew that after the strangers had gone he would tell them all about it in a way they could understand. Mr. Norton arose from the table and asked Gully if he could find accommodations for the driver of his car, as he would like to spend the night with his son in his home alone. Mr. Palmer, he said, could take the other car and the rest of the party and return to the village and await his coming. [Illustration: _The change wrought by honest toil and that magic word, irrigation._] Gully said that he thought there would be no difficulty in providing for him, and so it was arranged. Mr. Palmer and Dugan, with the three remaining members of the party, who proved to be some friends of Mr. Norton's who had accompanied him on this trip with the view to investing in land, were to return to the village and await Mr. Norton's coming. After thanking Travis Gully and his wife for their hospitality, they shook hands with them and the young people, and with promises to see them again in a few days, left for the village. Soon after their departure, Mr. Norton expressed a desire to visit Jack's homestead. "All right, Dad," exclaimed Jack, "we will run over there, and I will return later and get my horse and buggy." "I'll take care of them; you go with your father," said Gully. Jack thanked him and he and his father drove off together. Just as they were turning from the road that led to the school house Jack noticed that Miss Anderson had just dismissed school, and asked his father's permission to take her and the Gully children home in the car, to which his father consented. Turning back into the road, they soon met them, and as the car was turned around to pick them up, Jack called to Miss Anderson and invited her and the children to ride; when she smilingly approached the car and before she could express her thanks, Jack introduced his father. Miss Anderson stopped short, and her bewildered look amused Jack, who had stepped out to assist her and the children to enter the car. "Don't ask any questions now," said he, laughing. "But," she began, "I do not understand." "Of course not, but Ida will tell you all about it when you get home," answered Jack. As Miss Anderson entered the car and took the seat beside him, Mr. Norton remarked: "This has indeed been a remarkable day, Miss Anderson; a day of wonders." The children were assisted into the car, and Jack, with Joe upon his knee, sat with the driver. After they had been taken to the Gully home, and the children scrambled out, all excitement over their first auto ride. Miss Anderson, after being assisted from the car, thanked Mr. Norton and expressed the hope that she would be in a better position on the morrow to discuss with him the important events that had occurred. "For you know," said she, "I am still in the dark." CHAPTER XXI. Jack and his father then drove to his claim, and upon their arrival there dismissed the driver with instructions to call for them the following morning, and Jack added: "Please tell Mr. and Mrs. Gully that we will not be over to either supper or breakfast." After the driver had gone, Jack turned to his father and said: "I have learned, Dad, that one of the first requisites of a successful farmer is the proper care of his stock, so if you will accompany me, I will care for mine before we go into the house." Mr. Norton followed Jack as he went about his chores and noted with satisfaction the care he took in the performance of each in its turn, and passed favorable comments on the appearance of Jack's horses, their comfortable stables and abundance of feed. Jack was proud of his father's interest in things, and with boyish delight showed him over the place. When they entered Jack's house, the old gentleman was in an excellent mood, and had been joking his son about his prowess as a homesteader. He viewed the interior with a quizzical gaze and seemed to locate everything at a glance. He removed his hat and coat, and after hanging them on a chair, rolled up his sleeves and began removing the lids from the stove. Jack watched him for a moment, then took the bucket and went to the well. When he returned, his father had the fire going. "Pretty quick work, Dad," he said. "It's not the first time, my boy," his father answered, and then he asked: "Where's the coffee?" "In the box on the wall; I'll get it in a minute," said Jack. But his minute was too long, for his father got the can and was measuring out a handful of the contents before Jack finished washing his hands. Jack watched him prepare the coffee, after which he fried some bacon and eggs, located some stale sourdough bread, and taking Jack's table cloth from the table, set the dishes on the bare boards, and setting back the chairs, pulled up a bench and an empty box, and looking at Jack nodded toward the table and said: "Grub's ready." "Comin' up," answered Jack. "Want some butter?" "Nope, not with bacon grease," replied the old gentleman. After they sat down to the meal, Mr. Norton helped himself and remarked: "This is the life." He quaffed the steaming coffee with a relish, and looking across the table, asked suddenly: "How about the girl, Jack, who are these Gullys?" "I don't know, Dad," replied Jack in surprise. "I never saw them until I came here, but they are mighty fine people." "Naturally," said his father, "but what makes you think so; the girl?" "Not altogether," said Jack, "I have reasons to know." "In what way?" asked his father. "In more ways than one," was Jack's answer. "Specify," said the old gentleman bluntly. Then Jack told his father of his first meeting with Gully, of how he had sold Gully the lumber in his shack when he had become discouraged, and had then accompanied him to the harvest field, of how Gully had persuaded him to return and try once more, which he had done, and then when the contract for clearing the land was under consideration, Gully had taken him in on it and been the means of giving him a start. He explained further that it had been under Gully's directions that he had accomplished the success he had, and when he had finished, his father asked: "Is it out of gratitude for all this kindness that you propose to marry his daughter?" "No," Jack replied. "Don't you know," continued his father, "that in the station in life to which I can restore you, you can have your choice of hundreds of young ladies?" "This is my station in life," replied Jack, "and the best thing about it, Dad, is that I did not have to have you put me here, and as for Ida, she does not know any other life, and I hope she never learns." "Is this Miss Anderson a relative of theirs?" asked his father. "No; just a friend who has taught this little school ever since I came here," answered Jack. "A very able teacher," commented Mr. Norton. "How do you mean?" queried Jack. "This Miss Gully did not acquire her genteel manner from her parents, did she? And you say this is the only life she has ever known," said his father. "Miss Anderson has taken a great deal of interest in Ida," said Jack, "and she learns very readily." "Will you postpone this marriage until you have made final proof on your claim, and give me one year of your life?" asked his father. "No, sir," Jack answered. Burns Norton arose from the table and began to collect the soiled dishes and pile them together, and as he started for a pan in which to wash them, Jack said: "Let them go until morning, Dad." "All right, we'll go to bed then," answered the old gentleman, and the subject of the Gullys was not again referred to that night. The following morning after Mr. Norton and Jack had eaten their breakfast they went out and walked over Jack's claim. Mr. Norton asked him many questions about the climatic conditions and the possible future of the country. Jack answered his father as best he could, and handed him the paper he had prepared, giving an account of his experiences and observations, explaining to him that he had assembled the data contained therein for the express purpose of furnishing information to the owners of the land he and Mr. Gully had cleared, but added that he had no idea at the time who the owner would prove to be. Mr. Norton glanced at the paper, and thanking Jack, said he would look it over. He took specimens of the soil and told Jack if things looked favorable he would arrange to have wells drilled on his land before returning to the South. Jack assured his father that he would make no mistake in doing so, and upon hearing the auto horn, they turned and found that the car was awaiting them at Jack's house. After returning and arranging things for the day, Mr. Norton asked Jack how much time it would require to run over to his land, as he wished to see it in order to get an idea of what condition it was in and what improvements would be required. Jack told him it would require but a few minutes, and they decided to go before returning to the Gully home, which they did, and while there Jack's father said to him: "Jack, in view of the fact that you have made up your mind to marry this Miss Gully and remain on your property here, would you be willing to take charge of my interests?" "Why, certainly, Dad!" Jack replied. "I only wish that I could grant your request to accompany you home for a year, but I am afraid I could not, in justice to all, do so." Burns Norton turned to his son and taking him by the hand, said: "I respect your feelings in this affair, Jack, and am glad that you gave me the answer that you did last night, for I feel now that you have a purpose in life, and the determination to see it through." Jack simply said "Thank you, Dad," and they returned to the car and were driven directly to the Gully home. It being Saturday, there was no school, and Miss Anderson, who had remained overnight at the Gullys, had not yet returned home when they arrived. She had been told of the occurrence of the day before, of how Jack and his father had been brought so unexpectedly together and the circumstances under which they had been separated, and when Mr. Norton and Jack entered the house upon their arrival she congratulated them on the happy event and expressed the hope that Jack's experience had taught him to confide in his father in the future. Jack assured her that there would be no danger of a recurrence, as it would take him the rest of his life in his effort at strict obedience to atone for what he had done. Mrs. Gully, with Miss Anderson's assistance, had prepared a splendid dinner, which they told Jack was a reunion dinner, gotten up especially for him and his father, and they were to be the guests of honor. His father, they told him, was to be seated at the head of the table and was to preside, and Jack was instructed that when dinner was announced he was to escort his father to the place assigned to him. When dinner time arrived, Jack did as he was bidden and after they were all seated, he told his friends of how his father had played the typical bachelor homesteader while his guest the night before, and they suggested that they induce him to erect a shack on his land and become one of them. They laughed heartily at Jack's description of his father as a cook, and agreed with him that it would be nice if he would stay. Mr. Norton thanked them for their invitation, and said that nothing would suit him better, as he was fascinated with their country, and was sure that it had a great future; so much so, he added, that he had determined to improve his holding, and would probably acquire more. "But," he continued, "I am an old man, and have interests in other parts of the world that require my attention, so I cannot remain with you. But while I am here I want to thank you, Mr. Gully, and your estimable wife for the interest you have taken in, and the kindnesses you have shown, my son, for I have been assured by him that it has been very largely due to your action and assistance that he has been able to make his achievements so great. "He has also told me, as you know, of the honor your daughter has bestowed upon him by promising to become his wife. This knowledge is very gratifying to me, for as he has chosen to become a farmer, he has done wisely in selecting for his help mate one who is familiar with the life of a farmer, and at the same time one who possesses the grace and beauty that few are endowed with. I am proud of Jack's choice, and gladly welcome her as my daughter." "I feel," he continued, "that under the guiding care of such worthy people as you and Miss Anderson, who Jack tells me has watched with patient care the shaping of their destinies, these young people have nothing to fear for the future. "In a few days I shall return to my life, and I would like to change the plans of these young people and take them home with me for a while. It is but a few weeks until the date set for their marriage, and will cause but little inconvenience, and I want them with me. What do you say, Jack?" he asked. Jack thought for a moment before replying, and then arising, he thanked his father for what he had said and told him that his proposition had come so unexpectedly they would have to ask time to talk it over, but as far as he was concerned, he thought it might be arranged. "Very well," said his father, "let me know as soon as you have made up your minds, and I will tell you my plans." After finishing their dinner, Mr. Norton remarked that he supposed he ought to send word to Mr. Palmer and the other members of the party that he would be delayed for several days, and give them an opportunity to come out and inspect the country and return to Spokane with the cars, if they so desired, and he called to the driver of the car he had been using to tell him of his wishes and have him drive to the village with his message. As the driver came in response to his call, Jack asked his father if he would let him deliver his message. Mr. Norton, knowing that Jack was an expert driver, gave his consent and dismissed the driver, telling him that young Mr. Norton would use the car during the afternoon, and turning to his son, gave him the message to deliver. Jack listened attentively to his father's instructions, and when he had finished, went hurriedly into the house calling to Ida and the children to get their wraps and prepare for a ride to the village in the auto. The children eagerly sought their mother's permission to accompany Jack, and when this was given seized their wraps and joined Jack at the car, where he and the driver were discussing the merits of the machine. Mr. Norton and Travis Gully had gone to the barn and were inspecting some of Gully's fine colts and discussing their points, a subject on which Jack's father was an enthusiast. Ida was accompanied out to the car by her mother and Miss Anderson. Jack expressed his regrets that there was not sufficient room in the car for them to go also, but he had unthoughtedly mentioned the trip to the children first, and now he could not disappoint them. Mrs. Gully laughingly replied that she had waited until the present time without ever having ridden in an automobile, and she did not suppose that she would suffer by waiting a little while longer, but she added: "I do propose to have you give me a ride before the car is taken back to Spokane." Jack promised her a ride the following day, and after assisting Ida and the children in, jumped into the driver's seat, and just as he was starting Miss Anderson approached, and addressing he and Ida, who was seated by his side, said: "Make up your minds about your father's proposition to accompany him home. I think it would be just simply delightful for you to do as he has suggested." "What do you think, mother?" Jack asked, addressing Mrs. Gully. "Just as you and Ida say," she replied. "You mean just as Ida says," Jack corrected, and laughingly added: "I'm in with Dad on the proposition." And with shouts of goodbye and with much waving of caps and hands they started for the village. Mrs. Gully and Miss Anderson watched them for a few moments, and turning to go back into the house, Minnie Gully asked Miss Anderson her opinion of the early marriage of Jack and Ida. "I do not see that having it occur a few weeks ahead of the appointed time would make any difference, and as Mr. Norton seems so anxious to have them accompany him home, I would be glad to see them agree to his proposition, but I believe I would leave the matter to them to decide." Mrs. Gully agreed with her and added: "As we have made no provisions for their marriage I think should they decide to do as he asks, it would be best to allow them to accompany Mr. Norton to Spokane and have the ceremony performed there, and Ida be given an opportunity to prepare herself for the trip home with him." "An excellent idea," answered Miss Anderson, "and it would be splendid if you would accompany them as far as Spokane, be present at the marriage, and assist Ida in her preparations." Minnie Gully thought for a few moments before she replied to Miss Anderson's suggestion about her going and finally said: "How about Travis and the children? Who would care for them while I am away." "Don't worry about them; the other girls are plenty old enough to manage things for the few days that you would be away; and besides, I will be home, and I can come and assist them." "Are you not going?" exclaimed Mrs. Gully, in dismay. "I had not thought of going," answered Miss Anderson. "Well, if I go you must accompany me," declared Mrs. Gully in a decisive tone. "We will not discuss our plans until we have heard from Jack and Ida," Miss Anderson replied. In the meantime Burns Norton and Travis Gully had walked down into the alfalfa field and had stopped and were earnestly discussing the future of the two young people. Not the plans for their approaching marriage, but of the bright prospects of this beautiful country in which they had chosen to make their start in life, and the splendid opportunities it afforded as compared with those that had been given to them when they were their ages. Jack and his party reached the village in a very short time--as Joe expressed it, "by the time papa could have had the horses hitched to the wagon"--and upon their arrival Jack left them and sought Mr. Palmer, to whom he delivered his father's message. Mr. Dugan, who was on the street at the time and had seen their arrival, was at the car talking to Ida when Jack returned, and after greeting him Jack told him that the party would probably be out to Mr. Gully's the day following, and he was particularly anxious to have him come out, as he had a matter of importance to discuss with him. Dugan was much surprised at this request but promised to come. Jack purchased a supply of candy and oranges for the noisy youngsters, and they returned home after making a detour of many miles. It was almost dark when the auto party arrived home, and the children tumbled out of the car and ran into the house, all clamoring to tell of the delightful time they had enjoyed. Ida was assisted from the car by Jack, who was then preparing to drive over to his own home and care for his stock, when he was told by the driver that Mr. Gully and Mr. Norton had driven over in the buggy a short time before to look after things, and were expected to return at any time. Upon hearing this Jack joined the ladies in the house, and as he came in, he started in with the children telling of their wonderful ride, but seeing the inquisitive look on the faces of Mrs. Gully and Miss Anderson he asked them if Ida had not told them, of their decision? They replied that they had not had time to talk with her since her return. "Well, we're going with Dad," Jack announced. "We are so glad," declared both ladies. "It will be such a delightful trip for you both." They did not get to inquire further into their plans, as Mr. Norton and Gully came in from their trip to Jack's, and after supper was eaten Jack and Ida made known their decision, and agreed to abide by any arrangements their parents might make for their marriage and the trip. CHAPTER XXII. The following day Mr. Norton's companions came out from the village and the entire day, although it was Sunday, was devoted to a trip over the adjoining country, where the party was given an excellent opportunity to judge for themselves what the country was like. They expressed themselves as being favorably impressed and predicted that at some time in the not very far distant future it would develop into a great agricultural and stock center. Mr. Norton and Jack, together with Travis Gully, who had accompanied them on their tour of inspection, were brought back to the Gully place and left, while the rest of the party continued their trip toward Spokane, where they expected to take the train for their homes. Burns Norton, after telling his friends of his intention of having Jack and Ida hurry their marriage and accompany him home, explained that this would probably delay his return for a week or ten days, but he hoped to rejoin them at the end of this period in their homes in the south. He bade them goodbye, as did Jack and the Gullys, and the party continued their trip, leaving him behind. As for Jack, he had so far figured out the details of his plans for the wedding that he had persuaded Dugan to lay over in Spokane upon his arrival there until he and Ida joined him, at which time he would have Miss Anderson accompany them, and he wanted her and Dugan to attend them at the marriage. Dugan agreed to this, and he now knew what the important matter was of which Jack wished to speak. Jack, however, had said nothing of this arrangement, not even to Miss Anderson. For the next few days Mrs. Gully and Miss Anderson's time was taken up in making preparations for Ida's departure. Old Mr. Norton entered a protest against any preparations whatever, it having been decided that Mrs. Gully's plan of having the marriage take place in Spokane being the most feasible, be adopted, and she and Miss Anderson were to accompany Ida. Mr. Norton insisted that all the necessary arrangements could be made after their arrival in the city. The days before their departure were not only busy days for the ladies--the men too had all they could attend to. Mr. Norton, after seeing the effect produced by the application of water on this land, and realizing how simple a matter it was to secure the necessary supply from the inexhaustable subterranean reservoir that underlay the territory that constituted the desert area, did not hesitate to invest a few thousand dollars in bringing about the reclamation of his land. He arranged before he left to have a well and pumping plant installed on each forty acres of his holdings. Two of these wells were to be drilled during the winter that the work of developing the first two units of his project might start early the following spring. And he was farsighted enough to appreciate the fact that when these two units were brought into a state of productiveness they could be sold in fractions of ten acres each, which was sufficient land to keep one man occupied with intensive farming, for an increased value, sufficient to pay for the reclamation of the rest of his land. This work he arranged for Gully to attend to until Jack's return, when they would both be busy looking after the project. At last the day came for the departure of the party for the city, and all were ready and Ida and her mother had kissed each of the girls and Joe goodbye, and Jack had faithfully promised Joe that they would have an automobile when he returned, the party, consisting of Ida, her mother, Miss Anderson, Jack and his father, were driven to the station by Travis Gully, who saw them off on their trip and returned home to his lonesome children, who had never been left by their mother before. Upon the arrival of the wedding party in Spokane they were met at the station by the thoughtful Dugan, who Jack had advised by telegram the time of their departure and the number in the party, and then upon seeing Dugan at the station, had evidenced as much surprise as the rest. They immediately went to the hotel, where Dugan had engaged apartments for them, and that night Ida and her mother attended the theater for the first time in their lives. Miss Anderson, being escorted by Dugan, made the party complete. Two days later Jack and Ida were quietly married in the parlor of the hotel where they had been stopping and Mr. Dugan and Miss Anderson were their attendants, just as Jack had planned. A few hours afterward they were on their way to Galveston under the care of Mr. Norton and Dugan, who occupied the smoking compartment, while the young couple were left alone to assume as much as was possible an air of indifference to the actions of their fellow passengers, who had in some mysterious way discovered the fact that a wedding had just occurred, and were enjoying themselves at the young couple's expense. Mrs. Gully and Miss Anderson returned to their homes the following day, tired but happy and loaded down with trinkets, both useful and ornamental, which Mr. Norton, Jack and Ida had entrusted to their care for distribution among the family as a token of their best wishes. Short messages and post cards mailed along the route were received from Jack and Ida in almost every mail, but it was nearly two weeks before the first real letter reached the home folks. They had been in Galveston for several days, but father Norton had kept them on the go so constantly they had not had time to write, and the letter, when it did come, was filled with accounts of their many trips and delightful time they were having. "Oh! mamma," wrote Ida. "Just think! I have been on board the 'Magnolia,' the very yacht on account of which Jack left home. There was some paint missing from the wheel, and Jack told me it was where he had worn it off in his effort to keep her off the point, but of course I know he was joking. He has promised me a trip in this very boat, if we get time, but I have made him agree to call the regular crew, and I mean to see that he does it too." Then after a bit she wrote: "I am just dying for one breath of burning sagebrush; everything here smells like fish or tar." These letters from Jack and Ida always contained messages of love to Miss Anderson, who received them in quiet happiness, as if her life's work was completed when these young people were wedded. Just a while after the Holidays Ida wrote: "By the time you receive this letter we will have started on our return trip. We leave here for New Orleans and from there we go to Chicago, and Jack has promised me one whole week or longer, if I want it, with grandpa and grandma, and Jack says he is going to bring them back with us." When Minnie Gully received this letter she could hardly content herself, and immediately wrote to her parents notifying them of the coming of Jack and Ida, and renewed her plea for them to come. Travis Gully was progressing nicely with the work Mr. Norton had arranged for him to have done, and the first well was almost complete when he came home from the Norton land one night and had just finished his supper, when hearing a call at the gate, he went out and was handed a package of mail by a neighbor who was returning late from the village. Going into the house, he looked over the several letters, found one for his wife from Ida, and handed it to her, saying: "See how the youngsters are." Minnie Gully took the letter, and looking at the address, the date of mailing, and then carefully seeing if the stamp had been properly cancelled, just as most women do upon receiving a letter, opened it and read from Ida: "We are well and happy; happy because we leave here tomorrow on the final stage of our journey home. And listen to what I am going to tell you, mother--grandpa and grandma are coming with us. This is no joke, for their baggage is at the depot and we are to stay at the hotel tonight. Jack said to please ask papa to meet us next Wednesday." There was joy in that desert home that night. The final link in their chain of happiness was being forged, and would be welded the following Wednesday. Travis Gully looked up and remarked: "Well, this is Monday night; day after tomorrow; it won't be long. It will soon come." And it did. Gully, with his own family, met them at the station and those of the passengers who witnessed the meeting from the smoky car windows knew that happiness reigned in that little desert village for a time at least. The following fall Mr. Norton and Dugan came back to attend Gully's making of final proof on his claim, at which time he proposed to celebrate. Why Dugan came was a question that was to be answered later, but it was a well known fact that Miss Anderson had been receiving numerous letters that bore a Texas postmark. Burns Norton's project to irrigate one entire section of this desert land was well under way, and the success of the venture was so well assured that he had received many flattering offers from his capitalist friends who had accompanied him on his former trip, to purchase an interest in his holdings. These he promptly refused. But the credit for the practical demonstrations that had grounded his faith in the future of the country he gave to Travis and Minnie Gully, the homesteaders. THE END 
37487	----	produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.) [Illustration: FRONTISPIECE] Boy Scouts in the Northwest Or Fighting Forest Fires By Scout Master, G. Harvey Ralphson Author of "Boy Scouts in Mexico; or On Guard with Uncle Sam." "Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone; or The Plot Against Uncle Sam." "Boy Scouts in the Philippines; or The Key to the Treaty Box." _Embellished with full page and other illustrations._ M. A. Donohue & Company, Chicago COPYRIGHT 1911. M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Electrotyped, Printed and Bound by M. A. Donohue & Co. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. A MOUNTAIN MYSTERY 7 II. THE SIGNAL IN THE SKY 20 III. JUST A TYPEWRITER RIBBON 28 IV. THE AEROPLANE IN DANGER 45 V. THE REVELATION OF A TRAGEDY 58 VI. ABOVE THE CLOUDS AT NIGHT 71 VII. A KEY WITH A BROKEN STEM 85 VIII. FATE OF THE STEAK A LA BRIGAND 100 IX. THE CHAOS OF A BURNING WORLD 113 X. CHASING THE MILKY WAY 125 XI. THE LUCK OF A BOWERY BOY 137 XII. A MEMBER OF THE OWL PATROL 152 XIII. OFF IN A DESPERATE MISSION 166 XIV. THE BATTLE IN THE AIR 179 XV. TOLD BY THE FOREST RANGER 191 XVI. HOW A CAT TREED A WOLF 206 XVII. THE TIME FOR THE ROUND-UP 219 XVIII. TWO INANIMATE WITNESSES 230 XIX. THE MAN BEHIND THE SCENES 244 Boy Scouts SERIES EVERY BOY AND GIRL IN THE LAND WILL WANT TO READ THESE INTERESTING AND INSTRUCTIVE BOOKS WRITTEN BY That Great Nature Authority and Eminent Scout Master G. HARVEY RALPHSON of the Black Bear Patrol The eight following great titles are now ready, printed from large, clear type on a superior quality of paper, embellished with original illustrations by eminent artists, and bound in a superior quality of binder's cloth, ornamented with illustrative covers stamped in two colors of foil and ink from unique and appropriate dies: 1 Boy Scouts in Mexico; or, On Guard with Uncle Sam 2 Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone; or, The Plot Against Uncle Sam 3 Boy Scouts in the Philippines; or, The Key to the Treaty 4 Boy Scouts in the Northwest; or, Fighting Forest Fires 5 Boy Scouts in a Motor Boat; or, Adventures on the Columbia River 6 Boy Scouts in an Airship; or, The Warning from the Sky 7 Boy Scouts in a Submarine; or, Searching An Ocean Floor 8 Boy Scouts on Motor Cycles; or, With the Flying Squadron The above books are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent prepaid to any address, upon receipt of 50c each, or any three for $1.15, or four for $1.50, or seven for $2.45, by the publishers M. A. DONOHUE & CO. 701-727 S. Dearborn Street, CHICAGO BOY SCOUTS IN THE NORTHWEST OR Fighting Forest Fires CHAPTER I.--A MOUNTAIN MYSTERY. On a sizzling hot afternoon near the middle of August, in the year nineteen eleven, three boys dressed in the khaki uniform of the Boy Scouts of America stood on a lofty plateau near the British frontier, watching with anxious eyes the broken country to the south and west. "Nothing stirring yet!" Jack Bosworth said, turning to Pat Mack and Frank Shaw, his companions. "Ned and Jimmie may be in trouble somewhere. I wish we had waited and traveled with them." "Traveled with them!" repeated Frank Shaw. "We couldn't travel with them. We were fired--given the grand bounce--twenty-three sign. Ned seemed to want the space in the atmosphere we occupied at Missoula. Serve them good and right if they do get distributed over the scenery." "Never you mind about Ned Nestor and Jimmie McGraw," Pat Mack put in. "They can get along all right if someone isn't leading them by the hand. Suppose we fix up the camp and get ready for our eats?" The boys turned away from the lip of the cañon upon which they had been standing and busied themselves putting up shelter tents and unpacking provisions and camping tools, as they called their blankets and cooking vessels. They had passed the previous night in a sheltered valley lower down, sleeping on the ground, under the stars, and had breakfasted from the scanty stock of eatables carried in their haversacks. Early that morning a train of burros had landed their outfit at the end of a rough trail some distance below, and the boys, with long labor and patience, had carried it up to the plateau. The men in charge of the burros had of course volunteered to assist in the work of carrying the goods to the place selected for the camp, but their offers had been declined with thanks, for the Boy Scouts were determined that for the present no outsider should know the exact location of their temporary mountain home. Those who have read the previous books of this series[1] will not be at a loss to understand why the location of the camp in the Northwest was for a time to remain a secret, so far as possible. Ned Nestor, for whom those on the plateau were now waiting, had, some months before that hot August afternoon, enlisted in the Secret Service of the United States government. Accompanied by Frank Shaw, Jack Bosworth, Jimmie McGraw and others, he had seen active diplomatic service during the Mexican revolution, had unearthed a plot against the government in the Panana Canal Zone, and had rendered signal service in the Philippines, where he had assisted in preventing an armed revolt against the supremacy of the United States government. At the close of his service in the Philippines, he had been commissioned to investigate forest fire conditions in the Great Northwest. The boy had a wonderful native talent for detective work, and, besides, it was thought by the officials in charge of the matter that a party of Boy Scouts, camping and roving about in northern Idaho and Montana and in the southern sections of British Columbia, would be better able to size up the forest fire situation than a party of foresters or government secret service men. So Ned and his four chums had sailed away from Manila, reached San Francisco in due season, and, after receiving further instructions and arranging for supplies, had headed for the frontier. At Missoula, Montana, he had sent Frank, Jack and Pat on ahead, after giving them the exact location of the future encampment and arranging for the transportation of supplies. From the first there had been some mystery in the minds of the three concerning Ned's strange halt at Missoula. They could not understand why he had sent them on ahead of him, for he usually directed every detail of their journeyings. When questioned concerning this innovation, Ned had only laughed and told the boys to keep out of the jaws of wild animals and not get lost. "I'll be in camp almost as soon as you are," he had said, "and will take the first mountain meal with you." Yet the boys had reached the vicinity of the chosen location on the previous day, and Ned had not made his appearance. Naturally the boys were more than anxious about the safety of their leader. "Did Ned say anything to you while at Missoula, about an aeroplane?" Jack asked of Frank as they unpacked bacon and corn meal. "You know, before we left the Philippines," he went on, slicing the bacon for the coming repast, "the officials said we were to have a government aeroplane. I was just wondering if the thing would get here after we have no use for it." "He said nothing to me about the arrival of the aeroplane," Frank replied, "but I presume he knows when the government air machine will be on hand. It may be packed up at Missoula, for all we know," he added, "and Ned may have waited there for the purpose of getting it ready for flight." "What the dickens can we do with an aeroplane in this wilderness?" demanded Pat, wiping the sweat from his face. "We can't run around among the trees with it, can we? Nor yet we can't get gasoline up here to run it with. Anyway, I'm no friend to these airships." "When they travel with upholstered dining coaches in connection, and sleeping cars on behind," laughed Jack, "you'll think they're all to the good. If we can't chase around among the trees in an aeroplane," he continued, "we can sail over the forests and high peaks, can't we? Without something of the sort, it would take us about a thousand years to get a look-in at this wild country." "Well," Pat grumbled, "I only hope we won't get our necks broken falling out of the contraption. It may be all right to go up in one of the foolish things, but I think I'd rather take chances on going over Niagara Falls in a rain-water barrel." "I half believe he will come in the aeroplane," Frank said, shading his eyes with his hand and looking out to the south. "He wants to surprise us, I take it, and that is why he acted so mysteriously about the matter." "What about Jimmie?" demanded Pat, who would take almost any risk on water, but who was filled with horror the moment his feet left the solid earth. "He can't bring Jimmie along in his pocket, can he? And even if he managed to get the little scamp up on the thing, some trick would be turned that would land the 'plane on top of a high tree." "Two can ride an aeroplane, all right," Frank insisted. "Anyway, quit your knocking. Ned knows what he is about, and we'll wait here for him if we have to remain until the Rocky Mountains wash down into the Pacific Ocean." "Suppose we climb up on the shelf above," Jack suggested, "and see if we can find anything in the sky that looks like an aeroplane. I really think Ned and Jimmie will travel here on the air line." Pat fished a field-glass out of his haversack and passed it over to Jack. "You boys go on up," he said, "and see what there is to be seen. I'll stay here and cook this bacon. I could eat a hog on foot right this minute. Where did you put those canned beans?" "Never you mind the canned beans," laughed Jack. "It will be time enough to open them when you get the bacon fried to a crisp. I see our finish if you got one of the bean cans opened. Say, but I could eat a peak off the divide!" "Well, the divide is up there, all right," Pat grinned, "go on up and take a bite off it. On this side that ridge away up there the rivers run into the Pacific ocean. On the other side they run into the Atlantic ocean. Split a drop when you get on top and send your best wishes to both oceans. And don't you remain away too long, either, for this bacon is going to be cooked in record-breaking time." Leaving Pat to prepare the supper, Frank and Jack turned their faces upward toward the main divide of the Rocky Mountains, 4,000 feet above their heads. It was a splendid scene, and they enjoyed it to the full. To the north the green forests of British Columbia stood crinkling under the almost direct rays of the August sun, to the east, almost over their heads, stood the backbone of the continent of North America, to the south stretched the broken land of Montana, while to the west lay the valleys and ridges of Idaho, Montana, and Washington beyond which pulsed the mighty swells of the Pacific. Immediately to the north of the position occupied by the camp, and within a mile of the international boundary line, Kintla lake lay like a mirror in the lap of the mountains, reflecting peaks and silent groves in its clear waters. From the lake, ten miles in length by half that in width, an outlet flowed westward into the North Branch of the Flathead river. The level plateau where the camp had been pitched was not far from two acres in extent, with the bulk of the mountain to the east, a drop of a thousand feet to the south, and steep but negotiable inclines to the west and north. The lake was 300 feet below the level of the plateau, which was about 3,000 feet above the sea level and 4,000 feet below the summit of the divide at that point in the long range of mountains. There were peaks to the north and south which showed eternal snow and ice, but there was a lowering of the shoulder of the great chain directly to the east, so there was no snow in sight there. There were forest trees low down in the cañon to the south, and on the slopes to the west and north, but the plateau and the sharp rise toward the summit were bare. While Pat sliced his bacon and mixed corn-meal, soda, salt and water to make hoecakes, to be fried in bacon grease, Frank and Jack wormed their way up the face of the mountain, toward a shelf of rock some hundred feet above the plateau. It was hard climbing, but the lads persisted, and soon gained the elevation they sought, from which it was hoped to gain a fine view of the country toward Missoula. "Good thing we don't want to go any farther," Frank exclaimed, throwing himself down on the ledge and wiping his streaming face. "We couldn't scale the wall ahead with a ladder. Now," he went on, "look out there to the south and see if there's an aeroplane in sight." Jack brought out the field-glass and looked long and anxiously, but there was no sign of a man-made bird in the clear sky. "I don't believe, after all, that he'll come in an aeroplane," the boy said, directly. "Suppose he took a notion to get a motor boat and run up the north branch of the Flathead river, and so on into Kintla lake, down there? How long would it take him to make the trip?" "About ten thousand years," was Frank's reply. "He never could get up the north branch. There's too many waterfalls. Why, man, the stream descends several thousand feet before it gets to sea level." "Anyway," Jack replied, "if you'll get out of my way I'll take a look at the lake through the glass." "You'll probably see him come sailing up the slope in a battleship," Frank said, in a sarcastic tone. Jack, without speaking, turned his glass to the north and gazed long and anxiously over the lake. Presently Frank saw him give a start of surprise and lean forward, as if to get a closer view of some object which had come into the field of the lens. "What is it?" he asked. Jack passed him the glass with no word of explanation, and the boy hastily swept the shores of the mountain lake. "I don't see any motor boat," he said, directly. "Well, what do you see?" Jack asked, expectantly. "For one thing," Frank replied, "the smoke of a campfire." "I saw that, too," Jack said, "and didn't know what to make of it. Also, I saw a rowboat sneaking around that green point to the east." "That is what is puzzling me," Frank replied. "Years ago there was a Blackfoot reservation just over the divide, and a Flathead Indian reservation down by Flathead lake, to the south, but I had no idea the Indians were still about. Still, the people you saw were probably Indians. Suppose we go down there and look the matter up. We've got to have some sort of a yarn to tell Pat when we get back to camp." The two boys scrambled down almost vertical surfaces, edged along narrow ledges, slid down easier inclines, and finally came to the rim of beach about the lake. There, at the eastern end of the pretty body of water, they came upon the still glowing embers of a fire. Close to the spot where the remains of the fire glimmered in the hot air, they saw the mouth of a cavern which seemed to tunnel under the body of the mountain to the east. There were numerous tracks about the fire, and some of them led to the entrance to the cavern. "Whoever built this fire," Jack exclaimed, "wore big shoes, so it wasn't Indians. No, wait!" he added, in a moment, "there are tracks here which show no heel marks. What do you make of that?" "Must be moccasins," Frank said. "The Indians may still be in the woods about here." "I'm going into the cavern to see what's stirring there," Jack said, "and before I go I'll have a look at my artillery." The boy looked his revolver over, and before Frank could utter a warning, he darted away into the gloom of the cave. Frank did not follow him, but turned in the direction of the point where the boat had disappeared. A dozen yards on his way he stopped and listened. A voice, sounding like that of a person in a deep well, reached his ears, and he turned back. He gained the mouth of the cavern in half a minute and plunged inside. It was dark a dozen feet from the entrance, but he struck a match and moved on, finally coming to a smooth wall which appeared to shut off farther progress. When he turned about and faced the opening every object between where he stood and the mouth stood revealed against the bright sunshine outside. There were a few loose rocks, a rude bench, a small goods box, and nothing else. Jack was nowhere in eight. He examined the walls of the cavern but discovered no lateral passages. He called out to his chum, but received no response. Where was Jack? If he had left the cavern he would have been seen. It was a perplexing mystery, and the boy sat down on the box and listened for a repetition of the sounds he had heard. For a moment no sounds came, then a voice, seemingly coming out of the solid wall behind him reached his ears. He could distinguish no words for a time, and then it seemed that he was being called by name. He called to Jack again and again, but received no answer. Jack was evidently there somewhere, but where? The smooth walls gave no indication of any hidden openings, and there was in view no crevice through which a voice behind the walls might penetrate. It seemed either a silly joke or an impenetrable mystery. ----- [1] "Boy Scouts in Mexico; or, On Guard With Uncle Sam," "Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone; or, The Plot Against Uncle Sam," and "Boy Scouts in the Philippines; or, The Key to the Treaty Box." Chicago: M. A. Donohue & Company, Publishers. CHAPTER II.--THE SIGNAL IN THE SKY. Frank left the cavern in a moment and walked along the beach toward the campfire. His thought was to gather embers and fresh fuel and build up a blaze at the end of the cave which would reveal every inch of the interior. He was certain that Jack had not left the place, and decided that he had fallen into some hidden opening which had escaped his own investigation. As he bent over the remains of the fire he heard a rattle of small stones, and, looking up, saw Pat coming down the declivity from the plateau where the tents had been set up. The incline was steep, and at times Pat was rolling rather than walking. He was in his shirt sleeves and bareheaded. At last his red head pitched toward the lake like a meteor in downward flight. Frank rushed forward and caught him as he struck the beach, thus saving him from an impromptu bath. Pat struggled to his feet in an instant, rubbed his legs and arms to see if any bones had been broken, and then turned his head and looked up the incline. "Talk about shooting the chutes!" he exclaimed. "I wonder what time I made coming down?" "Sure you're not hurt?" asked Frank anxiously. "Every inch of my body has three bruises, one on top of the other," Pat replied, "but I guess I'm able to walk. Say, but that was a roller-coaster glide!" "Why did you try such a foolish caper?" asked Frank. "Why, I saw you boys here," was the reply, "and started down. You know the rest, as the yellow-covered books say. What you boys doing here, wasting your time, with the bacon burning to a crisp?" "We came here to investigate," was the reply, "and Jack went into the cavern, and vanished--just vapored into thin air. I'm going to build a fire in there and see if I can't condense him!" "Well," Pat said, listening, "he may have vanished physically, but his voice appears to be on deck yet." Three sharp calls came from the cavern, and both boys dashed inside. There was no doubt now that Jack's voice, at least, had condensed, for the shouts coming from the back of the cavern were both hearty and imperative. "Hi, there!" Jack called. "Pry this stone out of the doorway!" "Where are you?" demanded Pat. "Which one of the walls do you want us to push in? You're a nice chump, getting in a scrape like this!" he added, with a laugh which must have been exasperating to the unseen boy. "You'll find a crevice where the back of the cave joins the south wall," Jack said, his voice coming faintly to the ears of his chums. "Put your fingers in and pull. The blooming door opens outward. Hurry! It's stifling in here!" After burning nearly all the matches they had in their pockets, and scorching their fingers on the short sticks, Pat and Frank discovered the crevice spoken of and inserted the ends of their fingers. "Pull!" yelled Jack. "Pull, you loafers! It is moving!" In a moment the south half of the back wall swung out so suddenly that both boys were thrown from their feet and Jack, who had been pushing with his whole strength, came tumbling on top of them as they lay on the floor of the cavern. "What sort of a combination is this, anyway?" demanded Pat, struggling to his feet. "If I get any more bumps to-day I'll be taking something that belongs to some one else. I've had my share." Frank sprang to the opening as soon as he could disentangle himself from the collection of arms and legs and looked in. All was dark and still inside, and a gust of dead air struck him in the face. Pat, leaning over his shoulder, laid a hand on the rock which had opened so strangely, and the next instant it closed softly, sliding into the opening like a door operated by well-oiled machinery. "Now you've done it!" Frank exclaimed, disgustedly, as Pat threw himself against the stone in a vain effort to force it open again. "No harm done," Jack exclaimed. "There's only a stinking cavern in there. Wow! I can feel snakes and lizzards crawling on me now! Come! Let us get into the open air. Stifles like a grave in here." The boys hastened outside and stood meditatively before the shining waters of the lake, each one trying to think clearly concerning what had taken place. They believed themselves--or had believed, rather--miles away from any trace of civilization, and yet here was a practical door of rock at the end of a cave almost under the great divide. "We've found something," Frank said, at length. "That thing in there never happened. Human hands fashioned that door for some secret purpose. And it wasn't Indians, either." "I guess we've run up against a band of train robbers," suggested Jack, with a grin. "Probably the entrance to some deserted mine," Pat put in. "This region has been searched for gold for fifty years. I've heard of mines being concealed by moving stones." "Well," Frank said, after a short silence, during which all listened for some indication of the immediate presence of the men who had been seen to row around the green point a short time before, "whatever the game is, we've got to remove every trace of our visit. When they come back they probably won't notice the tracks we have made, for there were plenty about before we came here, but we must gather up all the match-ends we left in there and leave the door as we found it." "I found it open and walked in," Jack said, "and then it closed. Whew! I felt like I was being shut up in a tomb!" "How large a place is it in there?" asked Pat. "Don't know," was the reply. "I had no matches with me, and so could not see a thing." "Then we won't have to open the door again to clean up any muss," Frank said, moving toward the entrance to the cavern. "I wouldn't go in again for a thousand dollars," Jack cried. "If you leave it to me, the place is haunted. I heard groans in there." Frank paused at the entrance and turned back. His matches were about gone, and so he took a burning stick from the fire, added two dry faggots to it, waited until the three burst into flame, and then entered the cave. To gather up the half-burned matches which had been scattered over the floor was the work of only a moment. "Now you'll have to open the door, if you leave it as I found it," Jack said, looking in from the mouth. "Pat will help you." "Come on in, both of you," Frank directed. "Not me!" cried Jack. "I hear bones rattling!" The boys thought he was joking at first, but it soon appeared that he was in sober earnest, so Pat and Frank, by exerting their entire strength, managed to open the door without his assistance. "You're afraid of the dark!" Pat taunted, as the boys gathered around the fire again. "I'm not half as afraid of the dark as you are of an aeroplane," Jack replied. "If I ever see you going up in a 'plane, I'll go in there alone." "Don't you ever forget that," Pat grinned. "Oh, I'll be game, all right," was the reply. Before leaving the beach for the camp the boys walked to the point around which the boat had gone and scanned the lake and its shores through the field-glass. There was no sign of life anywhere, except where the birds swung from forest limbs back from the rim of the lake and called each other through the sultry air. Reaching the camp after a weary climb, they did full justice to the meal which Pat had prepared, though the bacon and the hoecakes were stone cold, or at least as cold as anything could be in that glare of sunlight. Then, the dishes washed and the beds prepared for the night, they sat down to watch the lake and the sky to the south, for it was now the general belief that Ned would make his appearance with the aeroplane which had been promised by the government officials. The point they had last visited, as well as the location of the fire, was in full view of the plateau, so the boys made no efforts to conceal their presence there. The men who had been observed in the boat must have noted their presence on the plateau before taking their leave. Perhaps, they reasoned, they had taken their departure because of this invasion. The sun sank lower and lower in the sky, turning the plateau and the smooth waters of the lake to gold, still there were no signs of Ned, no indications of the return of the boat to the place from which it had been launched. Half an hour after dark, Frank, who was looking through the field-glass, caught sight of light in the south which did not appear to come from any star. "Here he comes!" he cried. "That's an aeroplane, all right!" As the light drew nearer, traveling rapidly, the sharp explosions of the gasoline engine became audible. Then a light flickered over the upper plane, passed off, and swept the white surface again. "How does he make that?" demanded Pat. "Looks like a great question mark." "That's what it is," Frank exclaimed. "Now, what does he mean by it?" Chapter III.--JUST A TYPEWRITER RIBBON. "I don't understand what question he is asking," Jack said, "but I know how he makes the signal. He has an electric flashlight, and he tips the plane--the upper plane--forward, like he was plunging to the earth, and writes the interrogation mark on the under side with the flame of the flashlight. See? Then it shines through the canvas and we read it! Great idea!" "That must be the way of it," Frank said, "but what does he want? And how does he expect us to answer?" "If I was up there in the dark on a contraption like that," Pat said, "I'd be asking how I was going to find a landing place." "Sure!" Frank cried. "Ned wants to know where we are, and whether it is safe for him to make a landing. Dunderheads! Why didn't we think of that before? He is passing now, and may not come back again." The light flashed by at swift speed, whirled, ascended several hundred feet, and came over the plateau, repeating the signal. Then it settled down into a steady circling of the camp. "He knows where we are, all right," Pat said. "What he wants to know is if it is safe for him to make a landing. If I ever go up in one of those things I'll drag a rope so I can climb down it." "I'll tell him what he wants to know," Frank said, "if you'll get me a long stick on fire most of its length." "Wigwag?" asked Jack. "Sure!" was the reply. "Now," Frank continued, "build four fires, one on each edge of the plateau. That will show him how large the place is. Then I'll take the flaming stick and wigwag o.k. Ned'll understand that." Pat watched the wigwag signal with interest. "I saw foolish signs like those in the Philippines," he said, with a grin. "The natives use them to talk treason to each other. I've heard that the same method is used by the East Indians who talk from one mountain top to another faster than words on a wire. How does he make the o.k. signal?" "O is one left, followed by one right," Jack replied, "and k is left, right, left, right. You won't think the signs are foolish when you see how quickly Ned reads them. See! He's shooting away now." "Perhaps he thinks the signals are being made by savages," Pat said. The aeroplane darted off to the west for half a minute, then whirled and came back. The boys could not see the great 'plane distinctly, but the lights which burned on the front were bright and clear, so they saw that the 'plane was sweeping toward the earth as it advanced in their direction. "I don't believe many professionals would care to make a landing like this," Frank said, as the machine dipped and slid to the ground, exactly in the center of the plateau. "Hello, Ned!" he yelled, as the aeroplane rolled over the smooth surface for an instant and stopped. In a second the three boys were gathered about the machine, pulling at the hands and feet of the daring riders. Jimmie McGraw bounded to the ground as soon as he could cast off the lines which had held him to his quivering seat. "Say," he cried, "you got a fire here? I'm most froze." Indeed the little fellow's teeth were chattering. "Cold?" echoed Pat. "We're melting down here. You're scared, that's what's the matter with you. You're scared stiff." Jimmie made a run for the speaker but brought up at the fire where the supper had been cooked. "Here's comfort!" he cried, extending his hands out over what was left of the small blaze. "The next time you get me up in the air I don't go! I've been freezing for an hour." In the meantime Ned Nestor was caring for the aeroplane, looking after the delicate machinery and covering it carefully with a huge oil-cloth. Pat stood watching the work with a grin on his face. "Are you thinking of giving me a ride in that thing?" he asked. "Not to-night!" laughed Ned. "Well, when you get ready for me to ride the air," Pat said, "just tell me the night before, and I'll shoo myself into the hills. If I'm going to fall off anything, I'll take the drop from something solid, like a mountain top." "No danger at all, when you know how to operate the machine," Ned replied. "There's danger in running anything if you don't know how, even a sewing machine." "Where did you pick it up?" asked Frank. "He didn't pick it up at all," interposed Pat. "It picked him up." "I found it at Missoula," was the reply, "all packed and stored away in a freight warehouse. I had to get it out at night, and so lost time. The people would have kept me there until now giving exhibitions if I had shown up during the day." "But you did leave there in the daytime," urged Jack. "You were never in the air since last night." "We left early this morning," was the reply, "and I was well up in the sky before many of the people saw me." "I never knew you could run one," Frank said. "Oh, I had some instructions from the Wrights," was the modest reply, "and, besides, there was an expert at Missoula who helped me get the machine together and contributed a few parting instructions." "Then you've been in the air all day?" asked Pat. "No, we stopped several times, of course, once on the right of way of the Great Northern railroad and filled our gasoline tanks," was the reply, "and rested there a few hours. Jimmie had to eat there, of course!" "Eat!" came the boy's voice from the fire. "If I ever get a bite at food again it will drop down into the toes of me shoes! Here!" he shouted, as Pat produced a can of pork and beans and started to open it. "You needn't mind opening that! I'll just swallow it as it is." "Bright boy!" laughed Pat, handing him a liberal supply of beans and fried bacon. "Now fill up on that and then loosen up on your impressions of the sky." "I thought I'd make an impression on the earth before I got through," Jimmie mumbled, his mouth full of beans. "We went up so far that the mountains looked like ant hills, didn't we, Ned?" "About 7,000 feet," was the reply. "You see," he added, turning to Frank, "I wanted to size up the situation before I landed. If there is anybody in this upturned country at all, our presence here is known. The aeroplane's chatter took good care of that. And, besides, our landing in the night, with the lights going, gave unmistakable evidence of something stirring." "I should say so," Frank agreed. "And so," Ned went on, "I wanted to learn if there were people about here, so I might visit them in the morning and put up the bluff of Boy Scouts playing with an aeroplane in the woods. We can't attempt anything in the mysterious line," he went on. "We've got to be entirely frank about everything except the business we are here on." "Well," Frank said, "we found people here to-day and called on them." "What sort of people?" "Well, they seemed to have good broad backs," laughed Frank. "They ran away from you?" asked Ned, in surprise. "I should think they would have proved inquisitive. Where were they?" "Down by Kintla lake." "Indians?" asked Ned. Then Frank told the story of the visit to the shore of the lake and the cavern, taking good care to describe the surroundings as closely as possible. Ned laughed when the boy came to Jack's adventure in the hidden chamber. "I say it is some deserted mine," Pat declared, when Frank had concluded the recital. "What else could it be?" "Robber's nest!" suggested Jack. Ned remained silent for a moment and then abruptly asked: "What kind of footwear made those heelless prints?" "You may search me!" Jack cut in. "Must have been Indian moccasins," Frank observed. Jimmie, who had been standing by the small fire, listening to the talk, now advanced to the little circle about the machine and uttered one word: "Chinks!" "It is always Chinks with Jimmie," grinned Frank. "When there is a cyclone in New York the Chinks are to blame for it, if you leave it to him." "What would Chinks be doing up here?" demanded Pat. "Don't they get gold by washing it out?" asked Jack, with a nudge at Jimmie's side. "Perhaps they're going to start a laundry!" While this chaff was in progress Ned stood looking thoughtfully in the direction of the lake. Not a word did he say regarding the sudden and brief communication Jimmie had presented. "Any forest fires in sight?" asked Pat, finally breaking the silence. "Not one," Jimmie answered. "I would have dropped into one if it had come my way. It was fierce up there!" "It is rather cool when you get up a couple of miles," Ned laughed, "and Jimmie wouldn't listen to reason regarding his clothes. To-morrow I'll give one of you boys a ride, and you may see for yourself." "Not me!" Pat exclaimed. "I'll stay below and help pick up the pieces." "I should like to go," Frank said. "We may find the people we saw in the rowboat. When we become acquainted with them we may be able to learn something about that cavern." "I would advise remaining silent about the cavern," Ned said. "It may be used for some criminal purpose, and we must not admit that we know of its existence. We are just carefree lads, here for an outing, remember," he added, with a laugh, "and we are due to make friends with everybody we come across." "But you made us lug all this camping outfit up here," complained Jack, "so the men who steered the burros up the hills wouldn't know where we camped. What about that?" "I thought it best to cut off all communication with the people below," explained Ned. "It may be that the purpose of our visit here is suspected. In that case some one from below might want to find us--for no good purpose. So we'll keep out of sight of the people in the towns, unless they see our aeroplane, and cultivate the acquaintance of the natives--if there are any." "How about gasoline and provisions?" asked Pat. "I have plenty of gasoline stored on the right of way of the Great Northern railroad," Ned replied, "enough to last us a month. It was piped into a hidden tank from an oil car by a train crew now out of the state. We are to get provisions at the same place, if we need more, for Uncle Sam fixed all the details for us. All we have to do is to find the fellows who are setting forest fires and bring them to punishment." "We ought to locate every little smudge, with that aeroplane," Frank suggested. "That is my idea," Ned replied. "Have you been keeping a good lookout on the lake since you left it?" he added, turning to Pat. "Some one of us has had eyes on it every minute," was the satisfactory reply. "No one has returned, I'm sure." "You're not thinking of going there to-night, are you?" asked Jack, with a slight shiver. "I wouldn't go in there again, even in broad daylight, for a million dollars!" "Pat is afraid of the sky, and Jack is afraid of the bowels of the earth!" laughed Frank. "We'll have to tuck them both in bed before we can accomplish anything." "You may all go to bed but one," Ned said, looking about the group, his eyes finally resting with a significant look on Frank's excited face. "I want to look through that cavern before anything is taken out of it." Frank, knowing the meaning of the look he had received, went to his little tent for his revolver and his electric searchlight and was soon ready for the expedition. Jimmie looked sulky for a moment at being left out of the game, then his face brightened and he crawled into the tent that had been prepared for Nestor and himself and burst into a fit of laughter. "I'll show 'em!" he said, stuffing the blanket into his mouth to suppress the sound of his merriment. "I'll teach 'em to put me in the discard." "Any wild animals up here?" asked Ned, as the two started away down the steep declivity. "Two Black Bears and three Wolves!" called Jimmie, from his tent. This was a reference to the Boy Scout Patrols to which the boys belonged. Frank and Jack were members of the famous Black Bear Patrol of New York City, while Ned, Pat and Jimmie were members of the Wolf Patrol. As the lad spoke Frank and Jack broke into growls which might well have come from the throat of the grizzliest grizzly in the Rocky Mountains, while Pat sent forth a wolf howl, which might well have been a signal to the pack. "You may meet the real thing out here," warned Ned, turning back to look over the plateau, now shining in the light of a half-moon. "There are both bears and wolves in this region. When you meet them, don't wait for Boy Scout signs!" "Oh, we'll initiate 'em, all right," Jimmie called from the tent, and Ned and Frank moved on down the declivity toward the lake. It was still early evening, and the moon was low down in the east, so the valley where the lake lay was not touched by its light. Indeed, the plateau where the boys were would have been in the shadow of the mountain only for the dropping of the shoulder of the divide. In half an hour the two boys, after several slides which were anything but pleasant, gained the beach. The campfire was now dead, and the locality was still save for the voice of a night bird and the occasional splash of a leaping fish. The mouth of the cavern loomed like a dark patch on the lower bulk of the mountain. Making as little noise as possible, Ned and Frank crept into the cavern, advancing by the sense of feeling until they came to the very end before turning on one of the electric flashlights. The round eye of the flame showed a long, narrow, tunnel-like tube running directly east, under the mountain. The door of rock was as the boys had left it earlier in the day. Ned examined that portion of the rock which had swung out into the first chamber with considerable care, as the story of the swinging stone had interested him greatly. All along the top, up to the center, he found the checks of a stone-chisel. Exactly in the middle an elevation of an inch fitted into a round cavity in the upper rock. At the bottom the same conditions were discovered. "Rather a clever job," Ned said, "but I don't see how it was ever done." "This door," Frank said, "is not exactly like the remainder of the wall in grain, so it must have been brought here from some other locality. Of course there was a hole between these two chambers, or the second one would never have been found. It would be easy enough to fit the stone door in by grooving out from the lower cavity and sliding the under pivot in." "Sure," Ned replied, getting down to examine the lower part of the door more closely, "and that is just what was done. Then the groove was filled with concrete. Pretty classy work here!" "And now the question is this," Frank went on, "what was the door fitted for? Why did the men who found the cave desire privacy? Is there gold in there? Have the men who have been setting fire to the forests established a home here? Is this the hiding place of a band of outlaws? You see there are lots of questions to ask about the two caverns," Frank added, with an uneasy laugh. Ned closed the stone door and turned on both electric flashlights, making the place light as day where they stood. The inner cavern was as bare as the outer one save for dead leaves and grass which lay in heaps on the stone floor, and for half a dozen rough benches which were piled in one corner. At the farther end hung a gaudy curtain, once handsome, but now sadly spotted with mildew because of dampness. "Here's the inner chamber," laughed Frank, drawing the curtain aside. "And it looks like it was the private office of the bunch, too," he added, as he turned the light about the walls. There was a desk in the third cavern, a swivel chair, a small case of books, and a rusty safe, which looked as though it had not been opened for years. A current of fresh air came from the rear, and a small opening was soon discovered. "That doubtless leads to some cañon not far away," Ned said. "Makes a pretty decent place of it, eh?" "Good enough for any person to hide in," replied Frank. "Now," he added, "tell me what you think of it. Who cut this cavern, and who brought the furniture here? I'll admit that my thinker is not working." "Nature made the caverns," Ned replied. "There is what geologists call a fault in the rock here. Owing to volcanic action, doubtless, the strata shifted, probably thousands of years ago, and when the seam appeared the broken pieces fell apart. These chambers show the width of the seam. There undoubtedly was a great earthquake at the time, and the lake below might have been dredged out at that time." "Of course," Frank said, "I might have known that! Now, here's another question: How far does this seam extend under the Rocky Mountains? If it passes beyond these three chambers, why not make a fourth room for ourselves so as to be on the spot when the men who make headquarters of the place come back?" "That may be a good thing to do," Ned admitted, "but, still, I would not like to be the one to lie in wait here. Suppose we try to learn something of the character of the people who come here? They seem to sleep on dry leaves and eat off benches. Rather tough bunch, I take it. Perhaps we have struck Uncle Sam's enemies the first thing!" Keeping their lights on, and working as silently as possible, always with an eye to the outer cavern, the boys made a careful search of the inner chamber. The desk was not fastened, and a cupboard afterward discovered in a niche was open also. There were dishes in the cupboard and writing materials in the desk. At the very bottom of the desk drawer Ned came upon a surprise. "Not so tough as I supposed," he said, turning to Frank. "Here's a typewriter ribbon. The sort of people who set fire to forests and hold up trains are hardly in the typewriter class. What do you make of it?" "Well," Frank said, with a chuckle, "if you'll tell me what the inhabitants of this place want of typewriter ribbons I'll tell you why they bring great tins of opium here. It seems that we have struck something more important than forest fires." CHAPTER IV.--THE AEROPLANE IN DANGER. A strong wind came out of the Western Sea at ten o'clock that night and swept the lofty plateau as a woman might have swept it with a new broom. Ned and Frank, pursuing their investigations in the cavern, knew nothing of what was going on at the camp, but Jack and Pat were not long in ignorance of the danger of the situation. With the first strong rush of wind the boys were on their feet, steadying the aeroplane, driving stakes wherever the nature of the ground permitted, and running bracing cords. The shelter tents went down instantly and were blown against the rocks of the east, where they waved canvas arms in the tearing breeze like sheeted ghosts. The black clouds which swarmed up from the valley brought no rain, but fitful flashes of lightning and deep-toned thunder made a threatening sky. The roaring of the swirling trees in the cañon and on the slopes came up to the ears of the boys like the boom of a strong surf. After persistent efforts the boys succeeded in bracing the aeroplane so that there was little danger of its being swept away, though they still remained with their backs to the wind, holding on. As time passed, they crept close together in order that the situation might be discussed. "Lucky thing we remained here," Pat said, tugging with all his might to steady the monster machine against a particularly vicious dash of wind. "It would have gone sure, if we hadn't," Jack screamed back. "I wish Ned and Frank would come and help. My back is creaking like a shaft that needs oiling with the strain on it." "A little help wouldn't go amiss," Pat admitted, shouting at the top of his lungs in order that he might be heard above the whistling of the storm. "I wonder if we'll ever be able to put the tents up again?" Jack shouted. "They are flapping and snapping like musketry out there on the rocks. I hope they won't blow away entirely." Pat gazed anxiously in the direction indicated, but could only see pieces of canvas bellying up in the wind, mounting upward like balloons at times, then falling back to earth when a short lull came in the storm. "Why," he cried, in a moment, "where's Jimmie? I thought I saw him here a moment ago. Have you seen him?" "Not since the storm," panted Jack. "He may have been smothered in his tent," Pat shouted. "You hold on here while I go and look him up." "Be sure that you keep close to the ground," warned Jack. "If you don't you'll be blown away." It was not at all difficult for the lad to reach the flapping tents, for the wind generously assisted him in the journey. Only that he crept on his hands and knees he would have been tossed against the wall where the tents lay. Struggling with the tearing canvas, bracing himself against the face of the cliff, the boy looked over the ruined tents but found no indication of the presence of the boy he sought, either dead or alive. Then he felt along the angle of the foot of the rise with no better success. "He's not there," he reported, crawling back to Jack, now braced tenaciously with his toes and elbows digging into the soil above the rock. "Did you find his clothes?" asked Jack. "Not a thing belonging to his outfit," was the reply. "Well, he went to bed, didn't he?" asked Jack, a sudden suspicion entering his mind. "He went into his tent," was the reply, "but I did not see him undress." Then Pat, much to his astonishment, heard Jack laughing as if mightily pleased over something that had taken place. "You've got your nerve!" he exclaimed. "Laughing at a time like this. I'll bet the kid has been blown off the plateau." There was now a little lull in the drive of the wind and Jack nudged his companion with his elbow, turning an amused face as he did so. "Blown off nothing!" he said. "You saw how he acted when Ned went off without him--how sulky he was?" "I noticed something of the sort." "Well, Jimmie ducked after him!" "Why, he was told to remain here." "He has been told that before," Jack said, "and he's never obeyed orders. He followed Ned from Manila to Yokohama, not long ago, and made a hit in doing it, too. Oh, it is a sure thing that Jimmie is not far from Ned at this minute." "The little scamp!" grinned Pat. "He seems to think that Ned can't get along without his constant presence and his pranks," Jack continued. "He generally stirs something up in his immediate vicinity, but he's a pretty good scout at that." "I hope he is with Ned," Pat said. The wind now died down a bit, so that it was no longer necessary to hold the aeroplane, and the boys, after seeing that the rope still held, began the work of repairing the tents. The clouds drifted away and the moon looked down as bravely as if it had not just hidden its face from sight at the threats of the wind! The electric flashlights with which the boys were well provided seemed inadequate and Pat started in to build a fire. "I don't know about that," Jack said. "If there had been a fire here when that wind came up it would have been roaring in the cañon now. The storm would have swept it down on the trees there, and the whole gully would soon have become a roaring furnace. Better cut out the fire." "I guess you are right," Pat said, reluctantly laying his dry faggots aside. While the boys worked, trying to restore the shelter tents to something like form, the wind came up once more and reached out for the aeroplane. Pat and Jack renewed their holding efforts, and thanked their stars that no fire had been built on the plateau, for the forest about was dry as tinder. Presently a voice which neither recognized came out of the shadows cast by a mass of clouds just then occupying the sky where the moon should have been. "Hello!" the voice said. The boys looked at each other in perplexity for a moment and then Jack answered back. "Hello!" he said. "Are you all safe up here, safe and sound?" the voice asked, and then the figure of a tall man, roughly dressed, but bearing the manner, as faintly observed in the darkness, of a gentleman, advanced toward the aeroplane, to which the lads were still devoting their whole attention. "Safe and sound!" repeated Pat. The stranger sat down by Jack's side and laid hold of the aeroplane. "Pulls hard, doesn't it?" he asked, as the machine, forced by the wind, drew stoutly on the ropes and the muscles of the boys. [Illustration: ILLUSTRATION No. 2] "Pulls like a horse," Jack replied. "I'm Greer, of the forest service," the stranger said, in a moment. "I saw a fire up here this afternoon, and I was afraid harm might come from it during the gale. One blazing brand down in that cañon, and millions of feet of timber would be destroyed." "As you see," Jack said, "we have no fire." "This, I presume," Greer said, still pulling at the machine, "is the aeroplane your friends came in this evening?" "The same," replied Pat shortly. The lad was annoyed to think that the forester, as he called himself, had been watching them. If he had taken so much interest in their movements, Pat thought, why hadn't he shown himself before? Jack's thoughts seemed to be running in the same direction. In fact, both boys were suspicious of this soft-spoken stranger who had come to them out of the storm with questions on his lips. "Where are your friends?" Greer asked, in a moment. "I hope they are not out in the forest thinking of starting a fire?" "They've gone to the lake after fish," Jack said, accounting for the absence of the others with the first words that came to his lips. Greer gave a quick start and leaned over to look into Jack's face. "Down at the lake?" he repeated. "Not out in a boat in a storm like this?" "No," replied Jack, gruffly, so gruffly, in fact, that the stranger caught the hostile note and turned away. "I'm always afraid of fire on a night like this," Greer continued in a moment, "and rarely sleep until morning. My cabin is back on the mountain a short distance, some distance above this plateau. That's how I happened to see what was going on here." "Rather a lonely life," Pat said, resolved to keep the fellow talking if he could. "Because," he reasoned, "you can tell what's in a man's head if he keeps his mouth open and his tongue moving, but no one can tell the secret locked up behind closed lips." "Yes, it is rather lonely," Greer replied. "I'm glad you boys are here. Going to remain long?" "Only a few weeks--just to hunt and fish," was Jack's reply. "If you don't mind," Greer went on, "I'll come down and visit you now and then." The statement almost took the form of a question, and Jack gave a grudging answer that the visits would be a pleasure, though he believed that the man was arranging a way of watching their movements. "I wish this wind would go down," Greer said, presently. "As I said before, I'm always afraid of fire on nights like this. See! The wind blows straight off the distant ocean strong and steady, and a fire started out there to the west would run over this plateau and over the mountain like a wash of tide." "There's nothing to burn on the plateau," Jack said, glad of an opportunity to contradict the stranger. "Nothing to burn!" Greer repeated. "I reckon you don't know much about forest fires, young man! Why, it would burn the soil down to bed rock, even evaporate the water in the rock itself and crumble it down to ashes. A forest fire is no joking matter." The boys remained silent, looking cautiously into each other's faces and both wondering how a forester, a man marooned in a great wilderness should be so exact in his speech, should wear such a shirt--actually a dress shirt--as they saw under his rough coat when the wind blew it aside. "I rather think there's more company coming," Greer continued, seeing that the boys were not inclined to comment on his warnings. "A moment ago I saw a flash of light at the foot of the rise to the west." The wind was still blowing fiercely, but both boys turned and looked down the incline. There was a faint light there now, glimmering among the trees. "It looks like a lantern," Greer said. "And the fellow seems about to climb the hill. Good luck to him, in this gale." "It seems to me," Pat said, "that the light we see is running along on the ground. If that should be a forest fire, there would be the dickens to pay to-night--and nothing to pay with!" "That is not the way forest fires start," Greer said, turning indolently in the direction of the divide. "That is a man with a lantern." The boys watched the glimmer below with interest. The man with the lantern, if there was a man and a lantern, seemed to be moving with the wind. Then, again, he seemed to divide himself, as the lower orders of life at the bottom of the seas divide themselves, appearing on both sides of a dark space at the same moment. They were satisfied that something unusual was going on, but were for the moment lulled into a half-sense of security by the positive assertions of the alleged forester. Presently they turned away from the scene below and fixed their eyes on the stranger. He was standing straight up, his tall figure braced against the wind, peering down into the cañon. Notwithstanding the steady wind, the sky was now comparatively free of clouds, and they saw him lift a hand with something bright shining in it. It appeared to the lads that he was signaling to some one in the cañon. They turned away instantly so that Greer did not note their observation of him, and again fixed their gaze on the slope to the west. The lantern, if there was a lantern, was growing larger! It was showing itself in half a dozen places now, and was tracing lights far up in the crotches of dead trees. Then the penetrating odor of burning wood and grass came up the slope. Filled with a fear which could hardly be expressed in words, the boys faced Greer again. He still stood facing the cañon to the south, but his hands were not lifted now. There was no need for that, the boys thought, for the previous signal seemed to have sufficed. Among the dry faggots on the ground at the bottom of the cañon there was another man with a lantern. He, too, if there was such a man, was moving about among the trees and dividing himself into sections, as the rudimental creatures of the world multiply themselves. Pat sprang to Greer's side and shook him roughly by the arm. "There's a fire down there!" he cried. In the uncertain moonlight the boy saw the stranger's face harden. "You are mistaken," he said, turning away toward the lake. "Smell the smoke!" Jack shouted. "I tell you the forest is on fire on two sides of us." "Then your friends have set the fires!" Greer shouted, against the wind. "I have been suspicious of you all along--ever since you failed to satisfactorily account for the absence of your friends. It is all very well for you to come here in an aeroplane and start a conflagration! But how do you think that we, who are not so well provided with means of getting away, are to escape death?" Pat drew back his hand, as if to strike the fellow, but Jack restrained him. "You set the fires!" Pat shouted, then. "You set it through your fellow conspirators! I saw you signaling to the cañon!" "You're no more a forester than I am!" Jack added. "You're a scoundrel, and ought to be sent to prison for life." There was no more talk for a time. Greer stood defiantly against the wall of rock to the east, as if fearful of an attack from behind, his right hand in his bulging pocket. The boys knew that he had a weapon there, and their own hands were not empty. The aeroplane drew and shivered in the rising gale, but now little attention was paid to it. Pat and Jack were listening for some indication of the return of Ned and Frank. No farther fable of a man with a lantern was necessary, for fire was racing up the western slope, heading directly for the plateau and the priceless aeroplane. Down in the cañon the flames were leaping from tree to tree. A stifling smoke filled the air, always in swift motion, but stifling still. CHAPTER V.--THE REVELATION OF A TRAGEDY. "Smugglers!" Frank exclaimed, dropping an armful of unopened opium tins on the floor of the cavern. "Smugglers, all right, all right!" Ned looked the tins over carefully. They were well covered with Chinese characters, and were dirty, as if they had been hidden away in the earth for a long time. "Who would have suspected it?" Frank continued. "We are close to the British frontier, but, all the same, this seems to me to be an awkward place to land and store the dope stuff." "Where did you find it?" asked Ned. "There is a false back to that cupboard in the north wall," Frank replied. "When I knocked on the boards they gave forth a hollow sound, and so I tore one away. Hence the opium. And there are pipes there, too--just such pipes as one sees in the joints on Pell street, in little old New York." "You remember what Jimmie said?" asked Ned. "I remember a good many things the little rascal has said," was the laughing reply. "He's always saying something." "Well," Ned continued, "the boy was right when he expressed his opinion of the heelless footprints in one word." "Chinks!" grinned Frank. "Of course!" The boys now went over to the cupboard in the niche and began tearing away the boards. After a few had been displaced Ned stopped and began experimenting in fitting them in position again. "What's doing now?" demanded Frank. "We must remove them so as to be able to return them as we found them before we leave," Ned replied. "It is important that the inhabitants of this robber den do not know that we have discovered it." "Don't you ever think they don't know it right now," Frank said. "We haven't seen any of them since they rowed around the point, but they're stirring about, just the same. We may see more of them before we get out of this cavern." "Well," Ned said, "we must take all the precautions needful, and if they are of no avail we shall not be to blame for what takes place. Even if they know that we have found the cavern, they need not know that we have penetrated into the office chamber. Now, draw that last board away carefully, and we'll see what there is behind the false bottom." Frank drew the board away and was confronted by a long, low tunnel--an uncanny, narrow tunnel which had evidently been enlarged from a fault in the rock, and which appeared to penetrate far into the bulk of the mountain. "See!" he cried. "The cupboard was built at the mouth of a cross fault in the rock, and there is no knowing what is behind it. Hold your flashlight higher and I'll crawl in and look about." "Be careful," Ned warned. "I have seen great holes at the bottom of tunnels like that. Don't break your neck, or tumble down so far that I can't fish you out." Frank grinned and crept through the opening made by the removal of the back of the closet. The place was not high enough for him to stand upright, and so he proceeded on hands and knees. "This is a bedroom," he shouted back to Ned. "There's lots of ticks and blankets here." There was silence for a moment, and then the boy's voice came from farther in the tunnel. "And here's kegs of whisky," he cried. "It smells like a Bowery saloon. Come on in!" "I think one of us would better remain outside," Ned replied. "I wouldn't like to be surprised while in there and fastened in with rocks." Frank went on down the tunnel for some distance, calling back, now and then, to report his discoveries. There were weapons stored there, barrels of gasoline, packages of dynamite. Then, for several long minutes, there came no voice from the interior, and Ned put his head inside and called out softly: "Frank!" There was no reply, and Ned was about to advance into the opening when the sound of a footstep came on the rocky floor of the chamber just behind him. The footstep was a stealthy one, halting, as if some person were listening between the steps. Ned's first act was to shut the light off from his electric candle. Then he moved away from the niche in the wall where the cupboard had been built in and waited. His greatest fear was that Frank would turn about and show his light, and so expose them both to danger. While he listened, almost holding his breath, the steps came nearer to the cupboard and halted. But the halt was only for an instant, for the unseen figure moved on again, this time back toward the entrance. Directly the footsteps were heard no more, and then the crash of falling rocks reached the boy's ears. He did not have to think long in order to understand what that sound portended. He knew that they had been observed by some of the outlaws who made the cavern their home and their storehouse as well, had been followed into the inner chamber, and were now to be fastened into the cavern, probably left there to starve, with tons of rock bulking before the entrance to the third chamber. It was not a pleasant situation. While he studied the peril over in as optimistic a mood as was possible under the circumstances, he heard Frank calling to him from the narrow tunnel behind the cupboard. The boy was evidently excited, for his voice rang high. "Ned!" he cried. "Come on in!" The noise of falling, rolling rocks stopped at the sound of Frank's voice, and Ned thought he heard a half-suppressed chuckle in the darkness. "Hurry!" came Frank's voice once more. "There's something in here that takes the nerve out of me." There was a low exclamation of rage at the entrance, where the stones were piling up, and then the grind of falling rocks was continued. Ned had, of course, no idea as to how many persons were engaged in building up the wall which threatened to shut him in until life was extinct, or exactly how it was being done, but he knew that the correct thing for him to do was to prevent the completion of the work. If only one man had arrived at the cavern he might be frightened and driven away by a little shooting. With bullets whizzing through what was left of the opening, the man who was building the crude wall would not be likely to present his body before the space still uncovered. This reasoning brought the boy to a consideration of the matter of ammunition, but he decided that, with the cartridges carried by Frank, they could defend the place for a long time. But another question intervened. The rocks which, though unseen, he knew to be blocking the space where the rug had hung were undoubtedly falling from a distance. They might have been stored above the natural doorway for the very purpose to which they were now being put. If this were true, then the building of the trap would continue, regardless of his bullets. While he studied over this problem, slowly making up his mind to put it to the test, Frank's voice came from the tunnel again. "What's doing out there?" the boy asked. "Why don't you come in here?" "Shut off your light!" ordered Ned, as a glimmer showed inside. "Not me," replied Frank. "I need all the light I can get in here!" "What have you found?" asked Ned anxiously. Frank did not reply instantly, and Ned heard the rattle of stones while he waited for his answer. The task of piling up the wall was progressing rapidly, and it seemed to the boy that the stones were all falling from a distance. "Shut off your light and come out," Ned said, impatient at the hesitation. "I wouldn't stay here in the dark for a thousand dollars a second," Frank replied, "but I'll come out. Why don't you show a light?" "I'm not looking for any chance bullets," Ned replied, coolly. "We're caught, my boy, and it is up to us to move cautiously. Why don't you turn off your light?" he added, half angrily. "Oh," Frank replied, "you're getting it out there, too, are you? Well, I was trying to save you a shock. There's a dead man in here, and I'm going to keep my light going until I'm out of the hole. I did shut it off once, and felt the grasp of a hand on my neck--and there wasn't any hand there either." "A dead man?" repeated Ned. "Sure," Frank replied. "And he's not been dead very long, at that." Again the boy heard that vicious chuckle at the entrance. Then a voice came out of the mouldy darkness: "How are you getting on in the Secret Service, Ned Nestor?" the voice asked. "Finely!" Ned called back, but it seemed to him that his voice shook with the peril of the situation. He was known, his mission there was no secret, the enemies of the government were already on the ground, ready to combat him in his work. Just how far their hostility would extend was evidenced by the fall of rocks outside. It seemed to the boy that the struggle would be to the death. "Who are you talking to?" Frank asked. Ned did not reply to the question, for there came the sound of a scuffle outside, then a shot, a cry of pain, and the cavern was still as a grave. In the silence Frank's movements were heard, and Ned knew that he was backing out of the tunnel, with his light still burning. Entirely at a loss to account for the fracas outside, Ned awaited his approach with a fast-beating heart. When at last he shut off his electric searchlight and dropped from the tunnel through the old cupboard Ned seized his hand and drew him away. "Did you fire that shot?" Frank whispered. "No," was the reply. "There's fighting outside, and the shot was fired there. Now, I had a notion of sending a stream of bullets through the doorway, but the persons who are fighting the man who came upon us here may be our friends, so we must be careful what we do. Here. Take my flashlight. Open the two at the same instant and turn the rays on the doorway. I'll be ready with my gun." But before this movement could be carried out a voice the boys knew came out of the darkness. "Wonder you wouldn't give a fellow a lift," Jimmie said, in a panting tone. "I've got to the limit with this big stiff." The lights were on instantly, with Ned and Frank bounding toward the opening. The way was narrow, for many rocks had been dropped down from a broad ledge just above, but they managed to crawl through. But before Ned could reach the struggling pair on the floor the under figure wiggled away, staggered for an instant, and then made for the outer air at good speed. Jimmie sat upon the stone floor with a disgusted look on his freckled face. "Now see what you've been an' gone an' done!" he cried. "You've let me pirate get away! But he took a bullet with him," he added. "How many were here?" asked Ned, shutting off his light and telling Frank to do the same. "How many men did you see?" "Just that one," Jimmie replied, sorrowfully, "an' he got away!" Ned advanced to the entrance and listened. At first he heard the sound of limping footsteps, then the sweep of oars. He ran down to the beach and swept his light over the waters of the lake. A slender boat was speeding far to the north, and a solitary rower was bending to his work. Now, for the first time, Ned noted that a fierce gale was blowing from the west, and his thoughts went back to the plateau where the aeroplane lay exposed to the storm. He ran back to the cavern, barely escaping being blown off his feet on the way, and called to the boys. "There's a stiff wind blowing," he said, "and I'm afraid for the aeroplane. We must get back to the camp immediately." "The wind was on when I came in," Jimmie said, "an' it near blew me into the lake, even if I did hold on to the trees. We can never make the hill in the storm." "We've got to," Ned insisted. "Besides," Jimmie continued, "we want to find out about the dead man Frank has been telling me about. We can't take him with us, an' he will not be here when we come back. Whatever we learn about him, an' the cause of his death, must be learned now." "Sometimes, Jimmie," Frank burst out, "you exhibit signs of almost human intelligence!" "The boy is right," Ned observed. "I'm so rattled that I hardly know what I'm about. We ought to be in pursuit of that rascal who is rowing on the lake, we ought to be on the plateau, looking after the aeroplane, and we ought to be here, finding out if a murder has been committed." "It is a murder, all right," Frank said, "for the floor in the tunnel is sticky with blood." "I'm goin' in there!" Jimmie exclaimed. "Go if you want to," Frank grunted. Ned laid a hand on Jimmie's arm as he started away. "If you don't mind," he said, "I'd much rather you remained on guard. You have keen eyes, and may be of great service here." "All right!" the boy said. "I'll do anything you ask me to if you don't leave me out of the game." "No danger of your getting into the dust heap," Frank laughed. "How long have you been prowling about here?" "Just a short time," was the reply. "I remained in the tent until I thought Pat an' Jack were asleep an' then cut my lucky. Say, but the wind was blowin' when I slid down the slope toward the lake." "It must be fierce up on the plateau," Frank admitted. "Say," he added, turning to Ned, "if you don't mind, I'll go on up the hill and help the boys with the aeroplane. It would be a tragedy if it should be destroyed now." "All right," Ned said. "Get up there as soon as possible. The boys may be having trouble with the 'plane. And Jimmie," he added, "suppose you keep an eye on the plateau? The lads may signal." "Too dark for that," the boy replied, "but I'll keep a sharp lookout, just the same. Go on and look over the man Frank found under the mountain." Frank moved on up the hill, clinging to trees as he advanced, and stooping low, even then, to escape the force of the wind, while Jimmie stationed himself in the opening and looked out on the lake. Ned disappeared in the cavern, and the boy saw his torch grow fainter as he climbed through the narrow opening left in the rock which had been thrown over the natural doorway. It was getting late and the boy was sleepy, but he struggled manfully to keep his eyes open. Directly, however, he had no trouble in this regard, for he started up with a strange, acrid odor in his nostrils. The low-lying sky was aflame. CHAPTER VI.--ABOVE THE CLOUDS AT NIGHT. The wind gained strength as the heat of the forest fires increased. The roaring of the gale and the heavy undertone of the racing flames effectually drowned the voice of the forester, and it was only by the motion of his lips that the boys knew that he was trying to talk to them. Presently he threw his hands high above his head, weaponless, then lowered one and beckoned to them. Still keeping grasp on their revolvers, the boys approached him. His face was deadly pale, save for the glow of the fire which shone unnaturally on the wall behind him. "This is no time for accusations," he shouted. "We must do something to check the fire." "What is to be done?" Jack demanded, half won over by the apparent distress of the fellow. "The blaze will burn itself out against the mountains," was the reply, shouted at the top of the speaker's lungs, "but the fire in the cañon must be checked by going on ahead and felling trees." "Won't it burn itself out there, too?" asked Pat. "I'm afraid not," was the shrill reply. "There is an opening from the top of the cañon to a valley in a fold of the hills. The fire will do incalculable damage if it passes through that." "What do you suppose we can do against a fire like that?" demanded Pat. "An army could not stop the blaze now." "You are mistaken!" shrilled the other. "Three choppers can clear a space which the fire will not cross." "We'll get our axes and try," Jack said, reluctantly. "Then make haste!" Greer shouted. "At all events we must leave this place, for the fire will soon be here. Come!" When the boys turned to verify this statement they saw that the planes of the aeroplane were red with the reflection of the blaze below, and that the creeping fire was already showing at the lip of the plateau. "The aeroplane is doomed, I guess," wailed Jack, and Pat thought he saw a look of satisfaction in Greer's face as the words reached his ears. The smoke was now rolling over the plateau in great clouds, but through it Pat thought he saw figures moving from the south slope toward the aeroplane. Calling out to Jack, he sprang toward the machine, the suspicion in his mind that these were confederates of the alleged forester, and that the machine was, after all, the main point of attack. Greer saw the movement and darted toward the boy as if to block his way, but Pat struck out viciously and turned him back. Then a bit of flame sprang up in the cloud of smoke which was sweeping over the plateau. It seemed to Pat that an attempt to burn the machine in advance of the arrival of the forest fire was being made. When he darted forward again Greer caught him by the shoulder and hurled him away. "Get your axes!" he shouted. "There is no time to waste here." Then the smoke lifted for an instant and Pat saw three figures rise above the rim of the northern slope and hasten toward the aeroplane. Their arrival there was followed by shots and calls for assistance. Then the smoke shut down again, and the roaring of the flames drowned all other sounds. Greer stood for an instant, braced against the wind, shielding his face from the hot blasts scorching the grass of the plateau, then turned and ran. Then both boys heard a call from the direction of the machine. "The way is clear to the cavern!" were the words they heard. "Remain there until we return!" "That's Ned," shouted Pat. "Just in time to save the aeroplane." Almost before the words were out of his mouth there came a lull in the wind and the great machine ran forward a few yards, then swung into the air. At that moment Frank came running toward the two astonished boys. "We've got to leg it!" Frank shouted, his mouth close to Jack's ear. "Drop low on the ground so as to get fresh air and run!" Jack, although he had heard Ned's voice giving directions, and although he knew that Frank was by his side, could hardly sense the situation, or all that had taken place. The action had been so swift that he could not yet realize that Ned had snatched the aeroplane away from certain destruction and lifted it into the stormy sky in so short a time. However, he did not stop then to place the events in neat order in his mind, for the fire was working across the scant vegetation of the plateau and the air was hot and stifling. It was all like a page out of the Arabian Nights, but he put the wonder of it away, grasped Frank's hand, and, crouching, ran toward the incline leading to the lake. There was safety there, at least. Now and then, in their swift flight, the boys stopped and looked upward, hoping to learn something of the fate of the aeroplane, but the great machine was not in sight. "Ned never can make it live in this gale!" Jack almost sobbed, when, at last, they all came to a halt at the margin of the lake. "The whole shebang will go to pieces and the boys will be killed." "Aw, forget it!" grunted Pat. "I'm not in love with airships, but I know that Ned wouldn't have gone up unless he knew that he could handle the machine. He'll lift above the divide and drive straight before the wind. The good Lord only knows how far the gale will take him, but I'm betting my head against turnips that he'll come back by morning, asking why breakfast isn't ready!" "How did you get wise to the trouble up here?" Jack asked of Frank. "Why, I don't exactly know," the boy replied. "Ned sent me on ahead to look out for the aeroplane. He said he wanted to remain in the cavern and investigate. I was making slow progress up the hill when Ned and Jimmie came running after me. I had noticed long before that the sky looked like fires were burning somewhere." "I should say so," Pat cut in. "The clouds looked like they had been soaked in red paint." "When Ned came up to me, running like a racehorse," Frank went on, "he said he was going to take the aeroplane out, wind or no wind. I didn't have much chance to talk with him, but I understood that he was going to do just what Pat has suggested--run before the wind and swing back whenever he could." "I presume Jimmie is good and scared by this time!" Jack commented. "When we got to the machine," Frank went on, "we found two men there with some sort of torches in their hands, trying to set the machine on fire. We caught them unawares and left them lying there. I hope they didn't get burned to death." There was a short cessation of speech while the boys listened to the roaring of the flames and watched the fire mounting into the sky. It was a wild scene--one calculated to bring terror to the breast of any human being. The wind was dying down a little, but the clouds were still driving fast before it, their edges tinged with flame so that they resembled golden masses floating across an eternity of space clothed in smoke. While the boys watched the great display Frank pointed to a wall of flame rounding the corner of the plateau. "The fire will burn this slope," he said, "and we've either got to get into the cave or out on the lake. Which shall It be?" "The cave for mine!" Jack cried. "And mine," echoed Pat. "Who knows what the fire will do to the lake?" But Frank had had previous experience in the cavern. He was thinking of the still figure he had found lying there, and of the dark stains on the floor. "If we could find a boat," he said, without mentioning his real reason for objecting to the cave, "we might get along very well on the lake. We don't know what stifling air we shall find in the cave, and, besides, the men we have just had a fracas with may return at any time. It wouldn't be nice to be locked up in that hole in the ground." The wind was dying down to a steady breeze, and the fires seemed to burn lower. The clouds above were dark and threatening, save where gilded by the reflection from below, and seemed to be massing. Frank held up a hand and shouted. "Rain!" he cried. "Rain!" It was no gentle spring shower that opened upon the earth then. The fountains of the great deep seemed to have opened wide. The water fell in sheets, and in an instant the boys were wet to the skin. "Better than fire!" Jack suggested. The rain pelted down upon the forest fires viciously, and the hissing protests of the angry embers rose in the air. Through the thick veil of the rain clouds of steam could be seen rolling over the lake and along the threatened incline. In ten minutes water was pouring down the steep hill in sheets and the fires were leaping no more. Pleased as the boys were at the opportune arrival of the rain-bearing clouds, they could not help wondering if the freak of chance which had preserved the forests of northern Montana had not brought Ned and Jimmie sudden death. "They never can handle the machine in such an air-ocean," Jack declared, but the more optimistic Pat asserted that Ned must have been a mile above the rain clouds before a drop of water fell. "I guess the fire brought this rain on," Frank said, wiggling about in his wet garments, "but it's just as wet as if brought about by some other means. What are we going to do now?" "Why not go to the cave until the rain stops?" asked Pat. "It is colder in there than it is here," Frank said, still thinking of the silent figure in the narrow tunnel back of the cupboard. "We can't get any more water in our clothes and hides than we have now," Jack observed, "so we may as well stay outside and watch for Ned and the aeroplane. I don't believe any other person ever took an aeroplane up in such a storm. I'm afraid Ned was smashed against the divide." "Ned's all right," insisted Frank. "Suppose we go back to the plateau and see if there's anything left of our tents." "I'm game for that," Pat said, "but," he added, turning a keen gaze on Frank, "I'd like to know why you object to going to the cave. Jack and I would like to see it." "Well," Frank replied, not without some hesitation at bringing the scene in the tunnel back to his mind in form for expression in words, "there's a crime been committed in the cave, and it's uncanny." "A crime!" repeated Pat, all excitement at the suggestion of another adventure, "what kind of a crime?" "A murder," replied Frank, with a shiver. "Let's go in and see," Pat said. "Frank's afraid," Jack put in. "Of course I'm afraid," Frank admitted. "You go in there, and crawl on your knees through the thick air of a narrow tunnel, and put your hand on a dead man's face, and feel your other hand slipping in the blood on the floor, and you'll be afraid, too. I'm not going back there." "We can stand here in the rain all night, if you want to," Pat said, with scorn in his voice. "Rainwater is said to be good for the complexion." The wind was slowing down and the rainfall was not so heavy as before. The boys, Pat and Jack, joking Frank about his terror for the cave, and Frank just a little angry, began the ascent of the slope leading to the plateau. "The rain saved the trees next to the mountain," Pat said, presently, "and if it checked the fire on the plateau at the same line our tents are all right. Say," he added, "who ever heard of such a downpour as that. I reckon the rain swept in from the ocean in heavy clouds which were broken open by the mountains." "Much you know about it!" laughed Jack. "You talk as if you could cut a cloud with a knife." "Anyway," persisted Pat, "the water tumbled out and checked the fires. Wonder what became of the man who said his name was Greer? He was standing in with the men who were trying to burn the aeroplane, all right enough, and I believe the whole circus was started just to destroy the airship and bring Ned's investigations to a close." "We always do get into the thick of it at the first jump," Frank said, remembering the bomb under the cottage in the Canal Zone and the raid on the nipa hut in the Philippines. "Whenever we've got anything coming to us, we get it by lightning express." "You bet we do!" Jack exclaimed. "Now we're getting a clear sky," he added, pointing upward, "and we're getting it short order time, too!" The heavy clouds were gone, the moon was smiling down on the drenched earth, the stars were winking significantly toward a spot on the plateau where two unrecognizable figures, half burned away, were lying. When the boys reached the top of the climb and advanced to the spot where the aeroplane had stood they turned sick with the horror of the thing. "I almost wish we had let them destroy the aeroplane," sighed Frank. "I don't like to think that these men came to their death through us. It is awful!" "Did you shoot them?" asked Pat. Frank shook his head. "They shot at us," he said. "They fired as soon as we got to the rim of the dip, but missed because of the smoke and the wind. Then we rushed them, and they went down--to escape punishment, I thought--and so Ned got the aeroplane away." "Then you had nothing to do with their death," consoled Pat. "They came here to commit a crime and were overcome by the smoke and heat." Frank would gladly have accepted this version of what had taken place, but he could not bring his mind to do so at once. The horror of what he had found in the cave was still upon him. Leaving the spot where what remained of the outlaws lay, the boys hastened to the wall of rock which terminated the plateau on the east. The rain had indeed saved the tents from destruction. The canvas was huddled against the wall, stained with smoke and heavy with rain, but in fairly good condition. "We'll have to remain here, or about here, until Ned comes," Pat said, "so we may as well put the tents up. I wonder if it isn't most morning?" "Does that mean that you are getting hungry?" grinned Jack. "You bet it does!" was the reply. "Anyway, I'm going to see if I can find dry wood enough for a fire. If I can I'll make some hot coffee. Ned will see the fire, and know we are not in the cave." Then an exclamation from Frank called the speaker's attention to the clear sky over the divide. The upper strata of clouds were drifting westward on a high current of air--what few clouds there were--and far up in the blue, the moonlight trimming the planes with silver, rode the aeroplane, seemingly intact, and working back on the high current toward the Pacific coast. CHAPTER VII.--A KEY WITH A BROKEN STEM. The lights were burning low in a bachelor flat on a noisy street corner in the city of San Francisco, and a man of perhaps thirty lay on a couch with his eyes closed. There were in this sitting room, which faced one of the noisy streets, a grand piano, a costly music cabinet, a walnut bookcase filled with expensively bound volumes, numerous lazy chairs of leather, and the rug on the polished floor was rich and soft. The occupant of the flat evidently enjoyed luxurious things and had the money to pay for them. When a clock in a distant steeple struck midnight there came a knock at the locked door in the main corridor which connected with the private hallway on which the flat opened. A Japanese servant, small, obsequious, keen-eyed, opened the door, after the hesitation of a moment, and peeked out. He would have closed it again instantly, seeing a stranger there, only Ned Nestor, who had anticipated some action of the kind, thrust a shoe into the opening, and, reaching in, unfastened the chain. "I wish to see Mr. Albert Lemon," he said. The Jap tried to force the door back and lock it, but was unsuccessful. "No savvy!" he cried, as Ned brushed past him and stood in the private hall. Ned paid no further attention to him, but entered the sitting room and at once advanced to the couch where the man lay. The figure on the couch did not move, but the Jap forced himself in the boy's way with his cry of "no savvy!" "Opium?" Ned asked, pointing down to the man. "No savvy!" "Hit the pipe?" he asked, putting the question in a new way. "No savvy! No savvy!" "Dope, then?" Ned went on. "Tell me if this man has been doping himself into unconsciousness. Dope, eh?" Ned lifted his voice, half hoping that the man on the couch would show some signs of life, but there was no movement of the eyelids. "No savvy!" grunted the Jap. Ned took the servant by his shoulders, pushed him gently out of the room, and closed and locked the door, the key being in the lock on the inside. "No savvy! No savvy!" The words came through the thin panel of the door in quick succession for a minute and then silence. Again Ned advanced to the side of the couch and looked down upon the semi-unconscious man. It was clear to the boy that the fellow sensed what was taking place, but was too well satisfied with the drugged condition in which he lay to disturb his poise of mind by taking note of anything whatever. The figure of the fellow was dressed in expensive clothes of latest cut, but they were soiled, and even torn in places. The disreputable condition of the garments reminded Ned of a suit in which he had once been hauled through a briar patch and pulled into a pond at the hands, or horns, rather, of a village cow, assisted by a rope. His clothes, it is true, had not been expensive ones at the time of the occurrence, but the looks of the clothes the drugged man wore reminded him of the damage his cheaper ones had sustained. The face of the man on the couch was deadly pale, with the drawn look about the skin which comes of much familiarity with the drug made of the poppy. It was still an attractive face, even in its degradation, and the forehead was that of a capable man. Ned drew a chair to the side of the couch and sat down. Even if he should at that time succeed in attracting the attention of the man, the fellow was in no condition to answer the important questions he was there to ask. Presently the Jap, or some one else, came and rapped lightly on the door, and Ned opened it a trifle and looked out. "No savvy!" cried the Jap, repeating the words like a parrot, standing in the hall with many signs of fright on his yellow face. "All right!" Ned said, shutting the door in his face, "you don't have to." "I can't blame him for thinking this a cheeky invasion," Ned smiled, as he returned to his chair at the side of the couch. "It isn't exactly the thing to walk into a man's private room in this manner." Ned had decided to sit by the side of the half conscious man until he returned to his full mentality. Questions now might produce only pipe dreams, for the imagination is rather too active under such circumstances. Five days before Ned had left the boys in a cup on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains, not far from the summit, after explaining to them that he was going to the city to investigate a clue connected with the murder of the man who had been found in the cavern. Leaving the aeroplane safely hidden at Missoula, he had traveled by rail to San Francisco. In his handbag on this trip were two seemingly unimportant articles--a piece of tape cut from the inner side of the collar of the dead man's coat, and a small, odd-shaped key with the stem broken off so that it was only about an inch in length. The key had been the only article found in the dead man's pockets. The strip of tape bore the name of a San Francisco tailor. The directory had assisted him in finding the tailor, and the tailor had informed him that the coat had been made for one Albert Lemon, whose address he gave. So here he was, in Lemon's apartment, seeking information concerning the dead man, while Lemon, supposedly Lemon, lay in an opium daze on the couch. But Ned's time, waiting for the man to come back to consciousness, was not all wasted. Moving carefully about the room, he found that the broken key fitted a writing desk which stood between two windows. The lock which it fitted, however, was not in good condition, for the bolt had been pried back, damaging the polished edge of the casing which held the socket. The desk contained nothing of importance, and Ned left it as he found it. Sitting there in the soft light of the room, he did not know whether the man on the couch was Albert Lemon or whether the man who had died in the cavern was Albert Lemon. He believed, however, that the outlaws he had encountered in the mountains, had murdered the man, and felt that the surest way to trace the crime to them was to find out why the man had joined them--why he was there in the tunnel back of the cupboard. This would be likely to bring out a motive for the deed. He did not, of course, know whether the dead man had stood as an enemy to the outlaws, or whether he had stood as a friend. But that could make no difference with the quest he was on. He believed that the outlaws were the men he had been instructed to hunt down, and knew that proof could be obtained only by an intimate knowledge of their associations, their ways, their motives. The friends of the dead man he thought, would know something about them, perhaps be able to place them in the circle in which they lived when not in the hills. In work of this kind it is the first task of an investigator to "place" the man he is pursuing. The burglar is as good as taken when he is traced back to those he associates with in his hours of leisure. In the absence of a clue pointing to a person, the investigator busies himself in finding a motive. Ned believed that he now had the personal clue. The motive would place the proof in his hands. So his Secret Service work for the government was leading him into the investigation of a murder mystery. He smiled as he held up the key and wondered if the facts when discovered would bear out the suspicions in his mind. Again he asked himself the question: "Is this Albert Lemon, or was the dead man Albert Lemon?" After a long time the man on the couch opened his eyes and looked about the room. His glance rested for an instant on the figure in the chair at his side, but the fact of its being there did not appear to surprise him in the least. "Jap!" he called faintly. There was a sound at the door, but it was still locked, and the servant was unable to obey the summons. "Bring me a pipe!" were the next words. The Jap clamored at the door, but did not gain admission. The racket seemed to disturb the man not at all. "I think," Ned said, "that you have had all the dope you need to-night. Besides, I want you to answer a few questions." "Perhaps I have," the man said, "but, supposing that to be the case, where do you come in? You are a new one on me, and I hope you won't flop out of a window or go up through the roof, as some of the others have done. I want to have congenial company to-night. Who are you?" "Ned Nestor," was the quiet reply. "So," said the man on the couch. "I've heard of you--read about you and the Canal Zone in the newspapers. But you're only a kid. What about that?" "I can't help being young," laughed Ned. "Anyway, that is a fault I'll soon get over. We all have it at first." "And get over it too quickly," said the other, with a sigh. "Well, what do you want here?" "Are you Albert Lemon?" asked Ned abruptly. "Yes," was the reply, "I'm Albert Lemon. What about it?" The man was gaining mental strength every moment now, and seemed to sense the strange situation. "Stiles is your tailor?" the boy went on. "Look here," said the other, rising to a sitting position and passing a shaking hand across his brow, as if to brush away the fancies of the poppy, "when you convince me that you have a laudable interest in my personal affairs I'll be glad to answer your questions." Ned took the strip of tape from his pocket and held it out to the man on the couch. "Do you recognize that?" he asked. Lemon nodded coolly, but a look of wonder and alarm was growing in his bloodshot eyes, and his jaw dropped a trifle. "I still lack the proof of laudable interest," he said, with a twisting of the face intended for a smile. "Answer the question," Ned replied, "and I'll inform you of my interest in this article--and in you." "Yes, I recognize it as the private mark of Stiles, my tailor," Lemon answered, in a moment. "Where did you get it? If you insist on asking personal questions I must insist on the right to do the same thing." "I cut this private mark," Ned said, "from the collar of a coat found on the back of a dead man in Montana, somewhere near the main divide of the Rocky Mountains. Do you know how it came there?" "Yes and no," was the reply. "Kindly answer the affirmative proposition first," Ned said, with a smile. "Well," said the other, "about three months ago an old college friend of mine, one Felix Emory, came to me from Boston. He was in bad with his people, and was out of money. I took him in here and tried to brace him up. I couldn't do it. His moral stamina was gone." Lemon paused a moment, and, with a deprecatory smile, pointed to an opium pipe which lay on the rug near the couch. "I understand," Ned said. "I fed him, and clothed him, and introduced him at the club, and gave him every chance in the world to get a brace, but he fought me off. All he cared for was a pipe and a pill and a place to sleep it off." "And so you gave him up as a bad proposition?" asked Ned. "Not exactly. He wanted to go to the mountains on a hunting trip. Well, I thought it would benefit his health, so I rigged up an outfit for his use and let him go. You say the man was dead?" "Quite dead," Ned replied. "Too much poppy, I presume?" Lemon asked with an ashamed smile. "Too much steel," Ned answered, sharply. Lemon stared at the boy for an instant, his eyes more anxious than ever, and arose shakingly to his feet. "Do you mean that he was murdered?" he asked. Ned nodded. "Where?" was the next question. "I found the body in a cavern on the western slope of the Rockies," was the reply. "He had been dead only a few hours." Albert Lemon maintained a thoughtful silence for a time, during which Ned eyed his changing expression keenly. "And what do you wish me to do about it?" he then asked. "A crime has been committed," Ned replied, "and it seems to me that you ought to do all in your power to assist in bringing the criminal to punishment." "Granted, sir. Tell me what to do." "First, tell me about the men your friend went away with." "That brings me to the negative proposition," the other answered. "I have told you how Felix came by my coat, but I can't tell you whether the man the coat was found on was Felix. You must see that for yourself. He might have given the garment away, or he might have sold it in the city to get money for opium. In short, the coat might have been on the body of a man I never saw." "Then you can't tell me who Emory went away with?" asked Ned. "Certainly not," was the reply. "I don't know whether he went away at all or not." This was disappointing, but Ned had one more lever with which the man's indifference might be lifted, he thought. Before speaking again Lemon arose and turned the key in the lock of the door, against which the servant was still pounding. The Jap entered and stood by the door, looking intently at Ned. "When you gave him the suit of clothes he went away in," the boy went on, shifting his position so that both men would be under his eyes, "what articles, if any, remained in the pockets?" "Not a thing," was the reply. "I looked out for that." "Then anything discovered in the pockets of the dead man," Ned said, taking the key from his pocket and toying carelessly with it, "must have belonged to him?" Ned saw Lemon give a quick start at sight of the key. The Jap advanced a step as if to get a closer view of it. Then both men turned their eyes for an instant to the broken lock of the writing desk. Ned had gained his point. The men recognized the key. "Where is the body you speak of?" Lemon asked, presently. "Buried near the cavern in the mountains," was the reply. "Perhaps you can give me a description of the body," Lemon said. "I might be able to say, then, whether the man was Felix." "Look in the mirror," Ned replied, "and you will see there a fairly good representation of the dead man. About the same in height, in size, and, yes, in feature." "Then it must have been Felix," the other said. "His remarkable resemblance to myself has often been remarked. Poor fellow! I'm sorry that his end should come in so ghastly a form." There was a short silence, during which Lemon's eyes flitted from the key in Ned's fingers to the writing desk. "I said a moment ago," he observed then, "that I searched the pockets of the clothes before I gave them to him, or words to that effect. I remember now that I ordered Jap to do it. Did you obey orders?" he asked, turning to the servant. Ned saw the Jap give a quick start, then regain control of himself. Lemon, too, looked crestfallen for a moment, then addressed the Jap in another tongue. "I was talking in English," he said, "and forgot for the moment that he would not understand me." There followed a short conversation between the two, and then Lemon announced that the Jap had forgotten to look in the pockets of the clothes. Ned ignored the explanation and put the key in his pocket. He knew now that the Jap could understand English, and also that the key belonged to Albert Lemon, alive or dead. [Illustration: ILLUSTRATION No. 3] Lemon arose and, going to a table, secured a tobacco pouch and a book of cigaret papers. As he rolled a cigaret Ned observed that the middle finger of his left hand carried, just below the nail, a blue spot, as if he had been using a typewriter since cleaning his hands. Ned noticed it particularly, as he himself used a double keyboard machine and usually smutted that finger on the ribbon when he rolled the platen. "Well," Lemon said, "I'll have to ask you to excuse me now. I've been off on a long country tramp. You see how mussed up I am. I think I crawled through briar patches and wire fences and fell into cow ponds." Ned turned away without a word, with plenty of food for thought in his mind. CHAPTER VIII.--FATE OF THE STEAK A LA BRIGAND. Jimmie lay stretched at full length under one of the discolored shelter tents in a little cup in the heart of the Rocky Mountains. Frank and Pat and Jack were moving restlessly about, looking up at the blue sky expectantly. Ned had not returned from his trip to San Francisco, and the boys were anxious as to his safety. "He should have taken me with him," Jimmie drawled, presently, when Frank threw himself down by the tent. "Then he'd have been all right." "It is a wonder that he got along in the world at all before he fell under your protecting care," Frank replied, with a grin. "Oh, he managed in some way," Jimmie answered, "but he never got up in the world until he took me into partnership," with a wink at his chum. "He's been up in the world since then, all right," Frank said, suggestively. "Too high up," Jimmie grinned. "Too high up for me, anyway. I thought I'd die up there, on the night of the fire." "In all the history of air navigation," Frank observed, soberly, "there was never a trip like that. When I think of the quick start, and the wind and the rain, the whole thing seems like a dream. How did he ever do it?" "I don't know," Jimmie replied. "He boosted me into the seat, and the next I knew we were off, an' the fire was dropping away from us, an' the mountains were growing smaller, an' the peaks looked like warts on the world. I felt like I was fallin' over the edge of somethin'." "And the wind?" questioned Frank. "Didn't it take your breath away?" "Wind, nothin'," the boy said, scornfully. "There wasn't any wind where we were. We went along with it. It was like sailin' on a swift stream. Ned tuned the engine up to keep steerway, an' shut his teeth. Then, in half a minute, we were above the clouds, an' the moon an' stars were askin' what we were doin' up there." "You're saying it well," Pat said, joining the little group. "If you were going so merrily before the wind, why did he want steerway?" "You don't know much about the atmosphere," laughed Frank, answering for Jimmie. "If you did, you'd know that the air blanket of the earth is a good deal like a river. It has eddies, and currents, and ripples, and holes, too." "You're good, too!" exclaimed Pat. "Holes in the air is about the best I ever heard!" "Of course there are holes in the air," Frank replied, with the air of one imparting valuable information, "especially when there are fires beneath. And, let me tell you this, you old red-head," he added, with an exasperating grin, "when the air, driven swiftly by the wind, or what we call the wind, comes to mountain peaks, and tall trees, and sky-scrapers, it just backs up, just the same as water does when it comes to a dam, or any obstruction." "Go it!" Pat cried. "Make it a good one! Where does this air go when it backs up?" "It just hunches up," Frank replied, gravely, "and checks the flow back of it, and then eddies and swirls away, fit to twist an aeroplane into kindling wood." "Of course," broke in Jimmie. "I've often read of aeroplanes dropping a thousand feet into holes in the air, and of their being swept against tall trees and buildings by eddies. It takes a cool head to run an air machine in a storm of wind, and that is where Ned won out." "If he hadn't kept the aeroplane going with the wind at full speed," Frank added, "he would have been in a wreck the first half mile." "The more I learn about the atmosphere," Pat said, "the less I like it. When you get me up in an aeroplane, just send word to the folks that I'm tired of life." "Ned ought to have a Carnegie medal for what he did that night," Jack remarked, "and I'm going to speak to father about it when I get home." "There is no doubt that he ought to have one," Frank said, "but the men who really deserve Carnegie medals never get them." "You're an anarchist!" roared Pat. "All right," was the sober reply, "but if I had the giving out of the medals I'd present them to men who work twelve hours a day and provide for families of eight on nine dollars a week--the men who never get rested, and who never have enough to eat. They are the ones who ought to have the medals." "Most of them would sell the medals," Jack said, cynically. "Well," Frank replied, "I shouldn't blame them if they did. I'd rather have a porterhouse steak in the interior than a piece of bronze on the outside." "Don't talk about porterhouse steak!" pleaded Jimmie. "Hungry, little man?" asked Pat. "Hungry! I'm like one of the men Frank has been telling about. I never get rested, never have enough to eat." The boys fell upon Jimmie and rolled him out of the tent. "You get busy with fuel," Pat said, after they had given him plenty of "movements," "and I'll cook a steak à la brigand." "We ain't got no steak," complained Jimmie. "We've got potatoes, and bacon, and onions," Pat said, "and canned beefsteak. You just watch me. I used to cook steak à la brigand in the Philippines." "Get busy, then," Jimmie said, "and Jack will help get the green wood." "If you bring green wood here for me to cook with, I'll roast you over it," Pat said. "You get a lot of good dry wood that will make coals, and I'll show you how to broil a steak à la brigand." "Why do you call it a brigand steak?" asked Jimmie. "Because it takes a red-headed brigand to cook it," suggested Jack, dodging out of Pat's reach. "Never you mind the name," Pat replied. "Get the dry wood and I'll broil a steak that will melt in the mouth." "That old canned stuff?" asked Frank. "Get the wood," ordered Pat, "and I'll show you." There were a few dead trees--the sole reminders of a former forest fire in that green valley--close at hand, and the wood was soon gathered and placed in a great pile near two rocks which Pat had rolled to within a yard of each other. "Here!" Jack called out, as Pat transferred the whole supply to the space between the stones, "there's enough fuel there for a week's cooking. Quit it!" "My son," Pat replied, with a provoking air of patronage, "what you don't know about broiling a steak à la brigand would make a congressional library." While the wood was burning down to coals, Pat cut a green slip about an inch in diameter at the bottom and peeled and smoothed it nicely. "Is that to be used to enforce the eating of the steak?" asked Frank, winking at the others. "To keep you from gorging yourselves," Pat replied, going on with his work. In a short time he had the potatoes cut into half-inch slices. Jack had peeled them and, following directions with many grins, had also cut a round hole an inch in size in the middle of each slice. "He's going to wear 'em around his neck, like beads," Jimmie suggested, looking carefully over the heaped-up dish. The bacon was now sliced thin, as were the onions, and in the center of each slice a round hole was made. Then Pat opened a couple of tins of beefsteak--so called by the packers--and cut a hole in the middle of each slice. Then he strung a slice of potato on the spit, then a slice of bacon, then a slice of onion, then a slice of beef, until there was nearly a yard of provisions. "I begin to feel hungrier than ever!" Jimmie was dancing around the fire as Pat turned the spit. There were only coals now, and Pat kept the toothsome collection turning slowly, so as to broil without scorching. The smell of the cooking bacon and onions set the boys to getting out the tin plates and making the coffee. The sun, which had been shining fiercely all day, now seemed to be working his way through a mist. The atmosphere appeared to be tinted with the yellow haze one sees in the northern states in autumn. As the boys were keeping watch for Ned and the aeroplane, they noticed the change in atmospheric conditions, but attributed it to the rising vapor brought out by the heat of the sun. "Say," Jimmie said, presently, "I smell smoke. I wonder if there's goin' to be another forest blaze here?" "Of course you smell smoke," Jack said, watching the broiling supper. "We're cooking a steak à la brigand, ain't we?" "Smells like burnin' leaves," Jimmie insisted. "More like onions," Pat observed. The boys crouched about the fire for some moments longer and then Jimmie arose and began to climb the wall of the cup to the west. "I'm goin' to see about this," he said. Frank laid a hand on his arm. "You wait a minute," he said. "You can't climb that slope in less than half an hour, and Ned will be here before that. Look! He's coming now, like the wind!" The aeroplane, high up in the hazy sky, was indeed making good progress toward the little cup in the mountain side. While the boys looked they saw it shift away to the west, whirl back to the east, dart off to the north and back again. "He's huntin' for us," Jimmie said. "He's investigating!" Frank cut in. "Investigating what?" Pat demanded. "He's smelling of this steak à la brigand and is hunting for it. Let be. He'll find us." The sky was growing more uncertain every minute, and puffs of smoke were seen out in the west, over the rim of the cup. "The world is on fire, I tell you!" Jimmie cried, presently. "That's what Ned is shiftin' about for. If the blaze wasn't high up on the mountains we couldn't see the columns of smoke over the rim of the valley." "Well," Pat observed, "the fire can't get in here. Nothing to burn." "It can fill the cup with hot air and scorch us to death," Frank said, uneasily. "I think we'd better be looking about for a place to crawl into." "Wait until Ned comes," Jimmie suggested. "He'll know what to do." The aeroplane acted badly in the currents caused by the burning forest, but Ned finally managed to bring it down in the valley. The boys gathered about him, all excitement, and the steak à la brigand was for the moment forgotten in the joy at the return of the patrol leader and the anxiety to learn something of conditions out in the woods. "It's going to be a great conflagration," Ned said, "but I think the aeroplane will be safe here. The whole slope is on fire." "I wouldn't take chances on leaving it here," Frank advised. "I'd jump over the divide with it." "I have been in the air three hours now," Ned replied, "and must have a rest. Besides, we must remain where we can, if necessary, help head off the flames. That is what we are here for, remember." "Not to fight fires," corrected Frank, "but to find out who sets them." "Anyhow," Ned replied, "we must fight the fire, if it gives us a chance, now that we are here. Now, what do you think that is?" he added, as a chorus of howls and cries came up from the slope on the west. "Sounds like a country circus!" Jimmie laughed. "That is just what it is!" Ned exclaimed. "Here! Help me roll the aeroplane into that nook, where it won't be trampled into splinters. Now you boys get behind it, and I'll get in front. Whatever you see or hear, don't shoot unless you are actually attacked." The boys obeyed the commands without a word of comment, well knowing what was coming next. A breeze was sliding up the slope, bringing with it flying masses of smoke. Presently birds began to stagger through the heavy atmosphere, flying low, almost within reaching distance, as they had fled long before the mounting flames and were exhausted. "I wish this would let up a moment," Pat said, "long enough for us to reach that steak à la brigand. It must be about done by this time." "I'll go an' get it," volunteered Jimmie. "An' eat most of it on the way back." "Then bring the coffee," cried Jack. "Why can't we all go out there and eat?" asked Frank. The boys were about starting with a rush when Ned caught two of them by the arm and stopped the others by a quick call. Through the smoke and the hot air on the rim of the cup, a great head, a head neither white nor black, but grizzly, was seen. Then a deer bounded over and crouched down in the valley. Next two mountain lions raced over the lip of the valley and halted growling, within a few yards of the boys. "There goes our steak à la brigand!" Jimmie cried, as the rush of frightened animals showed under the smoke. "I'll eat one of them deer to pay for this," he added. "You'll be lucky if one of these wild animals doesn't eat you," Jack said. "How would you like to be back in little old Washington Square just now?" "Forget it!" was the boy's only reply. "Will the fire get here?" Frank asked of Ned, as the wild creatures of the forest poured into the valley, regardless of the presence of the boys, unmindful of the proximity of each other. "I don't think the flames will come into the cup," Ned replied, "but if the smoke settles here we shall have a hot time of it." "Huh!" Jimmie cried. "The whole valley is full of mountain lions, an' bears, an' deer, an' snakes, an' rabbits. There ain't no room for any smoke!" Then the smoke rolled away for an instant, showing a sun as red as a piece of molten iron; showing, too, a huddle of forest animals crowding together in the center of the valley. In their terror of the fire they had forgotten to be afraid of mankind--of each other! CHAPTER IX.--THE CHAOS OF A BURNING WORLD. That was a day long to be remembered in the Great Northwest. It is true that the destruction of life and property at that time by no means equaled the ruin wrought by the forest fires of August, 1910, but the conflagration was serious in its final results for all that. In August of the previous year half a hundred persons lost their lives in the fierce fires which swept over portions of Idaho and Montana, and more than six billion feet of lumber were destroyed. At that time wild animals raced into the log houses of settlers in order to escape the flames. In one instance, placed on record by a forester, a mountain lion actually sought shelter under a bed. In that case, too, the fire virtually held its ruthless way until it burned itself out, as there were no trails, no telephones, no provisions for the fire fighters. The men of the forest patrol were each guarding a hundred thousand acres. In the more civilized countries of Europe, a thousand acres is considered a large district for one man. It was hot and close in the odd little valley on the mountain side. There seemed a premonition of greater danger in the very air--the lifeless air which seemed to dry the lungs beyond power of action. The wind, coming over the blazing forests, struck hot upon the face and scorched the lips, while the acrid smoke filled the eyes, the ears, the nostrils. It seemed to Ned that everything east of the Kootenai river must be on fire. Now and then, drawn by some wayward current of air, the thick smoke lifted in the little cup-like valley, and the cowering wild animals could be seen, huddling together in the terror of the time, deer no longer afraid of lion or bear, lion and bear forgetting to mark their prey. Finally, anxious to know the extent of the disaster, so far as it might be judged by a personal view of the country west of the valley, Ned left the boys in charge of the aeroplane and crept toward the rim of the cup. Jimmie saw him leaving and started on after him, but Jack drew him back. "Let him go alone, for once," Jack said, "he's only going to find out where this menagerie of wild animals comes from." Jimmie settled sullenly back by Jack's side, resolved to break away at the first opportunity and follow the patrol leader. When Ned gained the elevation he sought, the procession of wild animals had come to an end, although birds, frightened and singed by the flames, were calling from the sky. Everywhere rolled billows of smoke, blown on ahead of the line of fire and in a measure concealing its fatal advance. Now and then, however, a spurt of hot wind came over the burned waste and lifted the curtain for an instant. Then the boy saw that the fire was crawling up the slope, not racing as it had earlier in the day, but moving steadily, sweeping the earth of the undergrowth, but leaving many large trees. The danger was decreasing there, but lower down the flames were consuming everything in their path, eating down great trees and leaving fiery, straggling columns to consume them to ashes. Ned thanked his stars that the growths on the slope were not dense enough to foster such a blaze as that which burned below. It has been stated by those who know that ordinary care would have prevented most of the devastating forest fires which have raged in the Northwest. Experts claim that forests should be burned over under careful supervision, every three or four years. This, they say, will prevent the accumulation of inflammable material such as caused the terrible losses of August, 1910. Ned saw at once the expediency of the proposed remedy. He knew that resinous spines, steeped in the drippings of pitch and turp from the overhead branches, had lain many inches deep around the trunks of the trees, beneath fallen boles, and at the roots of the undergrowth. This accumulation made the extinguishing of forest fires impossible. He understood that the government had virtually provided for what followed by permitting this material to accumulate year after year. It is declared by foresters and others who strove to check that wall of fire that it advanced at the rate of a mile a minute between the Kootenai river and the foothills. Below where Ned lay was a burning furnace. It was so hot that he dare not lift his face a second time, and so he moved back to the aeroplane, which he found still safe from the flames, and the wild creatures crouching in the center of the valley. "What are the prospects?" Frank asked, speaking with his lips close to the ear of the patrol leader, for the roaring of the flames rendered ordinary conversation difficult. "There is safety here," Ned replied, "but everything to the west seems to be burning." "Gee!" Jimmie cried, looking Ned in the face, "how would you like to meet a friend with a basket of ice?" "Ice wouldn't last long here," Frank said. "Not if I got hold of it!" Jimmie grunted. As the line of fire came nearer to the top of the slope the air grew hotter, the smoke denser and more stifling. Pat remembered that a pail of water from a spring had been brought to the vicinity of the aeroplane soon after Ned landed, and the boys wet their handkerchiefs and bound them over their eyes and mouths. As the heat increased the wild creatures crowding together ominously. When a feeble beast was trampled by a stronger one, or when a rattler struck at the leg of a bear or deer, there was a cry of pain and a quick milling of the pack. "If this doesn't end soon," Frank shouted to Ned through his handkerchief, "there will be a stampede here. Then it will be all off for us." Ned looked around the little circle before replying. The boys certainly looked like "white caps" with their sheeted faces. "We'll have to wait and hope for the best," he said. "If the animals come this way, we must stop them, so far as we are able, with our guns and electric flashlights." Presently night fell, and the wind quieted a little at the setting of the sun. In a short time the clouds rolled away in sullen, threatening groups, and the stars looked down on the forest tragedy. Later, there would be moonlight. "I wonder if all the world is burned, except just this mountain?" Jimmie asked, taking the handkerchief from his face and wiping the smoke out of his inflamed eyes. "It looks that way." "There seems to be enough left to hold a lot of heat," Jack said. "I don't believe it will ever be cool again." "If we'd only saved that brigand steak!" wailed Jimmie. With the half light and the cooler air there came a commotion in the mass of forest creatures in the center of the valley. It was night now, and they seemed to feel the mounting of their wild instincts to be up and away on the hunt. Under the stars, one by one, they slunk away, bears and mountain lions turning sullenly toward the lesser beasts, but still too terrified by what they had passed through to feel the pangs of hunger. In half an hour the menagerie had vanished, some to the mountain, some over the slopes to the north and south. The boys drew long breaths of relief when the shambling figure of the last bear disappeared. Once Jack drew his gun on a fat old buck who seemed desirous of investigating the aeroplane, but Ned saw the action and checked the slaughter. "Let him alone," he said. "He's lived through this hell on earth, so give him one more chance." The boys now began gathering up their scattered utensils, restaking the tents, and preparing supper. Jimmie proposed another brigand steak, but Pat insisted that he never wanted to get near enough to a fire to cook again, so they made an indifferent meal of biscuit and tinned pork and beans, not even going to the trouble to boil coffee. While they were eating a gunshot came from the east, followed by the challenge of a chanticleer. "What do you know about that?" demanded Jimmie. "I suppose," Jack complained, "that we've been eating a picked-up supper within a few rods of a farmhouse, or cattle ranch!" "You might pry open some of the rocks back there," Pat observed, with sarcasm, "and see if you can find the house you speak of. It was a human throat that crow came from." "Sure it was!" cried Jimmie. "It was a Boy Scout call. Now just see me get him to talking." "What's a Rooster patrol chap doing here!" asked Jack. "I guess we are all having bad dreams." Jimmie did not reply. Instead he put his hands to his throat and in a second a long snarling wolf cry came forth, rising into a shrill call, as if summoning a pack at a distance. "We'll see what he knows about that," the boy said. As they listened the challenge of the chanticleer came once more. This time Jack answered it with the growl of a black bear, which seemed to Frank to be a great improvement on his practice stunts in the Black Bear Patrol club rooms in New York. This odd exchange of greetings kept up for some moments, and then the figure of a boy of perhaps seventeen was seen in the uncertain light, making slow progress down the mountain, a short distance to the north. He carried a haversack on his shoulders and was dressed in the khaki uniform of the Boy Scouts of America. "He must be used to mountain work," Jack remarked, as the boy leaped lightly from ledge to ledge and finally dropped into the valley. "I couldn't do that, even in broad daylight, to save my life!" The stranger now advanced to the group of boys and gave them the half salute of the Boy Scouts, standing with right arm straight out from the shoulder, palm outward, three fingers standing vertical, the thumb crossing the palm to rest on the bent-in little finger. Ned replied with the full salute, which is made with the hand in the same attitude, only at the forehead. "What does the badge say?" demanded Jimmie. "Be prepared!" was the quick reply. "For what?" was the next question. "To assist those in distress." "You're all right," Jimmie shouted. "What patrol?" "Chanticleer, Denver," was the reply. "That accounts for the way you lighted down from the mountain," laughed Ned. "I've got used to climbing in walking the streets of my home town," smiled the other. "Is Ned Nestor here?" he added. "My name is Ernest Whipple; I'm looking for Mr. Ned Nestor." "Here he is, the only good-looker in the bunch," Jack laughed, pushing Ned forward. "What do you want of him?" "My father is connected with the Secret Service at Washington," was the reply, "and he posted me as to what was going on here. Said I might come out and join the party, if Mr. Nestor would permit it. What do you say?" Of course the son of a man connected with the Secret Service at Washington--a man who undoubtedly knew all the plans of the men who had sent Ned into the Northwest--was not to be ignored, but at the same time Ernest would have been received into the party on the strength of his own engaging personality, his own frank manner. From the very first moment he was a favorite with all the boys. "You're as welcome as the flowers of May!" Frank cried. "Been to supper?" "Last night!" grinned Ernest. "My haversack is empty--also my stomach. I had to take to the mountain in order to keep out of the fire, and couldn't connect with a grub stake." "Then there are fires east of the divide?" asked Ned. "Sure," was the reply, "although they are nothing like the ones over here. The foresters are watching them, and there is little danger of their getting a big start." "Where did you find foresters?" asked Ned, wondering if the men who had sneaked away from the cavern were not posing as foresters waiting to do further mischief. "They are in camp beyond the summit," was the reply. "They told me they had patrols all through the lower levels." Jack gave a description of the man who had visited the camp on the plateau, and was not at all surprised when Ernest identified the fellow as the apparent leader of the band of foresters he had passed on his way west. "I see that you don't believe the men are foresters," Ernest said, looking into Ned's anxious face. "Well, to tell the truth, I doubt it myself. I heard some talk there that set me thinking, after I got away. There was a man there who had just arrived from San Francisco, they said, and he was doing a good deal of kicking about something that had been done, or hadn't been done. I don't know which." "Can you describe the fellow?" asked Ned, a quick suspicion coming to his mind. "Of course I can," was the reply, and the remainder of the answer gave an accurate word photograph of one Albert Lemon. Ned was thinking fast. How had Lemon reached the eastern side of the divide so quickly. He, himself, had traveled swiftly from San Francisco, leaving soon after his exit from the bachelor apartment where the strange and not entirely satisfactory interview had taken place. He had left the man who claimed to be Albert Lemon half dazed and weakened from the effects of opium--still weary from a long and exhausting journey, as shown by his clothing, and yet the fellow had beaten him out in the race to the mountains. Why? Certainly not to take charge of the body of his unfortunate friend, for the grave was not there, but in a little hollow away to the north and near the lake. His business seemed to lie with the outlaws who had, apparently, committed the crime. Why? Had the man been killed as the result of a conspiracy between the two interests? This point was worth looking into, for the motive for the deed might also prove to be the motive for other crimes--among them the burning of forests. CHAPTER X.--CHASING THE MILKY WAY. While the boys were exchanging experiences with Ernest Whipple, talking over Boy Scout matters and arranging for a sleeping place for the stranger, Ned was busy with his aeroplane. It had not suffered in the least from the heat and wind, and there was plenty of gasoline on hand for a journey which he was thinking of taking. "Where are we goin' to-night?" Jimmie asked, finally, strolling over to the spot where the great bird lay. "As the wind is right," Ned laughed, "I thought I'd take a sail over the divide and see what the alleged foresters are up to." "All right," the boy said, "just wait until I get a big blanket to wrap up in and I'll go with you." Ned smiled at the determination of the lad to keep close to his side. He knew that Jimmie dreaded the very idea of leaving the solid earth that night, still he found him willing to make the ascent merely for the sake of being in his company. "All right, kid," he said. "You may go if you want to, but it may be morning before we get back to camp." "You can't remain in the air all that time," Jimmie said. "I am fully aware of that," Ned replied, "but I can drop down over on the other side and rest and tinker with the machine--if she doesn't work just right." "You haven't got gasoline enough," urged Jimmie, who would have argued Ned out of the notion of the night flight if possible, but who was determined to go with him if he went. "The first thing I do," Ned replied, "will be to fly over the Great Northern right of way and fill up with gasoline. Besides filling the tanks, I shall carry a lot away in an aluminum keg I have provided for that purpose." "Well," Jimmie said, with a tired sigh, "I should think you'd been through enough to-day and to-night, without goin' off in the dark, but I'm goin' if you do." After talking with the others regarding his intentions, and warning them to keep a sharp lookout during his absence, Ned assisted Jimmie to his seat and the two were away. There was scant room for a rise between the spot where the machine lay and the foot of the range, but Ned had little difficulty in getting into the sky and swinging along in the breeze. It was now after ten o'clock, and the moon was high in the heavens. To the east the dark passes of the mountains showed green and misty in the moonlight. To the west the burned spaces looked dark and forbidding, with smoke half hiding the ruin that had been wrought. Jimmie clung to the machine and insisted that Ned was chasing the Milky Way when he lifted the aeroplane up the level of the divide. Before crossing the divide, however, Ned flew to the Great Northern right of way and filled his tanks with gasoline, also filling the extra keg. The machine, which was an improved Wright, was then turned to the north-east. So perfect have aeroplanes now become that even inexperienced drivers may sometimes venture into the air with them with impunity, still it is well known that it is more the man than the machine that decides whether there shall be a tumble or a successful flight. The aeroplane is a wonderful invention, yet the point which really makes it so serviceable is a very simple one. For years inventors studied ways of making a heavier-than-air machine sail through the sky like a bird. Then the gasoline engine came, and all the rest seemed easy. But no one could keep control of the aeroplane. It moved about according to its own whims, and tipped drivers out at its own sweet will. Then the Wrights thought of lifting and lowering the planes to represent the wings and feathers of a bird. The secret had been found and required only experience and practice. Here was a machine light enough to fly, yet strong enough to carry with safety its powerful engine and two or more passengers, if there is room provided for them. It is so stout that a man may walk over it while it lies on the ground, and yet so delicate in control when in the air that a slight pull on a lever will dip one wing, lift the other, and at the same time turn a vertical tail-rudder about to give the necessary balancing pull with almost the instinctive adaptability of a bird's wings and feathers. And this wonderful machine, while speeding through the air with the velocity of an express train, can be halted almost instantly and whirled about on its tail. It will be seen that it is the man at the levers who makes or breaks a journey in the air. One man may do almost anything with a machine, while another may send himself to eternity with the same one. It was Ned's good fortune that he was naturally ingenious and quick to make his hands follow the impulses of his brain. When a person is thundering through the air, a thousand feet above the earth, he must remain perfectly calm, even with the engine thundering behind his ears, tears running in streams down his face, and the wind fluttering his clothes into rags and ravelings, as he wishes he was back on land. Besides, there are no level plains in the air, as there are on earth. Every bird-man knows that he is liable to come up against a fierce current or tumble into a hole in the atmosphere at any moment. While traveling in water one can see what is ahead and on both sides, but this is not so in the air. The currents, swirls, eddies, holes, do not show at all. When Ned left the caché where the gasoline and provisions had been hidden away, he put on half speed, swinging steadily skyward on a broad spiral. His purpose was to pass over the summit and have a look at the forests on the east side. The passenger's seat in the Wright machine is in the middle. The engine is at his right and the driver at his left, so that the balance is the same whether an extra person is carried or not. Jimmie was glad of this, for it placed him close to Ned. In that half light, with the earth far below, with the pounding of the engine and the whistling of the wind, the boy felt the need of close human companionship. He sat in a wooden seat with his back against the rest, holding to one of the uprights with both hands, and resting his tingling feet on a cross-bar. A guy-wire passed across in front, close to his chest, so he was now fastened in. He wanted to talk with Ned, to hear the sound of his voice, but the clamor of the engine prevented that, so he just sat still and looked down on the flying forest below. It seemed to him, at least, that the forest was moving, while he was standing still in the starlight. Up the aeroplane went, and still higher up. Jimmie saw the great divide below, and saw little red specks in the forests of the eastern slope which denoted forest fires not yet grown to maturity. After passing the summit Ned saw the campfire of the men Ernest had spoken of. He passed them, swung around a circle lower down, selected a spot where he thought he could land with safety, and dropped down. Jimmie declared afterwards that he felt as if he had been thrown out of the window of a twenty-story building--and the highest window at that. When the aeroplane came into the shadows of the high trees where the landing was being made he knew that a wind was blowing at the surface and feared that the machine would be carried along on the ground and dumped over into a cañon. The machine sank gracefully into a glade rather high up on the slope, and the boys alighted to stretch their legs. Ned's first move was to see if there was plenty of room for him to get out. What he found was an incline to the east, an incline ending at a great cañon, into which he would have been hurled had the aeroplane run fifty feet farther on the ground. "I think I can make it," he said, "but it is risky. It wouldn't be nice to take a header a thousand feet down." After the inspection of the locality Ned extinguished all the lights and sat down to map out his plans for the remainder of the night. There were the usual noises of the forest, as found at night, but no human sounds intruded. Ned knew that the clamor of the engine must have been heard by the men in the camp he had flown over, and he had no doubt that the outlaws would make a quick excursion to his landing place, if they could determine where it was. So he put out the lights and listened for some indication of the approach of the others. "They won't find us in a thousand years," Jimmie volunteered, as the two sat close together under a great tree. "I hope not," Ned replied, "for then we shall have a better chance to find them." "What do you want to find 'em for?" questioned the boy. "You can't pinch 'em, 'cause you haven't got the proof, an' you couldn't if you had the proof, 'cause there ain't enough of us. They'd eat us up like spinach." "You are right as far as you have gone," Ned replied, "but you have not gone far enough. What I want now is to find out what they are doing here. And, also, I want to find out about that fellow from San Francisco. If the description is any good, he was in the city when I left it, and I don't see how he ever got here so soon. I came part way on an aeroplane, but it seems that he traveled farther and beat me out." "What's he got to do with it?" asked Jimmie. "What did you find out in the city? You won't have no luck if you don't tell me all about it." So, while they waited, Ned told him "all about it," while the boy sat in the dusk with his eyes and mouth both opened wide at the mystery of the thing. "I don't believe Albert Lemon ever got out here so soon," the lad said, when the story was told. "He couldn't." "Then who is the man from San Francisco?" asked Ned. "It can't be the dead man?" questioned Jimmie. "You saw him buried," Ned answered. "Then I give it up!" Jimmie said. The two sat there in silence a long time, then Jimmie gave Ned's arm a pull and pointed to a flickering light in the forest just above the glade where the aeroplane rested. "They think you've landed somewhere here," the boy said, "an' have set fire to the woods." "I think you have guessed it," Ned said. "However, the blaze won't run very fast up there, for the undergrowth is scanty, so we've got plenty of time to get out of the way." Jimmie scrambled up the slope, clinging to rocks and roots with both fingers and feet, and ran toward the blaze. Ned watched the little fellow dashing along with no little anxiety, for the outlaws might be there in the thickets, watching for some attempt to be made to lift the aeroplane. He saw Jimmie recklessly climb to the top of a great rock which jutted out from the side of the mountain and saw his figure outlined against the growing blaze on the slope above. Then the fire died down, as if for want of material, and the top of the rock could no longer be seen. Ned listened, but Jimmie did not return. The effort to create a general conflagration on the mountain side had evidently failed, for there was little to burn save the green boles of trees, that section having been swept by fire a year before. Not daring to leave the aeroplane for even an instant, Ned awaited the return of the boy with premonitions of trouble in his mind. Presently he heard a shot, then a cry, and after that a brutal laugh. The outlaws were nearer than he thought. There was only one thing for Ned to do, and that was to get the aeroplane into the sky immediately, and so once more place it beyond the reach of the outlaws. There was nothing he could do to aid Jimmie, he reflected, sadly, by remaining there. It was no task at all to start the rollers down the incline, but the cañon threatened if he did not get it off the ground in quick time. He knocked the stones out from under the wheels and sprang into his seat. The machine, gaining momentum, moved on sedately. It had acquired a fair rate of speed when he came within a few feet of the cañon. Then, after letting it get all the headway possible in that confined space without coming too close to the cañon, Ned pulled the lever which tilted the front rudder planes. Trifling as the deflection was the man-made bird felt its influence and rose from the slope as if endowed with life. It reached the edge of the descent some distance in the air, and the boy was congratulating himself on the success of his unaided rise when the big machine began to sag as if dropping to the ground, five hundred feet below. The west wall of the cañon ran straight down, and it seemed to Ned that he was following it, like an iron spike thrown off the ledge. He knew very well what had occurred. He had fallen into one of the down-tipping currents so frequent in mountain districts. The air, he knew, was sliding down the precipice just as water tumbles over a dam. If it turned, as it might, when it struck the lower strata of air, he might secure control of his machine and manage to lift it out of the cañon. If it did not, he would doubtless fall to the rocky floor of the cañon, and lie there until some chance hunter or forester came upon a heap of bleaching bones and the wreck of an aeroplane. But even at that swift pace downward, and at that exciting moment, Ned found himself puzzling over the strange sight he saw in a break in the wall of the cañon. It was a large opening he looked into, and strange figures were gathered about a cooking fire. CHAPTER XI.--THE LUCK OF A BOWERY BOY. Jimmie opened his eyes and looked about. It was a gloomy niche in a perpendicular wall that he looked out of. Rock to right and left and rear. In front a velvet summer sky, with stars winking over a vast stretch of broken country. There was a ledge a foot in width outside the entrance to the niche, but the boy could not see how long it was, or where it led to. His head ached and there was a drawing sensation to the skin of his forehead and right cheek, as if some sticky substance had congealed there. When he reached a hand up to see what the trouble was he found that his head was tied up in a cloth. There was no one in sight to ask questions of, so he arose to a sitting position and leaned forward. The action brought on a whirl of dizziness, and he dropped back against the wall for support. He knew then that he had received a hard blow on the head, and that he had lost considerable blood. Once before in his life he had felt that dizzy weakness, and that was after an artery had been cut in his leg and he had nearly bled to death before reaching a hospital. When he lay back trying to get something like a balance in his brain, he saw that it was near midnight. He knew that by the stars, for he had watched them many a hot night, lying on his back on a dray backed up some alley down near the East river, in New York. There were certain stars which always occupied just such a position at midnight in New York. He did not know their names, but he knew that at midnight in Montana they would not be so far advanced across the sky. Therefore he looked for the stars as they appeared at nine o'clock on the Atlantic. When he found them he knew from their location that it had been something over an hour since he had left Ned and the aeroplane. The three hours difference in time between New York and Montana--three hours in round numbers--would make the midnight stars three hours late, of course. Anyway, the boy was pretty certain of the time. Then his mind went back to Ned and the aeroplane, and the cañon in front of the landing place. He recalled the stop, and remembered leaving Ned to see what was doing in the way of forest fires. He remembered, too, getting up on a high rock to look over at the creeping flames. But strange to say he did not remember getting down again. The next thing on the record of his mind was that niche in the wall and the stars shining down out of a summer sky, the same stars he had looked at in old New York. Of course he had been struck the blow he had received while mounting the rock, otherwise he would know something of the attack. His mind did not have to travel along the records of the past very far to convince him that he had made a mistake in leaving Ned. Of course he had been "geezled" by the outlaws, as he expressed it, and of course the boys would delay the business they were on in order to look him up--which, he reluctantly admitted to himself, would be a waste of time, as any boy capable of doing such foolish stunts certainly was not worth the trouble of looking up. Presently the pain in his head became less violent and the dizziness in a measure passed away. Then he pushed out to the edge of the ledge and sat with his feet hanging over. It was a straight drop down. Below he could see a stream of water running along the bottom of the cañon. Out, perhaps two hundred yards from his resting place, he saw a slope half covered with trees. He looked down into the gulf in the hope of seeing the aeroplane, but it was not in sight. Ned must have taken it away. Or he might have been overpowered and the machine broken up. Of course the outlaws would break up the machine if they secured possession of it. They would not dare use it in that region, and it was about as handy a thing to ship away secretly as a white elephant. There were no lights in sight anywhere, save a slight glow of coals away down at the bottom of the cañon. That might be the remains of the aeroplane, or it might be a bit of forest fire which had not burned itself out. Very much disgusted with himself, the boy leaned farther out wondering if there wasn't a ledge which wound its way to the bottom of the cañon, or to the summit above. So intently was he studying on this proposition that he did not hear footsteps approaching, nor did he realize that there was any human being near him until he felt a hand laid lightly on his shoulder. "Be careful, young man," the voice said, "or you'll get another tumble. How do you feel by this time?" "Fine!" cried the boy, turning a pair of astonished eyes toward the south, where a bulky personage stood blocking the ledge to the extent of obscuration. "Well, don't take any more chances, then," said the bulky person, and Jimmie was forced, not ungently, back into the niche. The man entered after the boy and threw himself down on the stone floor of the cut in the wall of the cañon. He was short and stout, with a double chin and a pointed forehead which gave his face the appearance of being engraved on a lemon. He was quite bald, and his hair, that which remained, was turning gray. His eyes were steel blue, and his mouth one long, thin-lipped slit between fat cheeks. Jimmie did not like his looks at all, and he resented the patronizing voice and manner. So he leaned sullenly against the wall and waited for the other to open the conversation. He had not long to wait, for the man was busy in a moment. "How did you get that fall?" he asked. So, Jimmie thought, they were going to claim that he had a fall, and that they had found him, and cared for him gently, and were now ready to do anything in the world for his comfort. The boy decided that the correct course for him to pursue was to follow the lead of the other. "Guess I slipped off a rock," he said, knowing very well that he had been knocked off his feet so suddenly that he had instantly lost consciousness. "What were you doing there?" was the next question. "Why, I had been out in the aeroplane, and I got out to see if the forest fire I saw was going to be anything serious, and then I tumbled." "Where is the boy who was with you in the aeroplane?" asked the other. Jimmie replied that he had no idea, which was, of course, the answer expected of him. His questioner remained silent a moment, looking out over the rugged land to the east. When he spoke again it was to ask: "What are you doing in the Rocky Mountains?" Jimmie thought that was a cheeky question, and a useless one, for he had no doubt that the fellow knew nearly as much about his business as he did about his own. "We're on a vacation," he replied. "Five of us have a camp over on the other side of the divide. We're just playing prospectors." "Very nice vacation for you all," the other said, "but you ought to be more careful with your fires. You started a large conflagration yesterday." So the Boy Scouts were to be accused of that! Jimmie wished at that moment that the other boys were there. He wanted to tell this fat hypocrite what he thought of him and stand a fair show in the fracas which might follow. "I don't think we set any fires," he said. "The fires started a long way from our camp." "I know what I'm talking about," the other said. Jimmie did not reply. He was wondering what would be the next move of the fat party, and whether Ned or the boys left in camp would be out to look him up before the morning. "I am in charge of this district," the other went on. "I'm Captain Slocum of the forestry force." Jimmie did not believe it, but did not say so. He only stared at the other in a manner which nettled his dignity. "I have been watching you boys ever since you have been here," Captain Slocum went on. "I didn't know what you were up to, and so I watched." "Yes, sir," said Jimmie, quite humbly, though angry enough to fight the man single-handed. "It seems that you have left forest fires wherever you have camped," Slocum went on, with an all-knowing air. "To-night I sent a party of foresters over to the camp to arrest you all." "Yes, sir," replied Jimmie again, shutting his lips hard in order to prevent saying a great deal more. "Do you think they will find this Ned Nestor there?" Slocum asked, then. "I don't know whether he could get his machine back to the camp," Jimmie replied. "Well, wouldn't he go without it?" "No, sir; I don't think he would, unless it was certain that he could not take it with him." "We'll find him, anyway," Slocum continued. "Where are you goin' to take us for trial?" Jimmie asked. "We'll have to consider that part of the matter later on," was the reply. "The first thing for us to do is to lock you up good and tight and stop the setting of forest fires." "Yes, sir," replied Jimmie, still humbly, but still thinking what he would do to this fat falsifier if he ever got a chance. "I'm glad you confess," Slocum said. "I didn't," said Jimmie. "Why, yes, you did," insisted the other. "You admitted setting the fires." Jimmie made no reply. Far down in the cañon he saw a glint of flame. It was not a forest fire. It was not even the red light of a campfire or a lantern. The light was white, and the boy knew it for what it was--an electric searchlight, such as Ned always carried on his aeroplane trips. Slocum did not seem to see the light. His eyes were fixed on the face of the boy he was talking with, although the features did not show very distinctly in the dim light of the night. "Well, to tell you the truth, we've already captured this Ned Nestor," Slocum added, maliciously, Jimmie thought, "and no doubt my men have also captured those at the camp. Nestor broke a leg in trying to get away, but when he was fairly cornered he confessed everything." "Yes, sir," answered Jimmie. There was nothing else the boy could say without putting himself in the way of a beating. If he had expressed his opinion of this story no doubt he would have been given physical punishment for his frankness. "And so," Slocum smiled, "you may as well continue the confession you began." Jimmie recognized this as clumsy work in the third degree, but he did not say so. He was watching the light below. Now it disappeared behind a great rock or tree. Now it came out in the opening again and moved about in a circle. "Ned is examining his 'plane, preparatory to going back to camp," the boy thought. "Wonder if he's been all this time lookin' for me?" The boy paid little attention to what Slocum said after this. Most of the time he was looking into the sky, or anywhere rather than where his thoughts were fixed. He had no intention of directing the gaze of the alleged forester to what was going on in the cañon. Directly he saw the flashlight flutter over the white planes then become stationary. Ned, he knew, was getting ready to make a flight. He could imagine what the boy's feelings were, for he knew Ned's affection for him. Indeed, it was with a heavy heart that the patrol leader left the place without Jimmie. "And there is also a suspicion that you boys are interested in getting opium over the border without settling with Uncle Sam," Jimmie heard Slocum saying, as he watched the aeroplane move forward, lift for a moment, and then drop down out of sight. He knew of the precipice just ahead of the machine, and trembled for fear that Ned had not been able to lift the aeroplane, but had tumbled into the cañon with it. "Anyway," Slocum continued, "we shall place you under arrest for setting fire to the woods and also for smuggling." Just at that moment Jimmie was not at all interested in what Slocum was saying to him. He took no interest whatever in any threat made by the fellow. He was watching the cañon for some sign of the reappearance of the aeroplane. After what seemed an eternity to the lad he saw the light again, this time higher up than before. It was lifting slowly, turning round and round in a spiral, and Jimmie knew that there was no room to mount into the sky in a straight line. Ned's control of the machine was wonderful, and it lifted gradually until it was above the line of the hills on the other side and shot away to the west. Then Slocum saw it. Jimmie blamed himself for calling his attention to it by lifting his head to follow the flight across the sky. "There is another aeroplane," Slocum said. Jimmie could not restrain a laugh, which intruded oddly enough on the tense silence of the moment. "You don't think it is Nestor, do you?" Slocum asked. "Yes, sir," replied Jimmie, still humbly. "But he must have taken a drop down the cañon," urged Slocum. "Yes, sir," replied Jimmie, "but you said you had captured him!" Slocum eyed the boy with rage in his eyes. He knew very well that while he had been telling of Ned's capture and confession, Jimmie had been watching his chum get his aeroplane out of the cañon. "You haven't even thanked me for getting you out of the mess I found you in, and doctoring up your wound," he said, presently, resolved to keep on good terms with the boy for a short time longer, if it was possible to do so. "Thank you, sir!" Jimmie said, very modestly. "I think I must have received a good bump on the head." "Indeed you did," smiled the other. After a little further talk Slocum led the boy away to a cavern in the wall of the cañon which seemed to the weary lad to have no end. He saw several people lounging about as he passed through a large chamber, but paid little attention to them. At last Slocum halted in a little alcove opening from a second chamber, in which were assembled at least a score of Chinamen. "These people won't harm you," he said to the boy, swinging his arm about to include the group. "Uncle Sam is trying them out in the forest service, I don't think much of the idea myself, but I'm not the boss." Then Slocum went away and Jimmie lay down and watched the Chinamen. Listening, he heard one of them speaking in English, then in Chinese. He knew that he had heard that peculiar voice and dialect before and devoted his whole attention to the fellow. "Well," he muttered, in a moment, with a grin, "I'm havin' the luck of a Bowery boy in this deal, an' that is the greatest luck in the world." Then he fell to wondering what Chang Chee, the keeper of one of the worst Chinese restaurants on Doyers street was doing there, in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, mixed up with alleged foresters. "Just wait until I see Ned!" the boy mused. "I'll put him next to somethin'. He'll be glad he brought me with him!" Then the boy's thoughts went back to the camp in the Valley of the Wild Beasts, as he called it. Slocum might have told the truth about the attack on the boys, and they might be in trouble at that moment. He wondered, too, if, in case they were taken prisoners, they would be brought to the cavern. "Anyhow," the lad mused, "they never intend to let me get out of this. If they did, they wouldn't have permitted me a sight of the Chinks. Unless I sneak away, there'll be an accident some day, an' then there'll be no more Jimmie McGraw!" The boy was tired and weak, so that even such serious thoughts as these could not keep him awake. Wondering what conditions Ned had found at the camp, after soaring out of the cañon, he dropped his head against the stone wall of the alcove and was soon in a deep sleep. The fumes of opium with which the cavern was filled might in a measure have contributed to this, but, anyway, nature was exhausted, and the boy's slumber was heavy and dreamless. CHAPTER XII.--A MEMBER OF THE OWL PATROL. When Jimmie awoke the fire which had burned in the cavern had gone out, and those who remained in the chamber seemed to be fast asleep. He tumbled out of his alcove, still feeling weak and dizzy, and moved toward a hanging rug which closed the entrance to the place. He drew one side of the rug back and saw the white light of day. The sun seemed to be high up in the sky, for the ledge at the front of the cavern showed a streak of gold. Two Chinamen sat at the entrance to the outer cave, and when he advanced toward them they waved him back. Instead of retreating he stood regarding them with a puzzled look on his face. One was Chang Chee, the keeper of the disreputable Chinese dive on Doyers street, whom Jimmie had noticed the night before, and the other was a much younger man--a boy, in fact. When Chang ordered Jimmie back the youngster turned toward him a face showing both curiosity and interest. "What's doin' here?" Jimmie demanded, in a moment. He thought best not to show that he recognized Chang, for he knew that the identification of the Chinaman would only add to his peril, if that were possible. It was certain that Chang would never permit the information that he had been seen there to get out to the government officers. Jimmie's idea at that time was that he had blundered on a gang of opium smugglers, although he could not understand why so many Chinamen were, apparently, engaged in the illegal traffic. Chang finally turned his face away, with a frown, and Jimmie advanced a step toward the boy, who threw himself carelessly down on his back and extended his right arm straight up from the shoulder. Jimmie's eyes opened wider, and his breath almost stopped, when he saw the thumb and little finger thrown diagonally across the palm of the hand, the tip of the thumb covering the nail of the little finger, the three remaining fingers pointing upward. In the excitement of the moment, in the amazement caused by his recognition of the Boy Scout challenge, Jimmie lost all caution. "Say!" he began, but Chang turned a repulsive face and ordered him into the rear chamber. The boy, thankful for the interruption, moved back a few paces, believing that the Chinese boy who had given him the sign would communicate with him as soon as opportunity offered. This was the greatest puzzle the lad had ever been called upon to solve. Some of the questions he asked himself were: "How did that Chinese boy become a Boy Scout?" "Is there a Chinese patrol?" "Was he permitted to become a member of an American patrol?" "Why is he mixed up with that disreputable old Chink?" "Will he help me out of this hole, or will he ignore me?" Of course there was not one of the questions the boy could answer, so he went back to his alcove and sat down, half believing that he had imagined the challenge. As the day wore on the men who had been asleep in the inner chamber arose, staggeringly, as if still under the stupefying influence of opium, and made their trembling way outside. When they had all disappeared Chang pushed the rug aside so as to bring more light and air into the place and came and stood looking down on the boy. Jimmie did not look up. He saw the shrunken figure up as far as the knees only. He was resolved not to open any conversation with the Chink. If he wanted to talk, Jimmie thought, let him choose his own subject and introduce it in his own way. The yellow face of the Chinaman seemed to take on a more mask-like expression--or want of expression, rather--as the silence continued. When he spoke it was with a snarl which boded no good to the boy. "Hungly?" he demanded. "Hungry?" repeated Jimmie. "You know it! If you've got any rat sandwiches or puppy potpies, just introduce me!" "Flesh!" growled Chang. "Flesh?" repeated Jimmie. "Oh, yes, you mean fresh? Well, you'd be just as fresh as I am if you were as hungry." "Cheek!" cried Chang. "Kid allels have cheek--an' tummy!" "Sure," said Jimmie. "Go on an' get me a porterhouse steak with French potatoes. I could eat a car of raw onions." Chang turned away and walked out to the ledge, where the Chinese boy stood, looking out into the sunshine. It was a glorious morning, with the air clear and just a little sharp, owing to the altitude. Here and there little swirls of smoke showed that fires were burning in the forest, though none seemed to be close to the range. Reaching the boy's side Chang addressed a few words to him in Chinese and left the cave, turning back, after a few paces, to observe the boy, now standing with a long, keen-bladed clasp-knife in his hand. As Chang looked the boy ran his finger over the edge of the blade, as if to make sure that it was suitable for some purpose he had in view. With an exclamation of rage Chang charged back at him and snatched the knife from his hand. "You fool!" he cried. "You let me alone!" shouted the other. "I tell you, I'm going to kill him!" Jimmie heard the words and rose unsteadily to his feet. He recognized the voice as that of the boy who had given him the Boy Scout challenge. At least it was not that of Chang, and there were only two figures outlined against the sky when he looked out beyond the rug, still pushed aside. "Fool! Fool! Fool!" Chang gritted out the words as he took the Chinese boy by the back of the neck and hustled him into the cave. Then he spoke for a minute in Chinese and turned away again. Jimmie stepped back into his alcove and felt around for a stone, or anything in the shape of a weapon, as the boy advanced toward him. "What does the badge say?" Jimmie opened his eyes wider than ever, if possible, and stood facing the boy, half hiding the stone he had found. "Be prepared," he replied. "Then drop that rock!" Jimmie dropped it and stepped forward. "Liu, Owl patrol, San Francisco," the Chinese boy said. "McGraw, Wolf patrol, New York," replied Jimmie. "You don't look very comfortable in here," Liu said. "Nixy," replied Jimmie, wondering if the boy really was preparing to carry out the threat he had made to Chang. "You heard what I just said to Chang?" Liu asked. Jimmie nodded his bandaged head. "Bluff!" said Liu. "He's watching now to see that I don't make an attempt on your life. Had to do it!" "I see," Jimmie replied, wondering if it wasn't pretty near time to wake up. "Why don't he want me killed?" Jimmie asked in a moment. "He thinks you have information he needs," was the answer. "Are you hungry?" "That's what Chang asked," Jimmie said, "but he didn't bring me any grub." "He told me to," grinned Liu, "and I told him that I'd kill you if I got near enough to do so. He'll hang around until he sees me bring you something to eat." "You ain't so very slow yourself," grinned Jimmie. "Where did you learn to speak United States so well?" "Born in Frisco," was the reply. "The Boy Scouts take me out on their hunting trips to do the cooking. That's why I'm here now. I know the mountains, and Chang hired me to go along with him." "An' they took you into the patrol, did they?" asked Jimmie. "Sure they did," was the reply. "Why not? I'm an American citizen, or will be in four years." "Have they captured any of the others?" asked Jimmie. The Chinese boy shook his head. "Have they heard from the men they sent out to capture them?" was the next question. Another shake of the head, then Liu drew closer and whispered. "Do you see Chang poking his head around that rock in the opening? He's watching to see that I don't knife you!" Jimmie saw the parchment-like face of the old reprobate peering around the rock and wanted to heave a stone at it, but knew that this would not be good policy. Instead he threw it at Liu, and missed, of course. "You seem to be wide awake yourself," Liu said. "Why don't you go and get me some grub?" demanded Jimmie. "I'm near starved to death." "All right!" said Liu, and turned away. Jimmie was now in a deeper puzzle than before. He had no means of knowing whether Liu was telling him the truth. He might be trying to get into his confidence in order to gain the information sought, whatever it was. However, in a short time Liu returned with a generous supply of food, fried fish, fresh biscuit--the boy wondered how Liu had managed to bake them there--coffee, and plenty of tinned goods. "What's this bunch doin' here?" the boy asked, as he made heavy inroads on the fresh fish, coffee and biscuits. "I don't know," was the hesitating reply. "I know," Jimmie went on. "They're smuggling opium an' setting fire to the woods. They'll all get pinched!" "I hope so," was the reply. "It sounds odd to hear a Chinese boy talk straight United States," Jimmie said, after a short silence. Liu made no reply for a moment. He was watching the ledge outside the entrance to the cave. The occasional rattle of pebbles told him that some one was standing there, probably just out of sight. "What is Chang doin' here?" Jimmie asked, presently. "He's in some scheme with the foresters," was the reply. "They ain't no foresters!" Jimmie said. "They're timber thieves an' smugglers, an' firebugs, an' murderers!" Liu shuddered but remained silent. After listening a second he went to the entrance and looked out. There was no one in sight at first, then a roughly dressed fellow came around the angle of the cliff to the north and approached him. The fellow was rather short for a man of his width of shoulder, and his step was remarkably light and quick for one of his apparent weight. His face was sun and wind-tanned, with plenty of mountain soil on top of that. A cartridge-belt encircled the loose jacket he wore and a revolver handle protruded from the pistol pocket of his trousers. "What's the word?" he asked, gruffly, as he came up to Liu. "Go on in," replied Liu. Jimmie saw evidences of treachery in the hostile attitude of the newcomer and retreated farther into the cavern. Then he saw Liu doubling up with laughter and stopped. It didn't look very amusing to him, especially as the stranger was advancing toward him with swift strides. Then something remotely familiar in the set of the shoulders, the carriage of the head, attracted his closer attention to the figure and he moved forward a step. "You're a nice little boy to get into a trap like this!" There was no mistaking that voice. Just how Ned Nestor had secured that disguise and found his way to that spot Jimmie did not stop to think. He knew that it was his chum, and that was enough. While the two boys clasped hands Liu stood regarding them smilingly, at the same time watching the entrance. "How did you ever find this hole?" Jimmie asked, his wonder at the thing which had happened mastering all else. "I saw this cave when my machine dropped into a hole in the air in the cañon," was the reply. "The shelf where we landed is just above this cavern. There was a fire in the outer room, and numerous Chinamen were moving about." "They're opium smugglers," Jimmie said. "Man smugglers!" laughed Ned. "Do you mean that they bring Chinks over the border here, an' so run them down into civilization whenever they get a chance?" demanded Jimmie. "That is just it," Ned answered. "We seem to have come upon a lot of the articles to be smuggled," he added. "How did you come across Liu?" Jimmie asked. "Oh, I met him while I was prowling about not far from the cave, at daylight," was the reply. "He helped me get this disguise." Liu was still watching at the mouth of the cavern, so the boys talked freely, with little fear of being disturbed. Ned told of his return to the camp, and of the all-night hunt for the missing boy. It took Ned and Frank a long time to find the opening the former had seen in his swift drop down the cañon, but about daylight it was located. They had, however, found many Chinamen loitering about, and Frank had gone back to camp to reassure the others, while Ned remained on the eastern side on the chance of getting into communication with Jimmie. While loitering about Liu had come up the slope. It was quite a long story, that of his getting a perfect understanding with Liu, and Ned cut it as short as possible, merely saying that Liu had recognized his name, having heard his associates mention it frequently. Then the Chinese boy had procured the disguise and Ned had stuffed out the shoulders of the coat to give it a better fit. "I was observed by a half a dozen men, some Americans, some Chinamen, while getting in here," Ned said, then, "but the disguise misled them. Now, the question is this: How are we going to get out?" "We'll have to fight our way out?" asked Jimmie. "It won't answer," Ned replied. "They are too many for us." Liu now came into the second cave and held up his hand for silence. "You'll have to hide in the back chamber," he said. "Chang is coming in." "I thought this was the back chamber," Jimmie said. "I suspect," Liu said, "that there's a chain of caves running through the divide. Come on!" Liu passed back to the west, removed a great box which stood against the rear wall, and disclosed an opening through which the patrol leader crawled. When the box was replaced Ned stopped and listened. What he heard was the click of a typewriter. CHAPTER XIII.--OFF ON A DESPERATE MISSION. What business calling for the use of a typewriter was being transacted under the main divide of the Rocky Mountains? Ned stood perfectly still in the darkness and listened. He could hear the click of the keys and nothing else. At length he moved stealthily forward over an even surface, feeling his way in order that he might not trip over some unseen obstruction and raise a racket in a tumble. Presently he came to a rug hanging at the end of the chamber in which he was. From the other side of the rug came a faint light. The noise of the keys was more distinct here, and the boy knew that he had at least located the operator. While he stood listening and undecided as to what course to pursue, the noise of the machine ceased and the operator--a young, well-dressed American--came toward him carrying a lighted candle in his hand. Ned crouched down in an angle of the wall and waited for him to pass. The boy was not quite so anxious now to leave the strange rendezvous in which he found himself. Some mischief greater than smuggling opium and Chinamen over the border might be carried on there. His work seemed to be growing on his hands! He had been sent to that district to investigate the cause of the frequent forest fires, and given an aeroplane in order that he might fly over the forests in making his observations. It seemed to him now, as he lay on his side against a wall of rock, waiting for the typist to pass with his light, that he was spending more time under the ground than in the air! The main range of the Rocky Mountains in the northern part of Montana is noted for its rugged and irregular formation. It is declared by some that the home of the original cave dwellers was here. Many of the great cañons are known to be honeycombed with openings almost large enough to hide a small city in. The typist moved straight ahead and his light disappeared from view. Then Ned advanced beyond the rug, which appeared to be of fine material, and flashed on his light. There was a table in the room, a couple of chairs, a row of pigeon-holes attached to the wall. On the table was a typewriter, in the pigeon-holes were folded papers, neatly ticketed and enclosed in rubber bands. Aside from the underground smell the place was tolerably comfortable. The air was damp and chilly, but Ned was well clothed and did not mind that. As has been said, the boy was now in no haste to leave the place. He believed that the mystery he had been sent out to solve would be solved there. For an hour or more he searched over the place, opening the folded papers and making a close examination of the typewriter and the stock of unused paper in the drawer of the table. At length, his examination completed, he passed back into the chamber behind the rug and listened at the opening through which he had entered. A sound of the steady beat of blows reached his ears at first, then a low whistle. That was Jimmie, he knew. The lad had a habit of whistling softly to himself, usually without time or tune. Waiting for a lull in the blows, he rapped softly on the box which backed up against the opening. Instantly the whistling ceased, and Jimmie's voice was heard. "Come on out," the boy said. "I've been kicking my heels against this box for an hour, waitin' for you to signal back." "Be sure there is no one watching," Ned cautioned. He heard Jimmie walking away, then heard him coming back. In a moment the box was drawn away from the opening. "You've been in there long enough to dig through to China," Jimmie said, as Ned stood by his side. "What did you find in there?" "A double keyboard typewriter," grinned Ned. "Quit your kiddin'," answered Jimmie. "You'll be claimin' next that you found a brass band in there." Ned did not stop to explain to the boy all that he had discovered in the inner chamber. His work there seemed to be finished now, and he was anxious to get back to camp. There was no knowing what had been going on there during his absence. "Where is Liu?" he asked. "Watchin' outside," was the reply. "He's my guard. Goin' to shoot me if I try to get away." "And the others?" asked Ned. "Don't know," replied Jimmie. "They herded a lot of Chinks an' went off down the valley." Liu now appeared in the entrance, bowed gravely to the boys, and stepped out on the ledge, with a Boy Scout challenge in the wave of his hand. "He's all right!" Jimmie said. "You ought to see the breakfast he got up for me. That feller can cook--an' then some!" "Call him," Ned suggested, "and we'll see if it is safe for me to go out." "For you to go out!" repeated Jimmie. "For us to go out." "I think you'd better remain here," Ned replied. Jimmie looked at his chum in amazement. The light back there was not good, but Ned saw several questions in the boy's eyes. "Liu can protect you, can't he?" Ned asked. "That's what I don't know," was the reply. "He will do his best, of course, but his best might not be good enough." Ned was thinking fast. If he permitted the boy to leave, the fact of his escape would be likely to scatter the outlaws--and he very much wished to keep them together for a short time. "I think," he said, "that we have found the men we want--with the goods. If you leave now they will make a quick getaway. You see that, don't you?" "Of course," was the reply. "An' I see, too, that if I remain I'm the one that's likely to make a quick getaway--to a country no one comes back from." "There may be some other way," Ned said, thoughtfully. "Give me a chance to think it over." "Oh, I'll stay, all right," Jimmie went on, "if it will do any good. I guess they won't eat me alive." As he spoke the boy put his hand to his eyes and gave them a long rub. "There's smoke in here," he said. "Don't you smell it?" "I was thinking of that," Ned replied, anxiously. "There may be a fire in the cañon." Regardless of consequences, Jimmie rushed to the ledge and looked out. The sun was no longer in sight, for a mist of smoke hung over the cañon and over the slope to the east. "There's goin' to be the biggest blaze ever!" Jimmie cried. Liu came to the side of the boys and pointed to the south. "The fire came through a gully over there," he said. "I was watching it from here. It was not put out yesterday, and worked its way over the divide. When it gets to going strong here no one can live in this cavern. I'm going to get out." "That's the idea!" Jimmie cried. The cañon was a veritable fire trap. For years the boughs and the turp of the trees had been dropping down. Ned knew that the blaze would mount to the cavern and be drawn into it. The atmosphere of the place indicated openings at the rear which would serve as chimneys. "Oh, the devils!" Jimmie cried. "To set a fire like that!" "They didn't set it, I tell you," insisted Liu, speaking as if in the defense of his employers. "Who did, then?" demanded Jimmie, half angrily. "It came through from the other side, just as I told you," replied Liu, with the utmost good nature. "There'll be a pass through the range some day where the fire found its way through." "But they set the fire on the other side," Jimmie urged. "They set it for the purpose of burning our aeroplane an' driving us out of the district. When we go out of the district they'll go with us, wearin' steel bracelets!" he added. "I rather think," Liu said, "that they set the fires over there to draw the foresters, away from this section, and so protect their business. That is what they have been doing right along." "Yes," Ned said, "there has been a forest fire for every cargo of opium, for every gang of Chinamen, that has been brought in over the border." "So that is the real trouble?" asked Jimmie. "How do you know so much about it?" Ned smiled and pointed to the slope to the east, where columns of fire were cutting their way through the timber. "It strikes me," he said, "that now is a pretty good time for us to get out of this. The outlaws won't come back so long as this danger exists, and we shall not be missed for a long time--or rather, Liu and Jimmie will not be missed." "They'll think we ran out to escape the heat and lost our lives in the fire," Liu said. Ned stood hesitatingly at the mouth of the cavern while Liu gathered a few articles he wanted to take with him. "If I thought the fire would reach the cave when the big trees in the cañon get to going," he mused, "I'd go back and get the papers--or more of them." "It surely will get into the cave," Liu said. "You see, the summit scoops down here quite a lot, and the timber line is almost to the top. The gulch below is quite high up on this elevation, still it is not so very high as compared with some of the summits to the north and south. So, you see, the timber line here is capable of getting up a good deal of a blaze, especially where the cañons are full of trees. The fire will come up here, all right." Ned darted away, was gone a minute or so, and returned with hands full of folded papers. "What you got?" demanded Jimmie. Ned laughed but made no satisfactory reply. After stowing the papers away in the numerous pockets of his borrowed suit, he led the way down the ledge, away from the cave he had first seen in his fall down the cañon, and which had proved so profitable to his search. The air was now filled with smoke. The cañon below was not yet in full flame, but a column of destruction was creeping upon it from the south. It seemed to Ned that there were numerous small fires, though how this could be true he could not understand. The boys made their way along the ledge without coming upon any of the men who had occupied the cavern. It was evident that the few left after the departure of the men with the Chinamen had fled before the clouds of smoke. The ledge wound up on the plateau from which Ned had dropped the night before, and here they paused to decide on some course of action. The light breeze was from the west, so the fires below were in a measure protected from it by the bulk of the summit, but Ned knew that the heat would in time bring the air into the burning spaces with a rush, merging the little blazes into one gigantic one which might repeat the disasters of August, 1910. Now and then, from far to the east, there came a signal in the shape of a gunshot. The faithful foresters were at work there, trying to head off the advancing flames before they passed beyond control. The place to combat a forest fire, of course, is ahead of it, and not where the red line is running through the sputtering timber. "If I could get the aeroplane," Ned said, as he looked over the country from the plateau, "I might get to the fighting line and do some good." "Where is it?" asked Liu. "At the camp." "The others won't dare bring it out, of course?" asked Liu. "Doubtful," Ned replied. "Frank has always taken a great interest in the machine, and was studying its mechanism when I left, but I don't think he will attempt to operate it. He ought not to, anyway." "If the men who left here to pinch the boys," Jimmie said, "showed up at the camp, an' Frank got a chance to mount the aeroplane, you bet your life he's shootin' through the air with it this minute, or hidin' in some valley." "But there were three of them," Ned urged, "and all couldn't ride." "They'd try!" gritted Jimmie, "unless Pat got cold feet an' run away." Ned glanced up at the sky, now very thick with smoke, as the boy spoke. He looked with indifference at first, then with interest, then with anxiety. There was a shape moving up there, coming slowly toward the plateau. "There they are!" shouted Jimmie, whose attention had been attracted to the sky by Ned's fixed gaze. "Frank's runnin' the machine. I'll bet dollars to apples that he'll dump her into the cañon when he tries to land here." The aeroplane, indeed, looked as if there were an uncertain hand at the helm. She wavered, tipped in the air currents, dipped wickedly, circled staggeringly, but finally swooped down on the plateau and, more by good luck than good handling, settled down within a dozen feet of the lip of the cañon. Frank and Jack were aboard. Pat, they said, had taken to his heels at the first suggestion of his joining the others in the ride. Ned examined the machine carefully and found it in excellent shape, although the gasoline was getting low. "Better go an' get some," Jimmie suggested. Ned looked toward the line of smoke off to the east. "We can reach the firing line with what we have," he said, in a moment, "and that may be sufficient for the present." "What you goin' to do?" demanded the boy. "Going to see if I can't help fight this fire," was the reply. "From here?" laughed Jack. Ned indicated a distant line of hills where the forest still stood green on the slopes. "We'll fight the fire from there," he said. "We can see the location well enough now, but the smoke will soon shut it out from here." "What can we do when we get there?" asked Jack. "We are safe enough here. The smoke and heat may scorch us a little, but we'll live through it, and that is more than we can say about the safety of the place you point out." "Pat will be making his way here," Ned said, "and you may as well remain here and meet him. I'll take Frank and go over to the place where the foresters are fighting the blaze." Jimmie was on his feet in an instant. "Me for the ride with you!" he shouted. "Some one may have to run the machine back," Ned said. "You can't do that, my little man, and Frank can, so Frank goes." "I don't see what you can do over there that the foresters can't do," Liu said. "There is no knowing how useful the aeroplane may be," Ned said. Then the machine was rolled back as far up the plateau as possible, the boys took their seats, and then they were lost in the dense clouds of smoke in the sky. [Illustration: ILLUSTRATION No. 4] CHAPTER XIV.--THE BATTLE IN THE AIR. The smoke was driving fiercely through the green trees on the slope, and the line of fire was not far in the rear. Every moment the wind gained force, every minute the flames leaped higher and faster. The foresters felling trees and clearing a space at an advantageous point some distance in advance of the flames were working blindly, mechanically. The heat was intense, the smoke suffocating, irritating, blinding. The shirts of the workers were open at the throat, their coats had long ago been lost as they had been beaten back from one stand to another. Now and then a worker dropped senseless in his tracks, his lips cracked with the heat, his face blistered, his tongue lolling from his smarting mouth like that of an overworked horse. Then the men who were able to move and understand would carry him back to a spot of supposed safety and return to re-engage in the almost hopeless fight, the battle which the flames were winning in every charge and sally. The aeroplane, after a narrow escape from destruction, landed on a little rise of ground back of the working line when the wind lulled for an instant, and hope shone in the faces of the astonished men who gathered about to greet the unexpected arrivals. "We can master it," Green, the leader, said, after many questions had been asked and answered, "if we can be supplied with water. We wasted our supply wetting our clothes a long time ago, and are suffering." "Get us water," shouted another, "and we'll win yet." "There's a spring three miles away," Green went on, speaking in Ned's ear, for the roaring of the flames drowned all ordinary conversation. "If you can take our water bottles there and fill them we can beat this blaze. If you can't we've got to retreat and let the whole district burn over." "I have very little gasoline," Ned replied, "but I'll try." "We sent two men out not long ago," Green continued, thrusting his scorched face close to the boy's. "We sent them out with water bags, but there are no trails, and It will take them hours to make the spring and return. With your aeroplane you ought to do it within half an hour." "Fire fighters marooned without a supply of water, or a trail cut to a spring!" shouted Frank, scornfully. "Great head some one in authority has!" "There are no trails, no telephones, no horses!" cried Green. "It looks as if the government sent us here to die. Hurry up with that water." "If the gasoline holds out," Ned said, loading a dozen water bags on the machine, "I'll be back here in less than half an hour, bar accidents." "There is plenty of gasoline back there in the shanty," cried Green. "We have been using it lately in starting back fires, but the wind is now too strong for that. Get a move on, and take all you want." In a short space of time, but not without great risk, the tanks of the aeroplane were filled, and then Ned took in the general situation in the sky. The wind was blowing in puffs, but it was certain that a miniature tornado was at hand. He thought he could reach the spring, which had been described as lying to the southeast, but was not certain that he could make his way back. He believed, however, that by flying either very low or very high up, so as to get all the protection possible from the mountain, or escape the sweep of wind just above the fire, he might be able to bring in one load of water before the worst of the wind storm came. He knew that it was an almost unheard of thing to even try to navigate the air in such a gale, but human lives were at stake, and he decided to try. "You'll have to help me up against this wind," Ned said to Green. "If I start with the air current I'll be carried too far to the east before my power begins to become effective. If I can hold my own against the wind until I get above the smoke I think I can win the game." It was a desperate expedient, but it appeared to be the only possible one. If the men had water they might succeed in stopping the fire and saving millions of dollars worth of timber. If the fire gained the upper hand they might lose their lives. The men cleared and smoothed a path for the run of the wheels, by great exertion sent the machine along at good speed, and then stood and watched it with anxiety depicted in their faces. The great white bird quivered in the face of the wind, but the motors were true to their duty and the rudder held. To turn about in the face of that rush would be impossible, so Ned worked his levers guardedly and kept the wings as level as he could. Now and then a swirl of heated air would shake the hopes of those watching below, but in the end the aeroplane drifted slowly ahead, up, higher up, and was lost in the smoke. "The lad is worth his weight in gold!" shouted Green. "He'll do it! I know he'll do it!" "Powerful motor," one of the foresters said. "When we saw the machine last she was actually holding her own against the wind." This was, indeed, the fact, but the wind was not as strong in the higher levels as at the upper limit of the heat from the fires. A great fire usually brings a great wind, as those who witnessed the burning of Chicago and San Francisco well know. The hot air rises, forming a partial vacuum, and the colder air rushes in. Ned and Frank gained the spring, filled their water bags and started back. It was no easy task to land near the spring in that whirl of wind, nor yet an easy task to get the aeroplane into the air again, but the feats were accomplished. Often after that exciting day the boys declared that they had no idea how they ever did it. "We were excited," Frank would say, "and took chances, everything worked in our favor, and we loaded the water. We knew that lives were at stake, and it seemed that we had the strength of a score of men, and the cool heads of men far beyond all excitement. I never saw anything like the way Ned handled the levers. The wings and the rudders seemed to me to work on a brain suggestion rather than on a movement of the levers." But the most difficult part of the journey still remained to be accomplished after the water had been secured. The 'plane was much heavier and did not respond so readily to the hand of the driver, and the return course was quartering against the wind. Ned, however, did not attempt to move directly toward the destination he sought. Instead he sailed off to the south, working west as much as possible. He tacked as a yacht tacks in the wind and came near upsetting several times. He found it impossible to sail low on account of the eddies and currents created by the heat, and so lifted the machine far up into the air. It was better sailing there, and he managed to get as far west as he thought necessary. But he could not see the landing place. Below was an ocean of smoke, the waves heaving in the touch of the wind, the edges now and then tipped with flame. Above the sun smiled at him, and the birds flew excitedly about, peering down at the threatening roll of clouds. "I'm afraid," Frank said, grasping an upright and clinging to the water bags. "I never was so frightened in my life," Ned called back, lifting his voice so that it might be heard above the snapping of the motors. "I didn't finish," Frank called back, his heart thumping loudly. "I wanted to say that I was afraid we'd sweep past the workers when we descended into the smoke and the swifter breeze near the earth." "I said just what I wanted to say," Ned answered. "I never was half so scared in all my life." Yet his hand on the lever was steady, his brain was as cool as if he had been sitting in the Wolf Patrol club room in New York. He knew that the dip of a wing a foot lower than he intended might send them both into the blazing forest below. He was afraid, but not with a shrinking, physical fear, but afraid because he understood the peril he was in--because he knew that upon his efforts depended the lives of the heroes in the heated hell below. "We've got to go into that mess of smoke, I suppose?" shouted Frank. "There is no other way," Ned called back. "We've got to dip down low enough to see the line of fire and take our chances on landing where the fighters are. You understand that they are farther to the east than when we left them?" "Of course they have been driven back," Frank said. "I never thought of that. We may not be able to find them at all." Ned shut his teeth and settled his jaw. "We've got to find them," he said. A long, sullen roaring, like the beating of waves on a beach in a storm, now reached the boys' ears, even shutting out the chattering of the motors. It came from the west, and passed along, as it seemed, below the level held by the aeroplane, now high up in the air. "If we don't get down there pretty soon," Ned said, shouting, "we will be too late. That wind will join the different fires and make one roaring mass of the whole northwest. I wish I knew just how far the foresters have been driven back." "Do you know where to look for them, north or south?" asked Frank. "There is a peak to the west and one to the east," was the reply. "They are on a line with the two. But the trouble is that we can't see the peaks after we drop down into the smoke." "There appears to be a little lull in the wind now," Frank said, shutting his lips tight, as a man does when about to make a sudden plunge into unknown waters. The remark was suggestive. Ned knew by it that his chum had braced himself for the dash. "Here we go, then," Ned replied. "Remember that we'll go about eighty miles an hour when I turn the motor on full head, and that we can't be more than five miles from the spot where we left them, so keep your eyes out." The aeroplane dipped gracefully as Ned touched the lever. In a minute the boys were surrounded by smoke. It was hot smoke, too, and made breathing difficult. Their eyes smarted until their faces were wet with nature's protest against such irritation of the organs of sight. The chuck-chuck, snap-snap of the motors was in their ears, the seats they occupied--frail rests between life and death--shivered under the pulsations of the machine. Now and then the aeroplane dipped frightfully, but the wings and the rudders brought it back again. "Can you see the earth yet?" asked Frank, In an awed tone, which sounded like a whisper in that clatter. "We seem to be over the fire," Ned returned. And that was all. There was no need of conversation. In all their lives they would never be so near to a frightful death as they were then. First they caught sight of a rocky ridge. Ned knew where that was, and realized that he was still in the direct line of the workers. Beyond this ridge, he knew, was a valley, so he must drop down. The workers were on a level beyond the valley, a great plain of fir and pine between gigantic ranges of the Rocky Mountains. The aeroplane trembled as she dropped, swiftly, apparently straight down. Frank grasped his upright and prepared to spring out of the wreckage when it fell, if there was anything to fall from after the trees had had their way with the frail machine. The smoke was blinding. Nothing could be seen but smoke for a time. Then the dark gray clouds turned red, and Ned knew that he was nearing the advance line of the fire, and that it was mounting to the very tops of the giant trees on the plain--or elevated plateau, rather, for, though comparatively smooth of surface and heavily timbered, it was far above sea level. If you look on an enlarged map of northern Montana you will see that the Rocky Mountains do not consist of one great, massive range. There are ridges and valleys, and plateaus extending for hundreds of miles along the British frontier. There are peaks from which the snow never disappears, and there are timber lines which crawl almost to the summit of other peaks. There are fertile valleys where cattle grow fat, and great gorges where beasts of prey await their victims in thickets. It is the timber on this great stretch of country that the United States government is trying to save. The heat was blistering now, and Ned feared for the safety of his gasoline tanks. At a motion from him Frank removed his coat, carefully, for a slight movement in the air is sometimes productive of disastrous results, placed it over the tanks, after a great effort, and managed to saturate it with water from one of the bags. Through the smoke a line of tree tops now came into view, low down, and the boys knew that they had passed the fire line. Ned tried to slow down, but found that he must keep the motors going in order to retain control of the machine. "There's a clear space ahead!" Frank shouted, and Ned dropped. Then a giant trunk obtruded itself, and the boy tried to dip and whirl so as to dodge it, but the pressure of the wind was too strong. The machine headed straight for the tree, which seemed to Frank to be about a thousand feet high. "Hang on to the first thing that comes to your hands if she strikes!" Ned shouted. "But stick to the 'plane as long as she is clear. There may be a current of air which will sweep us away from that tree." "Here's hoping!" Frank gasped back, and then the smoke shut out the view, making the situation doubly dangerous. CHAPTER XV.--TOLD BY THE FOREST RANGER. The rangers, almost exhausted, were fighting the fire desperately, hoping against hope, when the cyclone--it amounted at times almost to that--struck the forest. Then they knew that the fight was lost for the time being. It was now a question of escaping from the flames they had been battling with. The chief foresters knew very well that there was a way to safety, but they had under their command many rangers who had joined the service merely for the adventures they anticipated meeting, and these, they understood, would be hard to manage. When the order came to drop everything and fall back some of the new men accused those in authority of cowardice and kept on in the course mapped out for them under entirely different conditions. Two of them even insisted on starting back to the rough shanty and preparing dinner. They lost their way in the blazing inferno, and their bones were found two weeks later, at the foot of a tree which had been burned into a stub, but which had not fallen. When the danger became apparent to Green who was in charge of the company found by Nestor, he ordered his men into a "burn" of half a dozen acres in extent. By "burn" is meant a patch of forest which has been cleared by fire the previous year. This "burn" was entirely stripped of trees. The fire had done its work well, but had been checked before spreading. The men could hear trees falling as they dashed along. The fire was screaming, the wind whistling and roaring. Coals of fire, driven like arrows by the wind, hit the men in the back as they rushed toward safety. At last the "burn" was gained, and the men threw themselves face down on the ground. At the eastern edge there were large logs which had not been entirely consumed, and some of the men lay down behind them. The air was so hot that it cut the lungs like acid. Above, across the old "burn," streamed a river of flame, now racing like a mountain torrent, now dropping sullenly back to the west, like a fiery ceiling which had been rolled away. On such occasions the fainting foresters below could catch a breath of fresh air and a hazy view of the sky. Some of the men, half crazed by their sufferings, arose to their feet and shook clenched hands at the blazing forests, at the brassy sky, and the green hills away to the east. Green crept from one to another and whispered that the only hope of life lay in keeping on the ground. Once when he was creeping toward a man who was moaning in anguish and despair he turned his eyes upward to the sky, clear for an instant, for the wind was wayward after a time, and saw a speck sweeping out of the west, dropping lower and lower, whirling in the wind, racing like an express train. "Dan," he whispered to the man he was trying to comfort, "get a brace! There's no use of giving up now. Why, man, the fight is won, and Nestor is coming back with water!" "Impossible!" grunted the other. "Impossible--in this wind!" "Then look," Green said. A sheet of flame swept over the "burn," lay upon it for an instant like a red-hot roof, and then warped and twisted itself away. "I see," Dan said, looking into the sky again, "but he can't land. Impossible--in this storm!" "Wait and see!" Green said, and sank back to the earth. The aeroplane circled, high up, like a bird seeking its prey in the burning forest. The wind was tolerably steady at that height, but Ned knew that when he came into the lower current he would meet conditions which he could not understand. "There's a place to drop!" Frank shouted to him, pointing ahead to the "burn," which seemed only a few yards away. The aeroplane had missed the tree which had threatened it by an inch, and had turned upward again, for there were other trees in the way of a descent there. The "burn" was the first free spot that had been observed, and, besides, it lay inside the line Ned had figured as leading to the foresters. "Hang on!" Ned cried. The aeroplane plunged down, almost vertically, and Frank felt as if he was standing on his head. "Don't jump when it strikes the ground," Ned commanded. Watched by a score of anxious eyes--for the foresters under Green had all been told of the coming relief--the aeroplane shot down, struck the ground at the center of the "burn," rolled swiftly for a few yards, and stopped. At that moment the space above filled with flame. Both boys threw themselves on the ground and waited. When the fierce gust was over the men gathered about them eagerly. "Did you make it?" asked Green. "Yes," Ned replied. "Get the bags out and distribute the water. Don't let the men waste it." "I'll see to that," cried Green. Without the water, without the cooling sips, without the wet cloths held over nose and mouth, without the saturated sponges laid on scorched heads, the men would have died there in the forest. Presently, when the consumption of the timber to the west reduced the heat, when the wind quieted down in a measure, they were ready for another fight with the flames, and it was owing largely to their exertions that the fire was extinguished before millions of acres had been burned over. "It is a dream!" Green exclaimed, that afternoon, as he stood by Ned and the aeroplane. "I don't believe yet that you did it." "I don't see how I did," laughed Ned. "Anyhow, I'm sure I couldn't do it again. I guess Providence took the matter into his own hands. Honestly, I do not believe any human strength or skill could do what was done with the aeroplane to-day. It was a miracle." "I know of a nervy boy who had something to do with the miracle," said Green. Ned was naturally anxious regarding Pat, Jack and Jimmie, but believed they would show up in good form whenever he got back to the vicinity of the place where they had been left. When the boys were in camp with the rangers that night, Ned asked Frank about Pat's idea of safety after refusing to go up in the aeroplane. "He said he would stay about the valley," Frank replied. "There is plenty of provisions there, you know, and Pat is quite long on the eats," he added, with a laugh. "And Jack and Jimmie will be sure to hang about the neighborhood of the caves," Ned said. "The Chinese boy, Liu, will be able to care for them. If there is enough gasoline in the tanks, I may go back to the valley to-night." "You'd better get some sleep to-night," Frank advised. "I don't know how long it has been since you settled down for a night of it. If you keep your brain working right you've got to sleep." "I really ought to go to San Francisco," was the astonishing reply to this advice. "I have work to do there." "What work?" demanded Frank. "You see," Ned answered, "we have done nothing yet, except discover a crime with which we are supposed to have nothing to do. We have brought a little water for the fire-fighters, but we came here for a certain purpose, and we have not made good as yet. Perhaps, when I get to Frisco, I can hunch my wits, as the baseball fans say, and report good progress." "I don't understand what you mean," Frank said. "I am not sufficiently sure of my ground to attempt an explanation now," Ned replied. "Of course," Frank said, thoughtfully, "there's the murder case you went to Frisco about before. You might look that up again, but I can't see where that has any bearing on this forest fire business." "You may be surprised," Ned said, "when the end comes. Somehow, I have an idea that the two crimes dovetail into each other." "Nothing stirring!" laughed Frank. "They don't seem to me to match. Still, you may have information I do not possess." An hour later, after the not very elaborate supper had been eaten, Green came to the little tent which had been set aside for Ned and Frank. He had not wholly escaped the dangers of the day unscathed. There were burns on his hands and face, and one of his feet was bandaged. "Shoe burned through," he said, shortly. "I shall have to walk with a crutch for several days." "You won't like that," Ned suggested. "No, indeed," was the reply, "especially as I would like to be moving about in order to see what has happened to the other boys." "Have you heard from any of the other groups?" asked Ned. "Howard came in from the north," was the reply. "Three men killed up there. The fire caught them unawares. One of my men has gone south, but it will be some hours before I hear from him." "I am afraid there were several lives lost," Ned said. "In the morning I'll fly about and see what I can learn." "What I came here to talk about," Green said, after a pause, "is this. I want to know what you think of the Chinks?" "The Chinese fire-fighters?" asked Ned. Green laughed quietly for a moment before replying. Then: "They told you that, did they?" Ned nodded. He wanted to jump into the subject without waiting for Green to have his say, for he was greatly interested, but prudence told him to listen to the forester first. "Yes," he said. "They told me that." "Also that they were foresters--the men who told the story about the Chinks, I mean?" "Yes, one of them claimed to be in charge of this district." "Well, you know better than that now, so there is no use in talking about that. You saw some of the Chinks?" "Certainly. I even had the honor of visiting their residence." Frank laughed, wondering what sort of a story Ned would have to tell him when they were alone again. "It is a wonder you ever got out again," Green said. "I left under the excitement of the fire," Ned said. "It was easy enough." "Do you know where the Chinks have gone?" asked Green. "I think I do," was the reply. "To San Francisco?" "Yes, some of them. Others to Portland, I think." "Smuggled in?" "Of course, though it seems odd that they should want to cross the border so far away from civilization. It must be expensive getting them in over such a route." "The men at the bottom of the game are watched," Green said. "Watched so closely that they are obliged to keep out of the actual work and do their business through unsuspected channels. After this place has been raided they will try some other point." "You know what has been going on then?" asked Ned, surprised that the matter, as understood by the forester, had not been reported to him by the Secret Service man in San Francisco. "Yes," was the reply. "And you have reported to your superior officers?" Green nodded, and Ned began to feel provoked at the strange attitude taken by the government in the matter. Surely he should have been posted as to conditions in the district before being sent on. "Why wasn't I informed of this new element in the case?" he asked. "Well," Green replied, "the officials have an idea that the men who are running the Chinks and the opium in are the men who are responsible for the forest fires. In fact, I have so reported to them for a long time." "Go on," the puzzled boy requested. "You see," Green continued, "I might go and pick up a couple of dozen Chinks almost any month, and capture a lot of opium, and arrest a few men caught with the goods on, but, don't you see, that wouldn't end the game?" "I see that," Ned answered. "There is a man at the head of this game who is working from behind the scenes somewhere," Green hastened to say. "I don't know who he is. The officials at San Francisco don't know who he is, or where he is. The big guns at Washington know just about as much regarding the head center of the game as we do. Well, that is what you were sent here for--to get down to cases, as I used to say on South Clark street, Chicago." "It was thoughtful of them not to interrupt the game until I got here," Ned said. "Yes, I thought so," Green went on. "I thought that any man, or boy, coming here to get to the bottom of this thing would want us to leave a few ropes hanging out for him to climb down. You found 'em." "Yes, I found them," Ned replied. "I found the counterfeit foresters and the Chinks, as you call them, and I found something else." "That is what we expected you would do," Green said, after a moment's hesitation. "We wanted you to begin without pointers, with a brain free of all the unsuccessful schemes which have been worked. You see, I know a great deal about it, my boy," he added with a laugh. "I knew, days ago, that you would be here. When I saw the aeroplane in the sky I knew who was in charge of it." "What is the next move?" asked the boy. "That is for you to say," was the reply. "I am under orders to follow any reasonable instructions from you. It is for you to suggest something." "Well," Ned said, "that brings me to a point I was studying over when you came in. I was wondering if you would detail men to do certain things for me." "Sure I will. If Washington has confidence enough in you to put you in charge of the blindest case in history, why shouldn't I have equal confidence in you? You bet I'll be there with the oxen when you give the word." "I thank you," Ned replied. "What I want now is men enough to guard two points. One is a cave near Lake Kintla, and the other is the cavern where the Chinese have been hiding." "How many men?" asked Green. "Two to each place. If there is need of more, others should be ready to assist." "I wish you all success," Green said, after the details of the surveillance had been arranged. "We have located the tools, and now it is for you to let down to bed rock. The government wants the headpiece of this game, and believes that you can put your finger on him. Half a dozen inspectors have failed, but I have faith in you, boy." "Well," Ned replied, "I am glad of your confidence, and thankful for the help you promise, and will only say that the man behind the scenes will soon be brought out. I think I know his 'cue'!" he added, with a laugh. "Already?" asked Green. "I am only expressing confidence in the clues I now hold," Ned said in reply. "It may be that the next clues I find will point the other way." Green shook hands with the boys and went to his tent. It was a clear night up above the mountain tops, but down where the boys were the smoke of consumed forests lay on the ground like the gray ghost of fallen trees. Off to the west the summit of the Rocky Mountains--or one of the summits--lifted itself above the smudge, standing like a giant up to his neck in gray dust. "Over there," Frank said, "is Pat--hungry, if you want to know, and nearer are Jack and Jimmie. I wish we could hear from them." "If the ground wasn't still red hot back there," Ned said, "Jimmie would be sure to find us." "By the way," Frank said, presently, "what did you mean when you told Green that you had a 'cue' which would bring out the man behind the scenes?" "I meant that I have blundered on a clue which promises well," was the reply. "And now," he said, yawning, "I'm going to bed. Rather warm, but I think I'll sleep, all right." In five minutes Ned was sound asleep and Frank was about to lie down by his side when Green made his appearance. The forester noted the sleeping boy and laid a finger on his lips. "Let him sleep," he said. "And come out here and see if you know anything about the fellow that is tampering with the aeroplane." "What is he doing to it?" whispered Frank. "Acts like he was preparing to take a trip in it," was the reply. The words were followed by the rattle of the motors. CHAPTER XVI.--HOW A CAT TREED A WOLF. Smoke still hung over the "burn." Now and then it was swept aside by a gust of wind which seemed now to blow out of the east, and so did not come sizzling with the heat of burned forests. The general effect, however, was that of a heavy, stifling fog, and Green and Frank crept along toward the aeroplane with their hands held out before their faces. The clatter of the motors had ceased, but the tap-tap of steel on steel was faintly heard as they neared the machine. Occasionally the worker, whoever he was, ceased his tapping, as if listening. "He's got his nerve with him," Frank whispered, as they moved along. "How did he get here?" asked Green. "That is the question that is troubling me." Presently the two came up so that the figure of the man could be discerned, standing before the bulk of the planes. Green sprang forward and seized him by the arm. For an instant it seemed as if the capture would be made without a struggle, then a shot was fired and a crouching figure leaped away. Frank saw the forester fall and leaped toward the retreating figure. The race in the darkness, caused by the pall of smoke which followed, was short, for Frank was a noted runner and soon overhauled the fugitive. He did not attempt to take hold of the man as he came up. He knew that such a course might mean an unequal contest, for he was only a boy. Instead, he dropped to the ground and caught one of the runner's ankles in both hands. Naturally the fellow plunged to the ground head-first. He turned quickly and leveled a revolver. There was no warning. The shot came instantly, the bullet passing over the boy's head as he dropped upon the prostrate figure. With the hand which held the weapon held closely to the ground, Frank struggled with the fellow for an instant, filling the heavy air with his cries for assistance. The first shot had been heard by the sleepers, and help was at hand immediately. The captive was neatly tied by the light of Frank's flashlight, and the foresters gathered about, still rubbing their eyes. The "burn" was not all in darkness all the time, for the glare of the smouldering embers to the west lighted the place fairly well. Only for the smoke the ruddy light would have made a pretty good illumination. When the fellow was lifted to his feet an exclamation of astonishment came from the group about him. "Sawyer!" some one cried. The prisoner dropped his chin for a moment, as if studying out some difficult proposition, then faced the others sheepishly. "I thought I could get away with it," he said. A cry now came from the men who had hastened to Green's assistance. "He's dead, I guess," the voice said. "I didn't shoot to kill," Sawyer exclaimed. "He can't be dead." "Why did you shoot at all?" demanded one of the rangers, approaching Sawyer with threatening fists. "He was in my way," was the sullen reply. "I have always wanted an aeroplane, and I thought this a good time to get one." "Did you injure the machine in any way?" asked Frank, as Sawyer stood gazing furtively from face to face, his black eyes showing fear. "When I found I couldn't get it off," was the reply, "I loosened some of the burrs. It can be repaired easily enough." "That is more than can be said for you, if you have killed Green," one of the men declared, shaking a fist at the prisoner. "If he's dead you'll be hauled up on one of these trees." "You wouldn't dare do that!" Sawyer cried. "Wouldn't we?" cried the other. "You'll see when we know whether he will live or not. How is it, boys?" he continued, stepping toward the spot where Green lay. The man bending over Green was about to reply when Nestor laid a hand on his arm. The boy had been awakened at the first shot and had slipped out of his tent and over to the side of the wounded man, being the first to arrive there. "Wait," he said, as the ranger looked up in surprise. "Green is not seriously injured," Ned went on, "but I want to make that rascal think he is." "What's the idea?" asked the other, glancing from face to face about him. "When he stands under a tree with a rope about his neck," Ned said, "he'll tell us the truth about this affair." "He was trying to steal the machine," the other said. "Green has a bullet hole through his shoulder," Ned said, "but I want you to treat the prisoner as if the shot had been fatal. Kindly carry him to his tent." The command was instantly obeyed, for the foresters all knew why Ned was there, and understood that he was the personal representative of the Secret Service chief at Washington. Ned then called Frank aside and spoke a few words in a whisper. The boy grinned and hastened back to the group about Sawyer. "Nestor wants to talk with Sawyer," he explained, "and wants me to take him to his tent." "We'll take him to Nestor's tent after we get done with him," declared a burly forester whose face bore many evidences of the hard fight he had made during the fire. "It won't take us long to settle with him." Frank spoke a few words to the man and he was one of the first to push the prisoner toward Nestor's tent. "If you'll keep those men off me," were Sawyer's first words, "I'll tell you what you want to know. They mean to kill me." "I think there is little doubt about that," was Ned's reply. "Why did you want the aeroplane?" "If you must know," was the reply, "I was sent here to get it, or to wreck it so you couldn't use it." This looked promising, and Ned waved a hand at Frank. "Throw him out here!" came a gruff voice from the crowd. "I won't tell," Sawyer went on, "unless you promise to keep them away from me. I didn't mean to kill Green, and no court will convict me." "When did you come here?" asked Ned. "A month ago," was the reply. "The day you landed in San Francisco a man came to my boarding house and employed me." "He mentioned the aeroplane?" "Yes, he knew all about it." "Treachery in the Secret Service, eh?" asked Ned. "I don't know how he gained his information," was the reply. "He told me that he had secured a job for me in the forest service, and that I was to join the crew in this district." "And steal the aeroplane?" "Steal it or wreck it. There are men with the other crews. You would have found an enemy wherever you landed." This was all very amazing, and Ned wondered how many pitfalls had been set for him in San Francisco. He had no doubt that Sawyer was telling the truth. The question was as to whether he would tell the story as it was from that point on. "Who was it that engaged you--gave you your instructions?" he asked. "I don't know," was the reply. Ned swung his hand again, and a fierce demand that the prisoner should be thrown out arose from the group outside. Sawyer shivered and crept out of his camp-chair to Nestor's side. His face was deadly pale, being sheltered from the ruddy glow of the fires. Just where the men stood outside lay a red lance of light, giving a demon-like look to their rugged faces. "If you don't tell me the truth," Ned said, "I can't protect you." "I tell you I don't know," wailed the frightened man. "I had never seen him before. I wanted a job and took what he offered. I didn't think it would be so great a crime to steal or wreck an aeroplane." "What were you to receive for the job?" "One thousand dollars." "Hurry up! Throw that sneak out!" Sawyer, like the coward he was, threw himself down on the floor of the tent and groveled at Ned's feet. "You would know the man again?" asked Ned. "Yes; I can pick him out of a score of men." "You will do this willingly?" "Yes; I'm sick of the whole game. I didn't mean to hurt Green. I wanted to scare him away so I could get back to my tent without being recognized. That is all I wanted, and I did not mean to hit him at all." There was a great deal more talk between the two. Ned soon became convinced that Sawyer was a weak man, morally and intellectually, who would be apt to follow the lead of one stronger than himself. After Ned had left a guard over the man and visited Green--who was doing very well, and laughing over the trick the boy had played on Sawyer--he went back to his rough bed, well satisfied with the events of the night. "By the way," Frank said, crawling into the tent after assisting in caring for the wounded man, "I don't understand what you mean by saying that you've got a clue which you think will force the man behind the scenes out on the stage, in full view of the audience. If there is such a clue hovering about I haven't become acquainted with it." "The clue is hardly well enough advanced to talk about," Ned replied. "But if you've got a line on the leader of this bunch you've won the case," suggested Frank. "That is what the government sent me here for," Ned replied. "The chief of the Secret Service expects me to round up the man responsible for the frequent forest fires. I think now that he should have told me that smuggling was going on up here, but he may have had a good reason for not doing so." "You know what Mr. Green said," Frank interrupted. "He said the government officers wanted you to take the case and find out everything for yourself. Perhaps they feared that you would pay too much attention to these smugglers, and let the forest fires issue go with scant investigation. They might have arrested the smugglers at any time, you know." "Perhaps so," Ned replied, "But that wouldn't have brought the manager of the unlawful enterprises into the hands of the law. After all, the Secret Service men may have been right in sending me up here without instructions or special information. What a laugh they would have had if I had failed to discover the Chinamen and the opium." "Perhaps they wanted to see if you would discover them," laughed Frank. "Have you any idea," he added, "that the Secret Service men knew that you would be followed in here--that the plans of the government regarding your work were known to the outlaws? Do you think they knew of the employment of Sawyer and the others by the men at the head of the conspiracy?" "No; I hardly think the man who gave me final orders at San Francisco knew that all he did was known to the men he was fighting," Ned replied. "The head of the bunch put a good one over on him there." "And came near putting one over on you, also," grinned Frank. "The aeroplane has been attacked twice already, and others are doubtless waiting to get a crack at it." "They will have to hurry up if they do," Ned said, with a chuckle, "and you will have to look out for yourself if they succeed, for I'm going to have you take me to Missoula in the morning and then go back and collect the boys." "And not come back here again?" asked Frank. "Not unless we come back for a pleasure trip," was the reply. "Well," Frank said, "that pleasure trip idea looks pretty good to me. Why not?" "I may have time," Ned replied. Frank threw himself on the blankets which had been provided by Mr. Green and closed his eyes, which were still smarting from the effects of the smoke. "If you go away to-morrow," he said, presently, "what is to become of the clues we found in the cavern by the lake?" "All provided for," Ned answered. "And all the Chinks, and everything you discovered while visiting them in the caves almost under the divide?" "Everything provided for," Ned said, sleepily. "And you think you can close this case by going to San Francisco?" demanded Frank, a touch of sarcasm in his tone. "Go to sleep, little boy," said Ned, in a tantalizing tone. "But do you?" insisted the boy. "Of course I do," was the muttered reply. "Go to sleep, little man!" And Frank tried to obey, but sleep would not come. The fire still smouldered over in the west. The ruddy light of the embers was still touching the camp with its red fingers. The smoke was still asserting itself in the air. The puzzle was still there! After the boy had rolled over at least fifty times, and arose to consult a water bag at least a dozen times, he seated himself under the flap of the tent and looked out. There was a moon now, and the smoke only half hid it. Far off in the woods wild creatures were expressing their opinion of the fire and the wanton destruction of their homes. There was a faint rustle in the foliage of the trees east of the "burn." "Gee!" the boy muttered. "I'd like to come back here for a month!" Then his attention was attracted to the savage growl of some animal in the thicket beyond the fire limit of the "burn." It seemed to the boy as if some man-eating creature had cornered a bit of animate supper, but couldn't reach it. The language used by the forest resident seemed to be in the tongue of the panther. While he listened a cry which was not that of a hungry beast came out of the gloom. That was a cry for help, surely. Frank put his revolver and his searchlight into convenient pockets and set out for the scene of the disturbance, without awakening any of the sleepers. It was slow work pushing through the bushes, and the boy wondered if a fire there, well guarded on a quiet day, wouldn't be a good thing. He kept his searchlight ahead and looked about for the source of the noises as he advanced in the darkness. In a short time he heard a voice he knew, but hardly expected to hear there. "Hurry up!" the voice said. "I'm goin' to tumble out of this tree in about a minute! I'm that hungry! I thought you might meet me with a pie under one arm." "Well, why don't you come down, then?" Frank asked. "If you'll turn your honorable attention to that tree to the east," Jimmie said, "your excellency will observe a panther waiting for his supper. He's been tracking me all day, getting bolder every minute. Now, if I turn this searchlight away for an instant, he'll jump on me, and there you are. No more Jimmie McGraw than a rabbit!" "I didn't see your light at first," Frank said, "for it was hidden by the foliage of the trees. I suppose you want me to shoot the cat?" CHAPTER XVII.--THE TIME FOR THE ROUND-UP. "Sure," Jimmie answered. "Shoot the cat!" "Well, keep your light on him, and wait until I can get where I can see him. The cat frequently resents being wounded." "Cripes!" cried Jimmie. "Don't shoot unless you kill him, for he'll jump at me then for sure. He's angry now--hear him pound with his tail? I fired all my loads at him an' he dodged the bullets." "You couldn't shoot craps!" scorned Frank. The panther, a great brute made ferocious by the excitement of the fire, and probably scorched a little, could now be heard moving in the branches of a tree not far from that in which Jimmie was perched. In a moment Frank reached a point from which the beast's face could be seen. He thought to himself that it looked like a tiger head fastened against a gray cloud with unseen pins. Jimmie's searchlight brought the evil face, the cruel eyes, the back-sloping ears, the faintly-moving jaws, out into strong relief, as the circle of flame was only large enough to cover the face. The beast heard Frank moving in the bushes below and turned its head to look, at the same time crouching low, as if to spring. The first bullet struck him fair in the throat, the second entered the head just above the eyes, the third, coming so rapidly on the others that the three reports seemed to merge into one, entered the body over the heart. The great beast was dead when the body struck the ground. Jimmie was not long in getting down to Frank's side and grasping him by the shoulders in a hug which threatened to end in a scuffle. "Get away!" Frank said. "Suppose there's another cat here? If there is he'll get one of us through your foolishness." "There were two," Jimmie said, coolly, "but I killed one." "How did you get here?" was the next question, asked as the boys turned toward the camp. "How do you think I got here?" returned Jimmie. "Walked!" laughed Frank. "Yes, I walked." Jimmie stopped and rubbed his legs with careful hands. "I'm all wore out!" he said. "I can't walk any farther to-night." "All right," Frank said, with a grin. "I'll leave you both lights to keep the cats off with, and my gun, and come out after you in the morning after breakfast." "Oh, my eats!" Jimmie cried. "Lead me to something that will sustain life! I'm starving, I tell you." "You walked all the way?" asked Frank. "Sure! Forty miles at least." "Where are the others?" "Pat, Jack and the Chink Scout? Pat came up just before I started, riding on a burro, an' in the custody of a small party of rangers, who thought he had been setting fires. The rangers went into camp over there, all tired out, an' Jack an' Pat settled down with them. I run away." "They don't know where you are?" asked Frank. "Nix know!" replied the boy. "But how did you ever get through the burning forest?" asked Frank, hardly believing the boy's story of his long walk. "This 'burn' is only a mile wide," Jimmie said. "I walked on the south edge of it. Say, there are plenty of lives lost! Bears, an' cats, an' all that. I guess this will be an agreeable place to live in about a week--not!" The boy was indeed "all in," as he expressed it. He had walked since early morning through a tangled forest black with smoke, through an atmosphere burned and smoked out of its life-giving qualities. And all this exertion in order that he might be near his chum, Nestor. Fortune had favored the lad, and he had at last blundered on the camp where Ned had taken refuge, otherwise he might have died in the forest from hunger and exhaustion, or been devoured by some of the savage beasts which had followed him all day. "Where's Ned?" Jimmie asked, as they stood before the little row of tents. "Asleep," was the reply, "and you let him alone for to-night. He's been having a lively time. But how in the name of all that's wonderful did you ever find your way here?" the boy added. "I don't know," was the reply. "I knew that Ned would be wherever the fire was, and so started east. Not so very long ago I heard a couple of shots, and that directed me toward the camp. Who was hurt?" Frank explained, briefly, what had taken place, hunted up a liberal meal for the boy, and then saw him settled for the night. Ned's astonishment at seeing the boy in the morning may well be imagined. "Huh!" Jimmie said. "You thought you would fool me out of all the fun!" Ned laughed and asked about the others, finally informing Jimmie that he was leaving that morning for San Francisco by the aeroplane route. "Then I'm goin'!" declared the boy. "I'm not goin' to be chucked into the discard again." "You'll have to sit in Frank's lap," grinned Ned, "and the machine may tip over with such a load, at that." "I guess it didn't tip over when Frank and Jack an' yours truly run it," Jimmie replied. "Anyway, I'm goin' with you." Before leaving for Missoula, where he was to surrender the aeroplane to Frank, Ned had another long talk with Mr. Green, whose wound was not so serious as it had been considered the night before. The forester told him what he knew of the men under the leadership of Greer, saying that he might have arrested Greer at any time during the month, and, what is more, convicted him of smuggling both Chinamen and opium over the border. "But what good would it have done?" Green went on. "The conspirators in Washington, or New York, or San Francisco would have chosen another leader, and the game would have gone on as before." "That is very true," Ned admitted, "and still, it seems to me that the time to round the fellows up has come!" "Do you give that as an order?" asked the other, a flash of excitement showing in his face. "Yes," was the reply. "But some of them have gone to Portland with the Chinks--some to Frisco, I think. What about that?" "If you can spare men," Ned said, "follow them." "You're on!" laughed Green. "I've been waiting for some such orders for a long time. You're on!" "And follow on to Frisco as soon as you can," Ned continued. "Address me, or look for me, if you are able to be about after you get there, at the Federal building." "I'll be there in a week," Green said, his eyes showing the joy of the coming fight with the outlaws, "and I'll have a bunch of prisoners with me." The forester hesitated a moment, as the importance of the proposed move came to him, then faced Ned with a hesitating look. It was plain to the boy that Green wanted to ask a question which he believed to be either personal or impertinent. "Is there something else?" Ned asked. Green still hesitated, his eyes on the ground. "Are you sure of your clues?" he asked, then. "I think so," was the reply. "Because, you see," Green went on, "the government doesn't want any trap sprung until the whole bilin' is within reaching distance. After the good work you have done here, I wouldn't like to have you order the round-up and then find that the men you wanted were still out on the range." "Thank you for your frankness," Ned replied. "I just want to be sure that you are sure," smiled Green. "It would mix things for me to make these arrests and have the big ones get away, now, wouldn't it?" "Indeed it would," Ned admitted, "but I think it is safe to go ahead as we planned a moment ago." "All right!" Green said, but there was still doubt in his eyes. "And I'll accept all the responsibility," Ned added. "I have a suggestion to make," Green said, then. "Why not go on to Frisco in the aeroplane and ask for instructions? You can make the trip in the airship in no time, but it is a long ride by rail." "I think," Ned replied, with a laugh, "that the game will be ripe just about the time I get to Frisco by rail. Besides, I don't want the outlaws to know that I'm going to the city. They would know it if they saw the aeroplane making for the coast. Well, if I leave Frank navigating it in this district they will think I am still here. Don't you see?" "Go it!" laughed Green. "I reckon you know what you're about." "Anyway," Ned said, "I've got to play the game in my own way if I play it at all." "I see," observed Green, and the two parted. The aeroplane had not been damaged at all by the fire, but Ned went over it carefully before attempting a start. Sawyer, trembling with fright, was brought out to show where he had meddled with the machinery. "I didn't harm it any," the prisoner said. "There are some burrs missing," Ned said. Sawyer brought half a dozen out of a pocket and passed them to Ned with a reluctant hand. "I neglected to tell you that I had them in my pocket," he said. "What did Green say to you this morning?" asked Ned, screwing the burrs on where they were needed. "He says he won't be hard on me, if I tell all I know about the men who are doing these tricks," was the reply. "You told me all you know?" asked Ned. "Yes, there is nothing else to tell. I'm so glad to think that Green is not going to die from the wound I gave him that I'll do everything in my power to bring the men who put me up to this to punishment." "Sure you can identify the man who hired you?" "Dead certain," was the reply. "Then I'll have one of the men bring you to Frisco," Ned said. "You will be wanted there." "All right; anything the government wants goes!" In half an hour the three boys, Ned, Frank and Jimmie, were on the aeroplane, sailing through the clear air of a splendid summer morning. Below they could see the long, narrow strip of land which had been swept by the fires. Off to the north was the British frontier, with Lake Kintla glimmering in the sunshine. "Aren't we going back to that lake cavern again?" asked Frank. "Not just now," Ned replied. "I didn't know that you got all you wanted in there," Frank went on. "I had an idea that you were trying to identify the man we found dead there." "I think I learned all there was to learn there," Ned replied. "He spent a lot of time in there before he went to Frisco," Jimmie said. "He made me go in there with him, and I didn't like it." "And so no one will ever know who the dead man was?" asked Frank. "I have been given a name," Ned said, "a name to call him by, but I don't exactly like to accept the information, considering the source from which it came." The aeroplane drifted to the west and north easily under the steady pulse of the motors, and the plateau where Jimmie had left the boys and the foresters was soon in sight. "I wonder if they're all alive?" said Jimmie. "What could happen to them?" demanded Frank. "Oh," Jimmie replied, with biting sarcasm, "there is nothing here to harm 'em! This is a pink tea, this is! This is a church fair, where you get ices made out of the cream they skim off the cistern!" "You're getting nutty!" Frank said, with a grin. "When I left 'em," Jimmie went on, "the boys an' the foresters were wondering if the outlaws would come back an' kill 'em one by one or just blow up the caves underneath the plateau an' send 'em up in the air without any good means of gettin' down." "Then we'll look them up," Ned said. The great divide lay down below, and the plateau was in plain sight, with the early sunshine streaming over it. When the aeroplane circled about it a shout came up to Ned's ears, then a shot, and the powder smoke drifted lazily upward in the clear air. "Somethin' doin'!" Jimmie cried. "Suppose we go down an' see." CHAPTER XVIII.--TWO INANIMATE WITNESSES. It was very still in the bachelor apartment, and, as on the occasion of his previous visit, Nestor saw, as he slipped through the doorway leading from the private hall, that the lights were burning low. On this night there was no opium-drugged victim lying on the couch. There was a movement in the room beyond, and Ned could hear the soft tread of slippered feet and occasionally the rattle of dishes. It was evident that midnight luncheon was being prepared, and that the master of the habitation would soon be on hand. Closing the door softly--the same having been opened with a skeleton key--Ned stepped across the room to the writing desk which he had examined on that other night. After searching the half-open drawer for an instant, he took out a number of papers and examined them. He also took a check-book out and put it into a pocket. The papers he returned to the desk. The check-book was an old one, there being few blank checks in the binding, but plenty of stubs. Then Ned looked at the lock of the desk. It had been out of repair at his previous visit, but was in excellent shape now. He removed the new key and inserted the one with the broken stem which had so excited the interest of Albert Lemon and Jap on occasion of his previous visit. The key with the broken stem did not fit. A new lock had been put on. Next Ned went to a mantel over a gas grate and lifted the cover from a little ivory box which stood there. At the very bottom of the box, under buttons, pins, needles, and odds and ends, he found a key. This one was whole, and it was an exact duplicate of the one with the broken stem. Ned had been in San Francisco three days, and Jimmie was not far away. On bringing the aeroplane to the plateau on the day of his return to Missoula he had found Ernest Whipple, Jack, Pat, Liu, and a small party of rangers anxiously awaiting him. Also "several tough ones waitin' for an introduction," as Jimmie put it. It seems that the fake foresters had returned to the cave after the fire in the cañon had burned itself out and had at once discovered that the prisoner had vanished, also that Liu, the Chinese boy, had disappeared with him. There had been a long search for the missing boys, as the outlaws knew very well that the escape meant the bringing of officers to the caves, but they had not been discovered until a short time before the arrival of the aeroplane. When Ned reached the plateau--in fact, before he reached it--he heard the whistling of bullets aimed at the big bird. The outlaws were trying to cripple the aeroplane and so give the riders a tumble. The boys landed in safety, however, and joined the others. Seeing the boys thus reinforced, the outlaws had withdrawn, and the rangers had conducted them to a pass which led over the divide. So it was that Ned had left them, making their way down toward the Valley of the Wild Animals, where a large number of rangers were encamped, and where Frank was to come for them with the aeroplane as soon as Ned landed at Missoula. There were numerous shots fired at the aeroplane as it mounted into the sky again, but no harm was done. "If they had been shootin' at that cat last night," Jimmie said, in derision, "they would 'a' been eaten alive." "They are nervous," Frank said, "and don't dare come out of their hiding places so as to get a good sight at us. They are afraid of the rangers, and afraid that we'll drop a bomb or something of that sort down on them." This explanation of the bad marksmanship, as well as the failure of the outlaws to rush the aeroplane, was accepted by the boys, who had anticipated a fight with the fellows. It was afterwards learned, too, that there were only half a dozen outlaws in the group, and that they had been sent back to guard the caves and not to fight rangers unless they were attacked. Ned had been very busy since his return to the city, having made many inquiries concerning Albert Lemon and his servant, the Japanese attendant who had given the boy such a chilly reception on the night of the first visit. Lemon, he had been informed, was a millionaire of eccentric habits. According to Ned's source of information, he would absent himself from his usual haunts for days at a time, and would then return to shut himself up in his rooms, at home to no one, and attended only by Jap. After a time the clatter of dishes grew louder in the adjoining room, giving notice, doubtless, that the luncheon being prepared was nearly ready to serve. Then the boy seated himself behind a screen which cut off a corner of the room and waited. He had occupied his retreat only a short time when a key turned in the door and the man he had talked with on his first visit entered. It was not the old, half-dazed, disreputable Lemon who stepped into the room, but a young man handsomely dressed and evidently very wide awake and in the best of spirits. After seeing that the window shades were closely drawn he turned on the lights and dropped into a chair at the writing desk. Ned saw him rummage the pigeon-holes for a moment, extract a folded paper, and fall to checking off the items. The boy had examined this sheet while at the desk, and so knew what it contained. After checking the items the man drew out a long pocket-book and placed its contents on the writing board. The boy gave a quick start when he saw what the book had contained, for a large package of yellow-back bank notes lay exposed to view. The man counted them carefully, compared the total with the figures he had marked on the sheet, and then sat back in his chair with a satisfied smile on his face. "Everything correct!" he said. Then he lighted a cigar and turned to the door opening into the inner room. "Jap!" he called softly. "Oh, Jap!" The door opened and the servant looked in. "Come here!" Lemon commanded. "What have you been doing?" he added, as the Jap stood before him. "Nothing," was the reply. "You are not telling the truth," Lemon said. "You have been seen about the city, in tea houses, talking with strangers." "I have not been out of the rooms," the other insisted, stubbornly. "Let it pass," Lemon said, in a moment. "There may be some mistake. Any one been here?" "No one." The servant appeared to have a perfect knowledge of English. He looked into his master's face with a bland smile, but now and then his eyes sought the screen behind which Ned was hidden. "Well, some of the boys will be up here to-night," Lemon said. "See that there is plenty to eat. Go, now." The servant turned to the door opening into the private hall, stood with his hand on the knob for an instant, and then, apparently changing his mind, went out through the doorway by which he had entered. If Lemon had been listening intently he would have heard a quick movement in the back room as Jap closed the door. In a moment there was another movement in the private hall, and then Ned heard the corridor door open. He pushed the screen aside and stepped out before the astonished occupant of the rooms. "What does this mean?" Lemon demanded, a quiver of excitement--or it might have been consternation--in his voice. While he spoke he moved toward a table where a revolver lay in full view. "Never mind that," Ned said, coolly. "We can arbitrate our differences without its assistance. Besides, it is not loaded." "What are you doing here?" Lemon almost shouted, his face growing white, either with rage or fear. "Leave the room immediately." Ned dropped into a chair and motioned toward another. "Sit down!" he ordered. "Your impudence is amazing," Lemon said, but he took the chair. In a moment, however, he turned to the door. "Jap!" he called. Again the door opened and the servant looked in. "Are you armed?" Lemon asked. The servant nodded, fixing a pair of inscrutable eyes on Ned's face as he did so. "Very well," was the reply. "Stand there by the door. How did this man gain entrance here?" The only reply was a shrug of the shoulders. "Let it pass for the present," Lemon said, with a smile of triumph. "Stand there and shoot when I give the word." The servant nodded again. Ned remained seated, his eyes fixed coolly on the face of the master. "Now, what do you want?" demanded Lemon. "You don't look exactly like a common sneak thief." "You doubtless remember," Ned began, in a level voice, "that I did myself the honor of calling at these rooms not long ago in quest of information of one--of one Felix Emory?" Lemon started at the name, but gained confidence as he glanced toward the servant at the door. "Yes, I remember," he said. "What about it?" There was a sharp ring at the corridor door before Ned spoke again. The Jap looked inquiringly at his master. "Company may prove of value just now," Lemon said. "Will you see who is there?" It was clear to Ned that Lemon expected some of the associates he had mentioned as "the boys" when giving instructions about the luncheon, and there was a smile of welcome on his face when a bustle in the hall told of an arrival. There was only one man, however, and Lemon at first seemed disappointed, but in a moment he had his face under perfect control again. "Father!" he cried, springing to his feet. "It is good to see you here!" The newcomer, a man of perhaps sixty, well dressed and with the air of a man to whom marked attention was due, stood looking into Lemon's face for an instant and then grasped his hand. "You have changed little, my son," he said. Lemon smiled and indicated Ned with a slight motion of the hand. "Permit me to present to you my father, Mr. Leon Lemon," he said, "and this, father, is a boy burglar who broke into my rooms in quest of plunder a short time ago," he added. "We were having quite a cheerful talk when you came. I don't know his name, unfortunately." The old gentleman gave a start and attempted to rise from his chair. "Don't distress yourself," Lemon said. "He is quite harmless. Besides, Jap has him covered with the cannon he delights to carry." "This is a strange situation," the other said, wiping the sweat of excitement from his face. "One of the incidents which add to the joy of life," Lemon said. "You remember Felix Emory?" he added. "Well, his pretense for this call is that he came to ask about him. Go ahead, Mr. Burglar." "Perhaps you will also remember," Ned went on, "that on my former visit here I exhibited a key with a broken stem--the key to that writing desk?" Lemon's face hardened and he glanced furtively at the servant, but said not a word. "This key," Ned said, producing the one mentioned, "was found in the pocket of the man who was found dead in the Rocky Mountains. You think you left it in the suit of clothes you gave Emory?" "Possibly," was the strained reply. "But we have had enough of this," Lemon added. "Call the police, Jap." "Just a moment," Ned went on, when the Jap moved toward the door. "When you could not find the key, Mr. Lemon, why didn't you use the duplicate. The duplicate you kept in the box on the shelf? Why did you think it necessary to break the lock?" "The servant did that," was the angry reply. "I see," Ned replied, coolly, "perhaps that was done while you were up in the mountains with Emory--before he was killed?" "Possibly," Lemon gritted out. "Now, since talking with you," Ned continued, "I have been up in the mountains. There I found a man using a typewriter. By the way, have you a machine here?" "Certainly not," was the angry reply. "But you formerly used one here?" "Never!" was the reply. "That is strange," Ned said, "for when I came in here not long ago I took the liberty of looking through some papers in your desk, for which I ask your pardon. Well, I discovered that the machine you used here carried a defective letter 'c.' It looked in the writing like an 'o.' The machine the man was using under the divide had the same defect. If you will observe the sheet you were examining a few moments ago, you will note the imperfect letter." Lemon's teeth clinked together sharply, but he did not speak. "When I came here last," Ned continued, "you lay in an opium stupor on that couch. You had recently returned from a trip to Lake Kintla, where Emory was found dead. While in that section you visited a cavern on the eastern slope of the divide. There is where you used the typewriter taken from these rooms." "My son never learned the keyboard," said the old gentleman, an angry snap in his eyes. "He has never found it necessary to earn money." Lemon turned to the old man and bowed, gratefully. "When you lay on the couch that night," Ned continued, "there was the smear of the typewriter on the middle finger of your left hand, close to the nail. I use a double keyboard machine myself, and sometimes smut my finger on the ribbon when I turn the platen. Some papers I chanced upon in the mountains bear the mark of a smudged hand. You are careless in using the machine. You even left a blue record ribbon in the cave headquarters where the dead man was found. That was my first valuable clue!" "What papers did you steal while in the mountains?" demanded Lemon, springing to his feet, his face deadly white, his fists swinging aimlessly in the air. "Lists," Ned replied. "Lists of Chinamen brought from over the border, and lists of opium cases smuggled in. I have the papers in my possession now. They match with the statement you examined just before I made my appearance in the room--just before you counted the money you received from this illegal traffic." The old man leaped at Ned, but the boy moved away and stood by the door. The Jap stepped closer. There came a sound of whispering, a noise of footsteps, from the hall outside. Then the door was opened and Greer, Slocum, Chang Chee and two others entered, glancing keenly at Ned as they passed him, still standing by the door. "Do you mean to accuse my son of crime?" shouted the old man, not noticing the new-comers in his rage and excitement. "You scoundrel!" "How do you know," Ned asked, with a smile at the others, "that this man is Albert Lemon, your son?" CHAPTER XIX.--THE MAN BEHIND THE SCENES. "Not my son!" shouted the old man. "This has gone quite far enough! Jap, call the police, and order this mad youngster taken away." The younger man broke into a harsh laugh and turned to those who had just entered. Slocum and Chang Chee were whispering together, and a dangerous looking knife showed in the hand of the false ranger. "You hear what father says, boys," Lemon said. "Remember that." "What is this kid doing here, anyway?" demanded Slocum. "He came here, evidently, for the purpose of blackmailing me," Lemon said. "He has papers stolen from the mountains--lists, he says they are--and they should be taken from him by force." Slocum and Chang Chee started toward the boy, but he waved them back with his hand. "I will lay the papers on the table," he said. "You are quite welcome to them for the present." "I'll take him down to the police station," said Chang. "He ought not to be at large. Come, youngster." "You seem to be able to talk pretty good English now," laughed Ned. "Much better than the slang you gave out in the mountains." "Come!" shouted the Chinaman. "You are here alone, so there is no need of a fight. Come along!" "We'll see about my being here alone presently," Ned said. "Anyhow, I'd better be here alone than with any one of you in the dark streets. I should be murdered before a block was passed. That is what you came to Frisco for, to murder me--just as the man in the lake cavern was murdered." Those in the room looked at each other and remained silent. There was a tense moment, when every person there seemed gathering for a spring, when the lust of blood seemed in every glaring eye, but it passed. "Where are the Chinamen you brought away from the British border?" asked Ned of Chang Chee. "Are they in this city? Oh," he continued, as Chang glared at him, "we knew that you were about to bring in a batch. You usually light forest fires in order to attract the attention of the rangers when you get ready to unload a band of Chinese on Uncle Sam. That is Doyers street cunning, Chang!" "You see," he went on, "we have had the good luck to discover why the forests in Northern Idaho and Montana have been set on fire so frequently. I don't care to say what I think of the wisdom of your course in so attempting to hide your movements, except that it attracted attention instead of diverting it. You firebugs might have been arrested long ago," he continued, turning to Slocum, "but it was thought best to wait until the head center of the whole conspiracy was in the hands of the law. Now that this has been accomplished, I may speak." The people standing around the boy looked into each other's faces, and there was a movement as if to draw weapons. "Permit me to congratulate you on the discovery of the leader of the outlaws," the old man said with a snarl. "Perhaps you will be kind enough to give us his name?" "There are no objections that I know of," was the reply. "His name is Felix Emory. You may have heard of him." "An old acquaintance of my son Albert," the old man said. "That is the name of the man who was so mysteriously murdered in the Kintla lake cave," Slocum observed. "Why do you place the crime on the dead?" "Felix Emory," Ned said, "is not dead. He is alive at this moment--alive and in this room!" The young man broke into a jarring laugh and turned to the old man. "You remember the strange resemblance between Felix and myself," he said. "Well, it seems to have deceived this clever young man. By the way, Slocum, why don't you take the lad to the police station? We have no more time for him here." Slocum and another sprang forward, but Ned opened the door with a quick motion and stood beyond their reach. "The man found dead in the cave," the boy said, facing the old man, "had met with an accident in his youth. The first joint of the little finger of the right hand was missing. Also, there was a scar over his left eye--a trifling scar, made with a knife in the hands of a playmate. Do you recall these marks of identification, Mr. Lemon?" he added. The old man threw his hands to his face and stood silent for a moment while the others looked on in perplexed silence. When he uncovered his face again he stepped forward to the man he had called his son on entering the room. "Let me see your hands, Albert," he said, kindly. "Bend down so I can see the scar on your forehead!" "Step aside, you old fool!" the young man cried, pushing the old man back rudely. "We have had enough of this, boys," he continued, turning to the others. "The game is up unless we get rid of this dotard and this boy. Why don't you get busy?" The old man dropped into a chair and lifted his face to Ned's. "You found my son murdered?" he asked. "Then this man Felix Emory stands in his shoes! Even I was deceived by him! Why, he has been calling upon me for large sums of money during the past month. He has taken possession of my boy's rooms. Was it this man Emory who killed him?" "We believe so," was the reply. "The proof is within reaching distance." "Out with them both!" shouted Emory. "Your son Albert took this man in and tried to do something for him," Ned went on, "and was robbed and murdered for his pains. This man Emory was the leader of this choice band of smugglers and firebugs when he came to your son. The band was on the point of scattering because the officers were close on their track. They needed a man well up in the world--a man against whom the breath of suspicion had never been blown--to represent them in the opium market and the smuggled Chinamen market. They sent this man Emory to your son with a proposition, and he turned him down. Then they parted. But Albert knew too much and so he was lured to the woods and killed, and Emory stood before the world as your son. It was a devilish plot, great wealth being the object. If you will look at the stubs in this check-book you will see the difference in the hand-writing." "I rather admire your nerve, boy," Slocum said to Ned. "You've got the right kind of courage to stand up here and tell all this to us. You know very well that we can never let you go out of this place alive? That even this old man must suffer for your bit of foolish daring?" "I'd like to have the training of that kid for a few years," Chang said. "I could beat the world with him!" "Well, you all know what we've got to do," Emory said, angrily. "We've got to get rid of the boy and this old man. If we do not, there is an end of a rather profitable business. Besides, with Albert Lemon dead, I become his heir, with no possible chance of being identified as Felix Emory." "You devil!" shouted the old man. "You murderer!" Enraged by the exclamation, Emory made a rush for the old man, but was stopped by a voice from the doorway opening into the rear room. "That'll be all for you!" the voice said. It was Jimmie who stood in the doorway, smiling, and making about the worst bow a Boy Scout ever made. "Don't wiggle about so, gentlemen," he added, "for the men behind this partition have you all covered with repeating rifles, and some of them are nervous. Stand still while a friend of mine presents you with wristlets." Jap turned and faced the frightened group and then pointed to the wall, near the ceiling, where a line of two-inch holes were seen, at each hole a shining eye. "You see," he said, "I cut those holes there to-night, so the boys wouldn't have to lie hidden under the furniture. There's a gun behind every one of them. And now, with your permission--" Jimmie passed out a bunch of clattering, ringing handcuffs, and Jap slipped them on the wrists of the prisoners. As he did so Frank came dashing into the room, swinging his cap aloft. Ernest, Jack, Pat and Liu were there, too, overjoyed at the great victory. "Wow!" he cried. "Here's a wire saying that the bunch was captured at Portland to-night, and another from Missoula says the men left in the caverns were caught yesterday. I have the honor to report, Mr. Sherlock Holmes Nestor," he added, with a low bow, "that the round-up is complete." "Our day will come directly," Emory shouted. "You haven't a word of proof against any of us. Your story sounds all right here, but wait until you get into court. Our lawyers will pick your yarn apart like a rag doll. And you, Jap," he went on, turning to the servant, "when did you turn against me?" "There have been two instances of false personation in this case," Ned said. "You, Emory, personated Albert Lemon, whom you murdered, and you, Jap, personated the servant Emory brought here after he had seen you carried out of the rooms for dead." "Then that isn't my servant at all?" asked Emory. "I was in the employ of Albert Lemon," answered the Jap, "when you took him away and killed him. When you came back from the mountains you caused me to be drugged and killed, as you supposed. But your servant hesitated in the work. He finally turned against you, and permitted me to come here in his stead. It was he who disclosed the hiding place of the duplicate key. He told me, and I told Mr. Nestor." "It is all a blackmailing conspiracy!" cried Emory. "When Mr. Nestor came back to the city, three days ago," the servant went on, "I was told by the man I was personating in these rooms that the whole plot was known. He said that Mr. Nestor knew that you were not Albert Lemon, also that I, Albert Lemon's servant, still lived. I didn't have much to tell him when he came to me, but I told him all I knew." "And you let him search my rooms?" cried Emory. "Of course," was the cool reply. "He has everything required to send you to the gallows for the murder of Albert Lemon, and everything necessary in the case against the smugglers and firebugs, too. He found Emory's servant," he added, facing the father, "in a Japanese tea house, and brought him here to me after the closing scene was set for to-night. You may talk with him if you want to. He can tell you how the murder of your son was planned, also how the plot to kill Mr. Nestor in the mountains was laid--here in these rooms." Again the old man sank into a chair and buried his face in his hands. It was a severe blow to him. He had arrived in San Francisco that day, anticipating a pleasant month with his son. And now to find him dead! "It would be interesting," said Slocum, speaking for the first time since the arrests, "to know just how this remarkable boy discovered the connection between this flat and the mountain caves." "The murder brought the clue," Ned replied. "From the first the clue led here. And then the key without a stem, the smudge on Emory's finger, the typewritten sheets, the machine in the mountains--oh, it was all easy enough after the discovery that this man Emory did not know where Albert Lemon kept his duplicate key to that desk! "The case is ended," Ned continued, "and all the parties wanted by the law are under arrest, so, if you don't mind, gentlemen, I'll go to bed!" Jack, Pat, Ernest and Liu now advanced into the room and looked smilingly at their leader. "You can't lose us," Jack said. "If you don't mind, we'll take you back to the Rocky Mountains for a little fun with the aeroplane. I guess there won't be any bold bad smugglers up there to distract our attention for a few weeks." "And then," Jimmie cut in, "I hope you'll all go back to little old New York. I'm hungry and thirsty, and sleepy for a walk down the good old Bowery and the wise old White Way!" The case against Felix Emory was so complete that he pleaded guilty on being arraigned in court and was sentenced to the gallows. Chang received a long sentence for his connection with the murder, and the smugglers and firebugs were sent to prison for ten years each. The clean-up was so complete that Ned was requested to visit Washington and confer with the Secret Service chief regarding other cases. "But, after all," he said, on leaving Jimmie and the other boys, including Ernest and Liu, in New York, "I don't think I want any more fighting forest fires assignments in the Secret Service. We'll go back some day and look over the ground, but I don't think I'll ever be able to get some of those rides in the air out of my mind." THE END. BEST BOOKS--NOW READY Oliver Optic Series For a full generation the youth of America has been reading and re-reading "Oliver Optic." No genuine boy ever tires of this famous author who knew just what boys wanted and was always able to supply his wants. 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Dearborn Street, CHICAGO ASK YOUR BOOKSELLER FOR THE DONOHUE COMPLETE EDITIONS and you will get the best for the least money ALWAYS ASK FOR THE DONOHUE COMPLETE EDITIONS--THE BEST FOR LEAST MONEY WOODCRAFT for Boy Scouts and Others By OWEN JONES and MARCUS WOODMAN With a Message to Boy Scouts by SIR BADEN-POWELL, Founder of the Boy Scouts' Movement. One of the essential requirements of the Boy Scout training is a Knowledge of Woodcraft. This necessitates a book embracing all the subjects and treating on all the topics that a thorough knowledge of Woodcraft implies. This book thoroughly exhausts the subject. It imparts a comprehensive knowledge of woods from fungus growth to the most stately monarch of the forest; it treats of the habits and lairs of all the feathered and furry inhabitants of the woods. Shows how to trail wild animals; how to identify birds and beasts by their tracks, calls, etc. Tells how to forecast the weather, and in fact treats on every phase of nature with which a Boy Scout or any woodman or lover of nature should be familiar. The authorship guarantees its authenticity and reliability. Indispensable to "Boy Scouts" and others. Printed from large clear type on superior paper. Embellished With Over 100 Thumb Nail Illustrations Taken From Life. Bound in Cloth. Stamped with unique and appropriate designs in ink. Price, 75c Postpaid M. A. DONOHUE & CO. 701-727 S. Dearborn St., CHICAGO 
4512	----	Cascadia Gardening Series Gardening Without Irrigation: or without much, anyway Steve Solomon CONTENTS Chapter 1 Predictably Rainless Summers 2 Water-Wise Gardening Science 3 Helping Plants to Need Less Irrigation 4 Water-Wise Gardening Year-Round 5 How to Grow It with Less Irrigation: A-Z 6 My Own Garden Plan 7 The Backyard Introduction Starting a New Gardening Era First, you should know why a maritime Northwest raised-bed gardener named Steve Solomon became worried about his dependence on irrigation. I'm from Michigan. I moved to Lorane, Oregon, in April 1978 and homesteaded on 5 acres in what I thought at the time was a cool, showery green valley of liquid sunshine and rainbows. I intended to put in a big garden and grow as much of my own food as possible. Two months later, in June, just as my garden began needing water, my so-called 15-gallon-per-minute well began to falter, yielding less and less with each passing week. By August it delivered about 3 gallons per minute. Fortunately, I wasn't faced with a completely dry well or one that had shrunk to below 1 gallon per minute, as I soon discovered many of my neighbors were cursed with. Three gallons per minute won't supply a fan nozzle or even a common impulse sprinkler, but I could still sustain my big raised-bed garden by watering all night, five or six nights a week, with a single, 2-1/2 gallon-per-minute sprinkler that I moved from place to place. I had repeatedly read that gardening in raised beds was the most productive vegetable growing method, required the least work, and was the most water-efficient system ever known. So, without adequate irrigation, I would have concluded that food self-sufficiency on my homestead was not possible. In late September of that first year, I could still run that single sprinkler. What a relief not to have invested every last cent in land that couldn't feed us. For many succeeding years at Lorane, I raised lots of organically grown food on densely planted raised beds, but the realities of being a country gardener continued to remind me of how tenuous my irrigation supply actually was. We country folks have to be self-reliant: I am my own sanitation department, I maintain my own 800-foot-long driveway, the septic system puts me in the sewage business. A long, long response time to my 911 call means I'm my own self-defense force. And I'm my own water department. Without regular and heavy watering during high summer, dense stands of vegetables become stunted in a matter of days. Pump failure has brought my raised-bed garden close to that several times. Before my frantic efforts got the water flowing again, I could feel the stressed-out garden screaming like a hungry baby. As I came to understand our climate, I began to wonder about _complete_ food self-sufficiency. How did the early pioneers irrigate their vegetables? There probably aren't more than a thousand homestead sites in the entire maritime Northwest with gravity water. Hand pumping into hand-carried buckets is impractical and extremely tedious. Wind-powered pumps are expensive and have severe limits. The combination of dependably rainless summers, the realities of self-sufficient living, and my homestead's poor well turned out to be an opportunity. For I continued wondering about gardens and water, and discovered a method for growing a lush, productive vegetable garden on deep soil with little or no irrigation, in a climate that reliably provides 8 to 12 virtually dry weeks every summer. Gardening with Less Irrigation Being a garden writer, I was on the receiving end of quite a bit of local lore. I had heard of someone growing unirrigated carrots on sandy soil in southern Oregon by sowing early and spacing the roots 1 foot apart in rows 4 feet apart. The carrots were reputed to grow to enormous sizes, and the overall yield in pounds per square foot occupied by the crop was not as low as one might think. I read that Native Americans in the Southwest grew remarkable desert gardens with little or no water. And that Native South Americans in the highlands of Peru and Bolivia grow food crops in a land with 8 to 12 inches of rainfall. So I had to wonder what our own pioneers did. In 1987, we moved 50 miles south, to a much better homestead with more acreage and an abundant well. Ironically, only then did I grow my first summertime vegetable without irrigation. Being a low-key survivalist at heart, I was working at growing my own seeds. The main danger to attaining good germination is in repeatedly moistening developing seed. So, in early March 1988, I moved six winter-surviving savoy cabbage plants far beyond the irrigated soil of my raised-bed vegetable garden. I transplanted them 4 feet apart because blooming brassicas make huge sprays of flower stalks. I did not plan to water these plants at all, since cabbage seed forms during May and dries down during June as the soil naturally dries out. That is just what happened. Except that one plant did something a little unusual, though not unheard of. Instead of completely going into bloom and then dying after setting a massive load of seed, this plant also threw a vegetative bud that grew a whole new cabbage among the seed stalks. With increasing excitement I watched this head grow steadily larger through the hottest and driest summer I had ever experienced. Realizing I was witnessing revelation, I gave the plant absolutely no water, though I did hoe out the weeds around it after I cut the seed stalks. I harvested the unexpected lesson at the end of September. The cabbage weighed in at 6 or 7 pounds and was sweet and tender. Up to that time, all my gardening had been on thoroughly and uniformly watered raised beds. Now I saw that elbow room might be the key to gardening with little or no irrigating, so I began looking for more information about dry gardening and soil/water physics. In spring 1989, I tilled four widely separated, unirrigated experimental rows in which I tested an assortment of vegetable species spaced far apart in the row. Out of curiosity I decided to use absolutely no water at all, not even to sprinkle the seeds to get them germinating. I sowed a bit of kale, savoy cabbage, Purple Sprouting broccoli, carrots, beets, parsnips, parsley, endive, dry beans, potatoes, French sorrel, and a couple of field cornstalks. I also tested one compact bush (determinate) and one sprawling (indeterminate) tomato plant. Many of these vegetables grew surprisingly well. I ate unwatered tomatoes July through September; kale, cabbages, parsley, and root crops fed us during the winter. The Purple Sprouting broccoli bloomed abundantly the next March. In terms of quality, all the harvest was acceptable. The root vegetables were far larger but only a little bit tougher and quite a bit sweeter than usual. The potatoes yielded less than I'd been used to and had thicker than usual skin, but also had a better flavor and kept well through the winter. The following year I grew two parallel gardens. One, my "insurance garden," was thoroughly irrigated, guaranteeing we would have plenty to eat. Another experimental garden of equal size was entirely unirrigated. There I tested larger plots of species that I hoped could grow through a rainless summer. By July, growth on some species had slowed to a crawl and they looked a little gnarly. Wondering if a hidden cause of what appeared to be moisture stress might actually be nutrient deficiencies, I tried spraying liquid fertilizer directly on these gnarly leaves, a practice called foliar feeding. It helped greatly because, I reasoned, most fertility is located in the topsoil, and when it gets dry the plants draw on subsoil moisture, so surface nutrients, though still present in the dry soil, become unobtainable. That being so, I reasoned that some of these species might do even better if they had just a little fertilized water. So I improvised a simple drip system and metered out 4 or 5 gallons of liquid fertilizer to some of the plants in late July and four gallons more in August. To some species, extra fertilized water (what I call "fertigation") hardly made any difference at all. But unirrigated winter squash vines, which were small and scraggly and yielded about 15 pounds of food, grew more lushly when given a few 5-gallon, fertilizer-fortified assists and yielded 50 pounds. Thirty-five pounds of squash for 25 extra gallons of water and a bit of extra nutrition is a pretty good exchange in my book. The next year I integrated all this new information into just one garden. Water-loving species like lettuce and celery were grown through the summer on a large, thoroughly irrigated raised bed. The rest of the garden was given no irrigation at all or minimally metered-out fertigations. Some unirrigated crops were foliar fed weekly. Everything worked in 1991! And I found still other species that I could grow surprisingly well on surprisingly small amounts of water[--]or none at all. So, the next year, 1992, I set up a sprinkler system to water the intensive raised bed and used the overspray to support species that grew better with some moisture supplementation; I continued using my improvised drip system to help still others, while keeping a large section of the garden entirely unwatered. And at the end of that summer I wrote this book. What follows is not mere theory, not something I read about or saw others do. These techniques are tested and workable. The next-to-last chapter of this book contains a complete plan of my 1992 garden with explanations and discussion of the reasoning behind it. In _Water-Wise Vegetables_ I assume that my readers already are growing food (probably on raised beds), already know how to adjust their gardening to this region's climate, and know how to garden with irrigation. If you don't have this background I suggest you read my other garden book, _Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades,_ (Sasquatch Books, 1989). Steve Solomon Chapter 1 Predictably Rainless Summers In the eastern United States, summertime rainfall can support gardens without irrigation but is just irregular enough to be worrisome. West of the Cascades we go into the summer growing season certain we must water regularly. My own many-times-revised book _Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades_ correctly emphasized that moisture-stressed vegetables suffer greatly. Because I had not yet noticed how plant spacing affects soil moisture loss, in that book I stated a half-truth as law: Soil moisture loss averages 1-1/2 inches per week during summer. This figure is generally true for raised-bed gardens west of the Cascades, so I recommended adding 1 1/2 inches of water each week and even more during really hot weather. Summertime Rainfall West of the Cascades (in inches)* Location April May June July Aug. Sept. Oct. Eureka, CA 3.0 2.1 0.7 0.1 0.3 0.7 3.2 Medford, OR 1.0 1.4 0.98 0.3 0.3 0.6 2.1 Eugene, OR 2.3 2.1 1.3 0.3 0.6 1.3 4.0 Portland, OR 2.2 2.1 1.6 0.5 0.8 1.6 3.6 Astoria, OR 4.6 2.7 2.5 1.0 1.5 2.8 6.8 Olympia, WA 3.1 1.9 1.6 0.7 1.2 2.1 5.3 Seattle, WA 2.4 1.7 1.6 0.8 1.0 2.1 4.0 Bellingham, WA 2.3 1.8 1.9 1.0 1.1 2.0 3.7 Vancouver, BC 3.3 2.8 2.5 1.2 1.7 3.6 5.8 Victoria, BC 1.2 1.0 0.9 0.4 0.6 1.5 2.8 *Source: Van der Leeden et al., _The Water Encyclopedia,_ 2nd ed., (Chelsea, Mich.: Lewis Publishers, 1990). Defined scientifically, drought is not lack of rain. It is a dry soil condition in which plant growth slows or stops and plant survival may be threatened. The earth loses water when wind blows, when sun shines, when air temperature is high, and when humidity is low. Of all these factors, air temperature most affects soil moisture loss. Daily Maximum Temperature (F)* July/August Average Eureka, CA 61 Medford, OR 89 Eugene, OR 82 Astoria, OR 68 Olympia, WA 78 Seattle, WA 75 Bellingham, WA 74 Vancouver, BC 73 Victoria, BC 68 *Source: The Water Encyclopedia. The kind of vegetation growing on a particular plot and its density have even more to do with soil moisture loss than temperature or humidity or wind speed. And, surprising as it might seem, bare soil may not lose much moisture at all. I now know it is next to impossible to anticipate moisture loss from soil without first specifying the vegetation there. Evaporation from a large body of water, however, is mainly determined by weather, so reservoir evaporation measurements serve as a rough gauge of anticipated soil moisture loss. Evaporation from Reservoirs (inches per month)* Location April May June July Aug. Sept. Oct. Seattle, WA 2.1 2.7 3.4 3.9 3.4 2.6 1.6 Baker, OR 2.5 3.4 4.4 6.9 7.3 4.9 2.9 Sacramento, CA 3.6 5.0 7.1 8.9 8.6 7.1 4.8 *Source: _The Water Encyclopedia_ From May through September during a normal year, a reservoir near Seattle loses about 16 inches of water by evaporation. The next chart shows how much water farmers expect to use to support conventional agriculture in various parts of the West. Comparing this data for Seattle with the estimates based on reservoir evaporation shows pretty good agreement. I include data for Umatilla and Yakima to show that much larger quantities of irrigation water are needed in really hot, arid places like Baker or Sacramento. Estimated Irrigation Requirements: During Entire Growing Season (in inches)* Location Duration Amount Umatilla/Yakama Valley April-October 30 Willamette Valley May-September 16 Puget Sound May-September 14 Upper Rogue/Upper Umpqua Valley March-September 18 Lower Rogue/Lower Coquille Valley May-September 11 NW California April-October 17 *Source: _The Water Encyclopedia_ In our region, gardens lose far more water than they get from rainfall during the summer growing season. At first glance, it seems impossible to garden without irrigation west of the Cascades. But there is water already present in the soil when the gardening season begins. By creatively using and conserving this moisture, some maritime Northwest gardeners can go through an entire summer without irrigating very much, and with some crops, irrigating not at all. Chapter 2 Water-Wise Gardening Science Plants Are Water Like all other carbon-based life forms on earth, plants conduct their chemical processes in a water solution. Every substance that plants transport is dissolved in water. When insoluble starches and oils are required for plant energy, enzymes change them back into water-soluble sugars for movement to other locations. Even cellulose and lignin, insoluble structural materials that plants cannot convert back into soluble materials, are made from molecules that once were in solution. Water is so essential that when a plant can no longer absorb as much water as it is losing, it wilts in self-defense. The drooping leaves transpire (evaporate) less moisture because the sun glances off them. Some weeds can wilt temporarily and resume vigorous growth as soon as their water balance is restored. But most vegetable species aren't as tough-moisture stressed vegetables may survive, but once stressed, the quality of their yield usually drops markedly. Yet in deep, open soil west of the Cascades, most vegetable species may be grown quite successfully with very little or no supplementary irrigation and without mulching, because they're capable of being supplied entirely by water already stored in the soil. Soil's Water-Holding Capacity Soil is capable of holding on to quite a bit of water, mostly by adhesion. For example, I'm sure that at one time or another you have picked up a wet stone from a river or by the sea. A thin film of water clings to its surface. This is adhesion. The more surface area there is, the greater the amount of moisture that can be held by adhesion. If we crushed that stone into dust, we would greatly increase the amount of water that could adhere to the original material. Clay particles, it should be noted, are so small that clay's ability to hold water is not as great as its mathematically computed surface area would indicate. Surface Area of One Gram of Soil Particles Particle type Diameter of Number of particles particles Surface area in mm per gm in sq. cm. Very coarse sand 2.00-1.00 90 11 Coarse sand 1.00-0.50 720 23 Medium sand 0.50-0.25 5,700 45 Fine sand 0.25-0.10 46,000 91 Very fine sand 0.10-0.05 772,000 227 Silt 0.05-0.002 5,776,000 454 Clay Below 0.002 90,260,853,000 8,000,000 Source: Foth, Henry D., _Fundamentals of Soil Science,_ 8th ed. (New York: John Wylie & Sons, 1990). This direct relationship between particle size, surface area, and water-holding capacity is so essential to understanding plant growth that the surface areas presented by various sizes of soil particles have been calculated. Soils are not composed of a single size of particle. If the mix is primarily sand, we call it a sandy soil. If the mix is primarily clay, we call it a clay soil. If the soil is a relatively equal mix of all three, containing no more than 35 percent clay, we call it a loam. Available Moisture (inches of water per foot of soil) Soil Texture Average Amount Very coarse sand 0.5 Coarse sand 0.7 Sandy 1.0 Sandy loam 1.4 Loam 2.0 Clay loam 2.3 Silty clay 2.5 Clay 2.7 Source: _Fundamentals of Soil Science_. Adhering water films can vary greatly in thickness. But if the water molecules adhering to a soil particle become too thick, the force of adhesion becomes too weak to resist the force of gravity, and some water flows deeper into the soil. When water films are relatively thick the soil feels wet and plant roots can easily absorb moisture. "Field capacity" is the term describing soil particles holding all the water they can against the force of gravity. At the other extreme, the thinner the water films become, the more tightly they adhere and the drier the earth feels. At some degree of desiccation, roots are no longer forceful enough to draw on soil moisture as fast as the plants are transpiring. This condition is called the "wilting point." The term "available moisture" refers to the difference between field capacity and the amount of moisture left after the plants have died. Clayey soil can provide plants with three times as much available water as sand, six times as much as a very coarse sandy soil. It might seem logical to conclude that a clayey garden would be the most drought resistant. But there's more to it. For some crops, deep sandy loams can provide just about as much usable moisture as clays. Sandy soils usually allow more extensive root development, so a plant with a naturally aggressive and deep root system may be able to occupy a much larger volume of sandy loam, ultimately coming up with more moisture than it could obtain from a heavy, airless clay. And sandy loams often have a clayey, moisture-rich subsoil. _Because of this interplay of factors, how much available water your own unique garden soil is actually capable of providing and how much you will have to supplement it with irrigation can only be discovered by trial._ How Soil Loses Water Suppose we tilled a plot about April 1 and then measured soil moisture loss until October. Because plants growing around the edge might extend roots into our test plot and extract moisture, we'll make our tilled area 50 feet by 50 feet and make all our measurements in the center. And let's locate this imaginary plot in full sun on flat, uniform soil. And let's plant absolutely nothing in this bare earth. And all season let's rigorously hoe out every weed while it is still very tiny. Let's also suppose it's been a typical maritime Northwest rainy winter, so on April 1 the soil is at field capacity, holding all the moisture it can. From early April until well into September the hot sun will beat down on this bare plot. Our summer rains generally come in insignificant installments and do not penetrate deeply; all of the rain quickly evaporates from the surface few inches without recharging deeper layers. Most readers would reason that a soil moisture measurement taken 6 inches down on September 1, should show very little water left. One foot down seems like it should be just as dry, and in fact, most gardeners would expect that there would be very little water found in the soil until we got down quite a few feet if there were several feet of soil. But that is not what happens! The hot sun does dry out the surface inches, but if we dig down 6 inches or so there will be almost as much water present in September as there was in April. Bare earth does not lose much water at all. _Once a thin surface layer is completely desiccated, be it loose or compacted, virtually no further loss of moisture can occur._ The only soils that continue to dry out when bare are certain kinds of very heavy clays that form deep cracks. These ever-deepening openings allow atmospheric air to freely evaporate additional moisture. But if the cracks are filled with dust by surface cultivation, even this soil type ceases to lose water. Soil functions as our bank account, holding available water in storage. In our climate soil is inevitably charged to capacity by winter rains, and then all summer growing plants make heavy withdrawals. But hot sun and wind working directly on soil don't remove much water; that is caused by hot sun and wind working on plant leaves, making them transpire moisture drawn from the earth through their root systems. Plants desiccate soil to the ultimate depth and lateral extent of their rooting ability, and then some. The size of vegetable root systems is greater than most gardeners would think. The amount of moisture potentially available to sustain vegetable growth is also greater than most gardeners think. Rain and irrigation are not the only ways to replace soil moisture. If the soil body is deep, water will gradually come up from below the root zone by capillarity. Capillarity works by the very same force of adhesion that makes moisture stick to a soil particle. A column of water in a vertical tube (like a thin straw) adheres to the tube's inner surfaces. This adhesion tends to lift the edges of the column of water. As the tube's diameter becomes smaller the amount of lift becomes greater. Soil particles form interconnected pores that allow an inefficient capillary flow, recharging dry soil above. However, the drier soil becomes, the less effective capillary flow becomes. _That is why a thoroughly desiccated surface layer only a few inches thick acts as a powerful mulch._ Industrial farming and modern gardening tend to discount the replacement of surface moisture by capillarity, considering this flow an insignificant factor compared with the moisture needs of crops. But conventional agriculture focuses on maximized yields through high plant densities. Capillarity is too slow to support dense crop stands where numerous root systems are competing, but when a single plant can, without any competition, occupy a large enough area, moisture replacement by capillarity becomes significant. How Plants Obtain Water Most gardeners know that plants acquire water and minerals through their root systems, and leave it at that. But the process is not quite that simple. The actively growing, tender root tips and almost microscopic root hairs close to the tip absorb most of the plant's moisture as they occupy new territory. As the root continues to extend, parts behind the tip cease to be effective because, as soil particles in direct contact with these tips and hairs dry out, the older roots thicken and develop a bark, while most of the absorbent hairs slough off. This rotation from being actively foraging tissue to becoming more passive conductive and supportive tissue is probably a survival adaptation, because the slow capillary movement of soil moisture fails to replace what the plant used as fast as the plant might like. The plant is far better off to aggressively seek new water in unoccupied soil than to wait for the soil its roots already occupy to be recharged. A simple bit of old research magnificently illustrated the significance of this. A scientist named Dittmer observed in 1937 that a single potted ryegrass plant allocated only 1 cubic foot of soil to grow in made about 3 miles of new roots and root hairs every day. (Ryegrasses are known to make more roots than most plants.) I calculate that a cubic foot of silty soil offers about 30,000 square feet of surface area to plant roots. If 3 miles of microscopic root tips and hairs (roughly 16,000 lineal feet) draws water only from a few millimeters of surrounding soil, then that single rye plant should be able to continue ramifying into a cubic foot of silty soil and find enough water for quite a few days before wilting. These arithmetical estimates agree with my observations in the garden, and with my experiences raising transplants in pots. Lowered Plant Density: The Key to Water-Wise Gardening I always think my latest try at writing a near-perfect garden book is quite a bit better than the last. _Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades_, recommended somewhat wider spacings on raised beds than I did in 1980 because I'd repeatedly noticed that once a leaf canopy forms, plant growth slows markedly. Adding a little more fertilizer helps after plants "bump," but still the rate of growth never equals that of younger plants. For years I assumed crowded plants stopped producing as much because competition developed for light. But now I see that unseen competition for root room also slows them down. Even if moisture is regularly recharged by irrigation, and although nutrients are replaced, once a bit of earth has been occupied by the roots of one plant it is not so readily available to the roots of another. So allocating more elbow room allows vegetables to get larger and yield longer and allows the gardener to reduce the frequency of irrigations. Though hot, baking sun and wind can desiccate the few inches of surface soil, withdrawals of moisture from greater depths are made by growing plants transpiring moisture through their leaf surfaces. The amount of water a growing crop will transpire is determined first by the nature of the species itself, then by the amount of leaf exposed to sun, air temperature, humidity, and wind. In these respects, the crop is like an automobile radiator. With cars, the more metal surfaces, the colder the ambient air, and the higher the wind speed, the better the radiator can cool; in the garden, the more leaf surfaces, the faster, warmer, and drier the wind, and the brighter the sunlight, the more water is lost through transpiration. Dealing with a Surprise Water Shortage Suppose you are growing a conventional, irrigated garden and something unanticipated interrupts your ability to water. Perhaps you are homesteading and your well begins to dry up. Perhaps you're a backyard gardener and the municipality temporarily restricts usage. What to do? First, if at all possible before the restrictions take effect, water very heavily and long to ensure there is maximum subsoil moisture. Then eliminate all newly started interplantings and ruthlessly hoe out at least 75 percent of the remaining immature plants and about half of those about two weeks away from harvest. For example, suppose you've got a a 4-foot-wide intensive bed holding seven rows of broccoli on 12 inch centers, or about 21 plants. Remove at least every other row and every other plant in the three or four remaining rows. Try to bring plant density down to those described in Chapter 5, "How to Grow It: A-Z" Then shallowly hoe the soil every day or two to encourage the surface inches to dry out and form a dust mulch. You water-wise person--you're already dry gardening--now start fertigating. How long available soil water will sustain a crop is determined by how many plants are drawing on the reserve, how extensively their root systems develop, and how many leaves are transpiring the moisture. If there are no plants, most of the water will stay unused in the barren soil through the entire growing season. If a crop canopy is established midway through the growing season, the rate of water loss will approximate that listed in the table in Chapter 1 "Estimated Irrigation Requirement." If by very close planting the crop canopy is established as early as possible and maintained by successive interplantings, as is recommended by most advocates of raised-bed gardening, water losses will greatly exceed this rate. Many vegetable species become mildly stressed when soil moisture has dropped about half the way from capacity to the wilting point. On very closely planted beds a crop can get in serious trouble without irrigation in a matter of days. But if that same crop were planted less densely, it might grow a few weeks without irrigation. And if that crop were planted even farther apart so that no crop canopy ever developed and a considerable amount of bare, dry earth were showing, this apparent waste of growing space would result in an even slower rate of soil moisture depletion. On deep, open soil the crop might yield a respectable amount without needing any irrigation at all. West of the Cascades we expect a rainless summer; the surprise comes that rare rainy year when the soil stays moist and we gather bucketfuls of chanterelle mushrooms in early October. Though the majority of maritime Northwest gardeners do not enjoy deep, open, moisture-retentive soils, all except those with the shallowest soil can increase their use of the free moisture nature provides and lengthen the time between irrigations. The next chapter discusses making the most of whatever soil depth you have. Most of our region's gardens can yield abundantly without any rain at all if only we reduce competition for available soil moisture, judiciously fertigate some vegetable species, and practice a few other water-wise tricks. _Would lowering plant density as much as this book suggests equally lower the yield of the plot? Surprisingly, the amount harvested does not drop proportionately. In most cases having a plant density one-eighth of that recommended by intensive gardening advocates will result in a yield about half as great as on closely planted raised beds._ Internet Readers: In the print copy of this book are color pictures of my own "irrigationless" garden. Looking at them about here in the book would add reality to these ideas. Chapter 3 Helping Plants to Need Less Irrigation Dry though the maritime Northwest summer is, we enter the growing season with our full depth of soil at field capacity. Except on clayey soils in extraordinarily frosty, high-elevation locations, we usually can till and plant before the soil has had a chance to lose much moisture. There are a number of things we can do to make soil moisture more available to our summer vegetables. The most obvious step is thorough weeding. Next, we can keep the surface fluffed up with a rotary tiller or hoe during April and May, to break its capillary connection with deeper soil and accelerate the formation of a dry dust mulch. Usually, weeding forces us to do this anyway. Also, if it should rain during summer, we can hoe or rotary till a day or two later and again help a new dust mulch to develop. Building Bigger Root Systems Without irrigation, most of the plant's water supply is obtained by expansion into new earth that hasn't been desiccated by other competing roots. Eliminating any obstacles to rapid growth of root systems is the key to success. So, keep in mind a few facts about how roots grow and prosper. The air supply in soil limits or allows root growth. Unlike the leaves, roots do not perform photosynthesis, breaking down carbon dioxide gas into atmospheric oxygen and carbon. Yet root cells must breathe oxygen. This is obtained from the air held in spaces between soil particles. Many other soil-dwelling life forms from bacteria to moles compete for this same oxygen. Consequently, soil oxygen levels are lower than in the atmosphere. A slow exchange of gases does occur between soil air and free atmosphere, but deeper in the soil there will inevitably be less oxygen. Different plant species have varying degrees of root tolerance for lack of oxygen, but they all stop growing at some depth. Moisture reserves below the roots' maximum depth become relatively inaccessible. Soil compaction reduces the overall supply and exchange of soil air. Compacted soil also acts as a mechanical barrier to root system expansion. When gardening with unlimited irrigation or where rain falls frequently, it is quite possible to have satisfactory growth when only the surface 6 or 7 inches of soil facilitates root development. When gardening with limited water, China's the limit, because if soil conditions permit, many vegetable species are capable of reaching 4, 5, and 8 eight feet down to find moisture and nutrition. Evaluating Potential Rooting Ability One of the most instructive things a water-wise gardener can do is to rent or borrow a hand-operated fence post auger and bore a 3-foot-deep hole. It can be even more educational to buy a short section of ordinary water pipe to extend the auger's reach another 2 or 3 feet down. In soil free of stones, using an auger is more instructive than using a conventional posthole digger or shoveling out a small pit, because where soil is loose, the hole deepens rapidly. Where any layer is even slightly compacted, one turns and turns the bit without much effect. Augers also lift the materials more or less as they are stratified. If your soil is somewhat stony (like much upland soil north of Centralia left by the Vashon Glacier), the more usual fence-post digger or common shovel works better. If you find more than 4 feet of soil, the site holds a dry-gardening potential that increases with the additional depth. Some soils along the floodplains of rivers or in broad valleys like the Willamette or Skagit can be over 20 feet deep, and hold far more water than the deepest roots could draw or capillary flow could raise during an entire growing season. Gently sloping land can often carry 5 to 7 feet of open, usable soil. However, soils on steep hillsides become increasingly thin and fragile with increasing slope. Whether an urban, suburban, or rural gardener, you should make no assumptions about the depth and openness of the soil at your disposal. Dig a test hole. If you find less than 2 unfortunate feet of open earth before hitting an impermeable obstacle such as rock or gravel, not much water storage can occur and the only use this book will hold for you is to guide your move to a more likely gardening location or encourage the house hunter to seek further. Of course, you can still garden quite successfully on thin soil in the conventional, irrigated manner. _Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades_ will be an excellent guide for this type of situation. Eliminating Plowpan Deep though the soil may be, any restriction of root expansion greatly limits the ability of plants to aggressively find water. A compacted subsoil or even a thin compressed layer such as plowpan may function as such a barrier. Though moisture will still rise slowly by capillarity and recharge soil above plowpan, plants obtain much more water by rooting into unoccupied, damp soil. Soils close to rivers or on floodplains may appear loose and infinitely deep but may hide subsoil streaks of droughty gravel that effectively stops root growth. Some of these conditions are correctable and some are not. Plowpan is very commonly encountered by homesteaders on farm soils and may be found in suburbia too, but fortunately it is the easiest obstacle to remedy. Traditionally, American croplands have been tilled with the moldboard plow. As this implement first cuts and then flips a 6-or 7-inch-deep slice of soil over, the sole--the part supporting the plow's weight--presses heavily on the earth about 7 inches below the surface. With each subsequent plowing the plow sole rides at the same 7-inch depth and an even more compacted layer develops. Once formed plowpan prevents the crop from rooting into the subsoil. Since winter rains leach nutrients from the topsoil and deposit them in the subsoil, plowpan prevents access to these nutrients and effectively impoverishes the field. So wise farmers periodically use a subsoil plow to fracture the pan. Plowpan can seem as firm as a rammed-earth house; once established, it can last a long, long time. My own garden land is part of what was once an old wheat farm, one of the first homesteads of the Oregon Territory. From about 1860 through the 1930s, the field produced small grains. After wheat became unprofitable, probably because of changing market conditions and soil exhaustion, the field became an unplowed pasture. Then in the 1970s it grew daffodil bulbs, occasioning more plowing. All through the '80s my soil again rested under grass. In 1987, when I began using the land, there was still a 2-inch-thick, very hard layer starting about 7 inches down. Below 9 inches the open earth is soft as butter as far as I've ever dug. On a garden-sized plot, plowpan or compacted subsoil is easily opened with a spading fork or a very sharp common shovel. After normal rotary tilling, either tool can fairly easily be wiggled 12 inches into the earth and small bites of plowpan loosened. Once this laborious chore is accomplished the first time, deep tillage will be far easier. In fact, it becomes so easy that I've been looking for a custom-made fork with longer tines. Curing Clayey Soils In humid climates like ours, sandy soils may seem very open and friable on the surface but frequently hold some unpleasant subsoil surprises. Over geologic time spans, mineral grains are slowly destroyed by weak soil acids and clay is formed from the breakdown products. Then heavy winter rainfall transports these minuscule clay particles deeper into the earth, where they concentrate. It is not unusual to find a sandy topsoil underlaid with a dense, cement-like, clayey sand subsoil extending down several feet. If very impervious, a thick, dense deposition like this may be called hardpan. The spading fork cannot cure this condition as simply as it can eliminate thin plowpan. Here is one situation where, if I had a neighbor with a large tractor and subsoil plow, I'd hire him to fracture my land 3 or 4 feet deep. Painstakingly double or even triple digging will also loosen this layer. Another possible strategy for a smaller garden would be to rent a gasoline-powered posthole auger, spread manure or compost an inch or two thick, and then bore numerous, almost adjoining holes 4 feet deep all over the garden. Clayey subsoil can supply surprisingly larger amounts of moisture than the granular sandy surface might imply, but only if the earth is opened deeply and becomes more accessible to root growth. Fortunately, once root development increases at greater depths, the organic matter content and accessibility of this clayey layer can be maintained through intelligent green manuring, postponing for years the need to subsoil again. Green manuring is discussed in detail shortly. Other sites may have gooey, very fine clay topsoils, almost inevitably with gooey, very fine clay subsoils as well. Though incorporation of extraordinarily large quantities of organic matter can turn the top few inches into something that behaves a little like loam, it is quite impractical to work in humus to a depth of 4 or 5 feet. Root development will still be limited to the surface layer. Very fine clays don't make likely dry gardens. Not all clay soils are "fine clay soils," totally compacted and airless. For example, on the gentler slopes of the geologic old Cascades, those 50-million-year-old black basalts that form the Cascades foothills and appear in other places throughout the maritime Northwest, a deep, friable, red clay soil called (in Oregon) Jori often forms. Jori clays can be 6 to 8 feet deep and are sufficiently porous and well drained to have been used for highly productive orchard crops. Water-wise gardeners can do wonders with Joris and other similar soils, though clays never grow the best root crops. Spotting a Likely Site Observing the condition of wild plants can reveal a good site to garden without much irrigation. Where Himalaya or Evergreen blackberries grow 2 feet tall and produce small, dull-tasting fruit, there is not much available soil moisture. Where they grow 6 feet tall and the berries are sweet and good sized, there is deep, open soil. When the berry vines are 8 or more feet tall and the fruits are especially huge, usually there is both deep, loose soil and a higher than usual amount of fertility. Other native vegetation can also reveal a lot about soil moisture reserves. For years I wondered at the short leaders and sad appearance of Douglas fir in the vicinity of Yelm, Washington. Were they due to extreme soil infertility? Then I learned that conifer trees respond more to summertime soil moisture than to fertility. I obtained a soil survey of Thurston County and discovered that much of that area was very sandy with gravelly subsoil. Eureka! The Soil Conservation Service (SCS), a U.S. Government agency, has probably put a soil auger into your very land or a plot close by. Its tests have been correlated and mapped; the soils underlying the maritime Northwest have been named and categorized by texture, depth, and ability to provide available moisture. The maps are precise and detailed enough to approximately locate a city or suburban lot. In 1987, when I was in the market for a new homestead, I first went to my county SCS office, mapped out locations where the soil was suitable, and then went hunting. Most counties have their own office. Using Humus to Increase Soil Moisture Maintaining topsoil humus content in the 4 to 5 percent range is vital to plant health, vital to growing more nutritious food, and essential to bringing the soil into that state of easy workability and cooperation known as good tilth. Humus is a spongy substance capable of holding several times more available moisture than clay. There are also new synthetic, long-lasting soil amendments that hold and release even more moisture than humus. Garden books frequently recommend tilling in extraordinarily large amounts of organic matter to increase a soil's water-holding capacity in the top few inches. Humus can improve many aspects of soil but will not reduce a garden's overall need for irrigation, because it is simply not practical to maintain sufficient humus deeply enough. Rotary tilling only blends amendments into the top 6 or 7 inches of soil. Rigorous double digging by actually trenching out 12 inches and then spading up the next foot theoretically allows one to mix in significant amounts of organic matter to nearly 24 inches. But plants can use water from far deeper than that. Let's realistically consider how much soil moisture reserves might be increased by double digging and incorporating large quantities of organic matter. A healthy topsoil organic matter level in our climate is about 4 percent. This rapidly declines to less than 0.5 percent in the subsoil. Suppose inches-thick layers of compost were spread and, by double digging, the organic matter content of a very sandy soil were amended to 10 percent down to 2 feet. If that soil contained little clay, its water-holding ability in the top 2 feet could be doubled. Referring to the chart "Available Moisture" in Chapter 2, we see that sandy soil can release up to 1 inch of water per foot. By dint of massive amendment we might add 1 inch of available moisture per foot of soil to the reserve. That's 2 extra inches of water, enough to increase the time an ordinary garden can last between heavy irrigations by a week or 10 days. If the soil in question were a silty clay, it would naturally make 2 1/2 inches available per foot. A massive humus amendment would increase that to 3 1/2 inches in the top foot or two, relatively not as much benefit as in sandy soil. And I seriously doubt that many gardeners would be willing to thoroughly double dig to an honest 24 inches. Trying to maintain organic matter levels above 10 percent is an almost self-defeating process. The higher the humus level gets, the more rapidly organic matter tends to decay. Finding or making enough well-finished compost to cover the garden several inches deep (what it takes to lift humus levels to 10 percent) is enough of a job. Double digging just as much more into the second foot is even more effort. But having to repeat that chore every year or two becomes downright discouraging. No, either your soil naturally holds enough moisture to permit dry gardening, or it doesn't. Keeping the Subsoil Open with Green Manuring When roots decay, fresh organic matter and large, long-lasting passageways can be left deep in the soil, allowing easier air movement and facilitating entry of other roots. But no cover crop that I am aware of will effectively penetrate firm plowpan or other resistant physical obstacles. Such a barrier forces all plants to root almost exclusively in the topsoil. However, once the subsoil has been mechanically fractured the first time, and if recompaction is avoided by shunning heavy tractors and other machinery, green manure crops can maintain the openness of the subsoil. To accomplish this, correct green manure species selection is essential. Lawn grasses tend to be shallow rooting, while most regionally adapted pasture grasses can reach down about 3 feet at best. However, orchard grass (called coltsfoot in English farming books) will grow down 4 or more feet while leaving a massive amount of decaying organic matter in the subsoil after the sod is tilled in. Sweet clover, a biennial legume that sprouts one spring then winters over to bloom the next summer, may go down 8 feet. Red clover, a perennial species, may thickly invade the top 5 feet. Other useful subsoil busters include densely sown Umbelliferae such as carrots, parsley, and parsnip. The chicory family also makes very large and penetrating taproots. Though seed for wild chicory is hard to obtain, cheap varieties of endive (a semicivilized relative) are easily available. And several pounds of your own excellent parsley or parsnip seed can be easily produced by letting about 10 row feet of overwintering roots form seed. Orchard grass and red clover can be had quite inexpensively at many farm supply stores. Sweet clover is not currently grown by our region's farmers and so can only be found by mail from Johnny's Selected Seeds (see Chapter 5 for their address). Poppy seed used for cooking will often sprout. Sown densely in October, it forms a thick carpet of frilly spring greens underlaid with countless massive taproots that decompose very rapidly if the plants are tilled in in April before flower stalks begin to appear. Beware if using poppies as a green manure crop: be sure to till them in early to avoid trouble with the DEA or other authorities. For country gardeners, the best rotations include several years of perennial grass-legume-herb mixtures to maintain the openness of the subsoil followed by a few years of vegetables and then back (see Newman Turner's book in more reading). I plan my own garden this way. In October, after a few inches of rain has softened the earth, I spread 50 pounds of agricultural lime per 1,000 square feet and break the thick pasture sod covering next year's garden plot by shallow rotary tilling. Early the next spring I broadcast a concoction I call "complete organic fertilizer" (see _Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades_ or the _Territorial Seed Company Catalog_), till again after the soil dries down a bit, and then use a spading fork to open the subsoil before making a seedbed. The first time around, I had to break the century-old plowpan--forking compacted earth a foot deep is a lot of work. In subsequent rotations it is much much easier. For a couple of years, vegetables will grow vigorously on this new ground supported only with a complete organic fertilizer. But vegetable gardening makes humus levels decline rapidly. So every few years I start a new garden on another plot and replant the old garden to green manures. I never remove vegetation during the long rebuilding under green manures, but merely mow it once or twice a year and allow the organic matter content of the soil to redevelop. If there ever were a place where chemical fertilizers might be appropriate around a garden, it would be to affordably enhance the growth of biomass during green manuring. Were I a serious city vegetable gardener, I'd consider growing vegetables in the front yard for a few years and then switching to the back yard. Having lots of space, as I do now, I keep three or four garden plots available, one in vegetables and the others restoring their organic matter content under grass. Mulching Gardening under a permanent thick mulch of crude organic matter is recommended by Ruth Stout (see the listing for her book in More Reading) and her disciples as a surefire way to drought-proof gardens while eliminating virtually any need for tillage, weeding, and fertilizing. I have attempted the method in both Southern California and western Oregon--with disastrous results in both locations. What follows in this section is addressed to gardeners who have already read glowing reports about mulching. Permanent mulching with vegetation actually does not reduce summertime moisture loss any better than mulching with dry soil, sometimes called "dust mulching." True, while the surface layer stays moist, water will steadily be wicked up by capillarity and be evaporated from the soil's surface. If frequent light sprinkling keeps the surface perpetually moist, subsoil moisture loss can occur all summer, so unmulched soil could eventually become desiccated many feet deep. However, capillary movement only happens when soil is damp. Once even a thin layer of soil has become quite dry it almost completely prevents any further movement. West of the Cascades, this happens all by itself in late spring. One hot, sunny day follows another, and soon the earth's surface seems parched. Unfortunately, by the time a dusty layer forms, quite a bit of soil water may have risen from the depths and been lost. The gardener can significantly reduce spring moisture loss by frequently hoeing weeds until the top inch or two of earth is dry and powdery. This effort will probably be necessary in any case, because weeds will germinate prolifically until the surface layer is sufficiently desiccated. On the off chance it should rain hard during summer, it is very wise to again hoe a few times to rapidly restore the dust mulch. If hand cultivation seems very hard work, I suggest you learn to sharpen your hoe. A mulch of dry hay, grass clippings, leaves, and the like will also retard rapid surface evaporation. Gardeners think mulching prevents moisture loss better than bare earth because under mulch the soil stays damp right to the surface. However, dig down 4 to 6 inches under a dust mulch and the earth is just as damp as under hay. And, soil moisture studies have proved that overall moisture loss using vegetation mulch slightly exceeds loss under a dust mulch. West of the Cascades, the question of which method is superior is a bit complex, with pros and cons on both sides. Without a long winter freeze to set populations back, permanent thick mulch quickly breeds so many slugs, earwhigs, and sowbugs that it cannot be maintained for more than one year before vegetable gardening becomes very difficult. Laying down a fairly thin mulch in June after the soil has warmed up well, raking up what remains of the mulch early the next spring, and composting it prevents destructive insect population levels from developing while simultaneously reducing surface compaction by winter rains and beneficially enhancing the survival and multiplication of earthworms. But a thin mulch also enhances the summer germination of weed seeds without being thick enough to suppress their emergence. And any mulch, even a thin one, makes hoeing virtually impossible, while hand weeding through mulch is tedious. Mulch has some unqualified pluses in hotter climates. Most of the organic matter in soil and consequently most of the available nitrogen is found in the surface few inches. Levels of other mineral nutrients are usually two or three times as high in the topsoil as well. However, if the surface few inches of soil becomes completely desiccated, no root activity will occur there and the plants are forced to feed deeper, in soil far less fertile. Keeping the topsoil damp does greatly improve the growth of some shallow-feeding species such as lettuce and radishes. But with our climate's cool nights, most vegetables need the soil as warm as possible, and the cooling effect of mulch can be as much a hindrance as a help. I've tried mulching quite a few species while dry gardening and found little or no improvement in plant growth with most of them. Probably, the enhancement of nutrition compensates for the harm from lowering soil temperature. Fertigation is better all around. Windbreaks Plants transpire more moisture when the sun shines, when temperatures are high, and when the wind blows; it is just like drying laundry. Windbreaks also help the garden grow in winter by increasing temperature. Many other garden books discuss windbreaks, and I conclude that I have a better use for the small amount of words my publisher allows me than to repeat this data; Binda Colebrook's [i]Winter Gardening in the Maritime Northwest[i] (Sasquatch Books, 1989) is especially good on this topic. Fertilizing, Fertigating and Foliar Spraying In our heavily leached region almost no soil is naturally rich, while fertilizers, manures, and potent composts mainly improve the topsoil. But the water-wise gardener must get nutrition down deep, where the soil stays damp through the summer. If plants with enough remaining elbow room stop growing in summer and begin to appear gnarly, it is just as likely due to lack of nutrition as lack of water. Several things can be done to limit or prevent midsummer stunting. First, before sowing or transplanting large species like tomato, squash or big brassicas, dig out a small pit about 12 inches deep and below that blend in a handful or two of organic fertilizer. Then fill the hole back in. This double-digging process places concentrated fertility mixed 18 to 24 inches below the seeds or seedlings. Foliar feeding is another water-wise technique that keeps plants growing through the summer. Soluble nutrients sprayed on plant leaves are rapidly taken into the vascular system. Unfortunately, dilute nutrient solutions that won't burn leaves only provoke a strong growth response for 3 to 5 days. Optimally, foliar nutrition must be applied weekly or even more frequently. To efficiently spray a garden larger than a few hundred square feet, I suggest buying an industrial-grade, 3-gallon backpack sprayer with a side-handle pump. Approximate cost as of this writing was $80. The store that sells it (probably a farm supply store) will also support you with a complete assortment of inexpensive nozzles that can vary the rate of emission and the spray pattern. High-quality equipment like this outlasts many, many cheaper and smaller sprayers designed for the consumer market, and replacement parts are also available. Keep in mind that consumer merchandise is designed to be consumed; stuff made for farming is built to last. Increasing Soil Fertility Saves Water Does crop growth equal water use? Most people would say this statement seems likely to be true. Actually, faster-growing crops use much less soil moisture than slower-growing ones. As early as 1882 it was determined that less water is required to produce a pound of plant material when soil is fertilized than when it is not fertilized. One experiment required 1,100 pounds of water to grow 1 pound of dry matter on infertile soil, but only 575 pounds of water to produce a pound of dry matter on rich land. Perhaps the single most important thing a water-wise gardener can do is to increase the fertility of the soil, especially the subsoil. _Poor plant nutrition increases the water cost of every pound of dry matter produced._ Using foliar fertilizers requires a little caution and forethought. Spinach, beet, and chard leaves seem particularly sensitive to foliars (and even to organic insecticides) and may be damaged by even half-strength applications. And the cabbage family coats its leaf surfaces with a waxy, moisture-retentive sealant that makes sprays bead up and run off rather than stick and be absorbed. Mixing foliar feed solutions with a little spreader/sticker, Safer's Soap, or, if bugs are also a problem, with a liquid organic insecticide like Red Arrow (a pyrethrum-rotenone mix), eliminates surface tension and allows the fertilizer to have an effect on brassicas. Sadly, in terms of nutrient balance, the poorest foliar sprays are organic. That's because it is nearly impossible to get significant quantities of phosphorus or calcium into solution using any combination of fish emulsion and seaweed or liquid kelp. The most useful possible organic foliar is 1/2 to 1 tablespoon each of fish emulsion and liquid seaweed concentrate per gallon of water. Foliar spraying and fertigation are two occasions when I am comfortable supplementing my organic fertilizers with water-soluble chemical fertilizers. The best and most expensive brand is Rapid-Gro. Less costly concoctions such as Peters 20-20-20 or the other "Grows," don't provide as complete trace mineral support or use as many sources of nutrition. One thing fertilizer makers find expensive to accomplish is concocting a mixture of soluble nutrients that also contains calcium, a vital plant food. If you dissolve calcium nitrate into a solution containing other soluble plant nutrients, many of them will precipitate out because few calcium compounds are soluble. Even Rapid-Gro doesn't attempt to supply calcium. Recently I've discovered better-quality hydroponic nutrient solutions that do use chemicals that provide soluble calcium. These also make excellent foliar sprays. Brands of hydroponic nutrient solutions seem to appear and vanish rapidly. I've had great luck with Dyna-Gro 7-9-5. All these chemicals are mixed at about 1 tablespoon per gallon. Vegetables That: Like foliars Asparagus Carrots Melons Squash Beans Cauliflower Peas Tomatoes Broccoli Brussels sprouts Cucumbers Cabbage Eggplant Radishes Kale Rutabagas Potatoes Don't like foliars Beets Leeks Onions Spinach Chard Lettuce Peppers Like fertigation Brussels sprouts Kale Savoy cabbage Cucumbers Melons Squash Eggplant Peppers Tomatoes Fertigation every two to four weeks is the best technique for maximizing yield while minimizing water use. I usually make my first fertigation late in June and continue periodically through early September. I use six or seven plastic 5-gallon "drip system" buckets, (see below) set one by each plant, and fill them all with a hose each time I work in the garden. Doing 12 or 14 plants each time I'm in the garden, it takes no special effort to rotate through them all more or less every three weeks. To make a drip bucket, drill a 3/16-inch hole through the side of a 4-to-6-gallon plastic bucket about 1/4-inch up from the bottom, or in the bottom at the edge. The empty bucket is placed so that the fertilized water drains out close to the stem of a plant. It is then filled with liquid fertilizer solution. It takes 5 to 10 minutes for 5 gallons to pass through a small opening, and because of the slow flow rate, water penetrates deeply into the subsoil without wetting much of the surface. Each fertigation makes the plant grow very rapidly for two to three weeks, more I suspect as a result of improved nutrition than from added moisture. Exactly how and when to fertigate each species is explained in Chapter 5. Organic gardeners may fertigate with combinations of fish emulsion and seaweed at the same dilution used for foliar spraying, or with compost/manure tea. Determining the correct strength to make compost tea is a matter of trial and error. I usually rely on weak Rapid-Gro mixed at half the recommended dilution. The strength of the fertilizer you need depends on how much and deeply you placed nutrition in the subsoil. Chapter 4 Water-Wise Gardening Year-Round Early Spring: The Easiest Unwatered Garden West of the Cascades, most crops started in February and March require no special handling when irrigation is scarce. These include peas, early lettuce, radishes, kohlrabi, early broccoli, and so forth. However, some of these vegetables are harvested as late as June, so to reduce their need for irrigation, space them wider than usual. Spring vegetables also will exhaust most of the moisture from the soil before maturing, making succession planting impossible without first irrigating heavily. Early spring plantings are best allocated one of two places in the garden plan: either in that part of the garden that will be fully irrigated all summer or in a part of a big garden that can affordably remain bare during the summer and be used in October for receiving transplants of overwintering crops. The garden plan and discussion in Chapter 6 illustrate these ideas in detail. Later in Spring: Sprouting Seeds Without Watering For the first years that I experimented with dry gardening I went overboard and attempted to grow food as though I had no running water at all. The greatest difficulty caused by this self-imposed handicap was sowing small-seeded species after the season warmed up. Sprouting what we in the seed business call "big seed"--corn, beans, peas, squash, cucumber, and melon--is relatively easy without irrigation because these crops are planted deeply, where soil moisture still resides long after the surface has dried out. And even if it is so late in the season that the surface has become very dry, a wide, shallow ditch made with a shovel will expose moist soil several inches down. A furrow can be cut in the bottom of that damp "valley" and big seeds germinated with little or no watering. Tillage breaks capillary connections until the fluffy soil resettles. This interruption is useful for preventing moisture loss in summer, but the same phenomenon makes the surface dry out in a flash. In recently tilled earth, successfully sprouting small seeds in warm weather is dicey without frequent watering. With a bit of forethought, the water-wise gardener can easily reestablish capillarity below sprouting seeds so that moisture held deeper in the soil rises to replace that lost from surface layers, reducing or eliminating the need for watering. The principle here can be easily demonstrated. In fact, there probably isn't any gardener who has not seen the phenomenon at work without realizing it. Every gardener has tilled the soil, gone out the next morning, and noticed that his or her compacted footprints were moist while the rest of the earth was dry and fluffy. Foot pressure restored capillarity, and during the night, fresh moisture replaced what had evaporated. This simple technique helps start everything except carrots and parsnips (which must have completely loose soil to develop correctly). All the gardener must do is intentionally compress the soil below the seeds and then cover the seeds with a mulch of loose, dry soil. Sprouting seeds then rest atop damp soil exactly they lie on a damp blotter in a germination laboratory's covered petri dish. This dampness will not disappear before the sprouting seedling has propelled a root several inches farther down and is putting a leaf into the sunlight. I've used several techniques to reestablish capillarity after tilling. There's a wise old plastic push planter in my garage that first compacts the tilled earth with its front wheel, cuts a furrow, drops the seed, and then with its drag chain pulls loose soil over the furrow. I've also pulled one wheel of a garden cart or pushed a lightly loaded wheelbarrow down the row to press down a wheel track, sprinkled seed on that compacted furrow, and then pulled loose soil over it. Handmade Footprints Sometimes I sow large brassicas and cucurbits in clumps above a fertilized, double-dug spot. First, in a space about 18 inches square, I deeply dig in complete organic fertilizer. Then with my fist I punch down a depression in the center of the fluffed-up mound. Sometimes my fist goes in so easily that I have to replace a little more soil and punch it down some more. The purpose is not to make rammed earth or cement, but only to reestablish capillarity by having firm soil under a shallow, fist-sized depression. Then a pinch of seed is sprinkled atop this depression and covered with fine earth. Even if several hot sunny days follow I get good germination without watering. This same technique works excellently on hills of squash, melon and cucumber as well, though these large-seeded species must be planted quite a bit deeper. Summer: How to Fluid Drill Seeds Soaking seeds before sowing is another water-wise technique, especially useful later in the season. At bedtime, place the seeds in a half-pint mason jar, cover with a square of plastic window screen held on with a strong rubber band, soak the seeds overnight, and then drain them first thing in the morning. Gently rinse the seeds with cool water two or three times daily until the root tips begin to emerge. As soon as this sign appears, the seed must be sown, because the newly emerging roots become increasingly subject to breaking off as they develop and soon form tangled masses. Presprouted seeds may be gently blended into some crumbly, moist soil and this mixture gently sprinkled into a furrow and covered. If the sprouts are particularly delicate or, as with carrots, you want a very uniform stand, disperse the seeds in a starch gelatin and imitate what commercial vegetable growers call fluid drilling. Heat one pint of water to the boiling point. Dissolve in 2 to 3 tablespoons of ordinary cornstarch. Place the mixture in the refrigerator to cool. Soon the liquid will become a soupy gel. Gently mix this cool starch gel with the sprouting seeds, making sure the seeds are uniformly blended. Pour the mixture into a 1-quart plastic zipper bag and, scissors in hand, go out to the garden. After a furrow--with capillarity restored--has been prepared, cut a small hole in one lower corner of the plastic bag. The hole size should be under 1/4 inch in diameter. Walk quickly down the row, dribbling a mixture of gel and seeds into the furrow. Then cover. You may have to experiment a few times with cooled gel minus seeds until you divine the proper hole size, walking speed and amount of gel needed per length of furrow. Not only will presprouted seeds come up days sooner, and not only will the root be penetrating moist soil long before the shoot emerges, but the stand of seedlings will be very uniformly spaced and easier to thin. After fluid drilling a few times you'll realize that one needs quite a bit less seed per length of row than you previously thought. Establishing the Fall and Winter Garden West of the Cascades, germinating fall and winter crops in the heat of summer is always difficult. Even when the entire garden is well watered, midsummer sowings require daily attention and frequent sprinkling; however, once they have germinated, keeping little seedlings growing in an irrigated garden usually requires no more water than the rest of the garden gets. But once hot weather comes, establishing small seeds in the dry garden seems next to impossible without regular watering. Should a lucky, perfectly timed, and unusually heavy summer rainfall sprout your seeds, they still would not grow well because the next few inches of soil would at best be only slightly moist. A related problem many backyard gardeners have with establishing the winter and overwintered garden is finding enough space for both the summer and winter crops. The nursery bed solves both these problems. Instead of trying to irrigate the entire area that will eventually be occupied by a winter or overwintered crop at maturity, the seedlings are first grown in irrigated nurseries for transplanting in autumn after the rains come back. Were I desperately short of water I'd locate my nursery where it got only morning sun and sow a week or 10 days earlier to compensate for the slower growth. Vegetables to Start in a Nursery Bed Variety Sowing date Transplanting date Fall/winter lettuce mid-August early October Leeks early April July Overwintered onions early-mid August December/January Spring cabbage mid-late August November/December Spring cauliflower mid-August October/November 1st Winter scallions mid-July mid-October Seedlings in pots and trays are hard to keep moist and require daily tending. Fortunately, growing transplants in little pots is not necessary because in autumn, when they'll be set out, humidity is high, temperatures are cool, the sun is weak, and transpiration losses are minimal, so seedling transplants will tolerate considerable root loss. My nursery is sown in rows about 8 inches apart across a raised bed and thinned gradually to prevent crowding, because crowded seedlings are hard to dig out without damage. When the prediction of a few days of cloudy weather encourages transplanting, the seedlings are lifted with a large, sharp knife. If the fall rains are late and/or the crowded seedlings are getting leggy, a relatively small amount of irrigation will moisten the planting areas. Another light watering at transplanting time will almost certainly establish the seedlings quite successfully. And, finding room for these crops ceases to be a problem because fall transplants can be set out as a succession crop following hot weather vegetables such as squash, melons, cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes, and beans. Vegetables that must be heavily irrigated (These crops are not suitable for dry gardens.) Bulb Onions (for fall harvest) Celeriac Celery Chinese cabbage Lettuce (summer and fall) Radishes (summer and fall) Scallions (for summer harvest) Spinach (summer) Chapter 5 How to Grow It with Less Irrigation: A-Z First, a Word About Varieties As recently as the 1930s, most American country folk still did not have running water. With water being hand-pumped and carried in buckets, and precious, their vegetable gardens had to be grown with a minimum of irrigation. In the otherwise well-watered East, one could routinely expect several consecutive weeks every summer without rain. In some drought years a hot, rainless month or longer could go by. So vegetable varieties were bred to grow through dry spells without loss, and traditional American vegetable gardens were designed to help them do so. I began gardening in the early 1970s, just as the raised-bed method was being popularized. The latest books and magazine articles all agreed that raising vegetables in widely separated single rows was a foolish imitation of commercial farming, that commercial vegetables were arranged that way for ease of mechanical cultivation. Closely planted raised beds requiring hand cultivation were alleged to be far more productive and far more efficient users of irrigation because water wasn't evaporating from bare soil. I think this is more likely to be the truth: Old-fashioned gardens used low plant densities to survive inevitable spells of rainlessness. Looked at this way, widely separated vegetables in widely separated rows may be considered the more efficient users of water because they consume soil moisture that nature freely puts there. Only after, and if, these reserves are significantly depleted does the gardener have to irrigate. The end result is surprisingly more abundant than a modern gardener educated on intensive, raised-bed propaganda would think. Finding varieties still adapted to water-wise gardening is becoming difficult. Most American vegetables are now bred for irrigation-dependent California. Like raised-bed gardeners, vegetable farmers have discovered that they can make a bigger profit by growing smaller, quick-maturing plants in high-density spacings. Most modern vegetables have been bred to suit this method. Many new varieties can't forage and have become smaller, more determinate, and faster to mature. Actually, the larger, more sprawling heirloom varieties of the past were not a great deal less productive overall, but only a little later to begin yielding. Fortunately, enough of the old sorts still exist that a selective and varietally aware home gardener can make do. Since I've become water-wiser, I'm interested in finding and conserving heirlooms that once supported large numbers of healthy Americans in relative self-sufficiency. My earlier book, being a guide to what passes for ordinary vegetable gardening these days, assumed the availability of plenty of water. The varieties I recommended in [i]Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades[i] were largely modern ones, and the seed companies I praised most highly focused on top-quality commercial varieties. But, looking at gardening through the filter of limited irrigation, other, less modern varieties are often far better adapted and other seed companies sometimes more likely sources. Seed Company Directory* Abundant Life See Foundation: P.O. Box 772, Port Townsend, WA 98368 _(ABL)_ Johnny's Selected Seeds: Foss Hill Road, Albion, Maine 04910 _(JSS)_ Peace Seeds: 2345 SE Thompson Street, Corvallis, OR 97333 _(PEA)_ Ronninger's Seed Potatoes: P.O. Box 1838, Orting, WA 98360 _(RSP)_ Stokes Seeds Inc. Box 548, Buffalo, NY 14240 _(STK)_ Territorial Seed Company: P.O. Box 20, Cottage Grove, OR 97424 _(TSC)_ *Throughout the growing directions that follow in this chapter, the reader will be referred to a specific company only for varieties that are not widely available. I have again come to appreciate the older style of vegetable--sprawling, large framed, later maturing, longer yielding, vigorously rooting. However, many of these old-timers have not seen the attentions of a professional plant breeder for many years and throw a fair percentage of bizarre, misshapen, nonproductive plants. These "off types" can be compensated for by growing a somewhat larger garden and allowing for some waste. Dr. Alan Kapuler, who runs Peace Seeds, has brilliantly pointed out to me why heirloom varieties are likely to be more nutritious. Propagated by centuries of isolated homesteaders, heirlooms that survived did so because these superior varieties helped the gardeners' better-nourished babies pass through the gauntlet of childhood illnesses. Plant Spacing: The Key to Water-Wise Gardening Reduced plant density is the essence of dry gardening. The recommended spacings in this section are those I have found workable at Elkton, Oregon. My dry garden is generally laid out in single rows, the row centers 4 feet apart. Some larger crops, like potatoes, tomatoes, beans, and cucurbits (squash, cucumbers, and melons) are allocated more elbow room. Those few requiring intensive irrigation are grown on a raised bed, tightly spaced. I cannot prescribe what would be the perfect, most efficient spacing for your garden. Are your temperatures lower than mine and evaporation less? Or is your weather hotter? Does your soil hold more, than less than, or just as much available moisture as mine? Is it as deep and open and moisture retentive? To help you compare your site with mine, I give you the following data. My homestead is only 25 miles inland and is always several degrees cooler in summer than the Willamette Valley. Washingtonians and British Columbians have cooler days and a greater likelihood of significant summertime rain and so may plant a little closer together. Inland gardeners farther south or in the Willamette Valley may want to spread their plants out a little farther. Living on 16 acres, I have virtually unlimited space to garden in. The focus of my recent research has been to eliminate irrigation as much as possible while maintaining food quality. Those with thinner soil who are going to depend more on fertigation may plant closer, how close depending on the amount of water available. More irrigation will also give higher per-square-foot yields. _Whatever your combination of conditions, your results can only be determined by trial._ I'd suggest you become water-wise by testing a range of spacings. When to Plant If you've already been growing an irrigated year-round garden, this book's suggested planting dates may surprise you. And as with spacing, sowing dates must also be wisely adjusted to your location. The planting dates in this chapter are what I follow in my own garden. It is impractical to include specific dates for all the microclimatic areas of the maritime Northwest and for every vegetable species. Readers are asked to make adjustments by understanding their weather relative to mine. Gardeners to the north of me and at higher elevations should make their spring sowings a week or two later than the dates I use. In the Garden Valley of Roseburg and south along I-5, start spring plantings a week or two earlier. Along the southern Oregon coast and in northern California, start three or four weeks sooner than I do. Fall comes earlier to the north of me and to higher-elevation gardens; end-of-season growth rates there also slow more profoundly than they do at Elkton. Summers are cooler along the coast; that has the same effect of slowing late-summer growth. Items started after midsummer should be given one or two extra growing weeks by coastal, high-elevation, and northern gardeners. Gardeners to the south should sow their late crops a week or two later than I do; along the south Oregon coast and in northern California, two to four weeks later than I do. Arugula (Rocket) The tender, peppery little leaves make winter salads much more interesting. _Sowing date:_ I delay sowing until late August or early September so my crowded patch of arugula lasts all winter and doesn't make seed until March. Pregerminated seeds emerge fast and strong. Sprouted in early October, arugula still may reach eating size in midwinter. _Spacing:_ Thinly seed a row into any vacant niche. The seedlings will be insignificantly small until late summer. _Irrigation:_ If the seedlings suffer a bit from moisture stress they'll catch up rapidly when the fall rains begin. _Varieties:_ None. Beans of All Sorts Heirloom pole beans once climbed over considerable competition while vigorously struggling for water, nutrition, and light. Modern bush varieties tend to have puny root systems. _Sowing date:_ Mid-April is the usual time on the Umpqua, elsewhere, sow after the danger of frost is over and soil stays over 60[de]F. If the earth is getting dry by this date, soak the seed overnight before sowing and furrow down to moist soil. However, do not cover the seeds more than 2 inches. _Spacing:_ Twelve to 16 inches apart at final thinning. Allow about 2[f]1/2 to 3 feet on either side of the trellis to avoid root competition from other plants. _Irrigation:_ If part of the garden is sprinkler irrigated, space beans a little tighter and locate the bean trellis toward the outer reach of the sprinkler's throw. Due to its height, the trellis tends to intercept quite a bit of water and dumps it at the base. You can also use the bucket-drip method and fertigate the beans, giving about 25 gallons per 10 row-feet once or twice during the summer. Pole beans can make a meaningful yield without any irrigation; under severe moisture stress they will survive, but bear little. _Varieties:_ Any of the pole types seem to do fine. Runner beans seem to prefer cooler locations but are every bit as drought tolerant as ordinary snap beans. My current favorites are Kentucky Wonder White Seeded, Fortrex (TSC, JSS), and Musica (TSC). The older heirloom dry beans were mostly pole types. They are reasonably productive if allowed to sprawl on the ground without support. Their unirrigated seed yield is lower, but the seed is still plump, tastes great, and sprouts well. Compared to unirrigated Black Coco (TSC), which is my most productive and best-tasting bush cultivar, Kentucky Wonder Brown Seeded (sometimes called Old Homestead) (STK, PEA, ABL) yields about 50 percent more seed and keeps on growing for weeks after Coco has quit. Do not bother to fertigate untrellised pole beans grown for dry seed. With the threat of September moisture always looming over dry bean plots, we need to encourage vines to quit setting and dry down. Peace Seeds and Abundant Life offer long lists of heirloom vining dry bean varieties. Serious self-sufficiency buffs seeking to produced their own legume supply should also consider the fava, garbanzo bean, and Alaska pea. Many favas can be overwintered: sow in October, sprout on fall rains, grow over the winter, and dry down in June with the soil. Garbanzos are grown like mildly frost-tolerant peas. Alaska peas are the type used for pea soup. They're spring sown and grown like ordinary shelling peas. Avoid overhead irrigation while seeds are drying down. Beets Beets will root far deeper and wider than most people realize--in uncompacted, nonacid soils. Double or triple dig the subsoil directly below the seed row. _Sowing date:_ Early April at Elkton, late March farther south, and as late as April 30 in British Columbia. Beet seed germinates easily in moist, cool soil. A single sowing may be harvested from June through early March the next year. If properly thinned, good varieties remain tender. _Spacing:_ A single row will gradually exhaust subsoil moisture from an area 4 feet wide. When the seedlings are 2 to 3 inches tall, thin carefully to about 1 inch apart. When the edible part is radish size, thin to 2 inches apart and eat the thinings, tops and all. When they've grown to golfball size, thin to 4 inches apart, thin again. When they reach the size of large lemons, thin to 1 foot apart. Given this much room and deep, open soil, the beets will continue to grow through the entire summer. Hill up some soil over the huge roots early in November to protect them from freezing. _Irrigation:_ Probably not necessary with over 4 feet of deep, open soil. _Varieties:_ I've done best with Early Wonder Tall Top; when large, it develops a thick, protective skin and retains excellent eating quality. Winterkeepers, normally sown in midsummer with irrigation, tend to bolt prematurely when sown in April. Broccoli: Italian Style Italian-style broccoli needs abundant moisture to be tender and make large flowers. Given enough elbow room, many varieties can endure long periods of moisture stress, but the smaller, woody, slow-developing florets won't be great eating. Without any irrigation, spring-sown broccoli may still be enjoyed in early summer and Purple Sprouting in March/April after overwintering. _Sowing date:_Without any irrigation at all, mid-March through early April. With fertigation, also mid-April through mid-May. This later sowing will allow cutting through summer. _Spacing:_ Brocoli tastes better when big plants grow big, sweet heads. Allow a 4-foot-wide row. Space early sowings about 3 feet apart in the row; later sowings slated to mature during summer's heat can use 4 feet. On a fist-sized spot compacted to restore capillarity, sow a little pinch of seed atop a well-and deeply fertilized, double-dug patch of earth. Thin gradually to the best single plant by the time three or four true leaves have developed. _Irrigation:_ After mid-June, 4 to 5 gallons of drip bucket liquid fertilizer every two to three weeks makes an enormous difference. You'll be surprised at the size of the heads and the quality of side shoots. A fertigated May sowing will be exhausted by October. Take a chance: a heavy side-dressing of strong compost or complete organic fertilizer when the rains return may trigger a massive spurt of new, larger heads from buds located below the soil's surface. _Varieties:_ Many hybrids have weak roots. I'd avoid anything that was "held up on a tall stalk" for mechanical harvest or was "compact" or that "didn't have many side-shoots". Go for larger size. Territorial's hybrid blend yields big heads for over a month followed by abundant side shoots. Old, open-pollinated types like Italian Sprouting Calabrese, DeCicco, or Waltham 29 are highly variable, bushy, with rather coarse, large-beaded flowers, second-rate flavor and many, many side shoots. Irrigating gardeners who can start new plants every four weeks from May through July may prefer hybrids. Dry gardeners who will want to cut side shoots for as long as possible during summer from large, well-established plants may prefer crude, open-pollinated varieties. Try both. Broccoli: Purple Sprouting and Other Overwintering Types _Spacing:_ Grow like broccoli, 3 to 4 feet apart. _Sowing date:_ It is easiest to sow in April or early May, minimally fertigate a somewhat gnarly plant through the summer, push it for size in fall and winter, and then harvest it next March. With too early a start in spring, some premature flowering may occur in autumn; still, massive blooming will resume again in spring. Overwintering green Italian types such as ML423 (TSC) will flower in fall if sown before late June. These sorts are better started in a nursery bed around August 1 and like overwintered cauliflower, transplanted about 2 feet apart when fall rains return, then, pushed for growth with extra fertilizer in fall and winter. With nearly a whole year to grow before blooming, Purple Sprouting eventually reaches 4 to 5 feet in height and 3 to 4 feet in diameter, and yields hugely. _Irrigation:_ It is not essential to heavily fertigate Purple Sprouting, though you may G-R-O-W enormous plants for their beauty. Quality or quantity of spring harvest won't drop one bit if the plants become a little stunted and gnarly in summer, as long as you fertilize late in September to spur rapid growth during fall and winter. Root System Vigor in the Cabbage Family Wild cabbage is a weed and grows like one, able to successfully compete for water against grasses and other herbs. Remove all competition with a hoe, and allow this weed to totally control all the moisture and nutrients in all the earth its roots can occupy, and it grows hugely and lushly. Just for fun, I once G-R-E-W one, with tillage, hoeing, and spring fertilization but no irrigation; it ended up 5 feet tall and 6 feet in diameter. As this highly moldable family is inbred and shaped into more and more exaggerated forms, it weakens and loses the ability to forage. Kale retains the most wild aggressiveness, Chinese cabbage perhaps the least. Here, in approximately correct order, is shown the declining root vigor and general adaptation to moisture stress of cabbage family vegetables. The table shows the most vigorous at the top, declining as it goes down. Adapted to dry gardening Not vigorous enough Kale Italian broccoli (some varieties) Brussels sprouts (late types) Cabbage (regular market types) Late savoy cabbage Brussels sprouts (early types) Giant "field-type" kohlrabi Small "market-garden" kohlrabi Mid-season savoy cabbage Cauliflower (regular, annual) Rutabaga Turnips and radishes Italian Broccoli (some varieties) Chinese cabbage Brussels Sprouts _Sowing date:_ If the plants are a foot tall before the soil starts drying down, their roots will be over a foot deep; the plants will then grow hugely with a bit of fertigation. At Elkton I dry garden Brussels sprouts by sowing late April to early May. Started this soon, even late-maturing varieties may begin forming sprouts by September. Though premature bottom sprouts will "blow up" and become aphid damaged, more, higher-quality sprouts will continue to form farther up the stalk during autumn and winter. _Spacing:_ Make each spot about 4 feet apart. _Irrigation:_ Without any added moisture, the plants will become stunted but will survive all summer. Side-dressing manure or fertilizer late in September (or sooner if the rains come sooner) will provoke very rapid autumn growth and a surprisingly large yield from plants that looked stress out in August. If increasingly larger amounts of fertigation can be provided every two to three weeks, the lush Brussels sprouts plants can become 4 feet in diameter and 4 feet tall by October and yield enormously. _Varieties:_ Use late European hybrid types. At Elkton, where winters are a little milder than in the Willamette, Lunet (TSC) has the finest eating qualities. Were I farther north I'd grow hardier types like Stabolite (TSC) or Fortress (TSC). Early types are not suitable to growing with insufficient irrigation or frequent spraying to fight off aphids. Cabbage Forget those delicate, green supermarket cabbages unless you have unlimited amounts of water. But easiest-to-grow savoy types will do surprisingly well with surprisingly little support. Besides, savoys are the best salad material. _Sowing date:_ I suggest three sowing times: the first, a succession of early, midseason, and late savoys made in mid-March for harvest during summer; the second, late and very late varieties started late April to early May for harvest during fall and winter; the last, a nursery bed of overwintered sorts sown late in August. _Spacing:_ Early-maturing savoy varieties are naturally smaller and may not experience much hot weather before heading up--these may be separated by about 30 inches. The later ones are large plants and should be given 4 feet of space or 16 square feet of growing room. Sow and grow them like broccoli. Transplant overwintered cabbages from nursery beds late in October, spaced about 3 feet apart; these thrive where the squash grew. _Irrigation:_ The more fertigation you can supply, the larger and more luxuriant the plants and the bigger the heads. But even small, somewhat moisture-stressed savoys make very edible heads. In terms of increased yield for water expended, it is well worth it to provide late varieties with a few gallons of fertigation about mid-June, and a bucketful in mid-July and mid-August. _Varieties:_ Japanese hybrid savoys make tender eating but may not withstand winter. European savoys are hardier, coarser, thicker-leaved, and harder chewing. For the first sowing I suggest a succession of Japanese varieties including Salarite or Savoy Princess for earlies; Savoy Queen, King, or Savoy Ace for midsummer; and Savonarch (TSC) for late August/early September harvests. They're all great varieties. For the second sowing I grow Savonarch (TSC) for September[-]November cutting and a very late European hybrid type like Wivoy (TSC) for winter. Small-framed January King lacks sufficient root vigor. Springtime (TSC) and FEM218 (TSC) are the only overwintered cabbages available. Carrots Dry-gardening carrots requires patiently waiting until the weather stabilizes before tilling and sowing. To avoid even a little bit of soil compaction, I try to sprout the seed without irrigation but always fear that hot weather will frustrate my efforts. So I till and plant too soon. And then heavy rain comes and compacts my perfectly fluffed-up soil. But the looser and finer the earth remains during their first six growing weeks, the more perfectly the roots will develop. _Sowing date:_ April at Elkton. _Spacing:_ Allocate 4 feet of width to a single row of carrot seed. When the seedlings are about 2 inches tall, thin to 1 inch apart. Then thin every other carrot when the roots are [f]3/8 to [f]1/2 inch in diameter and eat the thinnings. A few weeks later, when the carrots are about 3/4 to 1 inch in diameter, make a final thinning to 1 foot apart. _Irrigation:_ Not necessary. Foliar feeding every few weeks will make much larger roots. Without any help they should grow to several pounds each. _Varieties:_ Choosing the right variety is very important. Nantes and other delicate, juicy types lack enough fiber to hold together when they get very large. These split prematurely. I've had my best results with Danvers types. I'd also try Royal Chantenay (PEA), Fakkel Mix (TSC), Stokes "Processor" types, and Topweight (ABL). Be prepared to experiment with variety. The roots will not be quite as tender as heavily watered Nantes types but are a lot better than you'd think. Huge carrots are excellent in soups and we cheerfully grate them into salads. Something about accumulating sunshine all summer makes the roots incredibly sweet. Cauliflower Ordinary varieties cannot forage for moisture. Worse, moisture stress at any time during the growth cycle prevents proper formation of curds. The only important cauliflowers suitable for dry gardening are overwintered types. I call them important because they're easy to grow and they'll feed the family during April and early May, when other garden fare is very scarce. _Sowing date:_ To acquire enough size to survive cold weather, overwintered cauliflower must be started on a nursery bed during the difficult heat of early August. Except south of Yoncalla, delaying sowing until September makes very small seedlings that may not be hardy enough and likely won't yield much in April unless winter is very mild, encouraging unusual growth. _Spacing:_ In October, transplant about 2 feet apart in rows 3 to 4 feet apart. _Irrigation:_ If you have more water available, fertilize and till up some dusty, dry soil, wet down the row, direct-seed like broccoli (but closer together), and periodically irrigate until fall. If you only moisten a narrow band of soil close to the seedlings it won't take much water. Cauliflower grows especially well in the row that held bush peas. _Varieties:_ The best are the very pricy Armado series sold by Territorial. Chard This vegetable is basically a beet with succulent leaves and thick stalks instead of edible, sweet roots. It is just as drought tolerant as a beet, and in dry gardening, chard is sown, spaced, and grown just like a beet. But if you want voluminous leaf production during summer, you may want to fertigate it occasionally. _Varieties:_ The red chards are not suitable for starting early in the season; they have a strong tendency to bolt prematurely if sown during that part of the year when daylength is increasing. Corn Broadcast complete organic fertilizer or strong compost shallowly over the corn patch till midwinter, or as early in spring as the earth can be worked without making too many clods. Corn will germinate in pretty rough soil. High levels of nutrients in the subsoil are more important than a fine seedbed. _Sowing date:_ About the time frost danger ends. Being large seed, corn can be set deep, where soil moisture still exists even after conditions have warmed up. Germination without irrigation should be no problem. _Spacing_: The farther south, the farther apart. Entirely without irrigation, I've had fine results spacing individual corn plants 3 feet apart in rows 3 feet apart, or 9 square feet per each plant. Were I around Puget Sound or in B.C. I'd try 2 feet apart in rows 30 inches apart. Gary Nabhan describes Papago gardeners in Arizona growing individual cornstalks 10 feet apart. Grown on wide spacings, corn tends to tiller (put up multiple stalks, each making one or two ears). For most urban and suburban gardeners, space is too valuable to allocate 9 square feet for producing one or at best three or four ears. _Irrigation:_ With normal sprinkler irrigation, corn may be spaced 8 inches apart in rows 30 inches apart, still yielding one or two ears per stalk. _Varieties:_ Were I a devoted sweetcorn eater without enough irrigation, I'd be buying a few dozen freshly picked ears from the back of a pickup truck parked on a corner during local harvest season. Were I a devoted corn grower without any irrigation, I'd be experimenting with various types of field corn instead of sweet corn. Were I a self-sufficiency buff trying earnestly to produce all my own cereal, I'd accept that the maritime Northwest is a region where survivalists will eat wheat, rye, millet, and other small grains. Many varieties of field corn are nearly as sweet as ordinary sweet corn, but grain varieties become starchy and tough within hours of harvest. Eaten promptly, "pig" corn is every bit as tasty as Jubilee. I've had the best dry-garden results with Northstine Dent (JSS) and Garland Flint (JSS). Hookers Sweet Indian (TSC) has a weak root system. Successfully Starting Cucurbits From Seed With cucurbits, germination depends on high-enough soil temperature and not too much moisture. Squash are the most chill and moisture tolerant, melons the least. Here's a failure-proof and simple technique that ensures you'll plant at exactly the right time. Cucumbers, squash, and melons are traditionally sown atop a deeply dug, fertilized spot that usually looks like a little mound after it is worked and is commonly called a hill. About two weeks before the last anticipated frost date in your area, plant five or six squash seeds about 2 inches deep in a clump in the very center of that hill. Then, a week later, plant another clump at 12 o'clock. In another week, plant another clump at 3 o'clock, and continue doing this until one of the sowings sprouts. Probably the first try won't come up, but the hill will certainly germinate several clumps of seedlings. If weather conditions turn poor, a later-to-sprout group may outgrow those that came up earlier. Thin gradually to the best single plant by the time the vines are running. When the first squash seeds appear it is time to begin sowing cucumbers, starting a new batch each week until one emerges. When the cucumbers first germinate, it's time to try melons. Approaching cucurbits this way ensures that you'll get the earliest possible germination while being protected against the probability that cold, damp weather will prevent germination or permanently spoil the growth prospects of the earlier seedlings. Cucumbers _Sowing date:_ About May 5 to 15 at Elkton. _Spacing:_ Most varieties usually run five about 3 feet from the hill. Space the hills about 5 to 6 feet apart in all directions. _Irrigation:_ Like melons. Regular and increasing amounts of fertigation will increase the yield several hundred percent. _Varieties:_ I've had very good results dry-gardening Amira II (TSC), even without any fertigation at all. It is a Middle Eastern[-]style variety that makes pickler-size thin-skinned cukes that need no peeling and have terrific flavor. The burpless or Japanese sorts don't seem to adapt well to drought. Most slicers dry-garden excellently. Apple or Lemon are similar novelty heirlooms that make very extensive vines with aggressive roots and should be given a foot or two more elbow room. I'd avoid any variety touted as being for pot or patio, compact, or short-vined, because of a likely linkage between its vine structure and root system. Eggplant Grown without regular sprinkler irrigation, eggplant seems to get larger and yield sooner and more abundantly. I suspect this delicate and fairly drought-resistant tropical species does not like having its soil temperature lowered by frequent watering. _Sowing date:_ Set out transplants at the usual time, about two weeks after the tomatoes, after all frost danger has passed and after nights have stably warmed up above 50 degree F. _Spacing:_ Double dig and deeply fertilize the soil under each transplant. Separate plants by about 3 feet in rows about 4 feet apart. _Irrigation:_ Will grow and produce a few fruit without any watering, but a bucket of fertigation every three to four weeks during summer may result in the most luxurious, hugest, and heaviest-bearing eggplants you've ever grown. _Varieties:_ I've noticed no special varietal differences in ability to tolerate dryish soil. I've had good yields from the regionally adapted varieties Dusky Hybrid, Short Tom, and Early One. Endive A biennial member of the chicory family, endive quickly puts down a deep taproot and is naturally able to grow through prolonged drought. Because endive remains bitter until cold weather, it doesn't matter if it grows slowly through summer, just so long as rapid leaf production resumes in autumn. _Sowing date:_ On irrigated raised beds endive is sown around August 1 and heads by mid-October. The problem with dry-gardened endive is that if it is spring sown during days of increasing daylength when germination of shallow-sown small seed is a snap, it will bolt prematurely. The crucial moment seems to be about June 1. April/May sowings bolt in July/August,: after June 1, bolting won't happen until the next spring, but germination won't happen without watering. One solution is soaking the seeds overnight, rinsing them frequently until they begin to sprout, and fluid drilling them. _Spacing:_ The heads become huge when started in June. Sow in rows 4 feet apart and thin gradually until the rosettes are 3 inches in diameter, then thin to 18 inches apart. _Irrigation:_ Without a drop of moisture the plants, even as tiny seedlings, will grow steadily but slowly all summer, as long as no other crop is invading their root zone. The only time I had trouble was when the endive row was too close to an aggressive row of yellow crookneck squash. About August, the squash roots began invading the endive's territory and the endive got wilty. A light side-dressing of complete organic fertilizer or compost in late September will grow the hugest plants imaginable. _Varieties:_ Curly types seem more tolerant to rain and frost during winter than broad-leaf Batavian varieties. I prefer President (TSC). Herbs Most perennial and biennial herbs are actually weeds and wild hillside shrubs from Mediterranean climates similar to that of Southern California. They are adapted to growing on winter rainfall and surviving seven to nine months without rainfall every summer. In our climate, merely giving them a little more elbow room than usually offered, thorough weeding, and side-dressing the herb garden with a little compost in fall is enough coddling. Annuals such as dill and cilantro are also very drought tolerant. Basil, however, needs considerable moisture. Kale Depending on the garden for a significant portion of my annual caloric intake has gradually refined my eating habits. Years ago I learned to like cabbage salads as much as lettuce. Since lettuce freezes out many winters (19-21 degree F), this adjustment has proved very useful. Gradually I began to appreciate kale, too, and now value it as a salad green far more than cabbage. This personal adaptation has proved very pro-survival, because even savoy cabbages do not grow as readily or yield nearly as much as kale. And kale is a tad more cold hardy than even savoy cabbage. You may be surprised to learn that kale produces more complete protein per area occupied per time involved than any legume, including alfalfa. If it is steamed with potatoes and then mashed, the two vegetables complement and flavor each other. Our region could probably subsist quite a bit more healthfully than at present on potatoes and kale. The key to enjoying kale as a salad component is varietal choice, preparation, and using the right parts of the plant. Read on. _Sowing date:_ With irrigation, fast-growing kale is usually started in midsummer for use in fall and winter. But kale is absolutely biennial--started in March or April, it will not bolt until the next spring. The water-wise gardener can conveniently sow kale while cool, moist soil simplifies germination. Starting this early also produces a deep root system before the soil dries much, and a much taller, very useful central stalk on oleracea types, while early sown Siberian (Napa) varieties tend to form multiple rosettes by autumn, also useful at harvest time. _Spacing: _Grow like broccoli, spaced 4 feet apart. _Irrigation:_ Without any water, the somewhat stunted plants will survive the summer to begin rapid growth as soon as fall rains resume. With the help of occasional fertigation they grow lushly and are enormous by September. Either way, there still will be plenty of kale during fall and winter. _Harvest:_ Bundles of strong-flavored, tough, large leaves are sold in supermarkets but are the worst-eating part of the plant. If chopped finely enough, big raw leaves can be masticated and tolerated by people with good teeth. However, the tiny leaves are far tenderer and much milder. The more rosettes developed on Siberian kales, the more little leaves there are to be picked. By pinching off the central growing tip in October and then gradually stripping off the large shading leaves, _oleracea_ varieties may be encouraged to put out dozens of clusters of small, succulent leaves at each leaf notch along the central stalk. The taller the stalk grown during summer, the more of these little leaves there will be. Only home gardeners can afford the time to hand pick small leaves. _Varieties:_ I somewhat prefer the flavor of Red Russian to the ubiquitous green Siberian, but Red Russian is very slightly less cold hardy. Westland Winter (TSC) and Konserva (JSS) are tall European oleracea varieties. Winterbor F1 (JSS, TSC) is also excellent. The dwarf "Scotch" kales, blue or green, sold by many American seed companies are less vigorous types that don't produce nearly as many gourmet little leaves. Dwarfs in any species tend to have dwarfed root systems. Kohlrabi (Giant) Spring-sown market kohlrabi are usually harvested before hot weather makes them get woody. Irrigation is not required if they're given a little extra elbow room. With ordinary varieties, try thinning to 5 inches apart in rows 2 to 3 feet apart and harvest by thinning alternate plants. Given this additional growing room, they may not get woody until midsummer. On my irrigated, intensive bed I always sow some more on August 1, to have tender bulbs in autumn. Kohlrabi was once grown as European fodder crop; slow-growing farmers, varieties grow huge like rutabagas. These field types have been crossed with table types to make "giant" table varieties that really suit dry gardening. What to do with a giant kohlrabi (or any bulb getting overblown)? Peel, grate finely, add chopped onion, dress with olive oil and black pepper, toss, and enjoy this old Eastern European mainstay. _Sowing date:_ Sow giant varieties during April, as late as possible while still getting a foot-tall plant before really hot weather. _Spacing:_ Thin to 3 feet apart in rows 4 feet apart. _Irrigation:_ Not absolutely necessary on deep soil, but if they get one or two thorough fertigations during summer their size may double. _Varieties:_ A few American seed companies, including Peace Seeds, have a giant kohlrabi of some sort or other. The ones I've tested tend to be woody, are crude, and throw many off-types, a high percentage of weak plants, and/or poorly shaped roots. By the time this book is in print, Territorial should list a unique Swiss variety called Superschmeltz, which is uniformly huge and stays tender into the next year. Leeks Unwatered spring-sown bulbing onions are impossible. Leek is the only allium I know of that may grow steadily but slowly through severe drought; the water-short gardener can depend on leeks for a fall/winter onion supply. _Sowing date:_ Start a row or several short rows about 12 inches apart on a nursery bed in March or early April at the latest. Grow thickly, irrigate during May/June, and fertilize well so the competing seedlings get leggy. _Spacing:_ By mid-to late June the seedlings should be slightly spindly, pencil-thick, and scallion size. With a sharp shovel, dig out the nursery row, carefully retaining 5 or 6 inches of soil below the seedlings. With a strong jet of water, blast away the soil and, while doing this, gently separate the tangled roots so that as little damage is done as possible. Make sure the roots don't dry out before transplanting. After separation, I temporarily wrap bundled seedlings in wet newspaper. Dig out a foot-deep trench the width of an ordinary shovel and carefully place this earth next to the trench. Sprinkle in a heavy dose of organic fertilizer or strong compost, and spade that in so the soil is fluffy and fertile 2 feet down. Do not immediately refill the trench with the soil that was dug out. With a shovel handle, poke a row of 6-inch-deep holes along the bottom of the trench. If the nursery bed has grown well there should be about 4 inches of stem on each seedling before the first leaf attaches. If the weather is hot and sunny, snip off about one-third to one-half the leaf area to reduce transplanting shock. Drop one leek seedling into each hole up to the point that the first leaf attaches to the stalk, and mud it in with a cup or two of liquid fertilizer. As the leeks grow, gradually refill the trench and even hill up soil around the growing plants. This makes the better-tasting white part of the stem get as long as possible. Avoid getting soil into the center of the leek where new leaves emerge, or you'll not get them clean after harvest. Spacing of the seedlings depends on the amount of irrigation. If absolutely none at all, set them 12 inches apart in the center of a row 4 feet wide. If unlimited water is available, give them 2 inches of separation. Or adjust spacing to the water available. The plants grow slowly through summer, but in autumn growth will accelerate, especially if they are side-dressed at this time. _Varieties:_ For dry gardening use the hardier, more vigorous winter leeks. Durabel (TSC) has an especially mild, sweet flavor. Other useful varieties include Giant Carentian (ABL), Alaska (STK), and Winter Giant (PEA). Lettuce Spring-sown lettuce will go to large sizes, remaining sweet and tender without irrigation if spaced 1 foot apart in a single row with 2 feet of elbow room on each side. Lettuce cut after mid-June usually gets bitter without regular, heavy irrigation. I reserve my well-watered raised bed for this summer salad crop. Those very short of water can start fall/winter lettuce in a shaded, irrigated nursery bed mid-August through mid-September and transplant it out after the fall rains return. Here is one situation in which accelerating growth with cloches or cold frames would be very helpful. Water-Wise Cucurbits The root systems of this family are far more extensive than most people realize. Usually a taproot goes down several feet and then, soil conditions permitting, thickly occupies a large area, ultimately reaching down 5 to 8 feet. Shallow feeder roots also extend laterally as far as or farther than the vines reach at their greatest extent. Dry gardeners can do several things to assist cucurbits. First, make sure there is absolutely no competition in their root zone. This means[i]one plant per hill, with the hills separated in all directions a little farther than the greatest possible extent of the variety's ultimate growth.[i] Common garden lore states that squashes droop their leaves in midsummer heat and that this trait cannot be avoided and does no harm. But if they've grown as described above, on deep, open soil, capillarity and surface moisture reserves ensure there usually will be no midday wilting, even if there is no watering. Two plants per hill do compete and make each other wilt. Second, double dig and fertilize the entire lateral root zone. Third, as much as possible, avoid walking where the vines will ultimately reach to avoid compaction. Finally, [i]do not transplant them.[i] This breaks the taproot and makes the plant more dependent on lateral roots seeking moisture in the top 18 inches of soil. Melons _Sowing date:_ As soon as they'll germinate outdoors: at Elkton, May 15 to June 1. Thin to a single plant per hill when there are about three true leaves and the vines are beginning to run. _Spacing:_ Most varieties will grow a vine reaching about 8 feet in diameter. Space the hills 8 feet apart in all directions. _Irrigation:_ Fertigation every two to three weeks will increase the yield by two or three times and may make the melons sweeter. Release the water/fertilizer mix close to the center of the vine, where the taproot can use it. _Varieties:_ Adaptation to our cool climate is critical with melons; use varieties sold by our regional seed companies. Yellow Doll watermelons (TSC) are very early and seem the most productive under the most droughty conditions. I've had reasonable results from most otherwise regionally adapted cantaloupes and muskmelons. Last year a new hybrid variety, Passport (TSC), proved several weeks earlier than I'd ever experienced and was extraordinarily prolific and tasty. Onions/Scallions The usual spring-sown, summer-grown bulb onions and scallions only work with abundant irrigation. But the water-short, water-wise gardener can still supply the kitchen with onions or onion substitutes year-round. Leeks take care of November through early April. Overwintered bulb onions handle the rest of the year. Scallions may also be harvested during winter. _Sowing date:_ Started too soon, overwintered or short-day bulbing onions (and sweet scallions) will bolt and form seed instead of bulbing. Started too late they'll be too small and possibly not hardy enough to survive winter. About August 15 at Elkton I sow thickly in a well-watered and very fertile nursery bed. If you have more than one nursery row, separate them about by 12 inches. Those who miss this window of opportunity can start transplants in early October and cover with a cloche immediately after germination, to accelerate seedling growth during fall and early winter. Start scallions in a nursery just like overwintered onions, but earlier so they're large enough for the table during winter, I sow them about mid-July. _Spacing:_ When seedlings are about pencil thick (December/January for overwintering bulb onions), transplant them about 4 or 5 inches apart in a single row with a couple of feet of elbow room on either side. I've found I get the best growth and largest bulbs if they follow potatoes. After the potatoes are dug in early October I immediately fertilize the area heavily and till, preparing the onion bed. Klamath Basin farmers usually grow a similar rotation: hay, potatoes, onions. Transplant scallions in October with the fall rains, about 1 inch apart in rows at least 2 feet apart. _Irrigation:_ Not necessary. However, side-dressing the transplants will result in much larger bulbs or scallions. Scallions will bolt in April; the bulbers go tops-down and begin drying down as the soil naturally dries out. _Varieties:_ I prefer the sweet and tender Lisbon (TSC) for scallions. For overwintered bulb onions, grow very mild but poorly keeping Walla Walla Sweet (JSS), Buffalo (TSC), a better keeper, or whatever Territorial is selling at present. Parsley _Sowing date:_ March. Parsley seed takes two to three weeks to germinate. _Spacing:_ Thin to 12 inches apart in a single row 4 feet wide. Five plants should overwhelm the average kitchen. _Irrigation:_ Not necessary unless yield falls off during summer and that is very unlikely. Parsley's very deep, foraging root system resembles that of its relative, the carrot. _Varieties:_ If you use parsley for greens, variety is not critical, though the gourmet may note slight differences in flavor or amount of leaf curl. Another type of parsley is grown for edible roots that taste much like parsnip. These should have their soil prepared as carefully as though growing carrots. Peas This early crop matures without irrigation. Both pole and bush varieties are planted thickly in single rows about 4 feet apart. I always overlook some pods, which go on to form mature seed. Without overhead irrigation, this seed will sprout strongly next year. Alaska (soup) peas grow the same way. Peppers Pepper plants on raised beds spaced the usually recommended 16 to 24 inches apart undergo intense root competition even before their leaves form a canopy. With or without unlimited irrigation, the plants will get much larger and bear more heavily with elbow room. _Sowing date:_ Set out transplants at the usual time. Double dig a few square feet of soil beneath each seedling, and make sure fertilizer gets incorporated all the way down to 2 feet deep. _Spacing:_ Three feet apart in rows 3 to 4 feet apart. _Irrigation:_ Without any irrigation only the most vigorous, small-fruited varieties will set anything. For an abundant harvest, fertigate every three or four weeks. For the biggest pepper plants you ever grew, fertigate every two weeks. _Varieties:_ The small-fruited types, both hot and sweet, have much more aggressive root systems and generally adapt better to our region's cool weather. I've had best results with Cayenne Long Slim, Gypsie, Surefire, Hot Portugal, the "cherries" both sweet and hot, Italian Sweet, and Petite Sirah. Potatoes Humans domesticated potatoes in the cool, arid high plateaus of the Andes where annual rainfall averages 8 to 12 inches. The species finds our dry summer quite comfortable. Potatoes produce more calories per unit of land than any other temperate crop. Irrigated potatoes yield more calories and two to three times as much watery bulk and indigestible fiber as those grown without irrigation, but the same variety dry gardened can contain about 30 percent more protein, far more mineral nutrients, and taste better. _Sowing date:_ I make two sowings. The first is a good-luck ritual done religiously on March 17th--St. Patrick's Day. Rain or shine, in untilled mud or finely worked and deeply fluffed earth, I still plant 10 or 12 seed potatoes of an early variety. This provides for summer. The main sowing waits until frost is unlikely and I can dig the potato rows at least 12 inches deep with a spading fork, working in fertilizer as deeply as possible and ending up with a finely pulverized 24-inch-wide bed. At Elkton, this is usually mid-to late April. There is no rush to plant. Potato vines are not frost hardy. If frosted they'll regrow, but being burned back to the ground lowers the final yield. _Spacing:_ I presprout my seeds by spreading them out in daylight at room temperature for a few weeks, and then plant one whole, sprouting, medium-size potato every 18 inches down the center of the row. Barely cover the seed potato. At maturity there should be 2[f]1/2 to 3 feet of soil unoccupied with the roots of any other crop on each side of the row. As the vines emerge, gradually scrape soil up over them with a hoe. Let the vines grow about 4 inches, then pull up about 2 inches of cover. Let another 4 inches grow, then hill up another 2 inches. Continue doing this until the vines begin blooming. At that point there should be a mound of loose, fluffy soil about 12 to 16 inches high gradually filling with tubers lushly covered with blooming vines. _Irrigation:_ Not necessary. In fact, if large water droplets compact the loose soil you scraped up, that may interfere with maximum tuber enlargement. However, after the vines are a foot long or so, foliar feeding every week or 10 days will increase the yield. _Varieties:_ The water-wise gardener's main potato problem is too-early maturity, and then premature sprouting in storage. Early varieties like Yukon Gold--even popular midseason ones like Yellow Finn--don't keep well unless they're planted late enough to brown off in late September. That's no problem if they're irrigated. But planted in late April, earlier varieties will shrivel by August. Potatoes only keep well when very cool, dark, and moist--conditions almost impossible to create on the homestead during summer. The best August compromise is to leave mature potatoes undug, but soil temperatures are in the 70s during August, and by early October, when potatoes should be lifted and put into storage, they'll already be sprouting. Sprouting in October is acceptable for the remainders of my St. Pat's Day sowing that I am keeping over for seed next spring. It is not ok for my main winter storage crop. Our climate requires very late, slow-maturing varieties that can be sown early but that don't brown off until September. Late types usually yield more, too. Most of the seed potato varieties found in garden centers are early or midseason types chosen by farmers for yield without regard to flavor or nutrition. One, Nooksack Cascadian, is a very late variety grown commercially around Bellingham, Washington. Nooksack is pretty good if you like white, all-purpose potatoes. There are much better homegarden varieties available in Ronniger's catalog, all arranged according to maturity. For the ultimate in earlies I suggest Red Gold. For main harvests I'd try Indian Pit, Carole, German Butterball, Siberian, or a few experimental row-feet of any other late variety taking your fancy. Rutabagas Rutabagas have wonderfully aggressive root systems and are capable of growing continuously through long, severe drought. But where I live, the results aren't satisfactory. Here's what happens. If I start rutabagas in early April and space them about 2 to 3 feet apart in rows 4 feet apart, by October they're the size of basketballs and look pretty good; unfortunately, I harvest a hollow shell full of cabbage root maggots. Root maggots are at their peak in early June. That's why I got interested in dry-gardening giant kohlrabi. In 1991 we had about 2 surprising inches of rain late in June, so as a test I sowed rutabagas on July 1. They germinated without more irrigation, but going into the hot summer as small plants with limited root systems and no irrigation at all they became somewhat stunted. By October 1 the tops were still small and a little gnarly; big roots had not yet formed. Then the rains came and the rutabagas began growing rapidly. By November there was a pretty nice crop of medium-size good-eating roots. I suspect that farther north, where evaporation is not so severe and midsummer rains are slightly more common, if a little irrigation were used to start rutabagas about July 1, a decent unwatered crop might be had most years. And I am certain that if sown at the normal time (July 15) and grown with minimal irrigation but well spaced out, they'll produce acceptably. _Varieties:_ Stokes Altasweet (STK, TSC) has the best flavor. Sorrel This weed-like, drought-tolerant salad green is little known and underappreciated. In summer the leaves get tough and strong flavored; if other greens are available, sorrel will probably be unpicked. That's ok. During fall, winter, and spring, sorrel's lemony taste and delicate, tender texture balance tougher savoy cabbage and kale and turn those crude vegetables into very acceptable salads. Serious salad-eating families might want the production of 5 to 10 row-feet. _Sowing date:_ The first year you grow sorrel, sow mid-March to mid-April. The tiny seed must be placed shallowly, and it sprouts much more readily when the soil stays moist. Plant a single furrow centered in a row 4 feet wide. _Spacing: _As the seedlings grow, thin gradually. When the leaves are about the size of ordinary spinach, individual plants should be about 6 inches apart. _Irrigation:_ Not necessary in summer--you won't eat it anyway. If production lags in fall, winter, or spring, side-dress the sorrel patch with a little compost or organic fertilizer. _Maintenance:_ Sorrel is perennial. If an unusually harsh winter freeze kills off the leaves it will probably come back from root crowns in early spring. You'll welcome it after losing the rest of your winter crops. In spring of the second and succeeding years sorrel will make seed. Seed making saps the plant's energy, and the seeds may naturalize into an unwanted weed around the garden. So, before any seed forms, cut all the leaves and seed stalks close to the ground; use the trimmings as a convenient mulch along the row. If you move the garden or want to relocate the patch, do not start sorrel again from seed. In any season dig up a few plants, divide the root masses, trim off most of the leaves to reduce transplanting shock, and transplant 1 foot apart. Occasional unique plants may be more reluctant to make seed stalks than most others. Since seed stalks produce few edible leaves and the leaves on them are very harsh flavored, making seed is an undesirable trait. So I propagate only seed-shy plants by root cuttings. Spinach Spring spinach is remarkably more drought tolerant than it would appear from its delicate structure and the succulence of its leaves. A bolt-resistant, long-day variety bred for summer harvest sown in late April may still yield pickable leaves in late June or even early July without any watering at all, if thinned to 12 inches apart in rows 3 feet apart. Squash, Winter and Summer _Sowing date:_ Having warm-enough soil is everything. At Elkton I first attempt squash about April 15. In the Willamette, May 1 is usual. Farther north, squash may not come up until June 1. Dry gardeners should not transplant squash; the taproot must not be broken. _Spacing:_ The amount of room to give each plant depends on the potential of a specific variety's maximum root development. Most vining winter squash can completely occupy a 10-foot-diameter circle. Sprawly heirloom summer squash varieties can desiccate an 8-or 9-foot-diameter circle. Thin each hill to one plant, not two or more as is recommended in the average garden book. There must be no competition for water. _Irrigation:_ With winter storage types, an unirrigated vine may yield 15 pounds of squash after occupying a 10-foot-diameter circle for an entire growing season. However, starting about July 1, if you support that vine by supplying liquid fertilizer every two to three weeks you may harvest 60 pounds of squash from the same area. The first fertigation may only need 2 gallons. Then mid-July give 4; about August 1, 8; August 15, feed 15 gallons. After that date, solar intensity and temperatures decline, growth rate slows, and water use also decreases. On September 1 I'd add about 8 gallons and about 5 more on September 15 if it hadn't yet rained significantly. Total water: 42 gallons. Total increase in yield: 45 pounds. I'd say that's a good return on water invested. _Varieties:_ For winter squash, all the vining winter varieties in the C. maxima or C. pepo family seem acceptably adapted to dry gardening. These include Buttercup, Hubbard, Delicious, Sweet Meat, Delicata, Spaghetti, and Acorn. I wouldn't trust any of the newer compact bush winter varieties so popular on raised beds. Despite their reputation for drought tolerance C. mixta varieties (or cushaw squash) were believed to be strictly hot desert or humid-tropical varieties, unable to mature in our cool climate. However, Pepita (PEA) is a mixta that is early enough and seems entirely unbothered by a complete lack of irrigation. The enormous vine sets numerous good keepers with mild-tasting, light yellow flesh. Obviously, the compact bush summer squash varieties so popular these days are not good candidates for withstanding long periods without irrigation. The old heirlooms like Black Zucchini (ABL) (not Black Beauty!) and warty Yellow Crookneck grow enormous, high-yielding plants whose extent nearly rivals that of the largest winter squash. They also grow a dense leaf cover, making the fruit a little harder to find. These are the only American heirlooms still readily available. Black Zucchini has become very raggedy; anyone growing it should be prepared to plant several vines and accept that at least one-third of them will throw rather off-type fruit. It needs the work of a skilled plant breeder. Yellow Crookneck is still a fairly "clean" variety offering good uniformity. Both have more flavor and are less watery than the modern summer squash varieties. Yellow Crookneck is especially rich, probably due to its thick, oily skin; most gardeners who once grow the old Crookneck never again grow any other kind. Another useful drought-tolerant variety is Gem, sometimes called Rolet (TSC). It grows an extensive winter-squash-like vine yielding grapefruit-size, excellent eating summer squash. Both Yellow Crookneck and Black Zucchini begin yielding several weeks later than the modern hybrids. However, as the summer goes on they will produce quite a bit more squash than new hybrid types. I now grow five or six fully irrigated early hybrid plants like Seneca Zucchini too. As soon as my picking bucket is being filled with later-to-yield Crooknecks, I pull out the Senecas and use the now empty irrigated space for fall crops. Tomato There's no point in elaborate methods--trellising, pruning, or training--with dry-gardened tomato vines. Their root systems must be allowed to control all the space they can without competition, so allow the vines to sprawl as well. And pruning the leaf area of indeterminates is counterproductive: to grow hugely, the roots need food from a full complement of leaves. _Sowing date:_ Set out transplants at the usual time. They might also be jump started under cloches two to three weeks before the last frost, to make better use of natural soil moisture. _Spacing:_ Depends greatly on variety. The root system can occupy as much space as the vines will cover and then some. _Irrigation:_ Especially on determinate varieties, periodic fertigation will greatly increase yield and size of fruit. The old indeterminate sprawlers will produce through an entire summer without any supplemental moisture, but yield even more in response to irrigation. _Variety:_ With or without irrigation or anywhere in between, when growing tomatoes west of the Cascades, nothing is more important than choosing the right variety. Not only does it have to be early and able to set and ripen fruit when nights are cool, but to grow through months without watering the plant must be highly indeterminate. This makes a built-in conflict: most of the sprawly, huge, old heirloom varieties are rather late to mature. But cherry tomatoes are always far earlier than big slicers. If I had to choose only one variety it would be the old heirloom [Large] Red Cherry. A single plant is capable of covering a 9- to 10-foot-diameter circle if fertigated from mid-July through August. The enormous yield of a single fertigated vine is overwhelming. Red Cherry is a little acid and tart. Non-acid, indeterminate cherry types like Sweetie, Sweet 100, and Sweet Millions are also workable but not as aggressive as Red Cherry. I wouldn't depend on most bush cherry tomato varieties. But our earliest cherry variety of all, OSU's Gold Nugget, must grow a lot more root than top, for, with or without supplemental water, Gold Nugget sets heavily and ripens enormously until mid-August, when it peters out from overbearing (not from moisture stress). Gold Nugget quits just about when the later cherry or slicing tomatoes start ripening heavily. Other well-adapted early determinates such as Oregon Spring and Santiam may disappoint you. Unless fertigated, they'll set and ripen some fruit but may become stunted in midsummer. However, a single indeterminate Fantastic Hybrid will cover a 6-to 7-foot-diameter circle, and grow and ripen tomatoes until frost with only a minimum of water. I think Stupice (ABL, TSC) and Early Cascade are also quite workable (and earlier than Fantastic in Washington). Chapter 6 My Own Garden Plan This chapter illustrates and explains my own dry garden. Any garden plan is a product of compromises and preferences; mine is not intended to become yours. But, all modesty aside, this plan results from 20 continuous years of serious vegetable gardening and some small degree of regional wisdom. My wife and I are what I dub "vegetablitarians." Not vegetarians, or lacto-ovo vegetarians because we're not ideologues and eat meat on rare, usually festive occasions in other peoples' houses. But over 80 percent of our calories are from vegetable, fruit, or cereal sources and the remaining percentage is from fats or dairy foods. The purpose of my garden is to provide at least half the actual calories we eat year-round; most of the rest comes from home-baked bread made with freshly ground whole grains. I put at least one very large bowl of salad on the table every day, winter and summer. I keep us in potatoes nine months a year and produce a year's supply of onions or leeks. To break the dietary monotony of November to April, I grow as wide an assortment of winter vegetables as possible and put most produce departments to shame from June through September, when the summer vegies are "on." The garden plan may seem unusually large, but in accordance with Solomon's First Law of Abundance, there's a great deal of intentional waste. My garden produces two to three times the amount of food needed during the year so moochers, poachers, guests, adult daughters accompanied by partners, husbands, and children, mistakes, poor yields, and failures of individual vegetables are inconsequential. Besides, gardening is fun. My garden is laid out in 125-foot-long rows and one equally long raised bed. Each row grows only one or two types of vegetables. The central focus of my water-wise garden is its irrigation system. Two lines of low-angle sprinklers, only 4 feet apart, straddle an intensively irrigated raised bed running down the center of the garden. The sprinklers I use are Naans, a unique Israeli design that emits very little water and throws at a very low angle (available from TSC and some garden centers). Their maximum reach is about 18 feet; each sprinkler is about 12 feet from its neighbor. On the garden plan, the sprinklers are indicated by a circle surrounding an "X." Readers unfamiliar with sprinkler system design are advised to study the irrigation chapter in Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades. On the far left side of the garden plan is a graphic representation of the uneven application of water put down by this sprinkler system. The 4-foot-wide raised bed gets lots of water, uniformly distributed. Farther away, the amount applied decreases rapidly. About half as much irrigation lands only 6 feet from the edge of the raised bed as on the bed itself. Beyond that the amount tapers off to insignificance. During summer's heat the farthest 6 feet is barely moistened on top, but no water effectively penetrates the dry surface. Crops are positioned according to their need for or ability to benefit from supplementation. For convenient description I've numbered those rows. The Raised Bed Crops demanding the most water are grown on the raised bed. These include a succession of lettuce plantings designed to fill the summer salad bowl, summer spinach, spring kohlrabi, my celery patch, scallions, Chinese cabbages, radishes, and various nursery beds that start overwintered crops for transplanting later. Perhaps the bed seems too large just for salad greens. But one entire meal every day consists largely of fresh, raw, high-protein green leaves; during summer, looseleaf or semiheading lettuce is our salad item of choice. And our individual salad bowls are larger than most families of six might consider adequate to serve all of them together. If water were severely rationed I could irrigate the raised bed with hose and nozzle and dry garden the rest, but as it is, rows 1, 2, 7, and 8 do get significant but lesser amounts from the sprinklers. Most of the rows hold a single plant family needing similar fertilization and handling or, for convenience, that are sown at the same time. Row 1 The row's center is about 3 feet from the edge of the raised bed. In March I sow my very first salad greens down half this row--mostly assorted leaf lettuce plus some spinach--and six closely spaced early Seneca Hybrid zucchini plants. The greens are all cut by mid-June; by mid-July my better-quality Yellow Crookneck squash come on, so I pull the zucchini. Then I till that entire row, refertilize, and sow half to rutabagas. The nursery bed of leek seedlings has gotten large enough to transplant at this time, too. These go into a trench dug into the other half of the row. The leeks and rutabagas could be reasonably productive located farther from the sprinklers, but no vegetables benefit more from abundant water or are more important to a self-sufficient kitchen. Rutabagas break the winter monotony of potatoes; leeks vitally improve winter salads, and leeky soups are a household staple from November through March. Row 2: Semi-Drought Tolerant Brassicas Row 2 gets about half the irrigation of row 1 and about one-third as much as the raised bed, and so is wider, to give the roots more room. One-third of the row grows savoy cabbage, the rest, Brussels sprouts. These brassicas are spaced 4 feet apart and by summer's end the lusty sprouts form a solid hedge 4 feet tall. Row 3: Kale Row 3 grows 125 feet of various kales sown in April. There's just enough overspray to keep the plants from getting gnarly. I prefer kale to not get very stunted, if only for aesthetics: on my soil, one vanity fertigation about mid-July keeps this row looking impressive all summer. Other gardens with poorer soil might need more support. This much kale may seem an enormous oversupply, but between salads and steaming greens with potatoes we manage to eat almost all the tender small leaves it grows during winter. Row 4: Root Crops Mostly carrots, a few beets. No irrigation, no fertigation, none needed. One hundred carrots weighing in at around 5 pounds each and 20-some beets of equal magnitude make our year's supply for salads, soups, and a little juicing. Row 5: Dry-Gardened Salads This row holds a few crowns of French sorrel, a few feet of parsley. Over a dozen giant kohlrabi are spring sown, but over half the row grows endive. I give this row absolutely no water. Again, when contemplating the amount of space it takes, keep in mind that this endive and kohlrabi must help fill our salad bowls from October through March. Row 6: Peas, Overwintered Cauliflower, and All Solanaceae Half the row grows early bush peas. Without overhead irrigation to bother them, unpicked pods form seed that sprouts excellently the next year. This half of the row is rotary tilled and fertilized again after the pea vines come out. Then it stays bare through July while capillarity somewhat recharges the soil. About August 1, I wet the row's surface down with hose and fan nozzle and sow overwintered cauliflower seed. To keep the cauliflower from stunting I must lightly hand sprinkle the row's center twice weekly through late September. Were water more restricted I could start my cauliflower seedlings in a nursery bed and transplant them here in October. The other half is home to the Solanaceae: tomato, pepper, and eggplant. I give this row a little extra width because pea vines run, and I fertigate my Solanaceae, preferring sprawly tomato varieties that may cover an 8-foot-diameter circle. There's also a couple of extra bare feet along the outside because the neighboring grasses will deplete soil moisture along the edge of the garden. Row 7: Water-Demanding Brassicas Moving away from irrigation on the other side of the raised bed, I grow a succession of hybrid broccoli varieties and late fall cauliflower. The broccoli is sown several times, 20 row-feet each sowing, done about April 15, June 1, and July 15. The late cauliflower goes in about July 1. If necessary I could use much of this row for quick crops that would be harvested before I wanted to sow broccoli or cauliflower, but I don't need more room. The first sowings of broccoli are pulled out early enough to permit succession sowings of arugula or other late salad greens. Row 8: The Trellis Here I erect a 125-foot-long, 6-foot-tall net trellis for gourmet delicacies like pole peas and pole beans. The bean vines block almost all water that would to on beyond it and so this row gets more irrigation than it otherwise might. The peas are harvested early enough to permit a succession sowing of Purple Sprouting broccoli in mid-July. Purple Sprouting needs a bit of sprinkling to germinate in the heat of midsummer, but, being as vigorous as kale, once up, it grows adequately on the overspray from the raised bed. The beans would be overwhelmingly abundant if all were sown at one time, so I plant them in two stages about three weeks apart. Still, a great many beans go unpicked. These are allowed to form seed, are harvested before they quite dry, and crisp under cover away from the sprinklers. We get enough seed from this row for planting next year, plus all the dry beans we care to eat during winter. Dry beans are hard to digest and as we age we eat fewer and fewer of them. In previous years I've grown entire rows of dry legume seeds at the garden's edge. Row 9: Cucurbits This row is so wide because here are grown all the spreading cucurbits. The pole beans in row 8 tend to prevent overspray; this dryness is especially beneficial to humidity-sensitive melons, serendipitously reducing their susceptability to powdery mildew diseases. All cucurbits are fertigated every three weeks. The squash will have fallen apart by the end of September, melons are pulled out by mid-September. The area is then tilled and fertilized, making space to transplant overwintered spring cabbages, other overwintered brassicas, and winter scallions in October. These transplants are dug from nurseries on the irrigated raised bed. I could also set cold frames here and force tender salad greens all winter. Row 10: Unirrigated Potatoes This single long row satisfies a potato-loving household all winter. The quality of these dry-gardened tubers is so high that my wife complains if she must buy a few new potatoes from the supermarket after our supplies have become so sprouty and/or shriveled that they're not tasty any longer. Chapter 7 The Backyard Water-Wise Gardener I am an unusually fortunate gardener. After seven years of struggling on one of the poorest growing sites in this region we now live on 16 acres of mostly excellent, deep soil, on the floor of a beautiful, coastal Oregon valley. My house and gardens are perched safely above the 100-year flood line, there's a big, reliable well, and if I ever want more than 20 gallons per minute in midsummer, there's the virtually unlimited Umpqua River to draw from. Much like a master skeet shooter who uses a .410 to make the sport more interesting, I have chosen to dry garden. Few are this lucky. These days the majority of North Americans live an urban struggle. Their houses are as often perched on steep, thinly soiled hills or gooey, difficult clay as on a tiny fragment of what was once prime farmland. And never does the municipal gardener have one vital liberty I do: to choose which one-sixth of an acre in his 14-acre "back yard" he'll garden on this year. I was a suburban backyard gardener for five years before deciding to homestead. I've frequently recalled this experience while learning to dry garden. What follows in this chapter are some strategies to guide the urban in becoming more water-wise. Water Conservation Is the Most Important First Step After it rains or after sprinkler irrigation, water evaporates from the surface until a desiccated earth mulch develops. Frequent light watering increases this type of loss. Where lettuce, radishes, and other shallow-rooting vegetables are growing, perhaps it is best to accept this loss or spread a thin mulch to reduce it. But most vegetables can feed deeper, so if wetting the surface can be avoided, a lot of water can be saved. Even sprinkling longer and less frequently helps accomplish that. Half the reason that drip systems are more efficient is that the surface isn't dampened and virtually all water goes deep into the earth. The other half is that they avoiding evaporation that occurs while water sprays through the air between the nozzle and the soil. Sprinkling at night or early in the morning, when there is little or no wind, prevents almost all of this type of loss. To use drip irrigation it is not necessary to invest in pipes, emitters, filters, pressure regulators, and so forth. I've already explained how recycled plastic buckets or other large containers can be improvised into very effective drip emitters. Besides, drip tube systems are not trouble free: having the beds covered with fragile pipes makes hoeing dicey, while every emitter must be periodically checked against blockage. When using any type of drip system it is especially important to relate the amount of water applied to the depth of the soil to the crops, root development. There's no sense adding more water than the earth can hold. Calculating the optimum amount of water to apply from a drip system requires applying substantial, practical intelligence to evaluating the following factors: soil water-holding capacity and accessible depth; how deep the root systems have developed; how broadly the water spreads out below each emitter (dispersion); rate of loss due to transpiration. All but one of these factors--dispersion--are adequately discussed elsewhere in _Gardening Without Irrigation._ A drip emitter on sandy soil moistens the earth nearly straight down with little lateral dispersion; 1 foot below the surface the wet area might only be 1 foot in diameter. Conversely, when you drip moisture into a clay soil, though the surface may seem dry, 18 inches away from the emitter and just 3 inches down the earth may become saturated with water, while a few inches deeper, significant dispersion may reach out nearly 24 inches. On sandy soil, emitters on 12-inch centers are hardly close enough together, while on clay, 30-or even 36-inch centers are sufficient. Another important bit of data to enter into your arithmetic: 1 cubic foot of water equals about 5 gallons. A 12-inch-diameter circle equals 0.75 square feet (A = Pi x Radius squared), so 1 cubic foot of water (5 gallons) dispersed from a single emitter will add roughly 16 inches of moisture to sandy soil, greatly overwatering a medium that can hold only an inch or so of available water per foot. On heavy clay, a single emitter may wet a 4-foot-diameter circle, on loams, anywhere in between, 5 gallons will cover a 4-foot-diameter circle about 1 inch deep. So on deep, clay soil, 10 or even 15 gallons per application may be in order. What is the texture of your soil, its water-holding capacity, and the dispersion of a drip into it? Probably, it is somewhere in between sand and clay. I can't specify what is optimum in any particular situation. Each gardener must consider his own unique factors and make his own estimation. All I can do is stress again that the essence of water-wise gardening is water conservation. Optimizing Space: Planning the Water-Wise Backyard Garden Intensive gardening is a strategy holding that yield per square foot is the supreme goal; it succeeds by optimizing as many growth factors as possible. So a raised bed is loosened very deeply without concern for the amount of labor, while fertility and moisture are supplied virtually without limit. Intensive gardening makes sense when land is very costly and the worth of the food grown is judged against organic produce at retail--and when water and nutrients are inexpensive and/or available in unlimited amounts. When water use is reduced, yield inevitably drops proportionately. The backyard water-wise gardener, then, must logically ask which vegetable species will give him enough food or more economic value with limited space and water. Taking maritime Northwest rainfall patterns into consideration, here's my best estimation: Water-Wise Efficiency of Vegetable Crops (in terms of backyard usage of space and moisture) EFFICIENT ENOUGH Early spring-sown crops: peas, broccoli, lettuce, radishes, savoy cabbage, kohlrabi Overwintered crops: onions, broccoli cauliflower, cabbage, favas beans Endive Kale Garden sorrel Indeterminate tomatoes Giant kohlrabi Parsley--leaf and root heirloom summer squash (sprawly) Pole beans Herbs: marjoram, thyme, dill, cilantro, fennel, oregano Root crops: carrots, beets, parsnips MARGINAL Brussels sprouts (late) Potatoes Determinate tomatoes Rutabagas Eggplant Leeks Leeks Savoy cabbage (late) Peppers, small fruited INEFFICIENT Beans, bush snap Peppers, bell Broccoli, summer Radishes Cauliflower Scallions, bulb onions Celery Sweet corn Lettuce Turnips Have fun planning your own water-wise garden! More Reading About the Interlibrary Loan Service Agricultural books, especially older ones, are not usually available at local libraries. But most municipal libraries and all universities offer access to an on-line database listing the holdings of other cooperating libraries throughout the United States. Almost any book published in this century will be promptly mailed to the requesting library. Anyone who is serious about learning by reading should discover how easy and inexpensive (or free) it is to use the Interlibrary Loan Service. Carter, Vernon Gill, and Tom, Dale. _Topsoil and Civilization._ Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1974. The history of civilization's destruction of one ecosystem after another by plowing and deforestation, and its grave implications for our country's long-term survival. Cleveland, David A., and Daniela Soleri. _Food from Dryland Gardens: An Ecological, Nutritional and Social Approach to Small-Scale Household Food Production._ Tucson: Center for People, Food and Environment, 1991. World-conscious survey of low-tech food production in semiarid regions. Faulkner, Edward H. _Plowman's Folly._ Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1943. This book created quite a controversy in the 1940s. Faulkner stresses the vital importance of capillarity. He explains how conventional plowing stops this moisture flow. Foth, Henry D. _Fundamentals of Soil Science._ Eighth Edition. New York: John Wylie & Sons, 1990. A thorough yet readable basic soil science text at a level comfortable for university non-science majors. Hamaker, John. D. _The Survival of Civilization._ Annotated by Donald A. Weaver. Michigan/California: Hamaker-Weaver Publishers, 1982. Hamaker contradicts our current preoccupation with global warming and makes a believable case that a new epoch of planetary glaciation is coming, caused by an increase in greenhouse gas. The book is also a guide to soil enrichment with rock powders. Nabhan, Gary. _The Desert Smells like Rain: A Naturalist in Papago Indian Country._ San Francisco: North Point Press, 1962. Describes regionally useful Native American dry-gardening techniques Russell, Sir E. John. _Soil Conditions and Plant Growth._ Eighth Edition. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1950. Probably the finest, most human soil science text ever written. Russell avoids unnecessary mathematics and obscure terminology. I do not recommend the recent in-print edition, revised and enlarged by a committee. Smith, J. Russell. Tree Crops: a Permanent Agriculture. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1929. Smith's visionary solution to upland erosion is growing unirrigated tree crops that produce cereal-like foods and nuts. Should sit on the "family bible shelf" of every permaculturalist. Solomon, Stephen J. _Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades._ Seattle: Sasquatch Books, 1989. The complete regional gardening textbook. -------------------------. _Backyard Composting._ Portland, Ore.: George van Patten Publishing, 1992. Especially useful for its unique discussion of the overuse of compost and a nonideological approach to raising the most nutritious food possible. Stout, Ruth. _Gardening Without Work for the Aging, the Busy and the Indolent._ Old Greenwich, Conn.: Devin-Adair, 1961. Stout presents the original thesis of permanent mulching. Turner, Frank Newman. _Fertility, Pastures and Cover Crops Based on Nature's Own Balanced Organic Pasture Feeds._ San Diego: Rateaver, 1975. Reprinted from the 1955 Faber and Faber, edition. Organic farming using long rotations, including deeply rooted green manures developed to a high art. Turner maintained a productive organic dairy farm using subsoiling and long rotations involving tilled crops and semipermanent grass/herb mixtures. ven der Leeden, Frits, Fred L. Troise, and David K. Todd. _The Water Encyclopedia, Second Edition._ Chelsea, Mich.: Lewis Publishers, 1990. Reference data concerning every possible aspect of water. Weaver, John E., and William E. Bruner. _Root Development of Vegetable Crops._ New York: McGraw-Hill, 1927. Contains very interesting drawings showing the amazing depth and extent that vegetable roots are capable of in favorable soil. Widtsoe, John A. _Dry Farming: A System of Agriculture for Countries Under Low Rainfall._ New York: The Macmillan Company, 1920. The best single review ever made of the possibilities of dry farming and dry gardening, sagely discussing the scientific basis behind the techniques. The quality of Widtsoe's understanding proves that newer is not necessarily better. 
43369	----	Transcriber's Note: Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. The quote starting on page 19 with "If, however," has no end quote. On page 177, "as he plead" should possibly be "as he pled." The quote starting on page 215 with "Marcus Whitman" has no end quote. On page 287, "staid back" should possibly be "stayed back." [Illustration: WHITMAN LEAVING HOME ON HIS WINTER RIDE TO SAVE OREGON.] How Marcus Whitman Saved Oregon. A TRUE ROMANCE OF PATRIOTIC HEROISM, CHRISTIAN DEVOTION AND FINAL MARTYRDOM.... WITH SKETCHES OF Life on the Plains and Mountains in Pioneer Days BY OLIVER W. NIXON, M.D., LL.D., _For Seventeen Years President and Literary Editor of the Chicago Inter Ocean_. INTRODUCTION BY Rev. Frank W. Gunsaulus, D.D., LL.D. SECOND EDITION. ILLUSTRATED. STAR PUBLISHING COMPANY, CHICAGO, 1895 Copyrighted, 1895, by Oliver W. Nixon. (All rights reserved.) DEDICATION. TO THE BOYS AND GIRLS OF THE Little Log School House on the Willamette, NOW THE GRAY HAIRED MEN AND WOMEN OF OREGON, WASHINGTON, IDAHO AND CALIFORNIA, TO WHOM I AM INDEBTED FOR A MULTITUDE OF PLEASING MEMORIES WHICH HAVE BEEN UNDIMMED BY YEARS AND DISTANCE, I GRATEFULLY DEDICATE THIS VOLUME. PREFACE. This little volume is not intended to be a history of Oregon missions or even a complete biography of Dr. Whitman. Its aim is simply to bring out, prominently, in a series of sketches, the heroism and Christian patriotism of the man who rendered great and distinguished service to his country, which has never been fully appreciated or recognized. In my historical facts I have tried to be correct and to give credit to authorities where I could. I expect some of my critics will ask, as they have in the past: "Who is your authority for this fact and that?" I only answer, I don't know unless I am authority. In 1850 and 1851 I was a teacher of the young men and maidens, and bright-eyed boys and girls of the old pioneers of Oregon. Many years ago I told the story of that school to Hezekiah Butterworth, who made it famous in his idyllic romance, "The Log School House on the Columbia." It was a time when history was being made. The great tragedy at Waiilatpui was fresh in the minds of the people. With such surroundings one comes in touch with the spirit of history. Later on, I was purser upon the Lot Whitcomb, the first steamer ever built in Oregon, and came in contact with all classes of people. If I have failed to interpret the history correctly, it is because I failed to understand it. The sketches have been written in hours snatched from pressing duties, and no claim is made of high literary excellence. But if they aid the public, even in a small degree, to better understand and appreciate the grand man whose remains rest in his martyr's grave at Waiilatpui, unhonored by any monument, I shall be amply compensated. O. W. N. CONTENTS. Pages. Introduction 11-14 CHAPTER I. The Title of the United States to Oregon--The Hudson Bay Company--The Louisiana Purchase 15-37 CHAPTER II. English and American Opinion of the Value of the Northwest Territory--The Neglect of American Statesmen 38-49 CHAPTER III. The Romance of the Oregon Mission 50-62 CHAPTER IV. The Wedding Journey Across the Plains 63-82 CHAPTER V. Mission Life at Waiilatpui 83-98 CHAPTER VI. The Ride to Save Oregon 99-123 CHAPTER VII. Whitman in the Presence of President Tyler and Secretary of State Daniel Webster--The Return to Oregon 124-164 CHAPTER VIII. A Backward Look at Results 165-185 CHAPTER IX. Change in Public Sentiment 186-200 CHAPTER X. The Failure of Modern History to do Justice to Dr. Whitman 201-216 CHAPTER XI. The Massacre at Waiilatpui 217-237 CHAPTER XII. Biographical--Dr. Whitman--Dr. McLoughlin 238-249 CHAPTER XIII. Whitman Seminary and College 250-262 CHAPTER XIV. Oregon Then, and Oregon, Washington and Idaho Now 263-276 CHAPTER XV. Life on the Great Plains in Pioneer Days 277-304 Appendix 305-339 ILLUSTRATIONS. Page. 1. Whitman Leaving Home on His Ride to Save Oregon Frontispiece. 2. Falls of the Willamette 32 3. Map of Early Oregon and the West, Showing Whitman's Route, etc. 41 4. Steamer Lot Whitcomb 56 5. Dr. Marcus Whitman 72 6. Mission Station at Waiilatpui 88 7. Mrs. Narcissa Prentice Whitman 104 8. Whitman Pleading for Oregon before President Tyler and Secretary Webster 128 9. Rev. H. H. Spalding 144 10. Rev. Cushing Eells, D.D. 160 11. Whitman College 176 12. Whitman's Grave 224 13. Dr. John McLoughlin 248 14. Dr. Daniel K. Pearsons 264 15. Rev. S. B. L. Penrose, President of Whitman College 272 16. The Log School House on the Willamette 280 17. A. J. Anderson, Ph.D. 296 18. Rev. James F. Eaton, D.D. 296 19. Portraits of Flathead Indians Who Visited St. Louis 313 INTRODUCTION BY REV. FRANK W. GUNSAULUS, D.D., Pastor of Plymouth Church, and President of Armour Institute, Chicago. Among the efforts at description which will associate themselves with either our ignorance or our intelligence as to our own country, the following words by our greatest orator, will always have their place: "What do we want with the vast, worthless area, this region of savages and wild beasts, of deserts, of shifting sands and whirlwinds of dust, of cactus and prairie dogs? To what use could we ever hope to put these great deserts, or these endless mountain ranges, impenetrable, and covered to their base with eternal snow? What can we ever hope to do with the Western coast, a coast of three thousand miles, rock-bound, cheerless, and uninviting, and not a harbor on it? What use have we for such a country? Mr. President, I will never vote one cent from the public treasury to place the Pacific coast one inch nearer to Boston than it is now." Perhaps no words uttered in the United States Senate were ever more certainly wide of their mark than these of Daniel Webster. In their presence, the name of Marcus Whitman is a bright streak of light penetrating a vague cloud-land. Washington, with finer prevision, had said: "I shall not be contented until I have explored the Western country." Even the Father of his Country did not understand the vast realm to which he referred, nor had his mind any boundaries sufficiently great to inclose that portion of the country which Marcus Whitman preserved to the United States. An interesting series of splendid happenings has united the ages of history in heroic deeds, and this volume is a fitting testimonial of the immense significance of one heroic deed in one heroic life. The conservatism, which is always respectable and respected, had its utterance in the copious eloquence of Daniel Webster; the radicalism, which always goes to the root of every question, had its expression in the answer which Whitman made to the great New Englander. Even Daniel Webster, at a moment like this, seems less grand of proportion than does the plain and poor missionary, with "a half pint of seed wheat" in his hand, and words upon his lips which are an enduring part of our history. Only a really illumined man, at that hour, could fitly answer Senator McDuffie, when he said: "Do you think your honest farmers in Pennsylvania, New York, or even Ohio and Missouri, would abandon their farms and go upon any such enterprise as this?" Whitman made answer by breaking the barrier of the Rockies with his own courage and faith. It may well be hoped that such a memorial as this may be adopted in home and public library as a chapter in Americanism and its advance, worthy to minister to the imagination and idealism of our whole people. The heroism of the days to come, which we need, must grow out of the heroism of the days that have been. The impulse to do and dare noble things to-morrow, will grow strong from contemplating the memory of such yesterdays. This volume has suggested such a picture as will sometime be made as a tribute to genius and the embodiment of highest art by some great painter. The picture will represent the room in which the old heroic missionary, having traveled over mountains and through deserts until his clothing of fur was well-nigh worn from him, and his frame bowed by anxiety and exposure, at that instant when the great Secretary and orator said to him: "There cannot be made a wagon road over the mountains; Sir George Simpson says so," whereat the intrepid pioneer replied: "There is a wagon road, for I have made it." What could be a more fitting memorial for such a man as this than a Christian college called Whitman College? He was more to the ulterior Northwest than John Harvard has ever been to the Northeast of our common country. Nothing but such an institution may represent all the ideas and inspirations which were the wealth of such a man's brain and heart and his gift to the Republic. He was an _avant courier_ of the truths on which alone republics and democracies may endure. Whitman not only conducted the expedition of men and wagons to Oregon, after President Tyler had made his promise that the bargain, which Daniel Webster proposed, should not be made, but he led an expedition of ideas and sentiments which have made the names Oregon, Washington and Idaho synonymous with human progress, good government and civilization. When the soldier-statesman of the Civil War, Col. Baker, mentioned the name and memory of Marcus Whitman to Abraham Lincoln, he did it with the utmost reverence for one of the founders of that civilization which, in the far Northwest, has spread its influence over so vast a territory to make the mines of California the resources of freedom, and to bind the forests and plains with the destiny of the Union. When Thomas Starr King was most eloquent in his efforts to keep California true to liberty and union, in that struggle of debate before the Civil War opened, he worked upon the basis, made larger and sounder by the fearless ambassador of Christian civilization. In an hour when the mind of progress grows tired of the perpetual presence of Napoleon, again clad in all his theatrical glamour before the eyes of youth, we may well be grateful for this sketch of a sober far-seeing man of loyal devotion to the great public ends; whose unselfishness made him seem, even then, a startling figure at the nation's capital; whose noble bearing, great faith, supreme courage, and vision of the future, mark him as a genuine and typical American. These hopes and inspirations are all enshrined in the educational enterprise known as Whitman College. Every student of history must be glad to recognize the fact that the history of which this book is the chronicle, is also a prophecy, and that whatever may be the fate of men's names or men's schemes in the flight of time, this college will be a beacon, shining with the light of Marcus Whitman's heroism and devotion. [Illustration] CHAPTER I. THE TITLE OF THE UNITED STATES TO OREGON--THE HUDSON BAY COMPANY--THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE The home of civilization was originally in the far East, but its journeys have forever been westward. The history of the world is a great panorama, with its pictures constantly shifting and changing. The desire for change and new fields early asserted itself. The human family divided up under the law of selection and affinities, shaped themselves into bands and nationalities, and started upon their journey to people the world. Two branches of the original stock remained as fixtures in Asia, while half a dozen branches deployed and reached out for the then distant and unexplored lands of the West. They reached Europe. The Gaul and the Celt, the Teuton and Slav, ever onward in their march, reached and were checked by the Atlantic that washed the present English, German and Spanish coasts. The Latin, Greek and Illyrian were alike checked by the Mediterranean. For a long period it seemed as if their journey westward was ended; that they had reached their Ultima Thule; that the western limit had been found. For many centuries the millions rested in that belief, until the great discoveries of 1492 awakened them to new dreams of western possibilities. At once and under new incentives the westward march began again. The States of the Atlantic were settled and the wilderness subdued. No sooner was this but partially accomplished than the same spirit, "the western fever," seized upon the people. It seems to have been engrafted in the nature of man, as it is in the nature of birds, to migrate. In caravan after caravan they pushed their way over the Allegheny Mountains, invaded the rich valleys, floated down the great rivers, gave battle to the savage inhabitants and in perils many, and with discouragements sufficient to defeat less heroic characters, they took possession of the now great States of the Middle West. The country to be settled was so vast as to seem to our fathers limitless. They had but little desire as a nation for further expansion. Up to the date of 1792, the Far West was an unexplored region. The United States made no claim to any lands bordering upon the Pacific, and the discovery made in the year 1792 was more accidental than intentional, as far as the nation was concerned. Captain Robert Gray, who made the discovery, was born in Tiverton, R. I., 1755, and died at Charleston, S. C., in 1806. He was a famous sailor, and was the first citizen who ever carried the American flag around the globe. His vessel, The Columbia, was fitted out by a syndicate of Boston merchants, with articles for barter for the natives in Pacific ports. In his second great voyage in 1792 he discovered the mouth of the Columbia river. There had been rumors of such a great river through Spanish sources, and the old American captain probably, mainly for the sake of barter and to get fresh supplies, had his nautical eyes open. Men see through a glass darkly and a wiser, higher power than man may have guided the old explorer in safety over the dangerous bar, into the great river he discovered and named. He was struck by the grandeur and magnificence of the river as well as by the beauty of the country. He at once christened it "The Columbia," the name of his good ship which had already carried the American flag around the globe. He sailed several miles up the river, landed and took possession in the name of the United States. It is a singular coincidence that both Spain and England had vessels just at this time on this coast, hunting for the same river, and so near together as to be in hailing distance of each other. Captain Gray only a few days before had met Captain Vancouver, the Englishman, and had spoken to him. Captain Vancouver had sailed over the very ground passed over soon after by Gray, but failed to find the river. He had noted, too, a change in the color of the waters, but it did not sufficiently impress him to cause an investigation. After Captain Gray had finished his exploration and gone to sea, he again fell in with Vancouver and reported the result of his discoveries. Vancouver immediately turned about, found the mouth of the river, sailed up the Columbia to the rapids and up the Willamette to near the falls. In the conference between the English and Americans in 1827, which resulted in the renewal of the treaty of 1818, while the British commissioners acknowledged that Gray was first to discover and enter the Columbia river, yet they demanded that "he should equally share the honor with Captain Vancouver." They claimed that while Gray discovered the mouth of the river, he only sailed up it a few miles, while "Captain Vancouver made a full and complete discovery." One of the authorities stated concisely that, "Captain Gray's claim is limited to the mouth of the river." This limit was in plain violation of the rules regulating all such events, and no country knew it better than England. Besides, it was Captain Gray's discovery, told to the English commander Vancouver, which made him turn back on his course to rediscover the same river. The claim that the English made, that "Captain Gray made but a single step in the progress of discovery," in the light of these facts, marks their claims as remarkably weak. The right of discovery was then the first claim made by the United States upon Oregon. The second was by the Louisiana purchase from France in 1803. This was the same territory ceded from France to Spain in 1762 and returned to France in 1800, and sold to the United States for $15,000,000 in 1803, "with all its rights and appurtenances, as fully and in the same manner as they were acquired by the French Republic." There has always been a dispute as to how far into the region of the northwest this claim of the French extended. In the sale no parallels were given; but it was claimed that their rights reached to the Pacific Ocean. Dr. Barrows says, "If, however, the claims of France failed to reach the Pacific on the parallel of 49 degrees, it must have been because they encountered the old claims of Spain, that preceded the Nootka treaty and were tacitly conceded by England. Between the French claims and the Spanish claims there was left no territory for England to base a claim on. If the United States did not acquire through to the Pacific in the Louisiana purchase, it was because Spain was owner of the territory prior to the first, second and third transfers. It is difficult to perceive standing ground for the English in either of the claims mentioned. The claim of England that the Nootka treaty of 1790 abrogated the rights of Spain to the territory of Oregon, which she then held, is untenable, from the fact that no right of sovereignty or jurisdiction was conveyed by that treaty. Whatever right Spain had prior to that treaty was not disturbed, and all legal rights vested in Spain were still in force when she ceded the territory to France in 1800, and also when France ceded the same to the United States in 1803. The third claim of the United States was by the commission sent out by Jefferson in 1803, when Lewis and Clarke and their fellow voyagers struck the headwaters of the Columbia and followed it to its mouth and up its tributary rivers. The fourth was the actual settlement of the Astor Fur Company at Astoria in 1811. True it was a private enterprise, but was given the sanction of the United States and a U. S. naval officer was allowed to command the leading vessel in Astor's enterprise, thus placing the seal of nationality upon it. True the town was captured and the effects confiscated in 1812 by the British squadron of the Pacific, commanded by Captain Hillyar, but the fact of actual settlement by Americans at Astoria, even for a short time, had its value in the later argument. In the treaty of Ghent with England in 1814, Astoria, with all its rights, was ordered to be restored to its original owners, but even this was not consummated until 1846. America's fifth claim was in her treaty with Spain in 1818, when Spain relinquished any and all claims to the territory in dispute to the United States. The sixth and last claim was from Mexico, by a treaty in 1828, by which the United States acquired all interest Mexico claimed, formerly in common with Spain, but now under her own government. Such is a brief statement, but I trust a sufficient one, for an intelligent understanding of the questions of ownership. It will be seen that the United States was vested in all the rights held over Oregon by every other power except one, that of Great Britain. Her claim rested, as we have seen, in the fact that "Captain Gray only discovered the mouth of the river," but did not survey it to the extent that the English Captain Vancouver did, after being told by Gray of his discovery. They also made claims of settlement by their Fur Company, just as the United States did by the settlement made by Astor and others. As the Hudson Bay Company and the Northwest Fur Company of Montreal figure so extensively in the contest for English ownership of Oregon, it is well to have a clear idea of their origin and power. The Hudson Bay Company was organized in 1670 by Charles II., with Prince Rupert, the King's cousin, at its head, with other favorites of his Court. They were invested with remarkable powers, such as had never before, nor have since, been granted to a corporation. They were granted absolute proprietorship, with subordinate sovereignty, over all that country known by name of "Rupert's Land" including all regions "discovered or undiscovered within the entrance to Hudson Strait." It was by far the largest of all English dependencies at that time. For more than a century the company confined its active operations to a coast traffic. The original stock of this company was $50,820. During the first fifty years the capital stock was increased to $457,000 wholly out of the profits, besides paying dividends. During the last half of the 17th century the Northwest Fur Company became a formidable opponent to the Hudson Bay Company, and the rivalry and great wealth of both companies served to stimulate them to reach out toward the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. After Canada had become an English dependency and the competition had grown into such proportions as to interfere with the great monopoly, in the year 1821, there was a coalition between the Northwest and the Hudson Bay Companies on a basis of equal value, and the consolidated stock was marked at $1,916,000, every dollar of which was profits, as was shown at the time, except the original stock of both companies, which amounted to about $135,000. And yet during all this period there had been made an unusual dividend to stockholders of 10 per cent. Single vessels from headquarters carried furs to London valued at from three to four hundred thousand dollars. It is not at all strange that a company which was so rolling in wealth and which was in supreme control of a territory reaching through seventy-five degrees of longitude, from Davis Strait to Mt. Saint Elias, and through twenty-eight degrees of latitude, from the mouth of the Mackenzie to the California border, should hold tenaciously to its privileges. It was a grand monopoly, but it must be said of it that no kingly power ever ruled over savage subjects with such wisdom and discretion. Of necessity, they treated their savage workmen kindly, but they managed to make them fill the coffers of the Hudson Bay Company with a wealth of riches, as the years came and went. Their lives and safety and profits all depended upon keeping their dependents in a good humor and binding them to themselves. The leading men of the company were men of great business tact and shrewdness, and one of their chief requisites was to thoroughly understand Indian character. They managed year by year so to gain control of the savage tribes that the factor of a trading post had more power over a fractious band, than could have been exerted by an army of men with guns and bayonets. If, now and then, a chief grew sullen and belligerent, he was at once quietly bought up by a judicious present, and the company got it all back many times over from the tribe, when their furs were marketed. It was the refusal of the missionaries of Oregon to condone crime and wink at savage methods, as the Hudson Bay Company did, which first brought about misunderstanding and unpleasantness, as we shall see in another place. It was this power and controlling influence which met the pioneer fur traders and missionaries, upon entering Oregon. They controlled the savage life and the white men there were wholly dependent upon them. In 1811 an American fur company at Astoria undertook to open business upon what they regarded as American soil. They had scarcely settled down to work when the war of 1812 began and they were speedily routed. In 1818 a treaty was made, which said, "It is agreed that any country that may be claimed by either party on the Northwest coast of America westward of the Stony Mountains shall, together with its harbors, bays, creeks and the navigation of all rivers within the same, be free and open for ten years from the date of the signature of the present convention, to the vessels, citizens, and subjects of the two powers; it being well understood that the agreement is not to be construed to the prejudice of any claim which either of the two high contracting parties may have to any part of said country; nor shall it be taken to affect the claims of any other power or state to any of said country; the only object of the high contracting parties in that respect being to prevent disputes and differences among themselves." That looked fair and friendly enough. But how did the Hudson Bay Company carry it out? They went on just as they had done before, governing to suit their own selfish interests. They froze out and starved out every American fur company that dared to settle in any portion of their territory. They fixed the price of every commodity, and had such a hold on the various tribes that a foreign company had no chance to live and prosper. It so continued until the ten-year limit was nearly up, when in 1827 the commission representing the two powers met and re-enacted the treaty of 1818, which went into effect in 1828. It was a giant monopoly, but dealing as it did with savage life, and gathering its wealth from sources which had never before contributed to the world's commerce, it was allowed to run its course until it came in contact with the advancing civilization of the United States, and was worsted in the conflict. With the adoption of the Ashburton treaty the Hudson Bay Company was shorn of much of its kingly power and old time grandeur. But it remained a money-making organization. Under the terms of the treaty the great corporation was fully protected. This Ashburton treaty was written in England and from English standpoints, and every property and possessory right of this powerful company was strictly guarded. The interests of the company were made English interests. Under this treaty the United States agreed to pay all valuations upon Hudson Bay Company property south of forty-nine degrees; while England was to make a settlement for all above that line. The company promptly sent in a bill to the United States for $3,882,036.27, while their dependent company, the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, sent in a more modest demand for $1,168,000. These bills were in a state of liquidation until 1864, when the United States made a final settlement, and paid the Hudson Bay Company $450,000 and the Puget Sound Company $200,000. They also, at the time of presenting bills to the United States, presented one to England for $4,990,036.07. In 1869 the English government settled the claim by paying $1,500,000. This amount was paid from the treasury of the Dominion of Canada, and all the vast territory north of 49 degrees came under the government of the Dominion. It was, however, stipulated and agreed that the company should retain all its forts, with ten acres of ground surrounding each, together with one-twentieth of all the land from the Red river to the Rocky Mountains, besides valuable blocks of land to which it laid special claim. The company goes on trading as of old; its organization is still complete; it still makes large dividends of about $400,000 per year, and has untold prospective wealth in its lands, which are the best in the Dominion. Among the most interesting facts connected with our title to Oregon are those in connection with the Louisiana purchase by the United States from France in 1803. Many readers of current history have overlooked the fact, that it was wholly due to England, and her overweening ambition, that the United States was enabled to buy this great domain. Letters, which have recently been published, written by those closest to the high contracting parties, have revealed the romance, and the inside facts of this great deal, perhaps the most important the United States ever made, and made so speedily as to dazzle the Nation. Few take in the fact that the "Louisiana Purchase" meant not only the rich state at the mouth of our great river, but also, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, with probably the two Dakotas. Roughly estimated it was a claim by a foreign power upon our continent to territory of over 900,000 square miles. At the time, but little was thought of its value save and except the getting possession of the rich soil of Louisiana for the purposes of the Southern planter, and being able to own and control the mouth of our great river upon which, at that time, all the states of the North and West were wholly dependent for their commerce. While Napoleon and the French Government were upon the most friendly terms with the United States, and conceded to our commerce the widest facilities, yet there was a lurking fear that such conditions might at any time change. The desirability of obtaining such possession had often been canvassed, with scarcely a ray of hope for its consummation. The United States was poor, and while the South and the West were deeply interested, the East, which held the balance of power, was determinedly set against it. The same narrow statesmanship existed then, which later on undervalued all our possessions beyond the Stony Mountains, and was willing and even anxious that they should pass into the possession of a foreign power. France acquired this vast property from Spain in 1800. In March, 1802, there was a great treaty entered into between France on one side and Great Britain, Spain and the Batavian Republic on the other. It was known as "The Amiens Treaty." It was a short-lived treaty which was hopelessly ruptured in 1803. England, foreseeing the rupture, had not delayed to get ready for the event. Then as now, she was, "Mistress upon the high seas," and set about arranging to seize everything afloat that carried the French flag. Her policy was soon made plain, and that was to first make war upon all French dependencies. No man knew better than Napoleon how powerless he would be to make any successful defense. His treasury was well-nigh bankrupt and he must have money for home defense as soon as the victorious army of the enemy should return from the Mississippi campaign, which he foresaw. While the treaty of Amiens was not really abrogated until May, 1803, yet upon January 1, 1803, the whole matter was well understood by Napoleon and his advisers. Early in that month the government received disquieting news from Admiral Villeneuve who was in command of the French fleet in West India waters. It plainly stated that it was undoubtedly the fact that the first blow of the English would be made at New Orleans. This knowledge was promptly conveyed to the American Minister Monroe, well knowing that the United States was almost as much interested in the matter as France was, as it would stop all traffic from all the States along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and be a death blow to American prosperity for an indefinite period. The recently published letters, already referred to, say of the conference between Minister Monroe and Bonaparte: "Unfortunately Mr. Monroe at this time did not understand the French language well enough to follow a speaker who talked as rapidly as did Bonaparte, and the intervention of an interpreter was necessary. 'We are not able alone to defend the colony of Louisiana,' the First Consul began. 'Your new regions of the southwest are nearly as deeply interested in its remaining in friendly hands as we are in holding it. Our fleet is not equal to the needs of the French Nation. Can you not help us to defend the mouth of the Mississippi river?' "'We could not take such a step without a treaty, offensive and defensive,' the American answered. 'Our Senate really is the treaty-making power. It is against us. The President, Mr. Jefferson, is my friend, as well as my superior officer. Tell me, General, what you have in your mind.' "Bonaparte walked the room, a small private consulting cabinet adjoining the Salles des Ambassadeurs. He had his hands clasped behind him, his head bent forward--his usual position when in deep thought. 'I acquired the great territory to which the Mississippi mouth is the entrance,' he finally began, 'and I have the right to dispose of my own. France is not able now to hold it. Rather than see it in England's hands, I donate it to America. Why will your country not buy it from France?' There Bonaparte stopped. Mr. Monroe's face was like a flame. What a diplomatic feat it would be for him! What a triumph for the administration of Jefferson to add such a territory to the national domain! "No man living was a better judge of his fellows than Bonaparte. He read the thoughts of the man before him as though they were on a written scroll. He saw the emotions of his soul. 'Well, what do you think of it?' said General Bonaparte. "'The matter is so vast in its direct relations to my country and what may result from it, that it dazes me,' the American answered. 'But the idea is magnificent. It deserves to emanate from a mind like yours.' The First Consul bowed low. Monroe never flattered, and the look of truth was in his eyes, its ring in his voice. 'I must send a special communication at once touching this matter to President Jefferson. My messenger must take the first safe passage to America.' "'The Blonde, the fastest ship in our navy, leaves Brest at once with orders for the West Indian fleet, I will detain her thirty-six hours, till your dispatches are ready,' the First Consul said. 'Your messenger shall go on our ship.' "'How much shall I say the territory will cost us?' The great Corsican--who was just ending the audience, which had been full two hours long--came up to the American Minister. After a moment he spoke again. 'Between nations who are really friends there need be no chaffering. Could I defend this territory, not all the gold in the world would buy it. But I am giving to a friend what I am unable to keep. I need 100,000,000 francs in coin or its equivalent. Whatever action we take must be speedy. Above all, let there be absolute silence and secrecy,' and Bonaparte bowed our minister out. The audience was ended. The protracted audience between Napoleon and the American Minister was such as to arouse gossip, but the secret was safe in the hands of the two men, both of whom were statesmen and diplomats who knew the value of secrecy in such an emergency. "The profoundly astonishing dispatches reached President Jefferson promptly. He kept it a secret until he could sound a majority of the Senators and be assured of the standing of such a proposition. "The main difficulty that was found would be in raising the 75,000,000 francs it was proposed to give. In those days, with a depleted treasury, it was a large sum of money. The United States had millions of unoccupied acres, but had few millions in cash in its treasury. But our statesmen, to their great honor, proved equal to the emergency. Through the agency of Stephen Girard as financier in chief, the loan necessary was negotiated through the Dutch House of Hapes in Amsterdam, and the money paid to France, and the United States entered into possession of the vast estate." [Illustration: FALLS OF THE WILLAMETTE.] This much of the well-nigh forgotten history we have thought appropriate to note in this connection; first, because of the new light given to it from the recent disclosures made; and, second, to call attention to the fact that a second time, forty-three years later, it served a valiant purpose in thwarting English ambition and serving America's highest interests. Estimated from the standpoint of money and material values, it was a great transaction, especially notable in view of existing conditions, but from the standpoint of State and National grandeur, carrying with it peace and hope and happiness to millions, and continuous rule of the Republic from ocean to ocean, it assumes a greatness never surpassed in a single transaction, and not easily over-estimated, and never in the history of the English people did a single transaction, with dates so widely separated, arise, and so effectually check their imperious demands. The American Republic may well remember with deep gratitude President Jefferson, and the far-seeing statesmen who rallied to his call and consummated the grand work. They can at the same time see the foresight and wisdom of Jefferson in, at once, the very next year, sending the expedition of Lewis and Clarke to the headwaters of the Columbia River, and causing a complete survey to be made to its mouth. It was a complete refutation of the claim of the English Commissioners, in 1837, that while "Captain Gray only discovered the mouth of the river, Captain Vancouver made a complete survey." The American mistake was, not in the purchase and active work then done, but the lassitude and inexcusable neglect in the forty subsequent years which imperiled every interest the Republic held in the territory beyond the Rocky Mountains. When the treaty of 1846 was signed, it was hoped that the questions at issue were settled forever; but the Hudson Bay Company was slow to surrender its grasp on any of the territory it could hold, and especially one so rich in all materials that constituted its wealth and power. The treaty of 1846 between the United States and Great Britain read: "From the point on the 49th parallel to the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver's Island and thence southerly through the middle of said channel and of the Fuca Straits, to the Pacific Ocean, provided, however, that the navigation of such channel and straits south of the latitude 49 degrees remain free and open to both parties." This led to after trouble and much ill feeling. The passage referred to in the treaty is about seven miles wide, between the archipelago and Vancouver Island. The archipelago is made up of half a dozen principal islands, and many smaller ones. The largest island, San Juan, contained about 50,000 acres, and the Hudson Bay Company, knowing something of its value, had taken possession, and proposed to hold it. The legislature of Oregon, however, included it in Island County by an act of 1852, which passed to the Territory of Washington in 1853 by the division of Oregon. In 1854 the Collector of Customs for the Puget Sound came in conflict with the Hudson Bay authorities and a lively row was raised. The Hudson Bay Company raised the English flag and the collector as promptly landed and raised the Stars and Stripes. There was a constant contention between the United States and State authorities, and the Hudson Bay people, in which the latter were worsted, until in 1856-7, after much correspondence, both governments appointed a commission to settle the difficulty. Then followed years of discussion which grew from time to time warlike, but there was no settlement of the points in dispute. In December, 1860, the British Government tired of the contest, proposed arbitration by one of the European powers and named either the Swiss Republic, Denmark or Belgium. Then followed the war of the Rebellion and America had no time to reach the case until 1868-9, when the whole matter was referred to two commissioners from each government and the boundary to be determined by the President of the General Council of the Swiss Republic. This proposition was defeated and afterward in 1871 the whole matter was left to the decision of the Emperor of Germany. He made the award to the United States on all points of dispute in October, 1872, and thus ended the long contest over the boundary line between the two countries, after more than half a century's bickering. CHAPTER II. ENGLISH AND AMERICAN OPINION OF THE VALUE OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY--THE NEGLECT OF AMERICAN STATESMEN. The history briefly recited in the previous chapter, fully reveals the status of the United States as to ownership of Oregon. Prior to the date to which our story more specifically relates, the United States had gone on perfecting her titles by the various means already described. For the Nation's interest, it was a great good fortune at this early period that a broad-minded, far-seeing man like Thomas Jefferson was President. It was his wisdom and discretion and statesmanship that enabled the country to overcome all difficulties and to make the Louisiana purchase. Looking deeper into the years of the future than his contemporaries, he organized the expedition of Lewis and Clarke and surveyed the Columbia River from its source to its mouth. It was regarded by many at the time as a needless and unjustifiable expense; and their report did not create a ripple of applause, and it was an even nine years after the completion of the expedition, and after the death of one of the explorers, before the report was printed and given to the public. But no reader of history will fail to see how important the expedition was as a link in our chain of evidence. The great misfortune of that time was, that there were not more Jeffersons. True, it did not people Oregon, nor was it followed by any legislation protecting any interest the United States held in the great territory. There were Congressmen and Senators, who, from time to time, made efforts to second the work of Jefferson. Floyd, of Virginia, as early as 1820, made an eloquent plea for the occupation of the territory and a formal recognition of our rights as rulers. In 1824 a bill passed the lower house of Congress embodying the idea of Floyd stated four years previously, but upon reaching the Senate it fell on dull ears. When the question was before the Senate in 1828, renewing the treaty of 1818 with England, Floyd again attempted to have a bill passed to give land to actual settlers who would emigrate to Oregon, and as usual, failed. In February, 1838, Senator Linn, of Missouri, always the friend of Oregon, introduced a bill with the main features of the House bill which passed that body in 1824, but again failed in the Senate. The Government, however, was moved to send a special commissioner to Oregon to discover its real conditions and report. But nothing practical resulted. It is not a pleasant thing to turn the pages of history made by American statesmen during the first third of the century, and even nearly to the end of its first half. There is a lack of wisdom and foresight and broad-mindedness, which shatters our ideals of the mental grandeur of the builders of the Republic. Diplomatically they had laid strong claim to the now known grand country beyond "the Stony Mountains." They had never lost an opportunity by treaty to hold their interests; and yet from year to year and from decade to decade, they had seen a foreign power, led by a great corporation, ruling all the territory with a mailed hand. While they made but feeble protest in the way we have mentioned, they did even worse, they turned their shafts of oratory and wit and denunciation loose against the country itself and all its interests. [Illustration: MAP SHOWING OREGON IN 1842, WHITMAN'S RIDE, THE RETURN TRIP TO OREGON, THE SPANISH POSSESSIONS AND THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE.] Turn for a brief review of the political record of that period. Among the ablest men of that day was Senator Benton. He, in his speech of 1825, said, that "The ridge of the Rocky Mountains may be named as a convenient, natural and everlasting boundary. Along this ridge the western limits of the Republic should be drawn, and the statue of the fabled God Terminus should be erected on its highest peak, never to be thrown down." In quoting Senator Benton of 1825, it is always but fair to say he had long before the day of Whitman's arrival in Washington greatly modified his views. But Senators equally intelligent and influential--such as Winthrop, of Massachusetts, as late as 1844, quoted this sentence from Benton and commended its wisdom and statesmanship. It was in this discussion and while the treaty adopted in 1846 was being considered, that General Jackson is on record as saying, that, "Our safety lay in a compact government." One of the remarkable speeches in the discussion of the Ashburton-Webster Treaty was that made by Senator McDuffie. Nothing could better show the educating power of the Hudson Bay Company in the United States, and the ignorance of our statesmen, as to extent and value of the territory. McDuffie said: "What is the character of this country?" (referring to Oregon). "As I understand it there are seven hundred miles this side of the Rocky Mountains that are uninhabitable; where rain never falls; mountains wholly impassable, except through gaps and depressions, to be reached only by going hundreds of miles out of the direct course. Well, now, what are you going to do in such a case? How are you going to apply steam? Have you made an estimate of the cost of a railroad to the mouth of the Columbia? Why the wealth of the Indies would be insufficient. Of what use would it be for agricultural purposes? I would not, for that purpose, give a pinch of snuff for the whole territory. I wish the Rocky Mountains were an impassable barrier. If there was an embankment of even five feet to be removed I would not consent to expend five dollars to remove it and enable our population to go there. I thank God for his mercy in placing the Rocky Mountains there." Will the reader please take notice that the speech was delivered on the 25th day of January, 1843, just about the time that Whitman, in the ever-memorable ride, was floundering through the snow drifts of the Wasatch and Uintah Mountains, deserted by his guide and surrounded by discouragements that would have appalled any man not inspired by heroic purpose. It was at this same session of 1843, prior to the visit of Whitman, that Linn, of Missouri, had offered a bill which made specific legal provisions for Oregon, and he succeeded in passing the bill, which went to the House and as usual was defeated. The prevailing idea was that which was expressed by General Jackson to President Monroe, and before referred to, in which Jackson says, "It should be our policy to concentrate our population and confine our frontier to proper limits until our country, in those limits, is filled with a dense population. It is the denseness of our population that gives strength and security to our frontier." That "interminable desert," those "arid plains," those "impassable mountains," and "the impossibility of a wagon road from the United States," were the burdens of many speeches from the statesmen of that time. And then they emphasized the whole with the clincher that, after overcoming these terrible obstacles that intervened, we reached a land that was "worthless," not even worth a "pinch of snuff." Senator Dayton, of New Jersey, in 1844, in the discussion of the Oregon boundary question, said: "With the exception of land along the Willamette and strips along other water courses, the whole country is as irreclaimable and barren a waste as the Desert of Sahara. Nor is this the worst; the climate is so unfriendly to human life that the native population has dwindled away under the ravages of malaria." The National Intelligencer, about the same date, republished from the Louisville Journal and sanctioned the sentiments, as follows: "Of all the countries upon the face of the earth Oregon is one of the least favored by heaven. It is the mere riddlings of creation. It is almost as barren as Sahara and quite as unhealthy as the Campagna of Italy. Russia has her Siberia and England has her Botany Bay and if the United States should ever need a country to which to banish her rogues and scoundrels, the utility of such a region as Oregon would be demonstrated. Until then, we are perfectly willing to leave this magnificent country to the Indians, trappers and buffalo hunters that roam over its sand banks." In furtherance of the Jackson sentiment of "a dense population," Senator Dayton said: "I have no faith in the unlimited extensions of this government. We have already conflicting interests, more than enough, and God forbid that the time should ever come when a state on the shores of the Pacific, with its interests and tendencies of trade all looking toward Asiatic nations of the east, shall add its jarring claims to our already distracted and over-burdened confederacy. We are nearer to the remote nations of Europe than to Oregon." The Hudson Bay Company had done its educating work well. If they had graduated American statesmen in a full course of Hudson Bay training and argument and literature, they could not have made them more efficient. Our statesmen did not doubt that the honest title of the property was vested in the United States; for they had gone on from time to time perfecting this title; yet they had no idea of its value and seemed to hold it only for diplomatic purposes or for prospective barter. The United States had no contestant for the property except England, but in 1818 she was not ready to make any assertion of her rights. In 1828 she still postponed making any demand and renewed the treaty, well knowing that the little island many thousands of miles across the Atlantic, was the supreme ruler of all the vast territory. Again, when the Ashburton Treaty was at issue, and the question of boundary which had been for forty-eight years a bone of contention, the government again ignored Oregon, and was satisfied with settling the boundaries between a few farms up in Maine. But it requires no argument in view of this long continued series of acts, to reach the conclusion that American interests in Oregon were endangered most of all from the apathy and ignorance of our own statesmen. That loyal old pioneer, Rev. Jason Lee, the chief of the Methodist Mission in Oregon, visited Washington in 1838 and presented the conditions of the country and its dangers forcibly. With funds contributed by generous friends he succeeded in taking back with him quite a delegation of actual settlers for Oregon. But neither Congress nor the people were aroused. For all practical purposes Oregon was treated as a "foreign land." There was not even a show of a protectorate over the few American immigrants who had gathered there. The "American Board," which sent missionaries only to foreign lands, had charge of the mission fields, and carefully secured passports for their missionaries before starting them upon their long journey. The Rev. Myron Eells in his interesting volume entitled "Father Eells," gives a copy of the passport issued to his father. It records-- "The Rev. Cushing Eells, Missionary and Teacher of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to the tribes west of the Rocky Mountains, having signified to this department his desire to pass through the Indian Country to the Columbia River, and requested the permission required by law to enable him so to do, such permission is hereby granted; and he is commended to the friendly attention of civil and military agents and officers and of citizens, if at any time it shall be necessary to his protection. Given under my hand and the seal of the War Department this 27th day of February, 1838. "J. R. POINSETT, "Secretary of War." It is a truth so plain as to need no argument, that during all these earlier years the whole effort of the fur traders had been to deceive all nationalities as to the value of the Northwestern country. In their selfishness they had deceived England as well as America. Their idea and hope was to keep out emigration. But England had been better informed than the United States, for the reason that all the commerce was with England, and English capitalists who had large interests in the Hudson Bay Company, very naturally were better informed, but even they were not anxious for English colonization and an interference with their bonanza. They controlled the English press, and so late as 1840 we read in the "British and Foreign Review," that "upon the whole, therefore, the Oregon country holds out no great promise as an agricultural field." The London Examiner in 1843 wonders that "Ignorant Americans" were "disposed to quarrel over a country, the whole in dispute not being worth to either party twenty thousand pounds." The Edinburgh Review, generally fair, said: "Only a very small portion of the land is capable of cultivation. It is a case in which the American people have been misled as to climate and soil. In a few years all that gives life to the country, both the hunter and his prey will be extinct, and their places will be supplied by a thin white and half-breed population scattered along the fertile valleys supported by pastures instead of the chase, and gradually degenerating into barbarism, far more offensive than backwoodsmen." Our English friends, it may be observed, had long had a poor opinion of "backwoodsmen." The Edinburgh Review, in 1843, says: "However the political question between England and the United States as to their claim on Oregon shall be determined, Oregon will never be colonized overland from the United States. The world must assume a new phase before the American wagons make a plain road to the Columbia River." In this educating work of the English press, we can easily understand how public opinion was molded, and how our statesmen were misinformed and misdirected. It was, no doubt, largely due to the shrewd work of the great monopoly in Oregon backed up by the English Government. Its first object was to keep it unsettled as long as possible, for on that depended the millions for the Hudson Bay Company's treasury, but beyond that, the government plainly depended upon the powerful organization to hold all the land as a British possession. In the war of 1812, one of the first moves was to dispatch a fleet to the Columbia, with orders, as the record shows, "to take and destroy everything American on the northwest coast." The prosperous people of Oregon, Washington and Idaho are in a position now to enjoy such prophetic fulminations, but they can easily see the dangers that were escaped. It was a double danger, danger from abroad and at home, and of the latter most of all. The Nation had been deceived. It must be undeceived. The outlook was not hopeful. The year 1843 had been ushered in. The long-looked-for and talked-of treaty had been signed, and Oregon again ignored. There was scarcely a shadow cast of coming events to give hope to the friends of far-away Oregon. Suppose some watchman from the dome of the Capitol casting his eyes westward in 1843, could have seen that little caravan winding through valleys and over the hills and hurrying eastward, but who would dream that its leader was "a man of destiny," bearing messages to a nation soon to be aroused? Of how little or how much importance was this messenger or his message, turn to "The Ride to Save Oregon" and judge. But certain it is, a great change, bordering on revolution, was portending. CHAPTER III. THE ROMANCE OF THE OREGON MISSION. These pages are mainly designed to show in brief the historical and political environments of Oregon in pioneer days, and the patriotic services rendered the nation by Dr. Marcus Whitman. But to attempt to picture this life and omit the missionary, would be like reciting the play of Hamlet and omitting Hamlet. The mission work to the Oregon Indians began in a romance and ended in a great tragedy. The city of St. Louis in that day was so near the border of civilization that it was accustomed to see much of the rugged and wild life of the plains; yet in 1832 the people beheld even to them the odd sight of four Flathead Indians in Indian dress and equipment parading their principal streets. General Clarke, who commanded the military post of that city, was promptly notified and took the strangers in charge. He had been an Indian commissioner for many years in the far West, knew the tribe well and could easily communicate with them. With it all he was a good friend to the Indians and at once made arrangements at the fort to make them comfortable. They informed him that they were all chiefs of the tribe and had spent the entire Summer and Fall upon their long journey. Their wearied manner and wasted appearance told the fact impressively, even had the general not known the locality where they belonged. For a while they were reticent regarding their mission, as is usual with Indians; but in due time their story was fully revealed. They had heard of "The White Man's Book of Life," and had come "to hunt for it" and "to ask for teachers to be sent" to their tribe. To Gen. Clarke this was a novel proposition to come in that way from wild Indians. Gen. Clarke was a devoted Catholic and treated his guests as a humane and hospitable man. After they were rested up he piloted them to every place which he thought would entertain and interest them. Frequent visits were made to Catholic churches, and to theaters and shows of every kind. And so they spent the balance of the Winter. During this time, two of the Indians, from the long journey and possibly from over-eating rich food, to which they were unaccustomed, were taken sick and died, and were given honored burial by the soldiers. When the early Spring sun began to shine, the two remaining Indians commenced their preparations for return home. Gen. Clarke proposed to give them a banquet upon the last evening of their sojourn, and start them upon their way loaded with all the comforts he could give. At this banquet one of the Indians made a speech. It was that speech, brimming over with Indian eloquence, which fired the Christian hearts of the Nation into a new life. The speech was translated into English and thus doubtless loses much of its charm. The chief said: "I come to you over the trail of many moons from the setting sun. You were the friends of my fathers, who have all gone the long way. I came with an eye partly open for my people, who sit in darkness. I go back with both eyes closed. How can I go back blind, to my blind people? I made my way to you with strong arms through many enemies and strange lands that I might carry back much to them. I go back with both arms broken and empty. Two fathers came with us, they were the braves of many winters and wars. We leave them asleep here by your great water and wigwams. They were tired in many moons and their moccasins wore out. "My people sent me to get the "White Man's Book of Heaven." You took me to where you allow your women to dance as we do not ours, and the book was not there. You took me to where they worship the Great Spirit with candles and the book was not there. You showed me images of the good spirits and the pictures of the good land beyond, but the book was not among them to tell us the way. I am going back the long and sad trail to my people in the dark land. You make my feet heavy with gifts and my moccasins will grow old in carrying them, yet the book is not among them. When I tell my poor blind people after one more snow, in the big council, that I did not bring the book, no word will be spoken by our old men or by our young braves. One by one they will rise up and go out in silence. My people will die in darkness, and they will go a long path to other hunting grounds. No white man will go with them, and no White Man's Book to make the way plain. I have no more words." When this speech was translated and sent East it was published in the Christian Advocate in March, 1833, with a ringing editorial from President Fisk of Wilbraham College. "Who will respond to go beyond the Rocky Mountains and carry the Book of Heaven?" It made a profound impression. It was a Macedonian cry of "Come over and help us," not to be resisted. Old men and women who read this call, and attended the meetings at that time, are still living, and can attest to its power. It stirred the church as it has seldom been stirred into activity. This incident of the appearance in St. Louis and demand of the four Flathead Indians has been so fully verified in history as to need no additional proof to silence modern sceptics who have ridiculed it. All the earlier histories such as "Gray's History of Oregon," "Reed's Mission of the Methodist Church," Governor Simpson's narrative, Barrow's "Oregon," Parkman's "Oregon Trail," with the correspondence of the Lees, verified the truth of the occurrence. Bancroft, in his thirty-eight-volume history, in volume 1, page 579, says, "Hearing of the Christians and how heaven favors them, four Flathead Indian chiefs, in 1832, went to St. Louis and asked for teachers," etc. As this latter testimony is from a source which discredited missionary work, as we shall show in another chapter, it is good testimony upon the point. Some modern doubters have also ridiculed the speech reported to have been made by the Indian chief. Those who know Indians best will bear testimony to its genuineness. Almost every tribe of Indians has its orator and story-teller, and some of them as famous in their way as the Beechers and Phillipses and Depews, among the whites, or the Douglasses and Langstons among the negroes. In 1851 the writer of this book was purser upon the steamer Lot Whitcomb, which ran between Milwaukee and Astoria, Oregon. One beautiful morning I wandered a mile or more down the beach and was seated upon the sand, watching the great combers as they rolled in from the Pacific, which, after a storm, is an especially grand sight; when suddenly, as if he had arisen from the ground, an Indian appeared near by and accosted me. He was a fine specimen of a savage, clean and well dressed. He evidently knew who I was and my position on the steamer and had followed me to make his plea. With a toss of his arm and a motion of his body he threw the fold of his blanket across his left shoulder as gracefully as a Roman Senator could have done, and began his speech. "Hy-iu hyas kloshe Boston, Boston hy-iu steamboat hy-iu cuitan. Indian halo steamboat, halo cuitan." It was a rare mixture of English words with the Chinook, which I easily understood. The burthen of his speech was, the greatness and richness and goodness of white men; (they called all white men Boston men); they owned all the steamboats and horses; that the Indians were very poor; that his squaw and pappoose were away up the Willamette river, so far away that his moccasins would be worn out before he could reach their wigwam; that he had no money and wanted to ride. I have heard the great orators of the nation in the pulpit and halls of legislation, but I never listened to a more eloquent plea, or saw gestures more graceful than were those of that wild Wasco Indian, of which I alone was the audience. Another interesting historical scrap of the romantic history of these Flathead chiefs is furnished in the fact that the celebrated Indian artist, George Catlin, was on one of his tours in the West taking sketches in the spring of 1833. Soon after their leaving St. Louis he dropped in with the two Indians on their return journey and traveled with them for some days, taking pictures of both, and they are now numbers 207 and 208 in his great collection. Upon his return east he read the Indian speech, and of the excitement it had caused, and not having been told by the Indians of the cause of their journey, and wishing to be assured that he had accidentally struck a great historic prize in securing the pictures, he sat down and wrote Gen. Clarke at St. Louis, asking him if the speech was true and the story correct. Gen. Clarke promptly replied, "The story is true; that was the only object of their visit." Taken in connection with the after history, no two pictures in any collection have a deeper or grander significance. [Illustration: THE LOT WHITCOMB. The first Steamboat built in Oregon.] We may add here that within a month after leaving St. Louis, one of the Indians was taken sick and died, and but one reached his home in safety. When I reached Oregon in 1850, the first tribe of Indians I visited in their home was the Flatheads. But whether the story is true in all its minutiae or not, it matters but little. It was believed true, and produced grand results. It can hardly be said, from the standpoint of the Christian missionary, that the work in Oregon was a grand success. And yet, never were missionaries more heroic, or that labored in any field with greater fidelity for the true interests of the Indian savages to whom they were sent. They were great, warm-hearted, intelligent, educated, earnest men and women, who endured privation, isolation and discomfort with cheerfulness, that they might teach Christianity and save souls. There was no failure from any incompetency of the teachers, but from complications and surroundings hopelessly beyond their power to change. They brought with them over their long, weary journey the Bible, Christianity and civilization, and the school. They were met at first with a cordial reception by the Indians, but a great corporation, dependent upon the steel trap and continuous savage life, soon showed its hand. It was a foreign un-American opposition. It had met every American company that had attempted to share in the business promoted by savage life, and routed them. The missionaries were wide-awake men and were quick to see the drift of affairs. Dr. Whitman early foresaw what was to happen. He saw the possibilities of the country and that the first battle was between the schoolhouse and civilization, and the tepee and savagery. He resolved to do everything possible for the Indian before it began. In a letter to his father-in-law, dated May 16, 1844, from Waiilatpui, he says: "It does not concern me so much what is to become of any particular set of Indians, as to give them the offer of salvation through the Gospel, and the opportunity of civilization, and then I am content to do good to all men as I have opportunity. I have no doubt our greatest work is to be to aid the white settlement of this country and help to found its religious institutions. Providence has its full share in all those events. Although the Indians have made, and are making rapid advance in religious knowledge and civilization, yet it cannot be hoped that time will be allowed to mature the work of Christianization or civilization before white settlers will demand the soil and the removal both of the Indians and the Missions. "What Americans desire of this kind they always effect, and it is useless to oppose or desire it otherwise. To guide as far as can be done, and direct these tendencies for the best, is evidently the part of wisdom. Indeed, I am fully convinced that when people refuse or neglect to fill the design of Providence, they ought not to complain at the results, and so it is equally useless for Christians to be over-anxious on their account. "The Indians have in no case obeyed the command to multiply and replenish the earth, and they cannot stand in the way of others doing so. A place will be left them to do this as fully as their ability to obey will permit, and the more we do for them the more fully will this be realized. No exclusiveness can be asked for any portion of the human family. The exercise of his rights are all that can be desired. In order for this to be understood to its proper extent, in regard to the Indians, it is necessary that they seek to preserve their rights by peaceable means only. Any violation of this rule will be visited with only evil results to themselves." This letter from Dr. Whitman to his wife's father, dated about seven months after his return from his memorable "Ride to Save Oregon," is for the first time made public in the published transactions of the State Historical Society of Oregon in 1893. It is important from the fact that it gives a complete key to the life and acts of this silent man and his motives for the part he took in the great historic drama, in which the statesmen of the two nations were to be the actors, with millions of people the interested audience. In another place we will show how Whitman has been misrepresented by modern historians, and an attempt made to deprive him of all honor, and call attention to the above record, all the more valuable because never intended for the public eye when written. In the same letter Whitman says, "As I hold the settlement of this country by Americans, rather than by English colonists, most important, I am happy to have been the means of landing so large an immigration on the shores of the Columbia with their wagons, families and stock, all in safety." Such sentiments reveal only the broad-minded, far-seeing Christian man, who, though many thousand miles away from its protecting influence, still loved "The banner of beauty and glory." He had gone to Oregon with only a desire to teach savages Christianity; but saw in the near future the inevitable, and, without lessening his interest in his savage pupils, he entered the broader field. Who can doubt that both were calls from a power higher than man? Or who can point to an instance upon historic pages where the great work assigned was prosecuted with greater fidelity? Having accomplished a feat unparalleled for its heroism and without a break in its grand success, he makes no report of it to any state or national organization, but while he talked freely with his friends of his work it is only now, after he has rested for forty-seven and more years, that this modest letter written to his wife's father at the time, strongly reveals his motives. Having accomplished his great undertaking, he was still the missionary and friend of the Indians, and at once dropped back to his work, and the drudgery of his Indian mission. Again we find him enlarging his field of work, teaching his savage friends, not only Christianity, but how to sow, and plant, and reap, and build houses, and prepare for civilization. He took no part in the new political life which he had made possible. He was a stranger to all things except those which concerned the work he was called to do. In his letter he speaks of earnestly desiring to return East and bring out the second company of immigrants the coming Spring, but the needs of his mission, his wasted fields, and his mill burned during his absence, seemed to demand his presence at home. The world speaks of this event and that, as "It so happened." They will refer to the advent of the Flathead Indians in St. Louis in 1832, as "It so happened." The more thoughtful readers of history find fewer things "accidental." In this great historic romance the Flathead Indians were not an accident. The American Board, the Methodist Board, Dr. Whitman and Jason Lee, and their co-workers, were not accidents. They were all men inspired to a specific work, and having entered upon it, the field widened into dimensions of unforeseen grandeur, whose benefits the Nation has never yet befittingly acknowledged. CHAPTER IV. THE WEDDING JOURNEY ACROSS THE PLAINS. The romance of the Oregon Mission did not end with the call of the Flathead Indians. This was savage romance, that of civilization followed. The Methodists sent the Lees in 1834, and the American Board tried to get the right men for the work to accompany them, but failed. But in 1835 they sent Dr. Marcus Whitman and the Rev. Samuel Parker to Oregon upon a trip of discovery, to find out the real conditions, present and prospective. They got an early start in 1835 and reached Green River, where they met large bodies of Indians and Indian traders, and were made fully acquainted with the situation. The Indians gave large promises, and the field seemed wide and inviting. Upon consultation it was agreed that Dr. Whitman should return to the States and report to the American Board, while Dr. Parker should go on to the Columbia. Two Indian boys from the Pacific Coast, Richard and John, volunteered to return with Dr. Whitman and come back with him the following year. The Doctor and his Indian boys reached his home in Rushville, New York, late on Saturday night in November, and not making known the event to his family, astonished the congregation in his church by walking up the aisle with his Indians, and calling out an audible exclamation from his good old mother, "Well, there is Marcus Whitman." Upon the report of Dr. Whitman the American Board resolved to at once occupy the field. Dr. Whitman had long been engaged to be married to Miss Narcissa Prentice, the daughter of Judge Prentice, of Prattsburg, New York, who was as much of an enthusiast in the Oregon Indian Mission work as the Doctor himself. The American Board thought it unwise to send the young couple alone on so distant a journey, and at once began the search for company. The wedding day, which had been fixed, was postponed, and valuable time was passing, and no suitable parties would volunteer for the work, when its trials and dangers were explained. The Board had received word that the Rev. H. H. Spalding, who had recently married, was then with his wife on his way to the Osage Mission to enter upon a new field of work. It was in January and Whitman took to the road in his sleigh in pursuit of the traveling missionaries. He overtook them near the village of Hudson and hailed them in his cheery way: "Ship ahoy, you are wanted for the Oregon Mission." After a short colloquy they drove on to the hotel of the little village. There the subject was canvassed and none of its dangers hidden. Mr. Spalding promptly made up his mind, and said: "My dear, I do not think it your duty to go, but we will leave it to you after we have prayed." Mrs. Spalding asked to be left alone, and in ten minutes she appeared with a beaming face and said: "I have made up my mind to go." "But your health, my dear?" "I like the command just as it stands," says Mrs. Spalding, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel, with no exceptions for poor health." Others referred to the hardships and dangers and terrors of the journey, but Dr. Spalding says: "They all did not move her an iota." Such was the party for the wedding journey. It did look like a dangerous journey for a woman who had been many months an invalid, but events proved Mrs. Spalding a real heroine, with a courage and pluck scarcely equaled, and under the circumstances never excelled. Having turned her face toward Oregon she never looked back and never was heard to murmur or regret her decision. This difficulty being removed, the day was again set for the marriage of Dr. Whitman and Miss Prentice, which took place in February, 1836. All authorities mark Narcissa Prentice as a woman of great force of character. She was the adored daughter of a refined Christian home and had the love of a wide circle of friends. She was the soprano singer in the choir of the village church of which she and her family were members. In the volume of the magazine of American History for 1884, the editor, the late Miss Martha J. Lamb, says: "The voice of Miss Prentice was of remarkable sweetness. She was a graceful blonde, stately and dignified in her bearing, without a particle of affectation." Says Miss Lamb: "When preparing to leave for Oregon the church held a farewell service and the minister gave out the well-known hymn: 'Yes, my native land I love thee, All thy scenes I love them well; Friends, connection, happy country, Can I bid you all farewell?' "The whole congregation joined heartily in the singing, but before the hymn was half through, one by one they ceased singing and audible sobs were heard in every part of the great audience. The last stanza was sung by the sweet voice of Mrs. Whitman alone, clear, musical and unwavering." One of the pleasant things since it was announced that these sketches would be written, is the number of people, that before were unknown, who have volunteered charming personal sketches of Dr. and Mrs. Whitman. A venerable friend who often, he fears, attended church more for the songs of Miss Prentice than for the sermons, was also at their wedding. The venerable J. S. Seeley, of Aurora, Illinois, writes: "It was just fifty-nine years ago this March since I drove Dr. and Mrs. Whitman from Elmira, N. Y., to Hollidaysburg, Pa., in my sleigh. This place was at the foot of the Allegheny Mountains (east side) on the Pennsylvania canal. The canal boats were built in two sections and were taken over the mountains on a railroad. "They expected to find the canal open on the west side and thus reach the Ohio River on the way to Oregon. I was with them some seven days. Dr. Whitman impressed me as a man of strong sterling character and lots of push, but he was not a great talker. Mrs. Whitman was of medium size and impressed me as a woman of great resolution." A younger sister of the bride, Mrs. H. P. Jackson, of Oberlin, Ohio, writes: "Mrs. Whitman was the mentor of her younger sisters in the home. She joined the church when eleven years old, and from her early years expressed a desire to be a missionary. The wedding occurred in the church at Angelica, N. Y., to which place my father had removed, and the ceremony was performed by the Rev. Everett Hull. I recollect how deeply interested the two Indian boys were in the ceremony, and how their faces brightened when the doctor told them that Mrs. Whitman would go back with them to Oregon. We all had the greatest faith and trust in Dr. Whitman, and in all our letters from our dear sister there was never a word of regret or repining at the life she had chosen." The two Indian boys were placed in school and learned to read and speak English during the Winter. The journey down the Ohio and up the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers was tedious, but uneventful. Those who navigated the Missouri River, fifty years ago, have not forgotten its snags and sand bars, which caused a constant chattering of the bells in the engineer's room from morning until evening, and all through the night, unless the prudent captain tied up to the shore. The man and his "lead line" was constantly on the prow singing out "twelve feet," "quarter past twain," then suddenly "six feet," when the bells would ring out as the boat's nose would bury in the concealed sandbar. But the party safely reached its destination, and was landed with all its effects, wagons, stock and outfit. The company was made up of Dr. and Mrs. Whitman, Rev. Mr. and Mrs. Spalding, H. H. Gray, two teamsters and the two Indian boys. The American Fur Company, which was sending out a convoy to their port in Oregon, had promised to start from Council Bluffs upon a given date, and make them welcome members of the company. It was a large company made up of two hundred men and six hundred animals. On the journey in from Oregon, in 1835, cholera had attacked the company, and Dr. Whitman had rendered such faithful and efficient service that they felt under obligations to him. But they had heard there were to be women along and the old mountaineers did not want to be bothered with women upon such a journey, and they moved out promptly without waiting for the doctor's party, which had been delayed. When Dr. Whitman reached Council Bluffs and found them gone, he was greatly disturbed. There was nothing to do but make forced marches and catch the train before it reached the more dangerous Indian country. Dr. Spalding would have liked to have found it an excuse to return home, but Mrs. Spalding remarked: "I have started to the Rocky Mountains and I expect to go there." Spalding in a dressing gown in his study, or in a city pulpit, would have been in his element, but he was not especially marked for an Indian missionary. Early in the campaign a Missouri cow kicked him off the ferryboat into the river. The ague racked every bone in his body, and a Kansas tornado at one time lifted both his tent and his blanket and left him helpless. He seemed to catch every disaster that came along. A man may have excellent points in his make-up, as Dr. Spalding had, and yet not be a good pioneer. He and his noble wife made a grand success, however, when they got into the field of work. It was Mrs. Spalding who first translated Bible truths and Christian songs into the Indian dialect. It seemed a discouraging start for the little company when compelled to pull out upon the boundless plains alone. But led by Whitman, they persevered and caught the convoy late in May. The doctor's boys now proved of good service. They were patient and untiring and at home on the trail. They took charge of all the loose stock. The cows they were taking along would be of great value upon reaching their destination, and they proved to be of value along the journey as well, as milk suppliers for the little party. The first part of the journey Mrs. Whitman rode mainly in the wagon with Mrs. Spalding, who was not strong enough for horseback riding. But soon she took to her pony and liked it so much better, that she rode nearly all the way on horseback. They were soon initiated into the trials and dangers of the journey. On May 9th Mrs. Whitman writes in her diary: "We had great difficulty to-day. Husband became so completely exhausted with swimming the river, that it was with difficulty he made the shore the last time. We had but one canoe, made of skins, and that was partly eaten by the dogs the night before." She speaks of "meeting large bodies of Pawnee Indians," and says: "They seemed very much surprised and pleased to see white women. They were noble looking Indians. "We attempted, by a hard march, to reach Loup Fork. The wagons got there at eleven at night, but husband and I rode with the Indian boys until nine o'clock, when Richard proposed that we go on and they would stay with the loose cattle upon the prairie, and drive them in early in the morning. We did not like to leave them and concluded to stay. Husband had a cup tied to his saddle, and in this he milked what we wanted to drink; this was our supper. Our saddle-blankets with our rubber-cloaks were our beds. Having offered thanksgiving for the blessings of the day, and seeking protection for the night, we committed ourselves to rest. We awoke refreshed and rode into camp before breakfast." Here they caught up with the Fur Company caravan, after nearly a month's traveling. These brave women, with their kindness and tact, soon won the good-will and friendship of the old plainsmen, and every vestige of opposition to having women in the train disappeared and every possible civility and courtesy was extended to them. One far-seeing old American trader, who had felt the iron heel of the English Company beyond the Stony Mountains, pointing to the little missionary band, prophetically remarked: "There is something that the Honorable Hudson Bay Company cannot drive out of Oregon." In her diary of the journey, Mrs. Whitman never expresses a fear, and yet remembering my own sensations upon the same journey, I can scarcely conceive that two delicately nurtured women would not be subjected to great anxieties. The Platte River, in that day, was but little understood and looked much worse than it really was. Where forded it was a mile wide, and not often more than breast deep to the horses. Two men, on the best horses, rode fifty yards in advance of the wagons, zig-zagging up and down, while the head-driver kept an eye open for the shallowest water and kept upon the bar. In doing this a train would sometimes have to travel nearly twice the distance of the width of the river to get across. The bed of the river is made of shifting sand, and a team is not allowed to stop for a moment, or it will steadily settle down and go out of sight. [Illustration: DR. MARCUS WHITMAN. At the time of his marriage.] A balky team or a break in the harness requires prompt relief or all will be lost. But after all the Platte River is remembered by all old plainsmen with a blessing. For three hundred miles it administered to the comfort of the pioneers. It is even doubtful whether they could have gone the journey had it not been for the Platte, as it rolls its sands down into the Missouri. The water is turbid with sand at all times, as the winds in their wide sweep across sandy plains perpetually add to its supply. But the water when dipped up over night and the sand allowed to settle, is clear and pure and refreshing. The pioneers, however, took the Platte water as it ran, often remarking: "In this country a fellow needs sand and the Platte was built to furnish it." In June Mrs. Whitman writes: "We are now in the buffalo country and my husband and I relish it; he has a different way of cooking every part of the animal." Mrs. Whitman makes the following entry in her diary, for the benefit of her young sisters: "Now, H. and E., you must not think it very hard to have to get up so early after sleeping on the soft ground, when you find it hard work to open your eyes at seven o'clock. Just think of me every morning. At the word 'Arise!' we all spring. While the horses are feeding we get breakfast in a hurry and eat it. By that time the words 'Catch up, catch up,' ring throughout the camp for moving. We are ready to start usually at six, travel until eleven, encamp, rest and feed, and start again at two and travel till six and if we come to a good tavern, camp for the night." A certain number of men were set apart for hunters each day and they were expected to bring in four mule loads of meat to supply the daily demands. While in the buffalo country this was an easy task; when it came to deer, antelope and birds, it was much more difficult work. The antelope is a great delicacy, but he is the fleetest footed runner upon the plains and has to be captured, generally, by strategy. He has an inordinate curiosity. The hunter lies down and waves a red handkerchief on the end of his ramrod and the whole herd seems to have the greatest desire to know what it is. They gallop around, trot high and snort and keep coming nearer, until within gun shot they pay dearly for their curiosity. To avoid danger and failure of meat supplies before leaving the buffalo country, the company stopped and laid in a good supply of jerked buffalo meat. It was well they did, for it was about all they had for a long distance. As Mrs. Whitman says in her diary: "Dried buffalo meat and tea for breakfast, and tea and dried buffalo meat for supper," but jokingly adds: "The doctor gives it variety by cooking every part of the animal in a different way." But after all it was a novel menu for a bridal trip. By a strange miscalculation they ran out of flour before the journey was half ended. But, says Mrs. Whitman, "My health continues good, but sister Spalding has been made sick by the diet." On July 22d, she writes: "Had a tedious ride until four p. m. I thought of my mother's bread as a child would, but did not find it. I should relish it extremely well. But we feel that the good Father has blessed us beyond our most sanguine expectations. It is good to feel that He is all I want and if I had ten thousand lives I would give them all to Him." The road discovered by the pioneers through the South Pass seems to have been made by nature on purpose to unite the Pacific with the Atlantic slope by an easy wagon road. The Wind River and Rocky Mountains appear to have run out of material, or spread out to make it an easy climb. So gentle is the ascent the bulk of the way that the traveler is scarcely aware of the fact that he is climbing the great "Stony Mountains." Fremont discovered the pass in 1842 and went through it again in 1843, and Stanbury in 1849, but it is well to remember that upon this notable bridal tour, these Christian ladies passed over the same route six years before "The Pathfinder," or the engineer corps of the United States, ever saw it. It is always an object of interest to know when the top has been reached and to see the famous spring from which the water divides and runs both ways. Our missionary band, accustomed to have regular worship on the plains, when they reached the dividing of the waters held an especially interesting service. The Rev. Dr. Jonathan Edwards graphically describes it. He says: "There is a scene connected with their journey which demands extraordinary attention in view of its great significance. It is one that arouses all that is good within us, and has been pronounced as hardly paralleled in American records for historic grandeur and far-reaching consequence. It is sublimely beautiful and inspiring in its effects, and would baffle the genius of a true poet to describe it with adequate fitness. They were yet high on the Rocky Mountains, with the great expanse of the Pacific slope opening before them like a magnificent panorama. Their hearts were profoundly moved as they witnessed the landscape unfolding its delightful scenes, and as they viewed the vast empire given them to win for King Emanuel. "There we find the little group of five missionaries, and the two Nez Perces boys that Whitman took with him to New York selecting a spot where the bunch grass grows high and thick. Their hearts go out to God in joyful adoration for His protecting care over them thus far, especially so, because they felt the greatest difficulties had been overcome and they now entered the country for the people of which they had devoted their lives. The sky is bright above them, the sun shines serenely and the atmosphere is light and invigorating. The sun continues his course and illuminates the western horizon like a flame of fire, as if striving to give them a temporary glimpse of the vast domain between them and the Pacific Ocean. They spread their blankets carefully on the grass, and lifted the American flag to wave gracefully in the breeze, and with the Bible in the center, they knelt, and with prayer and praise on their lips, they take possession of the western side of the American continent in His name who proclaimed "Peace on earth and good will toward men." How strongly it evidences their faith in their mission and the conquering power of the King of Peace. What a soul-inspiring scene." Continuing her diary, Mrs. Whitman says: "I have been in a peaceful state of mind all day." July 25th she writes: "The ride has been very mountainous, paths only winding along the sides of steep mountains, in many places so narrow that the animal would scarcely find room to place his foot." It is upon this date that she again mourns over the doctor's persistence in hauling along his historic wagon. Even the good wife in full sympathy with her husband failed to see it as he did; it was the pioneer chariot, loaded with a richness that no wagon before or since contained. On July 25th: "Husband has had a tedious time with the wagon to-day. It got stuck in the creek, and on the mountain side, so steep that the horses could scarcely climb, it was upset twice. It was a wonder that it was not turning somersaults continually. It is not grateful to my feelings to see him wearing himself out with excessive fatigue. All the most difficult portions of the way he has walked, in a laborious attempt to take the wagon." Those who have gone over the same road and remember the hard pulls at the end of long ropes, where there was plenty of help, will wonder most that he succeeded. The company arrived at Fort Hall on August 1st. Here they succeeded in buying a little rice, which was regarded a valuable addition to their slender stock of eatables. They had gone beyond the buffalo range and had to live upon the dried meat, venison and wild ducks or fish, all of which were scarce and in limited supply. Speaking of crossing Snake River Mrs. Whitman says: "We put the packs on the tallest horses, the highest being selected for Mrs. Spalding and myself. "The river where we crossed is divided into three branches, by islands. The last branch is half a mile wide and so deep as to come up to the horses' sides, and a very strong current. The wagon turned upside down in the current, and the mules were entangled in the harness. I once thought of the terrors of the rivers, but now I cross the most difficult streams without a fear." Among the novel ferries she speaks of was a dried elk skin with two ropes attached. The party to be ferried lies flat down on the skin and two Indian women swimming, holding the ropes in their mouths, pull it across the stream. One of the notable qualities of Dr. Whitman was his observance of the small things in every-day life. Many a man who reaches after grand results overlooks and neglects the little events. Mrs. Whitman says: "For weeks and weeks our camping places have been upon open plains with not a tree in sight, but even here we find rest and comfort. My husband, the best the world ever produced, is always ready to provide a comfortable shade from the noonday sun when we stop. With one of our saddle-blankets stretched across the sage brush or upheld by sticks, our saddle blankets and fishamores placed on the ground, our resting is delightful." Among the notable events of the journey was when the party reached Green River, the place of annual meeting of the Indians and the traders. It was this place that Dr. Whitman had reached the year previous. The Green is one of the large branches of the Colorado, which heads among the snow banks of Fremont's Peak, a thousand miles away. In its picturesque rugged beauty few sections excel the scenery along the river, and now the whole scene, alive with frontier and savage life, was one to impress itself indelibly upon the memories of our travelers. There were about two hundred traders and two thousand Indians, representatives of tribes located many hundreds of miles distant. The Cayuse and Nez Perces, who expected Dr. Whitman and his delegation, were present to honor the occasion, and meet the boys, John and Richard, who had accompanied the doctor from this place the year before. The Indians expressed great delight over the successful journey; but most of all they were delighted with the noble white squaws who had come over the long trail. They were demonstrative and scoured the mountains for delicacies in game from the woods and brought trout from the river, and seemed constantly to fear that they were neglecting some courtesy expected of them. They finally got up a war tournament, and six hundred armed and mounted Indians, in their war paint, with savage yells bore down toward the tents of the ladies, and it was almost too realistic of savage life to be enjoyed. Here the brides were permitted to rest for ten days, and until their tired animals could recuperate. The scenery along the last three hundred miles was most charming, and almost made the travelers forget the precipitous climbs and the steep descents. The days sped past, and the wagon being left behind to be sent for later on, the wedding party marched more rapidly. They reached Walla Walla River, eight miles from the fort, the last day of August, and on September 1st they made an early start and galloped into the fort. The party was hospitably received. Says Mrs. Whitman: "They were just eating breakfast when we arrived, and soon we were seated at the table and treated to fresh salmon, potatoes, tea, bread and butter. What a variety, thought I. You cannot imagine what an appetite these rides in the mountains give a person." We have preferred to let Mrs. Whitman tell in her own way the story of this memorable wedding journey. The reader will look in vain for any mourning or disquietude. Two noble women started in to be the helpmeets of two good men, and what a grand success they made of it. There is nowhere any spirit of grumbling, but on the contrary, a joyousness and exhilaration. True womanhood of all time is honored in the lives of such women. It was but the coming of the first white women who ever crossed the Rocky Mountains and notable as an heroic wedding journey, but to the world it was not only exalted heroism, but a great historic event, the building of an empire whose wide-reaching good cannot easily be overestimated. It was an event unparalleled in real or romantic literature, and so pure and exalted in its motives, and prosecuted so unostentatiously, as to honor true womanhood for all time to come. CHAPTER V. MISSION LIFE IN WAIILATPUI. Most writers speak of the Mission at Waiilatpui, as "The Presbyterian Mission." While it does not much matter whether it was Presbyterian or Congregational, it is well to have the history correct. The two great churches at that time were united in their foreign missionary work, and their missionaries were taken from both denominations. A year or more ago I asked the late Professor Marcus Whitman Montgomery, of the Chicago Theological Seminary (a namesake of Dr. Whitman), to go over Dr. Whitman's church record while in Boston. He sends me the following, which may be regarded as authentic: Ravenswood, Chicago, Jan. 5, 1894. Dr. O. W. Nixon: Dear Sir--The record of Dr. Whitman's church membership is as follows: Converted during a revival in the Congregational Church at Plainfield, Mass., in 1819, Rev. Moses Hallock, pastor. His first joining of a church was at Rushville, Yates County, N. Y., where he joined the Congregational Church in 1824, Rev. David Page, pastor. He was a member of this church for nine years, then he removed to Wheeler Center, Steuben County, N. Y. There being no Congregational Church there he joined the Presbyterian Church of Wheeler Center, Rev. James T. Hotchkiss, pastor. He was a member of this Presbyterian Church for three years, then he went to the Pacific Coast. This mission church was Presbyterian in name and Congregational in practice, while Whitman and the other missionaries were supported by the American Board. The American Board was always Congregational, but, at that time, the Presbyterians were co-operating with the American Board. These are the bottom facts as I have every reason to believe. Very truly yours, MARCUS WHITMAN MONTGOMERY. The Rev. H. H. Spalding was a Presbyterian, and the Mission Church was Presbyterian in name, but was Congregational in practice, and had a confession of faith and covenant of its own. While the record shows Whitman to have been a Congregationalist, it also shows that he united with the Presbyterian Church when he settled at Wheeler Center, N. Y., where there was no Congregational Church. But the fact remains that his memory and the acts of his grand life are amply sufficient to interest both these great denominations. Mrs. Whitman joined the Presbyterian Church when a young girl of eleven. Dr. Whitman was born at Rushville, N. Y., September 4, 1802, and was thirty-three years old when he entered upon his work in Oregon. When first converted he resolved to study for the ministry, but a chain of circumstances changed his plans and he studied medicine. The early hardships and privations educated him into an admirable fitness for the chosen work of his life. Picture that little missionary band as they stood together at Fort Walla Walla in September, 1836, and consulted about the great problems to solve. It was all new. There were no precedents to guide them. They easily understood that the first thing to do was to consult the ruling powers of Oregon--the Hudson Bay Company officials at Fort Vancouver. This would require another journey of three hundred miles, but as it could be made in boats, and the Indians were capital oarsmen, they resolved to take their wives with them, and thus complete the wedding journey. The gallant Dr. McLoughlin, Chief Factor of the Hudson Bay Company, was a keen judge of human nature, and read men and women as scholars read books, and he was captivated with the open, manly ways of Dr. Whitman and the womanly accomplishments of the fair young wife, who had braved the perils of an overland journey with wholly unselfish purposes. Whitman soon developed to Dr. McLoughlin all his plans and his hopes. Perhaps there was a professional free masonry between the men that brought them closer together, but, by nature, they were both men endowed richly with the best manly characters. Dr. McLoughlin resolved to do the best thing possible for them, while he still protected the interests of his great monopoly. Dr. Whitman's idea, was to build one mission at the Dalles so as to be convenient to shipping; McLoughlin at once saw it would not do. He had already pushed the Methodist Mission far up the Willamette out of the way of the fort and its work, and argued with Whitman that it would be best for him to go to the Walla Walla country, three hundred miles away, and Spalding, one hundred and twenty-five miles farther on. He argued that the river Indians were far less hopeful subjects to deal with, and that the bunch grass Indians, the Cayuse and Nez Perces, had expressed a great anxiety for teachers. This arrangement had been partially agreed to by Mr. Parker the year before. After a full canvass of the entire subject, Dr. McLoughlin promised all the aid in his power to give them a comfortable start. At his earnest petition, Mrs. Whitman and Mrs. Spalding remained at Vancouver while their husbands went back to erect houses that would shelter them from the coming winter. To make Mrs. Whitman feel at ease, and that she was not taxing the generosity of their new friends, Dr. McLoughlin placed his daughter under her instruction, both in her class work and music. Every effort was made to interest and entertain the guests; the afternoons were given to excursions on the water, or on horseback, or in rambles through the great fir forests, still as wild as nature made them. There is a grandeur in the great forest beyond the Stony Mountains unequaled in any portion of the world. In our Northern latitudes the undergrowth is so thick as to make comfortable traveling impossible, but in the fir woods and in the pine and redwood forests of Oregon, there are comparatively few of such obstructions. The great giants ten or twelve feet in diameter, two hundred and seventy feet high, and one hundred feet without a limb, hide the sun, and upon a summer day make jaunts through the forest delightful to a lover of nature. It was a grand rest and a pleasing finale to the hardships of the wedding journey for these heroic women, and Mrs. Whitman, in her diary, never a day neglects to remember her kind benefactors. They rested here for about one and a half months, when Mr. Spalding came after them and reported the houses so far advanced as to give them shelter. We read the following note in Mrs. Whitman's diary, 1836: "December 26th. Where are we now, and who are we, that we should be thus blessed of the Lord? I can scarcely realize that we are thus comfortably fixed and keeping house so soon after our marriage, when considering what was then before us. "We arrived here on the 10th, distance twenty-five miles from Fort Walla Walla. Found a house reared and the lean-to enclosed, a good chimney and fireplace and the floor laid. No windows or doors, except blankets. My heart truly leaped for joy as I lighted from my horse, entered and seated myself before a pleasant fire (for it was now night). It occurred to me that my dear parents had made a similar beginning and perhaps a more difficult one than ours. "We had neither straw, bedstead or table, nor anything to make them of except green cottonwood. All our boards are sawed by hand. Here my husband and his laborers (two Owyhees from Vancouver, and a man who crossed the mountains with us), and Mr. Gray had been encamped in a tent since the 19th of October, toiling excessively hard to accomplish this much for our comfortable residence during the remainder of the winter. "It is, indeed, a lovely situation. We are on a beautiful level peninsula formed by the branches of the Walla Walla River, upon the base of which our house stands, on the southeast corner, near the shore of the main river. To run a fence across to the opposite river on the north from our house--this, with the river, would enclose three hundred acres of good land for cultivation, all directly under the eye. "The rivers are barely skirted with timber. This is all the woodland we can see. Beyond them, as far as the eye can reach, plains and mountains appear. On the east, a few rods from the house, is a range of small hills covered with bunch grass, very excellent food for animals and upon which they subsist during winter, even digging it from under the snow." [Illustration: MISSION STATION AT WAIILATPUI.] This section is now reported as among the most fertile and beautiful places in Washington. Looking away in a southeasterly direction, the scenic beauty is grandly impressive. The Indians named the place Wai-i-lat-pui (the place of rye grass). For twenty miles there is a level reach of fertile soil through which flows like a silver thread the Walla Walla River, while in the distance loom up toward the clouds as a background the picturesque Blue Mountains. The greatest drawback was the long distance to any timber suitable for making boards, and the almost entire lack of helpers. The Cayuse Indians seemed delighted with the prospect of a Mission church and school, but they thought it disgraceful for them to work. The doctor had to go from nine to fifteen miles to get his timber for boards, and then hew or saw them out by hand. It was not, therefore, strange, as Mrs. Whitman writes in her diary, December 26th: "No doors or windows." From the day he entered upon his work, Dr. Whitman was well-nigh an incessant toiler. Every year he built an addition to his house. T. J. Furnham, who wrote a book of "Travels Across the Great Western Prairies and Rocky Mountains," visited the Whitman Mission in September, 1839. He says: "I found 250 acres enclosed and 200 acres under good cultivation. I found forty or fifty Indian children between the ages of seven and eighteen years in school, and Mrs. Whitman an indefatigable instructor. One building was in course of construction and a small grist mill in running order." He says again: "It appeared to me quite remarkable that the doctor could have made so many improvements since the year 1836; but the industry which crowded every hour of the day, his untiring energy of character, and the very efficient aid of his wife in relieving him in a great degree from the labors of the school, enabled him, without funds for such purposes, and without other aid than that of a fellow missionary for short intervals, to fence, plow, build, plant an orchard, and do all the other laborious acts of opening a plantation on the face of that distant wilderness, learn an Indian language, and do the duties, meanwhile, of a physician to the associate stations on the Clearwater and Spokane." People who give their money for missionary work can easily see that in the case in hand they received faithful service. This is no prejudiced report, but facts based upon the knowledge of a stranger, who had no reason to misrepresent or exaggerate. One of the first efforts of Dr. Whitman was to induce his Indians to build permanent homes, to plow, plant and sow. This the Hudson Bay Company had always discouraged. They wanted their savage aids as nomads and hunters, ready to move hundreds and hundreds of miles away in search of furs. They had never been encouraged to raise either grain or fruit, cattle or sheep. Dr. Jonathan Edwards says, in speaking of The Whitman Mission in 1842: "The Indians were cultivating from one-fourth to four acres of land, had seventy head of cattle, and some of them a few sheep." The same author gives a graphic description of the painstaking work of Dr. and Mrs. Whitman, not only in the school room, but in the Indian home, to show them the comforts and benefits of civilization. Every Indian who will plant is furnished the seed. He also describes the orderly Sunday at the Mission. Up to the year 1838 the principal meat used as food by the Mission was horse flesh. The cattle were too few to be sacrificed in that way. In 1837 Mrs. Whitman writes in her diary: "We have had but little venison furnished by the Indians, but to supply our men and visitors we have bought of the Indians and eaten ten wild horses." In 1841 their stock of hogs and cattle had so increased that they were able to make a partial change of diet. Another witness to the value of Dr. Whitman's missionary work is Joseph Drayton, of Commodore Wilkes' exploring expedition of 1841. He says of the Mission: "All the premises looked comfortable, the garden especially fine, vegetables and melons in great variety. The wheat in the fields was seven feet high and nearly ripe, and the corn nine feet in the tassel." He marks the drawbacks of the Mission: "The roving of the Indians, rarely staying at home more than three months at a time." "They are off after buffalo," and "again off after the salmon," and "not more than fifty or sixty remain during the winter." These Cayuse Indians were not a numerous band, but they were born traders, were wealthy, and had a great influence over other tribes. Their wealth consisted mainly in horses; a single Indian Chief owned two thousand head. One of their good qualities Mrs. Whitman speaks of, is, "there are no thieves among them." She has to keep nothing locked out of fear from thieves; but they had one trying habit of which Mrs. Whitman had great trouble to break them--that was, they thought they had a right to go into every room in the house, and seemed to think that something was wrong when deprived of visiting the bedrooms of the family. In June, 1839, a great sorrow came to Dr. and Mrs. Whitman. They had but one child, a little girl of two years and three months old. In their isolated condition one can easily imagine what a large place a bright and attractive child would have in the heart of father and mother in such a home. In the pursuance of his duties the doctor was absent night after night, and some of his more distant patients occupied him frequently many days. It was at such times that Mrs. Whitman found great comfort and happiness in her little daughter. The child had learned the Indian language and spoke it fluently, to the delight of the Indians, and had learned all the songs sung in the Nez Perces dialect, having inherited the musical talent of her mother. It was in September, 1839, that she was accidentally drowned in the Walla Walla River. In her diary Mrs. Whitman writes to her mother: "I cannot describe what our feelings were when night came and our dear child a corpse in the next room. We went to bed, but not to sleep, for sleep had departed from our eyes. The morning came, we arose, but our child slept on. I prepared a shroud for her during the day; we kept her four days; it was a great blessing and comfort to me so long as she looked natural and was so sweet I could caress her. But when her visage began to change I felt it a great privilege that I could put her in so safe a resting place as the grave, to see her no more until the resurrection morning. "Although her grave is in sight every time I step out of the door, my thoughts seldom wander there to find her. I look above with unspeakable delight, and contemplate her as enjoying the full delights of that bright world where her joys are perfect." One seldom reads a more pathetic story than this recorded by Mrs. Whitman, and yet, the almost heartbroken mother in her anguish never murmurs or rebels. On the morning of the day she was drowned, Mrs. Whitman writes, the little daughter was permitted to select a hymn for the family worship. She made a selection of the old-time favorite: "ROCK OF AGES." "While I draw this fleeting breath, When my eyelids close in death; When I rise to worlds unknown, And behold Thee on Thy Throne; Rock of ages cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee." When the Indians came in for the afternoon service Dr. Whitman turned to the same hymn and the baby girl again with her sweet voice joined in the singing. Says Mrs. Whitman: "This was the last we heard her sing. Little did we think that her young life was so fleeting or that those sparkling eyes would so soon be closed in death, and her spirit rise to worlds unknown to behold on His Throne of glory Him who said: 'I will be a God to thee and thy seed after thee.'" They got water for the household use from the running river, and the two little tin cups were found on the edge of the water. An old Indian dived in and soon brought out the body, but life was extinct. The profoundly Christian character of the mother is revealed in every note of the sad event. She writes: "Lord, it is right; it is right. She is not mine, but thine; she was only lent to me to comfort me for a little season, and now, dear Savior, Thou hast the best right to her. Thy will, not mine, be done." Perils and hardships had long been theirs, but this was their great sorrow. But it only seemed to excite them to greater achievements in the work before them. Not a single interest was neglected. The sudden death of "The Little White Cayuse," as the Indians called her, seemed to estrange the Indians from the Mission. They almost worshiped her, and came almost daily to see her and hear her sing the Cayuse songs. The old Chief had many times said: "When I die I give everything I have to the 'Little White Cayuse.'" From this time on the Indians frequently showed a bad spirit. They saw the flocks and herds of the Mission increasing, and the fields of waving grain, and began to grow jealous and make demands that would have overtaxed and caused fear in almost any other man than a Whitman. Both before and after his memorable ride to Washington, his good friend, Dr. McLoughlin, many times begged him to leave the Mission for a while, until the Indians got in a better frame of mind. No man knew the Indians so well as McLoughlin, and he saw the impending danger; but no entreaties moved Whitman. Here was his life work and here he would remain. In these sketches there is no effort to tell the complete Oregon Mission story, but only so much of it as will make clear the heroic and patriotic services of Dr. and Mrs. Whitman. The reader will find a most careful study of the whole broad field of pioneer mission work upon the Pacific Coast in the Rev. Myron Eells' two books, the "History of Indian Missions," and the "Biography of Rev. Cushing Eells." How much or how little the work of the Oregon Missionaries benefited the Indians eternity alone will reveal. They simply obeyed the call "to preach the gospel to every creature." A train of circumstances, a series of evolutions in national history which they neither originated nor could stop, were portending. But that the Missionaries first of all saw the drift of coming events, and wisely guided them to the peace and lasting good of the nation is as plain as any page of written history. With the light of that time, with the terrible massacre at Waiilatpui in sight, it is not strange that good people felt that there had been great sacrifice with small good results. All the years since have been correcting such false estimates. The American Board and the Christian people of the land have made their greatest mistake in not rallying to the defense of their martyr heroes. No "forty thousand dollars" ever spent by that organization before or since has been so prolific in good. The argument to sustain this assertion will be found in other sketches. The United States Government could well afford to give a million dollars every year to the American Board for fifty years to come, and to endow Whitman College magnificently, and then not pay a moiety for the benefit it has received as a nation, and never acknowledged. The best possible answer of the church and of the friends of missions to those who sneeringly ask, What good has resulted to the world for all the millions spent on missions? is to point to that neglected grave at Waiilatpui, and recite the story of heroism and patriotism of Dr. Marcus Whitman. CHAPTER VI. THE RIDE TO SAVE OREGON. The world loves a hero, and the pioneer history of our several States furnishes as interesting characters as are anywhere recorded. In view of the facts and conditions already recited, the old Missionaries were anxious and restless, and yet felt in a measure powerless to avert the danger threatened. They believed fully that under the terms of the treaty of 1818, re-affirmed in 1828, whichever nationality settled and organized the territory, that nation would hold it. This was not directly affirmed in the terms of that treaty, but was so interpreted by the Americans and English in Oregon, and was greatly strengthened by the fact that leading statesmen in Congress had for nearly half a century wholly neglected Oregon, and time and again gone upon record as declaring it worthless and undesirable. In their conferences the Missionaries from time to time had gone over the whole question, and did everything in their power to encourage immigration. Their glowing accounts of the fertility of the soil, the balmy climate, the towering forests, the indications of richness in minerals, had each year induced a limited number of more daring Americans to immigrate. In this work of the Missionaries Jason Lee, the chief of the Methodist Missions, was, up to the date of the incident we are to narrate, the most successful of all. He was a man of great strength of character. Like Whitman, he was also a man of great physical strength, fearless, and, with it all, wise and brainy. No other man among the pioneers, for his untiring energy in courting immigration, can be so nearly classed with Whitman. They were all men, who, though in Oregon to convert Indian savages to Christianity, yet were intensely American. They thought it no abuse of their Christianity to carry the banner of the Cross in one hand and the banner of their country in the other. Missionaries as they were, thousands of miles from home, neglected by the Government, yet the love of country seemed to shine with constantly increasing luster. In addition to the Missionaries, at the time of which we write, there was quite a population of agriculturists and traders in the near vicinity of each mission. These heartily coöperated with the Missionaries and shared their anxieties. In 1840-'41 many of them met and canvassed the subject whether they should make an attempt to organize a government under the Stars and Stripes; but they easily saw that they were outnumbered by the English, who were already organized and were the real autocrats of the country. So the time passed until the fall of 1842, when Elijah White, an Indian agent for the Government in the Northwest, brought a party of Americans, men, women and children, numbering one hundred and twenty, safely through to Waiilatpui. In this company was a more than usually intelligent, well-informed Christian gentleman, destined to fill an important place in our story, General Amos L. Lovejoy. He was thoroughly posted in national affairs, and gave Dr. Whitman his first intimation of the probability that the Ashburton Treaty would likely come to a crisis before Congress adjourned in March, 1843. This related, as it was supposed, to the entire boundary between the United States and the English possessions. The question had been raised in 1794, "Where is 'the angle of Nova Scotia,' and where are the 'highlands between the angle and the northwest head of the Connecticut River?'" Time and again it had been before commissioners, and diplomats had many times grown eloquent in explaining, but heretofore nothing had come of it. Much was made of it, and yet it was only a dispute as to who owned some twelve thousand and twenty acres of land, much of which was of little value. Looking back now one wonders at the shortsightedness of statesmen who quarreled for forty-eight years over this garden patch of rocky land in Maine, when three great states were quietly slipping away with scarcely a protest. But this arrival of recruits, and this knowledge of the political situation revealed by General Lovejoy, at once settled Dr. Whitman upon his line of duty. To Mrs. Whitman he at once explained the situation, and said he felt impelled to go to Washington. She was a missionary's wife, a courageous, true-hearted, patriotic woman, who loved and believed in her husband, and at once consented. Under the rules the local members of the Mission had to be consulted, and runners were at once dispatched to the several stations, and all responded promptly, as the demand was for their immediate presence. There was a second rule governing such cases of leave of absence, and that was the sanction, from headquarters, of the American Board in Boston. But in this emergency Dr. Whitman preferred to take all the responsibility and cut the red tape. Dr. Eells, one of the noblest of the old Missionaries, writes an account of that conference, and it is all the more valuable from the fact that he was opposed to the enterprise. Dr. Eells says: "The purpose of Dr. Whitman was fixed. In his estimation the saving of Oregon to the United Spates was of paramount importance, and he would make the attempt to do so, even if he had to withdraw from the Mission in order to accomplish his purpose. In reply to considerations intended to hold Dr. Whitman to his assigned work, he said: 'I am not expatriated by becoming a missionary.' "The idea of his withdrawal could not be entertained. Therefore, to retain him in the Mission, a vote to approve of his making this perilous endeavor prevailed." In addition to this the Doctor undoubtedly intended to visit the American Board and explain the mission work and its needs, and protest against some of its orders. But in this there was no need of such haste as to cause the mid-winter journey. In this note of Dr. Eells the explanation is doubtless correct. Dr. Spalding says: "Dr. Whitman's last remarks were, as he mounted his horse for the long journey: 'If the Board dismisses me, I will do what I can to save Oregon to the country. My life is of but little worth if I can save this country to the American people.'" They all regarded it a most perilous undertaking. They knew well of the hardships of such a journey in the summer season, when grass could be found to feed the stock, and men live in comfort in the open air. But to all their pleadings and specifications of danger, Dr. Whitman had but one reply, "I must go." As Dr. Eells says:--"They finally all yielded when he said, 'I will go, even if I have to break my connection with the American Board.'" They all loved him, and he was too valuable a man for them to allow that. Besides, they became thoroughly convinced that the man and the missionary had received a call from a higher source than an earthly one, and a missionary board should not stand in the way. It was resolved that he must not be allowed to make such a journey alone. A call was at once made, "Who will volunteer to go with him?" Again the unseen power was experienced when General Lovejoy said: "I will go with Dr. Whitman." The man seems to have been sent for just such a purpose. Aside from the fact that he was tired out with the long five months' ride upon the plains, and had not been fully rested, no better man could have been chosen. He was an educated, Christian gentleman, full of cheerfulness, brave, cautious, and a true friend. [Illustration: MRS. NARCISSA PRENTICE WHITMAN.] Mrs. Whitman, in her diary, dwells upon this with loving thoughtfulness, and her soul breaks forth in thanksgiving to the good Father above, who has sent so good and true a companion for the long and dangerous journey. She refers to it again and again that he will have a friend in his hours of peril and danger, and not have to depend entirely upon the savages for his society. The conference passed a resolution, as stated, giving leave of absence and fixed the time for his starting in "five days" from that day. It was not often they had such an opportunity for letter-carriers, and each began a voluminous correspondence. The Doctor set about his active preparations, arranging his outfit and seeing that everything was in order. The next day he had a call to see a sick man at old Fort Walla Walla, and as he needed many articles for his journey which could be had there, he went with this double purpose. He found at the Fort a score or more of traders, clerks and leading men of the Hudson Bay Company, assembled there. They were nearly all Englishmen, and the discussion soon turned upon the treaty, and the outlook, and as might be inferred, was not cheering to Whitman. But his object was to gain information and not to argue. The dinner was soon announced and the Doctor sat down to a royal banquet with his jovial English friends. For no man was more highly esteemed by all than was Whitman. The chief factor at Vancouver, Dr. McLoughlin, from the very outset of their acquaintance, took a liking to both the Doctor and Mrs. Whitman, and in hundreds of cases showed them marked and fatherly kindness. Mrs. Whitman, in her diary, recently published in the proceedings of the Oregon State Historical Society, mainly in the years 1891 and 1893, often refers to the fatherly kindness of the good old man whose home she shared for weeks and months, and he begged her when first reaching Oregon to stop all winter and wait until her own humble home could be made comfortable. But while the company were enjoying their repast, an express messenger of the company arrived from Fort Colville, three hundred and fifty miles up the Columbia, and electrified his audience by the announcement that a colony of one hundred and forty Englishmen and Canadians were on the road. In such a company it is easy to see such an announcement was exciting news. One young priest threw his cap in the air and shouted, "Hurrah for Oregon--America is too late, we have got the country." Dr. Whitman carefully concealed all his intentions--in fact, this was enjoined upon all the missionary band, as publicity would likely defeat any hope of good results. Those who will take the pains to read Mrs. Whitman's diary will notice how she avoids saying anything to excite comment regarding the purposes of his winter visit to Washington. In her letter to her father and mother she simply says: "I expect my dear husband will be so full of his great work that he will forget to tell you of our life in Oregon. He can explain what it is," etc. It is said "Women cannot keep a secret," but here is an instance of one that did. In his absence she visited Fort Vancouver, Astoria, Oregon City, and other points. She is painstaking in keeping a regular record of every-day events. But the secret of his mission to the States was perfectly safe with the good wife. As soon as the Doctor could with politeness excuse himself, he mounted his pony and galloped away home, pondering the news he had received. By the time he reached Waiilatpui he resolved there must be no tarrying for "five days." On the morning of the third day after the conference the spirit was upon him, and he took such messages as were ready, and on October 3d, 1842, bade a long good-bye to his wife and home, and the two men, their guide, and three pack mules, began that ever memorable journey--escorted for a long distance by many Cayuse braves. Intelligent readers of all classes can easily mark the heroism of such an undertaking under such circumstances, but the old plainsman and the mountaineer who know the terrors of the journey, will point to it as without a parallel in all history. It was surmised by most that it was "A ride down to the valley of the shadow of death." It is comforting and assuring of that power which sustains a believing soul, to turn the pages of the diary of Mrs. Whitman, as day by day she follows the little caravan with thought and prayer, and see with what confidence she expresses the belief that an Almighty Arm is guiding her loved one in safety through all perils. It is easy to surmise the feelings of the Missionary band when they sent in their letters and messages and learned that the Doctor was far on his journey and had not waited the required limit of "five days." The echo of dissatisfaction was heard even for years after, very much to the disturbance of the good wife. And she in her diary expresses profound thankfulness when, years after, the last vestige of criticism ceased and the old cordiality was restored. As for Dr. Whitman, with his whole being impressed with the importance of his work and the need for haste, it is doubtful whether he even remembered the "five days" limit. The great thought with him was, I must reach Washington before Congress adjourns, or all may be lost. The after disclosures convinced the aggrieved Missionaries that Whitman was right, and they deeply regretted some of the sharp criticisms they made and wrote East. With horses fresh, the little company made a rapid ride, reaching Fort Hall in eleven days. The road thus far was plain and familiar to every member of the party. Prior to leaving home there had been rumors that the Blackfoot Indians had suddenly grown hostile, and would make the journey dangerous along the regular line of travel. Upon reaching Fort Hall, Captain Grant, who seems to have been placed at that point solely to discourage and defeat immigration, set about his task in the usual way. Without knowing, he shrewdly suspected that the old Missionary had business of importance on hand which it would be well to thwart. He had before had many a tilt with Whitman and knew something of his determination. It was Grant who had almost compelled every incoming settler to forsake his wagon at Fort Hall, sacrifice his goods, and force women and children to ride on horseback or go on foot the balance of the journey. Six years before he had plead with Whitman to do this, and had failed, and Whitman had thus taken the first wagon into Oregon that ever crossed the Rockies. Now he set about to defeat his journey to the States. He told of the hopelessness of a journey over the Rocky Mountains, with snow already twenty feet deep. He also informed him that from recent advices the Sioux and Pawnee Indians were at war, and it would be almost certain death to the party to undertake to pass through their country. This, all told for a single purpose, was partly true and partly false. The writer, a few years after, when war broke out between the Cheyennes and the Pawnees, passed entirely through the Cheyenne country and was treated with the utmost courtesy and kindness by the Cheyenne braves. But Captain Grant's argument had more effect upon Whitman than upon a former occasion. The Captain even began to hope that he had effectually blocked the way. But he was dealing with a man of great grit, not easily discouraged, and, we may say it reverently, an inspired man. He had started to go to the States and he would continue his journey. Captain Grant was at his wits' end. He had no authority to stop Whitman and his party; he carried with him a permit signed by "Lewis Cass, Secretary of War," commanding all in authority to protect, aid, etc. The American Board was as careful in having all Oregon missionaries armed with such credentials as if sending them to a foreign land, and, in fact, there was no vestige of American government in Oregon in that day. The Hudson Bay Company, wholly English, ruled over everything, whether whites or Indians. Much to Captain Grant's chagrin, Whitman, instead of turning backward, set out southeast to discover a new route to the States. He knew in a general way the lay of the mountain ranges, but he had never heard that a white man's foot had passed that way. First east and south from Fort Hall, in the direction of the now present site of Salt Lake City, from thence to Fort Uintah and Fort Uncompahgra, then to Taos, Santa Fe, to Bent's Fort, and St. Louis. This course led them over some very rough mountainous country. In his diary Gen. Lovejoy says: "From Fort Hall to Fort Uintah we met with terribly severe weather. The deep snow caused us to lose much time. Here we took a new guide to Fort Uncompahgra on Grand River in Spanish country, which we safely reached and employed a new guide there. Passing over a high mountain on our way to Taos we encountered a terrible snow storm, which compelled us to seek shelter in a dark defile, and although we made several attempts to press on, we were detained some ten days. When we got upon the mountain again we met with another violent snow storm, which almost blinded man and beast. The pelting snow and cold made the dumb brutes well-nigh unmanageable." Finally the guide stopped and acknowledged he was lost and would go no farther, and they resolved to return to their camp in the sheltered ravine. But the drifting snow had obliterated every sign of the path by which they had come, and the guide acknowledged that he could not direct the way. In this dire dilemma, says Gen. Lovejoy, "Dr. Whitman dismounted and upon his knees in the snow commended himself, his distant wife, his missionary companions and work, and his Oregon, to the Infinite One for guidance and protection. "The lead mule left to himself by the guide, turning his long ears this way and that, finally started plunging through the snow drifts, his Mexican guide and all the party following instead of guiding, the old guide remarking: 'This mule will find the camp if he can live long enough to reach it.' And he did." As woodsmen well know this knowledge of directions in dumb brutes is far superior often to the wisest judgment of men. The writer well remembers a terrible experience when lost in the great forests of Arkansas, covered with the back water from the Mississippi River, which was rapidly rising. Two of us rode for hours. The water would grow deeper in one direction; we would try another and find it no better; we were hopelessly lost. My companion was an experienced woodsman and claimed that he was going in the right direction, so I followed until in despair I called to him, and showed him the high water mark upon the trees ten feet above our heads as we sat upon our horses. I remarked: "I have followed you; now you follow me. I am going to let my old horse find the way out." I gave him the rein; he seemed to understand it. He raised his head, took an observation, turned at right angles from the way we had insisted was our course, wound around logs and past marshes, and in two hours brought us safely to camp. This incident of Dr. Whitman's mule, as well as all such, educates one in kindness to all dumb animal life. Reaching camp the guide at once announced that, "I will go no farther; the way is impossible." "This," says Gen. Lovejoy, "was a terrible blow to Dr. Whitman. He had already lost more than ten days of valuable time." But it would be impossible to move without a guide. Whitman was a man who knew no such word as fail. His order was: "I must go on." There was but one thing to do. He said to Gen. Lovejoy: "You stay in camp and recuperate and feed the stock, and I will return with the guide to Fort Uncompahgra, and get a new man." And so Lovejoy began "recuperation," and recuperated his dumb animals by collecting the brush and inner bark of the willows upon which they fed. It is astonishing how a mule or horse on the plains can find food enough to live on, under such conditions. The writer had a pet mule in one of his journeys over the great plains, which he would tie to a sage bush near the tent when not a vestige of grass was anywhere in sight, and yet waking up in the night at any hour I would hear Ben pawing and chewing. He would paw up the tender roots of the sage and in the morning look as plump and full as if he had feasted on good No. 2 corn. "The doctor," says Lovejoy, "was gone just one week, when he again reached our camp in the ravine with a new guide." The storm abated and they passed over the mountain and made good progress toward Taos. Their most severe experience was on reaching Grand River. People who know, mark this as one of the most dangerous and treacherous rivers in the West. Its rapid, deep, cold current, even in the Summer, is very much dreaded. Hundreds of people have lost their lives in it. Where they struck the Grand it was about six hundred feet wide. Two hundred feet upon each shore was solid ice, while a rushing torrent two hundred feet wide was between. The guide studied it, and said: "It is too dangerous to attempt to cross." "We must cross, and at once," said Whitman. He got down from his horse, cut a willow pole eight feet long, put it upon his shoulder, and after remounting, said: "Now you shove me off." Lovejoy and the guide did as ordered, and the General says: "Both horse and rider temporarily went out of sight, but soon appeared, swimming. The horse struck the rocky bottom and waded toward the shore where the doctor, dismounting, broke the ice with his pole and helped his horse out. Wood was plentiful and he soon had a roaring fire. As readers well know, in a wild country where the lead animal has gone ahead, the rest are eager to follow, regardless of danger, and the General and his guide, after breaking the ice, had no difficulty in persuading their horses and pack-mules to make the plunge into the icy flood. They all landed in safety and spent the day in thoroughly drying out. "Is the route passable?" asked Napoleon of his engineer. "Barely possible, sire," replied the engineer. "Then let the column move at once," said the Great Commander. The reader, in the incident of the Grand and on the mountains, sees the same hero who refused to believe the "impossible" of Captain Grant, at Fort Hall, and took that "historic wagon" to Oregon. It looked like a small event to take a wagon to Oregon, shattered and battered by the rocks and besetments of the long three thousand mile journey. The good wife many times mourned that the doctor should "Wear himself out in getting that wagon through." "Yesterday," she says, "it was overset in the river and he was wet from head to foot getting it out; to-day it was upset on the mountain side, and it was hard work to save it." The dear woman did not know it was an inspired wagon, the very implement upon which the fate of Oregon would turn. Small events are sometimes portentous, and the wagon that Whitman wheeled into Oregon, as we shall soon see, was of this character. One of the Providential events was, that the little company had been turned aside from the attempt to make the journey over the direct route and sent over this unexplored course, fully one thousand miles longer. The winter of 1842-43 was very cold, and the snow throughout the West was heavy. From many of these storms they were protected by the ranges of high mountains, and what was of great value, had plenty of firewood; while on the other route for a thousand miles they would have had to depend mainly upon buffalo chips for fire, which it would have been impossible to find when the ground was covered with snow. To the traveler good fires in camp are a great comfort. Even as it was, they suffered from the cold, all of them being severely frosted. Dr. Whitman, when he reached Washington, was suffering from frozen feet, hands and ears, although he had taken every precaution to protect himself and his companions. The many vexatious delays had caused not only the loss of valuable time, but they had run out of provisions. A dog had accompanied the party and they ate him; a mule came next, and that kept them until they came to Santa Fe, where there was plenty. Santa Fe is one of the oldest cities upon the continent occupied by English-speaking people. The doctor, anxious for news, could find little there, and only stopped long enough to recruit his supplies. He was in no mood to enjoy the antiquities of this favorite resort of all the heroes of the plains. Pushing on over the treeless prairies, they made good headway toward Bent's Fort on the headwaters of the Arkansas. The grass for the horses was plentiful. That is one of the prime requisites of the campaigner upon the plains. Had there been time for hunting, all along their route they could have captured any amount of wild game, but as it was, they attempted nothing except it came directly in the way. They even went hungry rather than lose an hour in the chase. There was one little incident which may seem very small, but the old campaigner will see that it was big with importance. They lost their axe. It was after a long tedious day crossing a bleak prairie, when they reached one of the tributaries of the Arkansas River. On the opposite side was wood in great plenty. On their side there was none. The river was frozen over with smooth, clear ice, scarcely thick enough to bear a man. They must have wood. The doctor seized the axe, lay down on the ice and snaked himself across on the thin crust. He cut loads of wood and pushed it before him or skated it across and returned in safety; but unfortunately split the axe helve. This they soon remedied by binding it with a fresh deer skin thong. But as it lay in the edge of the tent that night, a thieving wolf wanting the deer skin, took the axe and all, and they could find no trace of it. The great good fortune was, that such a catastrophe did not occur a thousand miles back. It is barely possible it might have defeated the enterprise. "When within about four days' journey of Bent's Fort," says Gen. Lovejoy, "we met George Bent, a brother of Gen. Bent, with a caravan on his way to Taos. He told us that a party of mountain men would leave Bent's Fort in a few days for St. Louis, but said we could not reach the fort with our pack animals in time to join the party. "The doctor being very anxious to join it, and push on to Washington, concluded to leave myself and guide with the packs, and he himself taking the best animal, with some bedding and a small allowance of provisions, started on alone, hoping by rapid traveling to reach the fort before the party left. But to do so he would have to travel upon the Sabbath, something we had not done before. "Myself and guide traveled slowly and reached the fort in four days, but imagine my astonishment when told the doctor had not arrived nor been heard from. As this portion of the journey was infested by gangs of gray wolves, that had been half starved during the snows and cold weather, our anxiety for the doctor's safety was greatly increased. Every night our camp would be surrounded by them coming even to the door of the tent, and everything eatable had to be carefully stored and our animals picketed where we could defend them with our rifles; when a wolf fell he would instantly be devoured by his fellows. "If not killed we knew the doctor was lost. Being furnished by the gentlemen of the fort with a good guide I started to search for him and traveled up the river about one hundred miles. I learned by the Indians that a man who was lost had been there and he was trying to find Bent's Fort. They said they had directed him down the river and how to find the fort. I knew from their description that it was the doctor, and I returned as rapidly as possible; but he had not arrived. "Late in the afternoon he came in much fatigued and almost desponding. He said that God had hindered him for traveling on the Holy Sabbath." Says General Lovejoy: "This was the only time I ever knew him to travel on Sunday." The party which the doctor was to accompany to St. Louis had already started, but was kindly stopped by a runner, and it was in camp waiting his coming. Tired as he was, he tarried but a single night at Fort Bent, and again with a guide hurried on to overtake the caravan. This was a dangerous part of the journey. Savage beasts and savage men were both to be feared. In pioneer days the borders of civilization were always infested by the worst class of people, both whites and Indians. This made the doctor more anxious for an escort. Gen. Lovejoy remained at the fort until he entirely recovered from his fatigue, and went on with the next caravan passing eastward to St. Louis. In a letter to Dr. Atkinson, published in full in the appendix to this volume, Gen. Lovejoy recites many interesting incidents of this journey. Before reaching St. Louis, Gen. Lovejoy immediately began to advertise the emigration for the following May. Dr. Barrows, in his fine volume, "Oregon--the Struggle for Possession," says: "Upon the arrival of Dr. Whitman in St. Louis it was my good fortune that he should be quartered as a guest under the same roof and at the same table with me. Those interested in the news from the plains, the trappers and traders in furs and Indian goods, gathered about him and beset him with a multitude of questions. Answering them courteously he in turn asked about Congress. Whether the Ashburton Treaty had been concluded? and whether it covered the Northwest Territory? The treaty he learned had been signed August 9th, long before he left Oregon, and had been confirmed by the Senate and signed by the President on November 10th, while he was floundering in the snow upon the mountains." But the Oregon question was still open, and only the few acres up in Maine had been fixed. The question he was eager to have answered was: "Is the Oregon question still pending, and can I get there before Congress adjourns?" The river was frozen, and he had to depend upon the stage, and even from St. Louis a journey to Washington in midwinter at that time, was no small matter. But to a man like Whitman with muscles trained, and a brain which never seemed to tire, it was counted as nothing. Dr. Barrows says: "Marcus Whitman once seen, and in our family circle, telling of his business, he had but one, was a man not to be forgotten by the writer. He was of medium height, more compact than spare, a stout shoulder, and large head not much above it, covered with stiff iron gray hair, while his face carried all the moustache and whiskers that four months had been able to put on it. He carried himself awkwardly, though perhaps courteously enough for trappers, Indians, mules and grizzlies, his principal company for six years. He seemed built as a man for whom more stock had been furnished than worked in symmetrically and gracefully. "There was nothing quick in his motion or speech, and no trace of a fanatic; but under control of a thorough knowledge of his business, and with deep, ardent convictions about it, he was a profound enthusiast. A willful resolution and a tenacious earnestness would impress you as marking the man. "He wore coarse fur garments with buckskin breeches. He had a buffalo overcoat, with a head hood for emergencies, with fur leggins and boot moccasins. His legs and feet fitted his Mexican stirrups. If my memory is not at fault his entire dress when on the street did not show one inch of woven fabric." One can easily see that a dress of such kind and upon such a man would attract attention at the National Capital. But the history of the event nowhere hints that the old pioneer suffered in any quarter from his lack of fashionable garments. It was before the day of interviewing newspapers, but the men in authority in Washington soon learned of his coming and showed him every courtesy and kindness. He would have been lionized had he encouraged it. But he had not imperiled life for any such purpose. He was, after a four thousand miles ride, there upon a great mission and for business, and time was precious. Almost in despair he had prayed that he might be enabled to reach the Capital of the Nation and make his plea for his land, Oregon, before it was too late. And here he was. Would he be given an audience? Would he be believed? Would he succeed? These were the questions uppermost in his mind. CHAPTER VII. WHITMAN IN THE PRESENCE OF PRESIDENT TYLER AND SECRETARY OF STATE DANIEL WEBSTER, AND THE RETURN TO OREGON. It has been an American boast that the President of the United States is within the reach of the humblest subject. This was truer years ago than now, and possibly with some reason for it. Unfortunately the historian has no recorded account of the interview between the President, his Secretary of State and Whitman. Whitman worked for posterity, but did not write for it. For his long journey over the plains in 1836 and the many entertaining and exciting events we are wholly dependent upon Mrs. Whitman, and for the narrative of the perilous ride to save Oregon, we are dependent upon the brief notes made by Gen. Lovejoy, and from personal talks with many friends. Whitman always seemed too busy to use pencil or pen, and yet when he did write, as a few recorded specimens show, he was remarkably clear, precise and forcible. But while we have no written statement of the celebrated interview, Dr. Whitman, in many private conversations with friends in Oregon said enough to give a fair and clear account of it. It will require no stretch of imagination in any intelligent reader to suppose, that a man who had undergone the hardships and perils he had, would be at a loss how to present his case in the most forcible and best possible method. He was an educated man, a profound thinker; and he knew every phase of the questions he had to present, and no man of discernment could look into his honest eyes and upon his manly bearing, without acknowledging that they were in the presence of the very best specimen of American Christian manhood. Both President Tyler and Secretary of State Daniel Webster, speedily granted him an audience. Some time in the future some great artist will paint a picture of this historic event. The old pioneer, in his leather breeches and worn and torn fur garments, and with frozen limbs, just in from a four thousand mile ride, is a picture by himself, but standing in the presence of the President and his great Secretary, to plead for Oregon and the old flag, the subject for a painter is second to none in American history. Some writers have said that Whitman "had a chilling reception from Secretary Webster." Of this there is not a shadow of proof. It has also been asserted that Whitman assailed the Ashburton-Webster Treaty. This much only is true, that Whitman regarded the issues settled as comparatively insignificant to those involved in the possession and boundaries of Oregon; but he was profoundly grateful that in the treaty, Oregon had in no way been sacrificed, as he had feared. Gen. Lovejoy says: "Dr. Whitman often related to me during our homeward journey the incidents of his reception by the President and his Secretary. He had several interviews with both of them, as well as with many of the leading senators and members of Congress." The burden of his speech in all these, says Gen. Lovejoy, was to "immediately terminate the treaty of 1818 and 1828, and extend the laws of the United States over Oregon." It takes a most credulous reader to doubt that. For months prior to Whitman's visit to Washington in diplomatic circles it was well understood that there were negotiations on foot to trade American interests in Oregon for the fisheries of Newfoundland. Dr. Whitman soon heard of it, and heard it given as a reason why the boundary line between Oregon and the British possessions had been left open and only the little dispute in Maine adjusted. According to all reports we can gather from the Doctor's conversations, there was only one time in the several conferences in which he and Secretary Webster got warm and crossed swords. Secretary Webster had received castigation from political leaders, and sharp criticism from his own party over the Ashburton Treaty, and was ready to resent every remote allusion to it, as a give-away of American interests. In defense of Secretary Webster it has been asserted that "he had no intention of making such an exchange." But his well-known previous views, held in common by the leading statesmen of the day, already referred to, and openly expressed in Congress and upon the rostrum, that "Oregon was a barren worthless country, fit only for wild beasts and wild men, gave the air of truth to the reported negotiation." This he emphasized by the interruption of Whitman in one of his glowing descriptions of Oregon, by saying in effect that "Oregon was shut off by impassable mountains and a great desert, which made a wagon road impossible." Then, says Whitman, I replied: "Mr. Secretary, that is the grand mistake that has been made by listening to the enemies of American interests in Oregon. Six years ago I was told there was no wagon road to Oregon, and it was impossible to take a wagon there, and yet in despite of pleadings and almost threats, I took a wagon over the road, and have it now." This was the historic wagon. It knocked all the argument out of the great Secretary. Facts are stubborn things to meet, and when told by a man like Whitman it is not difficult to imagine their effect. He assured the Secretary that the possibilities of the territory beyond the Rockies were boundless, that under the poorest cultivation everything would grow; that he had tested a variety of crops and the soil made a wonderful yield. That not only is the soil fertile, the climate healthful and delightful, but there is every evidence of the hills and mountains being rich in ores; while the great forests are second to none in the world. But it was the battered old wagon that was the clinching argument that could not be overcome. No four-wheeled vehicle ever before in history performed such notable service. The real fact was, the Doctor took it into Oregon on two wheels, but he carefully hauled the other two wheels inside as precious treasures. He seems to have had a prophetic view of the value of the first incoming wagon from the United States. The events show his wisdom. Proceeding with his argument, Dr. Whitman said: "Mr. Secretary, you had better give all New England for the cod and mackerel fisheries of New Foundland than to barter away Oregon." [Illustration: WHITMAN PLEADING FOR OREGON BEFORE PRESIDENT TYLER AND SECRETARY WEBSTER.] From the outset, and at every audience granted, President Tyler treated Dr. Whitman with the greatest deference. He was a new character in the experience of both these polished and experienced politicians. Never before had they listened to a man who so eloquently plead for the cause of his country, with no selfish aim in sight. He asked for no money, or bonds, or land, or office, or anything, except that which would add to the nation's wealth, the glory and honor of the flag, and the benefit of the hardy pioneer of that far-off land, that the nation had for more than a third of the century wholly neglected. It was a powerful appeal to the manly heart of President Tyler, and as the facts show, was not lost on Secretary Webster. The Rev. H. H. Spalding, Whitman's early associate in the Oregon work, had many conferences with Whitman after his return to Oregon. Spalding says, speaking of the conference: "Webster's interest lay too near to Cape Cod to see things as Whitman did, while he conceded sincerity to the missionary, but he was loth to admit that a six years' residence there gave Whitman a wider knowledge of the country than that possessed by Governor Simpson, who had explored every part of it and represented it as a sandy desert, cut off from the United States by impassable mountains, and fit only for wild animals and savage men." With the light we now have upon the subject the greater wonder is that a brainy man like Webster could be so over-reached by an interested party such as Governor Simpson was; well knowing as he did, that he was the chief of the greatest monopoly existing upon either continent--the Hudson Bay Company. All Dr. Whitman demanded was that if it were true, as asserted by Mr. Webster himself, in his instructions to Edward Everett in 1840, then Minister to England, that "The ownership of Oregon is very likely to follow the greater settlement and larger amount of population;" then "All I ask is that you won't barter away Oregon, or allow English interference until I can lead a band of stalwart American settlers across the plains: for this I will try to do." President Tyler promptly and positively stated: "Dr. Whitman, your long ride and frozen limbs speak for your courage and patriotism; your missionary credentials are good vouchers for your character." And he promptly granted his request. Such promise was all that Whitman required. He firmly believed, as all the pioneers of Oregon at that time believed, that the treaty of 1818, while not saying in direct terms that the nationality settling the country should hold it, yet that that was the real meaning. Both countries claimed the territory, and England with the smallest rightful claim had, through the Hudson Bay Company, been the supreme autocratic ruler for a full third of a century. More than half a dozen fur companies, attracted to Oregon by the wealth flowing into the coffers of the English company, had attempted, as we have before shown, to open up business on what they claimed was American soil; but, in every instance, they were starved out or bought out by the English company. The Indians obeyed its orders, and even the American missionaries settled in just the localities they were ordered to by the English monopoly. In another connection we have more fully explained this treaty of 1818, but, suffice it to say, these conditions led Whitman to believe that the only hope of saving Oregon was in American immigration. It was for this that he plead with President Tyler and Secretary Webster and the members of Congress he met. From the President he went to the Hon. James M. Porter, Secretary of War, and by him was received with the greatest kindness, and he eagerly heard the whole story. He promised Dr. Whitman all the aid in his power in his scheme of immigration. He promised that Captain Fremont, with a company of troops, should act as escort to the caravan which Whitman was positive he could organize upon the frontier. The Secretary of War also inquired in what way he and the Government could aid the pioneers in the new country, and asked Dr. Whitman, at his leisure, to write out his views, and forward them to him. Dr. Whitman did this, and the State Historical Society of Oregon did excellent service, recently, in publishing Whitman's proposed "Oregon Organization," found among the official papers of the War Department, a copy of which will be found in the appendix of this volume. In a Senate document, December 31st, viz., the 41st Cong., February 9th, 1871, we read: "There is no doubt but that the arrival of Dr. Whitman, in 1843, was opportune. The President was satisfied that the territory was worth the effort to win it. The delay incident to a transfer of negotiations to London was fortunate, for there is reason to believe that if former negotiations had been renewed in Washington, and that, for the sake of a settlement of the protracted controversy and the only remaining unadjudicated cause of difference between the two Governments, the offer had been renewed of the 49th parallel to the Columbia and thence down the river to the Pacific Ocean, it would have been accepted. The visit of Whitman committed the President against any such action." This is a clear statement, summarizing the great historic event, and forever silencing effectually the slanderous tongues that have, in modern times, attempted to deprive the old Hero of his great and deserving tribute. We will do Secretary Webster the justice to say here, that in his later years, he justly acknowledged the obligations of the nation to Dr. Whitman. In the New York Independent, for January, 1870, it is stated: "A personal friend of Mr. Webster, a legal gentleman, and with whom he conversed on the subject several times, remarked to the writer of this article: 'It is safe to assert that our country owes it to Dr. Whitman and his associate missionaries that all the territory west of the Rocky Mountains and south as far as the Columbia River, is not now owned by England and held by the Hudson Bay Company.'" Having transacted his business and succeeded even beyond his expectations, Whitman hurried to Boston to report to the headquarters of the American Board. His enemies have often made sport over their version of his "cool reception by the American Board." If there was a severe reprimand, as reported, both the officers of the Board and Dr. Whitman failed to make record of it. But enough of the facts leaked out in the years after to show that it was not altogether a harmonious meeting. It is not to be wondered at. The American Board was a religious organization working under fixed rules, and expected every member in every field to obey those rules. But here was a man, whose salary had been paid by the Board for special work, away from his field of labor without the consent from headquarters. It is not at all unlikely that he was severely reprimanded. The officers of the American Board had no reason to know, as Christian people can see now, that Whitman was an inspired man, and a man about his Father's business. It is even reported, but not vouched for, that they ordered him to promptly repair to his post of duty, and dismissed him with his pockets so empty, that, when starting upon his ever-memorable return journey across the plains, "He had but money enough to buy only a single ham for his supplies." One of his old associates who had frequent conferences with Whitman--Dr. Gray--says: "Instead of being treated by the American Board as his labors justly deserved, he met the cold, calculating rebuke for unreasonable expenses, and for dangers incurred without orders or instructions or permission from headquarters. Thus, for economical, prudential reasons, the Board received him coldly, and rebuked him for his presence before them, causing a chill in his warm and generous heart, and a sense of unmerited rebuke from those who should have been most willing to listen to all his statements, and been most cordial and ready to sustain him in his herculean labors." We leave intelligent readers to answer for themselves, whether this attitude of this great and influential and excellent organization has not been, in a measure, responsible for the neglect of this Hero, who served it and the Christian world with all faithfulness and honesty, until he and his noble wife dropped into their martyr graves? If they say yea, we raise the question whether the time has not been reached to make amends? Dr. Barrows says, in his "Oregon and the Struggle for Possession," "It should be said in apology for both parties at this late day that, at that time, the Oregon Mission and its managing board were widely asunder geographically, and as widely separated in knowledge of the condition of affairs." Dr. Whitman seems to have assumed that his seven years' residence on the Northwest Coast would gain him a trustful hearing. But his knowledge gave him the disadvantage of a position and plans too advanced--not an uncommon mishap to eminent leaders. As said by Coleridge of Milton, "He strode so far before his contemporaries as to dwarf himself by the distance." He adds that: "Years after only, it was discovered by one of the officers of the American Board," that "It was not simply an American question then settled, but at the same time a Protestant question." He also refers to a recent work, "The Ely Volume," in which is discussed the question, "Instances where the direct influence of missionaries has controlled and hopefully shaped the destinies of communities and states," and illustrates by saying, "Perhaps no event in the history of missions will better illustrate this than the way in which Oregon and our whole Northwest Pacific Coast was saved to the United States." This covered directly the Whitman idea. It was, as he before stated, a union of banners--the banner of the cross, and the banner of the country he loved. It took the spirit and love of both to sustain a man and to enable him to undergo the hardships and dangers and discouragements that he met, from the beginning to the end. From Boston, with an aching heart, and yet doubtless serene over an accomplished duty, which he had faith to believe time would reveal in its real light, Dr. Whitman passed on to make a flying visit to his own and his wife's relations. From letters of Mrs. Whitman, it is easy to see that her prophecy was true; "He would be too full of his great work on hand, to tell much of the home in Oregon." His visit was hurried over and seemed more the necessity of a great duty than a pleasure. But the Doctor's mind was westward. He had learned from Gen. Lovejoy that already there was gathering upon the frontier a goodly number of immigrants and the prospect was excellent for a large caravan. In the absence of Dr. Whitman, Gen. Lovejoy had neglected no opportunity to publish far and wide that Dr. Whitman and himself would, early in the Spring, pilot across the plains to Oregon, a body of immigrants. A rendezvous was appointed, not far from where Kansas City now stands, at the little town of Weston. But they were in various camps at Fort Leavenworth and other points, waiting both for their guide and for the growing spring grass--a necessity for the emigrant. Certain modern historians have undertaken to rob Whitman of his great services in 1843, by gathering affidavits of people who emigrated to Oregon in that year, declaring, "We never saw Marcus Whitman," and "We were not persuaded to immigrate to Oregon by him," etc. Doubtless there were such upon the wide plains, scattered as they may have been, hundreds of miles apart. But it is just as certain that the large immigration to Oregon that year was incited by the movements of Whitman and Lovejoy, as any fact could be. There is no other method of explaining it. That he directly influenced every immigrant of that year, no one has claimed. True, old Elijah White had paved the way, the year before, by leading in the first large band of agriculturist settlers; but men of families, undertaking a two thousand mile journey, with their families and their stock, were certainly desirous of an experienced guide. They may, as some of them say, never have met Whitman. He was not one of the free and easy kind that made himself popular with the masses. Then, besides all that, fifty years ago plains life was an odd life. I have journeyed with men for weeks, and even after months of acquaintance have not known their names, except that of Buckeye, Sucker, Missouri, Cass County Bill, Bob, etc. Little bands would travel by themselves for days and weeks and then, under the sense of danger that would be passed along the line, and for defense against depredations of some dangerous tribe of Indians, they would gather into larger bands soon again to fall apart. Some of these would often follow many days behind the head of the column, but always have the benefit of its guidance. That year grass was late, and they did not get fully under way until the first week in June. Whitman remained behind and did not overtake the advance of the column until it reached the Platte River. He knew the way, he had three times been over it. He was ahead arranging for camping places for those in his immediate company, or in the rear looking after the sick and discouraged. If some failed to know him by name, there were many who did, and all shared in all the knowledge of the country and road which he, better than any other, knew. In answer to historical critics of modern times we quote Dr. H. H. Spalding, who says, in speaking of the immigration of 1843: "And through that whole summer Dr. Whitman was everywhere present; the ministering angel to the sick, helping the weary, encouraging the wavering, cheering the tired mothers, setting broken bones and mending wagons. He was in the front, in the center and in the rear. He was in the river hunting out fords through the quicksand; in the desert places looking for water and grass; among the mountains hunting for passes, never before trodden by white men; at noontide and at midnight he was on the alert as if the whole line was his own family, and as if all the flocks and herds were his own. For all this he neither asked nor expected a dollar from any source, and especially did he feel repaid at the end, when, standing at his mission home, hundreds of his fellow pilgrims took him by the hand and thanked him with tears in their eyes for all that he had done." The head of the column arrived at Fort Hall and there waited for the stragglers to come up. Dr. Whitman knew that here he would meet Captain Johnny Grant, and the old story, "You can't take a wagon into Oregon," would be dinned into the ears of the head of every family. He had heard it over and over again six years before. Fort Hall was thirteen hundred and twenty-three miles from the Missouri River at Kansas City. Here the Doctor expected trouble and found it. Johnny Grant was at Fort Hall to make trouble and discourage immigration. He was working under the pay of the Fur Company and earned his money. The Fur Company did not desire farmers in settlements in Oregon. Captain Grant at once began to tell them the terrors of the mountain journey and the impossibility of hauling their wagons further. Then he showed them, to prove it, a corral full of fine wagons, with agricultural tools, and thousands of things greatly needed in Oregon, that immigrants had been forced to leave when they took to their pack-saddles. The men were ready, as had been others before, to give up and sacrifice the comforts of their families and rob themselves at the command of the oily advocate. But here comes Whitman. Johnny Grant knows he now has his master. Dr. Whitman says: "Men, I have guided you thus far in safety. Believe nothing you hear about not being able to get your wagons through; every one of you stick to your wagons and your goods. They will be invaluable to you when you reach the end of your journey. I took a wagon through to Oregon six years ago." (Again we see the historic wagon.) The men believed him. They refused to obey Captain Grant's touching appeal and almost a command to leave their wagons behind. Never did an order, than the one Whitman made, add more to the comfort and actual value of a band of travelers. One of a former company tells of a packing experience, after submitting to Captain Grant's orders. He says: "There were lively times around old Fort Hall when the patient old oxen and mules were taken from the wagons to be left behind and the loads of bedding, pots and pans were tied on to their backs. They were unused to such methods. There would first be a shying, then a fright and a stampede, and bellowing oxen and braying mules and the air would be full of flying kettles and camp fixtures, while women and children crying and the men swearing, made up a picture to live in the memory." No one better than Whitman knew the toil and danger attending the last six hundred miles of the journey to Oregon. Col. George B. Curry, in an address before the Pioneer Society of Oregon in 1887, gives a graphic sketch, wonderfully realistic, of the immigrant train in 1853. He says: "From the South Pass the nature of our journeying changed, and assumed the character of a retreat, a disastrous, ruinous retreat. Oxen and horses began to perish in large numbers; often falling dead in their yokes in the road. The heat-dried wagon, striking on the rocks or banks would fall to pieces. As the beasts of burden grew weaker, and the wagon more rickety, teams began to be doubled and wagons abandoned. The approaching storms of autumn, which, on the high mountains at the last end of our journey, meant impassable snow, admitted of no delay. Whatever of strength remained of the jaded cattle must be forced out. Every thing of weight not absolutely necessary must be abandoned. "There was no time to pause and recruit the hungry stock, nor dare we allow them much freedom to hunt the withered herbage, for a marauding enemy hung upon the rear, hovering on either flank, and skulked in ambuscade in the front, the horizon was a panorama of mountains, the grandest and most desolate on the continent. The road was strewn with dead cattle, abandoned wagons, discarded cooking utensils, ox-yokes, harness, chairs, mess chests, log chains, books, heirlooms, and family keepsakes. The inexorable surroundings of the struggling mass permitted no hesitation or sentiment. "The failing strength of the team was a demand that must be complied with. Clothing not absolutely required at present was left on the bare rocks of the rugged canyons. Wagons were coupled shorter that a few extra pounds might be saved from the wagon beds. One set of wheels was left and a cart constructed. Men, women and children walked beside the enfeebled teams, ready to give an assisting push up a steep pitch. "The fierce summer's heat beat upon this slow west rolling column. The herbage was dry and crisp, the rivulets had become but lines in the burning sand; the sun glared from a sky of brass; the stony mountain sides glared with the garnered heat of a cloudless Summer. The dusky brambles of the scraggy sage brush seemed to catch the fiery rays of heat and shiver them into choking dust, that rose like a tormenting plague and hung like a demon of destruction over the panting oxen and thirsty people. "Thus day after day, for weeks and months, the slow but urgent retreat continued, each day demanding fresh sacrifices. An ox or a horse would fall, brave men would lift the useless yoke from his limp and lifeless neck in silence. If there was another to take his place he was brought from the loose band, yoked up and the journey resumed. When the stock of oxen became exhausted, cows were brought under the yoke, other wagons left, and the lessening store once more inspected; if possible, another pound would be dispensed with. "Deeper and deeper into the flinty mountains the forlorn mass drives its weary way. Each morning the weakened team has to commence a struggle with yet greater difficulties. It is plain the journey will not be completed within the anticipated time, and the dread of hunger joins the ranks of the tormentors. The stench of carrion fills the air in many places; a watering place is reached to find the putrid carcass of a dead animal in the spring. The Indians hover in the rear, impatiently waiting for the train to move on that the abandoned trinkets may be gathered up. Whether these are gathering strength for a general attack we cannot tell. There is but one thing to do--press on. The retreat cannot hasten into rout, for the distance to safety is too great. Slower and slower is daily progress. "I do not pretend to be versed in all the horrors that have made men groan on earth, but I have followed the "Flight of Tartar Tribes," under the focal light of DeQuincy's genius, the retreat of the ten thousand under Xenophon, but as far as I am able to judge, in heroism, endurance, patience, and suffering, the annual retreat of immigrants from the Black Hills to the Dalles surpasses either. The theater of their sufferings and success, for scenic grandeur, has no superior. "The patient endurance of these men and women for sublime pathos may challenge the world. Men were impoverished and women reduced to beggary and absolute want, and no weakling's murmur of complaint escaped their lips. It is true, when women saw their patient oxen or faithful horses fall by the roadside and die, they wept piteously, and men stood in all the 'silent manliness of grief' in the camp of their desolation, for the immigrants were men and women with hearts to feel and tears to flow." [Illustration: REV. H. H. SPALDING.] This, it will be observed, was a train upon the road ten years later than Dr. Whitman's memorable journey. He was a wise guide, and his train met with fewer disasters. The Hon. S. A. Clarke in his address tells how Whitman moved his train across Snake River. He says: "When the immigrants reached the Snake, Dr. Whitman proceeded to fasten wagons together in one long string, the strongest in the lead. As soon as the teams were in position, Dr. Whitman tied a rope around his waist and starting his horse into the current swam over. He called to others to follow him, and when they had force enough to pull at the rope the lead team was started in and all were drawn over in safety. As soon as the leading teams were able to get foothold on the bottom all was safe; as they, aided by the strong arms of the men pulling at the rope, pulled the weaker ones along." The Snake River at the ford is divided into three rivers by islands, the last stream on the Oregon side is a deep and rapid current, and fully half a mile wide. To get so many wagons, pulled by jaded teams, and all the thousand men, women and children, and the loose stock across in safety, showed wise generalship. We here copy "A Day with the Cow Column in 1843," by the Hon. Jesse Applegate, a late honored citizen of Oregon, who was one of Dr. Whitman's company in 1843. It is a clear, graphic description of a sample day's journey on the famous trip, and was an address published in the transactions of the Pioneer Oregon Association in 1876. The migration of a large body of men, women and children across the Continent to Oregon was, in the year 1843, strictly an experiment, not only in respect to the numbers, but to the outfit of the migrating party. Before that date two or three missionaries had performed the journey on horseback, driving a few cows with them. Three or four wagons drawn by oxen had reached Fort Hall on Snake River, but it was the honest opinion of most of those who had traveled the route down Snake River that no large number of cattle could be subsisted on its scanty pasturage, or wagons taken over a route so rugged and mountainous. The emigrants were also assured that the Sioux would be much opposed to the passage of so large a body through their country, and would probably resist it on account of the emigrants destroying and frightening away the buffaloes, which were then diminishing in numbers. The migrating body numbered over one thousand souls, with about one hundred and twenty wagons, drawn by ox teams, averaging about six yokes to the team, and several thousand loose horses and cattle. The emigrants first organized and attempted to travel in one body, but it was soon found that no progress could be made with a body so cumbrous, and as yet, so averse to all discipline. And at the crossing of the "Big Blue," it divided into two columns, which traveled in supporting distance of each other as far as Independence Rock, on the Sweetwater. From this point, all danger from Indians being over, the emigrants separated into small parties better suited to the narrow mountain paths and small pastures in their front. Before the division on the Blue River there was some just cause for discontent in respect to loose cattle. Some of the emigrants had only their teams, while others had large herds in addition, which must share the pastures and be driven by the whole body. This discontent had its effect in the division on the Blue, those not encumbered with or having but few loose cattle attached themselves to the light column, those having more than four or five cows had of necessity to join the heavy or cow column. Hence, the cow column, being much larger than the other and encumbered with its large herds, had to use greater exertion and observe a more rigid discipline to keep pace with the more agile consort. It is with the cow or more clumsy column that I propose to journey with the reader for a single day. It is four o'clock a. m., the sentinels on duty have discharged their rifles, the signal that the hours of sleep are over; and every wagon or tent is pouring forth its night tenants, and slow kindling smokes begin to rise and float away on the morning air. Sixty men start from the corral, spreading as they make through the vast herd of cattle and horses that form a semi-circle around the encampment, the most distant, perhaps, two miles away. The herders pass to the extreme verge and carefully examine for trails beyond, to see that none of the animals have been stolen or strayed during the night. This morning no trails lead beyond the outside animals in sight, and by five o'clock the herders begin to contract the great moving circle, and the well-trained animals move slowly toward camp, clipping here and there a thistle or tempting bunch of grass on the way. In about an hour 5,000 animals are close up to the encampment, and the teamsters are busy selecting their teams, and driving them inside the "corral" to be yoked. The corral is a circle one hundred yards deep, formed with wagons connected strongly with each other, the wagon in the rear being connected with the wagon in front by its tongue and ox chains. It is a strong barrier that the most vicious ox cannot break, and in case of an attack by the Sioux, would be no contemptible entrenchment. From six to seven o'clock is a busy time; breakfast to be eaten, the tents struck, the wagons loaded, and the teams yoked and brought up in readiness to be attached to their respective wagons. All know, when at seven o'clock the signal to march sounds, that those not ready to take their proper places in the line of march must fall into the dusty rear for the day. There are sixty wagons. They have been divided into sixteen divisions, or platoons of four wagons each, and each platoon is entitled to lead in its turn. The leading platoon of to-day will be the rear one to-morrow, and will bring up the rear, unless some teamster, through indolence or negligence, has lost his place in the line, and is condemned to that uncomfortable post. It is within ten minutes of seven; the corral, but now a strong barricade, is everywhere broken, the teams being attached to the wagons. The women and children have taken their places in them. The pilot (a borderer who has passed his life on the verge of civilization, and has been chosen to the post of leader from his knowledge of the savage and his experience in travel through roadless wastes) stands ready, in the midst of his pioneers and aides, to mount and lead the way. Ten or fifteen young men, not to lead to-day, form another cluster. They are ready to start on a buffalo hunt, are well mounted and well armed, as they need to be, for the unfriendly Sioux have driven the buffalo out of the Platte, and the hunters must ride fifteen or twenty miles to reach them. The cow-drivers are hastening, as they get ready, to the rear of their charge, to collect and prepare them for the day's march. It is on the stroke of seven; the rushing to and fro, the cracking of whips, the loud command to oxen, and what seemed to be the inextricable confusion of the last ten minutes has ceased. Fortunately, every one has been found, and every teamster is at his post. The clear notes of a trumpet sound in the front; the pilot and his guards mount their horses; the leading division of wagons move out of the encampment and take up the line of march; the rest fall into their places with the precision of clock-work, until the post, so lately full of life, sinks back into that solitude that seems to reign over the broad plain and rushing river, as the caravan draws its lazy length toward the distant El Dorado. It is with the hunters we will briskly canter toward the bold but smooth and grassy bluffs that bound the broad valley, for we are not yet in sight of the grander, but less beautiful, scenery (of the Chimney Rock, Court House, and other bluffs so nearly resembling giant castles and palaces) made by the passage of the Platte through the Highlands near Laramie. We have been traveling briskly for more than an hour. We have reached the top of the bluff, and now have turned to view the wonderful panorama spread before us. To those who have not been on the Platte, my powers of description are wholly inadequate to convey an idea of the vast extent and grandeur of the picture, and the rare beauty and distinctness of its detail. No haze or fog obscures objects in the pure and transparent atmosphere of this lofty region. To those accustomed to only the murky air of the sea-board, no correct judgment of distance can be formed by sight, and objects which they think they can reach in a two hours' walk, may be a day's travel away; and though the evening air is a better conductor of sound, on the high plain during the day the report of the loudest rifle sounds little louder than the bursting of a cap; and while the report can be heard but a few hundred yards, the smoke of the discharge may be seen for miles. So extended is the view from the bluff on which the hunters stand, that the broad river, glowing under the morning sun like a sheet of silver, and the broader emerald valley that borders it, stretch away in the distance until they narrow at almost two points in the horizon, and when first seen, the vast pile of the Wind River mountains, though hundreds of miles away, looks clear and distinct as a white cottage on the plain. We are full six miles away from the line of march; though everything is dwarfed by distance, it is seen distinctly. The caravan has been about two hours in motion, and is now extended as widely as a prudent regard for safety will permit. First, near the bank of the shining river, is a company of horsemen; they seem to have found an obstruction, for the main body has halted, while three or four ride rapidly along the bank of a creek or slough. They are hunting a favorable crossing for the wagons; while we look they have succeeded; it has apparently required no work to make it possible, while all but one of the party have passed on, and he has raised a flag, no doubt a signal to the wagons to steer their course to where he stands. The leading teamster sees him, though he is yet two miles off, and steers his course directly towards him, all the wagons following in his track. They (the wagons) form a line three-quarters of a mile in length; some of the teamsters ride upon the front of their wagons, some march beside their teams; scattered along the line companies of women and children are taking exercise on foot; they gather bouquets of rare and beautiful flowers that line the way; near them stalks a stately greyhound or an Irish wolf dog, apparently proud of keeping watch and ward over his master's wife and children. Next comes a band of horses; two or three men or boys follow them, the docile and sagacious animals scarcely needing this attention, for they have learned to follow in the rear of the wagons, and know that at noon they will be allowed to graze and rest. Their knowledge of time seems as accurate as of the place they are to occupy in the line, and even a full-blown thistle will scarce tempt them to straggle or halt until the dinner hour is arrived. Not so with the large herd of horned beasts that bring up the rear; lazy, selfish and unsocial, it has been a task to get them in motion, the strong always ready to domineer over the weak, halt in the front and forbid the weaker to pass them. They seem to move only in fear of the driver's whip; though in the morning full to repletion, they have not been driven an hour, before their hunger and thirst seem to indicate a fast of days' duration. Through all the day long their greed is never sated nor their thirst quenched, nor is there a moment of relaxation of the tedious and vexatious labors of their drivers, although to all others the march furnishes some reason of relaxation or enjoyment. For the cow-drivers, there is none. But from the standpoint of the hunters the vexations are not apparent; the crack of whip and loud objurgations are lost in the distance. Nothing of the moving panorama, smooth and orderly as it appears, has more attraction for the eye than that vast square column in which all colors are mingled, moving here slowly and there briskly as impelled by horsemen riding furiously in front and rear. But the picture, in its grandeur, its wonderful mingling of colors and distinctness of detail, is forgotten in contemplation of the singular people who give it life and animation. No other race of men, with the means at their command, would undertake so great a journey; none save these could successfully perform it, with no previous preparation, relying only on the fertility of their invention to devise the means to overcome each danger and difficulty as it arose. They have undertaken to perform with slow-moving oxen, a journey of two thousand miles. The way lies over trackless wastes, wide and deep rivers, rugged and lofty mountains, and it is beset with hostile savages. Yet, whether it were a deep river with no tree upon its banks, a rugged defile where even a loose horse could not pass, a hill too steep for him to climb, or a threatened attack of an enemy, they are always found ready and equal to the occasion, and always conquerors. May we not call them men of destiny? They are people changed in no essential particulars from their ancestors, who have followed closely on the footsteps of the receding savage, from the Atlantic sea-board to the great valley of the Mississippi. But while we have been gazing at the picture in the valley, the hunters have been examining the high plain in the other direction. Some dark moving objects have been discovered in the distance, and all are closely watching them to discover what they are, for in the atmosphere of the plains a flock of crows marching miles away, or a band of buffaloes or Indians at ten times the distance look alike, and many ludicrous mistakes occur. But these are buffaloes, for two have struck their heads together, and are alternately pushing each other back. The hunters mount and away in pursuit, and I, a poor cow-driver, must hurry back to my daily toil, and take a scolding from my fellow-herders for so long playing truant. The pilot, by measuring the ground and timing the speed of the wagons and the walk of his horses, has determined the rate of each, so as to enable him to select the nooning place, as nearly as the requisite grass and water can be had at the end of five hours' travel of the wagons. To-day, the ground being favorable, little time has been lost in preparing the road, so that he and his pioneers are at the nooning place an hour in advance of the wagons, which time is spent in preparing convenient watering places for the animals, and digging little wells near the bank of the Platte. As the teams are not unyoked, but simply turned loose from their wagons, a corral is not formed at noon, but the wagons are drawn up in columns, four abreast, the leading wagon of each platoon on the left--the platoons being formed with that view. This brings friends together at noon as well as at night. To-day, an extra session of the Council is being held, to settle a dispute that does not admit of delay, between a proprietor and a young man who has undertaken to do a man's service on the journey for bed and board. Many such engagements exist, and much interest is taken in the manner this high court, from which there is no appeal, will define the rights of each party in such engagements. The Council was a high court in a most exalted sense. It was a Senate, composed of the ablest and most respected fathers of the emigration. It exercised both legislative and judicial powers, and its laws and decisions proved it equal and worthy the high trust reposed in it. Its sessions were usually held on days when the caravan was not moving. It first took the state of the little commonwealth into consideration; revised or repealed rules defective or obsolete, and enacted such others as the exigencies seemed to require. The common weal being cared for, it next resolved itself into a court to hear and settle private disputes and grievances. The offender and the aggrieved appeared before it; witnesses were examined and the parties were heard by themselves and sometimes by counsel. The judges thus being made fully acquainted with the case, and being in no way influenced or cramped by technicalities, decided all cases according to their merits. There was but little use for lawyers before this court, for no plea was entertained which was calculated to hinder or defeat the ends of justice. Many of these Judges have since won honors in higher spheres. They have aided to establish on the broad basis of right and universal liberty two of the pillars of our Great Republic in the Occident. Some of the young men who appeared before them as advocates have themselves sat upon the highest judicial tribunal, commanded armies, been Governors of States, and taken high positions in the Senate of the Nation. It is now one o'clock; the bugle has sounded, and the caravan has resumed its westward journey. It is in the same order, but the evening is far less animated than the morning march; a drowsiness has fallen apparently on man and beast; teamsters drop asleep on their perches and even when walking by their teams, and the words of command are now addressed to the slowly-creeping oxen in the softened tenor of a woman or the piping treble of children, while the snores of teamsters make a droning accompaniment. But a little incident breaks the monotony of the march. An emigrant's wife, whose state of health has caused Dr. Whitman to travel near the wagon for the day, is now taken with violent illness. The Doctor has had the wagon driven out of the line, a tent pitched and a fire kindled. Many conjectures are hazarded in regard to this mysterious proceeding, and as to why this lone wagon is to be left behind. And we, too, must leave it, hasten to the front and note the proceedings, for the sun is now getting low in the west, and at length the painstaking pilot is standing ready to conduct the train in the circle which he had previously measured and marked out, which is to form the invariable fortification for the night. The leading wagons follow him so nearly round the circle, that but a wagon length separates them. Each wagon follows in its track, the rear closing on the front until its tongue and ox-chains will perfectly reach from one to the other, and so accurate the measurement and perfect the practice, that the hindmost wagon of the train always precisely closes the gateway. As each wagon is brought into position, it is dropped from its team (the teams being inside the circle), the team unyoked, and the yokes and chains are used to connect the wagon strongly with that in its front. Within ten minutes from the time the leading wagon halted the barricade is formed, the teams unyoked and driven out to pasture. Every one is busy preparing fires of buffalo chips to cook the evening meal, pitching tents and otherwise preparing for the night. There are anxious watchers for the absent wagon, for there are many matrons who may be afflicted like its inmate before the journey is over, and they fear the strange and startling practice of this Oregon doctor will be dangerous. But as the sun goes down, the absent wagon rolls into camp, the bright, speaking face and cheery look of the doctor, who rides in advance, declare without words that all is well, and that both mother and child are comfortable. I would fain now and here pay a passing tribute to that noble and devoted man, Dr. Whitman. I will obtrude no other name upon the reader, nor would I his, were he of our party or even living, but his stay with us was transient, though the good he did was permanent, and he has long since died at his post. From the time he joined us on the Platte, until he left us at Fort Hall, his great experience and indomitable energy was of priceless value to the migrating column. His constant advice, which we knew was based upon a knowledge of the road before us, was "travel, travel, travel--nothing else will take you to the end of your journey; nothing is wise that does not help you along; nothing is good for you that causes a moment's delay." His great authority as a physician and complete success in the case above referred to, saved us many prolonged and perhaps ruinous delays from similar causes, and it is no disparagement to others to say that to no other individual are the immigrants of 1843 so much indebted for the successful conclusion of their journey, as to Dr. Marcus Whitman. All able to bear arms in the party had been formed into three companies, and each of these into four watches; every third night it is the duty of one of these companies to keep watch and ward over the camp, and it is so arranged that each watch takes its turn of guard duty through the different watches of the night. Those forming the first watch to-night, will be second on duty, then third and fourth, which brings them all through the watches of the night. They begin at eight o'clock p. m. and end at four o'clock a. m. [Illustration: REV. CUSHING EELLS, D.D. Founder of Whitman College.] It is not yet eight o'clock when the first watch is to be set; the evening meal is just over, and the corral now free from the intrusion of horses or cattle, groups of children are scattered over it. The larger are taking a game of romps; "the wee, toddling things" are being taught that great achievement which distinguishes men from the lower animals. Before a tent near the river, a violin makes lively music and some youths and maidens have improvised a dance upon the green; in another quarter a flute gives its mellow and melancholy notes to the still night air, which, as they float away over the quiet river, seem a lament for the past rather than for a hope of the future. It has been a prosperous day; more than twenty miles have been accomplished of the great journey. The encampment is a good one; one of the causes that threatened much future delay has just been removed by the skill and energy of "that good angel" of the emigrants, Dr. Whitman, and it has lifted a load from the hearts of the elders. Many of these are assembled around the good doctor at the tent of the pilot (which is his home for the time being), and are giving grave attention to his wise and energetic counsel. The care-worn pilot sits aloof quietly smoking his pipe, for he knows the grave Doctor is "strength in his hands." But time passes, the watch is set for the night, the council of good men has been broken up and each has returned to his own quarters. The flute has whispered its last lament to the deepening night. The violin is silent and the dancers have dispersed. Enamored youths have whispered a tender "good night" in the ear of blushing maidens, or stolen a kiss from the lips of some future bride; for Cupid, here as elsewhere, has been busy bringing together congenial hearts, and among these simple people, he alone is consulted in forming the marriage tie. Even the Doctor and the pilot have finished their confidential interview and have separated for the night. All is hushed and repose from the fatigues of the day, save the vigilant guard, and the wakeful leader who still has cares upon his mind that forbid sleep. He hears the ten o'clock relief taking post, and the "all well" report of the returned guard; the night deepens, yet he seeks not the needed repose. At length a sentinel hurries to him with the welcome report that a party is approaching, as yet too far away for its character to be determined, and he instantly hurries out in the direction seen. This he does both from inclination and duty, for, in times past, the camp has been unnecessarily alarmed by timid or inexperienced sentinels, causing much confusion and fright amongst women and children, and it had been made a rule that all extraordinary incidents of the night should be reported directly to the pilot, who alone had authority to call out the military strength of the column, or so much of it as was, in his judgment, necessary to prevent a stampede or repel an enemy. To-night he is at no loss to determine that the approaching party are our missing hunters, and that they have met with success, and he only waits until, by some further signal, he can know that no ill has happened to them. This is not long wanting; he does not even wait their arrival, but the last care of the day being removed and the last duties performed, he, too, seeks the rest that will enable him to go through the same routine to-morrow. But here I leave him, for my task is also done, and, unlike his, it is to be repeated no more. After passing through such trials and dangers, nothing could have been more cheering to these tired immigrants than the band of Cayuse and Nez Perces Indians, with pack mules loaded with supplies, meeting the Doctor upon the mountains with a glad welcome. From them he learned that in his absence his mill had been burned, but the Rev. H. H. Spalding, anticipating the needs of the caravan, had furnished flour from his mill, and nothing was ever more joyously received. Dr. Whitman also received letters urging him to hurry on to his mission. He selected one of his most trusty Cayuse Indian guides, Istikus, and placed the company under his lead. He was no longer a necessity for its comfort and safety. The most notable event in pioneer history is reaching its culmination. That long train of canvas-covered wagons moving across the plains, those two hundred campfires at night, with shouts and laughter and singing of children, were all new and strange to these solitudes. As simple facts in history, to an American they are profoundly interesting, but to the thoughtful student who views results, they assume proportions whose grandeur is not easily over-estimated. But the little band has come safely across the Rockies; has forded and swam many intervening rivers; the dreary plains, with saleratus dust and buffalo gnats, had been left behind, and here they stand upon a slope of the farthest western range of mountains, with the fertile foot hills and beautiful green meadows reaching as far away as the eye can see. The wagons are well bunched. For weeks they have been eager to see the land of promise. It is a goodly sight to see, as they file down the mountain side, one hundred and twenty-five wagons, one thousand head of loose stock, cattle, horses and sheep, and about one thousand men, women and children, and Oregon is saved to the Union. Who did it? We leave every thoughtful, honest reader to answer the query. CHAPTER VIII. A BACKWARD LOOK AT RESULTS. The reader of history is often moved to admiration at the dash and courage of some bold hero, even when he has failed in the work he set out to accomplish. The genius to invent, with the courage to prosecute, has often failed in reaching the hoped-for results. The pages of history of all time are burdened with the plaintive cry, "Oh, for night or Blucher." It is the timeliness of great events that marks real genius, and the largest wisdom. Of Whitman it was a leading characteristic. He did the right thing just at the right time. His faith was equal to his courage and when his duty was made clear to his mind, there was no impediment that he would not attempt to overcome. Now we are to study the results of his heroic ride, and will see how dangerous would have been any delay. We have noted Webster's letter to the English Minister, dated in 1840, in which he said, "The ownership of the whole country (referring to Oregon) will likely follow the greater settlement and larger amount of population," and this we may say was the common sentiment of our early statesmen, and not peculiar to Mr. Webster. But Whitman had started a new train of thought and given a new direction to the policy of the administration. The President believed in the truthful report of the hero with his frozen limbs, who had ridden four thousand miles in midwinter without pay or hope of reward, to plead for Oregon. Immediately upon the close of the conference the record shows that Secretary Webster wrote to Minister Everett and said: "The Government of the United States has never offered any line south of forty-nine and never will, and England must not expect anything south of the forty-ninth degree." That is a wonderful change. Upon receipt of the news that Dr. Whitman, in June, "Had started to Oregon with a great caravan numbering nearly one thousand souls," another letter was sent to the English Minister, still more pointed and impressive. The President and his Secretary at once began to arrange terms for a treaty with England regarding the boundary line, and negotiations were speedily begun. It did not look to be a hopeful task when the Ashburton-Webster Treaty, just signed in 1842, had been a bone of contention for forty-eight years. Still more did it look discouraging from the fact that diplomats the year before had resolved to leave the Oregon boundary out of the case, as it was said, "Otherwise it would likely defeat the whole treaty." But suddenly new blood had been injected into American veins in and about Washington. They saw a great fertile country, thirty times as large as Massachusetts, which was rightfully theirs and yet claimed by a power many thousand miles separated from it. The national blood was aroused. A great political party, not satisfied with Secretary Webster's modest "latitude of forty-nine degrees" emblazoned on its banners, "Oregon and fifty-four forty or fight." The spirit of '76 and 1812 seemed to have suddenly been aroused throughout the Nation. People did not stop to ask, who has done it, or how it all happened; but no intelligent or thoughtful student of history can doubt how it all happened, or who was its author. It was also easy to see that it was to be no forty-eight year campaign before the question must be adjudicated. The Hon. Elwood Evans, in a speech in 1871, well said: "The arrival of Dr. Whitman in 1843 was opportune. The President was satisfied the territory was worth preserving." He continues: "If the offer had been made in the Ashburton Treaty of the forty-ninth parallel to the Columbia River and thence down the Columbia to the Pacific Ocean, it would have been accepted, but the visit of Whitman committed the President against any such settlement." The offer was not made by English diplomats, because they intended to have a much larger slice. Captain Johnny Grant and the English Hudson Bay officials made their greatest blunder in allowing Whitman to make his perilous Winter ride. They were not prepared for the sudden change in American sentiment. In any enthusiasm for our hero, we would not willingly make any exaggerated claim for his services. Prior to the arrival of Whitman, President Tyler had shown thoughtful interest in the Oregon question, and in his message in 1842 he said: "In advance of the acquirement of individual rights to those lands, sound policy dictates that every effort should be resorted to by the two Governments to settle their respective claims." Fifteen days before the arrival of Whitman, Senator Linn, always a firm friend of Oregon, in a resolution called for information, "Why Oregon was not included in the Ashburton-Webster Treaty." This resolution passed the Senate, but was defeated in the House. Neither the President, Senators, or Congressmen had the data upon which to base clear, intelligent action, and Whitman's arrival just when Congress was closing up its business gave no opportunity for the wider discussion which would have followed then and there. It was, however, another evidence of timeliness, which we wish to keep well to the front in all of Whitman's work. All can see how fortunate it was that the Oregon boundary question was not included in the Ashburton Treaty in 1842, and that it had waited for later adjudication. During the summer of 1843 the people of the entire country had heard of the great overland emigration to Oregon, and on the 8th day of January, 1844, Congress was notified that the Whitman immigration to Oregon was a grand success, and upon the very day of the arrival of this news, a resolution was offered in the Senate which called for the instructions to our Minister in England, and all correspondence upon the subject. But the conservative Senate was not quite ready for such a move, and the resolution was defeated by a close vote. But two days after a similar resolution was passed by the House. Urged to do so by Whitman, the Lees, Lovejoy, Spalding, Eells and others, scores of intelligent emigrants flooded their Congressmen with letters giving glowing descriptions of the beauty of the country, the fertility of the land, and the mildness and healthfulness of the climate. Even Senator Winthrop, who at one time declared that "Neither the West nor the country at large had any real interest in retaining Oregon; that we would not be straitened for elbow room in the West for a thousand years," was aroused to something of enthusiasm, and said in his place in the Senate: "For myself, certainly, I believe that we have a good title to the whole twelve degrees of latitude up to fifty-four, forty." Senator Benton had long since materially changed his views from those he held when he had said that "The ridge of the Rocky Mountains may be named as the convenient, natural and everlasting boundary." Fremont, not Whitman, had converted him. Benton was aggressive and intelligent. In the discussion of 1844, he said: "Let the emigrants go on and carry their rifles. We want thirty thousand rifles in the valley of the Oregon. The war, if it come, will not be topical; it will not be confined to Oregon, but will embrace the possessions of the two powers throughout the Globe." In the discussion, which took a wide turn, many of the eminent statesmen at that time took a part. Prominent among them was Calhoun, Linn, Benton, Choate, Berrien and Rives. Many of them tried the most persuasive words of peace, yet no one who reads the speeches and the proceedings, but will perceive the wonderful changes in public sentiment during a single year. The year 1844 ended with the struggle growing every day more intense. The English people had awakened to the fact that they had to meet the issue and there would not be any repetition of the old dallying with the Maine boundary. They sent to this country Minister Packenham as Minister Plenipotentiary to negotiate the treaty. Mr. Buchanan acted for the United States. It was talk and counter-talk. Buchanan was one of the leading spirits in the demand for fifty-four forty, and his position was well understood both by the people of the United States and by England. President Tyler, in his final message, earnestly recommended the extension of the United States laws over the Territory of Oregon. In this connection it will be remembered that Dr. Whitman, only a few months before the great massacre, in which he and his noble wife lost their lives, rode all the way to Oregon City to urge Judge Thornton to go to Washington and beg, on the part of the people of Oregon, for a "Provisional Government." Judge Thornton believed in Dr. Whitman's wisdom, and when the doctor declared that which seemed to be a prophecy, "Unless this is done, nothing will save even my mission from murder," the Judge said, "If Governor Abernethy will furnish me a letter to the President, I will go." The Governor promptly furnished the required letter and Judge Thornton resigned his position as Supreme Judge. All know of the fatal events at the Whitman Mission in less than two months after Judge Thornton's departure. But the boundary question lapped over into Mr. Polk's administration in 1845 with a promise of lively times. President Polk, in December, 1845, made it the leading question in his message. He covers the whole question in dispute and says: "The proposition of compromise which has been made and rejected, was by my order withdrawn, and our title to the whole of Oregon asserted, and, as it is believed, maintained by irrefragable facts and arguments." The President recommended that the joint occupation treaty of 1818-1828 be terminated by the stipulated notice, and that the civil and criminal laws of the United States be extended over the whole of Oregon, and that a line of military posts be established along the route from the States to the Pacific. If the reader will take the pains to read the paper which Dr. Whitman by request sent to the Secretary of War in 1843, republished in the appendix of this volume, he will find in it just the recommendations now two years later made by the President. The great misfortune was that it was not complied with promptly. War upon a grand scale seemed imminent. A leading Senator announced that "War may now be looked for almost inevitably." The whole tone of public sentiment, in Congress and out, was that the United States owned Oregon, not only up to forty-nine degrees, but up to 54 degrees, 40 minutes. It was thought that the resolution of notice for the termination of the treaty would cause a declaration of war. For forty days the question was pending before the House and finally passed by the strong vote of 163 for to 54 against. In the Senate the resolution covered a still wider range and a longer time. But little else was thought or talked about. Business throughout the land was at a standstill in the suspense, or was hurrying to prepare for a great emergency. The wisest, coolest-headed Senators still regarded the question at issue open for peaceful settlement. They dwelt upon the horrors of a war, that would cost the Nation five hundred millions in treasure, besides the loss of life. Webster, who had been so soundly abused for his Ashburton Treaty, had held aloof from this discussion. But there came a time when he could no longer remain silent, and he put himself on the record in a single sentence: "It is my opinion that it is not the judgment of this country, or that of the Senate, that the Government of the United States should run the hazard of a war for Oregon, by renouncing as no longer fit for consideration, the proposition of adjustment made by the Government thirty years ago, and repeated in the face of the world." Calhoun, than whom no Senator was more influential, urged continued peaceful methods. He said: "A question of greater moment never has been presented to Congress." Others counseled a continuance of things as they were and letting immigration after the bold Whitman plan settle it. Suffice it here to say that both Nations, after the wide discussion and threats, saw war as a costly experiment. In the last of April the terms of treaty were agreed upon, and on July 17th, 1846, both Governments had signed a treaty fixing the boundary line at forty-nine degrees. Now here again comes in the timeliness of Whitman's memorable ride. It had taken every day of exciting contest in Congress since that event, up to April, 1846, to agree upon the boundary and for America to get her Oregon. On the 13th day of May, 1846, Congress declared war against Mexico, and California was at stake. Suppose England could have foreseen that event, would she not have declared in favor of a longer wait? Who that knows England does not know that she would? With England still holding to her rights in Oregon how easy it would have been to take sides with Mexico and to have helped her hold California. But we won not only California and New Mexico, but won riches. In the year 1848 gold was discovered in California. And now suppose England could have foreseen that, as she would have known it had she prolonged the negotiations, would she ever have signed away any possessions like that rolled in gold? When did the great and powerful Kingdom of Great Britain ever do anything of the kind? It would not have done for Whitman to have waited for next year and warm weather as his friends demanded. "I must go," and "now," and at this day it is easy to see from the light of history how God rules in the minds and hearts of men, as he rules nations. They, as men and nations, turn aside from His commands, but a man like Marcus Whitman obeys. Go still farther. From the time gold was discovered in California up to the outbreak of the War of the Rebellion, nine hundred millions of gold were dug from the mines of California and Oregon. Where did it go? The great bulk of it went into storehouses and manufactories and vaults of the North. The South was sparsely represented in California and Oregon in the early days. We repeat that when the war broke out, the great bulk of the yellow metal was behind the Union army. Who don't recognize that it was a great power? Even more than that, it was a controlling power. The Nation was to be tried as never before. Human slavery was the prize for which the South contended, while human freedom soon asserted itself, despite all opposition, as a contending force in the North. But the wisest were in doubt as to results. They could not see how it was possible that "the sum of all villainies" could be obliterated. In the East and the North and the West, the boys in blue flocked to the standard, and bayonets gleamed everywhere. The plow was left in the furrow, and the hum of the machine shop was not heard. The fires in the furnaces and forges went out, and multitudes were in despair over the mighty struggle at hand. The Union might have been saved without the wealth of gold of California and Oregon; it might have proved victorious, even if the two great loyal States of the Pacific had been in the hands of strangers or enemies, but they were behind the loyal Union army. And the men marched and fought and sung-- "In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in his bosom, that transfigures you and me; As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on," as they marched, leaving graves upon every mountain side and in every valley. Appomattox was reached, and lo, the chains dropped from the limbs of six million slaves, and "The flag of beauty and glory" floated from Lake to Gulf and from Ocean to Ocean, in truth as in song-- "O'er the land of the free, And the home of the brave." [Illustration: WHITMAN COLLEGE, WALLA WALLA, WASHINGTON.] Again, older readers will remember with what fear and trembling they opened their morning papers for many months, fearing to read that England had accorded "belligerent rights" to the Confederacy. They will have a vivid recollection of the eloquent orator, Henry Ward Beecher, as he plead, as no other man could, the cause of the Union in English cities. He was backed up by old John Bright, the descendants of Penn, Gurney and Wilberforce, and the old-time enemies of human slavery. But it took them all to stem the tide. At one time it even seemed that they had won over Gladstone to their interests. While the great masses of the English people were in sympathy with the Union cause, the moneyed men and commerce sided with the Confederacy: "Cotton was King." They had been struck in a tender place--their pockets and bank accounts. But suppose England had owned Oregon and its great interests, who don't see that all the danger would have been multiplied, and our interests endangered? There is in this no extravagant claim made that all this was done by Marcus Whitman. The Ruler of the Universe uses men, not a man, for its direction and government. Going back upon the pages of history, the student sees Whittier in his study, and listens to his singing; he sees Mrs. Stowe educating with Uncle Tom in his cabin; he notes Garrison forging thunderbolts in his Liberator; he sees old Gamaliel Bailey with his National Era; he sees Sumner fall by a bludgeon in the Senate; he hears the eloquent thunderings of Hale and bluff old Ben Wade and Giddings and Julian and Chase; he sees Lovejoy fall by the hands of his assassin; he hears the guns of the old "fanatic" John Brown, as he began "marching on;" he sees a great army marshaled for the contest which led up to the election of the "Martyr President," and the crowning victories which redeemed the grandest nation upon which the sun shines from the curse of human slavery. Giving due credit to all, detracting no single honor from any one in all the distinguished galaxy of honored names, and yet the thoughtful student can reach but one conclusion, and that is, that in the timeliness of his acts, in the heroism with which they were carried out, in the unselfishness which marked every step of the way, and in the wide-reaching effects of his work, Dr. Marcus Whitman, as a man and patriot and national benefactor, was excelled by none. Such unselfish devotion, such obedience to the call of duty, such love of "the flag that makes you free," such heroism, which never even once had an outcropping of personal benefit, will forever stand, when fully understood, as among the brightest and most inspiring pages of American history. The young American loves to read of Paul Revere. He dwells with thrilling interest upon the ride of the boy Archie Gillespie, who saw the great dam breaking, and at the risk of his life rode down the valley of the Conemaugh to Johnstown, shouting, "Flee for your lives, the flood, the flood!" The people fled and two minutes behind the boy rolled the mighty flood of annihilation. How painter, and poet, and patriot, lingers over the ride of the gallant Sheridan "from Winchester, twenty miles away." All the honor is deserved; he saved an army and turned a defeat into victory. But how do all these compare with the ride of Whitman? It, too, was a ride for life or death. Over snow-capped mountains, along ravines, traveled only by savage beasts and savage men. It was a plunge through icy rivers, tired, hungry, cold, and yet he rode on and on, until he stood before the President, four thousand miles away! Let us hope and believe that the time will come when Whitman, standing before President Tyler and Secretary Webster, in his buckskin breeches and a dress as we have shown, which was never woven in loom, will be the subject of some great painting. It would be grandly historical and tell a story that a patriotic people should never forget. Alice Wellington Rollins wrote the following poem, which was published in the New York Independent, and widely copied. The Cassell Publishing Company made it one of their gems in their elegant volume, "Representative Poems of Living Poets," and kindly consent to its use in this volume: WHITMAN'S RIDE. Listen, my children, and you shall hear Of a hero's ride that saved a State. A midnight ride? Nay, child, for a year He rode with a message that could not wait. Eighteen hundred and forty-two; No railroad then had gone crashing through To the Western coast; not a telegraph wire Had guided there the electric fire; But a fire burned in one strong man's breast For a beacon light. You shall hear the rest. He said to his wife; "At the Fort to-day, At Walla Walla, I heard them say That a hundred British men had crossed The mountains; and one young, ardent priest Shouted, 'Hurrah for Oregon! The Yankees are late by a year at least!' They must know this at once at Washington. Another year, and all would be lost. Someone must ride, to give the alarm Across the Continent; untold harm In an hour's delay, and only I Can make them understand how or why The United States must keep Oregon!" Twenty-four hours he stopped to think, To think! Nay then, if he thought at all, He thought as he tightened his saddle-girth. One tried companion, who would not shrink From the worst to come, with a mule or two To carry arms and supplies, would do. With a guide as far as Fort Bent. And she, The woman of proud, heroic worth, Who must part from him, if she wept at all, Wept as she gathered whatever he Might need for the outfit on his way. Fame for the man who rode that day Into the wilds at his Country's call; And for her who waited for him a year On that wild Pacific coast, a tear! Then he said "Good-bye!" and with firm-set lips Silently rode from his cabin door Just as the sun rose over the tips Of the phantom mountain that loomed before The woman there in the cabin door, With a dread at her heart she had not known When she, with him, had dared to cross The Great Divide. None better than she Knew what the terrible ride would cost As he rode, and she waited, each alone. Whether all were gained or all were lost, No message of either gain or loss Could reach her; never a greeting stir Her heart with sorrow or gladness; he In another year would come back to her If all went well; and if all went ill-- Ah, God! could even her courage still The pain at her heart? If the blinding snow Were his winding-sheet, she would never know; If the Indian arrow pierced his side, She would never know where he lay and died; If the icy mountain torrents drowned His cry for help, she would hear no sound! Nay, none would hear, save God, who knew What she had to bear, and he had to do. The clattering hoof-beats died away On the Walla Walla. Ah! had she known They would echo in history still to-day As they echoed then from her heart of stone! He had left the valley. The mountains mock His coming. Behind him, broad and deep, The Columbia meets the Pacific tides; Before him--four thousand miles before-- Four thousand miles from his cabin door, The Potomac meets the Atlantic. On Over the trail grown rough and steep, Now soft on the snow, now loud on the rock, Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides. The United States must keep Oregon. It was October when he left The Walla Walla, though little heed Paid he to the season. Nay, indeed, In the lonely canyons just ahead, Little mattered it what the almanac said. He heard the coyotes bark; but they Are harmless creatures. No need to fear A deadly rattlesnake coiled too near. No rattlesnake ever was so bereft Of sense as to creep out such a day In the frost. Nay, scarce would a grizzly care For a sniff at him. Only a man would dare The bitter cold, in whose heart and brain Burned the quenchless flame of a great desire; A man with nothing himself to gain From success, but whose heart-blood kept its fire While with freezing face he rode on and on. The United States must keep Oregon. It was November when they came To the icy stream. Would he hesitate? Not he, the man who carried a State At his saddle bow. They have made the leap; Horse and rider have plunged below The icy current that could not tame Their proud life-current's fiercer flow. They swim for it, reach it, clutch the shore, Climb the river bank, cold and steep, Mount, and ride the rest of that day, Cased in an armor close and fine As ever an ancient warrior wore; Armor of ice that dared to shine Back at a sunbeam's dazzling ray, Fearless as plated steel of old Before that slender lance of gold. It is December as they ride Slowly across the Great Divide; The blinding storm turns day to night, And clogs their feet; the snowflakes roll The winding sheet about them; sight Is darkened; faint the despairing soul. No trail before or behind them. Spur His horse? Nay, child, it were death to stir! Motionless horse and rider stand, Turning to stone; till one poor mule, Pricking his ears as if to say If they gave him rein he would find the way, Found it and led them back, poor fool, To last night's camp in that lonely land. It was February when he rode Into St. Louis. The gaping crowd Gathered about him with questions loud And eager. He raised one frozen hand With a gesture of silent, proud command; "I am here to ask, not answer! Tell Me quick, is the Treaty signed?" "Why yes! In August, six months ago or less!" Six months ago! Two months before The gay young priest at the fortress showed The English hand! Two months before, Four months ago at his cabin door, He had saddled his horse! Too late then. "Well, But Oregon? Have they signed the State Away?" "Of course not. Nobody cares About Oregon." He in silence bares His head. "Thank God! I am not too late." It was March when he rode at last Into the streets of Washington. The warning questions came thick and fast; "Do you know that the British will colonize, If you wait another year, Oregon And the Northwest, thirty-six times the size Of Massachusetts?" A courteous stare, And the Government murmurs: "Ah, indeed! Pray, why do you think that we should care? With Indian arrows and mountain snow Between us, we never can colonize The wild Northwest from the East you know, If you doubt it, why, we will let you read The London Examiner; proofs enough The Northwest is worth just a pinch of snuff." And the Board of Missions that sent him out, Gazed at the worn and weary man With stern displeasure. "Pray, sir, who Gave you orders to undertake This journey hither, or to incur Without due cause, such great expense To the Board? Do you suppose we can Overlook so grave an offense? And the Indian converts? What about The little flock, for whose precious sake We sent you West? Can it be that you Left them without a shepherd? Most Extraordinary conduct, sir, Thus to desert your chosen post." Ah, well! What mattered it! He had dared A hundred deaths, in his eager pride, To bring to his Country at Washington A message, for which, then, no one cared! But Whitman could act as well as ride. The United States must keep the Northwest. He--whatever might say the rest-- Cared, and would colonize Oregon! It was October, forty-two, When the clattering hoof-beats died away On the Walla Walla, that fateful day. It was September, forty-three-- Little less than a year, you see-- When the woman who waited thought she heard The clatter of foot-beats that she knew On the Walla Walla again. "What word From Whitman?" Whitman himself! And see! What do her glad eyes look upon? The first of two hundred wagons rolls Into the valley before her. He Who, a year ago, had left her side, Had brought them over the Great Divide-- Men, women and children, a thousand souls-- The army to occupy Oregon. You know the rest. In the books you have read That the British were not a year ahead. The United States have kept Oregon, Because of one Marcus Whitman. He Rode eight thousand miles, and was not too late! In a single hand, not a Nation's fate, Perhaps; but a gift for the Nation, she Would hardly part with it to-day, if we May believe what the papers say upon This great Northwest, that was Oregon. * * * * * And Whitman? Ah! my children, he And his wife sleep now in a martyr's grave! Murdered! Murdered, both he and she, By the Indian souls they went West to save! CHAPTER IX. THE CHANGE IN PUBLIC SENTIMENT. The reader of history seldom sees a more notable instance of a changed public sentiment, than he can find in the authentic records dating from March, 1843, to July, 1846. If the epitome sketch made in another chapter has been studied the conditions now to be observed are phenomenal. Statesman after statesman puts himself on record. You hear no more of "No wagon road to Oregon," "That weary, desert road," those "Impassable mountains;" nor does Mr. McDuffie jump up to "Thank God for His mercy, for the impassable barrier of the Rocky Mountains." No Mr. Benton arises and asks that "The statue of the fabled God Terminus should be erected on the highest peak, never to be thrown down." Nor does Mr. Jackson appeal for "A compact Government." Before the man clothed in buckskin left the National Capital, a message was on the way to our Minister to England proclaiming "The United States will consent to give nothing below the latitude of forty-nine degrees." When it was known that a great caravan of two hundred wagons and one thousand Americans had started for Oregon, a second message went to Minister Everett still more pointed and positive, "The United States will never consent that the boundary line to the Pacific Ocean shall move one foot below the latitude of forty-nine degrees." It is a historical fact that one hundred and twenty-five of the wagons went through. The whole people began to talk, as well as to think and act. They had suddenly waked up to a great peril, and were casting about how to meet it. A political party painted upon its banners, "Oregon, fifty-four forty, or fight." Multitudes of those now living remember this great uprising of the people. How was it done? Who did it? Was it a spontaneous move without a reason? Intelligent readers can scan the facts of history and judge for themselves. But it is an historical fact there was a remarkably sudden change. President Tyler, and his great Secretary, Webster, during the balance of his administration, used all the arts of diplomacy, and seemed to make but little progress, except a promise of a Minister Plenipotentiary to treat with the United States. At any time prior to the arrival of Marcus Whitman in Washington, or any time during the conference upon the Ashburton Treaty, had the English diplomats proposed to run the boundary line upon forty-nine degrees until it struck the Columbia River, and down that river to the ocean, there is multiplied evidence that the United States would have accepted it at once. But England did not want a part, she wanted all. During the negotiations in 1827 as to the renewal of the Treaty of 1818, her commissioners stated the case diplomatically, thus: "Great Britain claims no exclusive sovereignty over any portion of that territory. Her present claim is not in respect to any part, but to the whole and is limited to a right of joint occupancy in common with other States, leaving the right of exclusive dominion in abeyance." Some have urged that this was a give-away and a quit claim on the part of England, but at most, it is only the language of diplomacy, to be interpreted by the acts of the party in contest. Those who met and know the men in power in Oregon in those pioneer days, can fully attest the assertion of the Edinburgh Review in an article published in 1843, after Whitman's visit to Washington. It says: "They are chiefly Scotchmen, and a greater proportion of shrewdness, daring and commercial activity is probably not to be found in the same number of heads in the world." They made their grand mistake, however, that while being true Britons, they were Hudson Bay Company men first and foremost, and were anxious to keep out all immigration. None better knew the value of Oregon lands for the purposes of the agriculturist, than those "shrewd old Scotchmen" did. About every trading post they had cleared farms, planted orchards and vineyards, and tested all kinds of grains. Mrs. Whitman, in her diary of September 14th, 1836, speaking of her visit to Fort Vancouver, says, "We were invited to see the farm. We rode for fifteen miles during the afternoon and visited the farms and stock, etc. They estimate their wheat crop this year at four thousand bushels, peas the same, oats and barley fifteen and seventeen hundred bushels each. The potato and turnip fields are large and fine. Their cattle are large and fine and estimated at one thousand head. They have swine in abundance, also sheep and goats, but the sheep are of an inferior quality. We also find hens, turkeys and pigeons, but no geese. Every day we have something new. The store-houses are filled from top to bottom with unbroken bales of goods, made up of every article of comfort." She tells of "A new and improved method of raising cream" for butter-making, and "The abundant supply of the best cheese." In another note she gives the menu for dinner. "First, we are treated to soup, which is very good, made of all kinds of vegetables, with a little rice. Tomatoes are a prominent vegetable. After soup the dishes are removed and roast duck, pork, tripe, fish, salmon or sturgeon, with other things too tedious to mention. When these are removed a rice pudding or apple pie is served with musk melons, cheese, biscuits and wine." Shrewd Scotsmen! And yet this is the country which for years thereafter American statesmen declared "A desert waste," "Unfit for the habitation of civilized society," and from which our orators thanked Heaven they were "separated by insurmountable barriers of mountains," and "impassable deserts." We repeat, none better knew the value of Oregon soil for the purposes of agriculture, than did these princely retainers of England, and they well knew, that when agriculture and civilization gained a foothold, both they and their savage retainers would be compelled to move on. They held a bonanza of wealth in their hands, in a land of Arcadia, which they ruled to suit themselves. It is not at all strange that they made the fight they did; they had in 1836 feared the advent of Dr. Whitman's old wagon, more than an army with banners. They had tried in every way in their power, except by absolute force, to arrest its progress. They foresaw that every turn of its wheels upon Oregon soil endangered fur. Those in command at Fort Hall and Fort Boise were warned to be more watchful. The consequence was that not another wheel was permitted to go beyond those forts, from 1836 to 1843. Dr. Edwards, however, reports that "Dr. Robert Newell brought three wagons through to Walla Walla in 1840." But the fact remains that wagon after wagon was abandoned at those points and the things necessary for the comfort of the immigrant were sacrificed, and men, women and children were compelled to take to the pack-saddle, or journey the balance of the weary way on foot. Great stress was laid at these points of entrance, upon the dangers of the route to Oregon, and the comparative ease and comfort of the journey to California. Hundreds were thus induced to give up the journey to Oregon, in making which they would be forced to abandon their wagons and goods, and they turned their faces toward California. General Palmer, in speaking of this, says: "While at Fort Hall in 1842, the perils of the way to Oregon were so magnified as to make us suppose the journey thither was impossible. They represented the dangers in passing over Snake River and the Columbia as very great. That but little stock had ever crossed those streams in safety. And more and worst of all, they represented that three or four tribes of Indians along the route had combined to resist all immigration." They represented that, "Famine and the snows of Winter would overtake all with destruction, before they could reach Oregon." They did succeed in scaring this band of one hundred and thirty-seven men, women and children in 1842 into leaving all their wagons behind, but they went on to Oregon on pack-saddles. In the meantime they ran a literary bureau for all it was worth, in the disparagement of Oregon for all purposes except those of the fur trader. The English press was mainly depended upon for this work, but the best means in reach were used that all these statements should reach the ruling powers and reading people of the United States. The effect of this literary bureau upon American statesmen and the most intelligent class of readers prior to the Spring of 1843, is easily seen by the sentiments quoted, and by their published acts, in refusing to legislate for Oregon. Modern historians have said that, "The Hudson Bay Company and the English never at any time claimed anything south of the Columbia River." Such a statement can nowhere be proved from any official record; on the contrary, there are multiplied expressions and acts proving the opposite. As early as the year 1828, the Hudson Bay Company saw the value of the Falls of the Willamette at Oregon City for manufacturing purposes, and took possession of the same; as Governor Simpson in command of the Company said, "To establish a British Colony of their retired servants." "Governor Simpson," says Dr. Eells in his "History of Indian Missions," "said in 1841 that the colonists in the Willamette Valley were British subjects, and that the English had no rivals on the coast but Russia, and that the United States will never possess more than a nominal jurisdiction, nor will long possess even that, on the west side of the Rocky Mountains." And he added, "Supposing the country to be divided to-morrow to the entire satisfaction of the most unscrupulous patriot in the Union, I challenge conquest to bring my prediction and its own power to the test by imposing the Atlantic tariff on the ports of the Pacific." Such sentiments from the Governor, the man then in supreme power, who moulded and directed English sentiments, is of deep significance. A man only second in influence to Governor Simpson and even a much broader and brainier man, Dr. John McLoughlin, Factor of the Company, "said to me in 1842," says Dr. Eells, "that in fifty years the whole country will be filled with the descendants of the Hudson Bay Company." But while they believed, just as the American immigrants did, that as a result of the Treaty of 1818-28, the country would belong to the nationality settling it; yet they had so long held supreme power that they were slow to think that such power was soon to pass from them. That the diplomacy of the home Government, the bold methods and "The shrewdness, daring and commercial activity in the heads" of the Rulers, that the Edinburgh Review pictures, were all to be thwarted and that speedily, had not entered into their calculations, and they did not awake to a sense of the real danger until those hundred and twenty-five wagons, loaded with live Americans and their household goods, rolled down the mountain sides and into the Valley of the Willamette on that memorable October day, 1843. It was America's protest, made in an American fashion. It settled the question of American interests as far as Americans could settle it under the terms of the Treaty of 1818, as they understood it. Under the full belief that Whitman would bring with him a large delegation, the Americans met and organized before he reached Oregon. And when the Whitman caravan arrived, they outnumbered the English and Canadian forces three to one; and the Stars and Stripes were run up, never again to be hauled down by any foreign power in all the wide domain of Oregon. True, there was yet a battle to be fought. The interests at stake were too grand for the party who held supreme power so long to yield without a contest. But there were rugged, brave, intelligent American citizens now in Oregon, and there to stay. They had flooded home people with letters describing the salubrity of the climate and the fertility of the soil. Statesmen heard of it. Sudden conversions sometimes make unreasonable converts. The very men who had rung the changes upon "worthless," "barren," "cut off by impassable deserts," now turned and not only claimed the legitimate territory up to forty-nine degrees, but made demands which were heard across the Atlantic. We will have "Oregon and fifty-four forty, or fight." In a lengthy message in December, 1845, President Polk devotes nearly one-fifth of his space to the discussion of the Oregon question, and rehearses the discussion pro and con between the two governments and acknowledges, that thus far there has been absolute failure. He tells Congress that "The proposition of compromise, which was made and rejected, was, by my order, subsequently withdrawn, and our title up to 54 degrees 40 minutes asserted, and, as it is believed, maintained by irrefragable facts and arguments." In that message, President Polk argued in favor of terminating the joint occupancy by giving the stipulated notice, and that the jurisdiction of the United States be extended over the entire territory, with a line of military posts along the entire frontier to the Pacific. It all seemed warlike. The withdrawing of "the joint occupancy," many statesmen believed would precipitate a war. Senator Crittenden and others believed such to be the case. War seemed inevitable. Even Senator McDuffie, whom we have before quoted, as unwilling to "Give a pinch of snuff for all the territory beyond the Rockies," now is on record saying, "Rather make that territory the grave of Americans, and color the soil with their blood, than to surrender one inch." While it was generally conceded that we would have a war, yet there were wise, cool-headed men in the Halls of National Legislation, determined to avert such disaster if possible, without sacrificing National honor. The debate on giving legal notice to cancel the Treaty of 1818, as to joint occupancy, was the absorbing theme of Congress, and lasted for forty days before reaching a vote, and then passed by the great majority of 109. But the Senate was more conservative, and continued the debate after the measure had passed the House by such an overwhelming majority. They saw the whole Country already in a half paralyzed condition. Its business had decreased, its capital was withdrawn from active participation in business, and its vessels stood empty at the wharves of ports of entry. Such statesmen as Crittenden and others who had not hurried to get in front of the excited people, now saw the necessity for decided action to avert war and secure peace. To brave public opinion and antagonize the Lower House of Congress required the largest courage. Mr. Crittenden said, "I believe yet, a majority is still in favor of preserving the peace, if it can be done without dishonor. They favor the settling of the questions in dispute peaceably and honorably, to compromise by negotiations and arbitration, or some other mode known and recognized among nations as suitable and proper and honorable." Mr. Webster had been too severely chastised by both friends and enemies for his part in the Ashburton Treaty, to make him anxious to be prominent in the discussion in the earlier weeks, but when he did speak he pointed out the very road which the Nation would travel in its way for peace, viz.: a compromise upon latitude forty-nine. Webster said, "In my opinion it is not the judgment of this country, nor the judgment of the Senate, that the Government of the United States should run the hazard of a war for Oregon by renouncing, as no longer fit for consideration, the proposition of adjustment made by this Government thirty years ago and repeated in the face of the world." His great speech, which extended through the sessions of two days, was a masterly defense and explanation of the Ashburton-Webster Treaty, which was signed three years before. No American statesman of the time had so full and complete a knowledge of the questions at issue as had Webster. He had canvassed every one of them in all their bearings with the shrewdest English diplomats and had nothing to learn. His great speech can be marked as the turning point in the discussion, and the friends of peace took fresh courage. The first and ablest aid Mr. Webster received was from Calhoun, then second to none in his influence. In his speech he said, "What has transpired here and in England within the last three months must, I think, show that the public opinion in both countries is coming to a conclusion that this controversy ought to be settled, and is not very diverse in the one country or the other, as to the general basis of such settlement. That basis is the offer made by the United States to England in 1826." It may here be observed that President Monroe offered to compromise on forty-nine degrees. President Adams did the same in 1826, while President Tyler, in the year of Whitman's visit (1843), again offered the same compromise, and England had rejected each and all. She expected a much larger slice. Gen. Cass followed Calhoun in a fiery war speech, which called out the applause of the multitude, in which he claimed that the United States owned the territory up to the Russian line of 54 degrees 40 minutes and he "Would press the claim at the peril of war." Dayton and other Senators asked that present conditions be maintained, and that "The people of the United States meet Great Britain by a practical adoption of her own doctrine, that the title of the country should pass to those who occupied it." This latter view was the pioneer view of the situation, and which was so fully believed as to cause the memorable ride of Whitman in mid-winter from Oregon to Washington. The resolution of notice to the English Government, as we have seen, passed the House Feb. 9, 1846, and came to a vote and passed the Senate April 23d, by 42 to 10. It, however, contained two important amendments to the House resolution, both suggestive of compromise. And as the President was allowed "At his discretion to serve the notice," the act was shorn of much of its warlike meaning. When it is remembered that the President's message and recommendations were made on the 2d of December, 1845, and the question had absorbed the attention of Congress until April 23, 1846, before final action, it can be marked as one of the most memorable discussions that has ever occurred in our Halls of National Legislation. It had now been three years since Whitman had made his protest to President Tyler and his Secretary; and while Congress had debated and the whole Nation was at a white heat of interest, the old pioneers had gone on settling the question in their own way by taking possession of the land, building themselves homes, erecting a State House, and, although four thousand miles distant from the National Capital, enacting laws, in keeping with American teachings, and demeaning themselves as became good citizens. Love of country, with sacrifices made to do honor to the flag, has seldom had a more beautiful and impressive illustration than that given by the old pioneers of Oregon during the years of their neglect by the home Government, which even seemed so far distant that it had lost all interest in their welfare. CHAPTER X. THE FAILURE OF MODERN HISTORY TO DO JUSTICE TO DR. WHITMAN. Says an old author: "History is a river increasing in volume with every mile of its length, and the tributaries that join it nearer and nearer the sea are taken up and swept onward by a current that grows ever mightier." Napoleon said: "History is a fable agreed upon." If Napoleon could have looked downward to the closing years of this century and seen the genius of the literary world striving to do him honor, he would perhaps have modified the sentiment. History, at its best, is a collection of biographies of the world's great leaders, and is best studied in biography. To be of value, it must be accurate. Scarcely has any great leader escaped from the stings of history, but it is well to know and believe that time will correct the wrong. The case of Dr. Whitman is peculiar in the fact that all his contemporaries united in doing him honor, save and except one, Bishop Brouillet. The men who knew the value of his work and his eminent services, such as Gray, Reed, Simpson, Barrows, and Parkman; the correspondence of Spalding, Lovejoy, Eells, and the Lees, have made the record clear. It has been reserved for modern historians of that class who have just discovered the "Mistakes of Moses," and that Shakespeare never wrote Shakespeare's plays, to indulge in sneers and scoffs and to falsify the record. It is not the intention to attempt to reply to all these, but we shall notice the fallacies of two or three. In a recent edition of the history of the Lewis and Clarke Expedition, published by F. P. Harper, New York, and edited by Dr. Elliott Coues, a most entertaining volume, and yet wholly misleading as to the final issue which resulted in Oregon becoming a part of the Republic, Dr. Coues in his dedication of the volume says: "To the people of the great West: Jefferson gave you the country. Lewis and Clarke showed you the way. The rest is your own course of empire. Honor the statesman who foresaw your West. Honor the brave men who first saw your West. May the memory of their glorious achievement be your precious heritage. Accept from my heart this undying record of the beginning of all your greatness. ELLIOTT COUES." All honor to Jefferson, the far-sighted statesman; and a like honor to the courageous explorers, Lewis and Clarke; but the writer of history should be true to facts. Lewis and Clarke were not "The first men who saw your West." They were not the discoverers of Oregon. Old Captain Gray did that a dozen years prior to the visit of Lewis and Clarke. A writer of true history should not have blinded his eyes to that fact on his dedicatory page. Captain Gray sailed into the mouth of the Columbia River on his good ship Columbia, from Boston, on May 7th, 1792. The great river was named for his vessel. This, together with the title gained by the Louisiana purchase in 1803, and the treaty with Spain and Mexico, more fully recited in another chapter, made the claim of the United States to ownership in the soil of Oregon. The mission of Lewis and Clarke was not that of discoverers, but to spy out and report upon the value of the discovery already made. Their work required rare courage, and was accomplished with such intelligence as to make them heroes, and both were rewarded with fat offices; one as the Governor of Louisiana, and the other as General Commissioner of Indian Affairs; and both were given large land grants. We have not been able to see in any of Dr. Coues' full notes any explanation of such facts, but even if he has given such explanation, he had no right, as a truthful chronicler of history, to mislead the reader by his highly ornate dedicatory: "Jefferson gave you the country, Lewis and Clarke showed you the way." President Jefferson was much more of a seer and statesman than were his compeers. The Louisiana purchase, to him, was much more than gaining possession of the State at the mouth of the Mississippi River, with its rich acres for the use of slave-owners of the South. In his later years he said: "I looked forward with gratification to the time when the descendants of the settlers of Oregon would spread themselves through the whole length of the coast, covering it with free, independent Americans, unconnected with us but by the ties of blood and interest, and enjoying, like us, the rights of self-government." If the old statesman could view the scene and the condition now, how much grander would be the view! It would be unjust to question the interest of President Jefferson in the Northwest Territory; the great misfortune was, that the statesmen of his day were almost wholly oblivious to his appeals. The report made by the Lewis and Clarke expedition was stuffed into a pigeon hole, and was not even published until eight years after the exploration, and after one of the explorers was dead. It was not received with a single ripple of enthusiasm by Congress or the people of the Nation. The Government, on the contrary, fourteen years after the advent of Lewis and Clarke in Oregon, entered into a treaty with England, which virtually gave the English people the control of the entire country for more than the first third of the century. The most that can be said of Lewis and Clarke is that they were faithful explorers, who blazed the way which Americans failed to travel, until, in the fullness of time, a man appeared who led the way and millions followed. Among the most pointed defamers of Dr. Whitman is Mrs. Frances F. Victor, of Oregon, author of "The River of the West," who seldom loses an opportunity to attempt to belittle the man and his work. In a communication to the Chicago Inter Ocean, she openly charges that his journey to Washington in the winter of 1842 and '43 was wholly for selfish interests. She charges that he was about to be removed from his Mission and wanted to present his case before the American Board. That he wanted his Mission as "A stopping place for immigrants." In other words, it was for personal and pecuniary gain that he made the perilous ride. We quote her exact language: "That there was considerable practical self-interest in his desire to be left to manage the Mission as he thought best, there can be no question. It was not for the Indians, altogether, he wished to remain. He foresaw the wealth and importance of the country and that his place must become a supply station to the annual emigrations. Instead of making high-comedy speeches to the President and Secretary of State, he talked with them about the Indians, and what would, in his opinion, be the best thing to be done for them and for the white settlers. His visit was owing to the necessity that existed of explaining to the Board better than he could by letter, and more quickly, his reasons for wishing to remain at his station, and to convince them it was for the best." Says Mrs. Victor: "The Missionaries all believed that the United States would finally secure a title to at least that portion of Oregon south of the Columbia River, out of whose rich lands they would be given large tracts by the Government, and that was reason enough for the loyalty exhibited." She openly charges that "Dr. Whitman acted deceitfully toward all the other members of the Mission." If such were true, is it not strange that in all the years that followed every man and woman among them were his staunchest and truest friends and most valiant defenders? She proceeds to call Whitman "Ignorant and conceited to believe that he influenced Secretary Webster." That the story of his suffering, frost-bitten condition was false. "He was not frost-bitten, or he would have been incapacitated to travel," etc. Mrs. Victor makes a grave charge against Whitman. She says: "He got well-to-do by selling flour and grain and vegetables to immigrants at high prices." Now, let us allow Dr. Spalding to answer this calumny. He knew Whitman and his work as well, or better than any other man. Dr. Spalding says: "Immigrants, by hundreds and thousands, reached the Mission, way-worn, hungry, sick, and destitute, but he cared for all. Seven children of one family were left upon the hands of Dr. and Mrs. Whitman--one a babe four months old--and they cared for them all, giving food, clothing, and medicine without pay. Frequently, the Doctor would give away his entire food supply, and have to send to me for grain to get through the Winter." She pointedly denies that Dr. Whitman went to Washington or the States with the expectation of bringing out settlers to Oregon. The letters recently published by the State Historical Society of Oregon, quoted in another chapter, were written by Dr. Whitman the year following his famous journey. In them he clearly reveals the reasons for the ride to Washington. The reader can believe Dr. Whitman or believe Mrs. Victor, but both cannot be believed. In addition to these letters, we have the clear testimony of General Lovejoy, who went with him; of Rev. Mr. Spalding, of Elkanah Walker, Dr. Gray, Rev. Cushing Eells, P. B. Whitman, who accompanied him on his return trip; Mr. Hinman, Dr. S. J. Parker, of Ithaca, N. Y., and the Rev. William Barrows, who had frequent conversations with him in St. Louis. In an interview with Dr. William Geiger, published in the New York Sun, January 17th, 1885, he says: "I was at Fort Walla Walla, and associated directly with Dr. Whitman when he started East to save Oregon. I was there when he returned, and I am, perhaps, the only living person who distinctly recollects all the facts. He left, not to go to St. Louis or to Boston, but for the distinct purpose of going to Washington to save Oregon; and yet he had to be very discreet about it." Will the honest reader of history reject such testimony as worthless, and mark that of these modern skeptics valuable? Mrs. Victor's charges, that selfishness and personal aggrandizement accounted for all the sacrifices made by Whitman, are preposterous in the light of testimony, and made utterly untenable by the environments of the Missionary. There was no time in all the years that Dr. and Mrs. Whitman lived in Oregon that they could not have packed all their worldly goods upon the backs of two mules. The American Board made no bribe of money to the men and women they sent out to Oregon and elsewhere. If the great farm he opened at Waiilatpui, and the buildings he erected by his patient toil, had grown to be worth a million, it would not have added a single dollar to Whitman's wealth. Even the physician's fees given him by grateful sufferers, under the rules of the Board, were reported and counted as a part of his meager salary. The idea that a man should leave wife and home, and endure the perils of a mid-winter journey to the States, to persuade Congress "To buy sheep" and "make his Mission a stopping place," or the American Board to allow him to work sixteen hours a day for the Cayuse Indians, is a heavy task on credulity, and is so far-fetched as to make Whitman's maligners only ridiculous. But it is Hubert Howe Bancroft, the author of the thirty-eight volume History of the Pacific States, who is the offender-in-chief. As a collector and historian, Bancroft necessarily required many co-workers. It was in his failure to get them into harmony and tell the straight connected truth, in which he made his stupendous blunders. Chapter is arrayed against chapter, and volume against volume. One tells history, and another denies it. In Volume I, page 379, he refers to the incident, already fully recited in another chapter, of the visit of the Flathead Indians to St. Louis, and does not once doubt its historic accuracy; but in Volume XXIII, another of his literary army works up the same historic incident, and says: "The Presbyterians were never very expert in improvising Providences. Therefore, when Gray, the great Untruthful, and whilom Christian Mission builder, undertakes to appropriate to the Unseen Powers of his sect the sending of four native delegates to St. Louis in 1832, begging saviors for transmontain castaways, it is, as most of Gray's affairs are, a failure. The Catholics manage such things better." On page 584, Volume I, "Chronicles of the Builders," Mr. Bancroft says: "The Missionaries and Pioneers of Oregon did much to assure the country to the United States. Had there been no movement of the kind, England would have extended her claim over the whole territory, with a fair prospect of making it her own." In another place says Mr. Bancroft: "The Missionary, Dr. Whitman, was no ordinary man. I do not know which to admire most in him, his coolness or his courage. His nerves were of steel, his patience was excelled only by his fearlessness. In the mighty calm of his nature he was a Caesar for Christ." In the same volume another of his literary co-workers proceeds to glorify John Jacob Astor, and to give him all the honors for saving Oregon to the Union. Mr. Bancroft says: "The American flag was raised none too soon at Fort Astoria to secure the great Oregon country to the United States, for already the men of Montreal were hastening thither to seize the prize; but they were too late. It is safe to say that had not Mr. Astor moved in this matter as he did, had his plans been frustrated or his purposes delayed, the northern boundary of the United States might to-day be the 42d parallel of latitude. Thus we see the momentous significance of the movement." The author proceeds to picture Astor and make him the hero in saving Oregon. In another chapter we have given the full force and effect of Mr. Astor's settlement at Astoria. A careful reading will only show the exaggerated importance of the act, when compared with other acts which the historian only passes with a sneer or in silence. John Jacob Astor was in Oregon to make money and for no other purpose. In Volume I, page 579, "Chronicle of the Builders," Mr. Bancroft allows Mrs. Victor, his authority, to dip her pen deep in slander. He refers to both the Methodist Missions on the Willamette and the Congregational and Presbyterian Missions of the Walla Walla, and writes: "But missionary work did not pay, however, either with the white men or the red, whereupon the apostles of this region began to attend more to their own affairs than to the saving of savage souls. They broke up their establishments in 1844, and thenceforth became a political clique, whose chief aim was to acquire other men's property." Please note the charges. Here are Christian men and women who have for years deprived themselves of all the benefits of civilization, and endured the hardships and dangers of frontier life, professedly that they might preach the gospel to savage people, but says Mr. Bancroft: "Missionary work did not pay." In the sense of money making, when did Missionary work ever pay? This history of the Pacific States is a history for the generations to come. It is to go into Christian homes and upon the shelves of Christian libraries. If it is true, Christianity stands disgraced and Christian Missionaries stand dishonored. Mr. Bancroft says: "They broke up their establishments in 1844 and became a political clique, whose chief aim was to acquire other men's property." As usual, another one of the historian's valuable aides comes upon the stage in the succeeding volume, and gives a horrifying account of "The great massacre at Dr. Whitman's Mission, on Nov. 29th, 1847." He tells us "There were at the time seventy souls at the Mission" and "Fourteen persons were killed and forty-seven taken captives." Does this prove the historian's truthfulness who had before told his readers that "They broke up their establishments in 1844 and thenceforth became a political clique, whose aim was to acquire other men's property?" There is no possible excuse for the historian to allow his aides to lead him into such blunders as we have pointed out. The real facts were in reach. Here were men and women educated, cultivated, exiles from home, engaged in the great work of civilizing and Christianizing savages, and without a fact to sustain the charge, it is openly asserted that they gave up their work and entered upon the race for political power and for wealth. Instead of the Missions of the American Board being "closed in 1844," they were at no time in a more prosperous condition; as the record of Dr. Eells, Dr. Spalding and Dr. Whitman all show. There is not a particle of evidence that Dr. Whitman ever took any part in any political movement in Oregon; save and except as his great effort to bring in settlers to secure the country to the United States may be called political. As soon as he could leave the emigrants, he hurried home to his Mission, and at once took up his heavy work which he had laid aside eleven months before. He went on building and planting, and sowing and teaching; the busiest of busy men up to the very date of the massacre. In his young manhood he sacrificed ease in a civilized home, and he and his equally noble wife dedicated themselves and their lives to the Missionary service. At all times they were the same patient, quiet, uncomplaining toilers. Why should the great historian of the Pacific States stand above their martyr graves and attempt to discredit their lives and dishonor their memories? Dr. Whitman exhibited as much patriotism and performed as grand an act of heroism as any man of this century, and yet, Mr. Bancroft devotes half a dozen volumes to "The Chronicle of the Builders," in which he presents handsome photographs and clear, well-written sketches of hundreds of men, but they are mainly millionaires and politicians. The historian seems to have had no room for a Missionary or a poor Doctor. They were only pretending "to save savage souls." And that "did not pay," and "they broke up their settlements in 1844 and thenceforth became a political clique" whose "chief aim was to acquire other men's property." It is a slander of the basest class, not backed up by a single credible fact, wholly dishonorable to the author, and discredits his entire history. An old poet says: "And ever the right comes uppermost, And ever is justice done!" The Christian and patriotic people who believe in honest dealing will, in the years to come, compel all such histories to be re-written and their malice expunged, or they will cease to find an honored place in the best libraries. It is by such history that the modern public has been blinded, and the real heroes relegated to the rear to make room for favorites. But facts are stubborn things, "The truth is mighty and will prevail." The great public is honest and loves justice and honesty; and it will not permit such a record to stand. The awakening has already begun. The time is coming when the martyred heroes in their unhonored graves at Waiilatpui, will receive the reward due for their patriotic and heroic service. It is also gratifying to be able to observe that this malevolence is limited to narrow bounds. It has originated and has lived only in the fertile brains of two or three boasters of historic knowledge, who have made up in noise for all lack of principle and justice. They seem to have desired to gain notoriety for themselves and imagined that the world would admire their courage. It was Mr. Bancroft's great misfortune that this little coterie in Oregon were entrusted with the task of writing the most notable history of modern times, and his great work and his honored name will have to bear the odium of it until his volumes are called in and the grievous wrong is righted. It will be done. Mr. E. C. Ross, of Prescott, says in the Oregonian in 1884: "Time will vindicate Dr. Whitman, and when all calumnies, and their inventors, shall have been forgotten, his name, and that of his devoted, noble wife, will stand forth in history as martyrs to the cause of God and their Country." Let the loyal, patriotic men and women of America resolve that the time to do this is now. CHAPTER XI. THE MASSACRE AT WAIILATPUI. In all the years since the terrible tragedy at Waiilatpui, historians have been seeking to find the cause of that great crime. Some have traced it to religious jealousies, but have, in a great measure, failed to back such charges with substantial facts. It seems rather to have been a combination of causes working together for a common purpose. For nearly half a century, as we have seen in the history of Oregon, the Indians and the Hudson Bay Company had been working harmoniously together. It was a case in which civilization had accommodated itself to the desires of savage life. The Company plainly showed the Indians that they did not wish their lands, or to deprive them of their homes. It only wanted their labor, and in return it would pay the Indians in many luxuries and comforts. The Indians were averse to manual labor, and the great Company had not seen fit to encourage it. They did not desire to see them plant or sow, raise cattle, or build houses for themselves and their families. That would directly interfere with their work as fur gatherers, and break in upon the source of wealth to the Company. To keep them at the steel trap, and in the chase, was the aim of the Hudson Bay policy, and such was congenial to the Indian, and just what he desired. The Jesuit priests who were attached to the Hudson Bay Company, seconded the interest of the Company, and attempted to teach religion to the Indian and still leave him a savage. Upon the coming of the Protestant Missionaries, the Indians welcomed them and expressed great delight at the prospect of being taught. They gave their choice locations to the Missions, and most solemn promise to co-operate in the work. But neither they nor their fathers had used the hoe or the plow, or built permanent houses in which to live. They were by nature opposed to manual labor. Squaws were made to do all the work, while Indian men hunted and did the fighting. The Missionaries could see but little hope of Christianizing, unless they could induce them to adopt civilized customs. It was right there that the breach between the Indians and the Missionaries began to widen. They were willing to accept a religion which did not interfere with savage customs, which had become a part of their lives. It was the custom of the Hudson Bay Company, by giving modest bribes, to win over any unruly chief. It was the best way to hold power; but the Missionaries held the tribes which they served up to a higher standard of morals. The Cayuse Indians made a foray upon a weaker tribe, and levied on their stock in payment for some imaginary debt. Dr. Whitman gave the Chiefs a reprimand, and called it thieving, and demanded that they send back everything they had taken. The Indians grew very angry in being thus reminded of their sins. We mention these little incidents as illustrations of the strained conditions which speedily made their appearance in the government of the Indians, and made it easy work for the mischief-makers and criminals, later on. It was the boast of English authors that "The English people got along with Indians much better than Americans." This seems to be true, and it comes from the fact that they did not antagonize savage customs. As long as their savage subjects filled the treasury of the Hudson Bay Company, they cared little for aught else. As a matter of policy and self defense, they treated them honestly and fairly in all business transactions. They were in full sympathy with the Indians in their demand to keep out white immigration, and keep the entire land for fur-bearing animals and savage life. Dr. Whitman's famous ride to the States in the Winter of 1842-43, and his piloting the large immigration of American settlers in 1843, made him a marked man, both with the Indians and the Hudson Bay Company. When the Treaty was signed in 1846, and England lost Oregon, Whitman was doubtless from that hour a doomed man. Both the Hudson Bay Company and the Indians well knew who was responsible. First, "The great white-haired Chief," Dr. McLoughlin, was sacrificed because he was a friend of Whitman and the Missionaries. There was no other reason. If Dr. McLoughlin could have been induced to treat the Protestant Missionaries as he treated the American fur traders, his English Company would have been delighted to have retained him as Chief Factor for life. But with them it was a crime to show kindness to a Protestant Missionary, and thus foster American interests. If McLoughlin had not resigned and got out of the way, he would doubtless have lost his life by the hands of an assassin. The Treaty was signed and proclaimed August 6th, 1846, and the massacre did not occur until the 29th of November, 1847. In those days the news moved slowly and the results, and the knowledge that England and the Hudson Bay Company had lost all, did not reach the outposts along the Columbia until late in the Spring of 1847. If the English and Hudson Bay Company had nothing to do in fanning the flame of Indian anger, it was because they had changed and reformed their methods. How much or how little they worked through the cunning and duplicity of Jesuit priests has never been demonstrated. After the Revolutionary War, England never lost an opportunity to incite the Indians upon our Northern frontier to make savage assaults. Her humane statesmen denounced her work as uncivilized and unchristian. General Washington, in a published letter to John Jay, in 1794, said: "There does not remain a doubt in the mind of any well-informed person in this country, not shut against conviction, that all the difficulties we encounter with the Indians, their hostilities, the murders of helpless women and children along our frontiers, result from the conduct of the agents of Great Britain in this country." At no time then had the English as much reason for anger at American success and prosperity as in the case of Oregon, where a great organization, which has been for well-nigh half a century in supreme control, was now compelled to move on. To have shown no resentment would have been unlike the representatives of England in the days of Washington. Undoubtedly the sickness of the Indians, that year, and the charge that the Americans had introduced the disease to kill the Indians off and get their land, was a powerful agent in winning over to the murderers many who were still friendly to the Missionaries. The Indians had fallen from their high mark of honesty of which Mrs. Whitman in her diary, years before, boasted, and had invaded the melon patch and stolen melons, so that the Indians who ate them were temporarily made sick. With their superstitious ideas they called it "conjuring the melon," and the incident was used effectually to excite hostilities. There is no evidence that white men directly instigated the massacre or took a part in its horrors. While there is evidence of a bitter animosity existing among the Jesuit priests toward the Protestant Missionaries, and their defense of the open charges made against them is lame; yet the historical facts are not sufficient to lay the blame upon them. Nor is it necessary to hold the leading officials of the Hudson Bay Company responsible for the crime as co-conspirators. There are always hangers-on and irresponsible parties who stand ready to do the villain's work. The leader of the massacre was the half-breed, Joe Lewis, whose greatest accomplishment was lying. He seems to have brought the conspiracy up to the killing point by his falsehoods. He was a half Canadian and came to Oregon in company with a band of priests, and strangely enough, dropped down upon Dr. Whitman and by him was clothed and fed for many months. The Doctor soon learned his real character and how he was trying to breed distrust among the Indians. Dr. Whitman got him the position of teamster in a wagon train for the Willamette, and expressed a hope that he was clear of him. But Joe deserted his post and returned to Waiilatpui, and as events showed, was guided by some unseen power in the carrying out of the plans of the murderers. To believe that he conceived it, or that the incentives to the execution of the diabolism rested alone with the Indians, is to tax even the credulous. They were simply the direct agents, and were, doubtless, as has been said, wrought up to the crime through superstitions in regard to Dr. Whitman's responsibility for the prevailing sickness, which had caused many deaths among the Indians. For all the years to come, the readers of history will weigh the facts for themselves, and continue to place the responsibility upon this and that cause; but, for a safe standing point, will always have to drop back upon the fact that it was the "irrepressible conflict" between civilization and savagery, between Christianity and heathenism, backed up by national antagonisms, which had many times before engendered bad spirit. It has been the history of the first settlement of every State of the Union, more or less, from the landing upon Plymouth Rock up to the tragedy at Waiilatpui. Only it seems in the case of the massacre at the Whitman Mission, to be more coldblooded and atrocious, in the fact that those killed had spent the best years of their lives in the service of the murderers. Those who had received the largest favors and the most kindness from the Doctor and his good wife, were active leaders in the great crime. The Rev. H. H. Spalding, in a letter to the parents of Mrs. Whitman, dated April 6, 1848, gives a clear, concise account of the great tragedy. He says: "They were inhumanly butchered by their own, up to the last moment, beloved Indians, for whom their warm Christian hearts had prayed for eleven years, and their unwearied hands had administered to their every want in sickness and distress, and had bestowed unnumbered blessings; who claimed to be, and were considered, in a high state of civilization and Christianity. Some of them were members of our Church; others, candidates for admission; some of them adherents of the Catholic Church; all praying Indians. "They were, doubtless, urged on to the dreadful deed by foreign influences, which we have felt coming in upon us like a devastating flood for the last three or four years; and we have begged the authors, with tears in our eyes, to desist, not so much on account of our own lives and property, but for the sake of those coming, and the safety of those already in the country. But the authors thought none would be injured but the hated Missionaries--the devoted heretics; and the work of Hell was urged on, and has ended, not only in the death of three Missionaries, the ruin of our Mission, but in a bloody war with the settlements, which may end in the massacre of every adult. "The massacre took place on the fatal 29th of November last, commencing at half-past one. Fourteen persons were murdered first and last; nine the first day. Five men escaped from the Station, three in a most wonderful manner, one of whom was the trembling writer, with whom, I know, you will unite in praising God for delivering even one. "The names and places of the slain are as follows: The two precious names already given--my hand refuses to write them again; Mr. Rogers, young man, teacher of our Mission School in the Winter of '46, who since then has been aiding us in our Mission work, and studying for the ministry, with a view to be ordained and join our Mission; John and Francis Sager, the two eldest of the orphan family, ages 17 and 15; Mr. Kimball, of Laporte, Indiana, killed the second day, left a widow and five children; Mr. Saunders, of Oskaloosa, Iowa, left a widow and five children; Mr. Hall, of Missouri, escaped to Fort Walla Walla, was refused protection, put over the Columbia River, killed by the Walla Wallas, left a widow and five children; Mr. Marsh, of Missouri, left a son grown and young daughter; Mr. Hoffman, of Elmira, New York; Mr. Gillan, of Oskaloosa, Iowa; Mr. Sails, of the latter place; Mr. Bewley, of Missouri. The two last were dragged from their sickbeds, eight days after the first massacre, and butchered; Mr. Young, killed the second day. The last five were unmarried men. "Forty women and children fell captives into the hands of the murderers, among them my own beloved daughter, Eliza, ten years old. Three of the captive children soon died, left without parental care, two of them your dear Narcissa's adopted children. The young women were dragged from the house by night, and beastly treated. Three of them were forced to become wives of the murderers of their parents, who often boasted of the deed, to taunt their victims." [Illustration: WHITMAN'S GRAVE.] Continuing the narrative Mr. Spalding says: "Monday morning the Doctor assisted in burying an Indian; returned to the house and was reading; several Indians, as usual, were in the house; one sat down by him to attract his attention by asking for medicine; another came behind him with a tomahawk concealed under his blanket and with two blows in the back of the head, brought him to the floor senseless, probably, but not lifeless; soon after Telaukaikt, a candidate for admission in our Church, and who was receiving unnumbered favors every day from Brother and Sister Whitman, came in and took particular pains to cut and beat his face and cut his throat; but he still lingered till near night. "As soon as the firing commenced at the different places, Mrs. Hayes ran in and assisted Sister Whitman in taking the Doctor from the kitchen to the sitting-room and placed him upon the settee. This was before his face was cut. His dear wife bent over him and mingled her flowing tears with his precious blood. It was all she could do. They were her last tears. To whatever she said, he would reply 'no' in a whisper, probably not sensible. "John Sager, who was sitting by the Doctor when he received the first blow, drew his pistol, but his arm was seized, the room filling with Indians, and his head was cut to pieces. He lingered till near night. Mr. Rogers, attacked at the water, escaped with a broken arm and wound in the head, and rushing into the house, shut the door. The Indians seemed to have left the house now to assist in murdering others. Mr. Kimball, with a broken arm, rushed in; both secreted themselves upstairs. "Sister Whitman in anguish, now bending over her dying husband and now over the sick; now comforting the flying, screaming children, was passing by the window, when she received the first shot in her right breast, and fell to the floor. She immediately arose and kneeled by the settee on which lay her bleeding husband, and in humble prayer commended her soul to God, and prayed for her dear children who were about to be made a second time orphans and to fall into the hands of her direct murderers. I am certain she prayed for her murderers, too. She now went into the chamber with Mrs. Hayes, Miss Bewley, Catharine, and the sick children. They remained till near night. "In the meantime the doors and windows were broken in and the Indians entered and commenced plundering, but they feared to go into the chamber. They called for Sister Whitman and Brother Rogers to come down and promised they should not be hurt. This promise was often repeated, and they came down. Mrs. Whitman, faint with the loss of blood, was carried on a settee to the door by Brother Rogers and Miss Bewley. "Every corner of the room was crowded with Indians having their guns ready to fire. The children had been brought down and huddled together to be shot. Eliza was one. Here they had stood for a long time surrounded by guns pointed at their breasts. She often heard the cry, "Shall we shoot?" and her blood became cold, she says, and she fell upon the floor. But now the order was given, "Do not shoot the children," as the settee passed by the children, over the bleeding, dying body of John. "Fatal moment! The settee advanced about its length from the door, when the guns were discharged from without and within, the powder actually burning the faces of the children. Brother Rogers raised his hand and cried, "My God," and fell upon his face, pierced with many balls. But he fell not alone. An equal number of the deadly weapons were leveled at the settee and the discharge had been deadly. She groaned, and lingered for some time in great agony. "Two of the humane Indians threw their blankets over the little children huddled together in the corner of the room, and shut out the sight as they beat their dying victims with whips, and cut their faces with knives. It was Joe Lewis, the Canadian half-breed, that first shot Mrs. Whitman, but it was Tamtsaky who took her scalp as a trophy." An old Oregon friend of the author, Samuel Campbell, now living in Moscow, Idaho, spent the Winter of '46 and '47 at the Whitman Mission, and never wearied in telling of the grandly Christian character of Mrs. Whitman, of her kindness and patience to all, whites and Indians alike. Every evening she delighted all with her singing. Her voice, after all her hard life, had lost none of its sweetness, nor had her environments in any sense soured her toward any of the little pleasantries of every-day life. Says Mr. Campbell, "You can imagine my horror in 1849, when at Grand Ronde, old Tamtsaky acknowledged to me that he scalped Mrs. Whitman and told of her long, beautiful, silky hair." Soon after the United States Government, by order of General Lane, sent officers to arrest the murderers. Old Tamtsaky was killed at the time of the arrest and escaped the hangman's rope, which was given to five of the leaders, after trial in Oregon City, May, 1850. The names of the murderers hanged were Tilwkait, Tahamas, Quiahmarsum, Klvakamus and Siahsalucus. The Rev. Cushing Eells says, "The day before the massacre, Istikus, a firm friend of Dr. Whitman, told him of the threats against his life, and advised him to 'go away until my people have better hearts.' He reached home from the lodge of Istikus late in the night, but visited his sick before retiring. Then he told Mrs. Whitman the words of Istikus. Knowing how true a friend Istikus was, and his great courage, the situation became more perilous in the estimation of both, than ever before. Mrs. Whitman was so affected by it that she remained in her room, and one of the children, who took her breakfast up to her room, found her weeping. The Doctor went about his work as usual, but told some of his associates that if it were possible to do so, he would remove all the family to a place of safety. It is the first time he ever seems to have been alarmed, or thought it possible that his Indians would attempt such a crime." Rev. Mr. Eells gives a detailed account of the massacre and its horrors, but in this connection we only desire to give the reader a clear view without dwelling upon its atrocities. "The tomahawk with which Dr. Whitman was killed, was presented to the Cayuse Indians by the Blackfeet upon some great occasion, and was preserved by the Cayuse as a memorable relic long after the hanging of the Chiefs. In the Yakima War it passed to another tribe, and the Chief who owned it was killed; an Indian agent, Logan, got possession of it and presented it to the Sanitary Society during the Civil War. A subscription of one hundred dollars was raised and it was presented to the Legislature of Oregon, and is preserved among the archives of the State." This narrative would be incomplete without recording the prompt action of the Hudson Bay Company officers in coming to the relief of the captive women and children. As soon as Chief Factor Ogden heard of it, he lost no time in repairing to the scene, reaching Walla Walla December 12th. In about two weeks he succeeded in ransoming all the captives for blankets, shirts, guns, ammunition and tobacco, and at an expense of $500. No other man in the Territory, and no army that could have been mustered could have done it. The Americans in Oregon promptly mustered and attacked the Indians, who retreated to the territory of a different tribe. But the murderers and leaders among the Indians were not arrested until nearly two years after the crime. While some have charged that the officials of the Hudson Bay Company could have averted the massacre, this is only an opinion. Their humane and prompt act in releasing the captive women and children from worse than death, was worthy of it, and has received the strongest words of praise. Thus was ended disastrously the work of the American Board which had given such large promise for eleven years. While its greatest achievement was not in saving savage souls, but in being largely instrumental in peacefully saving three great States to the American Union, yet there is good evidence, years after the massacre, that the labors of the Missionaries had not been in vain. After the Treaty of 1855, seven years after the massacre, General Joel Palmer, who was one of the Council, says, "Forty-five Cayuse and one thousand Nez Perces have kept up regular family and public worship, singing from the Nez Perces Hymn Book and reading the Gospel of Matthew, translated into Nez Perces, the work of Dr. and Mrs. Spalding." Says General Barloe, "Many of them showed surprising evidences of piety, especially Timothy, who was their regular and faithful preacher during all these years. Among the Cayuse, old Istikus, as long as he lived, rang his bell every Sabbath and called his little band together for worship." Twelve years after leaving his Mission, Rev. Mr. Spalding returned to his people and found the Tribe had kept up the form of worship all the years since. Upon opening a school, it was at once crowded with children, and even old men and women, with failing eyesight, insisted upon being taught; and the interest did not flag until the failing health of Mr. Spalding forced him to give up his work. The Rev. Dr. Eells' experience was much the same; all going to prove that the early work of the American Board was not fruitless in good, and emphasizing the fact that good words and work are never wholly lost, and their power only will be known when the final summing up is made. There have been few great men that have not felt the stings of criticism and misrepresentation. The wholly unselfish life of Dr. Marcus Whitman, from his young manhood to the day of his death, it would seem, ought to have shielded him from this class, but it did not. In justice to his contemporaries, however, it is due to say, every one of them, of all denominations except one, was his friend and defender. That one man was a French Jesuit priest, by the name of J. B. A. Brouillett. He was Acting Bishop among the Indians, of a tribe near to the Cayuse, where Dr. Whitman had labored for eleven years, and where he perished in 1847. After the massacre, there were some grave charges made against Brouillett, and in 1853 he wrote a pamphlet, entitled, "Protestantism in Oregon," in which he made a vicious attack upon the dead Whitman, and the living Dr. Spalding, and the other Protestant Missionaries of the American Board. It naturally called out some very pointed rejoinders, yet attracted but little attention from the Christian world. Patriotic American Catholics took but little stock in the clamor of the French priest, and the matter was in a fair way to be forgotten, when interest was suddenly renewed in the subject by the appearance of an executive document, No. 38, 35th Congress, 1st Session, signed J. Ross Browne, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and dated at San Francisco, December 4, 1867, which contained a few sentences from J. Ross Browne and all of the Brouillett pamphlet. The idea of getting so slanderous a paper published as an official public document by the United States Congress, was an unheard-of challenge that called for a reply. And it came promptly and pointedly. From all parts of the country, Members of Congress were flooded with letters to find out how such a thing could be accomplished. None of them seemed able to answer. But the mischief was done and many of them expressed a willingness to help undo it. The Old School and New School, and the United Presbyterians in their Presbyteries, resented the outrage, both in the Far West and in the East, and none more vigorously than did that of the Illinois Presbytery at the meeting in Chicago in 1871. The Methodists and Baptists and Congregational Conferences in Oregon and Washington, cordially united in the work, and demanded that an address, defending the Missionaries and the American Board, should be printed just as conspicuously to the World as had been the falsehoods of Brouillett. The Presbyterian General Assembly at Chicago, May 18, 1871, led by the Rev. F. A. Noble, summed up the case under seven different counts of falsehoods, and demanded that Congress should, in simple justice, publish them in vindication of the Protestant Church. The Oregon Presbytery was still more positive and aggressive and made their specifications under twelve heads. The Congregationalists and the Methodists in Oregon were equally pointed and positive. It resulted in "A Committee on Protestantism in Oregon," drawing up a reply. In this they say: "The object of Brouillett's pamphlet appears to be to exculpate the real instigators of that terrible tragedy, the massacre at Waiilatpui, and to cast the blame upon the Protestant Missionaries who were the victims." They go on to declare that the paper "Is full of glaring and infamous falsehoods," and give their reasons concisely, and wholly exonerate Dr. Whitman from all blame. They close their address thus: "With these facts before us, we would unite with all lovers of truth and justice, in earnestly petitioning Congress, as far as possible, to rectify the evils which have resulted from the publication, as a Congressional Document, of the slanders of J. Ross Browne, and thus lift the cloud of darkness that 'Hangs over the memory of the righteous dead and extend equal justice to those who survive.'" The Rev. Dr. Spalding prepared the matter and it was introduced through Secretary Columbus Delano, and the Indian Agent, N. B. Meacham, and passed Congress as "Ex-Document No. 37 of the 41st Congress." Forty thousand copies were ordered printed, the same as of Brouillett's pamphlet. It is reported that less than fifty copies ever reached the public. They mysteriously disappeared, and no one ever learned and made public the manner in which it was done. But the incident developed the fact, that the whole patriotic Christian people unitedly defended Whitman from the charges made. CHAPTER XII. BIOGRAPHICAL.--DR. MARCUS WHITMAN AND DR. JOHN McLOUGHLIN. Dr. Marcus Whitman was a direct descendant of John Whitman of Weymouth, who came from England in the ship Confidence, December, 1638. Of him it is recorded that he feared God, hated covetousness and did good continually all the days of a long life. Of the parents of Dr. Whitman, but little has been written. His father, Beza Whitman, was born in Bridgewater, Connecticut, May 13, 1775. In March, 1797, he married Alice Green, of Mumford, Connecticut. Two years later, with all of their worldly goods packed in an ox-cart, they moved to Rushville, New York, Mrs. Whitman making a large part of the tedious journey on foot, carrying her one-year-old babe in her arms. Settled in their new home, with Indians for near neighbors and wilderness all about them, they began the struggle for life, and though no great success rewarded their efforts, it is known that their doors always swung open to the needy and their hands ministered to the sick. Mr. Whitman died April 7, 1810, at the early age of 35 years, leaving his young wife to rear their family of four sons and one daughter. Mrs. Whitman, though not a professing Christian, was a woman of much energy and great endurance which, combined with strong Christian principle, enabled her to look well to the ways of her household. She lived to see every member of it an active Christian. She died September 6th, 1857, aged 79, and was buried beside her husband near Rushville, New York. Dr. Marcus was her second son, and inherited from her a strong frame and great endurance. After his father's death he was sent to his paternal grandfather, Samuel Whitman, of Plainfield, Massachusetts, where he remained ten years for training and education. There he received a liberal training in the best schools the place afforded, supplemented by a thorough course in Latin, and more advanced studies under the minister of the place. We know little of the boyhood spent there, as we should know little of the whole life of Whitman, had not others lived to tell it, for he neither told or wrote of it; he was too modest and too busy for that. But we know it was the usual life of the Yankee boy, to bring the cows and milk them, to cut the wood, and later to plow and sow the fields, as we afterward find he knew how to do all these things. The strong, sturdy boy of ceaseless activity and indomitable will who loved hunting and exploring, and a touch of wild life, must have sometimes given his old grandfather a trial of his mettle, but on the whole, no doubt, he was a great comfort and help to his declining years. After the death of his grandfather, he returned to the home of his mother in Rushville. There he became a member of the Congregational Church at the age of nineteen, and it is said was very desirous of studying for the ministry, but by a long illness, and the persuasion of friends, was turned from his purpose to the study of medicine. He took a three years' course, and graduated at Fairfield, in 1824. He first went to Canada, where he practiced his profession for four years, then came back to his home, determined again to take up the study for the ministry, but was again frustrated in his design, and practiced his profession four years more in Wheeler, N. Y., where he was a member and an elder in the Presbyterian Church. He and a brother also owned a saw-mill near there, where he assisted in his spare hours, and so learned another trade that was most useful to him in later life. In fact, as we see his environments in his Mission Station in Oregon, these hard lessons of his earlier years seem to have been, in the best sense of the word, educational. With but little help, he opened up and cultivated a great farm, and built a grist-mill and a saw-mill, and when his grist-mill was burned, built another, and, at the same time, attended to his professional duties that covered a wide district. It was the wonder of every visitor to the Mission how one man, with so few helpers, accomplished so much. At the time of the massacre, the main building of the Mission was one hundred feet in the front, with an L running back seventy feet, and part of it two stories high. Every visitor remarked on the cleanliness and comfort and thrift which everywhere appeared. There are men who, with great incentives, have accomplished great things, but were utter failures when it came to practical, every-day duties. Dr. Whitman, with a genius to conceive, and the will and energy to carry out the most difficult and daring undertaking, was just as faithful and efficient in the little things that made up the comforts of his wilderness home. Seeing these grand results--the commodious house, the increase in the herds and the stacks of grain--seems to have only angered his lazy, thriftless Indians, and they began to make demands for a division of his wealth. Dr. Whitman has been accused of holding his Indians to a too strict moral accountability; that it would have been wiser to have been more lenient, and winked at, rather than denounced, some of their savage ways. Those who have carefully studied the man, know how impossible it would have been for him, in any seeming way, to condone a crime, or to purchase peace with the criminal by a bribe. This was the method of the Hudson Bay Company, and was doubtless the cheap way. By a series of events and environments, he seems to have been trained much as Moses was, but with wholly different surroundings from those of the great Lawgiver, whose first training was in the Royal Court and the schools of Egypt; then in its army; then an outcast, and as a shepherd, guiding his flocks, and finding springs and pasturage in the land where, one day, he was to lead his people. King David is another man made strong in the school of preparation. As he watched his flocks on the Judean hills, he fought the lion and the bear, and so was not afraid to meet and fight a giant, who defied the armies of the living God. It was there, under the stars, that he practiced music to quiet a mad king, and was educated into a fitness to organize the great choirs, and furnish the grand anthems for the temple worship. After this, in self-defense, he became the commander of lawless bands of men, and so was trained to command the armies of Israel. So it has been in our own Nation, with Washington and Lincoln, and Grant and Garfield; they had to pass through many hardships, and receive a many-sided training before they were fitted for the greater work to which they were called. So it was, this strong, conscientious, somewhat restless young man was being trained for the life that was to follow. The farmer boy, planting and reaping, the millwright planning and building, the country doctor on his long, lonely rides, the religious teacher who must oversee the physical and spiritual wants of his fellow church members, all were needed in the larger life for which he was longing and looking, when the sad appeal for the "Book of Life" came from the Indian Chiefs who had come so far, and failed to find it. His immediate and hearty response was, "Here am I, send me!" Dr. Marcus Whitman, judged by his life as a Missionary, must ever be given due credit; for no man ever gave evidence of greater devotion to the work he found to do. He was doubtless excelled as a teacher of the Indians by many of his co-laborers. He was not, perhaps, even eminent as a teacher. His great reputation and the honor due him, does not rest upon such a claim, but upon his wisdom in seeing the future of the Great West, and his heroic rescue of the land from a foreign rule. That he heard a call to the duty from a higher source than any earthly potentate, none but the skeptic will doubt. The act stands out clear and bold and strong, as one of the finest instances of unselfish patriotism recorded in all history. DR. JOHN McLOUGHLIN. Any sketch of pioneer Oregon would be incomplete without an honorable mention of Dr. John McLoughlin. He was the Chief Factor of the Hudson Bay Company, an organization inimical to American interests, both for pecuniary and political reasons, and like Whitman, has been maligned and misunderstood. As the leading spirit, during all the stages of pioneer life, his life and acts have an importance second to none. Nothing could have been more important for the comfort and peace of the Missionaries than to have had a man as Supreme Ruler of Oregon, with so keen a sense of justice, as had Dr. McLoughlin. Physically he was a fine specimen of a man. He was six feet, four inches, and well-proportioned. His bushy white hair and massive beard, caused the Indians everywhere to call him, the "Great White Head Chief." He was born in 1784, and was eighteen years older than Dr. Whitman. He entered the Northwestern Fur Company's service in 1800. He afterward studied medicine, and for a time practiced his profession, but his fine business abilities were so apparent, that in 1824 we find him at the head of affairs in Oregon. His power over the rough men in the employ of the Company, and the savage tribes who filled their coffers with wealth, was so complete as to be phenomenal. In many of the sketches we have shown that his kindness to the pioneer Missionaries in another and a higher sense, proved his manhood. To obey the orders of his company, and still remain a humane man, was something that required tact that few men could have brought to bear as well as Dr. McLoughlin. While he did slaughter, financially speaking, traders and fur gatherers right and left, and did his best to serve the pecuniary interests of his great monopoly, he drew the line there, and was the friend and the helper of the missionaries. If the reader could glance through Mrs. Whitman's diary upon the very opening week of her arrival in Oregon, there would not be found anything but words of kindness and gratitude to Dr. McLoughlin. In justice to his company, to which he was always loyal, he pushed the Methodist missions far up the Willamette, and those of the American Board three hundred miles in another direction. But at the same time he was a friend and brother and adviser, and anything he had was at their service, whether they had money or not. After the immigration in 1842, and the larger immigration led by Whitman in 1843, the company in England became alarmed and sent out spies--Messrs. Park, Vavasaur and Peel, who were enjoined to find out whether McLoughlin was loyal to British interests. After many months spent in studying the situation, their adverse report is easily inferred from the fact that Dr. McLoughlin was ordered to report to headquarters. The full history of that secret investigation has never yet been revealed, but when it is, the whole blame will be found resting upon Whitman and his missionary co-workers, who wrested the land from English rule, and that Dr. McLoughlin aided them to success. When the charge of "Friendship to the missionaries," was made, the old doctor flared up and replied: "What would you have? Would you have me turn the cold shoulder on the men of God who came to do that for the Indians which this company has neglected to do? If we had not helped the immigrants in '42 and '43 and '44, and relieved their necessities, Fort Vancouver would have been destroyed and the world would have treated us as our inhuman conduct deserved; every officer of the Company, from Governor down, would have been covered with obloquy, and the Company's business ruined!" But it all resulted in the resignation of Dr. McLoughlin. The injustice he received at the hands of Americans afterward, is deeply to be regretted, and it is greatly to the credit of the thinking people of the State of Oregon that they have done their best to remedy the wrong. At many times, and in a multitude of ways, Dr. McLoughlin, by his kindness to the missionaries, won for himself the gratitude of thinking Americans in all the years to come. With a bad man in his place as Chief Factor, the old missionaries would have found life in Oregon well-nigh unbearable. While true to the exclusive and selfish interests of the great monopoly he served, he yet refused to resort to any form of unmanliness. After his abuse by the English company and his severance of all connection with it, he settled at Oregon City and lived and died an American citizen. The tongue of slander was freely wagged against him, and his declining years were made miserable by unthinking Americans and revengeful Englishmen. His property, of which he had been deprived, was returned to his heirs, and to-day his memory is cherished as among Oregon's benefactors. A fine oil painting of Dr. McLoughlin was secured and paid for by the old pioneers and presented to the State. The Hon. John Minto, in making the address at the hanging of the picture, closed with these words: "In this sad summary of such a life as Dr. McLoughlin's, there is a statement that merits our attention, which, if ever proven true, and no man who ever knew Dr. McLoughlin will doubt that he believed it true, namely, that he prevented war between Great Britain and the United States, will show that two of the greatest nations on this earth owe him a debt of gratitude, and that Oregon, in particular, is doubly bound to him as a public benefactor. British state papers may some day prove all this. "It is now twenty-six years since the Legislative Assembly of the State of Oregon, so far as restoration of property to Dr. McLouglin's family could undo the wrong of Oregon's Land Bill, gave gladness to the heart of every Oregon pioneer worthy of the name. All of them yet living, now know that, good man as they believed him, he was better than they knew. They see him now, after the strife and jealousies of race, national, business, and sectarian interests are allayed, standing in the center of all these causes of contention--a position in which to please all parties was impossible, to 'Maintain which, only a good man could bear with patience'--and they have adopted this means of conveying their appreciation of this great forbearance and patient endurance, combined with his generous conduct. "Looking, then, at this line of action in the light of the merest glimpses of history, known to be true by witnesses living, can any honest man wonder that the pioneers of Oregon, who have eaten the salt of this man's hospitality, who have been the eye-witnesses to his brave care for humanity, and participators in his generous aid, are unwilling to go to their graves in silence--which would imply base ingratitude--a silence which would be eloquent with falsehood? "Governor and Representatives of Oregon: In recognition of the worthy manner in which Dr. John McLoughlin filled his trying and responsible position, in the heartfelt glow of a grateful remembrance of his humane and noble conduct to them, the Oregon pioneers leave this portrait with you, hoping that their descendants will not forget the friend of their fathers, and trusting that this gift of the men and women who led the advance which has planted thirty thousand rifles in the Valley of the Columbia, and three hundred thousand, when needed, in the National Domain facing the Pacific Ocean, will be deemed worthy of a place in your halls." [Illustration: DR. JOHN MCLOUGHLIN, Chief Factor of Hudson Bay Co., at Fort Walla Walla.] CHAPTER XIII. WHITMAN SEMINARY AND COLLEGE. Many institutions of learning have been erected and endowed by the generosity of the rich, but Whitman Seminary and College had its foundation laid in faith and prayer. Viewed from a worldly standpoint, backed only by a poor missionary, whose possessions could be packed upon the back of a mule, the outlook did not seem promising. During all the years of his missionary service in Oregon, none knew better the value of the patriotic Christian service of Dr. and Mrs. Whitman, than did the Rev. Dr. Cushing Eells and his good wife. After the massacre, Dr. Eells, and all his co-workers were moved under military escort to the Willamette, but he writes: "My eyes were constantly turned east of the Cascade Range, a region I have given the best years of my life to." It was not until 1859 when the country was declared open, that he visited Walla Walla, and stood at the "Great grave of Dr. Whitman and his wife." Standing there upon the consecrated spot, he says: "I believe that the power of the Highest came upon me." And there he solemnly vowed that he would do something to honor the Christian martyrs whose remains rested in that grave. He says: "I felt as though if Dr. Whitman were alive, he would prefer a high school for the benefit of both sexes, rather than a monument of marble." He pondered the subject and upon reaching home, sought the advice of the Congregational Association. The subject was carefully canvassed by those who well knew all the sad history, and the following note was entered upon the record: "In the judgment of this association, the contemplated purpose of Brother C. Eells to remove to Waiilatpui, to establish a Christian school at that place, to be called the Whitman Seminary, in memory of the noble deeds and great works and the fulfillment of the benevolent plans of the late lamented Dr. Whitman and his wife: And his further purpose to act as home missionary in the Walla Walla Valley, meets our cordial approbation and shall receive our earnest support." Dr. Eells at once resigned from the Tualitin Academy, where he was then teaching, and in 1859 and '60 obtained the charter for the Whitman Seminary. Dr. Eells had hoped to be employed by the Home Missionary Society, but that organization declined, as its object was not to build seminaries and colleges, but to establish churches. He bought from the American Board for $1,000 the farm of 640 acres where Dr. Whitman had toiled for eleven years. It was Dr. Eells' idea to build a seminary directly upon this consecrated ground, and gather a quiet settlement about the school. But he soon found that it would be better to locate the seminary in the village, at that time made up of five resident families and about one hundred men. It, however, was in sight of the "Great grave." Here the Eells family settled down upon the farm for hard work to raise the funds necessary to erect the buildings necessary for the seminary. He preached without compensation up and down the valley upon the Sabbath, and like Paul, worked with his hands during the week. His first Summer's work on the farm brought in $700; enough nearly to pay three-fourths of its cost; thus year after year Dr. Eells and his faithful wife labored on and on. He plowed and reaped, and cut cord wood, while she made butter, and raised chickens and saved every dollar for the one grand purpose of doing honor to their noble friends in the "Great grave" always in sight. Rarely in this world has there been a more beautiful demonstration of loyalty and friendship, than of Dr. and Mrs. Eells. They lived and labored on the farm for ten years, and endured all the privations and isolations common to such a life. An article in the "Congregationalist" says: "Mother Eells' churn with which she made four hundred pounds of butter for sale, ought to be kept for an honored place in the cabinet of Whitman College." It was by such sacrifices that the first $4,000 were raised to begin the buildings. Five years had passed after the charter was granted, before the seminary was located, and then only on paper. And this was seven years before the completion of the first school building; the dedication of which occurred on October 13, 1866. The first principal was the Rev. P. B. Chamberlain, who also organized and was first pastor of the Congregational Church at Walla Walla. In 1880, under the new impulse given to the work by the Rev. Dr. G. H. Atkinson, of Portland, Whitman Seminary developed into Whitman College. This was finally accomplished in 1883. During that year, College Hall was erected at a cost of $16,000. During 1883 and 1884, in the same spirit he had at all times exhibited, Dr. Eells felt it his duty to visit New England in the interest of the institution. He says: "It was the hardest year's work I ever did, to raise that sixteen thousand dollars." The old pioneer would much rather have cut cord wood or plowed his fields, if that would have brought in the money for his loved college. The Christian who reads Dr. Eells' diary during the closing years of his life, will easily see how devoted he was to the work of honoring the memory of the occupants of the "Great grave." His diary of May 24, 1890, says: "The needs of Whitman College cause serious thought. My convictions have been that my efforts in its behalf were in obedience to Divine Will." June 11, 1890. "During intervals of the night I was exercised in prayer for Whitman College. I am persuaded that my prayers are prevailing. In agony I pray for Whitman College." October 2d. "Dreamed of Whitman College and awoke with a prayer." His last entry in his diary was: "I could die for Whitman College." The grand old man went to his great reward in February, 1893. Will the Christian people of the land allow such a prayer to go unanswered? In 1884 Mrs. N. F. Cobleigh did some very effective work in canvassing sections of New England in behalf of the college, succeeding in raising $8,000. Dr. Anderson, after his efficient labors of nine years, with many discouragements, resigned the Presidency in 1891, and the Rev. James F. Eaton, another scholarly earnest man, assumed its duties. In the meantime the struggling village of Walla Walla had grown into the "Garden City," and the demands upon such an institution had increased a hundred fold in the rapid development of the country in every direction. The people began to see the wisdom of the founder, and cast about for means to make the college more efficient. The Union Journal of Walla Walla, said: "It is our pride. It is the cap sheaf of the educational institutions of Walla Walla, and should be the pride and boast of every good Walla Wallan. It has a corps of exceptionally good instructors, under the guidance of a man possessing breadth of intellect, liberal education and an enthusiastic desire to be successful in his chosen field of labor, with students who rank in natural ability with the best product of any land. But it is deficient in facilities. It lacks room in which to grow. It lacks library and apparatus, the tools of education." President Eaton and the faculty saw this need and the necessity of a great effort. It was under this pressure, and the united desire of the friends of the college that the Rev. Stephen B. L. Penrose, of the "Yale band" assumed the duties of President in 1894, and began his plans to raise an endowment fund and place the college upon a sound financial basis, as well as to increase its educational facilities and requirements. It was the misfortune of these educators to enter the field for money at a time of great financial embarrassment, such as has not been experienced in many decades; but it was at the same time their good fortune to enlist the aid of Dr. D. K. Pearsons of Chicago in the grand work with a generous gift of $50,000, provided that others could be induced to add $150,000 to it. With such a start and with such a man as Dr. Pearsons, there will be no such word as fail. He is a man of faith like Dr. Eells and has long been administering upon his own estate in wise and generous gifts to deserving institutions. With such a man to encourage other liberal givers, the endowment will not stop at $200,000. If Whitman College is to be the Yale and Harvard and Chicago University of the Far West, it must meet with a generous response from liberal givers. Its name alone ought to be worth a million in money. When the people are educated in Whitman history, the money will come and the prayers of Dr. Eells will be answered. The millions of people love fair play and honest dealing and can appreciate solid work, and they will learn to love the memory of the modest hero, and will be glad to do him honor in so practical a method. It will soon be half a century since Dr. Whitman and his noble wife fell at their post of duty at Waiilatpui. Had Dr. Whitman been a millionaire, a man of noble birth, had he been a military man or a statesman, his praise would have been sung upon historic pages as the praise of others has. But he was only a poor missionary doctor, who lost his life in the vain effort to civilize and Christianize savages, and an army of modern historians seem to have thought, as we have shown in another chapter, that the world would sit quietly by and see and applaud while they robbed him of his richly won honors. In that they have over-reached themselves. The name of Dr. Marcus Whitman will be honored and revered long after the names of his traducers have been obliterated and forgotten. It is a name with a history, which will grow in honor and importance as the great States he saved to the Union will grow into the grandeur they naturally assume. There is not a clearer page of history in all the books than that Dr. Whitman, under the leading of Providence, saved the States of Oregon, Washington and Idaho to the Union. There is a possibility that by a long and destructive war we might have held them as against the claims of England. There were just two men who prevented that war and those two men were Drs. Whitman and McLoughlin. The latter indirectly by his humane and civilized treatment of the missionaries when he might have crushed them, and the former by his unparalleled heroism in his mid-winter ride to Washington, and his wisdom in piloting the immigrations to Oregon just the year that he did. History correctly written, will truthfully say, "When Whitman fell at Waiilatpui, one of the grandest heroes of this century went to his great reward." The State of Washington has done well to name a great county to perpetuate his memory; Dr. Eells did a noble act in founding Whitman Seminary, and the time is coming and is near at hand, when the young men and women of the country will prize a diploma inscribed with the magic name of Whitman. Endow the college and endow it generously. Make it worthy of the man whose love of country felt that no task was too difficult and no danger so great as to make him hesitate. After the endowment is full and complete, a great College Hall should be erected from a patriotic fund, and upon the central pillar should be inscribed: "Sacred to the memory of Dr. Marcus and Narcissa Whitman. While lifting up the banner of the cross in one hand to redeem and save savage souls, they thought it no wrong to carry the flag of the country they loved in the other." There is no such thing as dividing the honors. They are simply Whitman honors; they lived and labored and achieved together; the bride upon the plains and in the mission home was a heroine scarcely second to the hero who swam icy rivers and climbed the snow-covered mountains in 1842 and 1843, upon his patriotic mission. It is a work that may well engage the patriotic women of America; for true womanhood has never had a more beautiful setting than in the life of Narcissa Whitman. At the death, by drowning, of her only child, that she almost idolized, she bowed humbly and said: "Thy Will be done!" And upon the day of her death, she was mother to eleven helpless adopted children, for whose safety she prayed in her expiring moments. What an unselfish life she led. In her diary she says, but in no complaining mood: "Situated as we are, our house is the Missionaries' tavern, and we must accommodate more or less all the time. We have no less than seven families in our two houses; we are in peculiar and somewhat trying circumstances; we cannot sell to them because we are missionaries and not traders." And we see by the record that there were no less than seventy souls in the Whitman family the day of the massacre. Emerson says: "Heroism is an obedience to a secret impulse of individual character, and the characteristics of genuine heroism is its persistency." Where was it ever more strongly marked than in Dr. Whitman? We are told that "History repeats itself." Going back upon the historic pages, one can find the best illustration of Dr. Whitman in faithful old Caleb. Their lives seem to run along similar lines. Both were sent to spy out the land. Both returned and made true and faithful reports. Both were selected for their great physical fitness, and for their fine mental and moral worth; and both proved among the finest specimens of unselfish manhood ever recorded. Turning to the Sacred Record we read that a great honor was ordered for Caleb; not only that he was permitted to enter the promised land, but it was also understood by all, that he should have the choice of all the fair country they were to occupy. His associates sent with him forty years before were terribly afraid of "the giants," and now they had reached "The land of promise," and Joshua had assembled the leaders of Israel to assign them their places. Just notice old Caleb. Standing in view of the meadows and fields and orchards, loaded with their rich clusters of purple grapes, everybody expected he would select the best, for they knew that it was both promised and he deserved it; but Caleb, lifting up his voice so that all could hear, said: "Lo, I am this day four score and five years old. As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me; as my strength was then, even so is my strength now for war, both to go out and to come in. Now, therefore, give me this mountain whereof the Lord spoke in that day; for thou heardest in that day how the Anakims were there, and that the cities were great and fenced. If so be, the Lord will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out as the Lord said." Noble, unselfish old Caleb! And how wonderfully like him was our hero thirty-four and a half centuries later. It mattered not that he had saved a great country, twice as large as New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois combined, or thirty-two times as large as Massachusetts. It mattered not that it was accomplished through great peril and trials and sufferings that no man can over-estimate, he never once asked a reward. "Give me this mountain," and he went back to his mission, and resumed his heavy burden, and let others gather the harvest, and "the clusters of purple grapes." There he was found at his post of duty, and met death on that fatal November the 29th, 1847. When a generous people have made the endowment complete, and built the grand Memorial Hall, they should build a monument at the "Great Grave" at Waiilatpui. Americans are patriotic. They build monuments to their men of science, to their statesmen and to their soldiers. It is right to do so. They are grand object lessons, educating the young in patriotism and virtue and right living. The monument at no grave in all the land will more surely teach all these, than will that at the neglected grave at Waiilatpui. Build the monument and tell your children's children to go and stand uncovered in its shadow, and receive its lessons and breathe in its inspirations of patriotism. CHAPTER XIV. OREGON THEN, AND OREGON, WASHINGTON AND IDAHO NOW. The beginning of a People, a State or a Nation is always an interesting study, and when the beginning has resulted in a grand success, the interest increases. It is seldom that in the lifetime of the multitudes of living actors, so great a transformation can be seen as that to-day illustrated in the Pacific States. Fifty years ago, the immigrant, after his long journey over arid plains, after swimming rivers and climbing three ranges of mountains, stood upon the last slope, and beheld primeval beauty spread out before him. The millions of acres of green meadows had never been disturbed by a furrow, and in the great forest the sound of the woodman's ax had never been heard. Coming by way of the great river, as it meets the incoming waves of the Pacific, the scene is still more one of grandeur. Astoria, at that time, had a few straggling huts, and Portland was a village, with its streets so full of stumps as to require a good driver to get through with safety, and was referred to as a town twelve miles below Oregon City. To the writer nothing has left such an impression of wilderness and solitude as a journey up the Willamette, forty-five years ago, in a birch-bark canoe, paddled by two Indian guides. The wild ducks were scarcely disturbed, and dropped to the water a hundred yards away, and the three-pronged buck, browsing among the lily pads, stopped to look at the unusual invasion of his domain, and went on feeding. The population of Oregon in that year, 1850, as shown by census, was 13,294, and that included all of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, with a part of Wyoming and Montana. After years of importunity, Congress had given Oregon a Territorial Government in 1849. Prior to that--from 1843 to 1849--it was an independent American government, for the people and by the people. Notwithstanding the neglect of Oregon by the General Government, and its entire failure to foster or protect, the old pioneers were true and loyal American citizens, and for six years took such care of themselves as they were able, and performed the task so well as to merit the best words of commendation. [Illustration: REV. STEPHEN B. L. PENROSE, President of Whitman College.] The commerce of the country, aside from its furs, was scarcely worth mentioning. The author, in 1851, bought what few salted salmon there were in the market, and shipped them to San Francisco, but wise and prudent advisers regarded it as a risky venture. He would have been considered a wild visionary, indeed, had he even hinted of the shipments of fish now annually made to all parts of the civilized world. It was then known that the rivers were filled with fish. In the spring of the year, the smaller streams, leading away from the Columbia, were literally blocked with almost solid masses of fish on their way to their spawning grounds. The bears along the Columbia, as well as the Indians, had an unlimited supply of the finest fish in the world, with scarcely an effort to take them. An Indian on the Willamette, at the foot of the falls, could fill his boat in an hour with salmon weighing from twenty to forty pounds. In the spring of the year, when the salmon are running up the Willamette, they begin to jump from the water a quarter of a mile before reaching the falls. One could sit in a boat and see hundreds of the great fish in the air constantly. Multitudes of them maimed and killed themselves jumping against the rocks at the falls. The Indian did not wait for "a rise" or "a bite." He had a hook with an eye socket, and a pole ten feet or more long. The hook he fastened to a deer thong, about two feet long, attached to the lower end of the pole. When ready for fishing the pole was inserted into the socket of the hook, and he felt for his fish, and by a sudden jerk caught it in the belly. The hook was pulled from the pole, and the fish had a play of the two feet of deer thong. But the Indian never stops to experiment; he hauled in his prize. The great forests and prairies were a very paradise for the hunters of large game. Up to the date of 1842-3, of Dr. Whitman's ride, but a single hundred Americans had settled in Oregon, and they seemed to be almost accidental guests. The immigration in 1842 swelled the list, and the caravan of 1843 started the tide, so that in 1850, as we have seen, the first census showed an American population of 13,294. In 1890, in contrast, the population of Washington was 349,390; Oregon, 313,707; Idaho, 84,385, and five counties in Southwestern Montana and one in Wyoming, originally Oregon territory, had a population of 65,862, making a total of 813,404. Considering the difficulties of reaching these distant States for many years, this change, in less than half a century, is a wonderful transformation. The Indians had held undisputed possession of the land for generations, and yet, as careful a census as could be made, placed their number at below 75,000. In 1892 the Indian Commissioner marks the number at 21,057. The great changes are seen in the fact that in 1838 there were but thirteen settlements by white men in Oregon, viz.: That at Waiilatpui, at Lapwai, at the Dalles and near Salem, and the Hudson Bay Forts at Walla Walla, Colville, Fort Hall, Boise, Vancouver, Nisqually, Umpqua, Okanogan and the settlement at Astoria. The old missionaries felt thankful when letters reached them within two years after they were written. Mrs. Whitman's first letter from home was two years and six months reaching the mission. The most sure and safe route was by way of New York or Montreal to London, around the Horn to the Sandwich Islands, from which place a vessel sailed every year for Columbia. The wildest visionaries at that time had not dreamed of being bound to the East by bands of steel, as Senator McDuffie said: "The wealth of the Indies would be insufficient to connect by steam the Columbia River to the States of the East." Uncle Sam seems to have been taking a very sound and peaceful nap. He did not own California, and was even desirous of trading Oregon for the cod fisheries of Newfoundland. The debt of gratitude the Americans owe to the men and women who endured the privations of that early day, and educated the Nation into the knowledge of its future glory and greatness, has not been fully appreciated. The settlers of no other States of the frontier encountered such severe tests of courage and loyalty. The Middle States of the Great West, while they had their hardships and trials, were always within reach of the strong arm of the Government, and felt its fostering care, and had many comforts which were wholly beyond the reach of the Oregon pioneers. Their window glass for years and years was dressed deer skin; their parlor chairs were square blocks of wood; their center tables were made by driving down four sticks and sawing boards by hand for top, the nearest saw mill being four hundred miles off. A ten-penny nail was prized as a jewel, and until Dr. Whitman built his mill, a barrel of flour cost him twenty-four dollars, and in those days that amount of money was equal to a hundred in our times of to-day. The plows were all wood, and deer thongs took the place of iron in binding the parts together. It was ten years after they began to raise wheat before they had any other implement than the sickle, and for threshing, the wooden flail. It was in the year 1839 the first printing press reached Oregon. It may be marked as among the pioneer civilizers of this now great and prosperous Christian land. That press has a notable history and is to-day preserved at the State Capital of Oregon as a relic of by-gone days in printing. Long before the civilization of Oregon had begun in 1819, the Congregational Missionaries to the Sandwich Islands had imported this press around the Horn from New England, and from that time up to 1839 it had served an excellent purpose in furnishing Christian literature to the Kanakas. But the Sandwich Islanders had grown beyond it; and being presented with a finer outfit, the First Native Church at Honolulu made a present of the press, ink and paper to the Missions of Waiilatpui, Lapwai and Walker's Plains. The whole was valued at $450 at that time. The press was located at Lapwai, and used to print portions of Scripture and hymn books in the Nez Perces language, which books were used in all the missions of the American Board. Visitors to these tribes of Indians twenty-five years after the missions had been broken up, and the Indians had been dispersed, found copies of those books still in use and prized as great treasures. Another interesting event was the building of the first steamer, the Lot Whitcomb, in the Columbia River waters. This steamer was built of Oregon fir and spruce, and was launched December 26th, 1850, at Milwaukee, then a rival of Portland. It was a staunch, well-equipped vessel, one hundred and sixty feet in length; beam, twenty-four feet; depth of hold, six feet ten inches; breadth over all, forty-two feet seven inches; diameter of wheel, nineteen feet; length of bucket, seven feet; dip one foot eight inches, and draft three feet two inches. It was a staunch and elegantly-equipped little vessel; did good service in the early days, making three round trips each week, from Milwaukee to Astoria, touching at Portland and Vancouver, then the only stopping places. The Whitcomb was finally sent to California, made over, named Annie Abernethy, and was used upon the Sacramento River as a pleasure and passenger boat. These two beginnings, of the printer's art and the steamer, are all the more interesting when compared with the richness and show in the same fields to-day. The palatial ocean traveling steamers and the power presses and papers, scarcely second to any in editorial and news-gathering ability, best tell the wonderful advance from comparatively nothing at that time. The taxable property of Oregon in 1893 was $168,088,095; in Washington it was $283,110,032; in Idaho, $34,276,000. The manufactories of Oregon in 1893 turned out products to the value of $245,100,267, and Washington, on fisheries alone, yielded a product valued at $915,500. There has been a great falling off, both in Oregon and Washington, in this source of wealth, and the eager desire to make money will cause the annihilation of this great traffic, unless there is better legal protection. Washington, in 1893, reported 227 saw mills and 300 shingle mills and 73 sash and door mills, and a capital invested in the lumber trade of $25,000,000. A wonderful change since Dr. Whitman sawed his boards by hand as late as 1840. The acres of forest yet undisturbed in Washington are put down at 23,588,512. During President Harrison's term a wooded tract in the Cascade Mountains, thirty-five by forty miles, including Mount Rainier, was withdrawn from entry, and it is expected that Congress will reserve it for a National Park. The statistics relating to wheat, wool and fruits of all kinds fully justify the claim made by Dr. Whitman to President Tyler and Secretary Webster--that "The United States had better by far give all New England for the cod fisheries of Newfoundland than to sacrifice Oregon." Reading the statistics of wealth of the States comprising the original territory of Oregon, their fisheries, their farm products, their lumber, their mines, yet scarcely begun to be developed, one wonders at the blindness and ignorance of our statesmen fifty or more years ago, who came so near losing the whole great territory. If Secretary Daniel Webster could have stepped into the buildings of Washington, Oregon and Idaho that contained the wonderful exhibit at the World's Fair, he would doubtless have lifted his thoughts with profound gratitude that Dr. Whitman made his winter ride and saved him from making the blunder of all the century. If old Senator McDuffie who averred that "The wealth of the Indies could not pay for connecting by steam the Columbia River with the States," could now take his place in a palace car of some one of the four great transcontinental lines, and be whirled over "the inaccessible mountains, and the intervening desert wastes," he, too, might be willing to give more than "A pinch of snuff" for our Pacific possessions. The original boundaries of Oregon contained over 300,000 square miles, which included all the country above latitude 42 degrees and west of the Rocky Mountains. Its climate is mild and delightful, and in great variety, owing to the natural divisions of great ranges of mountains, and the warm ocean currents which impinge upon its shores, with a rapid current from the hot seas of Asia. This causes about seventy per cent of the winds to blow from the southwest, bringing the warmth of the tropics to a land many hundreds of miles north of New York and Boston. It is felt even at Sitka, nearly 2,000 miles further north than Boston, where ice cannot be gathered for summer use, and whose harbor has never yet been obstructed by ice. [Illustration: DR. DANIEL K. PEARSONS.] The typical features of the climate of Western Oregon are the rains of Winter and a protracted rainless season in Summer. In other words, there are two distinct seasons in Oregon--wet and dry. Snows in Winter and rains in Summer are exceptional. In Eastern Oregon the climate more nearly approaches conditions in Eastern States. There are not the same extremes, but there are the same features of Winter snow, and, in places, of Summer heat. Southern Oregon is more like Eastern than Western Oregon. In Eastern Oregon the temperature is lower in Winter and higher in Summer than in Western. The annual rainfall varies from seven to twenty inches. The Springs in Oregon are delightful; the Summers very pleasant. They are practically rainless, and almost always without great extremes of heat. Fall rains usually begin in October. It is a noteworthy feature of Oregon Summers, that nights are always cool and refreshing. The common valley soil of the State is a rich loam, with a subsoil of clay. Along the streams it is alluvial. The "beaverdam lands" of this class are wonderfully fertile. This soil is made through the work of the beavers who dammed up streams and created lakes. When the water was drained away, the detritus covered the ground. The soil of the uplands is less fertile than that of the bottoms and valleys, and is a red, brown and black loam. It produces an excellent quality of natural grass, and under careful cultivation, produces good crops of grain, fruits and vegetables. East of the Cascade Mountains the soil is a dark loam of great depth, composed of alluvial deposits and decomposed lava, overlying a clay subsoil. The constituents of this soil adapt the land peculiarly to the production of wheat. All the mineral salts which are necessary to the perfect development of this cereal are abundant, reproducing themselves constantly as the gradual processes of decomposition in this soil of volcanic origin proceeds. The clods are easily broken by the plow, and the ground quickly crumbles on exposure to the atmosphere. In Northwestern Oregon, adjacent to the Columbia River, although the dry season continues for months, this light porous land retains and absorbs enough moisture from the atmosphere, after the particles have been partly disintegrated, to insure perfect development and full harvests. In Southeastern Oregon, especially in the vast areas of fertile lands in Malheur and Snake River Valleys, the soils are much like those of the Northeastern Oregon region, but there is less moisture. Except in a very small portion of this region, irrigation is necessary to successful agriculture. The water supply is abundant and easily applied. We have made no attempt to write a complete history of this great section or its wealth, but only to outline such facts as will make more impressive the value to the whole people of the distinguished services of the pioneers who saved this garden spot of the world to the people of the United States. "The Flag of Beauty and Glory" waves over no fairer land, or over no more intelligent, prosperous and happy people. All this too has been reached within the memory of multitudes of living actors; in fact it can be said the glow of youth is yet upon the brow of the young States. The lover of romance in reality will scarcely repress a sigh of regret, that with Oregon and Washington, the western limit of pioneering has been reached, after the strides of six thousand years. The circuit of the globe has been completed and the curtain dropped upon the farther shores of Oregon and Washington, with a history as profoundly interesting and dramatic as that written on any section of the world. "The Stars and Stripes" now wave from ocean to ocean, and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf. It is a nation of grand possibilities, whose history would have been marred for all time to come, had any foreign power, however good or great, held possession of the Pacific States. With China open to the world's commerce; with the young giant Japan inciting all the Far East to a new life and energy, the Pacific States of the Republic stand in the very gateway of the world's footsteps, and commerce and wealth. Only when measured in and by the light of such facts, can we fully estimate the value to the whole people of the Nation of the midwinter ride of our hero, and to the brave pioneers of Oregon. CHAPTER XV. LIFE ON THE GREAT PLAINS IN PIONEER DAYS. Nothing better shows the rapid advance of civilization in this country, than the fact that multitudes of the actors of those eventful years of pioneer life in Oregon and California yet live to see and enjoy the wonderful transformation. In fact, the pioneer, most of all others, can, in its greatest fullness, take in and grasp the luxuries of modern life. Taking his section in a palace car in luxurious ease, he travels in six days over the same road which he wearily traveled, forty-five and fifty years ago, in from one hundred and fifty to one hundred and ninety days. The fact is not without interest to him that for more than a thousand miles of the way on the great central routes, he can throw a stone from the car window into his old camping grounds. The old plainsmen were not bad surveyors. They may not have been advanced in trigonometry or logarithms, but they had keen eyes and ripe practical judgment, which enabled them to master the situation. The trails marked and traveled by the old missionaries, nine times in every ten, proved the best. Many a time did I, and others, by taking what seemed to be inviting "cutoffs," find out to our sorrow that the old trailers of ten years before us had been wiser. I make this a chapter of personal experience, not for any personal gratification, but because of the desire to make it real and true in every particular, and because the data and incidents of travel of the old missionaries are meager and incomplete. The experiences in 1836, 1843 and 1850, were much the same, save and except that in 1850 the way was more plainly marked than in 1836, which then was nothing more than an Indian trail, and even that often misleading. Besides that, the pioneer corps had made passable many danger points, and had even left ferries over the most dangerous rivers. From 1846 to 1856 were ten years of great activity upon the frontier. The starting points for the journey across the plains were many and scattered, from where Kansas City now stands to Fort Leavenworth. The time of which I write was 1850. Our little company of seven chosen friends, all young and inexperienced in any form of wild life, resolved upon the journey, and began preparations in 1849 and were ready in March, 1850, to take a steamer at Cincinnati for Fort Leavenworth. We had consulted every authority within reach as to our outfit, both for our safety and comfort, and few voyagers ever started upon the long journey who had nearer the essential things, and so few that proved useless. In one thing we violated the recommendations of all experienced plainsmen, and that was in the purchase of stock. We were advised to buy only mustangs and Mexican mules, but chose to buy in Ohio the largest and finest mules we could find. Our wagons were selected with great care as to every piece of timber and steel in their make-up, and every leather and buckle in the harness was scrutinized. Instead of a trunk, each carried clothes and valuables in a two-bushel rubber bag, which could be made water-tight or air-tight, if required. Extra shoes were fitted to the feet of each mule and riding horse and one of the number proved to be an expert shoer. The supply of provisions was made a careful study, and we did not have the uncomfortable experience of Dr. and Mrs. Whitman, and run out of flour before the journey was half over. There is nothing that develops the manhood of a man, or the lack of it, more quickly than life on the plains. There is many a man surrounded by the sustaining influence of the home and of refined society, who seems very much of a man; and yet when these influences are removed, he wilts and dwarfs. I have seen men who had been religious leaders and exemplary in their lives, come from under all such restraints, and, within two months, "swear like troopers." Our little company was fortunate in being made up of a manly set of young men, who resolved to stand by each other and each do his part. We soon joined the Mt. Sterling Mining Company, led by Major Fellows and Dr. C. P. Schlater, from Mt. Sterling, Ills. They were an excellent set of men and our company was then large enough for protection from any danger in the Indian country, and we kept together without a jar of any kind. In the year 1850, the Spring upon the frontier was backward. The grass, a necessity for the campaigner upon the plains, was too slow for us, so we bought an old Government wagon, in addition to our regular wagons, filled it with corn, and upon May 1st, struck out through Kansas. It was then unsettled by white people. On the 5th day of May, we woke up to find the earth enveloped in five inches of snow, and matters looked discouraging, but the sun soon shone out and the snow disappeared and we began to enter into the spirit and enjoyment of the wild life before us. [Illustration: THE LOG SCHOOL HOUSE ON THE WILLAMETTE.] The Indians were plentiful and visited us frequently, but they were all friendly that year with the whites throughout the border. A war party of the Cheyenne Indians visited us on their way to fight their enemy, the Pawnees. They were, physically, the finest body of men I ever saw. We treated them hospitably and they would have given up their fight and gone with us on a grand buffalo hunt, had we consented. The chief would hardly take no for an answer. One of the great comforts of the plains traveling in those days, was order and system. Each man knew his duty each day and each night. One day a man would drive; another he would cook; another he would ride on horseback. When we reached the more dangerous Indian country, our camp was arranged for defense in case of an attack, but we always left our mules picketed out to grass all night, and never left them without a guard. About the most trying labor of that journey was picket duty over the mules at night, especially when the grass was a long distance from the camp, as it sometimes was. After a long day's travel it was a lonesome, tiresome task to keep up all night, or even half of it. The animals were tethered with a rope eighteen feet long buckled to the fore leg, and the other end attached to an iron pin twelve to eighteen inches long, securely driven into the ground. As the animals fed they were moved so as to keep them upon the best pasture. In spite of the best care they would occasionally cross and the mischief would be to pay, unless promptly relieved. Our greatest fear was from the danger of a stampede, either from Indians or from wild animals. The Indian regards it as a great accomplishment to steal a horse from a white man. One day a well-dressed and very polite Indian came into camp where we were laying by for a rest. He could talk broken English and mapped out the country in the sand over the route we were to travel--told us all about good water and plenty of grass. He informed us that for some days we would go through the good Indian's country, but then we came to the mountains; and then he began to paw the air with his arms and snap an imaginary whip and shout, "Gee Buck--wo haw, damn ye!" Then says our good Indian, "Look out for hoss thieves." Then he got down in the grass and showed us how the Indian would wiggle along in the grass until he found the picket pin and lead his horse out so slowly that the guard would not notice the change, until he was outside the line, when he would mount and ride away. That very night two of the best horses of the Mt. Sterling Mining Company were stolen in just that way, and to make the act more grievous, they were picketed so near to the tents as to seem to the guards to be perfectly safe. We may have misjudged our "good Indian" who came into camp, but we have always believed that he was there to see whether there were any horses worth stealing, and then did the stealing himself. We can bear testimony also, that he was a good geographer. His map made in the sand and transferred to paper was perfect, and when we came to the mountains, his "Gee Buck, wo haw, damn ye!" was heard all up and down that mountain. The Indian had evidently been there and knew what he was saying. They gave us but little trouble except to watch our live stock, as the Indian never takes equal chances. He wants always three chances to one, in his favor. To show you are afraid, is to lose the contest with an Indian. I have many times, by showing a brave front, saved my scalp. Upon one occasion when I had several loose mules leading, I allowed myself unthinkingly to lag for two miles behind the company through a dangerous district. I was hurrying to amend the wrong by a fast trot, when upon a turn in the road a vicious-looking Indian, with his bow half bent and an arrow on the string, stepped from behind a sage bush to the middle of the road and signaled me to stop when twenty feet away. I was unarmed and made up my mind at once to show no fear. Upon coming within six or eight feet of him, I drove the spurs into my horse and gave such a yell that the Indian had all he could do to dodge my horse's feet. He was evidently astonished and thought, from the boldness of the move, that I had others near by. My horse and mules went on a dead run and I expected, as I leaned forward, every moment to feel his arrow. I glanced back when fifty yards away and he was anxiously looking back to see who else was coming and I was out of his reach before he had made up his mind. I was never worse frightened. Upon another occasion I bluffed an Indian just as effectively. With two companions I went to a Sioux village to buy a pair of moccasins. They were at peace and we felt no danger. Most of the men were absent from the village, leaving only a small guard. I got separated from my companions, but found an Indian making moccasins, and I stood in the door and pointed to a new pair about the size I wanted, that hung on the ridge pole, and showed him a pair of handsome suspenders that I would give him for them. He assented by a nod and a grunt, came to the door, took the suspenders and hung them up, deliberately sat down on the floor and took off a dirty old pair he was wearing and threw them to me. I immediately threw them back, and stepping into the tepee, caught hold of the moccasins I had bought, but by a quick motion he snatched them from me. I then caught hold of the suspenders and bounded out of the door. When fifty feet away I looked back and he had just emerged from his tepee and began loading his rifle. I had emptied both barrels of my shotgun at a plover just before reaching the village and my gun was fortunately unloaded. It gave us equal chances: I stopped still, threw my gun from the strap and began loading. In those days I was something of an expert and before the Indian withdrew his ramrod, I was putting caps on both barrels and he bounded inside his wigwam, and I lost no time in putting a tepee between us, and finding my friends, when we hastily took leave. Our company took great comfort and pride in our big American mules, trained in civilized Ohio. A pair of the largest, the wheelers in the six-mule team, were as good as setter dogs at night. They neither liked Indians, wolves nor grizzlies; and their scent was so keen they could smell their enemies two hundred yards away, unless the wind was too strong. When on guard, and in a lonesome, dangerous place, we generally kept close to our long-eared friends, and when they stopped eating and raised their heads and pointed those ponderous ears in any direction, we would drop in the grass and hold ourselves ready for any emergency. They would never resume their feeding until assured that the danger had passed. And then what faithful fellows to pull! At a word they would plant their feet on a mountain side and never allow the wagon to give back a single foot, no matter how precipitous; and again at the word, they would pull with the precision of a machine. The off-leader, "Manda," was the handsomest mule ever harnessed. As everybody remarked, "She was as beautiful as a picture." She would pull and stand and hold the wagon as obedient to command as an animal could be, but she was by nature wild and vicious. She was the worst kicker I ever saw. She allowed herself to be shod, seeming to understand that this was a necessity. But no man ever succeeded in riding her. She beat the trick mules in any circus in jumping and kicking. One night we had a stampede, and one of the flying picket pins struck the mule between the bones of the hind leg, cutting a deep gash, four inches or more long; the swelling of the limb causing the wound to gape open fully two inches. She did not attempt to bear her weight upon the limb, barely touching it to the ground. The flies were very bad, and knowing the animal, and while prizing her so highly, we were all convinced that we must leave her. The train pulled out. It was my duty that morning to bring on the loose stock, and see that nothing of value was overlooked in camp. I was ready to leave, when I went up to the mule that had come with us all the way from home, nearly three thousand miles, and had been a faithful servant, and began petting her, expressing my pity and sorrow that we had to leave her here for the Indians and the wolves. As I rubbed her head and talked to her, the poor dumb brute seemed to understand every word said. Never before in all the long journey had the famous six-mule team gone without Manda prancing as off leader. She rubbed me with her nose and laid it upon my shoulder, and seemed to beg as eloquently as a dumb beast can, "Don't leave me behind." With it all, there was a kindly look in her eye, I never before had seen. I stood stroking her head for some time, then I patted her neck and walked a little back, but constantly on guard. It was then the animal turned her head and looked at me, and at the same time held up the wounded leg. My friend Moore, who had staid back to assist, was a little distance off, and I called him. As he came up, I said to him: "This mule has had a change of heart." He put a bridle upon her so that he could hold up her head, and rubbing her side, I finally ventured to take hold of the wounded leg. I rubbed it and fondled it without her showing any symptom of resentment. I got out instruments, sewed the wound up, and sewed bandages tight about the leg, made a capital dressing and we started, leading Manda. She soon began to bear weight upon the wounded limb, and had no difficulty in keeping up with the train. When the bandages would get misplaced, one could get down in the road with no one to assist, and adjust them. We took Manda all the way, and no handsomer animal ever journeyed across the plains. She was never known to kick afterward. People call it "instinct in animals," but the more men know and study dumb life, the more they are impressed with their reasoning intelligence. Dr. Whitman's mule, finding camp in the blinding snow storm on the mountains, when the shrewd guide was hopelessly lost; my old horse leading me and my friend in safety through the Mississippi River back water in the great forest of Arkansas, as well as this, which I have told without an embellishment, all teach impressively the duty of kindness that we owe to our dumb friends. In Mrs. Whitman's diary we frequently find allusion to her faithful pony, and her sympathy with him when the grass is scarce and the work hard, is but an evidence of true nobility in the woman. In a long journey like the one made from Ohio to the Pacific Coast, it is wonderful what an affection grows up between man and his dumb helpers. And there is no mistaking the fact that animals appreciate and reciprocate such kindness. Even our dog was no exception. As I have started in to introduce my dumb associates, it would be a mistake, especially for my boy readers, to omit Rover. He was a young dog when we started, but he was a dog of thorough education and large experience before he reached the end of his journey. He was no dog with a long pedigree of illustrious ancestors, but was a mixed St. Bernard and Newfoundland, and grew up large, stately and dignified. He was petted, but never spoiled. When he was tired and wanted to ride, he knew how to tell the fact and was never told that he was nothing but a dog. He was no shirk as a walker, but the hot saleratus dust and sand wore out his feet. We took the fresh skin of an antelope and made boots for him, but when no one was looking at him he would gnaw them off. When the company separated after reaching the coast, Rover, by unanimous consent, went with his favorite master, J. S. Niswander, now a gray-haired, honored citizen of Gilroy, Cal. A few years ago I visited Niswander and Dr. J. Doan, who, with myself, are the only living survivors of our company, and he gave me the history of Rover after I left for Oregon. Niswander was a famous grizzly bear hunter, and with Rover as a companion, he made journeys prospecting for gold, and hunting, long distances from civilization. When night came the pack mule was picketed near by and a big fire built, with plenty of wood to keep it replenished during the night. Rover laid himself against his master's feet, and in case of danger he would always waken him with a low growl close to his ear, and when this was done, he would lope off in the dark and find out what it was, while Niswander held his gun and revolver ready for use. If the dog came back and lay down he knew at once it was a false alarm and dropped to sleep in perfect security. At one time he brought among his provisions a small firkin of butter, a great luxury at that time. He took the firkin and set it in the shade of a great red-wood, tumbled off the rest of his goods, picketed his mule, and went off prospecting for gold, telling Rover to take care of the things until he returned. He was gone all day and returned late in the evening, and looking around could not see his firkin of butter. He told me he turned to the old dog and said: "Rover, I never knew you to do such a trick before and I am ashamed of you." The old fellow only hung his head upon being scolded. But soon after Mr. N. noticed a suspicious pile of leaves about the roots of the tree, and when he had turned them aside he found his firkin of butter untouched. The high wind which had arisen had blown the paper cover from the butter and the dog knew it ought to be covered, and with his feet and nose had gathered the leaves for more than a rod around and covered it up. The Indians finally poisoned the old dog for the purpose of robbing his master. Said he: "When Rover died I shed more tears than I had shed for years." While reading, as I have, Mrs. Whitman's daily diary of her journey in 1836, I am most astonished at the lack of all complaints and murmurings. I know so well the perils and discomforts she met on the way and see her every day, cheerful and smiling and happy, and filled with thankfulness for blessings received, that she seems for the very absence of any repining, to be a woman of the most exalted character. I have traveled for days and weeks through saleratus dust that made lips, face and eyes tormentingly sore, while the throat and air tubes seemed to be raw. She barely mentions them. I have camped many a time, as she doubtless did, where the water was poisonous with alkali, and unfit for man or beast. I have been stung by buffalo flies until the sting of a Jersey mosquito would be a positive luxury. She barely mentions the pests. She does once mildly say: "The mosquitoes were so thick that we could hardly breathe," and that "the fleas covered all our garments" and made life a burden until she could get clear of them. Then there were snakes. As far as I know she never once complained of snakes. This makes it all the more necessary in giving a true picture of pioneering upon the plains, to give a real experience. There is nothing more hateful than a snake. We were introduced to the prairie rattler very early in the journey and some had sport over it. We all wore high, rattlesnake boots; they were heavy and hard on the feet that had been accustomed to softer covering. One of our gallant boys had received a present of a pair of beautiful embroidered slippers from a loved friend, and after supper he threw off those high snake boots and put on his slippers. Just then he was reminded that it was his duty that night to assist in picketing the mules in fresh pasture. He got hold of two lariats and started off singing "The Girl I Left Behind Me." About one hundred and fifty yards off he heard that ominous rattle near by and he dropped those lariats and came into camp at a speed that elicited cheers from the entire crowd. Early in the journey an old Indian told me how to keep the snakes from our beds, and that was to get a lariat made from the hair of a buffalo's neck and lay it entirely around the bed. I got the lariat and seldom went to sleep without being inside of its coil. It is a fact that a snake will not willingly crawl over such a rope. The sharp prickly bristles are either uncomfortable to them, or they expect there is danger. One night of horrors never to be forgotten was when I did not have my Indian lariat. Who of my readers ever had a rattlesnake attempt to make a nest in his hair? The story may hardly be worth telling, but I will relate it just as it occurred. We had camped on the St. Mary's River and had gone four miles off the road to find good grazing for our animals. Supper was over, our bugler had sounded his last note, and we were preparing for bed when a man came in from a camp a mile off and reported that they had found a man on a small island, who was very sick and they wanted a doctor. Dr. Schlater, of the Mt. Sterling Mining Company, at once got ready and went with him. Dr. Schlater was one of the grand specimens of manhood. He worked with the sick man all night and at daylight came down and asked me to go up with him. While we were bathing him the company of Michigan packers, who had found the stranger, moved off, and left us alone with the sick man, who was delirious and could give no account of himself. We found from papers in his pockets that his name was West Williams of Bloomington, Iowa, and he carried a card from the I. O. O. F. of that place. We made him as comfortable as possible and went back to our camp and reported his condition. We found the company all ready to move out, only waiting for us. The man was too sick to travel and it would not do to let him remain there alone, and it was decided that Dr. S. and I should remain with him and try and find his friends or hire some person to take care of him, and then, by forced marches, we could follow on and catch the company. We raised a purse of one hundred dollars and with such medicines as we needed and other supplies, also kept back a light spring wagon, and brought the sick man to our camp. I suggested to the Doctor that he ride over to the road and put up some written notices, giving the man's name, etc. He wrote out several and posted them on the trees where they would attract attention from passers. While he was doing this, a man with an ox-team came along and proved to be an old friend of the sick man right from the same locality. His name was Van S. Israel. He at once came with the Doctor and took charge of Williams, greatly to our relief. While the Doctor was upon the road he was called to prescribe for another sick man by the name of Mahan, from Missouri. Learning where we were located, the Mahans moved down to our camp. The sick man was accompanied by his brother, and they had a splendid outfit. We concluded to give the entire day to the sick men and ride across the small desert just ahead during the night. A tent was erected for Mahan, and he walked in and laid down. An hour or so later I went to the tent door and looking in saw the man lying dead. I spoke to his brother, who went into the tent convulsed with grief. I had scarcely reached my tent before I heard a piercing scream and rushed back, and upon opening the tent flap was horrified to behold the largest rattlesnake I had ever seen, coiled on the opposite side of the dead body and the living brother crowding as far away as possible on the other side to be out of his reach. As soon as I appeared the snake uncoiled and slipped under the edge of the tent. I caught up a green cottonwood stick and ran around and he at once coiled for a fight. I let him strike the stick. After striking each time he would try to retreat, but a gentle tap with the stick would arouse his anger and he would coil and strike again. At first a full drop of the yellow fluid appeared upon the stick. This gradually diminished, and with it the courage of the reptile, which seemed to lose all fighting propensity. I then killed him. Just before sunset we were ready to leave our sad associates, and we rode down to the river to give our mules a drink. The St. Mary's is a deep stream running through a level stretch with no banks. The mules had often been caved into the deep water and learned to get down on their knees to drink. For fear of an accident I got off and allowed my mule to kneel and drink. As he got upon his feet I swung into the saddle and started on. I had scarcely got firmly seated when, right under the mule, a rattler sang out. My double-barrel gun was hanging from my shoulder, muzzle down. As quick as a flash I slipped my arm through the strap, cocked the gun at the same time, and the mule shying, brought his snakeship in range, and just as he was in the act of striking, I shot him dead. The only good thing about the rattler is that he always gives the alarm before striking. [Illustration: A. J. ANDERSON, Ph.D., First President of Whitman College.] [Illustration: REV. JAMES F. EATON, D.D., Second President of Whitman College.] It was about three o'clock in the morning when we got through the desert and reached a cluster of trees, and resolved to stop and take a little sleep, and give our mules the feed of grass we had tied behind our saddles. We found a fallen tree and tied our animals to the boughs and fed them. A small company of packers were there asleep with their heads toward the fallen tree. We passed them to near the butt of the tree, threw aside some rotten chunks, spread a blanket, and each rolled up in another, lay down to rest. My snake-lariat was with the wagon, but I was too tired to think much of it. The Doctor being up all the night before, was asleep in two minutes. I was dozing off, with rattlesnakes and all the horrors of the past day running through my mind, when I was suddenly awakened by something pulling and working in my long, bushy hair. Barbers were not plentiful on the plains, and, besides, the plainsmen wear long hair as a protection. I suppose it was only a few minutes of suspense, and yet it seemed an hour, before I became wide awake, and reached at once the conclusion that I had poked my head near the log where his snakeship was sleeping, and the evening being cool, he was trying to secure warmer quarters. I knew it would not do to move my head. I quietly slipped my right arm from the blanket, and slowly moved my hand within six inches of my head. I felt the raking of a harder material, which seemed like a fang scraping the scalp. This made me almost frantic. Suddenly I grasped the offender by the head, jerking hair and all, and, jumping to my feet, yelled, so that every packer bounced to his feet, and seized his gun, thinking we were attacked by Indians. This is a round-about way to tell a snake story, but all the facts had to be recited to reveal the real conditions. It was forty-five years ago, and the sensations of the time are vivid to this day; and it doesn't even matter that the offender was not a rattler, but only an honest, little, cold-footed tree-toad, trying to get warmed up. But he frightened me as badly as the biggest rattler on the St. Mary's could, and I helped him to make a hop that beat the record of Mark Twain's jumping-frog in his best days. But life on the plains was not a continued succession of discomforts. The dyspeptic could well afford to make such a journey to gain the appetite and the good digestion. The absence of annoying insect life during the night, and the pure, invigorating air, makes sleep refreshing and health-giving. For a month at a time we have lain down to sleep, looking up at the stars, without the fear of catching cold, or feeling a drop of dew. There are long dreary reaches of plains to pass that are wearisome to the eye and the body, but the mountain scenery is nowhere more picturesquely beautiful. At that time the sportsman could have a surfeit in all kinds of game, by branching off from the lines of travel and taking the chances of losing his scalp. Herds of antelope were seen every day feeding in the valleys, while farther away there were buffalo by the hundred thousand. The great butchery of these noble animals had then but fairly begun. To-day, there still live but three small herds. Our company did not call it sport to kill buffalo for amusement. It was not sport, but butchery. A man could ride up by the side of his victim and kill him with a pistol. It was among our rules to allow no team animal to be used in the chase. But I forgot myself once and violated the rule. We were resting that day in camp. In the distance I saw two hunters after a huge buffalo bull, coming toward our camp. I saw by the direction that one could ride around the spur of a high hill about a mile distant and intercept him. We had as a saddle horse of one team an old clay-bank, which was one of the most solemn horses I have ever seen. His beauty was in his great strength and his long mane and tail. But he carried his head on a straight level with his back and never was known to put on any airs. He stood picketed handy, and seizing a bridle and my gun I mounted without a saddle and urged the old horse into a lope. As I turned the spur of the hill, the bull came meeting me fifty yards away. He was a monster; his tongue protruded, and he was frothing at the mouth from his long run. He showed no signs of turning from his road because of my appearance. Just then, when not more than thirty yards away, my old horse saw him and turned so quickly as to nearly unseat me. He threw up his head until that great mane of his enveloped me; and he broke for the camp at a gait no one ever dreamed he possessed. I did no shooting, but I did the fastest riding I ever indulged in before or since. It is a fact, that a mad buffalo, plunging toward you is only pleasant when you can get out of his way. The slaughter and annihilation of the buffalo is the most atrocious act ever classed under the head of sport. A few years ago, while traveling over the Great Northern Railway, I saw at different stations ricks of bones from a quarter to a third of a mile long, piled up as high as the tops of the cars, awaiting shipment. I asked one of the experienced and reliable railway officials of the traffic, and he informed me that "Not less than 26,000 car loads of buffalo bones had been shipped over the Great Northern Railroad to the bone factories; and not one in a thousand of the remains had ever been touched." The weight of a full-sized buffalo's bones is about sixty pounds. The traffic is still enormous along these northern lines. If the Indian had any sentiment it would likely be called out as he wanders over the plains and gathers up the dry bones of these well-nigh extinct wild herds, that fed and clothed his tribe through so many generations. I have seen beautiful horses, but never saw any half so handsome as the wild horses upon the plains. The tame horse, however well groomed, is despoiled of his grandeur. He compares with his wild brother as the plebeian compares with royalty. I saw a beautiful race between two Greasers who were chasing a herd of wild horses. They were running parallel with the road I was traveling, and I spurred up and ran by their side some four hundred yards distant, and had a chance to study them for many miles. I afterward saw a handsome stallion that had just been caught. He was tied and in a corral, but if one approached he would jump at him and strike and kick as savagely as possible. His back showed saddle marks, which proved that he had not always been the wild savage he had then become. The mountains and hills where the wild horses were then most numerous were covered with wild oats, which gave the country the appearance of large cultivation. Among the interesting facts which the traveler on the great plains learns, and often to his discomfort, is the deception as to distance. He sees something of interest and resolves "it is but two miles away," but the chances are that it will prove to be eight or ten miles. The country is made up of great waves. Looking off you see the top of a wave, and when you get there a valley that you did not see, stretches away for miles. We always tried to treat our Indian guests courteously, but they were often voted a nuisance. While cooking our supper they would often form a circle, twenty or thirty of them sitting on the ground, and they looked so longingly at the bread and ham and coffee, that it almost took one's appetite away. We could only afford to give the squaws what was left. To fill up such a crowd would have soon ended our stock of supplies. One of the things that made an Indian grunt, and even laugh, was to see our cook baking pancakes in a long-handled frying pan. To turn the cake over he tossed it in the air and caught it as it came down. A cook on the plains that could not do that was not up in his business. Except upon the mountains and rocky canyons, the roads were as good as a turnpike; but some of the climbs and descents were fearful, while an occasional canyon, miles long, looked wholly impassable without breaking the legs of half the animals and smashing the wagons. The old plainsmen had a way of setting tires upon a loose wheel that was novel. Our tires became very loose from the long dry reaches. We took off the tire, tacked a slip of fresh hide entirely around the rim, heated the tire, dropped it on the wheel and quickly chucked it into the water and had wheels as good as new. Our company was three nights and two days and nearly a half in crossing the widest desert. It was a beautiful firm road until we struck deep sand, which extended out for eleven miles from Carson River into the desert. Before starting we emptied our rubber clothes sacks, filled them with water, hauled hay, which we had cured, to feed our mules, and made the trip as pleasantly as if upon green sod. The lack of water on this wide desert had left many thousand bones of dead animals bleaching upon its wastes. Many wells had been dug in various places and we tested the water in them and found it intensely salt. The entire space is evidently the bed of a salt sea. In the long reaches where no trees of any kind grow, the entire dependence of the early pioneer for fire was upon buffalo chips, the animal charcoal of the plains. It makes a good fire and is in no way offensive. And if no iron horse had invaded the plains, buffalo chips would be selling all along the route to-day at forty dollars per ton. One of the pleasant historical events in which our company naturally takes a pride is, that one night we camped upon a little mountain stream near where the city of Denver now stands; the whole land as wild as nature made it. Many years afterward one of the little band, Frank Denver, was elected Lieutenant-Governor of Colorado, and Gen. J. W. Denver was among the most prominent politicians of the coast, and the city of Denver was named in honor of them. I have thus, as concisely as I could, sketched life as it was in a wagon journey across the plains forty-five and fifty years ago. It was a memorable experience, and none who took it will fail to have of it a vivid remembrance as long as life lasts. If its annoyances were many, its novelties and pleasing remembrances were so numerous as to make it the notable journey of even the most adventurous life. APPENDIX. NARRATIVE OF THE WINTER TRIP ACROSS THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS OF DR. MARCUS WHITMAN AND HON. A. LAWRENCE LOVEJOY, IN 1842, FURNISHED BY REQUEST, FROM MR. LOVEJOY, THE SURVIVOR. Oregon City, Feb. 14, 1876. Dr. Atkinson--Dear Sir: In compliance with your request, I will endeavor to give you some idea of the journey of the late Dr. Marcus Whitman from Oregon to Washington, in the winter of 1842 and '43. True, I was the Doctor's traveling companion in that arduous and trying journey, but it would take volumes to describe the many thrilling scenes and dangerous hair-breadth escapes we passed through, traveling, as we did, almost the entire route through a hostile Indian country, and enduring much suffering from the intense cold and snow we had to encounter in passing over the Rocky Mountains in midwinter. I crossed the plains in company with Dr. White and others, and arrived at Waiilatpui the last of September, 1842. My party camped some two miles below Dr. Whitman's place. The day after our arrival Dr. Whitman called at our camp and asked me to accompany him to his house, as he wished me to draw up a memorial to Congress to prohibit the sale of ardent spirits in this country. The Doctor was alive to the interests of this coast, and manifested a very warm desire to have it properly represented at Washington; and after numerous conversations with the Doctor touching the future prosperity of Oregon, he asked me one day in a very anxious manner, if I thought it would be possible for him to cross the mountains at that time of the year. I told him I thought he could. He next asked: "Will you accompany me?" After a little reflection, I told him I would. His arrangements were rapidly made. Through the kindness of Mr. McKinly, then stationed at Fort Walla Walla, Mrs. Whitman was provided with suitable escorts to the Willamette Valley, where she was to remain with her missionary friends until the Doctor's return. We left Waiilatpui, October 3, 1842, traveled rapidly, reached Fort Hall in eleven days, remained two days to recruit and make a few purchases. The Doctor engaged a guide and we left for Fort Uintah. We changed from a direct route to one more southern, through the Spanish country via Salt Lake, Taos and Santa Fe. On our way from Fort Hall to Fort Uintah, we had terribly severe weather. The snows retarded our progress and blinded the trail so we lost much time. After arriving at Fort Uintah and making some purchases for our trip, we took a new guide and started for Fort Uncompahgra, situated on the waters of Grand River, in the Spanish country. Here our stay was very short. We took a new guide and started for Taos. After being out some four or five days we encountered a terrible snow storm, which forced us to seek shelter in a deep ravine, where we remained snowed in for four days, at which time the storm had somewhat abated, and we attempted to make our way out upon the high lands, but the snow was so deep and the winds so piercing and cold we were compelled to return to camp and wait a few days for a change of weather. Our next effort to reach the high lands was more successful; but after spending several days wandering around in the snow without making much headway, our guide told us that the deep snow had so changed the face of the country that he was completely lost and could take us no farther. This was a terrible blow to the Doctor, but he was determined not to give it up without another effort. We at once agreed that the Doctor should take the guide and return to Fort Uncompahgra and get a new guide, and I remain in camp with the animals until he could return; which he did in seven days with our new guide, and we were now on our route again. Nothing of much importance occurred but hard and slow traveling through deep snow until we reached Grand River, which was frozen on either side about one-third across. Although so intensely cold, the current was so very rapid, about one-third of the river in the center was not frozen. Our guide thought it would be dangerous to attempt to cross the river in its present condition, but the Doctor, nothing daunted, was the first to take the water. He mounted his horse and the guide and myself shoved the Doctor and his horse off the ice into the foaming stream. Away he went completely under water, horse and all, but directly came up, and after buffeting the rapid, foaming current he reached the ice on the opposite shore a long way down the stream. He leaped from his horse upon the ice and soon had his noble animal by his side. The guide and myself forced in the pack animals and followed the Doctor's example, and were soon on the opposite shore drying our frozen clothes by a comfortable fire. We reached Taos in about thirty days, suffering greatly from cold and scarcity of provisions. We were compelled to use mule meat, dogs and such other animals as came in our reach. We remained at Taos a few days only, and started for Bent's and Savery's Fort, on the headwaters of the Arkansas River. When we had been out some fifteen or twenty days, we met George Bent, a brother of Gov. Bent, on his way to Taos. He told us that a party of mountain men would leave Bent's Fort in a few days for St. Louis, but said we would not reach the fort with our pack animals in time to join the party. The Doctor being very anxious to join the party so he could push on as rapidly as possible to Washington, concluded to leave myself and guide with the animals, and he himself, taking the best animal, with some bedding and a small allowance of provision, started alone, hoping by rapid travel to reach the fort in time to join the St. Louis party, but to do so he would have to travel on the Sabbath, something we had not done before. Myself and guide traveled on slowly and reached the fort in four days, but imagine our astonishment, when on making inquiry about the Doctor, we were told that he had not arrived nor had he been heard of. I learned that the party for St. Louis was camped at the Big Cottonwood, forty miles from the fort, and at my request, Mr. Savery sent an express telling the party not to proceed any further until we learned something of Dr. Whitman's whereabouts, as he wished to accompany them to St. Louis. Being furnished by the gentlemen of the fort with a suitable guide, I started in search of the Doctor, and traveled up the river about one hundred miles. I learned from the Indians that a man had been there, who was lost, and was trying to find Bent's Fort. They said they had directed him to go down the river, and how to find the fort. I knew from their description it was the Doctor. I returned to the fort as rapidly as possible, but the Doctor had not arrived. We had all become very anxious about him. Late in the afternoon he came in very much fatigued and desponding; said that he knew that God had bewildered him to punish him for traveling on the Sabbath. During the whole trip he was very regular in his morning and evening devotions, and that was the only time I ever knew him to travel on the Sabbath. The Doctor remained all night at the fort, starting early on the following morning to join the St. Louis party. Here we parted. The Doctor proceeded to Washington. I remained at Bent's Fort until Spring, and joined the Doctor the following July, near Fort Laramie, on his way to Oregon, in company with a train of emigrants. He often expressed himself to me about the remainder of his journey, and the manner in which he was received at Washington, and by the Board for Foreign Missions at Boston. He had several interviews with President Tyler, Secretary Webster, and a good many members of Congress--Congress being in session at that time. He urged the immediate termination of the treaty with Great Britain relative to this country, and begged them to extend the laws of the United States over Oregon, and asked for liberal inducements to emigrants to come to this coast. He was very cordially and kindly received by the President and members of Congress, and, without doubt, the Doctor's interviews resulted greatly to the benefit of Oregon and to this coast. But his reception at the Board for Foreign Missions was not so cordial. The Board was inclined to censure him for leaving his post. The Doctor came to the frontier settlement, urging the citizens to emigrate to the Pacific. He left Independence, Mo., in the month of May, 1843, with an emigrant train of about one thousand souls for Oregon. With his energy and knowledge of the country, he rendered them great assistance in fording the many dangerous and rapid streams they had to cross, and in finding a wagon road through many of the narrow rugged passes of the mountains. He arrived at Waiilatpui about one year from the time he left, to find his home sadly dilapidated, his flouring mill burned. The Indians were very hostile to the Doctor for leaving them, and without doubt, owing to his absence, the seeds of assassination were sown by those haughty Cayuse Indians which resulted in his and Mrs. Whitman's death, with many others, although it did not take place until four years later. I remain with great respect, A. LAWRENCE LOVEJOY. [Illustration: HEE-OH-KS-TE-KIN.--The Rabbit's Skin Leggins. (Drawn by George Catlin.) The only one of five Nez Perces Chiefs (some say there were only four) who visited St. Louis in 1832, that lived to return to his people to tell the story.] [Illustration: HCO-A-HCO-A-HCOTES-MIN.--No Horns on His Head. This one died on his return journey near the mouth of Yellowstone River. This is what Catlin says himself: "These two men when I painted them, were in beautiful Sioux dresses, which had been presented to them in a talk with the Sioux, who treated them very kindly, while passing through the Sioux country. These two men were part of a delegation that came across the Rocky Mountains to St. Louis, a few years since, to inquire for the truth of a representation which they said some white man had made among them, "That our religion was better than theirs, and that they would be all lost if they did not embrace it." Two old and venerable men of this party died in St. Louis, and I traveled two thousand miles, companions with these two fellows, toward their own country, and became much pleased with their manners and dispositions. When I first heard the report of the object of this extraordinary mission across the mountains, I could scarcely believe it; but, on conversing with Gen. Clark, on a future occasion, I was fully convinced of the fact." See Catlin's Eight Years, and Smithsonian Report for 1885, 2nd part.] DR. WHITMAN'S LETTER. TO THE HON. JAMES M. PORTER, SECRETARY OF WAR, WITH A BILL TO BE LAID BEFORE CONGRESS, FOR ORGANIZATION OF OREGON. * * * * * The Rev. Myron Eells obtained from the original files of the office of the Secretary of War two valuable papers. They bear this endorsement: "Marcus Whitman inclosing synopsis of a bill, with his views in reference to importance of the Oregon Territory, War. 382--rec. June 22, 1844. To the Hon. James M. Porter, Secretary of War: Sir--In compliance with the request you did me the honor to make last Winter, while in Washington, I herewith transmit to you the synopsis of a bill which, if it could be adopted, would, according to my experience and observation, prove highly conducive to the best interests of the United States, generally, to Oregon, where I have resided for more than seven years as a missionary, and to the Indian tribes that inhabit the immediate country. The Government will now doubtless for the first time be apprised through you, or by means of this communication, of the immense immigration of families to Oregon which has taken place this year. I have, since our interview, been instrumental in piloting across the route described in the accompanying bill, and which is the only eligible wagon road, no less than three hundred families, consisting of one thousand persons of both sexes, with their wagons, amounting to one hundred and twenty, six hundred and ninety-four oxen, and seven hundred and seventy-three loose cattle. The emigrants are from different States, but principally from Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois and New York. The majority of them are farmers, lured by the prospect of bounty in lands, by the reported fertility of the soil, and by the desire to be first among those who are planting our institutions on the Pacific Coast. Among them are artisans of every trade, comprising, with farmers, the very best material for a new colony. As pioneers, these people have undergone incredible hardships, and having now safely passed the Blue Mountain Range with their wagons and effects, have established a durable road from Missouri to Oregon, which will serve to mark permanently the route for larger numbers, each succeeding year, while they have practically demonstrated that wagons drawn by horses or oxen can cross the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia River, contrary to all the sinister assertions of all those who pretended it to be impossible. In their slow progress, these persons have encountered, as in all former instances, and as all succeeding emigrants must, if this or some similar bill be not passed by Congress, the continual fear of Indian aggression, the actual loss through them of horses, cattle and other property, and the great labor of transporting an adequate amount of provisions for so long a journey. The bill herewith proposed would, in a great measure, lessen these inconveniences by the establishment of posts, which, while having the possessed power to keep the Indians in check, thus doing away with the necessity of military vigilance on the part of the traveler by day and night, would be able to furnish them in transit with fresh supplies of provisions, diminishing the original burdens of the emigrants, and finding thus a ready and profitable market for their produce--a market that would, in my opinion, more than suffice to defray all the current expenses of such post. The present party is supposed to have expended no less than $2,000 at Laramie's and Bridger's Forts, and as much more at Fort Hall and Fort Boise, two of the Hudson Bay Company's stations. These are at present the only stopping places in a journey of 2,200 miles, and the only place where additional supplies can be obtained, even at the enormous rate of charge, called mountain prices, i. e., $50 the hundred for flour, and $50 the hundred for coffee; the same for sugar, powder, etc. Many cases of sickness and some deaths took place among those who accomplished the journey this season, owing, in a great measure, to the uninterrupted use of meat, salt and fresh, with flour, which constitute the chief articles of food they are able to convey on their wagons, and this could be obviated by the vegetable productions which the posts in contemplation could very profitably afford them. Those who rely on hunting as an auxiliary support, are at present unable to have their arms repaired when out of order; horses and oxen become tender-footed and require to be shod on this long journey, sometimes repeatedly, and the wagons repaired in a variety of ways. I mention these as valuable incidents to the proposed measure, as it will also be found to tend in many other incidental ways to benefit the migratory population of the United States choosing to take this direction, and on these accounts, as well as for the immediate use of the posts themselves, they ought to be provided with the necessary shops and mechanics, which would at the same time exhibit the several branches of civilized art to the Indians. The outlay in the first instance would be but trifling. Forts like those of the Hudson Bay Company's surrounded by walls enclosing all the buildings, and constructed almost entirely of adobe, or sun-dried bricks, with stone foundations only, can be easily and cheaply erected. There are very eligible places for as many of these as the Government will find necessary, at suitable distances, not further than one or two hundred miles apart, at the main crossing of the principal streams that now form impediments to the journey, and consequently well supplied with water, having alluvial bottom lands of a rich quality, and generally well wooded. If I might be allowed to suggest, the best sites for said posts, my personal knowledge and observation enable me to recommend first, the main crossing of the Kansas River, where a ferry would be very convenient to the traveler, and profitable to the station having it in charge; next, and about eighty miles distant, the crossing of the Blue River, where in times of unusual freshet, a ferry would be in like manner useful; next and distant from one hundred to one hundred and fifty miles from the last mentioned, the Little Blue, or Republican Fork of the Kansas; next, and from sixty to one hundred miles distant from the last mentioned, the point of intersection of the Platte River; next, and from one hundred to one hundred and fifty miles distant from the last mentioned, crossing of the South Fork of the Platte River; next, and about one hundred and eighty or two hundred miles distant from the last mentioned, Horseshoe Creek, which is about forty miles west of Laramie's Fork in the Black Hills. Here is a fine creek for mills and irrigation, good land for cultivation, fine pasturage, timber and stone for building. Other locations may be had along the Platte and Sweetwater, on the Green River, or Black's Forks of the Bear River, near the great Soda Springs, near Fort Hall, and at suitable places down to the Columbia. These localities are all of the best description, so situated as to hold a ready intercourse with the Indians in their passage to and from the ordinary buffalo hunting grounds, and in themselves so well situated in all other respects as to be desirable to private enterprise if the usual advantage of trade existed. Any of the farms above indicated would be deemed extremely valuable in the States. The Government cannot long overlook the importance of superintending the savages that endanger this line of travel, and that are not yet in treaty with it. Some of these are already well known to be led by desperate white men and mongrels, who form bandits in the most difficult passes, and are at all times ready to cut off some lagging emigrant in the rear of the party, or some adventurous one who may proceed a few miles in advance, or at night to make a descent upon the sleeping camp and carry away or kill horses and cattle. This is the case even now in the commencement of our western immigration, and when it comes to be more generally known that large quantities of valuable property and considerable sums of money are yearly carried over this desolate region, it is feared that an organized banditti will be instituted. The posts in contemplation would effectually counteract this. For the purpose they need not, or ought not, to be military establishments. The trading posts in this country have never been of such a character, and yet with very few men in them, have for years kept the surrounding Indians in the most pacific disposition, so that the traveler feels secure from molestation upon approaching Fort Laramie, Bridger's Fort, Fort Hall, etc., etc. The same can be obtained without any considerable expenditure by the Government, while by investing the officers in charge with competent authority, all evil-disposed white men, refugees from justice, or discharged vagabonds from trading posts might be easily removed from among the Indians and sent to the appropriate States for trial. The Hudson Bay Company's system of rewards among the savages would soon enable the posts to root out these desperadoes. A direct and friendly intercourse with all the tribes, even to the Pacific, might be thus maintained; the Government would become more intimately acquainted with them, and they with the Government, and instead of sending to the State courts a manifestly guilty Indian to be arraigned before a distant tribunal and acquitted for the want of testimony, by the technicalities of lawyers and of the law unknown to them, and sent back into the wilderness loaded with presents as an inducement to further crime, the post should be enabled to execute summary justice, as if the criminal had been already condemned by his tribe, because the tribe will be sure to deliver up none but the party whom they know to be guilty. They will in that way receive the trial of their peers, and secure within themselves to all intents and purposes, if not technically the trial by jury, yet the spirit of that trial. There are many powers which ought to reside in some person on this extended route for the convenience and even necessity of the public. In this the emigrant and the people of Oregon are no more interested than the resident inhabitants of the States. At present no person is authorized to administer an oath, or legally attest a fact, from the western line of Missouri to the Pacific. The immigrant cannot dispose of his property at home, although an opportunity ever so advantageous to him should occur after he passes the western border of Missouri. No one can here make a legal demand and protest of a promissory note or bill of exchange. No one can secure the valuable testimony of a mountaineer, or an immigrating witness after he has entered this, at present, lawless country. Causes do exist and will continually arise, in which the private rights of citizens are, and will be, seriously prejudiced by such an utter absence of legal authority. A contraband trade from Mexico, the introduction from that country of liquors to be sold among the Indians west of the Kansas River, is already carried on with the mountain trappers, and very soon the teas, silks, nankeens, spices, camphor and opium of the East Indies will find their way, duty free, through Oregon, across the mountains and into the States, unless Custom House officers along this line find an interest in intercepting them. Your familiarity with the Government policy, duties and interest renders it unnecessary for me to more than hint at the several objects intended by the enclosed bill, and any enlargement upon the topics here suggested as inducements to its adoption would be quite superfluous, if not impertinent. The very existence of such a system as the one above recommended suggests the utility of postoffices and mail arrangements, which it is the wish of all who now live in Oregon to have granted them; and I need only add that contracts for this purpose will be readily taken at reasonable rates for transporting the mail across from Missouri to the mouth of the Columbia in forty days, with fresh horses at each of the contemplated posts. The ruling policy proposed regards the Indians as the police of the country, who are to be relied upon to keep the peace, not only for themselves, but to repel lawless white men and prevent banditti, under the solitary guidance of the superintendents of the several posts, aided by a well directed system to induce the punishment of crime. It will only be after the failure of these means to procure the delivery or punishment of violent, lawless and savage acts of aggression, that a band or tribe should be regarded as conspirators against the peace, or punished accordingly by force of arms. Hoping that these suggestions may meet your approbation, and conduce to the future interest of our growing country, I have the honor to be, Honorable Sir, Your obedient servant, MARCUS WHITMAN. COPY OF PROPOSED BILL PREPARED BY DR. MARCUS WHITMAN IN 1843 AND SENT TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR. A bill to promote safe intercourse with the Territory of Oregon, to suppress violent acts of aggression on the part of certain Indian tribes west of the Indian Territory, Neocho, better protect the revenue, for the transportation of the mail and for other purposes. SYNOPSIS OF THE ACT. Section 1.--To be enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, that from and after the passage of this act, there shall be established at suitable distances, and in convenient and proper places, to be selected by the President, a chain of agricultural posts or farming stations, extending at intervals from the present most usual crossing, of the Kansas River, west of the western boundary of the State of Missouri, thence ascending the Platte River on the southern border, thence through the valley of the Sweetwater River to Fort Hall, and thence to settlements of the Willamette in the Territory of Oregon. Which said posts will have for their object to set examples of civilized industry to the several Indian tribes, to keep them in proper subjection to the laws of the United States, to suppress violent and lawless acts along the said line of the frontier, to facilitate the passage of troops and munitions of war into and out of the said Territory of Oregon, and the transportation of the mail as hereinafter provided. Section 2.--And be it further enacted, that there shall reside at each of said posts, one superintendent having charge thereof, with full power to carry into effect the provisions of this act, subject always to such instructions as the President may impose; one deputy superintendent to act in like manner in case of death, removal or absence of the superintendent, and such artificers and laborers, not exceeding twenty in number, as the said superintendent may deem necessary for the conduct and safety of said posts, all of whom shall be subject to appointment and liable to removal. Section 3.--And be it further enacted, that it shall be the duty of the President to cause to be erected, at each of the said posts, buildings suitable for the purpose herein contemplated, to-wit, one main dwelling house, one storehouse, one blacksmith's and one gunsmith's shop, one carpenter shop, with such and so many other buildings, for storing the products and supplies of said posts as he from time to time may deem expedient. To supply the same with all necessary mechanical and agricultural implements, to perform the labor incident thereto, and with all other articles he may judge requisite and proper for the safety, comfort and defense thereof. To cause said posts in his discretion to be visited by detachments of troops stationed on the western frontier, to suppress through said posts the sale of munitions of war to the Indian tribes in case of hostilities, and annually to lay before Congress, at its general session, full returns, verified by the oaths of the several superintendents, of the several acts by them performed and of the condition of said posts, with the income and expenditures growing out of the same respectively. Section 4.--And be it further enacted, that the said superintendents shall be appointed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate for the term of four years, with a salary of two hundred dollars payable out of any moneys in the treasury not otherwise appropriated; that they shall respectively take an oath before the District Judge of the United States for the Western District of Missouri, faithfully to discharge the duties imposed on them in and by the provisions of this act, and give a bond to the President of the United States and to his successors in office and assigns, and with sufficient security to be approved by the said judge in at least the penalty of twenty-five thousand dollars, to indemnify the President or his successors or assigns for any unlawful acts by them performed, or injuries committed by virtue of their offices, which said bonds may at any time be assigned for prosecution against the said respective superintendents and their sureties upon application to the said judge at the instance of the United States District Attorney or of any private party aggrieved. Section 5.--And be it further enacted, that it shall be the duty of said superintendents to cause the soil adjacent to said posts, in extent not exceeding 640 acres, to be cultivated in a farmer-like manner and to produce such articles of culture as in their judgment shall be deemed the most profitable and available for the maintenance of said posts, for the supply of troops and other Government agents which may from time to time resort thereto, and to render the products aforesaid adequate to defraying all the expenses of labor in and about said posts, and the salary of the said deputy superintendent, without resort to the Treasury of the United States, remitting to the Secretary of the Treasury yearly a sworn statement of the same, with the surplus moneys, if any there shall be. Section 6.--And be it further enacted, that the said several superintendents of posts shall, ex-officia, be Superintendents of Indian Affairs west of the Indian Territory, Neocho, subordinate to and under the full control of the Commissioner-General of Indian affairs at Washington. That they shall by virtue of their offices, be conservators of the peace, with full powers to the extent hereinafter prescribed, in all cases of crimes and misdemeanors, whether committed by citizens of the United States or by Indians within the frontier line aforesaid. That they shall have power to administer oaths, to be valid in the several courts of the United States, to perpetuate testimony to be used in said courts, to take acknowledgments of deeds and other specialties in writing, to take probate of wills and the testaments executed upon the said frontier, of which the testators shall have died in transit between the State of Missouri and the Territory of Oregon, and to do and certify all notarial acts, and to perform the ceremony of marriage, with as legal effect as if the said several acts above enumerated had been performed by the magistrates of any of the States having power to perform the service. That they shall have power to arrest and remove from the line aforesaid all disorderly white persons, and all persons exciting the Indians to hostilities, and to surrender up all fugitives from justice upon the requisition of the Governor of any of the States; that they shall have power to demand of the several tribes within the said frontier line, the surrender of any Indian or Indians committing acts in contradiction of the laws of the United States, and in case of such surrender, to inflict punishment thereon according to the tenor and effect of said laws, without further trial, presuming such offending Indian or Indians to have received the trial and condemnation of the tribe to which he or they may belong; to intercept and seize all articles of contraband trade, whether introduced into their jurisdiction in violation of the acts imposing duties on imports, or of the acts to regulate trade and intercourse with the several Indian tribes, to transmit the same to the Marshal of the Western District of Missouri, together with the proofs necessary for the confiscation thereof, and in every such case the Superintendent shall be entitled to receive one-half the sale value of the said confiscated articles, and the other half be disposed of as in like cases arising under the existing revenue laws. Section 7.--And be it further enacted, that the several Superintendents shall have and keep at their several Posts, seals of office for the legal authentication of their public acts herein enumerated, and that the said seals shall have as a device the spread-eagle, with the words, "U. S. Superintendency of the Frontier," engraved thereon. Section 8.--And be it further enacted, that the said Superintendents shall be entitled, in addition to the salary hereinbefore granted, the following perquisites and fees of office, to-wit: For the acknowledgment of all deeds and specialties, the sum of one dollar; for the administration of all oaths, twenty-five cents; for the authentication of all copies of written instruments, one dollar; for the perpetuation of all testimony to be used in the United States courts, by the folio, fifty cents; for the probate of all wills and testaments, by the folio, fifty cents; for all other writing done, by the folio, fifty cents; for solemnizing marriages, two dollars, including the certificate to be given to the parties; for the surrender of fugitives from justice, in addition to the necessary costs and expenses of arrest and detention, which shall be verified to the demanding Governor by the affidavit of the Superintendent, ten dollars. Section 9.--And be it further enacted, that the said Superintendents shall, by virtue of their offices, be postmasters at the several stations for which they were appointed, and as such, shall be required to facilitate the transportation of mail to and from the Territory of Oregon and the nearest postoffice within the State of Missouri, subject to all the regulations of the Postoffice Department, and with all the immunities and privileges of the postmasters in the several States, except that no additional compensation shall be allowed for such services; and it is hereby made the duty of the Postmaster General to cause proposals to be issued for the transportation of the mail along the line of said Posts to and from said Territory within six months after the passage of this Act. Section 10.--And be it further enacted, that the sum of ---- thousand dollars be, and the same is hereby appropriated out of any moneys in the treasury not otherwise appropriated, for the purpose of carrying into effect the several provisions of this act. DR. WHITMAN'S SUGGESTIONS TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR, AND TO THE COMMISSIONERS ON INDIAN AFFAIRS AND OREGON, IN THE U. S. SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, DATED OCTOBER 16, 1847. Perhaps the last work or writing of a public character done by Dr. Whitman, bears the date of Waiilatpui, October 16th, 1847. It was only one month before the massacre, and addressed as follows: To the Honorable the Secretary of War, to the Committees on Indian Affairs and Oregon, in the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, the following suggestions are respectfully submitted: 1st. That all Stations of the United States for troops be kept upon the borders of some State or Territory, when designed for the protection and regulation of Indian territory. 2nd. That a line of Posts be established along the traveled route to Oregon, at a distance, so far as practicable, of not more than 50 miles. That these Posts be located so as to afford the best opportunity for agriculture and grazing, to facilitate the production of provisions, and the care of horses and cattle, for the use and support of said Posts, and to furnish supplies to all passers through Indian territory, especially to mail-carriers and troops. These Posts should be placed wherever a bridge or ferry would be required to facilitate the transport of the mail, and travel of troops or immigrants through the country. In all fertile places, these Posts would support themselves, and give facilities for the several objects just named in transit. The other Posts, situated where the soil would not admit of cultivation, would still be useful, as they would afford the means of taking care of horses, and other facilities of transporting the mails. These Posts could be supplied with provisions from others in the vicinity. A few large Posts in the more fertile regions could supply those more in the mountains. On the other hand, military Posts can only be well supplied when near the settlements. In this way all transports for the supply of interior military Posts would be superseded. The number of men at these Posts might vary from five to twenty-five. In the interior the buildings may be built with adobes, that is, large, unburnt bricks; and in form and size should much resemble the common Indian Trading Posts, with outer walls and bastions. They would thus afford the same protection in any part of the territory as the common Trading Posts. If provided with a small amount of goods, such goods could be bartered with the Indians for necessary supplies, as well as, on proper occasions, given to chiefs as a reward for punishing those who disturb or offend against the peace of the territory. By these means the Indians would become the protectors of those Stations. At the same time by being under one General Superintendent, subject to the inspection of the Government, the Indians may be concentrated under one general influence. By such a superintendence the Indians would be prevented from fleeing from one place to another to secrete themselves from justice. By this simple arrangement all the need of troops in the interior would be obviated, unless in some instance when the Indians fail to co-operate with the Superintendent of the Post or Posts, for the promotion of peace. When troops shall be called for, to visit the interior, the farming Posts will be able to furnish them with supplies in passing so as to make their movements speedy and efficient. A code of laws for the Indian territory might constitute as civil magistrates the first, or second, in command of these Posts. The same arrangement would be equally well adapted for the respective routes to California and New Mexico. Many reasons may be urged for the establishment of these Posts, among which are the following: 1st. By means of such Posts, all acts of the Indians would be under a full and complete inspection. All cases of murder, theft, or other outrage would be brought to light and the proper punishment inflicted. 2nd. In most cases this may be done by giving the Chiefs a small fee that they may either punish the offenders themselves, or deliver them up to the commander of the Post. In such cases it should be held that their peers have adjudged them guilty before punishment is inflicted. 3rd. By means of these Posts it will become safe and easy for the smallest number to pass and repass from Oregon to the States; and with a civil magistrate at each Station, all idle wandering white men without passports can be sent out of the territory. 4th. In this way all banditti for robbing the mails or travelers would be prevented, as well as all vagabonds removed from among the Indians. 5th. Immigrants now lose horses and other stock by the Indians, commencing from the border of the States to the Willamette. It is much to the praise of our countrymen that they bear so long with the Indians when our Government has done so little to enable them to pass in safety. For one man to lose five or six horses is not a rare occurrence, which loss is felt heavily, when most of the family are compelled to walk, to favor a reduced and failing team. 6th. The Indians along the line take courage from the forbearance of the immigrants. The timid Indians on the Columbia have this year in open day attacked several parties of wagons, numbering from two to seven, and robbed them, being armed with guns, bows and arrows, knives and axes. Mr. Glenday from St. Charles, Mo., the bearer of this communication to the States, with Mr. Bear, his companion, rescued seven wagons from being plundered, and the people from gross insults, rescuing one woman, when the Indians were in the act of taking all the clothes from her person. The men were mostly stripped of their shirts and pantaloons at the time. 7th. The occasional supplies to passing immigrants, as well as the aid which may be afforded to the sick and needy, are not the least of the important results to follow from these establishments. A profitable exchange to the Posts and immigrants, as also to others journeying through the country, can be made by exchanging worn-out horses and cattle for fresh ones. 8th. It scarcely need be mentioned what advantage the Government will derive by a similar exchange for the transport of the mail, as also for the use of troops passing through. 9th. To suppress the use of ardent spirits among the Indians it will be requisite to regard the giving or furnishing of it in any manner as a breach of the laws and peace of the territory. All Superintendents of Posts, traders, and responsible persons, should be charged on oath, that they will not sell, give or furnish in any manner, ardent spirits to the Indians. 10th. Traders should be regarded by reason of the license they have to trade in the territory, as receiving a privilege, and therefore should be required to give and maintain good credentials of character. For this reason they may be required to send in the testimony of all their clerks and assistants of all ranks, to show under the solemnity of an oath, that the laws in this respect have not been violated or evaded. If at any time it became apparent to the Superintendent of any Post that the laws have been violated, he might be required to make full inquiry of all in any way connected with or assisting in the trade, to ascertain whether the laws were broken or their breach connived at. This will avail for the regular licensed trader. 11th. For illicit traders and smugglers it will suffice to instruct Commanders of Posts to offer a reward to the Indians for the safe delivery of any and all such persons as bring liquors among them, together with the liquors thus brought. It is only on the borders of the respective States and Territories that any interruption will be found in the operation of these principles. 12th. Here also a modification of the same principle enacted by the several States and Territories might produce equally happy results. 13th. The mail may, with a change of horses every fifty miles, be carried at the rate of one hundred to one hundred and fifty miles in twenty-four hours. 14th. The leading reason in favor of adopting the aforesaid regulations would be, that by this means the Indians would become our faithful allies. In fact, they will be the best possible police for such a territory. This police can safely be relied upon when under a good supervision. Troops will only be required to correct their faults in cases of extreme misconduct. 15th. In closing, I would remark that I have conversed with many of the principal fur-traders of the American and Hudson Bay Companies, all of whom agree that the several regulations suggested in this communication will accomplish the object proposed, were suitable men appointed for its management and execution. Respectfully yours, MARCUS WHITMAN. Waiilatpui, Oct. 16th, 1847. 
11223	----	Team. [Illustration: She, too, had seen Monohan seated on the after deck. FRONTISPIECE.] BIG TIMBER A Story of the Northwest By BERTRAND W. SINCLAIR With Frontispiece By DOUGLAS DUER 1916 CONTENTS CHAPTER I. GREEN FIELDS AND PASTURES NEW II. MR. ABBEY ARRIVES III. HALFWAY POINT IV. A FORETASTE OF THINGS TO COME V. THE TOLL OF BIG TIMBER VI. THE DIGNITY (?) OF TOIL VII. SOME NEIGHBORLY ASSISTANCE VIII. DURANCE VILE IX. JACK FYFE'S CAMP X. ONE WAY OUT XI. THE PLUNGE XII. AND SO THEY WERE MARRIED XIII. IN WHICH EVENTS MARK TIME XIV. A CLOSE CALL AND A NEW ACQUAINTANCE XV. A RESURRECTION XVI. THE CRISIS XVII. IN WHICH THERE IS A FURTHER CLASH XVIII. THE OPENING GUN XIX. FREE AS THE WIND XX. ECHOES XXI. AN UNEXPECTED MEETING XXII. THE FIRE BEHIND THE SMOKE XXIII. A RIDE BY NIGHT XXIV. "OUT OF THE NIGHT THAT COVERS ME" CHAPTER I GREEN FIELDS AND PASTURES NEW The Imperial Limited lurched with a swing around the last hairpin curve of the Yale canyon. Ahead opened out a timbered valley,--narrow on its floor, flanked with bold mountains, but nevertheless a valley,--down which the rails lay straight and shining on an easy grade. The river that for a hundred miles had boiled and snarled parallel to the tracks, roaring through the granite sluice that cuts the Cascade Range, took a wider channel and a leisurely flow. The mad haste had fallen from it as haste falls from one who, with time to spare, sees his destination near at hand; and the turgid Fraser had time to spare, for now it was but threescore miles to tidewater. So the great river moved placidly--as an old man moves when all the headlong urge of youth is spent and his race near run. On the river side of the first coach behind the diner, Estella Benton nursed her round chin in the palm of one hand, leaning her elbow on the window sill. It was a relief to look over a widening valley instead of a bare-walled gorge all scarred with slides, to see wooded heights lift green in place of barren cliffs, to watch banks of fern massed against the right of way where for a day and a night parched sagebrush, brown tumble-weed, and such scant growth as flourished in the arid uplands of interior British Columbia had streamed in barren monotony, hot and dry and still. She was near the finish of her journey. Pensively she considered the end of the road. How would it be there? What manner of folk and country? Between her past mode of life and the new that she was hurrying toward lay the vast gulf of distance, of custom, of class even. It was bound to be crude, to be full of inconveniences and uncouthness. Her brother's letters had partly prepared her for that. Involuntarily she shrank from it, had been shrinking from it by fits and starts all the way, as flowers that thrive best in shady nooks shrink from hot sun and rude winds. Not that Estella Benton was particularly flower-like. On the contrary she was a healthy, vigorous-bodied young woman, scarcely to be described as beautiful, yet undeniably attractive. Obviously a daughter of the well-to-do, one of that American type which flourishes in families to which American politicians unctuously refer as the backbone of the nation. Outwardly, gazing riverward through the dusty pane, she bore herself with utmost serenity. Inwardly she was full of misgivings. Four days of lonely travel across a continent, hearing the drumming clack of car wheels and rail joint ninety-six hours on end, acutely conscious that every hour of the ninety-six put its due quota of miles between the known and the unknown, may be either an adventure, a bore, or a calamity, depending altogether upon the individual point of view, upon conditioning circumstances and previous experience. Estella Benton's experience along such lines was chiefly a blank and the conditioning circumstances of her present journey were somber enough to breed thought that verged upon the melancholy. Save for a natural buoyancy of spirit she might have wept her way across North America. She had no tried standard by which to measure life's values for she had lived her twenty-two years wholly shielded from the human maelstrom, fed, clothed, taught, an untried product of home and schools. Her head was full of university lore, things she had read, a smattering of the arts and philosophy, liberal portions of academic knowledge, all tagged and sorted like parcels on a shelf to be reached when called for. Buried under these externalities the ego of her lay unaroused, an incalculable quantity. All of which is merely by way of stating that Miss Estella Benton was a young woman who had grown up quite complacently in that station of life in which--to quote the Philistines--it had pleased God to place her, and that Chance had somehow, to her astonished dismay, contrived to thrust a spoke in the smooth-rolling wheels of destiny. Or was it Destiny? She had begun to think about that, to wonder if a lot that she had taken for granted as an ordered state of things was not, after all, wholly dependent upon Chance. She had danced and sung and played lightheartedly accepting a certain standard of living, a certain position in a certain set, a pleasantly ordered home life, as her birthright, a natural heritage. She had dwelt upon her ultimate destiny in her secret thoughts as foreshadowed by that of other girls she knew. The Prince would come, to put it in a nutshell. He would woo gracefully. They would wed. They would be delightfully happy. Except for the matter of being married, things would move along the same pleasant channels. Just so. But a broken steering knuckle on a heavy touring car set things in a different light--many things. She learned then that death is no respecter of persons, that a big income may be lived to its limit with nothing left when the brain force which commanded it ceases to function. Her father produced perhaps fifteen to twenty thousand dollars a year in his brokerage business, and he had saved nothing. Thus at one stroke she was put on an equal footing with the stenographer in her father's office. Scarcely equal either, for the stenographer earned her bread and was technically equipped for the task, whereas Estella Benton had no training whatsoever, except in social usage. She did not yet fully realize just what had overtaken her. Things had happened so swiftly, to ruthlessly, that she still verged upon the incredulous. Habit clung fast. But she had begun to think, to try and establish some working relation between herself and things as she found them. She had discovered already that certain theories of human relations are not soundly established in fact. She turned at last in her seat. The Limited's whistle had shrilled for a stop. At the next stop--she wondered what lay in store for her just beyond the next stop. While she dwelt mentally upon this, her hands were gathering up some few odds and ends of her belongings on the berth. Across the aisle a large, smooth-faced young man watched her with covert admiration. When she had settled back with bag and suitcase locked and strapped on the opposite seat and was hatted and gloved, he leaned over and addressed her genially. "Getting off at Hopyard? Happen to be going out to Roaring Springs?" Miss Benton's gray eyes rested impersonally on the top of his head, traveled slowly down over the trim front of his blue serge to the polished tan Oxfords on his feet, and there was not in eyes or on countenance the slightest sign that she saw or heard him. The large young man flushed a vivid red. Miss Benton was partly amused, partly provoked. The large young man had been her vis-à-vis at dinner the day before and at breakfast that morning. He had evinced a yearning for conversation each time, but it had been diplomatically confined to salt and other condiments, the weather and the scenery. Miss Benton had no objection to young men in general, quite the contrary. But she did not consider it quite the thing to countenance every amiable stranger. Within a few minutes the porter came for her things, and the blast of the Limited's whistle warned her that it was time to leave the train. Ten minutes later the Limited was a vanishing object down an aisle slashed through a forest of great trees, and Miss Estella Benton stood on the plank platform of Hopyard station. Northward stretched a flat, unlovely vista of fire-blackened stumps. Southward, along track and siding, ranged a single row of buildings, a grocery store, a shanty with a huge sign proclaiming that it was a bank, dwelling, hotel and blacksmith shop whence arose the clang of hammered iron. A dirt road ran between town and station, with hitching posts at which farmers' nags stood dispiritedly in harness. To the Westerner such spots are common enough; he sees them not as fixtures, but as places in a stage of transformation. By every side track and telegraph station on every transcontinental line they spring up, centers of productive activity, growing into orderly towns and finally attaining the dignity of cities. To her, fresh from trim farmsteads and rural communities that began setting their houses in order when Washington wintered at Valley Forge, Hopyard stood forth sordid and unkempt. And as happens to many a one in like case, a wave of sickening loneliness engulfed her, and she eyed the speeding Limited as one eyes a departing friend. "How could one live in a place like this?" she asked herself. But she had neither Slave of the Lamp at her beck, nor any Magic Carpet to transport her elsewhere. At any rate, she reflected, Hopyard was not her abiding-place. She hoped that her destination would prove more inviting. Beside the platform were ranged two touring cars. Three or four of those who had alighted entered these. Their baggage was piled over the hoods, buckled on the running boards. The driver of one car approached her. "Hot Springs?" he inquired tersely. She affirmed this, and he took her baggage, likewise her trunk check when she asked how that article would be transported to the lake. She had some idea of route and means, from her brother's written instruction, but she thought he might have been there to meet her. At least he would be at the Springs. So she was whirled along a country road, jolted in the tonneau between a fat man from Calgary and a rheumatic dame on her way to take hot sulphur baths at St. Allwoods. She passed seedy farmhouses, primitive in construction, and big barns with moss plentifully clinging on roof and gable. The stretch of charred stumps was left far behind, but in every field of grain and vegetable and root great butts of fir and cedar rose amid the crops. Her first definitely agreeable impression of this land, which so far as she knew must be her home, was of those huge and numerous stumps contending with crops for possession of the fields. Agreeable, because it came to her forcibly that it must be a sturdy breed of men and women, possessed of brawn and fortitude and high courage, who made their homes here. Back in her country, once beyond suburban areas, the farms lay like the squares of a chess board, trim and orderly, tamely subdued to agriculture. Here, at first hand, she saw how man attacked the forest and conquered it. But the conquest was incomplete, for everywhere stood those stubborn roots, six and eight and ten feet across, contending with man for its primal heritage, the soil, perishing slowly as perish the proud remnants of a conquered race. Then the cleared land came to a stop against heavy timber. The car whipped a curve and drove into what the fat man from Calgary facetiously remarked upon as the tall uncut. Miss Benton sighted up these noble columns to where a breeze droned in the tops, two hundred feet above. Through a gap in the timber she saw mountains, peaks that stood bold as the Rockies, capped with snow. For two days she had been groping for a word to define, to sum up the feeling which had grown upon her, had been growing upon her steadily, as the amazing scroll of that four-day journey unrolled. She found it now, a simple word, one of the simplest in our mother tongue--bigness. Bigness in its most ample sense,--that was the dominant note. Immensities of distance, vastness of rolling plain, sheer bulk of mountain, rivers that one crossed, and after a day's journey crossed again, still far from source or confluence. And now this unending sweep of colossal trees! At first she had been overpowered with a sense of insignificance utterly foreign to her previous experience. But now she discovered with an agreeable sensation of surprise she could vibrate to such a keynote. And while she communed with this pleasant discovery the car sped down a straight stretch and around a corner and stopped short to unload sacks of mail at a weather-beaten yellow edifice, its windows displaying indiscriminately Indian baskets, groceries, and hardware. Northward opened a broad scope of lake level, girt about with tremendous peaks whose lower slopes were banked with thick forest. Somewhere distant along that lake shore was to be her home. As the car rolled over the four hundred yards between store and white-and-green St. Allwoods, she wondered if Charlie would be there to meet her. She was weary of seeing strange faces, of being directed, of being hustled about. But he was not there, and she recalled that he never had been notable for punctuality. Five years is a long time. She expected to find him changed--for the better, in certain directions. He had promised to be there; but, in this respect, time evidently had wrought no appreciable transformation. She registered, was assigned a room, and ate luncheon to the melancholy accompaniment of a three-man orchestra struggling vainly with Bach in an alcove off the dining room. After that she began to make inquiries. Neither clerk nor manager knew aught of Charlie Benton. They were both in their first season there. They advised her to ask the storekeeper. "MacDougal will know," they were agreed. "He knows everybody around here, and everything that goes on." The storekeeper, a genial, round-bodied Scotchman, had the information she desired. "Charlie Benton?" said he. "No, he'll be at his camp up the lake. He was in three or four days back. I mind now, he said he'd be down Thursday; that's to-day. But he isn't here yet, or his boat'd be by the wharf yonder." "Are there any passenger boats that call there?" she asked. MacDougal shook his head. "Not reg'lar. There's a gas boat goes t' the head of the lake now an' then. She's away now. Ye might hire a launch. Jack Fyfe's camp tender's about to get under way. But ye wouldna care to go on her, I'm thinkin'. She'll be loaded wi' lumberjacks--every man drunk as a lord, most like. Maybe Benton'll be in before night." She went back to the hotel. But St. Allwoods, in its dual capacity of health-and-pleasure resort, was a gilded shell, making a brave outward show, but capitalizing chiefly lake, mountains, and hot, mineral springs. Her room was a bare, cheerless place. She did not want to sit and ponder. Too much real grief hovered in the immediate background of her life. It is not always sufficient to be young and alive. To sit still and think--that way lay tears and despondency. So she went out and walked down the road and out upon the wharf which jutted two hundred yards into the lake. It stood deserted save for a lone fisherman on the outer end, and an elderly couple that preceded her. Halfway out she passed a slip beside which lay moored a heavily built, fifty-foot boat, scarred with usage, a squat and powerful craft. Lakeward stretched a smooth, unrippled surface. Overhead patches of white cloud drifted lazily. Where the shadows from these lay, the lake spread gray and lifeless. Where the afternoon sun rested, it touched the water with gleams of gold and pale, delicate green. A white-winged yacht lay offshore, her sails in slack folds. A lump of an island lifted two miles beyond, all cliffs and little, wooded hills. And the mountains surrounding in a giant ring seemed to shut the place away from all the world. For sheer wild, rugged beauty, Roaring Lake surpassed any spot she had ever seen. Its quiet majesty, its air of unbroken peace soothed and comforted her, sick with hurry and swift-footed events. She stood for a time at the outer wharf end, mildly interested when the fisherman drew up a two-pound trout, wondering a little at her own subtle changes of mood. Her surrounding played upon her like a virtuoso on his violin. And this was something that she did not recall as a trait in her own character. She had never inclined to the volatile--perhaps because until the motor accident snuffed out her father's life she had never dealt in anything but superficial emotions. After a time she retraced her steps. Nearing the halfway slip, she saw that a wagon from which goods were being unloaded blocked the way. A dozen men were stringing in from the road, bearing bundles and bags and rolls of blankets. They were big, burly men, carrying themselves with a reckless swing, with trousers cut off midway between knee and ankle so that they reached just below the upper of their high-topped, heavy, laced boots. Two or three were singing. All appeared unduly happy, talking loudly, with deep laughter. One threw down his burden and executed a brief clog. Splinters flew where the sharp calks bit into the wharf planking, and his companions applauded. It dawned upon Stella Benton that these might be Jack Fyfe's drunken loggers, and she withdrew until the way should be clear, vitally interested because her brother was a logging man, and wondering if these were the human tools he used in his business, if these were the sort of men with whom he associated. They were a rough lot--and some were very drunk. With the manifestations of liquor she had but the most shadowy acquaintance. But she would have been little less than a fool not to comprehend this. Then they began filing down the gangway to the boat's deck. One slipped, and came near falling into the water, whereat his fellows howled gleefully. Precariously they negotiated the slanting passage. All but one: he sat him down at the slip-head on his bundle and began a quavering chant. The teamster imperturbably finished his unloading, two men meanwhile piling the goods aboard. The wagon backed out, and the way was clear, save for the logger sitting on his blankets, wailing his lugubrious song. From below his fellows urged him to come along. A bell clanged in the pilot house. The exhaust of a gas engine began to sputter through the boat's side. From her after deck a man hailed the logger sharply, and when his call was unheeded, he ran lightly up the slip. A short, squarely-built man he was, light on his feet as a dancing master. He spoke now with authority, impatiently. "Hurry aboard, Mike; we're waiting." The logger rose, waved his hand airily, and turned as if to retreat down the wharf. The other caught him by the arm and spun him face to the slip. "Come on, Slater," he said evenly. "I have no time to fool around." The logger drew back his fist. He was a fairly big man. But if he had in mind to deal a blow, it failed, for the other ducked and caught him with both arms around the middle. He lifted the logger clear of the wharf, hoisted him to the level of his breast, and heaved him down the slip as one would throw a sack of bran. The man's body bounced on the incline, rolled, slid, tumbled, till at length he brought up against the boat's guard, and all that saved him a ducking was the prompt extension of several stout arms, which clutched and hauled him to the flush after deck. He sat on his haunches, blinking. Then he laughed. So did the man at the top of the slip and the lumberjacks clustered on the boat. Homeric laughter, as at some surpassing jest. But the roar of him who had taken that inglorious descent rose loudest of all, an explosive, "Har--har--har!" He clambered unsteadily to his feet, his mouth expanded in an amiable grin. "Hey, Jack," he shouted. "Maybe y' c'n throw m' blankets down too, while y'r at it." The man at the slip-head caught up the roll, poised it high, and cast it from him with a quick twist of his body. The woolen missile flew like a well-put shot and caught its owner fair in the breast, tumbling him backwards on the deck--and the Homeric laughter rose in double strength. Then the boat began to swing, and the man ran down and leaped the widening space as she drew away from her mooring. Stella Benton watched the craft gather way, a trifle shocked, her breath coming a little faster. The most deadly blows she had ever seen struck were delivered in a more subtle, less virile mode, a curl of the lip, an inflection of the voice. These were a different order of beings. This, she sensed was man in a more primitive aspect, man with the conventional bark stripped clean off him. And she scarcely knew whether to be amused or frightened when she reflected that among such her life would presently lie. Charlie had written that she would find things and people a trifle rougher than she was used to. She could well believe that. But--they were picturesque ruffians. Her interested gaze followed the camp tender as it swung around the wharf-end, and so her roaming eyes were led to another craft drawing near. This might be her brother's vessel. She went back to the outer landing to see. Two men manned this boat. As she ranged alongside the piles, one stood forward, and the other aft with lines to make fast. She cast a look at each. They were prototypes of the rude crew but now departed, brown-faced, flannel-shirted, shod with calked boots, unshaven for days, typical men of the woods. But as she turned to go, the man forward and almost directly below her looked her full in the face. "Stell!" She leaned over the rail. "Charlie Benton--for Heaven's sake." They stared at each other. "Well," he laughed at last. "If it were not for your mouth and eyes, Stell, I wouldn't have known you. Why, you're all grown up." He clambered to the wharf level and kissed her. The rough stubble of his beard pricked her tender skin and she drew back. "My word, Charlie, you certainly ought to shave," she observed with sisterly frankness. "I didn't know you until you spoke. I'm awfully glad to see you, but you do need _some one_ to look after you." Benton laughed tolerantly. "Perhaps. But, my dear girl, a fellow doesn't get anywhere on his appearance in this country. When a fellow's bucking big timber, he shucks off a lot of things he used to think were quite essential. By Jove, you're a picture, Stell. If I hadn't been expecting to see you, I wouldn't have known you." "I doubt if I should have known you either," she returned drily. CHAPTER II MR. ABBEY ARRIVES Stella accompanied her brother to the store, where he gave an order for sundry goods. Then they went to the hotel to see if her trunks had arrived. Within a few yards of the fence which enclosed the grounds of St. Allwoods a man hailed Benton, and drew him a few steps aside. Stella walked slowly on, and presently her brother joined her. The baggage wagon had brought the trunks, and when she had paid her bill, they were delivered at the outer wharf-end, where also arrived at about the same time a miscellaneous assortment of supplies from the store and a Japanese with her two handbags. So far as Miss Estella Benton could see, she was about to embark on the last stage of her journey. "How soon will you start?" she inquired, when the last of the stuff was stowed aboard the little steamer. "Twenty minutes or so," Benton answered. "Say," he went on casually, "have you got any money, Stell? I owe a fellow thirty dollars, and I left the bank roll and my check book at camp." Miss Benton drew the purse from her hand bag and gave it to him. He pocketed it and went off down the wharf, with the brief assurance that he would be gone only a minute or so. The minute, however, lengthened to nearly an hour, and Sam Davis had his blow-off valve hissing, and Stella Benton was casting impatient glances shoreward before Charlie strolled leisurely back. "You needn't fire up quite so strong, Sam," he called down. "We won't start for a couple of hours yet." "Sufferin' Moses!" Davis poked his fiery thatch out from the engine room. "I might 'a' known better'n to sweat over firin' up. You generally manage to make about three false starts to one get-away." Benton laughed good-naturedly and turned away. "Do you usually allow your men to address you in that impertinent way?" Miss Benton desired to know. Charlie looked blank for a second. Then he smiled, and linking his arm affectionately in hers, drew her off along the wharf, chuckling to himself. "My dear girl," said he, "you'd better not let Sam Davis or any of Sam's kind hear you pass remarks like that. Sam would say exactly what he thought about such matters to his boss, or King George, or to the first lady of the land, regardless. Sabe? We're what you'll call primitive out here, yet. You want to forget that master and man business, the servant proposition, and proper respect, and all that rot. Outside the English colonies in one or two big towns, that attitude doesn't go in B.C. People in this neck of the woods stand pretty much on the same class footing, and you'll get in bad and get me in bad if you don't remember that. I've got ten loggers working for me in the woods. Whether they're impertinent or profane cuts no figure so long as they handle the job properly. They're men, you understand, not servants. None of them would hesitate to tell me what he thinks about me or anything I do. If I don't like it, I can fight him or fire him. They won't stand for the sort of airs you're accustomed to. They have the utmost respect for a woman, but a man is merely a two-legged male human like themselves, whether he wears mackinaws or broadcloth, has a barrel of money of none at all. This will seem odd to you at first, but you'll get used to it. You'll find things rather different out here." "I suppose so," she agreed. "But it sounds queer. For instance, if one of papa's clerks or the chauffeur had spoken like that, he'd have been discharged on the spot." "The logger's a different breed," Benton observed drily. "Or perhaps only the same breed manifesting under different conditions. He isn't servile. He doesn't have to be." "Why the delay, though?" she reverted to the point. "I thought you were all ready to go." "I am," Charlie enlightened. "But while I was at the store just now, Paul Abbey 'phoned from Vancouver to know if there was an up-lake boat in. His people are big lumber guns here, and it will accommodate him and won't hurt me to wait a couple of hours and drop him off at their camp. I've got more or less business dealings with them, and it doesn't hurt to be neighborly. He'd have to hire a gas-boat otherwise. Besides, Paul's a pretty good head." This, of course, being strictly her brother's business, Stella forbore comment. She was weary of travel, tired with the tension of eternally being shunted across distances, anxious to experience once more that sense of restful finality which comes with a journey's end. But, in a measure her movements were no longer dependent upon her own volition. They walked slowly along the broad roadway which bordered the lake until they came to a branchy maple, and here they seated themselves on the grassy turf in the shadow of the tree. "Tell me about yourself," she said. "How do you like it here, and how are you getting on? Your letters home were always chiefly remarkable for their brevity." "There isn't a great lot to tell," Benton responded. "I'm just beginning to get on my feet. A raw, untried youngster has a lot to learn and unlearn when he hits this tall timber. I've been out here five years, and I'm just beginning to realize what I'm equal to and what I'm not. I'm crawling over a hump now that would have been a lot easier if the governor hadn't come to grief the way he did. He was going to put in some money this fall. But I think I'll make it, anyway, though it will keep me digging and figuring. I have a contract for delivery of a million feet in September and another contract that I could take if I could see my way clear to finance the thing. I could clean up thirty thousand dollars net in two years if I had more cash to work on. As it is, I have to go slow, or I'd go broke. I'm holding two limits by the skin of my teeth. But I've got one good one practically for an annual pittance. If I make delivery on my contract according to schedule it's plain sailing. That about sizes up my prospects, Sis." "You speak a language I don't understand," she smiled. "What does a million feet mean? And what's a limit?" "A limit is one square mile--six hundred and forty acres more or less--of merchantable timber land," he explained. "We speak of timber as scaling so many board feet. A board foot is one inch thick by twelve inches square. Sound fir timber is worth around seven dollars per thousand board feet in the log, got out of the woods, and boomed in the water ready to tow to the mills. The first limit I got--from the government--will scale around ten million feet. The other two are nearly as good. But I got them from timber speculators, and it's costing me pretty high. They're a good spec if I can hang on to them, though." "It sounds big," she commented. "It _is_ big," Charlie declared, "if I could go at it right. I've been trying ever since I got wise to this timber business to make the governor see what a chance there is in it. He was just getting properly impressed with the possibilities when the speed bug got him. He could have trimmed a little here and there at home and put the money to work. Ten thousand dollars would have done the trick, given me a working outfit along with what I've got that would have put us both on Easy Street. However, the poor old chap didn't get around to it. I suppose, like lots of other business men, when he stopped, everything ran down. According to Lander's figures, there won't be a thing left when all accounts are squared." "Don't talk about it, Charlie," she begged. "It's too near, and I was through it all." "I would have been there too," Benton said. "But, as I told you, I was out of reach of your wire, and by the time I got it, it was all over. I couldn't have done any good, anyway. There's no use mourning. One way and another we've all got to come to it some day." Stella looked out over the placid, shimmering surface of Roaring Lake for a minute. Her grief was dimming with time and distance, and she had all her own young life before her. She found herself drifting from painful memories of her father's sudden death to a consideration of things present and personal. She found herself wondering critically if this strange, rude land would work as many changes in her as were patent in this bronzed and burly brother. He had left home a slim, cocksure youngster, who had proved more than a handful for his family before he was half through college, which educational finishing process had come to an abrupt stop before it was complete. He had been a problem that her father and mother had discussed in guarded tones. Sending him West had been a hopeful experiment, and in the West that abounding spirit which manifested itself in one continual round of minor escapades appeared to have found a natural outlet. She recalled that latterly their father had taken to speaking of Charlie in accents of pride. He was developing the one ambition that Benton senior could thoroughly understand and properly appreciate, the desire to get on, to grasp opportunities, to achieve material success, to make money. Just as her father, on the few occasions when he talked business before her, spoke in a big way of big things as the desirable ultimate, so now Charlie spoke, with plans and outlook to match his speech. In her father's point of view, and in Charlie's now, a man's personal life did not seem to matter in comparison with getting on and making money. And it was with that personal side of existence that Stella Benton was now chiefly concerned. She had never been required to adjust herself to an existence that was wholly taken up with getting on to the complete exclusion of everything else. Her work had been to play. She could scarce conceive of any one entirely excluding pleasure and diversion from his or her life. She wondered if Charlie had done so. And if not, what ameliorating circumstances, what social outlet, might be found to offset, for her, continued existence in this isolated region of towering woods. So far as her first impressions went, Roaring Lake appeared to be mostly frequented by lumberjacks addicted to rude speech and strong drink. "Are there many people living around this lake?" she inquired. "It is surely a beautiful spot. If we had this at home, there would be a summer cottage on every hundred yards of shore." "Be a long time before we get to that stage here," Benton returned. "And scenery in B.C. is a drug on the market; we've got Europe backed off the map for tourist attractions, if they only knew it. No, about the only summer home in this locality is the Abbey place at Cottonwood Point. They come up here every summer for two or three months. Otherwise I don't know of any lilies of the field, barring the hotel people, and they, being purely transient, don't count. There's the Abbey-Monohan outfit with two big logging camps, my outfit, Jack Fyfe's, some hand loggers on the east shore, and the R.A.T. at the head of the lake. That's the population--and Roaring Lake is forty-two miles long and eight wide." "Are there any nice girls around?" she asked. Benton grinned widely. "Girls?" said he. "Not so you could notice. Outside the Springs and the hatchery over the way, there isn't a white woman on the lake except Lefty Howe's wife,--Lefty's Jack Fyfe's foreman,--and she's fat and past forty. I told you it was a God-forsaken hole as far as society is concerned, Stell." "I know," she said thoughtfully. "But one can scarcely realize such a--such a social blankness, until one actually experiences it. Anyway, I don't know but I'll appreciate utter quiet for awhile. But what do you do with yourself when you're not working?" "There's seldom any such time," he answered. "I tell you, Stella, I've got a big job on my hands. I've got a definite mark to shoot at, and I'm going to make a bull's-eye in spite of hell and high water. I have no time to play, and there's no place to play if I had. I don't intend to muddle along making a pittance like a hand logger. I want a stake; and then it'll be time to make a splurge in a country where a man can get a run for his money." "If that's the case," she observed, "I'm likely to be a handicap to you, am I not?" "Lord, no," he smiled. "I'll put you to work too, when you get rested up from your trip. You stick with me, Sis, and you'll wear diamonds." She laughed with him at this, and leaving the shady maple they walked up to the hotel, where Benton proposed that they get a canoe and paddle to where Roaring River flowed out of the lake half a mile westward, to kill the time that must elapse before the three-thirty train. The St. Allwoods' car was rolling out to Hopyard when they came back. By the time Benton had turned the canoe over to the boathouse man and reached the wharf, the horn of the returning machine sounded down the road. They waited. The car came to a stop at the abutting wharf. The driver handed two suitcases off the burdened hood of his machine. From out the tonneau clambered a large, smooth-faced young man. He wore an expansive smile in addition to a blue serge suit, white Panama, and polished tan Oxfords, and he bestowed a hearty greeting upon Charlie Benton. But his smile suffered eclipse, and a faint flush rose in his round cheeks, when his eyes fell upon Benton's sister. CHAPTER III HALFWAY POINT Miss Benton's cool, impersonal manner seemed rather to heighten the young man's embarrassment. Benton, apparently observing nothing amiss, introduced them in an offhand fashion. "Mr. Abbey--my sister." Mr. Abbey bowed and murmured something that passed for acknowledgment. The three turned up the wharf toward where Sam Davis had once more got up steam. As they walked, Mr. Abbey's habitual assurance returned, and he directed part of his genial flow of conversation to Miss Benton. To Stella's inner amusement, however, he did not make any reference to their having been fellow travelers for a day and a half. Presently they were embarked and under way. Charlie fixed a seat for her on the after deck, and went forward to steer, whither he was straightway joined by Paul Abbey. Miss Benton was as well pleased to be alone. She was not sure she should approve of young men who made such crude efforts to scrape acquaintance with women on trains. She was accustomed to a certain amount of formality in such matters. It might perhaps be laid to the "breezy Western manner" of which she had heard, except that Paul Abbey did not impress her as a Westerner. He seemed more like a type of young man she had encountered frequently in her own circle. At any rate, she was relieved when he did not remain beside her to emit polite commonplaces. She was quite satisfied to sit by herself and look over the panorama of woods and lake--and wonder more than a little what Destiny had in store for her along those silent shores. The Springs fell far behind, became a few white spots against the background of dusky green. Except for the ripples spread by their wake, the water laid oily smooth. Now, a little past four in the afternoon, she began to sense by comparison the great bulk of the western mountains,--locally, the Chehalis Range,--for the sun was dipping behind the ragged peaks already, and deep shadows stole out from the shore to port. Beneath her feet the screw throbbed, pulsing like an overdriven heart, and Sam Davis poked his sweaty face now and then through a window to catch a breath of cool air denied him in the small inferno where he stoked the fire box. The _Chickamin_ cleared Echo Island, and a greater sweep of lake opened out. Here the afternoon wind sprang up, shooting gustily through a gap between the Springs and Hopyard and ruffling the lake out of its noonday siesta. Ripples, chop, and a growing swell followed each other with that marvellous rapidity common to large bodies of fresh water. It broke the monotony of steady cleaving through dead calm. Stella was a good sailor, and she rather enjoyed it when the _Chickamin_ began to lift and yaw off before the following seas that ran up under her fantail stern. After about an hour's run, with the south wind beginning to whip the crests of the short seas into white foam, the boat bore in to a landing behind a low point. Here Abbey disembarked, after taking the trouble to come aft and shake hands with polite farewell. Standing on the float, hat in hand, he bowed his sleek blond head to Stella. "I hope you'll like Roaring Lake, Miss Benton," he said, as Benton jingled the go-ahead bell. "I tried to persuade Charlie to stop over awhile, so you could meet my mother and sister, but he's in too big a hurry. Hope to have the pleasure of meeting you again soon." Miss Benton parried courteously, a little at a loss to fathom this bland friendliness, and presently the widening space cut off their talk. As the boat drew offshore, she saw two women in white come down toward the float, meet Abbey, and turn back. And a little farther out through an opening in the woods, she saw a white and green bungalow, low and rambling, wide-verandahed, set on a hillock three hundred yards back from shore. There was an encircling area of smooth lawn, a place restfully inviting. Watching that, seeing a figure or two moving about, she was smitten with a recurrence of that poignant loneliness which had assailed her fitfully in the last four days. And while the _Chickamin_ was still plowing the inshore waters on an even keel, she walked the guard rail alongside and joined her brother in the pilot house. "Isn't that a pretty place back there in the woods?" she remarked. "Abbey's summer camp; spells money to me, that's all," Charlie grumbled. "It's a toy for their women,--up-to-date cottage, gardeners, tennis courts, afternoon tea on the lawn for the guests, and all that. But the Abbey-Monohan bunch has the money to do what they want to do. They've made it in timber, as I expect to make mine. You didn't particularly want to stay over and get acquainted, did you?" "I? Of course not," she responded. "Personally, I don't want to mix into their social game," Charlie drawled. "Or at least, I don't propose to make any tentative advances. The women put on lots of side, they say. If they want to hunt us up and cultivate you, all right. But I've got too much to do to butt into society. Anyway, I didn't want to run up against any critical females looking like I do right now." Stella smiled. "Under certain circumstances, appearances do count then, in this country," she remarked. "Has your Mr. Abbey got a young and be-yutiful sister?" "He has, but that's got nothing to do with it," Charlie retorted. "Paul's all right himself. But their gait isn't mine--not yet. Here, you take the wheel a minute. I want to smoke. I don't suppose you ever helmed a forty-footer, but you'll never learn younger." She took the wheel and Charlie stood by, directing her. In twenty minutes they were out where the run of the sea from the south had a fair sweep. The wind was whistling now. All the roughened surface was spotted with whitecaps. The _Chickamin_ would hang on the crest of a wave and shoot forward like a racer, her wheel humming, and again the roller would run out from under her, and she would labor heavily in the trough. It began to grow insufferably hot in the pilot house. The wind drove with them, pressing the heat from the boiler and fire box into the forward portion of the boat, where Stella stood at the wheel. There were puffs of smoke when Davis opened the fire box to ply it with fuel. All the sour smells that rose from an unclean bilge eddied about them. The heat and the smell and the surging motion began to nauseate Stella. "I must get outside where I can breathe," she gasped, at length. "It's suffocating. I don't see how you stand it." "It does get stuffy in here when we run with the wind," Benton admitted. "Cuts off our ventilation. I'm used to it. Crawl out the window and sit on the forward deck. Don't try to get aft. You might slip off, the way she's lurching." Curled in the hollow of a faked-down hawser with the clean air fanning her, Stella recovered herself. The giddiness left her. She pitied Sam Davis back in that stinking hole beside the fire box. But she supposed he, like her brother, was "used to it." Apparently one could get used to anything, if she could judge by the amazing change in Charlie. Far ahead loomed a ridge running down to the lake shore and cutting off in a bold promontory. That was Halfway Point, Charlie had told her, and under its shadow lay his camp. Without any previous knowledge of camps, she was approaching this one with less eager anticipation than when she began her long journey. She began to fear that it might be totally unlike anything she had been able to imagine, disagreeably so. Charlie, she decided, had grown hard and coarsened in the evolution of his ambition to get on, to make his pile. She was but four years younger than he, and she had always thought of herself as being older and wiser and steadier. She had conceived the idea that her presence would have a good influence on him, that they would pull together--now that there were but the two of them. But four hours in his company had dispelled that illusion. She had the wit to perceive that Charlie Benton had emerged from the chrysalis stage, that he had the will and the ability to mold his life after his elected fashion, and that her coming was a relatively unimportant incident. In due course the _Chickamin_ bore in under Halfway Point, opened out a sheltered bight where the watery commotion outside raised but a faint ripple, and drew in alongside a float. The girl swept lake shore, bay, and sloping forest with a quickening eye. Here was no trim-painted cottage and velvet lawn. In the waters beside and lining the beach floated innumerable logs, confined by boomsticks, hundreds of trunks of fir, forty and sixty feet long, four and six feet across the butt, timber enough, when it had passed through the sawmills, to build four such towns as Hopyard. Just back from the shore, amid stumps and littered branches, rose the roofs of divers buildings. One was long and low. Hard by it stood another of like type but of lesser dimension. Two or three mere shanties lifted level with great stumps,--crude, unpainted buildings. Smoke issued from the pipe of the larger, and a white-aproned man stood in the doorway. Somewhere in the screen of woods a whistle shrilled. Benton looked at his watch. "We made good time, in spite of the little roll," said he. "That's the donkey blowing quitting time--six o'clock. Well, come on up to the shack, Sis. Sam, you get a wheelbarrow and run those trunks up after supper, will you?" Away in the banked timber beyond the maples and alder which Stella now saw masked the bank of a small stream flowing by the cabins, a faint call rose, long-drawn: "Tim-ber-r-r-r!" They moved along a path beaten through fern and clawing blackberry vine toward the camp, Benton carrying the two grips. A loud, sharp crack split the stillness; then a mild swishing sound arose. Hard on the heels of that followed a rending, tearing crash, a thud that sent tremors through the solid earth under their feet. The girl started. "Falling gang dropped a big fir," Charlie laughed. "You'll get used to that. You'll hear it a good many times a day here." "Good Heavens, it sounded like the end of the world," she said. "Well, you can't fell a stick of timber two hundred feet high and six or eight feet through without making a pretty considerable noise," her brother remarked complacently. "I like that sound myself. Every big tree that goes down means a bunch of money." He led the way past the mess-house, from the doorway of which the aproned cook eyed her with frank curiosity, hailing his employer with nonchalant air, a cigarette resting in one corner of his mouth. Benton opened the door of the second building. Stella followed him in. It had the saving grace of cleanliness--according to logging-camp standards. But the bareness of it appalled her. There was a rusty box heater, littered with cigar and cigarette stubs, a desk fabricated of undressed boards, a homemade chair or two, sundry boxes standing about. The sole concession to comfort was a rug of cheap Axminster covering half the floor. The walls were decorated chiefly with miscellaneous clothing suspended from nails, a few maps and blue prints tacked up askew. Straight across from the entering door another stood ajar, and she could see further vistas of bare board wall, small, dusty window-panes, and a bed whereon gray blankets were tumbled as they fell when a waking sleeper cast them aside. Benton crossed the room and threw open another door. "Here's a nook I fixed up for you, Stella," he said briskly. "It isn't very fancy, but it's the best I could do just now." She followed him in silently. He set her two bags on the floor and turned to go. Then some impulse moved him to turn back, and he put both hands on her shoulders and kissed her gently. "You're home, anyway," he said. "That's something, if it isn't what you're used to. Try to overlook the crudities. We'll have supper as soon as you feel like it." He went out, closing the door behind him. Miss Estella Benton stood in the middle of the room fighting against a swift heart-sinking, a terrible depression that strove to master her. "Good Lord in Heaven," she muttered at last. "What a place to be marooned in. It's--it's simply impossible." Her gaze roved about the room. A square box, neither more nor less, fourteen by fourteen feet of bare board wall, unpainted and unpapered. There was an iron bed, a willow rocker, and a rude closet for clothes in one corner. A duplicate of the department-store bargain rug in the other room lay on the floor. On an upturned box stood an enamel pitcher and a tin washbasin. That was all. She sat down on the bed and viewed it forlornly. A wave of sickening rebellion against everything swept over her. To herself she seemed as irrevocably alone as if she had been lost in the depths of the dark timber that rose on every hand. And sitting there she heard at length the voices of men. Looking out through a window curtained with cheesecloth she saw her brother's logging gang swing past, stout woodsmen all, big men, tall men, short-bodied men with thick necks and shoulders, sunburned, all grimy with the sweat of their labors, carrying themselves with a free and reckless swing, the doubles in type of that roistering crew she had seen embark on Jack Fyfe's boat. In so far as she had taken note of those who labored with their hands in the region of her birth, she had seen few like these. The chauffeur, the footman, the street cleaner, the factory workers--they were all different. They lacked something,--perhaps nothing in the way of physical excellence; but these men betrayed in every movement a subtle difference that she could not define. Her nearest approximation and the first attempt she made at analysis was that they looked like pirates. They were bold men and strong; that was written in their faces and the swing of them as they walked. And they served the very excellent purpose of taking her mind off herself for the time being. She watched them cluster by a bench before the cookhouse, dabble their faces and hands in washbasins, scrub themselves promiscuously on towels, sometimes one at each end of a single piece of cloth, hauling it back and forth in rude play. All about that cookhouse dooryard spread a confusion of empty tin cans, gaudily labeled, containers of corn and peas and tomatoes. Dishwater and refuse, chips, scraps, all the refuse of the camp was scattered there in unlovely array. But that made no more than a passing impression upon her. She was thinking, as she removed her hat and gloves, of what queer angles come now and then to the human mind. She wondered why she should be sufficiently interested in her brother's hired men to drive off a compelling attack of the blues in consideration of them as men. Nevertheless, she found herself unable to view them as she had viewed, say, the clerks in her father's office. She began to brush her hair and to wonder what sort of food would be served for supper. CHAPTER IV A FORETASTE OF THINGS TO COME Half an hour later she sat down with her brother at one end of a table that was but a long bench covered with oilcloth. Chairs there were none. A narrow movable bench on each side of the fixed table furnished seating capacity for twenty men, provided none objected to an occasional nudging from his neighbor's elbow. The dishes, different from any she had ever eaten from, were of enormously thick porcelain, dead white, variously chipped and cracked with fine seams. But the food, if plain, was of excellent quality, tastily cooked. She discovered herself with an appetite wholly independent of silver and cut glass and linen. The tin spoons and steel knives and forks harrowed her aesthetic sense without impairing her ability to satisfy hunger. They had the dining room to themselves. Through a single shiplap partition rose a rumble of masculine talk, where the logging crew loafed in their bunkhouse. The cook served them without any ceremony, putting everything on the table at once,--soup, meat, vegetables, a bread pudding for dessert, coffee in a tall tin pot. Benton introduced him to his sister. He withdrew hastily to the kitchen, and they saw no more of him. "Charlie," the girl said plaintively, when the man had closed the door behind him, "I don't quite fathom your social customs out here. Is one supposed to know everybody that one encounters?" "Just about," he grinned. "Loggers, Siwashes, and the natives in general. Can't very well help it, Sis. There's so few people in this neck of the woods that nobody can afford to be exclusive,--at least, nobody who lives here any length of time. You can't tell when you may have to call on your neighbor or the fellow working for you in a matter of life and death almost. A man couldn't possibly maintain the same attitude toward a bunch of loggers working under him that would be considered proper back where we came from. Take me, for instance, and my case is no different from any man operating on a moderate scale out here. I'd get the reputation of being swell-headed, and they'd put me in the hole at every turn. They wouldn't care what they did or how it was done. Ten to one I couldn't keep a capable working crew three weeks on end. On the other hand, take a bunch of loggers on a pay roll working for a man that meets them on an equal footing--why, they'll go to hell and back again for him. They're as loyal as soldiers to the flag. They're a mighty self-sufficient, independent lot, these lumberjacks, and that goes for most everybody knocking about in this country,--loggers, prospectors, miners, settlers, and all. If you're what they term 'all right,' you can do anything, and they'll back you up. If you go to putting on airs and trying to assert yourself as a superior being, they'll go out of their way to hand you packages of trouble." "I see," she observed thoughtfully. "One's compelled by circumstances to practice democracy." "Something like that," he responded carelessly and went on eating his supper. "Don't you think we could make this place a lot more homelike, Charlie?" she ventured, when they were back in their own quarters. "I suppose it suits a man who only uses it as a place to sleep, but it's bare as a barn." "It takes money to make a place cosy," Benton returned. "And I haven't had it to spend on knickknacks." "Fiddlesticks!" she laughed. "A comfortable chair or two and curtains and pictures aren't knickknacks, as you call them. The cost wouldn't amount to anything." Benton stuffed the bowl of a pipe and lighted it before he essayed reply. "Look here, Stella," he said earnestly. "This joint probably strikes you as about the limit, seeing that you've been used to pretty soft surroundings and getting pretty nearly anything you wanted whenever you expressed a wish for it. Things that you've grown into the way of considering necessities _are_ luxuries. And they're out of the question for us at present. I got a pretty hard seasoning the first two years I was in this country, and when I set up this camp it was merely a place to live. I never thought anything about it as being comfortable or otherwise until you elected to come. I'm not in a position to go in for trimmings. Rough as this camp is, it will have to go as it stands this summer. I'm up against it for ready money. I've got none due until I make delivery of those logs in September, and I have to have that million feet in the water in order to make delivery. Every one of these men but the cook and the donkey engineer are working for me with their wages deferred until then. There are certain expenses that must be met with cash--and I've got all my funds figured down to nickels. If I get by on this contract, I'll have a few hundred to squander on house things. Until then, it's the simple life for us. You can camp for three or four months, can't you, without finding it completely unbearable?" "Why, of course," she protested. "I wasn't complaining about the way things are. I merely voiced the idea that it would be nice to fix up a little cosier, make these rooms look a little homelike. I didn't know you were practically compelled to live like this as a matter of economy." "Well, in a sense, I am," he replied. "And then again, making a place away out here homelike never struck me as being anything but an inconsequential detail. I'm not trying to make a home here. I'm after a bundle of money. A while ago, if you had been here and suggested it, you could have spent five or six hundred, and I wouldn't have missed it. But this contract came my way, and gave me a chance to clean up three thousand dollars clear profit in four months. I grabbed it, and I find it's some undertaking. I'm dealing with a hard business outfit, hard as nails. I might get the banks or some capitalist to finance me, because my timber holdings are worth money. But I'm shy of that. I've noticed that when a logger starts working on borrowed capital, he generally goes broke. The financiers generally devise some way to hook him. I prefer to sail as close to the wind as I can on what little I've got. I can get this timber out--but it wouldn't look nice, now, would it, for me to be buying furniture when I'm standing these boys off for their wages till September?" "I should have been a man," Miss Estella Benton pensively remarked. "Then I could put on overalls and make myself useful, instead of being a drone. There doesn't seem to be anything here I can do. I could keep house--only you haven't any house to keep, therefore no need of a housekeeper. Why, who's that?" Her ear had caught a low, throaty laugh, a woman's laugh, outside. She looked inquiringly at her brother. His expression remained absent, as of one concentrated upon his own problems. She repeated the question. "That? Oh, Katy John, I suppose, or her mother," he answered. "Siwash bunch camping around the point. The girl does some washing for us now and then. I suppose she's after Matt for some bread or something." Stella looked out. At the cookhouse door stood a short, plump-bodied girl, dark-skinned and black-haired. Otherwise she conformed to none of Miss Benton's preconceived ideas of the aboriginal inhabitant. If she had been pinned down, she would probably have admitted that she expected to behold an Indian maiden garbed in beaded buckskin and brass ornaments. Instead, Katy John wore a white sailor blouse, a brown pleated skirt, tan shoes, and a bow of baby blue ribbon in her hair. "Why, she talks good English," Miss Benton exclaimed, as fragments of the girl's speech floated over to her. "Sure. As good as anybody," Charlie drawled. "Why not?" "Well--er--I suppose my notion of Indians is rather vague," Stella admitted. "Are they all civilized and educated?" "Most of 'em," Benton replied. "The younger generation anyhow. Say, Stell, can you cook?" "A little," Stella rejoined guardedly. "That Indian girl's really pretty, isn't she?" "They nearly all are when they're young," he observed. "But they are old and tubby by the time they're thirty." Katy John's teeth shone white between her parted lips at some sally from the cook. She stood by the door, swinging a straw hat in one hand. Presently Matt handed her a parcel done up in newspaper, and she walked away with a nod to some of the loggers sitting with their backs against the bunkhouse wall. "Why were you asking if I could cook?" Stella inquired, when the girl vanished in the brush. "Why, your wail about being a man and putting on overalls and digging in reminded me that if you liked you may have a chance to get on your apron and show us what you can do," he laughed. "Matt's about due to go on a tear. He's been on the water-wagon now about his limit. The first man that comes along with a bottle of whisky, Matt will get it and quit and head for town. I was wondering if you and Katy John could keep the gang from starving to death if that happened. The last time I had to get in and cook for two weeks myself. And I can't run a logging crew from the cook shanty very well." "I daresay I could manage," Stella returned dubiously. "This seems to be a terrible place for drinking. Is it the accepted thing to get drunk at all times and in public?" "It's about the only excitement there is," Benton smiled tolerantly. "I guess there is no more drinking out here than any other part of this North American continent. Only a man here gets drunk openly and riotously without any effort to hide it, and without it being considered anything but a natural lapse. That's one thing you'll have to get used to out here, Stell--I mean, that what vices men have are all on the surface. We don't get drunk secretly at the club and sneak home in a taxi. Oh, well, we'll cross the bridge when we come to it. Matt may not break out for weeks." He yawned openly. "Sleepy?" Stella inquired. "I get up every morning between four and five," he replied. "And I can go to sleep any time after supper." "I think I'll take a walk along the beach," she said abruptly. "All right. Don't hike into the woods and get lost, though." She circled the segment of bay, climbed a low, rocky point, and found herself a seat on a fallen tree. Outside the lake heaved uneasily, still dotted with whitecaps whipped up by the southerly gale. At her feet surge after surge hammered the gravelly shore. Far through the woods behind her the wind whistled and hummed among swaying tops of giant fir and cedar. There was a heady freshness in that rollicking wind, an odor resinous and pungent mingled with that elusive smell of green growing stuff along the shore. Beginning where she sat, tree trunks rose in immense brown pillars, running back in great forest naves, shadowy always, floored with green moss laid in a rich, soft carpet for the wood-sprites' feet. Far beyond the long gradual lower slope lifted a range of saw-backed mountains, the sanctuary of wild goat and bear, and across the rolling lake lifted other mountains sheer from the water's edge, peaks rising above timber-line in majestic contour, their pinnacle crests grazing the clouds that scudded before the south wind. Beauty? Yes. A wild, imposing grandeur that stirred some responsive chord in her. If only one could live amid such surrounding with a contented mind, she thought, the wilderness would have compensations of its own. She had an uneasy feeling that isolation from everything that had played an important part in her life might be the least depressing factor in this new existence. She could not view the rough and ready standards of the woods with much equanimity--not as she had that day seen them set forth. These things were bound to be a part of her daily life, and all the brief span of her years had gone to forming habits of speech and thought and manner diametrically opposed to what she had so far encountered. She nursed her chin in her hand and pondered this. She could not see how it was to be avoided. She was there, and perforce she must stay there. She had no friends to go elsewhere, or training in the harsh business of gaining a livelihood if she did go. For the first time she began dully to resent the manner of her upbringing. Once she had desired to enter hospital training, had been properly enthusiastic for a period of months over a career in this field of mercy. Then, as now, marriage, while accepted as the ultimate state, was only to be considered through a haze of idealism and romanticism. She cherished certain ideals of a possible lover and husband, but always with a false sense of shame. The really serious business of a woman's life was the one thing to which she made no attempt to apply practical consideration. But her parents had had positive ideas on that subject, even if they were not openly expressed. Her yearnings after a useful "career" were skilfully discouraged,--by her mother because that worthy lady thought it was "scarcely the thing, Stella dear, and so unnecessary"; by her father because, as he bluntly put it, it would only be a waste of time and money, since the chances were she would get married before she was half through training, and anyway a girl's place was at home till she did get married. That was his only reference to the subject of her ultimate disposition that she could recall, but it was plain enough as far as it went. It was too late to mourn over lost opportunities now, but she did wish there was some one thing she could do and do well, some service of value that would guarantee self-support. If she could only pound a typewriter or keep a set of books, or even make a passable attempt at sewing, she would have felt vastly more at ease in this rude logging camp, knowing that she could leave it if she desired. So far as she could see things, she looked at them with measurable clearness, without any vain illusions concerning her ability to march triumphant over unknown fields of endeavor. Along practical lines she had everything to learn. Culture furnishes an excellent pair of wings wherewith to soar in skies of abstraction, but is a poor vehicle to carry one over rough roads. She might have remained in Philadelphia, a guest among friends. Pride forbade that. Incidentally, such an arrangement would have enabled her to stalk a husband, a moneyed husband, which did not occur to her at all. There remained only to join Charlie. If his fortunes mended, well and good. Perhaps she could even help in minor ways. But it was all so radically different--brother and all--from what she had pictured that she was filled with dismay and not a little foreboding of the future. Sufficient, however, unto the day was the evil thereof, she told herself at last, and tried to make that assurance work a change of heart. She was very lonely and depressed and full of a futile wish that she were a man. Over across the bay some one was playing an accordeon, and to its strains a stout-lunged lumberjack was roaring out a song, with all his fellows joining strong in the chorus: "Oh, the Saginaw Kid was a cook in a camp, way up on the Ocon-to-o-o. And the cook in a camp in them old days had a damn hard row to hoe-i-oh! Had a damn hard row to hoe." There was a fine, rollicking air to it. The careless note in their voices, the jovial lilt of their song, made her envious. They at least had their destiny, limited as it might be and cast along rude ways, largely under their own control. Her wandering gaze at length came to rest on a tent top showing in the brush northward from the camp. She saw two canoes drawn up on the beach above the lash of the waves, two small figures playing on the gravel, and sundry dogs prowling alongshore. Smoke went eddying away in the wind. The Siwash camp where Katy John hailed from, Miss Benton supposed. She had an impulse to skirt the bay and view the Indian camp at closer range, a notion born of curiosity. She debated this casually, and just as she was about to rise, her movement was arrested by a faint crackle in the woods behind. She looked away through the deepening shadow among the trees and saw nothing at first. But the sound was repeated at odd intervals. She sat still. Thoughts of forest animals slipped into her mind, without making her afraid. At last she caught sight of a man striding through the timber, soundlessly on the thick moss, coming almost straight toward her. He was scarcely fifty yards away. Across his shoulders he bore a reddish-gray burden, and in his right hand was a gun. She did not move. Bowed slightly under the weight, the man passed within twenty feet of her, so close that she could see the sweat-beads glisten on that side of his face, and saw also that the load he carried was the carcass of a deer. Gaining the beach and laying the animal across a boulder, he straightened himself up and drew a long breath. Then he wiped the sweat off his face. She recognized him as the man who had thrown the logger down the slip that day at noon,--presumably Jack Fyfe. A sturdily built man about thirty, of Saxon fairness, with a tinge of red in his hair and a liberal display of freckles across nose and cheek bones. He was no beauty, she decided, albeit he displayed a frank and pleasing countenance. That he was a remarkably strong and active man she had seen for herself, and if the firm round of his jaw counted for anything, an individual of considerable determination besides. Miss Benton conceived herself to be possessed of considerable skill at character analysis. He put away his handkerchief, took up his rifle, settled his hat, and strode off toward the camp. Her attention now diverted from the Siwashes, she watched him, saw him go to her brother's quarters, stand in the door a minute, then go back to the beach accompanied by Charlie. In a minute or so he came rowing across in a skiff, threw his deer aboard, and pulled away north along the shore. She watched him lift and fall among the waves until he turned a point, rowing with strong, even strokes. Then she walked home. Benton was poring over some figures, but he pushed aside his pencil and paper when she entered. "You had a visitor, I see," she remarked. "Yes, Jack Fyfe. He picked up a deer on the ridge behind here and borrowed a boat to get home." "I saw him come out of the woods," she said. "His camp can't be far from here, is it? He only left the Springs as you came in. Does he hunt deer for sport?" "Hardly. Oh, well, I suppose it's sport for Jack, in a way. He's always piking around in the woods with a gun or a fishing rod," Benton returned. "But we kill 'em to eat mostly. It's good meat and cheap. I get one myself now and then. However, you want to keep that under your hat--about us fellows hunting--or we'll have game wardens nosing around here." "Are you not allowed to hunt them?" she asked. "Not in close season. Hunting season's from September to December." "If it's unlawful, why break the law?" she ventured hesitatingly. "Isn't that rather--er--" "Oh, bosh," Charlie derided. "A man in the woods is entitled to venison, if he's hunter enough to get it. The woods are full of deer, and a few more or less don't matter. We can't run forty miles to town and back and pay famine prices for beef every two or three days, when we can get it at home in the woods." Stella digested this in silence, but it occurred to her that this mild sample of lawlessness was quite in keeping with the men and the environment. There was no policeman on the corner, no mechanism of law and order visible anywhere. The characteristic attitude of these woodsmen was of intolerance for restraint, of complete self-sufficiency. It had colored her brother's point of view. She perceived that whereas all her instinct was to know the rules of the game and abide by them, he, taking his cue from his environment, inclined to break rules that proved inconvenient, even to formulate new ones to apply. "And suppose," said she, "that a game warden should catch you or Mr. Jack Fyfe killing deer out of season?" "We'd be hauled up and fined a hundred dollars or so," he told her. "But they don't catch us." He shrugged his shoulders, and smiling tolerantly upon her, proceeded to smoke. Dusk was falling now, the long twilight of the northern seasons gradually deepening, as they sat in silence. Along the creek bank arose the evening chorus of the frogs. The air, now hushed and still, was riven every few minutes by the whir of wings as ducks in evening flight swept by above. All the boisterous laughter and talk in the bunkhouse had died. The woods ranged gloomy and impenetrable, save only in the northwest, where a patch of sky lighted by diffused pink and gray revealed one mountain higher than its fellows standing bald against the horizon. "Well, I guess it's time to turn in." Benton muffled a yawn. "Pleasant dreams, Sis. Oh, here's your purse. I used part of the bank roll. You won't have much use for money up here, anyway." He flipped the purse across to her and sauntered into his bedroom. Stella sat gazing thoughtfully at the vast bulk of Mount Douglas a few minutes longer. Then she too went into the box-like room, the bare discomfort of which chilled her merely to behold. With a curious uncertainty, a feeling of reluctance for the proceeding almost, she examined the contents of her purse. For a little time she stood gazing into it, a queer curl to her full red lips. Then she flung it contemptuously on the bed and began to take down her hair. "'A rich, rough, tough country, where it doesn't do to be finicky about anything,'" she murmured, quoting a line from one of Charlie Benton's letters. "It would appear to be rather unpleasantly true. Particularly the last clause." In her purse, which had contained one hundred and ten dollars, there now reposed in solitary state a twenty-dollar bill. CHAPTER V THE TOLL OF BIG TIMBER Day came again, in the natural sequence of events. Matt, the cook, roused all the camp at six o'clock with a tremendous banging on a piece of boiler plate hung by a wire. Long before that Stella heard her brother astir. She wondered sleepily at his sprightliness, for as she remembered him at home he had been a confirmed lie-abed. She herself responded none too quickly to the breakfast gong, as a result of which slowness the crew had filed away to the day's work, her brother striding in the lead, when she entered the mess-house. She killed time with partial success till noon. Several times she was startled to momentary attention by the prolonged series of sharp cracks which heralded the thunderous crash of a falling tree. There were other sounds which betokened the loggers' activity in the near-by forest,--the ringing whine of saw blades, the dull stroke of the axe, voices calling distantly. She tried to interest herself in the camp and the beach and ended up by sitting on a log in a shady spot, staring dreamily over the lake. She thought impatiently of that homely saw concerning Satan and idle hands, but she reflected also that in this isolation even mischief was comparatively impossible. There was not a soul to hold speech with except the cook, and he was too busy to talk, even if he had not been afflicted with a painful degree of diffidence when she addressed him. She could make no effort at settling down, at arranging things in what was to be her home. There was nothing to arrange, no odds and ends wherewith almost any woman can conjure up a homelike effect in the barest sort of place. She beheld the noon return of the crew much as a shipwrecked castaway on a desert shore might behold a rescuing sail, and she told Charlie that she intended to go into the woods that afternoon and watch them work. "All right," said he. "Just so you don't get in the way of a falling tree." A narrow fringe of brush and scrubby timber separated the camp from the actual work. From the water's edge to the donkey engine was barely four hundred yards. From donkey to a ten-foot jump-off on the lake shore in a straight line on a five per cent. gradient ran a curious roadway, made by placing two logs in the hollow scooped by tearing great timbers over the soft earth, and a bigger log on each side. Butt to butt and side to side, the outer sticks half their thickness above the inner, they formed a continuous trough the bottom and sides worn smooth with friction of sliding timbers. Stella had crossed it the previous evening and wondered what it was. Now, watching them at work, she saw. Also she saw why the great stumps that rose in every clearing in this land of massive trees were sawed six and eight feet above the ground. Always at the base the firs swelled sharply. Wherefore the falling gangs lifted themselves above the enlargement to make their cut. Two sawyers attacked a tree. First, with their double-bitted axes, each drove a deep notch into the sapwood just wide enough to take the end of a two-by-six plank four or five feet long with a single grab-nail in the end,--the springboard of the Pacific coast logger, whose daily business lies among the biggest timber on God's footstool. Each then clambered up on his precarious perch, took hold of his end of the long, limber saw, and cut in to a depth of a foot or more, according to the size of the tree. Then jointly they chopped down to this sawed line, and there was the undercut complete, a deep notch on the side to which the tree would fall. That done, they swung the ends of their springboards, or if it were a thick trunk, made new holding notches on the other side, and the long saw would eat steadily through the heart of the tree toward that yellow, gashed undercut, stroke upon stroke, ringing with a thin, metallic twang. Presently there would arise an ominous cracking. High in the air the tall crest would dip slowly, as if it bowed with manifest reluctance to the inevitable. The sawyers would drop lightly from their springboards, crying: "Tim-ber-r-r-r!" The earthward swoop of the upper boughs would hasten till the air was full of a whistling, whishing sound. Then came the rending crash as the great tree smashed prone, crushing what small timber stood in its path, followed by the earth-quivering shock of its impact with the soil. The tree once down, the fallers went on to another. Immediately the swampers fell upon the prone trunk with axes, denuding it of limbs; the buckers followed them to saw it into lengths decreed by the boss logger. When the job was done, the brown fir was no longer a stately tree but saw-logs, each with the square butt that lay donkeyward, trimmed a trifle rounding with the axe. Benton worked one falling gang. The falling gang raced to keep ahead of the buckers and swampers, and they in turn raced to keep ahead of the hook tender, rigging slinger, and donkey, which last trio moved the logs from woods to water, once they were down and trimmed. Terrible, devastating forces of destruction they seemed to Stella Benton, wholly unused as she was to any woodland save the well-kept parks and little areas of groomed forest in her native State. All about in the ravaged woods lay the big logs, scores of them. They had only begun to pull with the donkey a week earlier, Benton explained to her. With his size gang he could not keep a donkey engine working steadily. So they had felled and trimmed to a good start, and now the falling crew and the swampers and buckers were in a dingdong contest to see how long they could keep ahead of the puffing Seattle yarder. Stella sat on a stump, watching. Over an area of many acres the ground was a litter of broken limbs, ragged tops, crushed and bent and broken younger growth, twisted awry by the big trees in their fall. Huge stumps upthrust like beacons in a ruffled harbor, grim, massive butts. From all the ravaged wood rose a pungent smell of pitch and sap, a resinous, pleasant smell. Radiating like the spokes of a wheel from the head of the chute ran deep, raw gashes in the earth, where the donkey had hauled up the Brobdingnagian logs on the end of an inch cable. "This is no small boy's play, is it, Stell?" Charlie said to her once in passing. And she agreed that it was not. Agreed more emphatically and with half-awed wonder when she saw the donkey puff and quiver on its anchor cable, as the hauling line spooled up on the drum. On the outer end of that line snaked a sixty-foot stick, five feet across the butt, but it came down to the chute head, brushing earth and brush and small trees aside as if they were naught. Once the big log caromed against a stump. The rearward end flipped ten feet in the air and thirty feet sidewise. But it came clear and slid with incredible swiftness to the head of the chute, flinging aside showers of dirt and small stones, and leaving one more deep furrow in the forest floor. Benton trotted behind it. Once it came to rest well in the chute, he unhooked the line, freed the choker (the short noosed loop of cable that slips over the log's end), and the haul-back cable hurried the main line back to another log. Benton followed, and again the donkey shuddered on its foundation skids till another log laid in the chute, with its end butted against that which lay before. One log after another was hauled down till half a dozen rested there, elongated peas in a wooden pod. Then a last big stick came with a rush, bunted these others powerfully so that they began to slide with the momentum thus imparted, slowly at first then, gathering way and speed, they shot down to the lake and plunged to the water over the ten-foot jump-off like a school of breaching whales. All this took time, vastly more time than it takes in the telling. The logs were ponderous masses. They had to be maneuvered sometimes between stumps and standing timber, jerked this way and that to bring them into the clear. By four o'clock Benton and his rigging-slinger had just finished bunting their second batch of logs down the chute. Stella watched these Titanic labors with a growing interest and a dawning vision of why these men walked the earth with that reckless swing of their shoulders. For they were palpably masters in their environment. They strove with woodsy giants and laid them low. Amid constant dangers they sweated at a task that shamed the seven labors of Hercules. Gladiators they were in a contest from which they did not always emerge victorious. When Benton and his helper followed the haul-back line away to the domain of the falling gang the last time, Stella had so far unbent as to strike up conversation with the donkey engineer. That greasy individual finished stoking his fire box and replied to her first comment. "Work? You bet," said he. "It's real graft, this is. I got the easy end of it, and mine's no snap. I miss a signal, big stick butts against something solid; biff! goes the line and maybe cuts a man plumb in two. You got to be wide awake when you run a loggin' donkey. These woods is no place for a man, anyway, if he ain't spry both in his head and feet." "Do many men get hurt logging?" Stella asked. "It looks awfully dangerous, with these big trees falling and smashing everything. Look at that. Goodness!" From the donkey they could see a shower of ragged splinters and broken limbs fly when a two-hundred-foot fir smashed a dead cedar that stood in the way of its downward swoop. They could hear the pieces strike against brush and trees like the patter of shot on a tin wall. The donkey engineer gazed calmly enough. "Them flyin' chunks raise the dickens sometimes," he observed. "Oh, yes, now an' then a man gets laid out. There's some things you got to take a chance on. Maybe you get cut with an axe, or a limb drops on you, or you get in the way of a breakin' line,--though a man ain't got any business in the bight of a line. A man don't stand much show when the end of a inch 'n' a quarter cable snaps at him like a whiplash. I seen a feller on Howe Sound cut square in two with a cable-end once. A broken block's the worst, though. That generally gets the riggin' slinger, but a piece of it's liable to hit anybody. You see them big iron pulley blocks the haul-back cable works in? Well, sometimes they have to anchor a snatch block to a stump an' run the main line through it at an angle to get a log out the way you want. Suppose the block breaks when I'm givin' it to her? Chunks uh that broken cast iron'll fly like bullets. Yes, sir, broken blocks is bad business. Maybe you noticed the boys used the snatch block two or three times this afternoon? We've been lucky in this camp all spring. Nobody so much as nicked himself with an axe. Breaks in the gear don't come very often, anyway, with an outfit in first-class shape. We got good gear an' a good crew--about as _skookum_ a bunch as I ever saw in the woods." Two hundred yards distant Charlie Benton rose on a stump and semaphored with his arms. The engineer whistled answer and stood to his levers; the main line began to spool slowly in on the drum. Another signal, and he shut off. Another signal, after a brief wait, and the drum rolled faster, the line tautened like a fiddle-string, and the ponderous machine vibrated with the strain of its effort. Suddenly the line came slack. Stella, watching for the log to appear, saw her brother leap backward off the stump, saw the cable whip sidewise, mowing down a clump of saplings that stood in the bight of the line, before the engineer could cut off the power. In that return of comparative silence there rose above the sibilant hiss of the blow-off valve a sudden commotion of voices. "Damn!" the donkey engineer peered over the brush. "That don't sound good. I guess somebody got it in the neck." Almost immediately Sam Davis and two other men came running. "What's up?" the engineer called as they passed on a dog trot. "Block broke," Davis answered over his shoulder. "Piece of it near took a leg off Jim Renfrew." Stella stood a moment, hesitating. "I may be able to do something. I'll go and see," she said. "Better not," the engineer warned. "Liable to run into something that'll about turn your stomach. What was I tellin' about a broken block? Them ragged pieces of flyin' iron sure mess a man up. They'll bring a bed spring, an' pack him down to the boat, an' get him to a doctor quick as they can. That's all. You couldn't do nothin'." Nevertheless she went. Renfrew was the rigging slinger working with Charlie, a big, blond man who blushed like a schoolboy when Benton introduced him to her. Twenty minutes before he had gone trotting after the haul-back, sound and hearty, laughing at some sally of her brother's. It seemed a trifle incredible that he should lie mangled and bleeding among the green forest growth, while his fellows hurried for a stretcher. Two hundred yards at right angles from where Charlie had stood giving signals she found a little group under a branchy cedar. Renfrew lay on his back, mercifully unconscious. Benton squatted beside him, twisting a silk handkerchief with a stick tightly above the wound. His hands and Renfrew's clothing and the mossy ground was smeared with blood. Stella looked over his shoulder. The overalls were cut away. In the thick of the man's thigh stood a ragged gash she could have laid both hands in. She drew back. Benton looked up. "Better keep away," he advised shortly. "We've done all that can be done." She retreated a little and sat down on a root, half-sickened. The other two men stood up. Benton sat back, his first-aid work done, and rolled a cigarette with fingers that shook a little. Off to one side she saw the fallers climb up on their springboards. Presently arose the ringing whine of the thin steel blade, the chuck of axes where the swampers attacked a fallen tree. No matter, she thought, that injury came to one, that death might hover near, the work went on apace, like action on a battlefield. A few minutes thereafter the two men who had gone with Sam Davis returned with the spring from Benton's bed and a light mattress. They laid the injured logger on this and covered him with a blanket. Then four of them picked it up. As they started, Stella heard one say to her brother: "Matt's jagged." "What?" Benton exploded. "Where'd it come from?" "One uh them Hungry Bay shingle-bolt cutters's in camp," the logger answered. "Maybe he brought a bottle. I didn't stop to see. But Matt's sure got a tank full." Benton ripped out an angry oath, passed his men, and strode away down the path. Stella fell in behind him, wakened to a sudden uneasiness at the wrathful set of his features. She barely kept in sight, so rapidly did he move. Sam Davis had smoke pouring from the _Chickamin's_ stack, but the kitchen pipe lifted no blue column, though it was close to five o'clock. Benton made straight for the cookhouse. Stella followed, a trifle uncertainly. A glimpse past Charlie as he came out showed her Matt staggering aimlessly about the kitchen, red-eyed, scowling, muttering to himself. Benton hurried to the bunkhouse door, much as a hound might follow a scent, peered in, and went on to the corner. On the side facing the lake he found the source of the cook's intoxication. A tall and swarthy lumberjack squatted on his haunches, gabbling in the Chinook jargon to a _klootchman_ and a wizen-featured old Siwash. The Indian woman was drunk beyond any mistaking, affably drunk. She looked up at Benton out of vacuous eyes, grinned, and extended to him a square-faced bottle of Old Tim gin. The logger rose to his feet. "H'lo, Benton," he greeted thickly. "How's every-thin'?" Benton's answer was a quick lurch of his body and a smashing jab of his clenched fist. The blow stretched the logger on his back, with blood streaming from both nostrils. But he was a hardy customer, for he bounced up like a rubber ball, only to be floored even more viciously before he was well set on his feet. This time Benton snarled a curse and kicked him as he lay. "Charlie, Charlie!" Stella screamed. If he heard her, he gave no heed. "Hit the trail, you," he shouted at the logger. "Hit it quick before I tramp your damned face into the ground. I told you once not to come around here feeding booze to my cook. I do all the whisky-drinking that's done in this camp, and don't you forget it. Damn your eyes, I've got troubles enough without whisky." The man gathered himself up, badly shaken, and holding his hand to his bleeding nose, made off to his rowboat at the float. "G'wan home," Benton curtly ordered the Siwashes. "Get drunk at your own camp, not in mine. _Sabe?_ Beat it." They scuttled off, the wizened little old man steadying his fat _klootch_ along her uncertain way. Down on the lake the chastised logger stood out in his boat, resting once on his oars to shake a fist at Benton. Then Charlie faced about on his shocked and outraged sister. "Good Heavens!" she burst out. "Is it necessary to be so downright brutal in actions as well as speech?" "I'm running a logging camp, not a kindergarten," he snapped angrily. "I know what I'm doing. If you don't like it, go in the house where your hyper-sensitive tastes won't be offended." "Thank you," she responded cuttingly and swung about, angry and hurt--only to have a fresh scare from the drunken cook, who came reeling forward. "I'm gonna quit," he loudly declared. "I ain't goin' to stick 'round here no more. The job's no good. I want m' time. Yuh hear me, Benton. I'm through. Com-pletely, ab-sho-lutely through. You bet I am. Gimme m' time. I'm a gone goose." "Quit, then, hang you," Benton growled. "You'll get your check in a minute. You're a fine excuse for a cook, all right--get drunk right on the job. You don't need to show up here again, when you've had your jag out." "'S all right," Matt declared largely. "'S other jobs. You ain't the whole Pacific coast. Oh, way down 'pon the Swa-a-nee ribber--" He broke into dolorous song and turned back into the cookhouse. Benton's hard-set face relaxed. He laughed shortly. "Takes all kinds to make a world," he commented. "Don't look so horrified, Sis. This isn't the regular order of events. It's just an accumulation--and it sort of got me going. Here's the boys." The four stretcher men set down their burden in the shade of the bunkhouse. Renfrew was conscious now. "Tough luck, Jim," Benton sympathized. "Does it pain much?" Renfrew shook his head. White and weakened from shock and loss of blood, nevertheless he bravely disclaimed pain. "We'll get you fixed up at the Springs," Benton went on. "It's a nasty slash in the meat, but I don't think the bone was touched. You'll be on deck before long. I'll see you through, anyway." They gave him a drink of water and filled his pipe, joking him about easy days in the hospital while they sweated in the woods. The drunken cook came out, carrying his rolled blankets, began maudlin sympathy, and was promptly squelched, whereupon he retreated to the float, emitting conversation to the world at large. Then they carried Renfrew down to the float, and Davis began to haul up the anchor to lay the _Chickamin_ alongside. While the chain was still chattering in the hawse pipe, the squat black hull of Jack Fyfe's tender rounded the nearest point. "Whistle him up, Sam," Benton ordered. "Jack can beat our time, and this bleeding must be stopped quick." The tender veered in from her course at the signal. Fyfe himself was at the wheel. Five minutes effected a complete arrangement, and the _Panther_ drew off with the drunken cook singing atop of the pilot house, and Renfrew comfortable in her cabin, and Jack Fyfe's promise to see him properly installed and attended in the local hospital at Roaring Springs. Benton heaved a sigh of relief and turned to his sister. "Still mad, Stell?" he asked placatingly and put his arm over her shoulders. "Of course not," she responded instantly to this kindlier phase. "Ugh! Your hands are all bloody, Charlie." "That's so, but it'll wash off," he replied. "Well, we're shy a good woodsman and a cook, and I'll miss 'em both. But it might be worse. Here's where you go to bat, Stella. Get on your apron and lend me a hand in the kitchen, like a good girl. We have to eat, no matter what happens." CHAPTER VI THE DIGNITY (?) OF TOIL By such imperceptible degrees that she was scarce aware of it, Stella took her place as a cog in her brother's logging machine, a unit in the human mechanism which he operated skilfully and relentlessly at top speed to achieve his desired end--one million feet of timber in boomsticks by September the first. From the evening that she stepped into the breach created by a drunken cook, the kitchen burden settled steadily upon her shoulders. For a week Benton daily expected and spoke of the arrival of a new cook. Fyfe had wired a Vancouver employment agency to send one, the day he took Jim Renfrew down. But either cooks were scarce, or the order went astray, for no rough and ready kitchen mechanic arrived. Benton in the meantime ceased to look for one. He worked like a horse, unsparing of himself, unsparing of others. He rose at half-past four, lighted the kitchen fire, roused Stella, and helped her prepare breakfast, preliminary to his day in the woods. Later he impressed Katy John into service to wait on the table and wash dishes. He labored patiently to teach Stella certain simple tricks of cooking that she did not know. Quick of perception, as thorough as her brother in whatsoever she set her hand to do, Stella was soon equal to the job. And as the days passed and no camp cook came to their relief, Benton left the job to her as a matter of course. "You can handle that kitchen with Katy as well as a man," he said to her at last. "And it will give you something to occupy your time. I'd have to pay a cook seventy dollars a month. Katy draws twenty-five. You can credit yourself with the balance, and I'll pay off when the contract money comes in. We might as well keep the coin in the family. I'll feel easier, because you won't get drunk and jump the job in a pinch. What do you say?" She said the only possible thing to say under the circumstances. But she did not say it with pleasure, nor with any feeling of gratitude. It was hard work, and she and hard work were utter strangers. Her feet ached from continual standing on them. The heat and the smell of stewing meat and vegetables sickened her. Her hands were growing rough and red from dabbling in water, punching bread dough, handling the varied articles of food that go to make up a meal. Upon hands and forearms there stung continually certain small cuts and burns that lack of experience over a hot range inevitably inflicted upon her. Whereas time had promised to hang heavy on her hands, now an hour of idleness in the day became a precious boon. Yet in her own way she was as full of determination as her brother. She saw plainly enough that she must leave the drone stage behind. She perceived that to be fed and clothed and housed and to have her wishes readily gratified was not an inherent right--that some one must foot the bill--that now for all she received she must return equitable value. At home she had never thought of it in that light; in fact, she had never thought of it at all. Now that she was beginning to get a glimmering of her true economic relation to the world at large, she had no wish to emulate the clinging vine, even if thereby she could have secured a continuance of that silk-lined existence which had been her fortunate lot. Her pride revolted against parasitism. It was therefore a certain personal satisfaction to have achieved self-support at a stroke, insofar as that in the sweat of her brow,--all too literally,--she earned her bread and a compensation besides. But there were times when that solace seemed scarcely to weigh against her growing detest for the endless routine of her task, the exasperating physical weariness and irritations it brought upon her. For to prepare three times daily food for a dozen hungry men is no mean undertaking. One cannot have in a logging camp the conveniences of a hotel kitchen. The water must be carried in buckets from the creek near by, and wood brought in armfuls from the pile of sawn blocks outside. The low-roofed kitchen shanty was always like an oven. The flies swarmed in their tens of thousands. As the men sweated with axe and saw in the woods, so she sweated in the kitchen. And her work began two hours before their day's labor, and continued two hours after they were done. She slept, like one exhausted and rose full of sleep-heaviness, full of bodily soreness and spiritual protest when the alarm clock raised its din in the cool morning. "You don't like thees work, do you, Mees Benton?" Katy John said to her one day, in the soft, slurring accent that colored her English. "You wasn't cut out for a cook." "This isn't work," Stella retorted irritably. "It's simple drudgery. I don't wonder that men cooks take to drink." Katy laughed. "Why don't you be nice to Mr. Abbey," she suggested archly. "He'd like to give you a better job than thees--for life. My, but it must be nice to have lots of money like that man's got, and never have to work." "You'll get those potatoes peeled sooner if you don't talk quite so much, Katy," Miss Benton made reply. There was that way out, as the Siwash girl broadly indicated. Paul Abbey had grown into the habit of coming there rather more often than mere neighborliness called for, and it was palpable that he did not come to hold converse with Benton or Benton's gang, although he was "hail fellow" with all woodsmen. At first his coming might have been laid to any whim. Latterly Stella herself was unmistakably the attraction. He brought his sister once, a fair-haired girl about Stella's age. She proved an exceedingly self-contained young person, whose speech during the hour of her stay amounted to a dozen or so drawling sentences. With no hint of condescension or superciliousness, she still managed to arouse in Stella a mild degree of resentment. She wore an impeccable pongee silk, simple and costly, and _her_ hands had evidently never known the roughening of work. In one way and another Miss Benton straightway conceived an active dislike for Linda Abbey. As her reception of Paul's sister was not conducive to chumminess, Paul did not bring Linda again. But he came oftener than Stella desired to be bothered with him. Charlie was beginning to indulge in some rather broad joking, which offended and irritated her. She was not in the least attracted to Paul Abbey. He was a nice enough young man; for all she knew, he might be a concentration of all the manly virtues, but he gave no fillip to either her imagination or her emotions. He was too much like a certain type of young fellow she had known in other embodiments. Her instinct warned her that stripped of his worldly goods he would be wholly commonplace. She could be friends with the Paul Abbey kind of man, but when she tried to consider him as a possible lover, she found herself unresponsive, even amused. She was forced to consider it, because Abbey was fast approaching that stage. It was heralded in the look of dumb appeal that she frequently surprised in his gaze, by various signs and tokens, that Stella Benton was too sophisticated to mistake. One of these days he would lay his heart, and hand at her feet. Sometimes she considered what her life might be if she should marry him. Abbey was wealthy in his own right and heir to more wealth. But--she could not forbear a wry grimace at the idea. Some fateful hour love would flash across her horizon, a living flame. She could visualize the tragedy if it should be too late, if it found her already bound--sold for a mess of pottage at her ease. She did not mince words to herself when she reflected on this matter. She knew herself as a creature of passionate impulses, consciously resenting all restraint. She knew that men and women did mad things under the spur of emotion. She wanted no shackles, she wanted to be free to face the great adventure when it came. Yet there were times during the weeks that flitted past when it seemed to her that no bondage could be meaner, more repugnant, than that daily slavery in her brother's kitchen; that transcendent conceptions of love and marriage were vain details by comparison with aching feet and sleep-heavy eyes, with the sting of burns, the smart of sweat on her face, all the never-ending trifles that so irritated her. She had been spoiled in the making for so sordid an existence. Sometimes she would sit amid the array of dishes and pans and cooking food and wonder if she really were the same being whose life had been made up of books and music, of teas and dinners and plays, of light, inconsequential chatter with genial, well-dressed folk. There was no one to talk to here and less time to talk. There was nothing to read except a batch of newspapers filtering into camp once a week or ten days. There was not much in this monster stretch of giant timber but heat and dirt and flies and hungry men who must be fed. If Paul Abbey had chanced to ask her to marry him during a period of such bodily and spiritual rebellion, she would probably have committed herself to that means of escape in sheer desperation. For she did not harden to the work; it steadily sapped both her strength and patience. But he chose an ill time for his declaration. Stella had overtaken her work and snared a fleeting hour of idleness in mid-afternoon of a hot day in early August. Under a branchy alder at the cook-house-end she piled all the pillows she could commandeer in their quarters and curled herself upon them at grateful ease. Like a tired animal, she gave herself up to the pleasure of physical relaxation, staring at a perfect turquoise sky through the whispering leaves above. She was not even thinking. She was too tired to think, and for the time being too much at peace to permit thought that would, in the very nature of things, be disturbing. Abbey maintained for his own pleasure a fast motorboat. He slid now into the bay unheard, tied up beside the float, walked to the kitchen, glanced in, then around the corner, and smilingly took a seat on the grass near her. "It's too perfect a day to loaf in the shade," he observed, after a brief exchange of commonplaces. "Won't you come out for a little spin on the lake? A ride in the _Wolf_ will put some color in your cheeks." "If I had time," she said, "I would. But loggers must eat though the heavens fall. In about twenty minutes I'll have to start supper. I'll have color enough, goodness knows once I get over that stove." Abbey picked nervously at a blade of grass for a minute. "This is a regular dog's life for you," he broke out suddenly. "Oh, hardly that," she protested. "It's a little hard on me because I haven't been used to it, that's all." "It's Chinaman's work," he said hotly. "Charlie oughtn't to let you stew in that kitchen." Stella said nothing; she was not moved to the defence of her brother. She was loyal enough to her blood, but not so intensely loyal that she could defend him against criticism that struck a responsive chord in her own mind. She was beginning to see that, being useful, Charlie was making use of her. His horizon had narrowed to logs that might be transmuted into money. Enslaved himself by his engrossing purposes, he thought nothing of enslaving others to serve his end. She had come to a definite conclusion about that, and she meant to collect her wages when he sold his logs, collect also the ninety dollars of her money he had coolly appropriated, and try a different outlet. If one must work, one might at least seek work a little to one's taste. She therefore dismissed Abbey's comment carelessly: "Some one has to do it." A faint flush crept slowly up into his round, boyish face. He looked at her with disconcerting steadiness. Perhaps something in his expression gave her the key to his thought, or it may have been that peculiar psychical receptiveness which in a woman we are pleased to call intuition; but at any rate Stella divined what was coming and would have forestalled it by rising. He prevented that move by catching her hands. "Look here, Stella," he blurted out, "it just grinds me to death to see you slaving away in this camp, feeding a lot of roughnecks. Won't you marry me and cut this sort of thing out? We'd be no end good chums." She gently disengaged her hands, her chief sensation one of amusement, Abbey was in such an agony of blushing diffidence, all flustered at his own temerity. Also, she thought, a trifle precipitate. That was not the sort of wooing to carry her off her feet. For that matter she was quite sure nothing Paul Abbey could do or say would ever stir her pulses. She had to put an end to the situation, however. She took refuge in a flippant manner. "Thanks for the compliment, Mr. Abbey," she smiled. "But really I couldn't think of inflicting repentance at leisure on you in that offhand way. You wouldn't want me to marry you just so I could resign the job of chef, would you?" "Don't you like me?" he asked plaintively. "Not that way," she answered positively. "You might try," he suggested hopefully. "Honest, I'm crazy about you. I've liked you ever since I saw you first. I wouldn't want any greater privilege than to marry you and take you away from this sort of thing. You're too good for it. Maybe I'm kind of sudden, but I know my own mind. Can't you take a chance with me?" "I'm sorry," she said gently, seeing him so sadly in earnest. "It isn't a question of taking a chance. I don't care for you. I haven't got any feeling but the mildest sort of friendliness. If I married you, it would only be for a home, as the saying is. And I'm not made that way. Can't you see how impossible it would be?" "You'd get to like me," he declared. "I'm just as good as the next man." His smooth pink-and-white skin reddened again. "That sounds a lot like tooting my own horn mighty strong," said he. "But I'm in dead earnest. If there isn't anybody else yet, you could like me just as well as the next fellow. I'd be awfully good to you." "I daresay you would," she said quietly. "But I couldn't be good to you. I don't want to marry you, Mr. Abbey. That's final. All the feeling I have for you isn't enough for any woman to marry on." "Maybe not," he said dolefully. "I suppose that's the way it goes. Hang it, I guess I was a little too sudden. But I'm a stayer. Maybe you'll change your mind some time." He was standing very near her, and they were both so intent upon the momentous business that occupied them that neither noticed Charlie Benton until his hail startled them to attention. "Hello, folks," he greeted and passed on into the cook shanty, bestowing upon Stella, over Abbey's shoulder, a comprehensive grin which nettled her exceedingly. Her peaceful hour had been disturbed to no purpose. She did not want to love or be loved. For the moment she felt old beyond her years, mature beyond the comprehension of any man. If she had voiced her real attitude toward Paul Abbey, she would have counseled him to run and play, "like a good little boy." Instead she remarked: "I must get to work," and left her downcast suitor without further ceremony. As she went about her work in the kitchen, she saw Abbey seat himself upon a log in the yard, his countenance wreathed in gloom. He was presently joined by her brother. Glancing out, now and then, she made a guess at the meat of their talk, and her lip curled slightly. She saw them walk down to Abbey's launch, and Charlie delivered an encouraging slap on Paul's shoulder as he embarked. Then the speedy craft tore out of the bay at a headlong gait, her motor roaring in unmuffled exhaust, wide wings of white spray arching off her flaring bows. "The desperate recklessness of thwarted affection--fiddlesticks!" Miss Benton observed in sardonic mood. Her hands were deep in pie dough. She thumped it viciously. The kitchen and the flies and all the rest of it rasped at her nerves again. Charlie came into the kitchen, hunted a cookie out of the tin box where such things were kept, and sat swinging one leg over a corner of the table, eying her critically while he munched. "So you turned Paul down, eh?" he said at last. "You're the prize chump. You've missed the best chance you'll ever have to put yourself on Easy Street." CHAPTER VII SOME NEIGHBORLY ASSISTANCE For a week thereafter Benton developed moods of sourness, periods of scowling thought. He tried to speed up his gang, and having all spring driven them at top speed, the added straw broke the back of their patience, and Stella heard some sharp interchanges of words. He quelled one incipient mutiny through sheer dominance, but it left him more short of temper, more crabbedly moody than ever. Eventually his ill-nature broke out against Stella over some trifle, and she--being herself an aggrieved party to his transactions--surprised her own sense of the fitness of things by retaliating in kind. "I'm slaving away in your old camp from daylight till dark at work I despise, and you can't even speak decently to me," she flared up. "You act like a perfect brute lately. What's the matter with you?" Benton gnawed at a finger nail in silence. "Hang it, I guess you're right," he admitted at last. "But I can't help having a grouch. I'm going to fall behind on this contract, the best I can do." "Well," she replied tartly. "I'm not to blame for that. I'm not responsible for your failure. Why take it out on me?" "I don't, particularly," he answered. "Only--can't you _sabe_? A man gets on edge when he works and sweats for months and sees it all about to come to nothing." "So does a woman," she made pointed retort. Benton chose to ignore the inference. "If I fall down on this, it'll just about finish me," he continued glumly. "These people are not going to allow me an inch leeway. I'll have to deliver on that contract to the last stipulated splinter before they'll pay over a dollar. If I don't have a million feet for 'em three weeks from to-day, it's all off, and maybe a suit for breach of contract besides. That's the sort they are. If they can wiggle out of taking my logs, they'll be to the good, because they've made other contracts down the coast at fifty cents a thousand less. And the aggravating thing about it is that if I could get by with this deal, I can close a five-million-foot contract with the Abbey-Monohan outfit, for delivery next spring. I must have the money for this before I can undertake the bigger contract." "Can't you sell your logs if these other people won't take them?" she asked, somewhat alive now to his position--and, incidentally, her own interest therein. "In time, yes," he said. "But when you go into the open market with logs, you don't always find a buyer right off the reel. I'd have to hire 'em towed from here to Vancouver, and there's some bad water to get over. Time is money to me right now, Stell. If the thing dragged over two or three months, by the time they were sold and all expenses paid, I might not have anything left. I'm in debt for supplies, behind in wages. When it looks like a man's losing, everybody jumps him. That's business. I may have my outfit seized and sold up if I fall down on this delivery and fail to square up accounts right away. Damn it, if you hadn't given Paul Abbey the cold turn-down, I might have got a boost over this hill. You were certainly a chump." "I'm not a mere pawn in your game yet," she flared hotly. "I suppose you'd trade me for logs enough to complete your contract and consider it a good bargain." "Oh, piffle," he answered coolly. "What's the use talking like that. It's your game as much as mine. Where do you get off, if I go broke? You might have done a heap worse. Paul's a good head. A girl that hasn't anything but her looks to get through the world on hasn't any business overlooking a bet like that. Nine girls out of ten marry for what there is in it, anyhow." "Thank you," she replied angrily. "I'm not in the market on that basis." "All this stuff about ideal love and soul communion and perfect mating is pure bunk, it seems to me," Charlie tacked off on a new course of thought. "A man and a woman somewhere near of an age generally hit it off all right, if they've got common horse sense--and income enough so they don't have to squabble eternally about where the next new hat and suit's coming from. It's the coin that counts most of all. It sure is, Sis. It's me that knows it, right now." He sat a minute or two longer, again preoccupied with his problems. "Well," he said at last, "I've got to get action somehow. If I could get about thirty men and another donkey for three weeks, I'd make it." He went outside. Up in the near woods the whine of the saws and the sounds of chopping kept measured beat. It was late in the forenoon, and Stella was hard about her dinner preparations. Contract or no contract, money or no money, men must eat. That fact loomed biggest on her daily schedule, left her no room to think overlong of other things. Her huff over, she felt rather sorry for Charlie, a feeling accentuated by sight of him humped on a log in the sun, too engrossed in his perplexities to be where he normally was at that hour, in the thick of the logging, working harder than any of his men. A little later she saw him put off from the float in the _Chickamin's_ dinghy. When the crew came to dinner, he had not returned. Nor was he back when they went out again at one. Near mid-afternoon, however, he strode into the kitchen, wearing the look of a conqueror. "I've got it fixed," he announced. Stella looked up from a frothy mass of yellow stuff that she was stirring in a pan. "Got what fixed?" she asked. "Why, this log business," he said. "Jack Fyfe is going to put in a crew and a donkey, and we're going to everlastingly rip the innards out of these woods. I'll make delivery after all." "That's good," she remarked, but noticeably without enthusiasm. The heat of that low-roofed shanty had taken all possible enthusiasm for anything out of her for the time being. Always toward the close of each day she was gripped by that feeling of deadly fatigue, in the face of which nothing much mattered but to get through the last hours somehow and drag herself wearily to bed. Benton playfully tweaked Katy John's ear and went whistling up the trail. It was plain sailing for him now, and he was correspondingly elated. He tried to talk to Stella that evening when she was through, all about big things in the future, big contracts he could get, big money he could see his way to make. It fell mostly on unappreciative ears. She was tired, so tired that his egotistical chatter irritated her beyond measure. What she would have welcomed with heartfelt gratitude was not so much a prospect of future affluence in which she might or might not share as a lightening of her present burden. So far as his conversation ran, Benton's sole concern seemed to be more equipment, more men, so that he might get out more logs. In the midst of this optimistic talk, Stella walked abruptly into her room. Noon of the next day brought the _Panther_ coughing into the bay, flanked on the port side by a scow upon which rested a twin to the iron monster that jerked logs into her brother's chute. To starboard was made fast a like scow. That was housed over, a smoking stovepipe stuck through the roof, and a capped and aproned cook rested his arms on the window sill as they floated in. Men to the number of twenty or more clustered about both scows and the _Panther's_ deck, busy with pipe and cigarette and rude jest. The clatter of their voices uprose through the noon meal. But when the donkey scow thrust its blunt nose against the beach, the chaff and laughter died into silent, capable action. "A Seattle yarder properly handled can do anything but climb a tree," Charlie had once boasted to her, in reference to his own machine. It seemed quite possible to Stella, watching Jack Fyfe's crew at work. Steam was up in the donkey. They carried a line from its drum through a snatch block ashore and jerked half a dozen logs crosswise before the scow in a matter of minutes. Then the same cable was made fast to a sturdy fir, the engineer stood by, and the ponderous machine slid forward on its own skids, like an up-ended barrel on a sled, down off the scow, up the bank, smashing brush, branches, dead roots, all that stood in its path, drawing steadily up to the anchor tree as the cable spooled up on the drum. A dozen men tailed on to the inch and a quarter cable and bore the loose end away up the path. Presently one stood clear, waving a signal. Again the donkey began to puff and quiver, the line began to roll up on the drum, and the big yarder walked up the slope under its own power, a locomotive unneedful of rails, making its own right of way. Upon the platform built over the skids were piled the tools of the crew, sawed blocks for the fire box, axes, saws, grindstones, all that was necessary in their task. At one o'clock they made their first move. At two the donkey was vanished into that region where the chute-head lay, and the great firs stood waiting the slaughter. By mid-afternoon Stella noticed an acceleration of numbers in the logs that came hurtling lakeward. Now at shorter intervals arose the grinding sound of their arrival, the ponderous splash as each leaped to the water. It was a good thing, she surmised--for Charlie Benton. She could not see where it made much difference to her whether ten logs a day or a hundred came down to the boomsticks. Late that afternoon Katy vanished upon one of her periodic visits to the camp of her kindred around the point. Bred out of doors, of a tribe whose immemorial custom it is that the women do all the work, the Siwash girl was strong as an ox, and nearly as bovine in temperament and movements. She could lift with ease a weight that taxed Stella's strength, and Stella Benton was no weakling, either. It was therefore a part of Katy's routine to keep water pails filled from the creek and the wood box supplied, in addition to washing dishes and carrying food to the table. Katy slighted these various tasks occasionally. She needed oversight, continual admonition, to get any job done in time. She was slow to the point of exasperation. Nevertheless, she lightened the day's labor, and Stella put up with her slowness since she needs must or assume the entire burden herself. This time Katy thoughtlessly left with both water pails empty. Stella was just picking them up off the bench when a shadow darkened the door, and she looked around to see Jack Fyfe. "How d' do," he greeted. He had seemed a short man. Now, standing within four feet of her, she perceived that this was an illusion created by the proportion and thickness of his body. He was, in fact, half a head taller than she, and Stella stood five feet five. His gray eyes met hers squarely, with a cool, impersonal quality of gaze. There was neither smirk nor embarrassment in his straightforward glance. He was, in effect, "sizing her up" just as he would have looked casually over a logger asking him for a job. Stella sensed that, and resenting it momentarily, failed to match his manner. She flushed. Fyfe smiled, a broad, friendly grin, in which a wide mouth opened to show strong, even teeth. "I'm after a drink," he said quite impersonally, and coolly taking the pails out of her hands, walked through the kitchen and down to the creek. He was back in a minute, set the filled buckets in their place, and helped himself with a dipper. "Say," he asked easily, "how do you like life in a logging camp by this time? This is sure one hot job you've got." "Literally or slangily?" she asked in a flippant tone. Fyfe's reputation, rather vividly colored, had reached her from various sources. She was not quite sure whether she cared to countenance him or not. There was a disturbing quality in his glance, a subtle suggestion of force about him that she felt without being able to define in understandable terms. In any case she felt more than equal to the task of squelching any effort at familiarity, even if Jack Fyfe were, in a sense, the convenient god in her brother's machine. Fyfe chuckled at her answer. "Both," he replied shortly and went out. She saw him a little later out on the bay in the _Panther's_ dink, standing up in the little boat, making long, graceful casts with a pliant rod. She perceived that this manner of fishing was highly successful, insomuch as at every fourth or fifth cast a trout struck his fly, breaking water with a vigorous splash. Then the bamboo would arch as the fish struggled, making sundry leaps clear of the water, gleaming like silver each time he broke the surface, but coming at last tamely to Jack Fyfe's landing net. Of outdoor sports she knew most about angling, for her father had been an ardent fly-caster. And she had observed with a true angler's scorn the efforts of her brother's loggers to catch the lake trout with a baited hook, at which they had scant success. Charlie never fished. He had neither time nor inclination for such fooling, as he termed it. Fyfe stopped fishing when the donkeys whistled six. It happened that when he drew in to his cookhouse float, Stella was standing in her kitchen door. Fyfe looked up at her and held aloft a dozen trout strung by the gills on a stick, gleaming in the sun. "Vanity," she commented inaudibly. "I wonder if he thinks I've been admiring his skill as a fisherman?" Nevertheless she paid tribute to his skill when ten minutes later he sent a logger with the entire catch to her kitchen. They looked toothsome, those lakers, and they were. She cooked one for her own supper and relished it as a change from the everlasting bacon and ham. In the face of that million feet of timber, Benton hunted no deer. True, the Siwashes had once or twice brought in some venison. That, with a roast or two of beef from town, was all the fresh meat she had tasted in two months. There were enough trout to make a breakfast for the crew. She ate hers and mentally thanked Jack Fyfe. Lying in her bed that night, in the short interval that came between undressing and wearied sleep, she found herself wondering with a good deal more interest about Jack Fyfe than she had ever bestowed upon--well, Paul Abbey, for instance. She was quite positive that she was going to dislike Jack Fyfe if he were thrown much in her way. There was something about him that she resented. The difference between him and the rest of the rude crew among which she must perforce live was a question of degree, not of kind. There was certainly some compelling magnetism about the man. But along with it went what she considered an almost brutal directness of speech and action. Part of this conclusion came from hearsay, part from observation, limited though her opportunities had been for the latter. Miss Stella Benton, for all her poise, was not above jumping at conclusions. There was something about Jack Fyfe that she resented. She irritably dismissed it as a foolish impression, but the fact remained that the mere physical nearness of him seemed to put her on the defensive, as if he were in reality a hunter and she the hunted. Fyfe joined Charlie Benton about the time she finished work. The three of them sat on the grass before Benton's quarters, and every time Jack Fyfe's eyes rested on her she steeled herself to resist--what, she did not know. Something intangible, something that disturbed her. She had never experienced anything like that before; it tantalized her, roused her curiosity. There was nothing occult about the man. He was nowise fascinating, either in face or manner. He made no bid for her attention. Yet during the half hour he sat there, Stella's mind revolved constantly about him. She recalled all that she had heard of him, much of it, from her point of view, highly discreditable. Inevitably she fell to comparing him with other men she knew. She had, in a way, unconsciously been prepared for just such a measure of concentration upon Jack Fyfe. For he was a power on Roaring Lake, and power,--physical, intellectual or financial,--exacts its own tribute of consideration. He was a fighter, a dominant, hard-bitten woodsman, so the tale ran. He had gathered about him the toughest crew on the Lake, himself, upon occasion, the most turbulent of all. He controlled many square miles of big timber, and he had gotten it all by his own effort in the eight years since he came to Roaring Lake as a hand logger. He was slow of speech, chain-lightning in action, respected generally, feared a lot. All these things her brother and Katy John had sketched for Stella with much verbal embellishment. There was no ignoring such a man. Brought into close contact with the man himself, Stella felt the radiating force of his personality. There it was, a thing to be reckoned with. She felt that whenever Jack Fyfe's gray eyes rested impersonally on her. His pleasant, freckled face hovered before her until she fell asleep, and in her sleep she dreamed again of him throwing that drunken logger down the Hot Springs slip. CHAPTER VIII DURANCE VILE By September first a growing uneasiness hardened into distasteful certainty upon Stella. It had become her firm resolve to get what money was due her when Charlie marketed his logs and try another field of labor. That camp on Roaring Lake was becoming a nightmare to her. She had no inherent dislike for work. She was too vibrantly alive to be lazy. But she had had an overdose of unaccustomed drudgery, and she was growing desperate. If there had been anything to keep her mind from continual dwelling on the manifold disagreeableness she had to cope with, she might have felt differently, but there was not. She ate, slept, worked,--ate, slept, and worked again,--till every fibre of her being cried out in protest against the deadening round. She was like a flower striving to attain its destiny of bloom in soil overrun with rank weeds. Loneliness and hard, mean work, day after day, in which all that had ever seemed desirable in life had neither place nor consideration, were twin evils of isolation and flesh-wearying labor, from which she felt that she must get away, or go mad. But she did not go. Benton left to make his delivery to the mill company, the great boom of logs gliding slowly along in the wake of a tug, the _Chickamin_ in attendance. Benton's crew accompanied the boom. Fyfe's gang loaded their donkey and gear aboard the scow and went home. The bay lay all deserted, the woods silent. For the first time in three months she had all her hours free, only her own wants to satisfy. Katy John spent most of her time in the smoky camp of her people. Stella loafed. For two days she did nothing, gave herself up to a physical torpor she had never known before. She did not want to read, to walk about, or even lift her eyes to the bold mountains that loomed massive across the lake. It was enough to lie curled among pillows under the alder and stare drowsily at the blue September sky, half aware of the drone of a breeze in the firs, the flutter of birds' wings, and the lap of water on the beach. Presently, however, the old restless energy revived. The spring came back to her step and she shed that lethargy like a cast-off garment. And in so doing her spirit rose in hot rebellion against being a prisoner to deadening drudgery, against being shut away from all the teeming life that throve and trafficked beyond the solitude in which she sat immured. When Charlie came back, there was going to be a change. She repeated that to herself with determination. Between whiles she rambled about in the littered clearing, prowled along the beaches, and paddled now and then far outside the bay in a flat-bottomed skiff, restless, full of plans. So far as she saw, she would have to face some city alone, but she viewed that prospect with a total absence of the helpless feeling which harassed her so when she first took train for her brother's camp. She had passed through what she termed a culinary inferno. Nothing, she considered, could be beyond her after that unremitting drudgery. But Benton failed to come back on the appointed day. The four days lengthened to a week. Then the _Panther_, bound up-lake, stopped to leave a brief note from Charlie, telling her business had called him to Vancouver. Altogether it was ten days before the _Chickamin_ whistled up the bay. She slid in beside the float, her decks bristling with men like a passenger craft. Stella, so thoroughly sated with loneliness that she temporarily forgot her grievances, flew to meet her brother. But one fair glimpse of the disembarking crew turned her back. They were all in varying stages of liquor--from two or three who had to be hauled over the float and up to the bunkhouse like sacks of bran, to others who were so happily under the influence of John Barleycorn that every move was some silly antic. She retreated in disgust. When Charlie reached the cabin, he himself proved to be fairly mellow, in the best of spirits--speaking truly in the double sense. "Hello, lady," he hailed jovially. "How did you fare all by your lonesome this long time? I didn't figure to be gone so long, but there was a lot to attend to. How are you, anyway?" "All right," she answered coolly. "You evidently celebrated your log delivery in the accepted fashion." "Don't you believe it," he grinned amiably. "I had a few drinks with the boys on the way up, that's all. No, sir, it was straight business with a capital B all the time I was gone. I've got a good thing in hand, Sis--big money in sight. Tell you about it later. Think you and Katy can rustle grub for this bunch by six?" "Oh, I suppose so," she said shortly. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him then and there that she was through,--like Matt, the cook, that memorable afternoon, "completely an' ab-sho-lutely through." She refrained. There was no use in being truculent. But that drunken crowd looked formidable in numbers. "How many extra?" she asked mechanically. "Thirty men, all told," Benton returned briskly. "I tell you I'm sure going to rip the heart out of this limit before spring. I've signed up a six-million-foot contract for delivery as soon as the logs'll go over Roaring Rapids in the spring. Remember what I told you when you came? You stick with me, and you'll wear diamonds. I stand to clean up twenty thousand on the winter's work." "In that case, you should be able to hire a real cook," she suggested, a spice of malice in her tone. "I sure will, when it begins to come right," he promised largely. "And I'll give you a soft job keeping books then. Well, I'll lend you a hand for to-night. Where's the Siwash maiden?" "Over at the camp; there she comes now," Stella replied. "Will you start a fire, Charlie, while I change my dress?" "You look like a peach in that thing." He stood off a pace to admire. "You're some dame, Stell, when you get on your glad rags." She frowned at her image in the glass behind the closed door of her room as she set about unfastening the linen dress she had worn that afternoon. Deep in her trunk, along with much other unused finery, it had reposed all summer. That ingrained instinct to be admired, to be garbed fittingly and well, came back to her as soon as she was rested. And though there were none but squirrels and bluejays and occasionally Katy John to cast admiring eyes upon her, it had pleased her for a week to wear her best, and wander about the beaches and among the dusky trunks of giant fir, a picture of blooming, well-groomed womanhood. She took off the dress and threw it on the bed with a resentful rush of feeling. The treadmill gaped for her again. But not for long. She was through with that. She was glad that Charlie's prospects pleased him. He could not call on her to help him out of a hole now. She would tell him her decision to-night. And as soon as he could get a cook to fill her place, then good-by to Roaring Lake, good-by to kitchen smells and flies and sixteen hours a day over a hot stove. She wondered why such a loathing of the work afflicted her; if all who earned their bread in the sweat of their brow were ridden with that feeling,--woodsmen, cooks, chauffeurs, the slaves of personal service and the great industrial mills alike? Her heart went out to them if they were. But she was quite sure that work could be otherwise than repellent, enslaving. She recalled that cooks and maids had worked in her father's house with no sign of the revolt that now assailed her. But it seemed to her that their tasks had been light compared with the job of cooking in Charlie Benton's camp. Curiously enough, while she changed her clothes, her thoughts a jumble of present things she disliked and the unknown that she would have to face alone in Vancouver, she found her mind turning on Jack Fyfe. During his three weeks' stay, they had progressed less in the direction of acquaintances than she and Paul Abbey had done in two meetings. Fyfe talked to her now and then briefly, but he looked at her more than he talked. Where his searching gaze disturbed, his speech soothed, it was so coolly impersonal. That, she deemed, was merely another of his odd contradictions. He was contradictory. Stella classified Jack Fyfe as a creature of unrestrained passions. She recognized, or thought she recognized, certain dominant, primitive characteristics, and they did not excite her admiration. Men admired him--those who were not afraid of him. If he had been of more polished clay, she could readily have grasped this attitude. But in her eyes he was merely a rude, masterful man, uncommonly gifted with physical strength, dominating other rude, strong men by sheer brute force. And she herself rather despised sheer brute force. The iron hand should fitly be concealed beneath the velvet glove. Yet in spite of the bold look in his eyes that always confused and irritated her, Fyfe had never singled her out for the slightest attention of the kind any man bestows upon an attractive woman. Stella was no fool. She knew that she was attractive, and she knew why. She had been prepared to repulse, and there had been nothing to repulse. Once during Charlie's absence he had come in a rowboat, hailed her from the beach, and gone away without disembarking when she told him Benton was not back. He was something of an enigma, she confessed to herself, after all. Perhaps that was why he came so frequently into her mind. Or perhaps, she told herself, there was so little on Roaring Lake to think about that one could not escape the personal element. As if any one ever could. As if life were made up of anything but the impinging of one personality upon another. That was something Miss Stella Benton had yet to learn. She was still mired in the rampant egotism of untried youth, as yet the sublime individualist. That side of her suffered a distinct shock later in the evening. When supper was over, the work done, and the loggers' celebration was slowly subsiding in the bunkhouse, she told Charlie with blunt directness what she wanted to do. With equally blunt directness he declared that he would not permit it. Stella's teeth came together with an angry little click. "I'm of age, Charlie," she said to him. "It isn't for you to say what you will or will not _permit_ me to do. I want that money of mine that you used--and what I've earned. God knows I _have_ earned it. I can't stand this work, and I don't intend to. It isn't work; it's slavery." "But what can you do in town?" he countered. "You haven't the least idea what you'd be going up against, Stell. You've never been away from home, and you've never had the least training at anything useful. You'd be on your uppers in no time at all. You wouldn't have a ghost of a chance." "I have such a splendid chance here," she retorted ironically. "If I could get in any position where I'd be more likely to die of sheer stagnation, to say nothing of dirty drudgery, than in this forsaken hole, I'd like to know how. I don't think it's possible." "You could be a whole lot worse off, if you only knew it," Benton returned grumpily. "If you haven't got any sense about things, I have. I know what a rotten hole Vancouver or any other seaport town is for a girl alone. I won't let you make any foolish break like that. That's flat." From this position she failed to budge him. Once angered, partly by her expressed intention and partly by the outspoken protest against the mountain of work imposed on her, Charlie refused point-blank to give her either the ninety dollars he had taken out of her purse or the three months' wages due. Having made her request, and having met with this--to her--amazing refusal, Stella sat dumb. There was too fine a streak in her to break out in recrimination. She was too proud to cry. So that she went to bed in a ferment of helpless rage. Virtually she was a prisoner, as much so as if Charlie had kidnaped her and held her so by brute force. The economic restraint was all potent. Without money she could not even leave the camp. And when she contemplated the daily treadmill before her, she shuddered. At least she could go on strike. Her round cheek flushed with the bitterest anger she had ever known, she sat with eyes burning into the dark of her sordid room, and vowed that the thirty loggers should die of slow starvation if they did not eat until she cooked another meal for them. CHAPTER IX JACK FYFE'S CAMP She was still hot with the spirit of mutiny when morning came, but she cooked breakfast. It was not in her to act like a petulant child. Morning also brought a different aspect to things, for Charlie told her while he helped prepare breakfast that he was going to take his crew and repay in labor the help Jack Fyfe had given him. "While we're there, Jack's cook will feed all hands," said he. "And by the time we're through there, I'll have things fixed so it won't be such hard going for you here. Do you want to go along to Jack's camp?" "No," she answered shortly. "I don't. I would much prefer to get away from this lake altogether, as I told you last night." "You might as well forget that notion," he said stubbornly. "I've got a little pride in the matter. I don't want my sister drudging at the only kind of work she'd be able to earn a living at." "You're perfectly willing to have me drudge here," she flashed back. "That's different," he defended. "And it's only temporary. I'll be making real money before long. You'll get your share if you'll have a little patience and put your shoulder to the wheel. Lord, I'm doing the best I can." "Yes--for yourself," she returned. "You don't seem to consider that I'm entitled to as much fair play as you'd have to accord one of your men. I don't want you to hand me an easy living on a silver salver. All I want of you is what is mine, and the privilege of using my own judgment. I'm quite capable of taking care of myself." If there had been opportunity to enlarge on that theme, they might have come to another verbal clash. But Benton never lost sight of his primary object. The getting of breakfast and putting his men about their work promptly was of more importance to him than Stella's grievance. So the incipient storm dwindled to a sullen mood on her part. Breakfast over, Benton loaded men and tools aboard a scow hitched beside the boat. He repeated his invitation, and Stella refused, with a sarcastic reflection on the company she would be compelled to keep there. The _Chickamin_ with her tow drew off, and she was alone again. "Marooned once more," Stella said to herself when the little steamboat slipped behind the first jutting point. "Oh, if I could just be a man for a while." Marooned seemed to her the appropriate term. There were the two old Siwashes and their dark-skinned brood. But they were little more to Stella than the insentient boulders that strewed the beach. She could not talk to them or they to her. Long since she had been surfeited with Katy John. If there were any primitive virtues in that dusky maiden they were well buried under the white man's schooling. Katy's demand upon life was very simple and in marked contrast to Stella Benton's. Plenty of grub, no work, some cheap finery, and a man white or red, no matter, to make eyes at. Her horizon was bounded by Roaring Lake and the mission at Skookumchuck. She was therefore no mitigation of Stella's loneliness. Nevertheless Stella resigned herself to make the best of it, and it proved a poor best. She could not detach herself sufficiently from the sordid realities to lose herself in day-dreaming. There was not a book in the camp save some ten-cent sensations she found in the bunkhouse, and these she had exhausted during Charlie's first absence. The uncommon stillness of the camp oppressed her more than ever. Even the bluejays and squirrels seemed to sense its abandonment, seemed to take her as part of the inanimate fixtures, for they frisked and chattered about with uncommon fearlessness. The lake lay dead gray, glassy as some great irregular window in the crust of the earth. Only at rare intervals did sail or smoke dot its surface, and then far offshore. The woods stood breathless in the autumn sun. It was like being entombed. And there would be a long stretch of it, with only a recurrence of that deadly grind of kitchen work when the loggers came home again. Some time during the next forenoon she went southerly along the lake shore on foot without object or destination, merely to satisfy in some measure the restless craving for action. Colorful turns of life, the more or less engrossing contact of various personalities, some new thing to be done, seen, admired, discussed, had been a part of her existence ever since she could remember. None of this touched her now. A dead weight of monotony rode her hard. There was the furtive wild life of the forest, the light of sun and sky, and the banked green of the forest that masked the steep granite slopes. She appreciated beauty, craved it indeed, but she could not satisfy her being with scenic effects alone. She craved, without being wholly aware of it, or altogether admitting it to herself, some human distraction in all that majestic solitude. It was forthcoming. When she returned to camp at two o'clock, driven in by hunger, Jack Fyfe sat on the doorstep. "How-de-do. I've come to bring you over to my place," he announced quite casually. "Thanks. I've already declined one pressing invitation to that effect," Stella returned drily. His matter-of-fact assurance rather nettled her. "A woman always has the privilege of changing her mind," Fyfe smiled. "Charlie is going to be at my camp for at least three weeks. It'll rain soon, and the days'll be pretty gray and dreary and lonesome. You might as well pack your war-bag and come along." She stood uncertainly. Her tongue held ready a blunt refusal, but she did not utter it; and she did not know why. She did have a glimpse of the futility of refusing, only she did not admit that refusal might be of no weight in the matter. With her mind running indignantly against compulsion, nevertheless her muscles involuntarily moved to obey. It irritated her further that she should feel in the least constrained to obey the calmly expressed wish of this quiet-spoken woodsman. Certain possible phases of a lengthy sojourn in Jack Fyfe's camp shot across her mind. He seemed of uncanny perception, for he answered this thought before it was clearly formed. "Oh, you'll be properly chaperoned, and you won't have to mix with the crew," he drawled. "I've got all kinds of room. My boss logger's wife is up from town for a while. She's a fine, motherly old party, and she keeps us all in order." "I haven't had any lunch," she temporized. "Have you?" He shook his head. "I rowed over here before twelve. Thought I'd get you back to camp in time for dinner. You know," he said with a twinkle in his blue eyes, "a logger never eats anything but a meal. A lunch to us is a snack that you put in your pocket. I guess we lack tone out here. We haven't got past the breakfast-dinner-supper stage yet; too busy making the country fit to live in." "You have a tremendous job in hand," she observed. "Oh, maybe," he laughed. "All in the way you look at it. Suits some of us. Well, if we get to my camp before three, the cook might feed us. Come on. You'll get to hating yourself if you stay here alone till Charlie's through." Why not? Thus she parleyed with herself, one half of her minded to stand upon her dignity, the other part of her urging acquiescence in his wish that was almost a command. She was tempted to refuse just to see what he would do, but she reconsidered that. Without any logical foundation for the feeling, she was shy of pitting her will against Jack Fyfe's. Hitherto quite sure of herself, schooled in self-possession, it was a new and disturbing experience to come in contact with that subtle, analysis-defying quality which carries the possessor thereof straight to his or her goal over all opposition, which indeed many times stifles all opposition. Force of character, overmastering personality, emanation of sheer will, she could not say in what terms it should be described. Whatever it was, Jack Fyfe had it. It existed, a factor to be reckoned with when one dealt with him. For within twenty minutes she had packed a suitcase full of clothes and was embarked in his rowboat. He sent the lightly built craft easily through the water with regular, effortless strokes. Stella sat in the stern, facing him. Out past the north horn of the bay, she broke the silence that had fallen between them. "Why did you make a point of coming for me?" she asked bluntly. Fyfe rested on his oars a moment, looking at her in his direct, unembarrassed way. "I wintered once on the Stickine," he said. "My partner pulled out before Christmas and never came back. It was the first time I'd ever been alone in my life. I wasn't a much older hand in the country than you are. Four months without hearing the sound of a human voice. Stark alone. I got so I talked to myself out loud before spring. So I thought--well, I thought I'd come and bring you over to see Mrs. Howe." Stella sat gazing at the slow moving panorama of the lake shore, her chin in her hand. "Thank you," she said at last, and very gently. Fyfe looked at her a minute or more, a queer, half-amused expression creeping into his eyes. "Well," he said finally, "I might as well tell the whole truth. I've been thinking about you quite a lot lately, Miss Stella Benton, or I wouldn't have thought about you getting lonesome." He smiled ever so faintly, a mere movement of the corners of his mouth, at the pink flush which rose quickly in her cheeks, and then resumed his steady pull at the oars. Except for a greater number of board shacks and a larger area of stump and top-littered waste immediately behind it, Fyfe's headquarters, outwardly, at least, differed little from her brother's camp. Jack led her to a long, log structure with a shingle roof, which from its more substantial appearance she judged to be his personal domicile. A plump, smiling woman of forty greeted her on the threshold. Once within, Stella perceived that there was in fact considerable difference in Mr. Fyfe's habitation. There was a great stone fireplace, before which big easy-chairs invited restful lounging. The floor was overlaid with thick rugs which deadened her footfalls. With no pretense of ornamental decoration, the room held an air of homely comfort. "Come in here and lay off your things," Mrs. Howe beamed on her. "If I'd 'a' known you were livin' so close, we'd have been acquainted a week ago; though I ain't got rightly settled here myself. My land, these men are such clams. I never knowed till this mornin' there was any white woman at this end of the lake besides myself." She showed Stella into a bedroom. It boasted an enamel washstand with taps which yielded hot and cold water, neatly curtained windows, and a deep-seated Morris chair. Certainly Fyfe's household accommodation was far superior to Charlie Benton's. Stella expected the man's home to be rough and ready like himself, and in a measure it was, but a comfortable sort of rough and readiness. She took off her hat and had a critical survey of herself in a mirror, after which she had just time to brush her hair before answering Mrs. Howe's call to a "cup of tea." The cup of tea resolved itself into a well-cooked and well-served meal, with china and linen and other unexpected table accessories which agreeably surprised, her. Inevitably she made comparisons, somewhat tinctured with natural envy. If Charlie would fix his place with a few such household luxuries, life in their camp would be more nearly bearable, despite the long hours of disagreeable work. As it was--well, the unrelieved discomforts were beginning to warp her out-look on everything. Fyfe maintained his habitual sparsity of words while they ate the food Mrs. Howe brought on a tray hot from the cook's outlying domain. When they finished, he rose, took up his hat and helped himself to a handful of cigars from a box on the fireplace mantel. "I guess you'll be able to put in the time, all right," he remarked. "Make yourself at home. If you take a notion to read, there's a lot of books and magazines in my room. Mrs. Howe'll show you." He walked out. Stella was conscious of a distinct relief when he was gone. She had somehow experienced a recurrence of that peculiar feeling of needing to be on her guard, as if there were some curious, latent antagonism between them. She puzzled over that a little. She had never felt that way about Paul Abbey, for instance, or indeed toward any man she had ever known. Fyfe's more or less ambiguous remark in the boat had helped to arouse it again. His manner of saying that he had "thought a lot about her" conveyed more than the mere words. She could quite conceive of the Jack Fyfe type carrying things with a high hand where a woman was concerned. He had that reputation in all his other dealings. He was aggressive. He could drink any logger in the big firs off his feet. He had an uncanny luck at cards. Somehow or other in every undertaking Jack Fyfe always came out on top, so the tale ran. There must be, she reasoned, a wide streak of the brute in such a man. It was no gratification to her vanity to have him admire her. It did not dawn upon her that so far she had never got over being a little afraid of him, much less to ask herself why she should be afraid of him. But she did not spend much time puzzling over Jack Fyfe. Once out of her sight she forgot him. It was balm to her lonely soul to have some one of her own sex for company. What Mrs. Howe lacked in the higher culture she made up in homely perception and unassuming kindliness. Her husband was Fyfe's foreman. She herself was not a permanent fixture in the camp. They had a cottage at Roaring Springs, where she spent most of the time, so that their three children could be in school. "I was up here all through vacation," she told Stella. "But Lefty he got to howlin' about bein' left alone shortly after school started again, so I got my sister to look after the kids for a spell, while I stay. I'll be goin' down about the time Mr. Benton's through here." Stella eventually went out to take a look around the camp. A hard-beaten path led off toward where rose the distant sounds of logging work, the ponderous crash of trees, and the puff of the donkeys. She followed that a little way and presently came to a knoll some three hundred yards above the beach. There she paused to look and wonder curiously. For the crest of this little hillock had been cleared and graded level and planted to grass over an area four hundred feet square. It was trimmed like a lawn, and in the center of this vivid green block stood an unfinished house foundation of gray stone. No stick of timber, no board or any material for further building lay in sight. The thing stood as if that were to be all. And it was not a new undertaking temporarily delayed. There was moss creeping over the thick stone wall, she discovered when she walked over it. Whoever had laid that foundation had done it many a moon before. Yet the sward about was kept as if a gardener had it in charge. A noble stretch of lake and mountain spread out before her gaze. Straight across the lake two deep clefts in the eastern range opened on the water, five miles apart. She could see the white ribbon of foaming cascades in each. Between lifted a great mountain, and on the lakeward slope of this stood a terrible scar of a slide, yellow and brown, rising two thousand feet from the shore. A vaporous wisp of cloud hung along the top of the slide, and above this aërial banner a snow-capped pinnacle thrust itself high into the infinite blue. "What an outlook," she said, barely conscious that she spoke aloud. "Why do these people build their houses in the bush, when they could live in the open and have something like this to look at. They would, if they had any sense of beauty." "Sure they haven't? Some of them might have, you know, without being able to gratify it." She started, to find Jack Fyfe almost at her elbow, the gleam of a quizzical smile lighting his face. "I daresay that might be true," she admitted. Fyfe's gaze turned from her to the huge sweep of lake and mountain chain. She saw that he was outfitted for fishing, creel on his shoulder, unjointed rod in one hand. By means of his rubber-soled waders he had come upon her noiselessly. "It's truer than you think, maybe," he said at length. "You don't want to come along and take a lesson in catching rainbows, I suppose?" "Not this time, thanks," she shook her head. "I want to get enough for supper, so I'd better be at it," he remarked. "Sometimes they come pretty slow. If you should want to go up and watch the boys work, that trail will take you there." He went off across the grassy level and plunged into the deep timber that rose like a wall beyond. Stella looked after. "It is certainly odd," she reflected with some irritation, "how that man affects me. I don't think a woman could ever be just friends with him. She'd either like him a lot or dislike him intensely. He isn't anything but a logger, and yet he has a presence like one of the lords of creation. Funny." Then she went back to the house to converse upon domestic matters with Mrs. Howe until the shrilling of the donkey whistle brought forty-odd lumberjacks swinging down the trail. Behind them a little way came Jack Fyfe with sagging creel. He did not stop to exhibit his catch, but half an hour later they were served hot and crisp at the table in the big living room, where Fyfe, Stella and Charlie Benton, Lefty Howe and his wife, sat down together. A flunkey from the camp kitchen served the meal and cleared it away. For an hour or two after that the three men sat about in shirt-sleeved ease, puffing at Jack Fyfe's cigars. Then Benton excused himself and went to bed. When Howe and his wife retired, Stella did likewise. The long twilight had dwindled to a misty patch of light sky in the northwest, and she fell asleep more at ease than she had been for weeks. Sitting in Jack Fyfe's living room through that evening she had begun to formulate a philosophy to fit her enforced environment--to live for the day only, and avoid thought of the future until there loomed on the horizon some prospect of a future worth thinking about. The present looked passable enough, she thought, if she kept her mind strictly on it alone. And with that idea to guide her, she found the days slide by smoothly. She got on famously with Mrs. Howe, finding that woman full of virtues unsuspected in her type. Charlie was in his element. His prospects looked so rosy that they led him into egotistic outlines of what he intended to accomplish. To him the future meant logs in the water, big holdings of timber, a growing bank account. Beyond that,--what all his concentrated effort should lead to save more logs and more timber,--he did not seem to go. Judged by his talk, that was the ultimate, economic power,--money and more money. More and more as Stella listened to him, she became aware that he was following in his father's footsteps; save that he aimed at greater heights and that he worked by different methods, juggling with natural resources where their father had merely juggled with prices and tokens of product, their end was the same--not to create or build up, but to grasp, to acquire. That was the game. To get and to hold for their own use and benefit and to look upon men and things, in so far as they were of use, as pawns in the game. She wondered sometimes if that were a characteristic of all men, if that were the big motif in the lives of such men as Paul Abbey and Jack Fyfe, for instance; if everything else, save the struggle of getting and keeping money, resolved itself into purely incidental phases of their existence? For herself she considered that wealth, or the getting of wealth, was only a means to an end. Just what that end might be she found a little vague, rather hard to define in exact terms. It embraced personal leisure and the good things of life as a matter of course, a broader existence, a large-handed generosity toward the less fortunate, an intellectual elevation entirely unrelated to gross material things. Life, she told herself pensively, ought to mean something more than ease and good clothes, but what more she was chary of putting into concrete form. It hadn't meant much more than that for her, so far. She was only beginning to recognize the flinty facts of existence. She saw now that for her there lay open only two paths to food and clothing: one in which, lacking all training, she must earn her bread by daily toil, the other leading to marriage. That, she would have admitted, was a woman's natural destiny, but one didn't pick a husband or lover as one chose a gown or a hat. One went along living, and the thing happened. Chance ruled there, she believed. The morality of her class prevented her from prying into this question of mating with anything like critical consideration. It was only to be thought about sentimentally, and it was easy for her to so think. Within her sound and vigorous body all the heritage of natural human impulses bubbled warmly, but she recognized neither their source nor their ultimate fruits. Often when Charlie was holding forth in his accustomed vein, she wondered what Jack Fyfe thought about it, what he masked behind his brief sentences or slow smile. Latterly her feeling about him, that involuntary bracing and stiffening of herself against his personality, left her. Fyfe seemed to be more or less self-conscious of her presence as a guest in his house. His manner toward her remained always casual, as if she were a man, and there was no question of sex attraction or masculine reaction to it between them. She liked him better for that; and she did admire his wonderful strength, the tremendous power invested in his magnificent body, just as she would have admired a tiger, without caring to fondle the beast. Altogether she spent a tolerably pleasant three weeks. Autumn's gorgeous paintbrush laid wonderful coloring upon the maple and alder and birch that lined the lake shore. The fall run of the salmon was on, and every stream was packed with the silver horde, threshing through shoal and rapid to reach the spawning ground before they died. Off every creek mouth and all along the lake the seal followed to prey on the salmon, and sea-trout and lakers alike swarmed to the spawning beds to feed upon the roe. The days shortened. Sometimes a fine rain would drizzle for hours on end, and when it would clear, the saw-toothed ranges flanking the lake would stand out all freshly robed in white,--a mantle that crept lower on the fir-clad slopes after each storm. The winds that whistled off those heights nipped sharply. Early in October Charlie Benton had squared his neighborly account with Jack Fyfe. With crew and equipment he moved home, to begin work anew on his own limit. Katy John and her people came back from the salmon fishing. Jim Renfrew, still walking with a pronounced limp, returned from the hospital. Charlie wheedled Stella into taking up the cookhouse burden again. Stella consented; in truth she could do nothing else. Charlie spent a little of his contract profits in piping water to the kitchen, in a few things to brighten up and make more comfortable their own quarters. "Just as soon as I can put another boom over the rapids, Stell," he promised, "I'll put a cook on the job. I've got to sail a little close for a while. With this crew I ought to put a million feet in the water in six weeks. Then I'll be over the hump, and you can take it easy. But till then--" "Till then I may as well make myself useful," Stella interrupted caustically. "Well, why not?" Benton demanded impatiently. "Nobody around here works any harder than I do." And there the matter rested. CHAPTER X ONE WAY OUT That was a winter of big snow. November opened with rain. Day after day the sun hid his face behind massed, spitting clouds. Morning, noon, and night the eaves of the shacks dripped steadily, the gaunt limbs of the hardwoods were a line of coursing drops, and through all the vast reaches of fir and cedar the patter of rain kept up a dreary monotone. Whenever the mist that blew like rolling smoke along the mountains lifted for a brief hour, there, creeping steadily downward, lay the banked white. Rain or shine, the work drove on. From the peep of day till dusk shrouded the woods, Benton's donkey puffed and groaned, axes thudded, the thin, twanging whine of the saws rose. Log after log slid down the chute to float behind the boomsticks; and at night the loggers trooped home, soaked to the skin, to hang their steaming mackinaws around the bunkhouse stove. When they gathered in the mess-room they filled it with the odor of sweaty bodies and profane grumbling about the weather. Early in December Benton sent out a big boom of logs with a hired stern-wheeler that was no more than out of Roaring Lake before the snow came. The sleety blasts of a cold afternoon turned to great, moist flakes by dark, eddying thick out of a windless night. At daybreak it lay a foot deep and snowing hard. Thenceforth there was no surcease. The white, feathery stuff piled up and piled up, hour upon hour and day after day, as if the deluge had come again. It stood at the cabin eaves before the break came, six feet on the level. With the end of the storm came a bright, cold sky and frost,--not the bitter frost of the high latitudes, but a nipping cold that held off the melting rains and laid a thin scum of ice on every patch of still water. Necessarily, all work ceased. The donkey was a shapeless mound of white, all the lines and gear buried deep. A man could neither walk on that yielding mass nor wallow through it. The logging crew hailed the enforced rest with open relief. Benton grumbled. And then, with the hours hanging heavy on his hands, he began to spend more and more of his time in the bunkhouse with the "boys," particularly in the long evenings. Stella wondered what pleasure he found in their company, but she never asked him, nor did she devote very much thought to the matter. There was but small cessation in her labors, and that only because six or eight of the men drew their pay and went out. Benton managed to hold the others against the thaw that might open up the woods in twenty-four hours, but the smaller size of the gang only helped a little, and did not assist her mentally at all. All the old resentment against the indignity of her position rose and smoldered. To her the days were full enough of things that she was terribly weary of doing over and over, endlessly. She was always tired. No matter that she did, in a measure, harden to her work, grow callously accustomed to rising early and working late. Always her feet were sore at night, aching intolerably. Hot food, sharp knives, and a glowing stove played havoc with her hands. Always she rose in the morning heavy-eyed and stiff-muscled. Youth and natural vigor alone kept her from breaking down, and to cap the strain of toil, she was soul-sick with the isolation. For she was isolated; there was not a human being in the camp, Katy John included, with whom she exchanged two dozen words a day. Before the snow put a stop to logging, Jack Fyfe dropped in once a week or so. When work shut down, he came oftener, but he never singled Stella out for any particular attention. Once he surprised her sitting with her elbows on the kitchen table, her face buried in her palms. She looked up at his quiet entrance, and her face must have given him his cue. He leaned a little toward her. "How long do you think you can stand it?" he asked gently. "God knows," she answered, surprised into speaking the thought that lay uppermost in her mind, surprised beyond measure that Be should read that thought. He stood looking down at her for a second or two. His lips parted, but he closed them again over whatever rose to his tongue and passed silently through the dining room and into the bunkhouse, where Benton had preceded him a matter of ten minutes. It lacked a week of Christmas. That day three of Benton's men had gone in the _Chickamin_ to Roaring Springs for supplies. They had returned in mid-afternoon, and Stella guessed by the new note of hilarity in the bunkhouse that part of the supplies had been liquid. This had happened more than once since the big snow closed in. She remembered Charlie's fury at the logger who started Matt the cook on his spree, and she wondered at this relaxation, but it was not in her province, and she made no comment. Jack Fyfe stayed to supper that evening. Neither he nor Charlie came back to Benton's quarters when the meal was finished. While she stacked up the dishes, Katy John observed: "Goodness sakes, Miss Benton, them fellers was fresh at supper. They was half-drunk, some of them. I bet they'll be half a dozen fights before mornin'." Stella passed that over in silence, with a mental turning up of her nose. It was something she could neither defend nor excuse. It was a disgusting state of affairs, but nothing she could change. She kept harking back to it, though, when she was in her own quarters, and Katy John had vanished for the night into her little room off the kitchen. Tired as she was, she remained wakeful, uneasy. Over in the bunkhouse disturbing sounds welled now and then into the cold, still night,--incoherent snatches of song, voices uproariously raised, bursts of laughter. Once, as she looked out the door, thinking she heard footsteps crunching in the snow, some one rapped out a coarse oath that drove her back with burning face. As the evening wore late, she began to grow uneasily curious to know in what manner Charlie and Jack Fyfe were lending countenance to this minor riot, if they were even participating in it. Eleven o'clock passed, and still there rose in the bunkhouse that unabated hum of voices. Suddenly there rose a brief clamor. In the dead silence that followed, she heard a thud and the clinking smash of breaking glass, a panted oath, sounds of struggle. Stella slipped on a pair of her brother's gum boots and an overcoat, and ran out on the path beaten from their cabin to the shore. It led past the bunkhouse, and on that side opened two uncurtained windows, yellow squares that struck gleaming on the snow. The panes of one were broken now, sharp fragments standing like saw teeth in the wooden sash. She stole warily near and looked in. Two men were being held apart; one by three of his fellows, the other _by_ Jack Fyfe alone. Fyfe grinned mildly, talking to the men in a quiet, pacific tone. "Now you know that was nothing to scrap about," she heard him say, "You're both full of fighting whisky, but a bunkhouse isn't any place to fight. Wait till morning. If you've still got it in your systems, go outside and have it out. But you shouldn't disturb our game and break up the furniture. Be gentlemen, drunk or sober. Better shake hands and call it square." "Aw, let 'em go to it, if they want to." Charlie's voice, drink-thickened, harsh, came from a earner of the room into which she could not see until she moved nearer. By the time she picked him out, Fyfe resumed his seat at the table where three others and Benton waited with cards in their hands, red and white chips and money stacked before them. She knew enough of cards to realize that a stiff poker game was on the board when she had watched one hand dealt and played. It angered her, not from any ethical motive, but because of her brother's part in it. He had no funds to pay a cook's wages, yet he could afford to lose on one hand as much as he credited her with for a month's work. She could slave at the kitchen job day in and day out to save him forty-five dollars a month. He could lose that without the flicker of an eyelash, but he couldn't pay her wages on demand. Also she saw that he had imbibed too freely, if the redness of his face and the glassy fixedness of his eyes could be read aright. "Pig!" she muttered. "If that's his idea of pleasure. Oh, well, why should I care? I don't, so far as he's concerned, if I could just get away from this beast of a place myself." Abreast of her a logger came to the broken window with a sack to bar out the frosty air. And Stella, realizing suddenly that she was shivering with the cold, ran back to the cabin and got into her bed. But she did not sleep, save in uneasy periods of dozing, until midnight was long past. Then Fyfe and her brother came in, and by the sounds she gathered that Fyfe was putting Charlie to bed. She heard his deep, drawly voice urging the unwisdom of sleeping with calked boots on, and Beaton's hiccupy response. The rest of the night she slept fitfully, morbidly imagining terrible things. She was afraid, that was the sum and substance of it. Over in the bunkhouse the carousal was still at its height. She could not rid herself of the sight of those two men struggling to be at each other like wild beasts, the bloody face of the one who had been struck, the coarse animalism of the whole whisky-saturated gang. It repelled and disgusted and frightened her. The night frosts had crept through the single board walls of Stella's room and made its temperature akin to outdoors when the alarm wakened her at six in the morning. She shivered as she dressed. Katy John was blissfully devoid of any responsibility, for seldom did Katy rise first to light the kitchen fire. Yet Stella resented less each day's bleak beginning than she did the enforced necessity of the situation; the fact that she was enduring these things practically under compulsion was what galled. A cutting wind struck her icily as she crossed the few steps of open between cabin and kitchen. Above no cloud floated, no harbinger of melting rain. The cold stars twinkled over snow-blurred forest, struck tiny gleams from stumps that were now white-capped pillars. A night swell from the outside waters beat, its melancholy dirge on the frozen beach. And, as she always did at that hushed hour before dawn, she experienced a physical shrinking from those grim solitudes in which there was nothing warm and human and kindly, nothing but vastness of space upon which silence lay like a smothering blanket, in which she, the human atom, was utterly negligible, a protesting mote in the inexorable wilderness. She knew this to be merely a state of mind, but situated as she was, it bore upon her with all the force of reality. She felt like a prisoner who above all things desired some mode of escape. A light burned in the kitchen. She thanked her stars that this bitter cold morning she would not have to build a fire with freezing fingers while her teeth chattered, and she hurried in to the warmth heralded by a spark-belching stovepipe. But the Siwash girl had not risen to the occasion. Instead, Jack Fyfe sat with his feet on the oven door, a cigar in one corner of his mouth. The kettle steamed. Her porridge pot bubbled ready for the meal. "Good morning," he greeted. "Mind my preempting your job?" "Not at all," she answered. "You can have it for keeps if you want." "No, thanks," he smiled. "I'm sour on my own cooking. Had to eat too much of it in times gone by. I wouldn't be stoking up here either, only I got frozen out. Charlie's spare bed hasn't enough blankets for me these cold nights." He drew his chair aside to be out of the way as she hurried about her breakfast preparations. All the time she was conscious that his eyes were on her, and also that in them lurked an expression of keen interest. His freckled mask of a face gave no clue to his thoughts; it never did, so far as she had ever observed. Fyfe had a gambler's immobility of countenance. He chucked the butt of his cigar in the stove and sat with hands clasped over one knee for some time after Katy John appeared and began setting the dining room table with a great clatter of dishes. He arose to his feet then. Stella stood beside the stove, frying bacon. A logger opened the door and walked in. He had been one to fare ill in the night's hilarity, for a discolored patch encircled one eye, and his lips were split and badly swollen. He carried a tin basin. "Kin I get some hot water?" he asked. Stella silently indicated the reservoir at one end of the range. The man ladled his basin full. The fumes of whisky, the unpleasant odor of his breath offended her, and she drew back. Fyfe looked at her as the man went out. "What?" he asked. She had muttered something, an impatient exclamation of disgust. The man's appearance disagreeably reminded her of the scene she had observed through the bunkhouse window. It stung her to think that her brother was fast putting himself on a par with them--without their valid excuse of type and training. "Oh, nothing," she said wearily, and turned to the sputtering bacon. Fyfe put his foot up on the stove front and drummed a tattoo on his mackinaw clad knee. "Aren't you getting pretty sick of this sort of work, these more or less uncomfortable surroundings, and the sort of people you have to come in contact with?" he asked pointedly. "I am," she returned as bluntly, "but I think that's rather an impertinent question, Mr. Fyfe." He passed imperturbably over this reproof, and his glance turned briefly toward the dining room. Katy John was still noisily at work. "You hate it," he said positively. "I know you do. I've seen your feelings many a time. I don't blame you. It's a rotten business for a girl with your tastes and bringing up. And I'm afraid you'll find it worse, if this snow stays long. I know what a logging camp is when work stops, and whisky creeps in, and the boss lets go his hold for the time being." "That may be true," she returned gloomily, "but I don't see why you should enumerate these disagreeable things for my benefit." "I'm going to show you a way out," he said softly. "I've been thinking it over for quite a while. I want you to marry me." Stella gasped. "Mr. Fyfe." "Listen," he said peremptorily, leaning closer to her and lowering his voice. "I have an idea that you're going to say you don't love me. Lord, _I_ know that. But you _hate_ this. It grates against every inclination of yours like a file on steel. I wouldn't jar on you like that. I wouldn't permit you to live in surroundings that would. That's the material side of it. Nobody can live on day dreams. I like you, Stella Benton, a whole lot more than I'd care to say right out loud. You and I together could make a home we'd be proud of. I want you, and you want to get away from this. It's natural. Marry me and play the game fair, and I don't think you'll be sorry. I'm putting it as baldly as I can. You stand to win everything with nothing to lose--but your domestic chains--" the gleam of a smile lit up his features for a second. "Won't you take a chance?" "No," she declared impulsively. "I won't be a party to any such cold-blooded transaction." "You don't seem to understand me," he said soberly. "I don't want to hand out any sentiment, but it makes me sore to see you wasting yourself on this sort of thing. If you must do it, why don't you do it for somebody who'll make it worth while? If you'd use the brains God gave you, you know that lots of couples have married on flimsier grounds than we'd have. How can a man and a woman really know anything about each other till they've lived together? Just because we don't marry with our heads in the fog is no reason we shouldn't get on fine. What are you going to do? Stick here at this till you go crazy? You won't get away. You don't realize what a one-idea, determined person this brother of yours is. He has just one object in life, and he'll use everything and everybody in sight to attain that object. He means to succeed and he will. You're purely incidental; but he has that perverted, middle-class family pride that will make him prevent you from getting out and trying your own wings. Nature never intended a woman like you to be a celibate, any more than I was so intended. And sooner or late you'll marry somebody--if only to hop out of the fire into the frying pan." "I hate you," she flashed passionately, "when you talk like that." "No, you don't," he returned quietly. "You hate what I say, because it's the truth--and it's humiliating to be helpless. You think I don't _sabe?_ But I'm putting a weapon into your hand. Let's put it differently; leave out the sentiment for a minute. We'll say that I want a housekeeper, preferably an ornamental one, because I like beautiful things. You want to get away from this drudgery. That's what it is, simple drudgery. You crave lots of things you can't get by yourself, but that you could help me get for you. There's things lacking in your life, and so is there in mine. Why shouldn't we go partners? You think about it." "I don't need to," she answered coolly. "It wouldn't work. You don't appear to have any idea what it means for a woman to give herself up body and soul to a man she doesn't care for. For me it would be plain selling myself. I haven't the least affection for you personally. I might even detest you." "You wouldn't," he said positively. "What makes you so sure of that?" she demanded. "It would sound conceited if I told you why," he drawled. "Listen. We're not gods and goddesses, we human beings. We're not, after all, in our real impulses, so much different from the age when a man took his club and went after a female that looked good to him. They mated, and raised their young, and very likely faced on an average fewer problems than arise in modern marriages supposedly ordained in Heaven. You'd have the one big problem solved,--the lack of means to live decently,--which wrecks more homes than anything else, far more than lack of love. Affection doesn't seem to thrive on poverty. What is love?" His voice took on a challenging note. Stella shook her head. He puzzled her, wholly serious one minute, a whimsical smile twisting up the corners of his mouth the next. And he surprised her too by his sureness of utterance on subjects she had not supposed would enter such a man's mind. "I don't know," she answered absently, turning over strips of bacon with the long-handled fork. "There you are," he said. "I don't know either. We'd start even, then, for the sake of argument. No, I guess we wouldn't either, because you're the only woman I've run across so far with whom I could calmly contemplate spending the rest of my life in close contact. That's a fact. To me it's a highly important fact. You don't happen to have any such feeling about me, eh?" "No. I hadn't even thought of you in that way," Stella answered truthfully. "You want to think about me," he said calmly. "You want to think about me from every possible angle, because I'm going to come back and ask you this same question every once in a while, so long as you're in reach and doing this dirty work for a thankless boss. You want to think of me as a possible refuge from a lot of disagreeable things. I'd like to have you to chum with, and I'd like to have some incentive to put a big white bungalow on that old foundation for us two," he smiled. "I'll never do it for myself alone. Go on. Take a gambling chance and marry me, Stella. Say yes, and say it now." But she shook her head resolutely, and as Katy John came in just then, Fyfe took his foot off the stove and went out of the kitchen. He threw a glance over his shoulder at Stella, a broad smile, as if to say that he harbored no grudge, and nursed no wound in his vanity because she would have none of him. Katy rang the breakfast gong. Five minutes later the tattoo of knives and forks and spoons told of appetites in process of appeasement. Charlie came into the kitchen in the midst of this, bearing certain unmistakable signs. His eyes were inflamed, his cheeks still bearing the flush of liquor. His demeanor was that of a man suffering an intolerable headache and correspondingly short-tempered. Stella barely spoke to him. It was bad enough for a man to make a beast of himself with whisky, but far worse was his gambling streak. There were so many little ways in which she could have eased things with a few dollars; yet he always grumbled when she spoke of money, always put her off with promises to be redeemed when business got better. Stella watched him bathe his head copiously in cold water and then seat himself at the long table, trying to force food upon an aggrieved and rebellious stomach. Gradually a flood of recklessness welled up in her breast. "For two pins I would marry Jack Fyfe," she told herself savagely. "_Anything_ would be better than this." CHAPTER XI THE PLUNGE Stella went over that queer debate a good many times in the ten days that followed. It revealed Jack Fyfe to her in a new, inexplicable light, at odd variance with her former conception of the man. She could not have visualized him standing with one foot on the stove front speaking calmly of love and marriage if she had not seen him with her own eyes, heard him with somewhat incredulous ears. She had continued to endow him with the attributes of unrestrained passion, of headlong leaping to the goal of his desires, of brushing aside obstacles and opposition with sheer brute force; and he had shown unreckoned qualities of restraint, of understanding. She was not quite sure if this were guile or sensible consideration. He had put his case logically, persuasively even. She was very sure that if he had adopted emotional methods, she would have been repelled. If he had laid siege to her hand and heart in the orthodox fashion, she would have raised that siege in short order. As it stood, in spite of her words to him, there was in her own mind a lack of finality. As she went about her daily tasks, that prospect of trying a fresh fling at the world as Jack Fyfe's wife tantalized her with certain desirable features. Was it worth while to play the game as she must play it for some time to come, drudge away at mean, sordid work and amid the dreariest sort of environment? At best, she could only get away from Charlie's camp and begin along new lines that might perhaps be little better, that must inevitably lie among strangers in a strange land. To what end? What did she want of life, anyway? She had to admit that she could not say fully and explicitly what she wanted. When she left out her material wants, there was nothing but a nebulous craving for--what? Love, she assumed. And she could not define love, except as some incomprehensible transport of emotion which irresistibly drew a man and a woman together, a divine fire kindled in two hearts. It was not a thing she could vouch for by personal experience. It might never touch and warm her, that divine fire. Instinct did now and then warn her that some time it would wrap her like a flame. But in the meantime--Life had her in midstream of its remorseless, drab current, sweeping her along. A foothold offered. Half a loaf, a single slice of bread even, is better than none. Jack Fyfe did not happen in again for nearly two weeks and then only to pay a brief call, but he stole an opportunity, when Katy John was not looking, to whisper in Stella's ear: "Have you been thinking about that bungalow of ours?" She shook her head, and he went out quietly, without another word. He neither pleaded nor urged, and perhaps that was wisest, for in spite of herself Stella thought of him continually. He loomed always before her, a persistent, compelling factor. She knew at last, beyond any gainsaying, that the venture tempted, largely perhaps because it contained so great an element of the unknown. To get away from this soul-dwarfing round meant much. She felt herself reasoning desperately that the frying pan could not be worse than the fire, and held at least the merit of greater dignity and freedom from the twin evils of poverty and thankless domestic slavery. While she considered this, pro and con, shrinking from such a step one hour, considering it soberly the next, the days dragged past in wearisome sequence. The great depth of snow endured, was added to by spasmodic flurries. The frosts held. The camp seethed with the restlessness of the men. In default of the daily work that consumed their superfluous energy, the loggers argued and fought, drank and gambled, made "rough house" in their sleeping quarters till sometimes Stella's cheeks blanched and she expected murder to be done. Twice the _Chickamin_ came back from Roaring Springs with whisky aboard, and a protracted debauch ensued. Once a drunken logger shouldered his way into the kitchen to leer unpleasantly at Stella, and, himself inflamed by liquor and the affront, Charlie Benton beat the man until his face was a mass of bloody bruises. That was only one of a dozen brutal incidents. All the routine discipline of the woods seemed to have slipped out of Benton's hands. When the second whisky consignment struck the camp, Stella stayed in her room, refusing to cook until order reigned again. Benton grumblingly took up the burden himself. With Katy's help and that of sundry loggers, he fed the roistering crew, but for his sister it was a two-day period of protesting disgust. That mood, like so many of her moods, relapsed into dogged endurance. She took up the work again when Charlie promised that no more whisky should be allowed in the camp. "Though it's ten to one I won't have a corporal's guard left when I want to start work again," he grumbled. "I'm well within my rights if I put my foot down hard on any jinks when there's work, but I have no license to set myself up as guardian of a logger's morals and pocketbook when I have nothing for him to do. These fellows are paying their board. So long as they don't make themselves obnoxious to you, I don't see that it's our funeral whether they're drunk or sober. They'd tell me so quick enough." To this pronouncement of expediency Stella made no rejoinder. She no longer expected anything much of Charlie, in the way of consideration. So far as she could see, she, his sister, was little more to him than one of his loggers; a little less important than, say, his donkey engineer. In so far as she conduced to the well-being of the camp and effected a saving to his credit in the matter of preparing food, he valued her and was willing to concede a minor point to satisfy her. Beyond that Stella felt that he did not go. Five years in totally different environments had dug a great gulf between them. He felt an arbitrary sense of duty toward her, she knew, but in its manifestations it never lapped over the bounds of his own immediate self-interest. And so when she blundered upon knowledge of a state of affairs which must have existed under her very nose for some time, there were few remnants of sisterly affection to bid her seek extenuating circumstances. Katy John proved the final straw. Just by what means Stella grew to suspect any such moral lapse on Benton's part is wholly irrelevant. Once the unpleasant likelihood came to her notice, she took measures to verify her suspicion, and when convinced she taxed her brother with it, to his utter confusion. "What kind of a man are you?" she cried at last in shamed anger. "Is there nothing too low for you to dabble in? Haven't you any respect for anything or anybody, yourself included?" "Oh, don't talk like a damned Puritan," Benton growled, though his tanned face was burning. "This is what comes of having women around the camp. I'll send the girl away." "You--you beast!" she flared--and ran out of the kitchen to seek refuge in her own room and cry into her pillow some of the dumb protest that surged up within her. For her knowledge of passion and the workings of passion as they bore upon the relations of a man and a woman were at once vague and tinctured with inflexible tenets of morality, the steel-hard conception of virtue which is the bulwark of middle-class theory for its wives and daughters and sisters--with an eye consistently blind to the concealed lapses of its men. Stella Benton passed that morning through successive stages of shocked amazement, of pity, and disgust. As between her brother and the Siwash girl, she saw little to choose. From her virtuous pinnacle she abhorred both. If she had to continue intimate living with them, she felt that she would be utterly defiled, degraded to their level. That was her first definite conclusion. After a time she heard Benton come into their living room and light a fire in the heater. She dried her eyes and went out to face him. "Charlie," she declared desperately, "I can't stay here any longer. It's simply impossible." "Don't start that song again. We've had it often enough," he answered stubbornly. "You're not going--not till spring. I'm not going to let you go in the frame of mind you're in right now, anyhow. You'll get over that. Hang it, I'm not the first man whose foot slipped. It isn't your funeral, anyway. Forget it." The grumbling coarseness of this retort left her speechless. Benton got the fire going and went out. She saw him cross to the kitchen, and later she saw Katy John leave the camp with all her belongings in a bundle over her shoulder, trudging away to the camp of her people around the point. Kipling's pregnant line shot across her mind: "For the colonel's lady and Judy O'Grady are sisters under their skins." "I wonder," she mused. "I wonder if we are? I wonder if that poor, little, brown-skinned fool isn't after all as much a victim as I am. She doesn't know better, maybe; but Charlie does, and he doesn't seem to care. It merely embarrasses him to be found out, that's all. It isn't right. It isn't fair, or decent, or anything. We're just for him to--to use." She looked out along the shores piled high with broken ice and snow, through a misty air to distant mountains that lifted themselves imperiously aloof, white spires against the sky,--over a forest all draped in winter robes; shore, mountains, and forest alike were chill and hushed and desolate. The lake spread its forty-odd miles in a boomerang curve from Roaring Springs to Fort Douglas, a cold, lifeless gray. She sat a long time looking at that, and a dead weight seemed to settle upon her heart. For the second time that day she broke down. Not the shamed, indignant weeping of an hour earlier, but with the essence of all things forlorn and desolate in her choked sobs. She did not hear Jack Fyfe come in. She did not dream he was there, until she felt his hand gently on her shoulder and looked up. And so deep was her despondency, so keen the unassuaged craving for some human sympathy, some measure of understanding, that she made no effort to remove his hand. She was in too deep a spiritual quagmire to refuse any sort of aid, too deeply moved to indulge in analytical self-fathoming. She had a dim sense of being oddly comforted by his presence, as if she, afloat on uncharted seas, saw suddenly near at hand a safe anchorage and welcoming hands. Afterward she recalled that. As it was, she looked up at Fyfe and hid her wet face in her hands again. He stood silent a few seconds. When he did speak there was a peculiar hesitation in his voice. "What is it?" he said softly. "What's the trouble now?" Briefly she told him, the barriers of her habitual reserve swept aside before the essentially human need to share a burden that has grown too great to bear alone. "Oh, hell," Fyfe grunted, when she had finished. "This isn't any place for you at all." He slid his arm across her shoulders and tilted her face with his other hand so that her eyes met his. And she felt no desire to draw away or any of that old instinct to be on her guard against him. For all she knew--indeed, by all she had been told--Jack Fyfe was tarred with the same stick as her brother, but she had no thought of resisting him, no feeling of repulsion. "Will you marry me, Stella?" he asked evenly. "I can free you from this sort of thing forever." "How can I?" she returned. "I don't want to marry anybody. I don't love you. I'm not even sure I like you. I'm too miserable to think, even. I'm afraid to take a step like that. I should think you would be too." He shook his head. "I've thought a lot about it lately," he said. "It hasn't occurred to me to be afraid of how it may turn out. Why borrow trouble when there's plenty at hand? I don't care whether you love me or not, right now. You couldn't possibly be any worse off as my wife, could you?" "No," she admitted. "I don't see how I could." "Take a chance then," he urged. "I'll make a fair bargain with you. I'll make life as pleasant for you as I can. You'll live pretty much as you've been brought up to live, so far as money goes. The rest we'll have to work out for ourselves. I won't ask you to pretend anything you don't feel. You'll play fair, because that's the way you're made,--unless I've sized you up wrong. It'll simply be a case of our adjusting ourselves, just as mating couples have been doing since the year one. You've everything to gain and nothing to lose." "In some ways," she murmured. "Every way," he insisted. "You aren't handicapped by caring for any other man." "How do you know?" she asked. "Just a hunch," Fyfe smiled. "If you did, he'd have beaten me to the rescue long ago--if he were the sort of man you _could_ care for." "No," she admitted. "There isn't any other man, but there might be. Think how terrible it would be if it happened--afterward." Fyfe shrugged his shoulders. "Sufficient unto the day," he said. "There is no string on either of us just now. We start even. That's good enough. Will you?" "You have me at a disadvantage," she whispered. "You offer me a lot that I want, everything but a feeling I've somehow always believed ought to exist, ought to be mutual. Part of me wants to shut my eyes and jump. Part of me wants to hang back. I can't stand this thing I've got into and see no way of getting out of. Yet I dread starting a new train of wretchedness. I'm afraid--whichever way I turn." Fyfe considered this a moment. "Well," he said finally, "that's a rather unfortunate attitude. But I'm going into it with my eyes open. I know what I want. You'll be making a sort of experiment. Still, I advise you to make it. I think you'll be the better for making it. Come on. Say yes." Stella looked up at him, then out over the banked snow, and all the dreary discomforts, the mean drudgery, the sordid shifts she had been put to for months rose up in disheartening phalanx. For that moment Jack Fyfe loomed like a tower of refuge. She trusted him now. She had a feeling that even if she grew to dislike him, she would still trust him. He would play fair. If he said he would do this or that, she could bank on it absolutely. She turned and looked at him searchingly a long half-minute, wondering what really lay behind the blue eyes that met her own so steadfastly. He stood waiting patiently, outwardly impassive. But she could feel through the thin stuff of her dress a quiver in the fingers that rested on her shoulder, and that repressed sign of the man's pent-up feeling gave her an odd thrill, moved her strangely, swung the pendulum of her impulse. "Yes," she said. Fyfe bent a little lower. "Listen," he said in characteristically blunt fashion. "You want to get away from here. There is no sense in our fussing or hesitating about what we're going to do, is there?" "No, I suppose not," she agreed. "I'll send the _Panther_ down to the Springs for Lefty Howe's wife," he outlined his plans unhesitatingly. "She'll get up here this evening. To-morrow we will go down and take the train to Vancouver and be married. You have plenty of good clothes, good enough for Vancouver. I know,"--with a whimsical smile,--"because you had no chance to wear them out. Then we'll go somewhere, California, Florida, and come back to Roaring Lake in the spring. You'll have all the bad taste of this out of your mouth by that time." Stella nodded acquiescence. Better to make the plunge boldly, since she had elected to make it. "All right. I'm going to tell Benton," Fyfe said. "Good-by till to-morrow." She stood up. He looked at her a long time earnestly, searchingly, one of her hands imprisoned tight between his two big palms. Then, before she was quite aware of his intention, he kissed her gently on the mouth, and was gone. * * * * * This turn of events left Benton dumbfounded, to use a trite but expressive phrase. He came in, apparently to look at Stella in amazed curiosity, for at first he had nothing to say. He sat down beside his makeshift desk and pawed over some papers, running the fingers of one hand through his thick brown hair. "Well, Sis," he blurted out at last. "I suppose you know what you're doing?" "I think so," Stella returned composedly. "But why all this mad haste?" he asked. "If you're going to get married, why didn't you let me know, so I could give you some sort of decent send-off." "Oh, thanks," she returned dryly. "I don't think that's necessary. Not at this stage of the game, as you occasionally remark." He ruminated upon this a minute, flushing slightly. "Well, I wish you luck," he said sincerely enough. "Though I can hardly realize this sudden move. You and Jack Fyfe may get on all right. He's a good sort--in his way." "His way suits me," she said, spurred to the defensive by what she deemed a note of disparagement in his utterance. "If you have any objections or criticisms, you can save your breath--or address them direct to Mr. Fyfe." "No, thank you," he grinned. "I don't care to get into any argument with _him_, especially as he's going to be my brother-in-law. Fyfe's all right. I didn't imagine he was the sort of man you'd fancy, that's all." Stella refrained from any comment on this. She had no intention of admitting to Charlie that marriage with Jack Fyfe commended itself to her chiefly as an avenue of escape from a well-nigh intolerable condition which he himself had inflicted upon her. Her pride rose in arms against any such belittling admission. She admitted it frankly to herself,--and to Fyfe,--because Fyfe understood and was content with that understanding. She desired to forget that phase of the transaction. She told herself that she meant honestly to make the best of it. Benton turned again to his papers. He did not broach the subject again until in the distance the squat hull of the _Panther_ began to show on her return from the Springs. Then he came to where Stella was putting the last of her things into her trunk. He had some banknotes in one hand, and a check. "Here's that ninety I borrowed, Stell," he said. "And a check for your back pay. Things have been sort of lean around here, maybe, but I still think it's a pity you couldn't have stuck it out till it came smoother. I hate to see you going away with a chronic grouch against me. I suppose I wouldn't even be a welcome guest at the wedding?" "No," she said unforgivingly. "Some things are a little too--too recent." "Oh," he replied casually enough, pausing in the doorway a second on his way out, "you'll get over that. You'll find that ordinary, everyday living isn't any kid-glove affair." She sat on the closed lid of her trunk, looking at the check and money. Three hundred and sixty dollars, all told. A month ago that would have spelled freedom, a chance to try her luck in less desolate fields. Well, she tried to consider the thing philosophically; it was no use to bewail what might have been. In her hands now lay the sinews of a war she had forgone all need of waging. It did not occur to her to repudiate her bargain with Jack Fyfe. She had given her promise, and she considered she was bound, irrevocably. Indeed, for the moment, she was glad of that. She was worn out, all weary with unaccustomed stress of body and mind. To her, just then, rest seemed the sweetest boon in the world. Any port in a storm, expressed her mood. What came after was to be met as it came. She was too tired to anticipate. It was a pale, weary-eyed young woman, dressed in the same plain tailored suit she had worn into the country, who was cuddled to Mrs. Howe's plump bosom when she went aboard the _Panther_ for the first stage of her journey. A slaty bank of cloud spread a somber film across the sky. When the _Panther_ laid her ice-sheathed guard-rail against the Hot Springs wharf the sun was down. The lake spread gray and lifeless under a gray sky, and Stella Benton's spirits were steeped in that same dour color. CHAPTER XII AND SO THEY WERE MARRIED Spring had waved her transforming wand over the lake region before the Fyfes came home again. All the low ground, the creeks and hollows and banks, were bright green with new-leaved birch and alder and maple. The air was full of those aromatic exudations the forest throws off when it is in the full tide of the growing time. Shores that Stella had last seen dismal and forlorn in the frost-fog, sheathed in ice, banked with deep snow, lay sparkling now in warm sunshine, under an unflecked arch of blue. All that was left of winter was the white cap on Mount Douglas, snow-filled chasms on distant, rocky peaks. Stella stood on the Hot Springs wharf looking out across the emerald deep of the lake, thinking soberly of the contrast. Something, she reflected, some part of that desolate winter, must have seeped to the very roots of her being to produce the state of mind in which she embarked upon that matrimonial voyage. A little of it clung to her still. She could look back at those months of loneliness, of immeasurable toil and numberless indignities, without any qualms. There would be no repetition of that. The world at large would say she had done well. She herself in her most cynical moments could not deny that she had done well. Materially, life promised to be generous. She was married to a man who quietly but inexorably got what he wanted, and it was her good fortune that he wanted her to have the best of everything. She saw him now coming from the hotel, and she regarded him thoughtfully, a powerful figure swinging along with light, effortless steps. He was back on his own ground, openly glad to be back. Yet she could not recall that he had ever shown himself at a disadvantage anywhere they had been together. He wore evening clothes when occasion required as unconcernedly as he wore mackinaws and calked boots among his loggers. She had not yet determined whether his equable poise arose from an unequivocal democracy of spirit, or from sheer egotism. At any rate, where she had set out with subtle misgivings, she had to admit that socially, at least, Jack Fyfe could play his hand at any turn of the game. Where or how he came by this faculty, she did not know. In fact, so far as Jack Fyfe's breeding and antecedents were concerned, she knew little more than before their marriage. He was not given to reminiscence. His people--distant relatives--lived in her own native state of Pennsylvania. He had an only sister who was now in South America with her husband, a civil engineer. Beyond that Fyfe did not go, and Stella made no attempt to pry up the lid of his past. She was not particularly curious. Her clearest judgment of him was at first hand. He was a big, virile type of man, generous, considerate, so sure of himself that he could be tolerant of others. She could easily understand why Roaring Lake considered Jack Fyfe "square." The other tales of him that circulated there she doubted now. The fighting type he certainly was, aggressive in a clash, but if there were any downright coarseness in him, it had never manifested itself to her. She was not sorry she had married him. If they had not set out blind in a fog of sentiment, as he had once put it, nevertheless they got on. She did not love him,--not as she defined that magic word,--but she liked him, was mildly proud of him. When he kissed her, if there were no mad thrill in it, there was at least a passive contentment in having inspired that affection. For he left her in no doubt as to where he stood, not by what he said, but wholly by his actions. He joined her now. The _Panther_, glossy black as a crow's wing with fresh paint, lay at the pier-end with their trunks aboard. Stella surveyed those marked with her initials, looking them over with a critical eye, when they reached the deck. "How in the world did I ever manage to accumulate so much stuff, Jack?" she asked quizzically. "I didn't realize it. We might have been doing Europe with souvenir collecting our principal aim, by the amount of our baggage." Fyfe smiled, without commenting. They sat on a trunk and watched Roaring Springs fall astern, dwindle to a line of white dots against the great green base of the mountain that rose behind it. "It's good to get back here," he said at last. "To me, anyway. How about it, Stella? You haven't got so much of a grievance with the world in general as you had when we left, eh?" "No, thank goodness," she responded fervently. "You don't look as if you had," he observed, his eyes admiringly upon her. Nor had she. There was a bloom on the soft contour of her cheek, a luminous gleam in her wide, gray eyes. All the ill wrought by months of drudging work and mental revolt had vanished. She was undeniably good to look at, a woman in full flower, round-bodied, deep-breasted, aglow with the unquenched fires of youth. She was aware that Jack Fyfe found her so and tolerably glad that he did so find her. She had revised a good many of her first groping estimates of him that winter. And when she looked over the port bow and saw in behind Halfway Point the huddled shacks of her brother's camp where so much had overtaken her, she experienced a swift rush of thankfulness that she was--as she was. She slid her gloved hand impulsively into Jack Fyfe's, and his strong fingers shut down on hers closely. They sat silent until the camp lay abeam. About it there was every sign of activity. A chunky stern-wheeler, with blow-off valve hissing, stood by a boom of logs in the bay, and men were moving back and forth across the swifters, making all ready for a tow. Stella marked a new bunkhouse. Away back on the logging ground in a greater clearing she saw the separate smoke of two donkey engines. Another, a big roader, Fyfe explained, puffed at the water's edge. She could see a string of logs tearing down the skid-road. "He's going pretty strong, that brother of yours," Fyfe remarked. "If he holds his gait, he'll be a big timberman before you know it." "He'll make money, I imagine," Stella admitted, "but I don't know what good that will do him. He'll only want more. What is there about money-making that warps some men so, makes them so grossly self-centered? I'd pity any girl who married Charlie. He used to be rather wild at home, but I never dreamed any man could change so." "You use the conventional measuring-stick on him," her husband answered, with that tolerance which so often surprised her. "Maybe his ways are pretty crude. But he's feverishly hewing a competence--which is what we're all after--out of pretty crude material. And he's just a kid, after all, with a kid's tendency to go to extremes now and then. I kinda like the beggar's ambition and energy." "But he hasn't the least consideration for anybody or anything," Stella protested. "He rides rough-shod over every one. That isn't either right or decent." "It's the only way some men can get to the top," Fyfe answered quietly. "They concentrate on the object to be attained. That's all that counts until they're in a secure position. Then, when they stop to draw their breath, sometimes they find they've done lots of things they wouldn't do again. You watch. By and by Charlie Benton will cease to have those violent reactions that offend you so. As it is--he's a youngster, bucking a big game. Life, when you have your own way to hew through it, with little besides your hands and brain for capital, is no silk-lined affair." She fell into thought over this reply. Fyfe had echoed almost her brother's last words to her. And she wondered if Jack Fyfe had attained that degree of economic power which enabled him to spend several thousand dollars on a winter's pleasuring with her by the exercise of a strong man's prerogative of overriding the weak, bending them to his own inflexible purposes, ruthlessly turning everything to his own advantage? If women came under the same head! She recalled Katy John, and her face burned. Perhaps. But she could not put Jack Fyfe in her brother's category. He didn't fit. Deep in her heart there still lurked an abiding resentment against Charlie Benton for the restraint he had put upon her and the license he had arrogated to himself. She could not convince herself that the lapses of that winter were not part and parcel of her brother's philosophy of life, a coarse and material philosophy. Presently they were drawing in to Cougar Point, with the weather-bleached buildings of Fyfe's camp showing now among the upspringing second-growth scrub. Fyfe went forward and spoke to the man at the wheel. The _Panther_ swung offshore. "Why are we going out again?" Stella asked. "Oh, just for fun," Fyfe smiled. He sat down beside her and slipped one arm around her waist. In a few minutes they cleared the point. Stella was looking away across the lake, at the deep cleft where Silver Creek split a mountain range in twain. "Look around," said he, "and tell me what you think of the House of Fyfe." There it stood, snow-white, broad-porched, a new house reared upon the old stone foundation she remembered. The noon sun struck flashing on the windows. About it spread the living green of the grassy square, behind that towered the massive, darker-hued background of the forest. "Oh," she exclaimed. "What wizard of construction did the work. _That_ was why you fussed so long over those plans in Los Angeles. I thought it was to be this summer or maybe next winter. I never dreamed you were having it built right away." "Well, isn't it rather nice to come home to?" he observed. "It's dear. A homey looking place," she answered. "A beautiful site, and the house fits,--that white and the red tiles. Is the big stone fireplace in the living room, Jack?" "Yes, and one in pretty nearly every other room besides," he nodded. "Wood fires are cheerful." The _Panther_ turned her nose shoreward at Fyfe's word. "I wondered about that foundation the first time I saw it," Stella confessed, "whether you built it, and why it was never finished. There was moss over the stones in places. And that lawn wasn't made in a single season. I know, because dad had a country place once, and he was raging around two or three summers because the land was so hard to get well-grassed." "No, I didn't build the foundation or make the lawn," Fyfe told her. "I merely kept it in shape. A man named Hale owned the land that takes in the bay and the point when I first came to the lake. He was going to be married. I knew him pretty well. But it was tough going those days. He was in the hole on some of his timber, and he and his girl kept waiting. Meantime he cleared and graded that little hill, sowed it to grass, and laid the foundation. He was about to start building when he was killed. A falling tree caught him. I bought in his land and the timber limits that lie back of it. That's how the foundation came there." "It's a wonder it didn't grow up wild," Stella mused. "How long ago was that?" "About five years," Fyfe said. "I kept the grass trimmed. It didn't seem right to let the brush overrun it after the poor devil put that labor of love on it. It always seemed to me that it should be kept smooth and green, and that there should be a big, roomy bungalow there. You see my hunch was correct, too." She looked up at him in some wonder. She hadn't accustomed herself to associating Jack Fyfe with actions based on pure sentiment. He was too intensely masculine, solid, practical, impassive. He did not seem to realize even that sentiment had influenced him in this. He discussed it too matter-of-factly for that. She wondered what became of the bride-to-be. But that Fyfe could not tell her. "Hale showed me her picture once," he said, "but I never saw her. Oh, I suppose she's married some other fellow long ago. Hale was a good sort. He was out-lucked, that's all." The _Panther_ slid in to the float. Jack and Stella went ashore. Lefty Howe came down to meet them. Thirty-five or forty men were stringing away from the camp, back to their work in the woods. Some waved greeting to Jack Fyfe, and he waved back in the hail-fellow fashion of the camps. "How's the frau, Lefty?" he inquired, after they had shaken hands. "Fine. Down to Vancouver. Sister's sick," Howe answered laconically. "House's all shipshape. Wanta eat here, or up there?" "Here at the camp, until we get straightened around," Fyfe responded. "Tell Pollock to have something for us in about half an hour. We'll go up and take a look." Howe went in to convey this message, and the two set off up the path. A sudden spirit of impishness made Jack Fyfe sprint. Stella gathered up her skirt and raced after him, but a sudden shortness of breath overtook her, and she came panting to where Fyfe had stopped to wait. "You'll have to climb hills and row and swim so you'll get some wind," Fyfe chuckled. "Too much easy living, lady." She smiled without making any reply to this sally, and they entered the house--the House of Fyfe, that was to be her home. If the exterior had pleased her, she went from room to room inside with growing amazement. Fyfe had finished it from basement to attic without a word to her that he had any such undertaking in hand. Yet there was scarcely a room in which she could not find the visible result of some expressed wish or desire. Often during the winter they had talked over the matter of furnishings, and she recalled how unconsciously she had been led to make suggestions which he had stored up and acted upon. For the rest she found her husband's taste beyond criticism. There were drapes and rugs and prints and odds and ends that any woman might be proud to have in her home. "You're an amazing sort of a man, Jack," she said thoughtfully. "Is there anything you're not up to? Even a Chinese servant in the kitchen. It's perfect." "I'm glad you like it," he said. "I hoped you would." "Who wouldn't?" she cried impulsively. "I love pretty things. Wait till I get done rearranging." They introduced themselves to the immobile-featured Celestial when they had jointly and severally inspected the house from top to bottom. Sam Foo gazed at them, listened to their account of themselves, and disappeared. He re-entered the room presently, bearing a package. "Mist' Chol' Bentlee him leave foh yo'." Stella looked at it. On the outer wrapping was written: _From C.A. Benton to Mrs. John Henderson Fyfe_ _A Belated Wedding Gift_ She cut the string, and delved into the cardboard box, and gasped. Out of a swathing of tissue paper her hands bared sundry small articles. A little cap and jacket of knitted silk--its double in fine, fleecy yarn--a long silk coat--a bonnet to match,--both daintily embroidered. Other things--a shoal of them--baby things. A grin struggled for lodgment on Fyfe's freckled countenance. His blue eyes twinkled. "I suppose," he growled, "that's Charlie's idea of a joke, huh?" Stella turned away from the tiny garments, one little, hood crumpled tight in her hand. She laid her hot face against his breast and her shoulders quivered. She was crying. "Stella, Stella, what's the matter?" he whispered. "It's no joke," she sobbed. "It's a--it's a reality." CHAPTER XIII IN WHICH EVENTS MARK TIME From that day on Stella found in her hands the reins over a smooth, frictionless, well-ordered existence. Sam Foo proved himself such a domestic treasure as only the trained Oriental can be. When the labor of an eight-room dwelling proved a little too much for him, he urbanely said so. Thereupon, at Fyfe's suggestion, he imported a fellow countryman, another bland, silent-footed model of efficiency in personal service. Thereafter Stella's task of supervision proved a sinecure. A week or so after their return, in sorting over some of her belongings, she came across the check Charlie had given her: that two hundred and seventy dollars which represented the only money she had ever earned in her life. She studied it a minute, then went out to where her husband sat perched on the verandah rail. "You might cash this, Jack," she suggested. He glanced at the slip. "Better have it framed as a memento," he said, smiling. "You'll never earn two hundred odd dollars so hard again, I hope. No, I'd keep it, if I were you. If ever you should need it, it'll always be good--unless Charlie goes broke." There never had been any question of money between them. From the day of their marriage Fyfe had made her a definite monthly allowance, a greater sum than she needed or spent. "As a matter of fact," he went on, "I'm going to open an account in your name at the Royal Bank, so you can negotiate your own paper and pay your own bills by check." She went in and put away the check. It was hers, earned, all too literally, in the sweat of her brow. For all that it represented she had given service threefold. If ever there came a time when that hunger for independence which had been fanned to a flame in her brother's kitchen should demand appeasement--she pulled herself up short when she found her mind running upon such an eventuality. Her future was ordered. She was married--to be a mother. Here lay her home. All about her ties were in process of formation, ties that with time would grow stronger than any shackles of steel, constraining her to walk in certain ways,--ways that were pleasant enough, certain of ease if not of definite purpose. Yet now and then she found herself falling into fits of abstraction in which Roaring Lake and Jack Fyfe, all that meant anything to her now, faded into the background, and she saw herself playing a lone hand against the world, making her individual struggle to be something more than the petted companion of a dominant male and the mother of his children. She never quite lost sight of the fact that marriage had been the last resort, that in effect she had taken the avenue her personal charm afforded to escape drudgery and isolation. There was still deep-rooted in her a craving for something bigger than mere ease of living. She knew as well as she knew anything that in the natural evolution of things marriage and motherhood should have been the big thing in her life. And it was not. It was too incidental, too incomplete, too much like a mere breathing-place on life's highway. Sometimes she reasoned with herself bluntly, instead of dreaming, was driven to look facts in the eye because she did dream. Always she encountered the same obstacle, a feeling that she had been defrauded, robbed of something vital; she had forgone that wonderful, passionate drawing together which makes the separate lives of the man and woman who experiences it so fuse that in the truest sense of the word they become one. Mostly she kept her mind from that disturbing introspection, because invariably it led her to vague dreaming of a future which she told herself--sometimes wistfully--could never be realized. She had shut the door on many things, it seemed to her now. But she had the sense to know that dwelling on what might have been only served to make her morbid, and did not in the least serve to alter the unalterable. She had chosen what seemed to her at the time the least of two evils, and she meant to abide steadfast by her choice. Charlie Benton came to visit them. Strangely enough to Stella, who had never seen him on Roaring Lake, at least, dressed otherwise than as his loggers, he was sporting a natty gray suit, he was clean shaven, Oxford ties on his feet, a gentleman of leisure in his garb. If he had started on the down grade the previous winter, he bore no signs of it now, for he was the picture of ruddy vigor, clear-eyed, brown-skinned, alert, bubbling over with good spirits. "Why, say, you look like a tourist," Fyfe remarked after an appraising glance. "I'm making money, pulling ahead of the game, that's all," Benton retorted cheerfully. "I can afford to take a holiday now and then. I'm putting a million feet a month in the water. That's going some for small fry like me. Say, this house of yours is all to the good, Jack. It's got class, outside and in. Makes a man feel as if he had to live up to it, eh? Mackinaws and calked boots don't go with oriental rugs and oak floors." "You should get a place like this as soon as possible then," Stella put in drily, "to keep you up to the mark, on edge aesthetically, one might put it." "Not to say morally," Benton laughed. "Oh, maybe I'll get to it by and by, if the timber business holds up." Later, when he and Stella were alone together, he said to her: "You're lucky. You've got everything, and it comes without an effort. You sure showed good judgment when you picked Jack Fyfe. He's a thoroughbred." "Oh, thank you," she returned, a touch of irony in her voice, a subtlety of inflection that went clean over Charlie's head. He was full of inquiries about where they had been that winter, what they had done and seen. Also he brimmed over with his own affairs. He stayed overnight and went his way with a brotherly threat of making the Fyfe bungalow his headquarters whenever he felt like it. "It's a touch of civilization that looks good to me," he declared. "You can put my private mark on one of those big leather chairs, Jack. I'm going to use it often. All you need to make this a social center is a good-looking girl or two--unmarried ones. You watch. When the summer flock comes to the lake, your place is going to be popular." That observation verified Benton's shrewdness. The Fyfe bungalow did become popular. Two weeks after Charlie's visit, a lean, white cruiser, all brass and mahogany above her topsides, slid up to the float, and two women came at a dignified pace along the path to the house. Stella had met Linda Abbey once, reluctantly, under the circumstances, but it was different now--with the difference that money makes. She could play hostess against an effective background, and she did so graciously. Nor was her graciousness wholly assumed. After all, they were her kind of people: Linda, fair-haired, perfectly gowned, perfectly mannered, sweetly pretty; Mrs. Abbey, forty-odd and looking thirty-five, with that calm self-assurance which wealth and position confer upon those who hold it securely. Stella found them altogether to her liking. It pleased her, too, that Jack happened in to meet them. He was not a scintillating talker, yet she had noticed that when he had anything to say, he never failed to attract and hold attention. His quiet, impersonal manner never suggested stolidness. And she was too keen an observer to overlook the fact that from a purely physical standpoint Jack Fyfe made an impression always, particularly on women. Throughout that winter it had not disturbed her. It did not disturb her now, when she noticed Linda Abbey's gaze coming back to him with a veiled appraisal in her blue eyes that were so like Fyfe's own in their tendency to twinkle and gleam with no corresponding play of features. "We'll expect to see a good deal of you this summer," Mrs. Abbey said cordially at leave-taking. "We have a few people up from town now and then to vary the monotony of feasting our souls on scenery. Sometimes we are quite a jolly crowd. Don't be formal. Drop in when you feel the inclination." When Stella reminded Jack of this some time later, in a moment of boredom, he put the _Panther_ at her disposal for the afternoon. But he would not go himself. He had opened up a new outlying camp, and he had directions to issue, work to lay out. "You hold up the social end of the game," he laughed. "I'll hustle logs." So Stella invaded the Abbey-Monohan precincts by herself and enjoyed it--for she met a houseful of young people from the coast, and in that light-hearted company she forgot for the time being that she was married and the responsible mistress of a house. Paul Abbey was there, but he had apparently forgotten or forgiven the blow she had once dealt his vanity. Paul, she reflected, was not the sort to mourn a lost love long. She had the amused experience too of beholding Charlie Benton appear an hour or so before she departed and straightway monopolize Linda Abbey in his characteristically impetuous fashion. Charlie was no diplomat. He believed in driving straight to any goal he selected. "So _that's_ the reason for the outward metamorphosis," Stella reflected. "Well?" Altogether she enjoyed the afternoon hugely. The only fly in her ointment was a greasy smudge bestowed upon her dress--a garment she prized highly--by some cordage coiled on the _Panther's_ deck. The black tender had carried too many cargoes of loggers and logging supplies to be a fit conveyance for persons in party attire. She exhibited the soiled gown to Fyfe with due vexation. "I hope you'll have somebody scrub down the _Panther_ the next time I want to go anywhere in a decent dress," she said ruefully. "That'll never come out. And it's the prettiest thing I've got too." "Ah, what's the odds?" Fyfe slipped one arm around her waist. "You can buy more dresses. Did you have a good time? That's the thing!" That ruined gown, however, subsequently produced an able, forty-foot, cruising launch, powerfully engined, easy in a sea, and comfortably, even luxuriously fitted as to cabin. With that for their private use, the _Panther_ was left to her appointed service, and in the new boat Fyfe and Stella spent many a day abroad on Roaring Lake. They fished together, explored nooks and bays up and down its forty miles of length, climbed hills together like the bear of the ancient rhyme, to see what they could see. And the _Waterbug_ served to put them on intimate terms with their neighbors, particularly the Abbey crowd. The Abbeys took to them wholeheartedly. Fyfe himself was highly esteemed by the elder Abbey, largely, Stella suspected, for his power on Roaring Lake. Abbey _père_ had built up a big fortune out of timber. He respected any man who could follow the same path to success. Therefore he gave Fyfe double credit,--for making good, and for a personality that could not be overlooked. He told Stella that once; that is to say, he told her confidentially that her husband was a very "able" young man. Abbey senior was short and double-chinned and inclined to profuse perspiration if he moved in haste over any extended time. Paul promised to be like him, in that respect. Summer slipped by. There were dances, informal little hops at the Abbey domicile, return engagements at the Fyfe bungalow, laughter and music and Japanese lanterns strung across the lawn. There was tea and tennis and murmuring rivers of small talk. And amid this Stella Fyfe flitted graciously, esteeming it her world, a fair measure of what the future might be. Viewed in that light, it seemed passable enough. Later, when summer was on the wane, she withdrew from much of this activity, spending those days when she did not sit buried in a book out on the water with her husband. When October ushered in the first of the fall rains, they went to Vancouver and took apartments. In December her son was born. CHAPTER XIV A CLOSE CALL AND A NEW ACQUAINTANCE With the recurrence of spring, Fyfe's household transferred itself to the Roaring Lake bungalow again. Stella found the change welcome, for Vancouver wearied her. It was a little too crude, too much as yet in the transitory stage, in that civic hobbledehoy period which overtakes every village that shoots up over-swiftly to a city's dimensions. They knew people, to be sure, for the Abbey influence would have opened the way for them into any circle. Stella had made many friends and pleasant acquaintances that summer on the lake, but part of that butterfly clique sought pleasanter winter grounds before she was fit for social activity. Apart from a few more or less formal receptions and an occasional auction party, she found it pleasanter to stay at home. Fyfe himself had spent only part of his time in town after their boy was born. He was extending his timber operations. What he did not put into words, but what Stella sensed because she experienced the same thing herself, was that town bored him to death,--such town existence as Vancouver afforded. Their first winter had been different, because they had sought places where there was manifold variety of life, color, amusement. She was longing for the wide reach of Roaring Lake, the immense amphitheater of the surrounding mountains, long before spring. So she was quite as well pleased when a mild April saw them domiciled at home again. In addition to Sam Foo and Feng Shu, there was a nurse for Jack Junior. Stella did not suggest that; Fyfe insisted on it. He was quite proud of his boy, but he did not want her chained to her baby. "If the added expense doesn't count, of course a nurse will mean a lot more personal freedom," Stella admitted. "You see, I haven't the least idea of your resources, Jack. All I know about it is that you allow me plenty of money for my individual expenses. And I notice we're acquiring a more expensive mode of living all the time." "That's so," Fyfe responded. "I never have gone into any details of my business with you. No reason why you shouldn't know what limits there are to our income. You never happened to express any curiosity before. Operating as I did up till lately, the business netted anywhere from twelve to fifteen thousand a year. I'll double that this season. In fact, with the amount of standing timber I control, I could make it fifty thousand a year by expanding and speeding things up. I guess you needn't worry about an extra servant or two." So, apart from voluntary service on behalf of Jack Junior, she was free as of old to order her days as she pleased. Yet that small morsel of humanity demanded much of her time, because she released through the maternal floodgates a part of that passionate longing to bestow love where her heart willed. Sometimes she took issue with herself over that wayward tendency. By all the rules of the game, she should have loved her husband. He was like a rock, solid, enduring, patient, kind, and generous. He stood to her in the most intimate relation that can exist between a man and a woman. But she never fooled herself; she never had so far as Jack Fyfe was concerned. She liked him, but that was all. He was good to her, and she was grateful. Sometimes she had a dim sense that under his easy-going exterior lurked a capacity for tremendously passionate outbreak. If she had been compelled to modify her first impression of him as an arrogant, dominant sort of character, scarcely less rough than the brown firs out of which he was hewing a fortune, she knew likewise that she had never seen anything but the sunny side of him. He still puzzled her a little at times; there were odd flashes of depths she could not see into, a quality of unexpectedness in things he would do and say. Even so, granting that in him was embodied so much that other men she knew lacked, she did not love him; there were indeed times when she almost resented him. Why, she could not perhaps have put into words. It seemed too fantastic for sober summing-up, when she tried. But lurking always in the background of her thoughts was the ghost of an unrealized dream, a nebulous vision which once served to thrill her in secret. It could never be anything but a vision, she believed now, and believing, regretted. The cold facts of her existence couldn't be daydreamed away. She was married, and marriage put a full stop to the potential adventuring of youth. Twenty and maidenhood lies at the opposite pole from twenty-four and matrimony. Stella subscribed to that. She took for her guiding-star--theoretically--the twin concepts of morality and duty as she had been taught to construe them. So she saw no loophole, and seeing none, felt cheated of something infinitely precious. Marriage and motherhood had not come to her as the fruits of love, as the passionately eager fulfilling of her destiny. It had been thrust upon her. She had accepted it as a last resort at a time when her powers of resistance to misfortune were at the ebb. She knew that this sort of self-communing was a bad thing, that it was bound to sour the whole taste of life in her mouth. As much as possible she thrust aside those vague, repressed longings. Materially she had everything. If she had foregone that bargain with Jack Fyfe, God only knew what long-drawn agony of mind and body circumstances and Charlie Benton's subordination of her to his own ends might have inflicted upon her. That was the reverse of her shield, but one that grew dimmer as time passed. Mostly, she took life as she found it, concentrating upon Jack Junior, a sturdy boy with blue eyes like his father, and who grew steadily more adorable. Nevertheless she had recurring periods when moodiness and ill-stifled discontent got hold of her. Sometimes she stole out along the cliffs to sit on a mossy boulder, staring with absent eyes at the distant hills. And sometimes she would slip out in a canoe, to lie rocking in the lake swell,--just dreaming, filled with a passive sort of regret. She could not change things now, but she could not help wishing she could. Fyfe warned her once about getting offshore in the canoe. Roaring Lake, pent in the shape of a boomerang between two mountain ranges, was subject to squalls. Sudden bursts of wind would shoot down its length like blasts from some monster funnel. Stella knew that; she had seen the glassy surface torn into whitecaps in ten minutes, but she was not afraid of the lake nor the lake winds. She was hard and strong. The open, the clean mountain air, and a measure of activity, had built her up physically. She swam like a seal. Out in that sixteen-foot Peterboro she could detach herself from her world of reality, lie back on a cushion, and lose herself staring at the sky. She paid little heed to Fyfe's warning beyond a smiling assurance that she had no intention of courting a watery end. So one day in mid-July she waved a farewell to Jack Junior, crowing in his nurse's lap on the bank, paddled out past the first point to the north, and pillowing her head on a cushioned thwart, gave herself up to dreamy contemplation on the sky. There was scarce a ripple on the lake. A faint breath of an offshore breeze fanned her, drifting the canoe at a snail's pace out from land. Stella luxuriated in the quiet afternoon. A party of campers cruising the lake had tarried at the bungalow till after midnight. Jack Fyfe had risen at dawn to depart for some distant logging point. Stella, once wakened, had risen and breakfasted with him. She was tired, drowsy, content to lie there in pure physical relaxation. Lying so, before she was aware of it, her eyes closed. She wakened with a start at a cold touch of moisture on her face,--rain, great pattering drops. Overhead an ominously black cloud hid the face of the sun. The shore, when she looked, lay a mile and a half abeam. To the north and between her and the land's rocky line was a darkening of the lake's surface. Stella reached for her paddle. The black cloud let fall long, gray streamers of rain. There was scarcely a stirring of the air, but that did not deceive her. There was a growing chill, and there was that broken line sweeping down the lake. Behind that was wind, a summer gale, the black squall dreaded by the Siwashes. She had to buck her way to shore through that. She drove hard on the paddle. She was not afraid, but there rose in her a peculiar tensed-up feeling. Ahead lay a ticklish bit of business. The sixteen-foot canoe dwarfed to pitiful dimensions in the face of that snarling line of wind-harried water. She could hear the distant murmur of it presently, and gusty puffs of wind began to strike her. Then it swept up to her, a ripple, a chop, and very close behind that the short, steep, lake combers with a wind that blew off the tops as each wave-head broke in white, bubbling froth. Immediately she began to lose ground. She had expected that, and it did not alarm her. If she could keep the canoe bow on, there was an even chance that the squall would blow itself out in half an hour. But keeping the canoe bow on proved a task for stout arms. The wind would catch all that forward part which thrust clear as she topped a sea and twist it aside, tending always to throw her broadside into the trough. Spray began to splash aboard. The seas were so short and steep that the Peterboro would rise over the crest of a tall one and dip its bow deep in the next, or leap clear to strike with a slap that made Stella's heart jump. She had never undergone quite that rough and tumble experience in a small craft. She was being beaten farther out and down the lake, and her arms were growing tired. Nor was there any slackening of the wind. The combined rain and slaps of spray soaked her thoroughly. A puddle gathered about her knees in the bilge, sloshing fore and aft as the craft pitched, killing the natural buoyancy of the canoe so that she dove harder. Stella took a chance, ceased paddling, and bailed with a small can. She got a tossing that made her head swim while she lay in the trough. And when she tried to head up into it again, one comber bigger than its fellows reared up and slapped a barrel of water inboard. The next wave swamped her. Sunk to the clamps, Stella held fast to the topsides, crouching on her knees, immersed to the hips in water that struck a chill through her flesh. She had the wit to remember and act upon Jack Fyfe's coaching, namely, to sit tight and hang on. No sea that ever ran can sink a canoe. Wood is buoyant. So long as she could hold on, the submerged craft would keep her head and shoulders above water. But it was numbing cold. Fed by glacial streams, Roaring Lake is icy in hottest midsummer. What with paddling and bailing and the excitement of the struggle, Stella had wasted no time gazing about for other boats. She knew that if any one at the camp saw her, rescue would be speedily effected. Now, holding fast and sitting quiet, she looked eagerly about as the swamped canoe rose loggily on each wave. Almost immediately she was heartened by seeing distinctly some sort of craft plunging through the blow. She had not long to wait after that, for the approaching launch was a lean-lined speeder, powerfully engined, and she was being forced. Stella supposed it was one of the Abbey runabouts. Even with her teeth chattering and numbness fastening itself upon her, she shivered at the chances the man was taking. It was no sea for a speed boat to smash into at thirty miles an hour. She saw it shoot off the top of one wave and disappear in a white burst of spray, slash through the next and bury itself deep again, flinging a foamy cloud far to port and starboard. Stella cried futilely to the man to slow down. She could hang on a long time yet, but her voice carried no distance. After that she had not long to wait. In four minutes the runabout was within a hundred yards, open exhausts cracking like a machine gun. And then the very thing she expected and dreaded came about. Every moment she expected to see him drive bows under and go down. Here and there at intervals uplifted a comber taller than its fellows, standing, just as it broke, like a green wall. Into one such hoary-headed sea the white boat now drove like a lance. Stella saw the spray leap like a cascade, saw the solid green curl deep over the forward deck and engine hatch and smash the low windshield. She heard the glass crack. Immediately the roaring exhausts died. Amid the whistle of the wind and the murmur of broken water, the launch staggered like a drunken man, lurched off into the trough, deep down by the head with the weight of water she had taken. The man in her stood up with hands cupped over his mouth. "Can you hang on a while longer?" he shouted. "Till I can get my boat bailed?" "I'm all right," she called back. She saw him heave up the engine hatch. For a minute or two he bailed rapidly. Then he spun the engine, without result. He straightened up at last, stood irresolute a second, peeled off his coat. The launch lay heavily in the trough. The canoe, rising and clinging on the crest of each wave, was carried forward a few feet at a time, taking the run of the sea faster than the disabled motorboat. So now only a hundred-odd feet separated them, but they could come no nearer, for the canoe was abeam and slowly drifting past. Stella saw the man stoop and stand up with a coil of line in his hand. Then she gasped, for he stepped on the coaming and plunged overboard in a beautiful, arching dive. A second later his head showed glistening above the gray water, and he swam toward her with a slow, overhand stroke. It seemed an age--although the actual time was brief enough--before he reached her. She saw then that there was method in his madness, for the line strung out behind him, fast to a cleat on the launch. He laid hold of the canoe and rested a few seconds, panting, smiling broadly at her. "Sorry that whopping wave put me out of commission," he said at last. "I'd have had you ashore by now. Hang on for a minute." He made the line fast to a thwart near the bow. Holding fast with one hand, he drew the swamped canoe up to the launch. In that continuous roll it was no easy task to get Stella aboard, but they managed it, and presently she sat shivering in the cockpit, watching the man spill the water out of the Peterboro till it rode buoyantly again. Then he went to work at his engine methodically, wiping dry the ignition terminals, all the various connections where moisture could effect a short circuit. At the end of a few minutes, he turned the starting crank. The multiple cylinders fired with a roar. He moved back behind the wrecked windshield where the steering gear stood. "Well, Miss Ship-wrecked Mariner," said he lightly, "where do you wish to be landed?" "Over there, if you please." Stella pointed to where the red roof of the bungalow stood out against the green. "I'm Mrs. Fyfe." "Ah!" said he. An expression of veiled surprise flashed across his face. "Another potential romance strangled at birth. You know, I hoped you were some local maiden before whom I could pose as a heroic rescuer. Such is life. Odd, too. Linda Abbey--I'm the Monohan tail to the Abbey business kite, you see--impressed me as pilot for a spin this afternoon and backed out at the last moment. I think she smelled this blow. So I went out for a ride by myself. I was glowering at that new house through a glass when I spied you out in the thick of it." He had the clutch in now, and the launch was cleaving the seas, even at half speed throwing out wide wings of spray. Some of this the wind brought across the cockpit. "Come up into this seat," Monohan commanded. "I don't suppose you can get any wetter, but if you put your feet through this bulkhead door, the heat from the engine will warm you. By Jove, you're fairly shivering." "It's lucky for me you happened along," Stella remarked, when she was ensconced behind the bulkhead. "I was getting so cold. I don't know how much longer I could have stood it." "Thank the good glasses that picked you out. You were only a speck on the water, you know, when I sighted you first." He kept silent after that. All his faculties were centered on the seas ahead which rolled up before the sharp cutwater of the launch. He was making time and still trying to avoid boarding seas. When a big one lifted ahead, he slowed down. He kept one hand on the throttle control, whistling under his breath disconnected snatches of song. Stella studied his profile, clean-cut as a cameo and wholly pleasing. He was almost as big-bodied as Jack Fyfe, and full four inches taller. The wet shirt clinging close to his body outlined well-knit shoulders, ropy-muscled arms. He could easily have posed for a Viking, so strikingly blond was he, with fair, curly hair. She judged that he might be around thirty, yet his face was altogether boyish. Sitting there beside him, shivering in her wet clothes, she found herself wondering what magnetic quality there could be about a man that focussed a woman's attention upon him whether she willed it or no. Why should she feel an oddly-disturbing thrill at the mere physical nearness of this fair-haired stranger? She did. There was no debating that. And she wondered--wondered if a bolt of that lightning she had dreaded ever since her marriage was about to strike her now. She hoped not. All her emotions had lain fallow. If Jack Fyfe had no power to stir her,--and she told herself Jack had so failed, without asking herself why,--then some other man might easily accomplish that, to her unutterable grief. She had told herself many a time that no more terrible plight could overtake her than to love and be loved and sit with hands folded, foregoing it all. She shrank from so tragic an evolution. It meant only pain, the ache of unfulfilled, unattainable desires. If, she reflected cynically, this man beside her stood for such a motif in her life, he might better have left her out in the swamped canoe. While she sat there, drawn-faced with the cold, thinking rather amazedly these things which she told herself she had no right to think, the launch slipped into the quiet nook of Cougar Bay and slowed down to the float. Monohan helped her out, threw off the canoe's painter, and climbed back into the launch. "You're as wet as I am," Stella said. "Won't you come up to the house and get a change of clothes? I haven't even thanked you." "Nothing to be thanked for," he smiled up at her. "Only please remember not to get offshore in a canoe again. I mightn't be handy the next time--and Roaring Lake's as fickle as your charming sex. All smiles one minute, storming the next. No, I won't stay this time, thanks. A little wet won't hurt me. I wasn't in the water long enough to get chilled, you know. I'll be home in half an hour. Run along and get dressed, Mrs. Fyfe, and drink something hot to drive that chill away. Good-by." Stella went up to the house, her hand tingling with his parting grip. Over and above the peril she had escaped rose an uneasy vision of a greater peril to her peace of mind. The platitudes of soul-affinity, of irresistible magnetic attraction, of love that leaped full-blown into reality at the touch of a hand or the glance of an eye, she had always viewed with distrust, holding them the weaknesses of weak, volatile natures. But there was something about this man which had stirred her, nothing that he said or did, merely some elusive, personal attribute. She had never undergone any such experience, and she puzzled over it now. A chance stranger, and his touch could make her pulse leap. It filled her with astonished dismay. Afterward, dry-clad and warm, sitting in her pet chair, Jack Junior cooing at her from a nest among cushions on the floor, the natural reaction set in, and she laughed at herself. When Fyfe came home, she told him lightly of her rescue. He said nothing at first, only sat drumming on his chair-arm, his eyes steady on her. "That might have cost you your life," he said at last. "Will you remember not to drift offshore again?" "I rather think I shall," she responded. "It wasn't a pleasant experience." "Monohan, eh?" he remarked after another interval. "So he's on Roaring Lake again." "Do you know him?" she asked. "Yes," he replied briefly. For a minute or so longer he sat there, his face wearing its habitual impassiveness. Then he got up, kissed her with a queer sort of intensity, and went put. Stella gazed after him, mildly surprised. It wasn't quite in his usual manner. CHAPTER XV A RESURRECTION It might have been a week or so later that Stella made a discovery which profoundly affected the whole current of her thought. The long twilight was just beginning. She was curled on the living-room floor, playing with the baby. Fyfe and Charlie Benton sat by a window, smoking, conversing, as they frequently did, upon certain phases of the timber industry. A draft from an open window fluttered some sheet music down off the piano rack, and Stella rescued it from Jack Junior's tiny, clawing hands. Some of the Abbeys had been there the evening before. One bit of music was a song Linda had tried to sing and given up because it soared above her vocal range. Stella rose to put up the music. Without any premeditated idea of playing, she sat down at the piano and began to run over the accompaniment. She could play passably. "That doesn't seem so very hard," she thought aloud. Benton turned at sound of her words. "Say, did you never get any part of your voice back, Stell?" he asked. "I never hear you try to sing." "No," she answered. "I tried and tried long after you left home, but it was always the same old story. I haven't sung a note in five years." "Linda fell down hard on that song last night," he went on. "There was a time when that wouldn't have been a starter for you, eh? Did you know Stella used to warble like a prima donna, Jack?" Fyfe shook his head. "Fact. The governor spent a pot of money cultivating her voice. It was some voice, too. She--" He broke off to listen. Stella was humming the words of the song, her fingers picking at the melody instead of the accompaniment. "Why, you can," Benton cried. "Can what?" She turned on the stool. "Sing, of course. You got that high trill that Linda had to screech through. You got it perfectly, without effort." "I didn't," she returned. "Why, I wasn't singing, just humming it over." "You let out a link or two on those high notes just the same, whether you knew you were doing it or not," her brother returned impatiently. "Go on. Turn yourself loose. Sing that song." "Oh, I couldn't," Stella said ruefully. "I haven't tried for so long. It's no use. My voice always cracks, and I want to cry." "Crack fiddlesticks!" Benton retorted. "I know what it used to be. Believe me, it sounded natural, even if you were just lilting. Here." He came over to the piano and playfully edged her off the stool. "I'm pretty rusty," he said. "But I can fake what I can't play of this. It's simple enough. You stand up there and sing." She only stood looking at him. "Go on," he commanded. "I believe you can sing anything. You have to show me, if you can't." Stella fingered the sheets reluctantly. Then she drew a deep breath and began. It was not a difficult selection, merely a bit from a current light opera, with a closing passage that ranged a trifle too high for the ordinary untrained voice to take with ease. Stella sang it effortlessly, the last high, trilling notes pouring out as sweet and clear as the carol of a lark. Benton struck the closing chord and looked up at her. Fyfe leaned forward in his chair. Jack Junior, among his pillows on the floor, waved his arms, kicking and gurgling. "You did pretty well on that," Charlie remarked complacently. "Now _sing_ something. Got any of your old pieces?" "I wonder if I could?" Stella murmured. "I'm almost afraid to try." She hurried away to some outlying part of the house, reappearing in a few minutes with a dog-eared bundle of sheets in her hand. From among these she selected three and set them on the rack. Benton whistled when he glanced over the music. "The Siren Song," he grunted. "What is it? something new? Lord, look at the scale. Looks like one of those screaming arias from the 'Flying Dutchman.' Some stunt." "Marchand composed it for the express purpose of trying out voices," Stella said. "It _is_ a stunt." "You'll have to play your own accompaniment," Charlie grinned. "That's too much for me." "Oh, just so you give me a little support here and there," Stella told him. "I can't sing sitting on a piano stool." Benton made a face at the music and struck the keys. It seemed to Stella nothing short of a miracle. She had been mute so long. She had almost forgotten what a tragedy losing her voice had been. And to find it again, to hear it ring like a trumpet. It did! It was too big for the room. She felt herself caught up in a triumphant ecstasy as she sang. She found herself blinking as the last note died away. Her brother twisted about on the piano stool, fumbling for a cigarette. "And still they say they can't come back," he remarked at last. "Why, you're better than you ever were, Stella. You've got the old sweetness and flexibility that dad used to rave about. But your voice is bigger, somehow different. It gets under a man's skin." She picked up the baby from the floor, began to play with him. She didn't want to talk. She wanted to think, to gloat over and hug to herself this miracle of her restored voice. She was very quiet, very much absorbed in her own reflections until it was time--very shortly--to put Jack Junior in his bed. That was a function she made wholly her own. The nurse might greet his waking whimper in the morning and minister to his wants throughout the day, but Stella "tucked him in" his crib every night. And after the blue eyes were closed, she sat there, very still, thinking. In a detached way she was conscious of hearing Charlie leave. Later, when she was sitting beside her dressing table brushing her hair, Fyfe came in. He perched himself on the foot rail of the bed, looking silently at her. She had long grown used to that. It was a familiar trick of his. "How did it happen that you've never tried your voice lately?" he asked after a time. "I gave it up long ago," she said. "Didn't I ever tell you that I used to sing and lost my voice?" "No," he answered. "Charlie did just now. You rather took my breath away. It's wonderful. You'd be a sensation in opera." "I might have been," she corrected. "That was one of my little dreams. You don't know what a grief it was to me when I got over that throat trouble and found I couldn't sing. I used to try and try--and my voice would break every time. I lost all heart to try after a while. That was when I wanted to take up nursing, and they wouldn't let me. I haven't thought about singing for an age. I've crooned lullabies to Jacky without remembering that I once had volume enough to drown out an accompanist. Dad was awfully proud of my voice." "You've reason to be proud of it now," Fyfe said slowly. "It's a voice in ten thousand. What are going to do with it?" Stella drew the brush mechanically through her heavy hair. She had been asking herself that. What could she do? A long road and a hard one lay ahead of her or any other woman who essayed to make her voice the basis of a career. Over and above that she was not free to seek such a career. Fyfe himself knew that, and it irritated her that he should ask such a question. She swung about on him. "Nothing," she said a trifle tartly. "How can I? Granting that my voice is worth the trouble, would you like me to go and study in the East or abroad? Would you be willing to bear the expense of such an undertaking? To have me leave Jack to nursemaids and you to your logs?" "So that in the fullness of time I might secure a little reflected glory as the husband of Madame Fyfe, the famous soprano," he replied slowly. "Well, I can't say that's a particularly pleasing prospect." "Then why ask me what I'm going to do with it?" she flung back impatiently. "It'll be an asset--like my looks--and--and--" She dropped her face in her hands, choking back an involuntary sob. Fyfe crossed the room at a bound, put his arms around her. "Stella, Stella!" he cried sharply. "Don't be a fool." "D--don't be cross, Jack," she whispered. "Please. I'm sorry. I simply can't help it. You don't understand." "Oh, don't I?" he said savagely. "I understand too well; that's the devil of it. But I suppose that's a woman's way,--to feed her soul with illusions, and let the realities go hang. Look here." He caught her by the shoulders and pulled her to her feet, facing him. There was a fire in his eye, a hard shutting together of his lips that frightened her a little. "Look here," he said roughly. "Take a brace, Stella. Do you realize what sort of a state of mind you're drifting into? You married me under more or less compulsion,--compulsion of circumstances,--and gradually you're beginning to get dissatisfied, to pity yourself. You'll precipitate things you maybe don't dream of now, if you keep on. Damn it, I didn't create the circumstances. I only showed you a way out. You took it. It satisfied you for a while; you can't deny it did. But it doesn't any more. You're nursing a lot of illusions, Stella, that are going to make your life full of misery." "I'm not," she sobbed. "It's because I haven't any illusions that--that--Oh, what's the use of talking, Jack? I'm not complaining. I don't even know what gave me this black mood, just now. I suppose that queer miracle of my voice coming back upset me. I feel--well, as if I were a different person, somehow; as if I had forfeited any right to have it. Oh, it's silly, you'll say. But it's there. I can't help my feeling--or my lack of it." Fyfe's face whitened a little. His hands dropped from her shoulders. "Now you're talking to the point," he said quietly. "Especially that last. We've been married some little time now, and if anything, we're farther apart in the essentials of mating than we were at the beginning. You've committed yourself to an undertaking, yet more and more you encourage yourself to wish for the moon. If you don't stop dreaming and try real living, don't you see a lot of trouble ahead for yourself? It's simple. You're slowly hardening yourself against me, beginning to resent my being a factor in your life. It's only a matter of time, if you keep on, until your emotions center about some other man." "Why do you talk like that?" she said bitterly. "Do you think I've got neither pride nor self-respect?" "Yes. Both a-plenty," he answered. "But you're a woman, with a rather complex nature even for your sex. If your heart and your head ever clash over anything like that, you'll be in perfect hell until one or the other gets the upper hand. You're a thoroughbred, and high-strung as thoroughbreds are. It takes something besides three meals a day and plenty of good clothes to complete your existence. If I can't make it complete, some other man will make you think he can. Why don't you try? Haven't I got any possibilities as a lover? Can't you throw a little halo of romance about me, for your own sake--if not for mine?" He drew her up close to him, stroking tenderly the glossy brown hair that flowed about her shoulders. "Try it, Stella," he whispered passionately. "Try wanting to like me, for a change. I can't make love by myself. Shake off that infernal apathy that's taking possession of you where I'm concerned. If you can't love me, for God's sake fight with me. Do _something_!" CHAPTER XVI THE CRISIS Looking back at that evening as the summer wore on, Stella perceived that it was the starting point of many things, no one of them definitely outstanding by itself but bulking large as a whole. Fyfe made his appeal, and it left her unmoved save in certain superficial aspects. She was sorry, but she was mostly sorry for herself. And she denied his premonition of disaster. If, she said to herself, they got no raptures out of life, at least they got along without friction. In her mind their marriage, no matter that it lacked what she no less than Fyfe deemed an essential to happiness, was a fixed state, final, irrevocable, not to be altered by any emotional vagaries. No man, she told herself, could make her forget her duty. If it should befall that her heart, lacking safe anchorage, went astray, that would be her personal cross--not Jack Fyfe's. _He_ should never know. One might feel deeply without being moved to act upon one's feelings. So she assured herself. She never dreamed that Jack Fyfe could possibly have foreseen in Walter Monohan a dangerous factor in their lives. A man is not supposed to have uncanny intuitions, even when his wife is a wonderfully attractive woman who does not care for him except in a friendly sort of way. Stella herself had ample warning. From the first time of meeting, the man's presence affected her strangely, made an appeal to her that no man had ever made. She felt it sitting beside him in the plunging launch that day when Roaring Lake reached its watery arms for her. There was seldom a time when they were together that she did not feel it. And she pitted her will against it, as something to be conquered and crushed. There was no denying the man's personal charm in the ordinary sense of the word. He was virile, handsome, cultured, just such a man as she could easily have centered her heart upon in times past,--just such a man as can set a woman's heart thrilling when he lays siege to her. If he had made an open bid for Stella's affection, she, entrenched behind all the accepted canons of her upbringing, would have recoiled from him, viewed him with wholly distrustful eyes. But he did nothing of the sort. He was a friend, or at least he became so. Inevitably they were thrown much together. There was a continual informal running back and forth between Fyfe's place and Abbey's. Monohan was a lily of the field, although it was common knowledge on Roaring Lake that he was a heavy stock-holder in the Abbey-Monohan combination. At any rate, he was holidaying on the lake that summer. There had grown up a genuine intimacy between Linda and Stella. There were always people at the Abbeys'; sometimes a few guests at the Fyfe bungalow. Stella's marvellous voice served to heighten her popularity. The net result of it all was that in the following three months source three days went by that she did not converse with Monohan. She could not help making comparisons between the two men. They stood out in marked contrast, in manner, physique, in everything. Where Fyfe was reserved almost to taciturnity, impassive-featured, save for that whimsical gleam that was never wholly absent from his keen blue eyes, Monohan talked with facile ease, with wonderful expressiveness of face. He was a finished product of courteous generations. Moreover, he had been everywhere, done a little of everything, acquired in his manner something of the versatility of his experience. Physically he was fit as any logger in the camps, a big, active-bodied, clear-eyed, ruddy man. What it was about him that stirred her so, Stella could never determine. She knew beyond peradventure that he had that power. He had the gift of quick, sympathetic perception,--but so too had Jack Fyfe, she reminded herself. Yet no tone of Jack Fyfe's voice could raise a flutter in her breast, make a faint flush glow in her cheeks, while Monohan could do that. He did not need to be actively attentive. It was only necessary for him to be near. It dawned upon Stella Fyfe in the fullness of the season, when the first cool October days were upon them, and the lake shores flamed again with the red and yellow and umber of autumn, that she had been playing with fire--and that fire burns. This did not filter into her consciousness by degrees. She had steeled herself to seeing him pass away with the rest of the summer folk, to take himself out of her life. She admitted that there would be a gap. But that had to be. No word other than friendly ones would ever pass between them. He would go away, and she would go on as before. That was all. She was scarcely aware how far they had traveled along that road whereon travelers converse by glance of eye, by subtle intuitions, eloquent silences. Monohan himself delivered the shock that awakened her to despairing clearness of vision. He had come to bring her a book, he and Linda Abbey and Charlie together,--a commonplace enough little courtesy. And it happened that this day Fyfe had taken his rifle and vanished into the woods immediately after luncheon. Between Linda Abbey and Charlie Benton matters had so far progressed that it was now the most natural thing for them to seek a corner or poke along the beach together, oblivious to all but themselves. This afternoon they chatted a while with Stella and then gradually detached themselves until Monohan, glancing through the window, pointed them out to his hostess. They were seated on a log at the edge of the lawn, a stone's throw from the house. "They're getting on," he said. "Lucky beggars. It's all plain sailing for them." There was a note of infinite regret in his voice, a sadness that stabbed Stella Fyfe like a lance. She did not dare look at him. Something rose chokingly in her throat. She felt and fought against a slow welling of tears to her eyes. Before she sensed that she was betraying herself, Monohan was holding both her hands fast between his own, gripping them with a fierce, insistent pressure, speaking in a passionate undertone. "Why should we have to beat our heads against a stone wall like this?" he was saying wildly. "Why couldn't we have met and loved and been happy, as we could have been? It was fated to happen. I felt it that day I dragged you out of the lake. It's been growing on me ever since. I've struggled against it, and it's no use. It's something stronger than I am. I love you, Stella, and it maddens me to see you chafing in your chains. Oh, my dear, why couldn't it have been different?" "You mustn't talk like that," she protested weakly. "You mustn't. It isn't right." "I suppose it's right for you to live with a man you don't love, when your heart's crying out against it?" he broke out. "My God, do you think I can't see? I don't have to see things; I can feel them. I know you're the kind of woman who goes through hell for her conceptions of right and wrong. I honor you for that, dear. But, oh, the pity of it. Why should it have to be? Life could have held so much that is fine and true for you and me together. For you do care, don't you?" "What difference does that make?" she whispered. "What difference can it make? Oh, you mustn't tell me these things, I mustn't listen. I mustn't." "But they're terribly, tragically true," Monohan returned. "Look at me, Stella. Don't turn your face away, dear. I wouldn't do anything that might bring the least shadow on you. I know the pitiful hopelessness of it. You're fettered, and there's no apparent loophole to freedom. I know it's best for me to keep this locked tight in my heart, as something precious and sorrowful. I never meant to tell you. But the flesh isn't always equal to the task the spirit imposes." She did not answer him immediately, for she was struggling for a grip on herself, fighting back an impulse to lay her head against him and cry her agony out on his breast. All the resources of will that she possessed she called upon now to still that tumult of emotion that racked her. When she did speak, it was in a hard, strained tone. But she faced the issue squarely, knowing beyond all doubt what she had to face. "Whether I care or not isn't the question," she said. "I'm neither little enough nor prudish enough to deny a feeling that's big and clean. I see no shame in that. I'm afraid of it--if you can understand that. But that's neither here nor there. I know what I have to do. I married without love, with my eyes wide open, and I have to pay the price. So you must never talk to me of love. You mustn't even see me, if it can be avoided. It's better that way. We can't make over our lives to suit ourselves--at least I can't. I must play the game according to the only rules I know. We daren't--we mustn't trifle with this sort of a feeling. With you--footloose, and all the world before you--it'll die out presently." "No," he flared. "I deny that. I'm not an impressionable boy. I know myself." He paused, and the grip of his hands on hers tightened till the pain of it ran to her elbows. Then his fingers relaxed a little. "Oh, I know," he said haltingly. "I know it's got to be that way. I have to go my road and leave you to yours. Oh, the blank hopelessness of it, the useless misery of it. We're made for each other, and we have to grin and say good-by, go along our separate ways, trying to smile. What a devilish state of affairs! But I love you, dear, and no matter--I--ah--" His voice flattened out. His hands released hers, he straightened quickly. Stella turned her head. Jack Fyfe stood in the doorway. His face was fixed in its habitual mask. He was biting the end off a cigar. He struck a match and put it to the cigar end with steady fingers as he walked slowly across the big room. "I hear the kid peeping," he said to Stella quite casually, "and I noticed Martha outside as I came in. Better go see what's up with him." Trained to repression, schooled in self-control, Stella rose to obey, for under the smoothness of his tone there was the iron edge of command. Her heart apparently ceased to beat. She tried to smile, but she knew that her face was tear-wet. She knew that Jack Fyfe had seen and understood. She had done no wrong, but a terrible apprehension of consequences seized her, a fear that tragedy of her own making might stalk grimly in that room. In this extremity she banked with implicit faith on the man she had married rather than the man she loved. For the moment she felt overwhelmingly glad that Jack Fyfe was iron--cool, unshakable. He would never give an inch, but he would never descend to any sordid scene. She could not visualize him the jealous, outraged husband, breathing the conventional anathema, but there were elements unreckonable in that room. She knew instinctively that Fyfe once aroused would be deadly in anger and she could not vouch for Monohan's temper under the strain of feeling. That was why she feared. So she lingered a second or two outside the door, quaking, but there arose only the sound of Fyfe's heavy body settling into a leather chair, and following that the low, even rumble of his voice. She could not distinguish words. The tone sounded ordinary, conversational. She prayed that his intent was to ignore the situation, that Monohan would meet him halfway in that effort. Afterward there would be a reckoning. But for herself she neither thought nor feared. It was a problem to be faced, that was all. And so, the breath of her coming in short, quick respirations, she went to her room. There was no wailing from the nursery. She had known that. Sitting beside a window, chin in hand, her lower lip compressed between her teeth, she saw Fyfe, after the lapse of ten minutes, leave by the front entrance, stopping to chat a minute with Linda and Charlie Benton, who were moving slowly toward the house. Stella rose to her feet and dabbed at her face with a powdered chamois. She couldn't let Monohan go like that; her heart cried out against it. Very likely they would never meet again. She flew down the hall to the living room. Monohan stood just within the front door, gazing irresolutely over his shoulder. He took a step or two to meet her. His clean-cut face was drawn into sullen lines, a deep flush mantled his cheek. "Listen," he said tensely. "I've been made to feel like--like--Well, I controlled myself. I knew it had to be that way. It was unfortunate. I think we could have been trusted to do the decent thing. You and I were bred to do that. I've got a little pride. I can't come here again. And I want to see you once more before I leave here for good. I'll be going away next week. That'll be the end of it--the bitter finish. Will you slip down to the first point south of Cougar Bay about three in the afternoon to-morrow? It'll be the last and only time. He'll have you for life; can't I talk to you for twenty minutes?" "No," she whispered forlornly. "I can't do that. I--oh, good-by--good-by." "Stella, Stella," she heard his vibrant whisper follow after. But she ran away through dining room and hall to the bedroom, there to fling herself face down, choking back the passionate protest that welled up within her. She lay there, her face buried in the pillow, until the sputtering exhaust of the Abbey cruiser growing fainter and more faint told her they were gone. She heard her husband walk through the house once after that. When dinner was served, he was not there. It was eleven o'clock by the time-piece on her mantel when she heard him come in, but he did not come to their room. He went quietly into the guest chamber across the hall. She waited through a leaden period. Then, moved by an impulse she did not attempt to define, a mixture of motives, pity for him, a craving for the outlet of words, a desire to set herself right before him, she slipped on a dressing robe and crossed the hall. The door swung open noiselessly. Fyfe sat slumped in a chair, hat pulled low on his forehead, hands thrust deep in his pockets. He did not even look up. His eyes stared straight ahead, absent, unseeingly fixed on nothing. He seemed to be unconscious of her presence or to ignore it,--she could not tell which. "Jack," she said. And when he made no response she said again, tremulously, that unyielding silence chilling her, "Jack." He stirred a little, but only to take off his hat and lay it on a table beside him. With one hand pushing back mechanically the straight, reddish-tinged hair from his brow, he looked up at her and said briefly, in a tone barren of all emotion: "Well?" She was suddenly dumb. Words failed her utterly. Yet there was much to be said, much that was needful to say. They could not go on with a cloud like that over them, a cloud that had to be dissipated in the crucible of words. Yet she could not begin. Fyfe, after a prolonged silence, seemed to grasp her difficulty. Abruptly he began to speak, cutting straight to the heart of his subject, after his fashion. "It's a pity things had to take his particular turn," said he. "But now that you're face to face with something definite, what do you propose to do about it?" "Nothing," she answered slowly. "I can't help the feeling. It's there. But I can thrust it into the background, go on as if it didn't exist. There's nothing else for me to do, that I can see. I'm sorry, Jack." "So am I," he said grimly. "Still, it was a chance we took,--or I took, rather. I seem to have made a mistake or two, in my estimate of both you and myself. That is human enough, I suppose. You're making a bigger mistake than I did though, to let Monohan sweep you off your feet." There was something that she read for contempt in his tone. It stung her. "He hasn't swept me off my feet, as you put it," she cried. "Good Heavens, do you think I'm that spineless sort of creature? I've never forgotten I'm your wife. I've got a little self-respect left yet, if I was weak enough to grasp at the straw you threw me in the beginning. I was honest with you then. I'm trying to be honest with you now." "I know, Stella," he said gently. "I'm not throwing mud. It's a damnably unfortunate state of affairs, that's all. I foresaw something of the sort when we were married. You were candid enough about your attitude. But I told myself like a conceited fool that I could make your life so full that in a little while I'd be the only possible figure on your horizon. I've failed. I've known for some time that I was going to fail. You're not the thin-blooded type of woman that is satisfied with pleasant surroundings and any sort of man. You're bound to run the gamut of all the emotions, sometime and somewhere. I loved you, and I thought in my conceit I could make myself the man, the one man who would mean everything to you." "Just the same," he continued, "you've been a fool, and I don't see how you can avoid paying the penalty for folly." "What do you mean?" she asked. "You haven't tried to play the game," he answered tensely. "For months you've been withdrawing into your shell. You've been clanking your chains and half-heartedly wishing for some mysterious power to strike them off. It wasn't a thing you undertook lightly. It isn't a thing--marriage, I mean--that you hold lightly. That being the case, you would have been wise to try making the best of it, instead of making the worst of it. But you let yourself drift into a state of mind where you--well, you see the result. I saw it coming. I didn't need to happen in this afternoon to know that there were undercurrents of feeling swirling about. And so the way you feel now is in itself a penalty. If you let Monohan cut any more figure in your thoughts, you'll pay bigger in the end." "I can't help my thoughts, or I should say my feelings," she said wearily. "You think you love him," Fyfe made low reply. "As a matter of fact, you love what you think he is. I daresay that he has sworn his affection by all that's good and great. But if you were convinced that he didn't really care, that his flowery protestations had a double end in view, would you still love him?" "I don't know," she murmured. "But that's beside the point. I do love him. I know it's unwise. It's a feeling that has overwhelmed me in a way that I didn't believe possible, that I had hoped to avoid. But--but I can't pretend, Jack. I don't want you to misunderstand. I don't want this to make us both miserable. I don't want it to generate an atmosphere of suspicion and jealousy. We'd only be fighting about a shadow. I never cheated at anything in my life. You can trust me still, can't you?" "Absolutely," Fyfe answered without hesitation. "Then that's all there is to it," she replied, "unless--unless you're ready to give me up as a hopeless case, and let me go away and blunder along the best I can." He shook his head. "I haven't even considered that," he said. "Very likely it's unwise of me to say this,--it will probably antagonize you,--but I know Monohan better than you do. I'd go pretty far to keep you two apart--now--for your sake." "It would be the same if it were any other man," she muttered. "I can understand that feeling in you. It's so--so typically masculine." "No, you're wrong there, dead wrong," Fyfe frowned. "I'm not a self-sacrificing brute by any means. Still, knowing that you'll only live with me on sufferance, if you were honestly in love with a man that I felt was halfway decent, I'd put my feelings in my pocket and let you go. If you cared enough for him to break every tie, to face the embarrassment of divorce, why, I'd figure you were entitled to your freedom and whatever happiness it might bring. But Monohan--hell, I don't want to talk about him. I trust you, Stella. I'm banking on your own good sense. And along with that good, natural common sense, you've got so many illusions. About life in general, and about men. They seem to have centered about this one particular man. I can't open your eyes or put you on the right track. That's a job for yourself. All I can do is to sit back and wait." His voice trailed off huskily. Stella put a hand on his shoulder. "Do you care so much as all that, Jack?" she whispered. "Even in spite of what you know?" "For two years now," he answered, "you've been the biggest thing in my life. I don't change easy; I don't want to change. But I'm getting hopeless." "I'm sorry, Jack," she said. "I can't begin to tell you how sorry I am. I didn't love you to begin with--" "And you've always resented that," he broke in. "You've hugged that ghost of a loveless marriage to your bosom and sighed for the real romance you'd missed. Well, maybe you did. But you haven't found it yet. I'm very sure of that, although I doubt if I could convince you." "Let me finish," she pleaded. "You knew I didn't love you--that I was worn out and desperate and clutching at the life line you threw. In spite of that,--well, if I fight down this love, or fascination, or infatuation, or whatever it is,--I'm not sure myself, except that it affects me strongly,--can't we be friends again?" "Friends! Oh, hell!" Fyfe exploded. He came up out of his chair with a blaze in his eyes that startled her, caught her by the arm, and thrust her out the door. "Friends? You and I?" He sank his voice to a harsh whisper. "My God--friends! Go to bed. Good night." He pushed her into the hall, and the lock clicked between them. For one confused instant Stella stood poised, uncertain. Then she went into her bedroom and sat down, her keenest sensation one of sheer relief. Already in those brief hours emotion had well-nigh exhausted her. To be alone, to lie still and rest, to banish thought,--that was all she desired. She lay on her bed inert, numbed, all but her mind, and that traversed section by section in swift, consecutive progress all the amazing turns of her life since she first came to Roaring Lake. There was neither method nor inquiry in this back-casting--merely a ceaseless, involuntary activity of the brain. A little after midnight when all the house was hushed, she went into the adjoining room, cuddled Jack Junior into her arms, and took him to her own bed. With his chubby face nestled against her breast, she lay there fighting against that interminable, maddening buzzing in her brain. She prayed for sleep, her nervous fingers stroking the silky, baby hair. CHAPTER XVII IN WHICH THERE IS A FURTHER CLASH One can only suffer so much. Poignant feeling brings its own anaesthetic. When Stella Fyfe fell into a troubled sleep that night, the storm of her emotions had beaten her sorely. Morning brought its physical reaction. She could see things clearly and calmly enough to perceive that her love for Monohan was fraught with factors that must be taken into account. All the world loves a lover, but her world did not love lovers who kicked over the conventional traces. She had made a niche for herself. There were ties she could not break lightly, and she was not thinking of herself alone when she considered that, but of her husband and Jack Junior, of Linda Abbey and Charlie Benton, of each and every individual whose life touched more or less directly upon her own. She had known always what a woman should do in such case, what she had been taught a woman should do: grin, as Monohan had said, and take her medicine. For her there was no alternative. Fyfe had made that clear. But her heart cried out in rebellion against the necessity. To her, trying to think logically, the most grievous phase of the doing was the fact that nothing could ever be the same again. She could go on. Oh, yes. She could dam up the wellspring of her impulses, walk steadfast along the accustomed ways. But those ways would not be the old ones. There would always be the skeleton at the feast. She would know it was there, and Jack Fyfe would know, and she dreaded the fruits of that knowledge, the bitterness and smothered resentment it would breed. But it had to be. As she saw it, there was no choice. She came down to breakfast calmly enough. It was nothing that could be altered by heroics, by tears and wailings. Not that she was much given to either. She had not whined when her brother made things so hard for her that any refuge seemed alluring by comparison. Curiously enough, she did not blame her brother now; neither did she blame Jack Fyfe. She told herself that in first seeking the line of least resistance she had manifested weakness, that since her present problem was indirectly the outgrowth of that original weakness, she would be weak no more. So she tried to meet her husband as if nothing had happened, in which she succeeded outwardly very well indeed, since Fyfe himself chose to ignore any change in their mutual attitude. She busied herself about the house that forenoon, seeking deliberately a multitude of little tasks to occupy her hands and her mind. But when lunch was over, she was at the end of her resources. Jack Junior settled in his crib for a nap. Fyfe went away to that area back of the camp where arose the crash of falling trees and the labored puffing of donkey engines. She could hear faint and far the voices of the falling gangs that cried: "Tim-ber-r-r-r." She could see on the bank, a little beyond the bunkhouse and cook-shack, the big roader spooling up the cable that brought string after string of logs down to the lake. Rain or sun, happiness or sorrow, the work went on. She found it in her heart to envy the sturdy loggers. They could forget their troubles in the strain of action. Keyed as she was to that high pitch, that sense of their unremitting activity, the ravaging of the forest which produced the resources for which she had sold herself irritated her. She was very bitter when she thought that. She longed for some secluded place to sit and think, or try to stop thinking. And without fully realizing the direction she took, she walked down past the camp, crossed the skid-road, stepping lightly over main line and haul-back at the donkey engineer's warning, and went along the lake shore. A path wound through the belt of brush and hardwood that fringed the lake. Not until she had followed this up on the neck of a little promontory south of the bay, did she remember with a shock that she was approaching the place where Monohan had begged her to meet him. She looked at her watch. Two-thirty. She sought the shore line for sight of a boat, wondering if he would come in spite of her refusal. But to her great relief she saw no sign of him. Probably he had thought better of it, had seen now as she had seen then that no good and an earnest chance of evil might come of such a clandestine meeting, had taken her stand as final. She was glad, because she did not want to go back to the house. She did not want to make the effort of wandering away in the other direction to find that restful peace of woods and water. She moved up a little on the point until she found a mossy boulder and sat down on that, resting her chin in her palms, looking out over the placid surface of the lake with somber eyes. And so Monohan surprised her. The knoll lay thick-carpeted with moss. He was within a few steps of her when a twig cracking underfoot apprised her of some one's approach. She rose, with an impulse to fly, to escape a meeting she had not desired. And as she rose, the breath stopped in her throat. Twenty feet behind Monohan came Jack Fyfe with his hunter's stride, soundlessly over the moss, a rifle drooping in the crook of his arm. A sunbeam striking obliquely between two firs showed her his face plainly, the faint curl of his upper lip. Something in her look arrested Monohan. He glanced around, twisted about, froze in his tracks, his back to her. Fyfe came up. Of the three he was the coolest, the most rigorously self-possessed. He glanced from Monohan to his wife, back to Monohan. After that his blue eyes never left the other man's face. "What did I say to you yesterday?" Fyfe opened his mouth at last. "But then I might have known I was wasting my breath on you!" "Well," Monohan retorted insolently, "what are you going to do about it? This isn't the Stone Age." Fyfe laughed unpleasantly. "Lucky for you. You'd have been eliminated long ago," he said. "No, it takes the present age to produce such rotten specimens as you." A deep flush rose in Monohan's cheeks. He took a step toward Fyfe, his hands clenched. "You wouldn't say that if you weren't armed," he taunted hoarsely. "No?" Fyfe cast the rifle to one side. It fell with a metallic clink against a stone. "I do say it though, you see. You are a sort of a yellow dog, Monohan. You know it, and you know that I know it. That's why it stings you to be told so." Monohan stepped back and slipped out of his coat. His face was crimson. "By God, I'll teach you something," he snarled. He lunged forward as he spoke, shooting a straight-arm blow for Fyfe's face. It swept through empty air, for Fyfe, poised on the balls of his feet, ducked under the driving fist, and slapped Monohan across the mouth with the open palm of his hand. "Tag," he said sardonically. "You're It." Monohan pivoted, and rushing, swung right and left, missing by inches. Fyfe's mocking grin seemed to madden him completely. He rushed again, launching another vicious blow that threw him partly off his balance. Before he could recover, Fyfe kicked both feet from under him, sent him sprawling on the moss. Stella stood like one stricken. The very thing she dreaded had come about. Yet the manner of its unfolding was not as she had visualized it when she saw Fyfe near at hand. She saw now a side of her husband that she had never glimpsed, that she found hard to understand. She could have understood him beating Monohan senseless, if he could. A murderous fury of jealousy would not have surprised her. This did. He had not struck a blow, did not attempt to strike. She could not guess why, but she saw that he was playing with Monohan, making a fool of him, for all Monohan's advantage of height and reach. Fyfe moved like the light, always beyond Monohan's vengeful blows, slipping under those driving fists to slap his adversary, to trip him, mocking him with the futility of his effort. She felt herself powerless to stop that sorry exhibition. It was not a fight for her. Dimly she had a feeling that back of her lay something else. An echo of it had been more than once in Fyfe's speech. Here and now, they had forgotten her at the first word. They were engaged in a struggle for mastery, sheer brute determination to hurt each other, which had little or nothing to do with her. She foresaw, watching the odd combat with a feeling akin to fascination, that it was a losing game for Monohan. Fyfe was his master at every move. Yet he did not once attempt to strike a solid blow, nothing but that humiliating, open-handed slap, that dexterous swing of his foot that plunged Monohan headlong. He grinned steadily, a cold grimace that reflected no mirth, being merely a sneering twist of his features. Stella knew the deadly strength of him. She wondered at his purpose, how it would end. The elusive light-footedness of the man, the successive stinging of those contemptuous slaps at last maddened Monohan into ignoring the rules by which men fight. He dropped his hands and stood panting with his exertions. Suddenly he kicked, a swift lunge for Fyfe's body. Fyfe leaped aside. Then he closed. Powerful and weighty a man as Monohan was, Fyfe drove him halfway around with a short-arm blow that landed near his heart, and while he staggered from that, clamped one thick arm about his neck in the strangle-hold. Holding him helpless, bent backwards across his broad chest, Fyfe slowly and systematically choked him; he shut off his breath until Monohan's tongue protruded, and his eyes bulged glassily, and horrible, gurgling noises issued from his gaping mouth. "Jack, Jack!" Stella found voice to shriek. "You're killing him." Fyfe lifted his eyes to hers. The horror he saw there may have stirred him. Or he may have considered his object accomplished. Stella could not tell. But he flung Monohan from him with a force that sent him reeling a dozen feet, to collapse on the moss. It took him a full minute to regain his breath, to rise to unsteady feet, to find his voice. "You can't win all the time," he gasped. "By God, I'll show you that you can't." With that he turned and went back the way he had come. Fyfe stood silent, hands resting on his hips, watching until Monohan pushed out a slim speed launch from under cover of overhanging alders and set off down the lake. "Well," he remarked then, in a curiously detached, impersonal tone. "The lightning will begin to play by and by, I suppose." "What do you mean?" Stella asked breathlessly. He did not answer. His eyes turned to her slowly. She saw now that his face was white and rigid, that the line of his lips drew harder together as he looked at her; but she was not prepared for the storm that broke. She did not comprehend the tempest that raged within him until he had her by the shoulders, his fingers crushing into her soft flesh like the jaws of a trap, shaking her as a terrier might shake a rat, till the heavy coils of hair cascaded over her shoulders, and for a second fear tugged at her heart. For she thought he meant to kill her. When he did desist, he released her with a thrust of his arms that sent her staggering against a tree, shaken to the roots of her being, though not with fear. Anger had displaced that. A hot protest against his brute strength, against his passionate outbreak, stirred her. Appearances were against her, she knew. Even so, she revolted against his cave-man roughness. She was amazed to find herself longing for the power to strike him. She faced him trembling, leaning against the tree trunk, staring at him in impotent rage. And the fire died out of his eyes as she looked. He drew a deep breath or two and turned away to pick up his rifle. When he faced about with that in his hand, the old mask of immobility was in place. He waited while Stella gathered up her scattered hairpins and made shift to coil her hair into a semblance of Order. Then he said gently: "I won't break out like that again." "Once is enough." "More than enough--for me," he answered. She disdained reply. Striking off along the path that ran to the camp, she walked rapidly, choking a rising flood of desperate thought. With growing coolness paradoxically there burned hotter the flame of an elemental wrath. What right had he to lay hands on her? Her shoulders ached, her flesh was bruised from the terrible grip of his fingers. The very sound of his footsteps behind her was maddening. To be suspected and watched, to be continually the target of jealous fury! No, a thousand times, no. She wheeled on him at last. "I can't stand this," she cried. "It's beyond endurance. We're like flint and steel to each other now. If to-day's a sample of what we may expect, it's better to make a clean sweep of everything. I've got to get away from here and from you--from everybody." Fyfe motioned her to a near-by log. "Sit down," said he. "We may as well have it out here." For a few seconds he busied himself with a cigar, removing the band with utmost deliberation, biting the end off, applying the match, his brows puckered slightly. "It's very unwise of you to meet Monohan like that," he uttered finally. "Oh, I see," she flashed. "Do you suggest that I met him purposely--by appointment? Even if I did--" "That's for you to say, Stella," he interrupted gravely. "I told you last night that I trusted you absolutely. I do, so far as really vital things are concerned, but I don't always trust your judgment. I merely know that Monohan sneaked along shore, hid his boat, and stole through the timber to where you were sitting. I happened to see him, and I followed him to see what he was up to, why he should take such measures to keep under cover." "The explanation is simple," she answered stiffly. "You can believe it or not, as you choose. My being there was purely unintentional. If I had seen him before he was close, I should certainly not have been there. I have been at odds with myself all day, and I went for a walk, to find a quiet place where I could sit and think." "It doesn't matter now," he said. "Only you'd better try to avoid things like that in the future. Would you mind telling me just exactly what you meant a minute ago? Just what you propose to do?" He asked her that as one might make any commonplace inquiry, but his quietness did not deceive Stella. "What I said," she began desperately. "Wasn't it plain enough? It seems to me our life is going to be a nightmare from now on if we try to live it together. I--I'm sorry, but you know how I feel. It may be unwise, but these things aren't dictated by reason. You know that. If our emotions were guided by reason and expediency, we'd be altogether different. Last night I was willing to go on and make the best of things. To-day,--especially after this,--it looks impossible. You'll look at me, and guess what I'm thinking, and hate me. And I'll grow to hate you, because you'll be little better than a jailer. Oh, don't you see that the way we'll feel will make us utterly miserable? Why should we stick together when no good can come of it? You've been good to me. I've appreciated that and liked you for it. I'd like to be friends. But I--I'd hate you with a perfectly murderous hatred if you were always on the watch, always suspecting me, if you taunted me as you did a while ago. I'm just as much a savage at heart as you are, Jack Fyfe. I could gladly have killed you when you were jerking me about back yonder." "I wonder if you are, after all, a little more of a primitive being than I've supposed?" Fyfe leaned toward her, staring fixedly into her eyes--eyes that were bright with unshed tears. "And I was holding the devil in me down back there, because I didn't want to horrify you with anything like brutality," he went on thoughtfully. "You think I grinned and made a monkey of _him_ because it pleased me to do that? Why, I could have--and ached to--break him into little bits, to smash him up so that no one would ever take pleasure in looking at him again. And I didn't, simply and solely because I didn't want to let you have even a glimpse of what I'm capable of when I get started. I wonder if I made a mistake? It was merely the reaction from letting him go scot-free that made me shake you so. I wonder--well, never mind. Go on." "I think it's better that I should go away," Stella said. "I want you to agree that I should; then there will be no talk or anything disagreeable from outside sources. I'm strong, I can get on. It'll be a relief to have to work. I won't have to be the kitchen drudge Charlie made of me. I've got my voice. I'm quite sure I can capitalize that. But I've got to go. Anything's better than this; anything that's clean and decent. I'd despise myself if I stayed on as your wife, feeling as I do. It was a mistake in the beginning, our marriage." "Nevertheless," Fyfe said slowly, "I'm afraid it's a mistake you'll have to abide by--for a time. All that you say may be true, although I don't admit it myself. Offhand, I'd say you were simply trying to welch on a fair bargain. I'm not going to let you do it blindly, all wrought up to a pitch where you can scarcely think coherently. If you are fully determined to break away from me, you owe it to us both to be sure of what you're doing before you act. I'm going to talk plain. You can believe it and disdain it if you please. If you were leaving me for a man, a real man, I think I could bring myself to make it easy for you and wish you luck. But you're not. He's--" "Can't we leave him out of it?" she demanded. "I want to get away from you both. Can you understand that? It doesn't help you any to pick _him_ to pieces." "No, but it might help you, if I could rip off that swathing of idealization you've wrapped around him," Fyfe observed patiently. "It's not a job I have much stomach for however, even if you were willing to let me try. But to come back. You've got to stick it out with me, Stella. You'll hate me for the constraint, I suppose. But until--until things shape up differently--you'll understand what I'm talking about by and by, I think--you've got to abide by the bargain you made with me. I couldn't force you to stay, I know. But there's one hold you can't break--not if I know you at all." "What is that?" she asked icily. "The kid's," he murmured. Stella buried her face in her hands for a minute. "I'd forgotten--I'd forgotten," she whispered. "You understand, don't you?" he said hesitatingly. "If you leave--I keep our boy." "Oh, you're devilish--to use a club like that," she cried. "You know I wouldn't part from my baby--the only thing I've got that's worth having." "He's worth something to me too," Fyfe muttered. "A lot more than you think, maybe. I'm not trying to club you. There's nothing in it for me. But for him; well, he needs you. It isn't his fault he's here, or that you're unhappy. I've got to protect him, see that he gets a fair shake. I can't see anything to it but for you to go on being Mrs. Jack Fyfe until such time as you get back to a normal poise. Then it will be time enough to try and work out some arrangement that won't be too much of a hardship on him. It's that--or a clean break in which you go your own way, and I try to mother him to the best of my ability. You'll understand sometime why I'm showing my teeth this way." "You have everything on your side," she admitted dully, after a long interval of silence. "I'm a fool. I admit it. Have things your way. But it won't work, Jack. This flare-up between us will only smoulder. I think you lay a little too much stress on Monohan. It isn't that I love him so much as that I don't love you at all. I can live without him--which I mean to do in any case--far easier than I can live with you. It won't work." "Don't worry," he replied. "You won't be annoyed by me in person. I'll have my hands full elsewhere." They rose and walked on to the house. On the porch Jack Junior was being wheeled back and forth in his carriage. He lifted chubby arms to his mother as she came up the steps. Stella carried him inside, hugging the sturdy, blue-eyed mite close to her breast. She did not want to cry, but she could not help it. It was as if she had been threatened with irrevocable loss of that precious bit of her own flesh and blood. She hugged him to her, whispering mother-talk, half-hysterical, wholly tender. Fyfe stood aside for a minute. Then he came up behind her and stood resting one hand on the back of her chair. "Stella." "Yes." "I got word from my sister and her husband in this morning's mail. They will very likely be here next week for a three days' stay. Brace up. Let's try and keep our skeleton from rattling while they're here. Will you?" "All right, Jack. I'll try." He patted her tousled hair lightly and left the room. Stella looked after him with a surge of mixed feeling. She told herself she hated him and his dominant will that always beat her own down; she hated him for his amazing strength and for his unvarying sureness of himself. And in the same breath she found herself wondering if,--with their status reversed,--Walter Monohan would be as patient, as gentle, as self-controlled with a wife who openly acknowledged her affection for another man. And still her heart cried out for Monohan. She flared hot against the disparaging note, the unconcealed contempt Fyfe seemed to have for him. Yet in spite of her eager defence of him, there was something ugly about that clash with Fyfe in the edge of the woods, something that jarred. It wasn't spontaneous. She could not understand that tigerish onslaught of Monohan's. It was more the action she would have expected from her husband. It puzzled her, grieved her, added a little to the sorrowful weight that settled upon her. They were turbulent spirits both. The matter might not end there. In the next ten days three separate incidents, each isolated and relatively unimportant, gave Stella food for much puzzled thought. The first was a remark of Fyfe's sister in the first hours of their acquaintance. Mrs. Henry Alden could never have denied blood kinship with Jack Fyfe. She had the same wide, good-humored mouth, the blue eyes that always seemed to be on the verge of twinkling, and the same fair, freckled skin. Her characteristics of speech resembled his. She was direct, bluntly so, and she was not much given to small talk. Fyfe and Stella met the Aldens at Roaring Springs with the _Waterbug_. Alden proved a genial sort of man past forty, a big, loose-jointed individual whose outward appearance gave no indication of what he was professionally,--a civil engineer with a reputation that promised to spread beyond his native States. "You don't look much different, Jack," his sister observed critically, as the _Waterbug_ backed away from the wharf in a fine drizzle of rain. "Except that as you grow older, you more and more resemble the pater. Has matrimony toned him down, my dear?" she turned to Stella. "The last time I saw him he had a black eye!" Fyfe did not give her a chance to answer. "Be a little more diplomatic, Dolly," he smiled. "Mrs. Jack doesn't realize what a rowdy I used to be. I've reformed." "Ah," Mrs. Alden chuckled, "I have a vision of you growing meek and mild." They talked desultorily as the launch thrashed along. Alden's profession took him to all corners of the earth. That was why the winter of Fyfe's honeymoon had not made them acquainted. Alden and his wife were then in South America. This visit was to fill in the time before the departure of a trans-Pacific liner which would land the Aldens at Manila. Presently the Abbey-Monohan camp and bungalow lay abeam. Stella told Mrs. Alden something of the place. "That reminds me," Mrs. Alden turned to her brother. "I was quite sure I saw Walter Monohan board a train while we were waiting for the hotel car in Hopyard. I heard that he was in timber out here. Is he this Monohan?" Fyfe nodded. "How odd," she remarked, "that you should be in the same region. Do you still maintain the ancient feud?" Fyfe shot her a queer look. "We've grown up, Dolly," he said drily. Then: "Do you expect to get back to God's country short of a year, Alden?" That was all. Neither of them reverted to the subject again. But Stella pondered. An ancient feud? She had not known of that. Neither man had ever dropped a hint. For the second incident, Paul Abbey dropped in to dinner a few days later and divulged a bit of news. "There's been a shake-up in our combination," he remarked casually to Fyfe. "Monohan and dad have split over a question of business policy. Walter's taking over all our interests on Roaring Lake. He appears to be going to peel off his coat and become personally active in the logging industry. Funny streak for Monohan to take, isn't it? He never seemed to care a hoot about the working end of the business, so long as it produced dividends." Lastly, Charlie Benton came over to eat a farewell dinner with the Aldens the night before they left. He followed Stella into the nursery when she went to tuck Jack Junior in his crib. "Say, Stella" he began, "I have just had a letter from old man Lander; you remember he was dad's legal factotum and executor." "Of course," she returned. "Well, do you recall--you were there when the estate was wound up, and I was not--any mention of some worthless oil stock? Some California wildcat stuff the governor got bit on? It was found among his effects." "I seem to recall something of the sort," she answered. "But I don't remember positively. What about it?" "Lander writes me that there is a prospect of it being salable. The company is reviving. And he finds himself without legal authority to do business, although the stock certificates are still in his hands. He suggests that we give him a power of attorney to sell this stuff. He's an awfully conservative old chap, so there must be a reasonable prospect of some cash, or he wouldn't bother. My hunch is to give him a power of attorney and let him use his own judgment." "How much is it worth?" she asked. "The par value is forty thousand dollars," Benton grinned. "But the governor bought it at ten cents on the dollar. If we get what he paid, we'll be lucky. That'll be two thousand apiece. I brought you a blank form. I'm going down with you on the _Bug_ to-morow to send mine. I'd advise you to have yours signed up and witnessed before a notary at Hopyard and send it too." "Of course I will," she said. "It isn't much," Benton mused, leaning on the foot of the crib, watching her smooth the covers over little Jack. "But it won't come amiss--to me, at least. I'm going to be married in the spring." Stella looked up. "You are?" she murmured. "To Linda Abbey?" He nodded. A slight flush crept over his tanned face at the steady look she bent on him. "Hang it, what are you thinking?" he broke out. "I know you've rather looked down on me because I acted like a bounder that winter. But I really took a tumble to myself. You set me thinking when you made that sudden break with Jack. I felt rather guilty about that--until I saw how it turned out. I know I'm not half good enough for Linda. But so long as she thinks I am and I try to live up to that, why we've as good a chance to be happy as anybody. We all make breaks, us fellows that go at everything roughshod. Still, when we pull up and take a new tack, you shouldn't hold grudges. If we could go back to that fall and winter, I'd do things a lot differently." "If you're both really and truly in love," Stella said quietly, "that's about the only thing that matters. I hope you'll be happy. But you'll have to be a lot different with Linda Abbey than you were with me." "Ah, Stella, don't harp on that," he said shame-facedly. "I was rotten, it's true. But we're all human. I couldn't see anything then only what I wanted myself. I was like a bull in a china shop. It's different now. I'm on my feet financially, and I've had time to draw my breath and take a squint at myself from a different angle. I did you a good turn, anyway, even if I was the cause of you taking a leap before you looked. You landed right." Stella mustered a smile that was purely facial. It maddened her to hear his complacent justification of himself. And the most maddening part of it was her knowledge that Benton was right, that in many essential things he had done her a good turn, which her own erratic inclinations bade fair to wholly nullify. "I wish you all the luck and happiness in the world," she said gently. "And I don't bear a grudge, believe me, Charlie. Now, run along. We'll keep baby awake, talking." "All right." He turned to go and came back again. "What I really came in to say, I've hardly got nerve enough for." He sank his voice to a murmur. "Don't fly off at me, Stell. But--you haven't got a trifle interested in Monohan, have you? I mean, you haven't let him think you are?" Stella's hands tightened on the crib rail. For an instant her heart stood still. A wholly unreasoning blaze of anger seized her. But she controlled that. Pride forbade her betraying herself. "What a perfectly ridiculous question," she managed to reply. He looked at her keenly. "Because, if you have--well, you might be perfectly innocent in the matter and still get in bad," he continued evenly. "I'd like to put a bug in your ear." She bent over Jack Junior, striving to inject an amused note into her reply. "Don't be so absurd, Charlie." "Oh, well, I suppose it is. Only, darn it, I've seen him look at you in a way--Pouf! I was going to tell you something. Maybe Jack has--only he's such a close-mouthed beggar. I'm not very anxious to peddle things." Benton turned again. "I guess you don't need any coaching from me, anyhow." He walked out. Stella stared after him, her eyes blazing, hands clenched into hard-knuckled little fists. She could have struck him. And still she wondered over and over again, burning with a consuming fire to know what that "something" was which he had to tell. All the slumbering devils of a stifled passion awoke to rend her, to make her rage against the coil in which she was involved. She despised herself for the weakness of unwise loving, even while she ached to sweep away the barriers that stood between her and love. Mingled with that there whispered an intuition of disaster to come, of destiny shaping to peculiar ends. In Monohan's establishing himself on Roaring Lake she sensed something more than an industrial shift. In his continued presence there she saw incalculable sources of trouble. She stood leaning over the bed rail, staring wistfully at her boy for a few minutes. When she faced the mirror in her room, she was startled at the look in her eyes, the nervous twitch of her lips. There was a physical ache in her breast. "You're a fool, a fool," she whispered to her image. "Where's your will, Stella Fyfe? Borrow a little of your husband's backbone. Presently--presently it won't matter." One can club a too assertive ego into insensibility. A man may smile and smile and be a villain still, as the old saying has it, and so may a woman smile and smile when her heart is tortured, when every nerve in her is strained to the snapping point. Stella went back to the living room and sang for them until it was time to go to bed. The Aldens went first, then Charlie. Stella left her door ajar. An hour afterward, when Fyfe came down the hall, she rose. It had been her purpose to call him in, to ask him to explain that which her brother had hinted he could explain, what prior antagonism lay between him and Monohan, what that "something" about Monohan was which differentiated him from other men where she was concerned. Instead she shut the door, slid the bolt home, and huddled in a chair with her face in her hands. She could not discuss Monohan with him, with any one. Why should she ask? she told herself. It was a closed book, a balanced account. One does not revive dead issues. CHAPTER XVIII THE OPENING GUN The month of November slid day by day into the limbo of the past. The rains washed the land unceasingly. Gray veilings of mist and cloud draped the mountain slopes. As drab a shade colored Stella Fyfe's daily outlook. She was alone a great deal. Even when they were together, she and her husband, words did not come easily between them. He was away a great deal, seeking, she knew, the old panacea of work, hard, unremitting work, to abate the ills of his spirit. She envied him that outlet. Work for her there was none. The two Chinamen and Martha the nurse left her no tasks. She could not read, for all their great store of books and magazines; the printed page would lie idle in her lap, and her gaze would wander off into vacancy, into that thought-world where her spirit wandered in distress. The Abbeys were long gone; her brother hard at his logging. There were no neighbors and no news. The savor was gone out of everything. The only bright spot in her days was Jack Junior, now toddling precociously on his sturdy legs, a dozen steps at a time, crowing victoriously when he negotiated the passage from chair to chair. From the broad east windows of their house she saw all the traffic that came and went on the upper reaches of Roaring Lake, Siwashes in dugouts and fishing boats, hunters, prospectors. But more than any other she saw the craft of her husband and Monohan, the powerful, black-hulled _Panther_, the smaller, daintier _Waterbug_. There was a big gasoline workboat, gray with a yellow funnel, that she knew was Monohan's. And this craft bore past there often, inching its downward way with swifters of logs, driving fast up-lake without a tow. Monohan had abandoned work on the old Abbey-Monohan logging-grounds. The camps and the bungalow lay deserted, given over to a solitary watchman. The lake folk had chattered at this proceeding, and the chatter had come to Stella's ears. He had put in two camps at the lake head, so she heard indirectly: one on the lake shore, one on the Tyee River, a little above the mouth. He had sixty men in each camp, and he was getting the name of a driver. Three miles above his Tyee camp, she knew, lay the camp her husband had put in during the early summer to cut a heavy limit of cedar. Fyfe had only a small crew there. She wondered a little why he spent so much time there, when he had seventy-odd men working near home. But of course he had an able lieutenant in Lefty Howe. And she could guess why Jack Fyfe kept away. She was sorry for him--and for herself. But being sorry--a mere semi-neutral state of mind--did not help matters, she told herself gloomily. Lefty Howe's wife was at the camp now, on one of her occasional visits. Howe was going across the lake one afternoon to see a Siwash whom he had engaged to catch and smoke a winter's supply of salmon for the camps. Mrs. Howe told Stella, and on impulse Stella bundled Jack Junior into warm clothing and went with them for the ride. Halfway across the six-mile span she happened to look back, and a new mark upon the western shore caught her eye. She found a glass and leveled it on the spot. Two or three buildings, typical logging-camp shacks of split cedar, rose back from the beach. Behind these again the beginnings of a cut had eaten a hole in the forest,--a slashing different from the ordinary logging slash, for it ran narrowly, straight back through the timber; whereas the first thing a logger does is to cut all the merchantable timber he can reach on his limit without moving his donkey from the water. It was not more than two miles from their house. "What new camp is that?" she asked Howe. "Monohan's," he answered casually. "I thought Jack owned all the shore timber to Medicine Point?" she said. Howe shook his head. "Uh-uh. Well, he does too, all but where that camp is. Monohan's got a freak limit in there. It's half a mile wide and two miles straight back from the beach. Lays between our holdin's like the ham in a sandwich. Only," he added thoughtfully, "it's a blame thin piece uh ham. About the poorest timber in a long stretch. I dunno why the Sam Hill he's cuttin' it. But then he's doin' a lot uh things no practical logger would do." Stella laid down the glasses. It was nothing to her, she told herself. She had seen Monohan only once since the day Fyfe choked him, and then only to exchange the barest civilities--and to feel her heart flutter at the message his eyes telegraphed. When she returned from the launch trip, Fyfe was home, and Charlie Benton with him. She crossed the heavy rugs on the living room floor noiselessly in her overshoes, carrying Jack Junior asleep in her arms. And so in passing the door of Fyfe's den, she heard her brother say: "But, good Lord, you don't suppose he'll be sap-head enough to try such fool stunts as that? He couldn't make it stick, and he brings himself within the law first crack; and the most he could do would be to annoy you." "You underestimate Monohan," Fyfe returned. "He'll play safe, personally, so far as the law goes. He's foxy. I advise you to sell if the offer comes again. If you make any more breaks at him, he'll figure some way to get you. It isn't your fight, you know. You unfortunately happen to be in the road." "Damned if I do," Benton swore. "I'm all in the clear. There's no way he can get me, and I'll tell him what I think of him again if he gives me half a chance. I never liked him, anyhow. Why should I sell when I'm just getting in real good shape to take that timber out myself? Why, I can make a hundred thousand dollars in the next five years on that block of timber. Besides, without being a sentimental sort of beggar, I don't lose sight of the fact that you helped pull me out of a hole when I sure needed a pull. And I don't like his high-handed style. No, if it comes to a showdown, I'm with you, Jack, as far as I can go. What the hell _can_ he do?" "Nothing--that I can see." Fyfe laughed unpleasantly. "But he'll try. He has dollars to our cents. He could throw everything he's got on Roaring Lake into the discard and still have forty thousand a year fixed income. Sabe? Money does more than talk in this country. I think I'll pull that camp off the Tyee." "Well, maybe," Benton said. "I'm not sure--" Stella passed on. She wanted to hear, but it went against her grain to eavesdrop. Her pause had been purely involuntary. When she became conscious that she was eagerly drinking in each word, she hurried by. Her mind was one urgent question mark while she laid the sleeping youngster in his bed and removed her heavy clothes. What sort of hostilities did Monohan threaten? Had he let a hopeless love turn to the acid of hate for the man who nominally possessed her? Stella could scarcely credit that. It was too much at variance with her idealistic conception of the man. He would never have recourse to such littleness. Still, the biting contempt in Fyfe's voice when he said to Benton: "You underestimate Monohan. He'll play safe ... he's foxy." That stung her to the quick. That was not said for her benefit; it was Fyfe's profound conviction. Based on what? He did not form judgments on momentary impulse. She recalled that only in the most indirect way had he ever passed criticism on Monohan, and then it lay mostly in a tone, suggested more than spoken. Yet he knew Monohan, had known him for years. They had clashed long before she was a factor in their lives. When she went into the big room, Benton and Fyfe were gone outdoors. She glanced into Fyfe's den. It was empty, but a big blue-print unrolled on the table where the two had been seated caught her eye. She bent over it, drawn by the lettered squares along the wavy shore line and the marked waters of creeks she knew. She had never before possessed a comprehensive idea of the various timber holdings along the west shore of Roaring Lake, since it had not been a matter of particular interest to her. She was not sure why it now became a matter of interest to her, unless it was an impression that over these squares and oblongs which stood for thousands upon thousands of merchantable logs there was already shaping a struggle, a clash of iron wills and determined purposes directly involving, perhaps arising because of her. She studied the blue-print closely. Its five feet of length embraced all the west shore of the lake, from the outflowing of Roaring River to the incoming Tyee at the head. Each camp was lettered in with pencil. But her attention focussed chiefly on the timber limits ranging north and south from their home, and she noted two details: that while the limits marked A-M Co. were impartially distributed from Cottonwood north, the squares marked J.H. Fyfe lay in a solid block about Cougar Bay,--save for that long tongue of a limit where she had that day noted the new camp. That thrust like the haft of a spear into the heart of Fyfe's timberland. There was the Abbey-Monohan cottage, the three limits her brother controlled lying up against Fyfe's southern boundary. Up around the mouth of the Tyee spread the vast checkerboard of Abbey-Monohan limits, and beyond that, on the eastern bank of the river, a single block,--Fyfe's cedar limit,--the camp he thought he would close down. Why? Immediately the query shaped in her mind. Monohan was concentrating his men and machinery at the lake head. Fyfe proposed to shut down a camp but well-established; established because cedar was climbing in price, an empty market clamoring for cedar logs. Why? Was there aught of significance in that new camp of Monohan's so near by; that sudden activity on ground that bisected her husband's property? A freak limit of timber so poor that Lefty Howe said it could only be logged at a loss. She sighed and went out to give dinner orders to Sam Foo. If she could only go to her husband and talk as they had been able to talk things over at first. But there had grown up between them a deadly restraint. She supposed that was inevitable. Both chafed under conditions they could not change or would not for stubbornness and pride. It made a deep impression on her, all these successive, disassociated finger posts, pointing one and all to things under the surface, to motives and potentialities she had not glimpsed before and could only guess at now. Fyfe and Benton came to dinner more or less preoccupied, an odd mood for Charlie Benton. Afterwards they went into session behind the closed door of Fyfe's den. An hour or so later Benton went home. While she listened to the soft _chuff-a-chuff-a-chuff_ of the _Chickamin_ dying away in the distance, Fyfe came in and slumped down in a chair before the fire where a big fir stick crackled. He sat there silent, a half-smoked cigar clamped in one corner of his mouth, the lines of his square jaw in profile, determined, rigid. Stella eyed him covertly. There were times, in those moods of concentration, when sheer brute power seemed his most salient characteristic. Each bulging curve of his thick upper arm, his neck rising like a pillar from massive shoulders, indicated his power. Yet so well-proportioned was he that the size and strength of him was masked by the symmetry of his body, just as the deliberate immobility of his face screened the play of his feelings. Often Stella found herself staring at him, fruitlessly wondering what manner of thought and feeling that repression overlaid. Sometimes a tricksy, half-provoked desire to break through the barricade of his stoicism tempted her. She told herself that she ought to be thankful for his aloofness, his acquiescence in things as they stood. Yet there were times when she would almost have welcomed an outburst, a storm, anything rather than that deadly chill, enduring day after day. He seldom spoke to her now except of most matter-of-fact things. He played his part like a gentleman before others, but alone with her he withdrew into his shell. Stella was sitting back in the shadow, still studying him, measuring him in spite of herself by the Monohan yardstick. There wasn't much basis for comparison. It wasn't a question of comparison; the two men stood apart, distinctive, in every attribute. The qualities in Fyfe that she understood and appreciated, she beheld glorified in Monohan. Yet it was not, after all, a question of qualities. It was something more subtle, something of the heart which defied logical analysis. Fyfe had never been able to set her pulse dancing. She had never craved physical nearness to him, so that she ached with the poignancy of that craving. She had been passively contented with him, that was all. And Monohan had swept across her horizon like a flame. Why couldn't Jack Fyfe have inspired in her that headlong sort of passion? She smiled hopelessly. The tears were very close to her eyes. She loved Monohan; Monohan loved her. Fyfe loved her in his deliberate, repressed fashion and possessed her, according to the matrimonial design. And although now his possession was a hollow mockery, he would never give her up--not to Walter Monohan. She had that fatalistic conviction. How would it end in the long run? She leaned forward to speak. Words quivered on her lips. But as she struggled to shape them to utterance, the blast of a boat whistle came screaming up from the water, near and shrill and imperative. Fyfe came out of his chair like a shot. He landed poised on his feet, lips drawn apart, hands clenched. He held that pose for an instant, then relaxed, his breath coming with a quick sigh. Stella stared at him. Nerves! She knew the symptoms too well. Nerves at terrible tension in that big, splendid body. A slight quiver seemed to run over him. Then he was erect and calmly himself again, standing in a listening attitude. "That's the _Panther_?" he said. "Pulling in to the _Waterbug's_ landing. Did I startle you when I bounced up like a cougar, Stella?" he asked, with a wry smile. "I guess I was half asleep. That whistle jolted me." Stella glanced out the shaded window. "Some one's coming up from the float with a lantern," she said. "Is there--is there likely to be anything wrong, Jack?" "Anything wrong?" He shot a quick glance at her. Then casually: "Not that I know of." The bobbing lantern came up the path through the lawn. Footsteps crunched on the gravel. "I'll go see what he wants," Fyfe remarked, "Calked boots won't be good for the porch floor." She followed him. "Stay in. It's cold." He stopped in the doorway. "No. I'm coming," she persisted. They met the lantern bearer at the foot of the steps. "Well, Thorsen?" Fyfe shot at him. There was an unusual note of sharpness in his voice, an irritated expectation. Stella saw that it was the skipper of the _Panther_, a big and burly Dane. He raised the lantern a little. The dim light on his face showed it bruised and swollen. Fyfe grunted. "Our boom is hung up," he said plaintively. "They've blocked the river. I got licked for arguin' the point." "How's it blocked?" Fyfe asked. "Two swifters uh logs strung across the channel. They're drivin' piles in front. An' three donkeys buntin' logs in behind." "Swift work. There wasn't a sign of a move when I left this morning," Fyfe commented drily. "Well, take the _Panther_ around to the inner landing. I'll be there." "What's struck that feller Monohan?" the Dane sputtered angrily. "Has he got any license to close the Tyee? He says he has--an' backs his argument strong, believe me. Maybe you can handle him. I couldn't. Next time I'll have a cant-hook handy. By jingo, you gimme my pick uh Lefty's crew, Jack, an' I'll bring that cedar out." "Take the _Panther_ 'round," Fyfe replied. "We'll see." Thorsen turned back down the slope. In a minute the thrum of the boat's exhaust arose as she got under way. "Come on in. You'll get cold standing here," Fyfe said to Stella. She followed him back into the living room. He sat on the arm of a big leather chair, rolling the dead cigar thoughtfully between his lips, little creases gathering between his eyes. "I'm going up the lake," he said at last, getting up abruptly. "What's the matter, Jack?" she asked. "Why, has trouble started up there?" "Part of the logging game," he answered indifferently. "Don't amount to much." "But Thorsen has been fighting. His face was terrible. And I've heard you say he was one of the most peaceable men alive. Is it--is Monohan--" "We won't discuss Monohan," Fyfe said curtly. "Anyway, there's no danger of _him_ getting hurt." He went into his den and came out with hat and coat on. At the door he paused a moment. "Don't worry," he said kindly. "Nothing's going to happen." But she stood looking out the window after he left, uneasy with a prescience of trouble. She watched with a feverish interest the stir that presently arose about the bunkhouses. That summer a wide space had been cleared between bungalow and camp. She could see moving lanterns, and even now and then hear the voices of men calling to each other. Once the _Panther's_ dazzling eye of a searchlight swung across the landing, and its beam picked out a file of men carrying their blankets toward the boat. Shortly after that the tender rounded the point. Close behind her went the _Waterbug_, and both boats swarmed with men. Stella looked and listened until there was but a faint thrum far up the lake. Then she went to bed, but not to sleep. What ugly passions were loosed at the lake head she did not know. But on the face of it she could not avoid wondering if Monohan had deliberately set out to cross and harass Jack Fyfe. Because of her? That was the question which had hovered on her lips that evening, one she had not brought herself to ask. Because of her, or because of some enmity that far preceded her? She had thought him big enough to do as she had done, as Fyfe was tacitly doing,--make the best of a grievous matter. But if he had allowed his passions to dictate reprisals, she trembled for the outcome. Fyfe was not a man to sit quiet under either affront or injury. He would fight with double rancor if Monohan were his adversary. "If anything happens up there, I'll hate myself," she whispered, when the ceaseless turning of her mind had become almost unendurable. "I was a silly, weak fool to ever let Walter Monohan know I cared. And I'll hate him too if he makes me a bone of contention. I elected to play the game the only decent way there is to play it. So did he. Why can't he abide by that?" Noon of the next day saw the _Waterbug_ heave to a quarter mile abeam of Cougar Point to let off a lone figure in her dinghy, and then bore on, driving straight and fast for Roaring Springs. Stella flew to the landing. Mother Howe came puffing at her heels. "Land's sake, I been worried to death," the older woman breathed. "When men git to quarrellin' about timber, you never can tell where they'll stop, Mrs. Jack. I've knowed some wild times in the woods in the past." The man in the dink was Lefty Howe. He pulled in beside the float. When he stepped up on the planks, he limped perceptibly. "Land alive, what happened yuh, Lefty?" his wife cried. "Got a rap on the leg with a peevy," he said. "Nothin' much." "Why did the _Waterbug_ go down the lake?" Stella asked breathlessly. The man's face was serious. "What happened up there?" "There was a fuss," he answered quietly. "Three or four of the boys got beat up so they need patchin'. Jack's takin' 'em down to the hospital. Damn that yeller-headed Monohan!" his voice lifted suddenly in uncontrollable anger. "Billy Dale was killed this mornin', mother." Stella felt herself grow sick. Death is a small matter when it strikes afar, among strangers. When it comes to one's door! Billy Dale had piloted the _Waterbug_ for a year, a chubby, round-faced boy of twenty, a foster-son, of Mother Howe's before she had children of her own. Stella had asked Jack to put him on the _Waterbug_ because he was such a loyal, cheery sort of soul, and Billy had been a part of every expedition they had taken around the lake. She could not think of him as a rigid, lifeless lump of clay. Why, only the day before he had been laughing and chattering aboard the cruiser, going up and down the cabin floor on his hands and knees, Jack Junior perched triumphantly astride his back. "What happened?" she cried wildly. "Tell me, quick." "It's quick told," Howe said grimly. "We were ready at daylight. Monohan's got a hard crew, and they jumped us as soon as we started to clear the channel. So we cleared them, first. It didn't take so long. Three of our men was used bad, and there's plenty of sore heads on both sides. But we did the job. After we got them on the run, we blowed up their swifters an' piles with giant. Then we begun to put the cedar through. Billy was on the bank when somebody shot him from across the river. One mercy, he never knew what hit him. An' you'll never come so close bein' a widow again, Mrs. Fyfe, an' not be. That bullet was meant for Jack, I figure. He was sittin' down. Billy was standin' right behind him watchin' the logs go through. Whoever he was, he shot high, that's all. There, mother, don't cry. That don't help none. What's done's done." Stella turned and walked up to the house, stunned. She could not credit bloodshed, death. Always in her life both had been things remote. And as the real significance of Lefty Howe's story grew on her, she shuddered. It lay at her door, equally with her and Monohan, even if neither of their hands had sped the bullet,--an indirect responsibility but gruesomely real to her. God only knows to what length she might have gone in reaction. She was quivering under that self-inflicted lash, bordering upon hysteria when she reached the house. She could not shut out a too-vivid picture of Billy Dale lying murdered on the Tyee's bank, of the accusing look with which Fyfe must meet her. Rightly so, she held. She did not try to shirk. She had followed the line of least resistance, lacked the dour courage to pull herself up in the beginning, and it led to this. She felt Billy Dale's blood wet on her soft hands. She walked into her own house panting like a hunted animal. And she had barely crossed the threshold when back in the rear Jack Junior's baby voice rose in a shrill scream of pain. * * * * * Stella scarcely heard her husband and the doctor come in. For a weary age she had been sitting in a low rocker, a pillow across her lap, and on that the little, tortured body swaddled with cotton soaked in olive oil, the only dressing she and Mrs. Howe could devise to ease the pain. All those other things which had so racked her, the fight on the Tyee, the shooting of Billy Dale, they had vanished somehow into thin air before the dread fact that her baby was dying slowly before her anguished eyes. She sat numbed with that deadly assurance, praying without hope for help to come, hopeless that any medical skill would avail when it did come. So many hours had been wasted while a man rowed to Benton's camp, while the _Chickamin_ steamed to Roaring Springs, while the _Waterbug_ came driving back. Five hours! And the skin, yes, even shreds of flesh, had come away in patches with Jack Junior's clothing when she took it off. She bent over him, fearful that every feeble breath would be his last. She looked up at the doctor. Fyfe was beside her, his calked boots biting into the oak floor. "See what you can do, doc," he said huskily. Then to Stella: "How did it happen?" "He toddled away from Martha," she whispered. "Sam Foo had set a pan of boiling water on the kitchen floor. He fell into it. Oh, my poor little darling." They watched the doctor bare the terribly scalded body, examine it, listen to the boy's breathing, count his pulse. In the end he re-dressed the tiny body with stuff from the case with which a country physician goes armed against all emergencies. He was very deliberate and thoughtful. Stella looked her appeal when he finished. "He's a sturdy little chap," he said, "and we'll do our best. A child frequently survives terrific shock. It would be mistaken kindness for me to make light of his condition simply to spare your feelings. He has an even chance. I shall stay until morning. Now, I think it would be best to lay him on a bed. You must relax, Mrs. Fyfe. I can see that the strain is telling on you. You mustn't allow yourself to get in that abnormal condition. The baby is not conscious of pain. He is not suffering half so much in his body as you are in your mind, and you mustn't do that. Be hopeful. We'll need your help. We should have a nurse, but there was no time to get one." They laid Jack Junior amid downy pillows on Stella's bed. The doctor stood looking at him, then drew a chair beside the bed. "Go and walk about a little, Mrs. Fyfe," he advised, "and have your dinner. I'll want to watch the boy a while." But Stella did not want to walk. She did not want to eat. She was scarcely aware that her limbs were cramped and aching from her long vigil in the chair. She was not conscious of herself and her problems, any more. Every shift of her mind turned on her baby, the little mite she had nursed at her breast, the one joy untinctured with bitterness that was left her. The bare chance that those little feet might never patter across the floor again, that little voice never wake her in the morning crying "Mom-mom," drove her distracted. She went out into the living room, walked to a window, stood there drumming on the pane with nervous fingers. Dusk was falling outside; a dusk was creeping over her. She shuddered. Fyfe came up behind her, put his hands on her shoulders, and turned her so that she faced him. "I wish I could help, Stella," he whispered. "I wish I could make you feel less forlorn. Poor little kiddies--both of you." She shook off his hands, not because she rebelled against his touch, against his sympathy, merely because she had come to that nervous state where she scarce realized what she did. "Oh," she choked, "I can't bear it. My baby, my little baby boy. The one bright spot that's left, and he has to suffer like that. If he dies, it's the end of everything for me." Fyfe stared at her. The warm, pitying look on his face ebbed away, hardened into his old, mask-like absence of expression. "No," he said quietly, "it would only be the beginning. Lord God, but this has been a day." He whirled about with a quick gesture of his hands, a harsh, raspy laugh that was very near a sob, and left her. Twenty minutes later, when Stella was irresistibly drawn back to the bedroom, she found him sitting sober and silent, looking at his son. A little past midnight Jack Junior died. CHAPTER XIX FREE AS THE WIND Stella sat watching the gray lines of rain beat down on the asphalt, the muddy rivulets that streamed along the gutter. A forlorn sighing of wind in the bare boughs of a gaunt elm that stood before her window reminded her achingly of the wind drone among the tall firs. A ghastly two weeks had intervened since Jack Junior's little life blinked out. There had been wild moments when she wished she could keep him company on that journey into the unknown. But grief seldom kills. Sometimes it hardens. Always it works a change, a greater or less revamping of the spirit. It was so with Stella Fyfe, although she was not keenly aware of any forthright metamorphosis. She was, for the present, too actively involved in material changes. The storm and stress of that period between her yielding to the lure of Monohan's personality and the burial of her boy had sapped her of all emotional reaction. When they had performed the last melancholy service for him and went back to the bungalow at Cougar Point, she was as physically exhausted, as near the limit of numbed endurance in mind and body as it is possible for a young and healthy woman to become. And when a measure of her natural vitality re-asserted itself, she laid her course. She could no more abide the place where she was than a pardoned convict can abide the prison that has restrained him. It was empty now of everything that made life tolerable, the hushed rooms a constant reminder of her loss. She would catch herself listening for that baby voice, for those pattering footsteps, and realize with a sickening pang that she would never hear them again. The snapping of that last link served to deepen and widen the gulf between her and Fyfe. He went about his business grave and preoccupied. They seldom talked together. She knew that his boy had meant a lot to him; but he had his work. He did not have to sit with folded hands and think until thought drove him into the bogs of melancholy. And so the break came. With desperate abruptness Stella told him that she could not stay, that feeling as she did, she despised herself for unwilling acceptance of everything where she could give nothing in return, that the original mistake of their marriage would never be rectified by a perpetuation of that mistake. "What's the use, Jack?" she finished. "You and I are so made that we can't be neutral. We've got to be thoroughly in accord, or we have to part. There's no chance for us to get back to the old way of living. I don't want to; I can't. I could never be complaisant and agreeable again. We might as well come to a full stop, and each go his own way." She had braced herself for a clash of wills. There was none. Fyfe listened to her, looked at her long and earnestly, and in the end made a quick, impatient gesture with his hands. "Your life's your own to make what you please of, now that the kid's no longer a factor," he said quietly. "What do you want to do? Have you made any plans?" "I have to live, naturally," she replied. "Since I've got my voice back, I feel sure I can turn that to account. I should like to go to Seattle first and look around. It can be supposed I have gone visiting, until one or the other of us takes a decisive legal step." "That's simple enough," he returned, after a minute's reflection. "Well, if it has to be, for God's sake let's get it over with." And now it was over with. Fyfe remarked once that with them luckily it was not a question of money. But for Stella it was indeed an economic problem. When she left Roaring Lake, her private account contained over two thousand dollars. Her last act in Vancouver was to re-deposit that to her husband's credit. Only so did she feel that she could go free of all obligation, clean-handed, without stultifying herself in her own eyes. She had treasured as a keepsake the only money she had ever earned in her life, her brother's check for two hundred and seventy dollars, the wages of that sordid period in the cookhouse. She had it now. Two hundred and seventy dollars capital. She hadn't sold herself for that. She had given honest value, double and treble, in the sweat of her brow. She was here now, in a five-dollar-a-week housekeeping room, foot-loose, free as the wind. That was Fyfe's last word to her. He had come with her to Seattle and waited patiently at a hotel until she found a place to live. Then he had gone away without protest. "Well, Stella," he had said, "I guess this is the end of our experiment. In six months,--under the State law,--you can be legally free by a technicality. So far as I'm concerned, you're free as the wind right now. Good luck to you." He turned away with a smile on his lips, a smile that his eyes belied, and she watched him walk to the corner through the same sort of driving rain that now pelted in gray lines against her window. She shook herself impatiently out of that retrospect. It was done. Life, as her brother had prophesied, was no kid-glove affair. The future was her chief concern now, not the past. Yet that immediate past, bits of it, would now and then blaze vividly before her mental vision. The only defense against that lay in action, in something to occupy her mind and hands. If that motive, the desire to shun mental reflexes that brought pain, were not sufficient, there was the equally potent necessity to earn her bread. Never again would she be any man's dependent, a pampered doll, a parasite trading on her sex. They were hard names she called herself. Meantime she had not been idle; neither had she come to Seattle on a blind impulse. She knew of a singing teacher there whose reputation was more than local, a vocal authority whose word carried weight far beyond Puget Sound. First she meant to see him, get an impartial estimate of the value of her voice, of the training she would need. Through him she hoped to get in touch with some outlet for the only talent she possessed. And she had received more encouragement than she dared hope. He listened to her sing, then tested the range and flexibility of her voice. "Amazing," he said frankly. "You have a rare natural endowment. If you have the determination and the sense of dramatic values that musical discipline will give you, you should go far. You should find your place in opera." "That's my ambition," Stella answered. "But that requires time and training. And that means money. I have to earn it." The upshot of that conversation was an appointment to meet the manager of a photoplay house, who wanted a singer. Stella looked at her watch now, and rose to go. Money, always money, if one wanted to get anywhere, she reflected cynically. No wonder men struggled desperately for that token of power. She reached the Charteris Theater, and a doorman gave her access to the dim interior. There was a light in the operator's cage high at the rear, another shaded glow at the piano, where a young man with hair brushed sleekly back chewed gum incessantly while he practiced picture accompaniments. The place looked desolate, with its empty seats, its bald stage front with the empty picture screen. Stella sat down to wait for the manager. He came in a few minutes; his manner was very curt, business-like. He wanted her to sing a popular song, a bit from a Verdi opera, Gounod's Ave Maria, so that he could get a line on what she could do. He appeared to be a pessimist in regard to singers. "Take the stage right there," he instructed. "Just as if the spot was on you. Now then." It wasn't a heartening process to stand there facing the gum-chewing pianist, and the manager's cigar glowing redly five rows back, and the silent emptinesses beyond,--much like singing into the mouth of a gloomy cave. It was more or less a critical moment for Stella. But she was keenly aware that she had to make good in a small way before she could grasp the greater opportunity, so she did her best, and her best was no mediocre performance. She had never sung in a place designed to show off--or to show up--a singer's quality. She was even a bit astonished herself. She elected to sing the Ave Maria first. Her voice went pealing to the domed ceiling as sweet as a silver bell, resonant as a trumpet. When the last note died away, there was a momentary silence. Then the accompanist looked up at her, frankly admiring. "You're _some_ warbler," he said emphatically, "believe _me_." Behind him the manager's cigar lost its glow. He remained silent. The pianist struck up "Let's Murder Care," a rollicking trifle from a Broadway hit. Last of all he thumped, more or less successfully, through the accompaniment to an aria that had in it vocal gymnastics as well as melody. "Come up to the office, Mrs. Fyfe," Howard said, with a singular change from his first manner. "I can give you an indefinite engagement at thirty a week," he made a blunt offer. "You can sing. You're worth more, but right now I can't pay more. If you pull business,--and I rather think you will,--have to sing twice in the afternoon and twice in the evening." Stella considered briefly. Thirty dollars a week meant a great deal more than mere living, as she meant to live. And it was a start, a move in the right direction. She accepted; they discussed certain details. She did not care to court publicity under her legal name, so they agreed that she should be billed as Madame Benton,--the Madame being Howard's suggestion,--and she took her leave. Upon the Monday following Stella stood for the first time in a fierce white glare that dazzled her and so shut off partially her vision of the rows and rows of faces. She went on with a horrible slackness in her knees, a dry feeling in her throat; and she was not sure whether she would sing or fly. When she had finished her first song and bowed herself into the wings, she felt her heart leap and hammer at the hand-clapping that grew and grew till it was like the beat of ocean surf. Howard came running to meet her. "You've sure got 'em going," he laughed. "Fine work. Go out and give 'em some more." In time she grew accustomed to these things, to the applause she never failed to get, to the white beam that beat down from the picture cage, to the eager, upturned faces in the first rows. Her confidence grew; ambition began to glow like a flame within her. She had gone through the primary stages of voice culture, and she was following now a method of practice which produced results. She could see and feel that herself. Sometimes the fear that her voice might go as it had once gone would make her tremble. But that, her teacher assured her, was a remote chance. So she gained in those weeks something of her old poise. Inevitably, she was very lonely at times. But she fought against that with the most effective weapon she knew,--incessant activity. She was always busy. There was a rented piano now sitting in the opposite corner from the gas stove on which she cooked her meals. Howard kept his word. She "pulled business," and he raised her to forty a week and offered her a contract which she refused, because other avenues, bigger and better than singing in a motion-picture house, were tentatively opening. December was waning when she came to Seattle. In the following weeks her only contact with the past, beyond the mill of her own thoughts, was an item in the _Seattle Times_ touching upon certain litigation in which Fyfe was involved. Briefly, Monohan, under the firm name of the Abbey-Monohan Timber Company, was suing Fyfe for heavy damages for the loss of certain booms of logs blown up and set adrift at the mouth of the Tyee River. There was appended an account of the clash over the closed channel and the killing of Billy Dale. No one had been brought to book for that yet. Any one of sixty men might have fired the shot. It made Stella wince, for it took her back to that dreadful day. She could not bear to think that Billy Dale's blood lay on her and Monohan, neither could she stifle an uneasy apprehension that something more grievous yet might happen on Roaring Lake. But at least she had done what she could. If she were the flame, she had removed herself from the powder magazine. Fyfe had pulled his cedar crew off the Tyee before she left. If aggression came, it must come from one direction. They were both abstractions now, she tried to assure herself. The glamour of Monohan was fading, and she could not say why. She did not know if his presence would stir again all that old tumult of feeling, but she did know that she was cleaving to a measure of peace, of serenity of mind, and she did not want him or any other man to disturb it. She told herself that she had never loved Jack Fyfe. She recognized in him a lot that a woman is held to admire, but there were also qualities in him that had often baffled and sometimes frightened her. She wondered sometimes what he really thought of her and her actions, why, when she had been nerved to a desperate struggle for her freedom, if she could gain it no other way, he had let her go so easily? After all, she reflected cynically, love comes and goes, but one is driven to pursue material advantages while life lasts. And she wondered, even while the thought took form in her mind, how long she would retain that point of view. CHAPTER XX ECHOES In the early days of February Stella had an unexpected visitor. The landlady called her to the common telephone, and when she took up the receiver, Linda Abbey's voice came over the wire. "When can I see you?" she asked. "I'll only be here to-day and to-morrow." "Now, if you like," Stella responded. "I'm free until two-thirty." "I'll be right over," Linda said. "I'm only about ten minutes drive from where you are." Stella went back to her room both glad and sorry: glad to hear a familiar, friendly voice amid this loneliness which sometimes seemed almost unendurable; sorry because her situation involved some measure of explanation to Linda. That hurt. But she was not prepared for the complete understanding of the matter Linda Abbey tacitly exhibited before they had exchanged a dozen sentences. "How did you know?" Stella asked. "Who told you?" "No one. I drew my own conclusions when I heard you had gone to Seattle," Linda replied. "I saw it coming. My dear, I'm not blind, and I was with you a lot last summer. I knew you too well to believe you'd make a move while you had your baby to think of. When he was gone--well, I looked for anything to happen." "Still, nothing much has happened," Stella remarked with a touch of bitterness, "except the inevitable break between a man and a woman when there's no longer any common bond between them. It's better so. Jack has a multiplicity of interests. He can devote himself to them without the constant irritation of an unresponsive wife. We've each taken our own road. That's all that has happened." "So far," Linda murmured. "It's a pity. I liked that big, silent man of yours. I like you both. It seems a shame things have to turn out this way just because--oh, well. Charlie and I used to plan things for the four of us, little family combinations when we settled down on the lake. Honestly, Stella, do you think it's worth while? I never could see you as a sentimental little chump, letting a momentary aberration throw your whole life out of gear." "How do you know that I have?" Stella asked gravely. Linda shrugged her shoulders expressively. "I suppose it looks silly, if not worse, to you," Stella said. "But I can't help what you think. My reason has dictated every step I've taken since last fall. If I'd really given myself up to sentimentalism, the Lord only knows what might have happened." "Exactly," Linda responded drily. "Now, there's no use beating around the bush. We get so in that habit as a matter of politeness,--our sort of people,--that we seldom say in plain English just what we really mean. Surely, you and I know each other well enough to be frank, even if it's painful. Very likely you'll say I'm a self-centered little beast, but I'm going to marry your brother, my dear, and I'm going to marry him in the face of considerable family opposition. I _am_ selfish. Can you show me any one who isn't largely swayed by motives of self-interest, if it comes to that? I want to be happy. I want to be on good terms with my own people, so that Charlie will have some of the opportunities dad can so easily put in his way. Charlie isn't rich. He hasn't done anything, according to the Abbey standard, but make a fair start. Dad's patronizing as sin, and mother merely tolerates the idea because she knows that I'll marry Charlie in any case, opposition or no opposition. I came over expressly to warn you, Stella. Anything like scandal now would be--well, it would upset so many things." "You needn't be uneasy," Stella answered coldly. "There isn't any foundation for scandal. There won't be." "I don't know," Linda returned, "Walter Monohan came to Seattle a boat ahead of me. In fact, that's largely why I came." Stella flushed angrily. "Well, what of that?" she demanded. "His movements are nothing to me." "I don't know," Linda rejoined. She had taken off her gloves and was rolling them nervously in a ball. Now she dropped them and impulsively grasped Stella's hands. "Stella, Stella," she cried. "Don't get that hurt, angry look. I don't like to say these things to you, but I feel that I have to. I'm worried, and I'm afraid for you and your husband, for Charlie and myself, for all of us together. Walter Monohan is as dangerous as any man who's unscrupulous and rich and absolutely self-centered can possibly be. I know the glamour of the man. I used to feel it myself. It didn't go very far with me, because his attention wandered away from me before my feelings were much involved, and I had a chance to really fathom them and him. He has a queer gift of making women care for him, and he trades on it deliberately. He doesn't play fair; he doesn't mean to. Oh, I know so many cruel things, despicable things, he's done. Don't look at me like that, Stella. I'm not saying this just to wound you. I'm simply putting you on your guard. You can't play with fire and not get burned. If you've been nursing any feeling for Walter Monohan, crush it, cut it out, just as you'd have a surgeon cut out a cancer. Entirely apart from any question of Jack Fyfe, don't let this man play any part whatever in your life. You'll be sorry if you do. There's not a man or woman whose relations with Monohan have been intimate enough to enable them to really know the man and his motives who doesn't either hate or fear or despise him, and sometimes all three." "That's a sweeping indictment," Stella said stiffly. "And you're very earnest. Yet I can hardly take your word at its face value. If he's so impossible a person, how does it come that you and your people countenanced him socially? Besides, it's all rather unnecessary, Linda. I'm not the least bit likely to do anything that will reflect on your prospective husband, which is what it simmers down to, isn't it? I've been pulled and hauled this way and that ever since I've been on the coast, simply because I was dependent on some one else--first Charlie and then Jack--for the bare necessities of life. When there's mutual affection, companionship, all those intimate interests that marriage is supposed to imply, I daresay a woman gives full measure for all she receives. If she doesn't, she's simply a sponge, clinging to a man for what's in it. I couldn't bear that. You've been rather painfully frank; so will I be. One unhappy marriage is quite enough for me. Looking back, I can see that even if Walter Monohan hadn't stirred a feeling in me which I don't deny,--but which I'm not nearly so sure of as I was some time ago,--I'd have come to just this stage, anyway. I was drifting all the time. My baby and the conventions, that reluctance most women have to make a clean sweep of all the ties they've been schooled to think unbreakable, kept me moving along the old grooves. It would have come about a little more gradually, that's all. But I have broken away, and I'm going to live my own life after a fashion, and I'm going to achieve independence of some sort. I'm never going to be any man's mate again until I'm sure of myself--and of him. There's my philosophy of life, as simply as I can put it. I don't think you need to worry about me. Right now I couldn't muster up the least shred of passion of any sort. I seem to have felt so much since last summer, that I'm like a sponge that's been squeezed dry." "I don't blame you, dear," Linda said wistfully. "A woman's heart is a queer thing, though. When you compare the two men--Oh, well, I know Walter so thoroughly, and you don't. You couldn't ever have cared much for Jack." "That hasn't any bearing on it now," Stella answered. "I'm still his wife, and I respect him, and I've got a stubborn sort of pride. There won't be any divorce proceedings or any scandal. I'm free personally to work out my own economic destiny. That, right now, is engrossing enough for me." Linda sat a minute, thoughtful. "So you think my word for Walter Monohan's deviltry isn't worth much," she said. "Well, I could furnish plenty of details. But I don't think I shall. Not because you'd be angry, but because I don't think you're quite as blind as I believed. And I'm not a natural gossip. Aside from that, he's quite too busy on Roaring Lake for it to mean any good. He never gets active like that unless he has some personal axe to grind. In this case, I can grasp his motive easily enough. Jack Fyfe may not have said a word to you, but he certainly knows Monohan. They've clashed before, so I've been told. Jack probably saw what was growing on you, and I don't think he'd hesitate to tell Monohan to walk away around. If he did,--or if you definitely turned Monohan down; you see I'm rather in the dark,--he'd go to any length to play even with. Fyfe. When Monohan wants anything, he looks upon it as his own; and when you wound his vanity, you've stabbed him in his most vital part. He never rests then until he's paid the score. Father was always a little afraid of him. I think that's the chief reason for selling out his Roaring Lake interests to Monohan. He didn't want to be involved in whatever Monohan contemplated doing. He has a wholesome respect for your husband's rather volcanic ability. Monohan has, too. But he has always hated Jack Fyfe. To my knowledge for three years,--prior to pulling you out of the water that time,--he never spoke of Jack Fyfe without a sneer. He hates any one who beats him at anything. That ruction on the Tyee is a sample. He'll spend money, risk lives, all but his own, do anything to satisfy a grudge. That's one of the things that worries me. Charlie will be into anything that Fyfe is, for Fyfe's his friend. I admire the spirit of the thing, but I don't want our little applecart upset in the sort of struggle Fyfe and Monohan may stage. I don't even know what form it will ultimately take, except that from certain indications he'll try to make Fyfe spend money faster than he can make it, perhaps in litigation over timber, over anything that offers, by making trouble in his camps, harassing him at every turn. He can, you know. He has immense resources. Oh, well, I'm satisfied, Stella, that you're a much wiser girl than I thought when I knew you'd left Jack Fyfe. I'm quite sure now you aren't the sort of woman Monohan could wind around his little finger. But I'm sure he'll try. You'll see, and remember what I tell you. There, I think I'd better run along. You're not angry, are you, Stella?" "You mean well enough, I suppose," Stella answered. "But as a matter of fact, you've made me feel rather nasty, Linda. I don't want to talk or even think of these things. The best thing you and Charlie and Jack Fyfe could do is to forget such a discontented pendulum as I ever existed." "Oh, bosh!" Linda exclaimed, as she drew on her gloves. "That's sheer nonsense. You're going to be my big sister in three months. Things will work out. If you felt you had to take this step for your own good, no one can blame you. It needn't make any difference in our friendship." On the threshold she turned on her heel. "Don't forget what I've said," she repeated. "Don't trust Monohan. Not an inch." Stella flung herself angrily into a chair when the door closed on Linda Abbey. Her eyes snapped. She resented being warned and cautioned, as if she were some moral weakling who could not be trusted to make the most obvious distinctions. Particularly did she resent having Monohan flung in her teeth, when she was in a way to forget him, to thrust the strange charm of the man forever out of her thoughts. Why, she asked bitterly, couldn't other people do as Jack Fyfe had done: cut the Gordian knot at one stroke and let it rest at that? So Monohan was in Seattle? Would he try to see her? Stella had not minced matters with herself when she left Roaring Lake. Dazed and shaken by suffering, nevertheless she knew that she would not always suffer, that in time she would get back to that normal state in which the human ego diligently pursues happiness. In time the legal tie between herself and Jack Fyfe would cease to exist. If Monohan cared for her as she thought he cared, a year or two more or less mattered little. They had all their lives before them. In the long run, the errors and mistakes of that upheaval would grow dim, be as nothing. Jack Fyfe would shrug his shoulders and forget, and in due time he would find a fitter mate, one as loyal as he deserved. And why might not she, who had never loved him, whose marriage to him had been only a climbing out of the fire into the frying-pan? So that with all her determination to make the most of her gift of song, so that she would never again be buffeted by material urgencies in a material world, Stella had nevertheless been listening with the ear of her mind, so to speak, for a word from Monohan to say that he understood, and that all was well. Paradoxically, she had not expected to hear that word. Once in Seattle, away from it all, there slowly grew upon her the conviction that in Monohan's fine avowal and renunciation he had only followed the cue she had given. In all else he had played his own hand. She couldn't forget Billy Dale. If the motive behind that bloody culmination were thwarted love, it was a thing to shrink from. It seemed to her now, forcing herself to reason with cold-blooded logic, that Monohan desired her less than he hated Fyfe's possession of her; that she was merely an added factor in the breaking out of a struggle for mastery between two diverse and dominant men. Every sign and token went to show that the pot of hate had long been simmering. She had only contributed to its boiling over. "Oh, well," she sighed, "it's out of my hands altogether now. I'm sorry, but being sorry doesn't make any difference. I'm the least factor, it seems, in the whole muddle. A woman isn't much more than an incident in a man's life, after all." She dressed to go to the Charteris, for her day's work was about to begin. As so often happens in life's uneasy flow, periods of calm are succeeded by events in close sequence. Howard and his wife insisted that Stella join them at supper after the show. They were decent folk who accorded frank admiration to her voice and her personality. They had been kind to her in many little ways, and she was glad to accept. At eleven a taxi deposited them at the door of Wain's. The Seattle of yesterday needs no introduction to Wain's, and its counterpart can be found in any cosmopolitan, seaport city. It is a place of subtle distinction, tucked away on one of the lower hill streets, where after-theater parties and nighthawks with an eye for pretty women, an ear for sensuous music, and a taste for good food, go when they have money to spend. Ensconced behind a potted palm, with a waiter taking Howard's order, Stella let her gaze travel over the diners. She brought up with a repressed start at a table but four removes from her own, her eyes resting upon the unmistakable profile of Walter Monohan. He was dining vis-à-vis with a young woman chiefly remarkable for a profusion of yellow hair and a blazing diamond in the lobe of each ear,--a plump, blond, vivacious person of a type that Stella, even with her limited experience, found herself instantly classifying. A bottle of wine rested in an iced dish between them. Monohan was toying with the stem of a half-emptied glass, smiling at his companion. The girl leaned toward him, speaking rapidly, pouting. Monohan nodded, drained his glass, signaled a waiter. When she got into an elaborate opera cloak and Monohan into his Inverness, they went out, the plump, jeweled hand resting familiarly on Monohan's arm. Stella breathed a sigh of relief as they passed, looking straight ahead. She watched through the upper half of the café window and saw a machine draw against the curb, saw the be-scarfed yellow head enter and Monohan's silk hat follow. Then she relaxed, but she had little appetite for her food. A hot wave of shamed disgust kept coming over her. She felt sick, physically revolted. Very likely Monohan had put her in _that_ class, in his secret thought. She was glad when the evening ended, and the Howards left her at her own doorstep. On the carpet where it had been thrust by the postman under the door, a white square caught her eye, and she picked it up before she switched on the light. And she got a queer little shock when the light fell on the envelope, for it was addressed in Jack Fyfe's angular handwriting. She tore it open. It was little enough in the way of a letter, a couple of lines scrawled across a sheet of note-paper. "_Dear Girl:_ "I was in Seattle a few days ago and heard you sing. Here's hoping good luck rides with you. "JACK." Stella sat down by the window. Outside, the ever-present Puget Sound rain drove against wall and roof and sidewalk, gathered in wet, glistening pools in the street. Through that same window she had watched Jack Fyfe walk out of her life three months ago without a backward look, sturdily, silently, uncomplaining. He hadn't whined, he wasn't whining now,--only flinging a cheerful word out of the blank spaces of his own life into the blank spaces of hers. Stella felt something warm and wet steal down her cheeks. She crumpled the letter with a sudden, spasmodic clenching of her hand. A lump rose chokingly in her throat. She stabbed at the light switch and threw herself on the bed, sobbing her heart's cry in the dusky quiet. And she could not have told why, except that she had been overcome by a miserably forlorn feeling; all the mental props she relied upon were knocked out from under her. Somehow those few scrawled words had flung swiftly before her, like a picture on a screen, a vision of her baby toddling uncertainly across the porch of the white bungalow. And she could not bear to think of that! * * * * * When the elm before her window broke into leaf, and the sodden winter skies were transformed into a warm spring vista of blue, Stella was singing a special engagement in a local vaudeville house that boasted a "big time" bill. She had stepped up. The silvery richness of her voice had carried her name already beyond local boundaries, as the singing master under whom she studied prophesied it would. In proof thereof she received during April a feminine committee of two from Vancouver bearing an offer of three hundred dollars for her appearance in a series of three concerts under the auspices of the Woman's Musical Club, to be given in the ballroom of Vancouver's new million-dollar hostelry, the Granada. The date was mid-July. She took the offer under advisement, promising a decision in ten days. The money tempted her; that was her greatest need now,--not for her daily bread, but for an accumulated fund that would enable her to reach New York and ultimately Europe, if that seemed the most direct route to her goal. She had no doubts about reaching it now. Confidence came to abide with her. She throve on work; and with increasing salary, her fund grew. Coming from any other source, she would have accepted this further augmentation of it without hesitation, since for a comparative beginner, it was a liberal offer. But Vancouver was Fyfe's home town; it had been hers. Many people knew her; the local papers would feature her. She did not know how Fyfe would take it; she did not even know if there had been any open talk of their separation. Money, she felt, was a small thing beside opening old sores. For herself, she was tolerably indifferent to Vancouver's social estimate of her or her acts. Nevertheless, so long as she bore Fyfe's name, she did not feel free to make herself a public figure there without his sanction. So she wrote to him in some detail concerning the offer and asked point-blank if it mattered to him. His answer came with uncanny promptness, as if every mail connection had been made on the minute. "If it is to your advantage to sing here," he wrote, "by all means accept. Why should it matter to me? I would even be glad to come and hear you sing if I could do so without stirring up vain longings and useless regrets. As for the other considerations you mention, they are of no weight at all. I never wanted to keep you in a glass case. Even if all were well between us, I wouldn't have any feeling about your singing in public other than pride in your ability to command public favor with your voice. It's a wonderful voice, too big and fine a thing to remain obscure. "JACK." He added, evidently as an afterthought, a somewhat lengthy postscript: "I wish you would do something next month, not as a favor to me particularly, but to ease things along for Charlie and Linda. They are genuinely in love with each other. I can see you turning up your little nose at that. I know you've held a rather biased opinion of your brother and his works since that unfortunate winter. But it doesn't do to be too self-righteous. Charlie, then, was very little different from any rather headlong, self-centered, red-blooded youngster. I'm afraid I'm expressing myself badly. What I mean is that while he was drifting then into a piggy muddle, he had the sense to take a brace before his lapses became vices. Partly because--I've flattered myself--I talked to him like a Dutch uncle, and partly because he's cast too much in the same clean-cut mold that you are, to let his natural passions run clean away with him. He'll always be more or less a profound egotist. But he'll be a good deal more of a man than you, perhaps, think. "I never used to think much of these matters. I suppose my own failure at a thing in which I was cocksure of success had made me a bit dubious about anybody I care for starting so serious an undertaking as marriage under any sort of handicap. I do like Charlie Benton and Linda Abbey. They are marrying in the face of her people's earnest attempt to break it up. The Abbeys are hopelessly conservative. Anything in the nature of our troubles aired in public would make it pretty tough sledding for Linda. As it stands, they are consenting very ungracefully, but as a matter of family pride, intend to give Linda a big wedding. "Now, no one outside of you and me and--well you and me--knows that there is a rift in our lute. I haven't been quizzed--naturally. It got about that you'd taken up voice culture with an eye to opera as a counteracting influence to the grief of losing your baby. I fostered that rumor--simply to keep gossip down until things shaped themselves positively. Once these two are married, they have started--Abbey _père_ and _mère_ will then be unable to frown on Linda's contemplated alliance with a family that's produced a divorce case. "I do not suppose you will take any legal steps until after those concerts. Until then, please keep up the fiction that the house of Fyfe still stands on a solid foundation--a myth that you've taken no measures to dispel since you left. When it does come, it will be a sort of explosion, and I'd rather have it that way--one amazed yelp from our friends and the newspapers, and it's over. "Meantime, you will receive an invitation to the wedding. I hope you'll accept. You needn't have any compunctions about playing the game. You will not encounter me, as I have my hands full here, and I'm notorious in Vancouver for backing out of functions, anyway. It is not imperative that you should do this. It's merely a safeguard against a bomb from the Abbey fortress. "Linda is troubled by a belief that upon small pretext they would be very nasty, and she naturally doesn't want any friction with her folks. They have certain vague but highly material ambitions for her matrimonially, which she, a very sensible girl, doesn't subscribe to. She's a very shrewd and practical young person, for all her whole-hearted passion for your brother. I rather think she pretty clearly guesses the breach in our rampart--not the original mistake in our over-hasty plunge--but the wedge that divided us for good. If she does, and I'm quite sure she does, she is certainly good stuff, because she is most loyally your champion. I say that because Charlie had a tendency this spring to carp at your desertion of Roaring Lake. Things aren't going any too good with us, one way and another, and of course he, not knowing the real reason of your absence, couldn't understand why you stay away. I had to squelch him, and Linda abetted me successfully. However, that's beside the point. I hope I haven't irritated you. I'm such a dumb sort of brute generally. I don't know what imp of prolixity got into my pen. I've got it all off my chest now, or pretty near. "J.H.F." Stella sat thoughtfully gazing at the letter for a long time. "I wonder?" she said aloud, and the sound of her own voice galvanized her into action. She put on a coat and went out into the mellow spring sunshine, and walked till the aimless straying of her feet carried her to a little park that overlooked the far reach of the Sound and gave westward on the snowy Olympics, thrusting hoary and aloof to a perfect sky, like their brother peaks that ringed Roaring Lake. And all the time her mind kept turning on a question whose asking was rooted neither in fact nor necessity, an inquiry born of a sentiment she had never expected to feel. Should she go back to Jack Fyfe? She shook her head impatiently when she faced that squarely. Why tread the same bitter road again? But she put that self-interested phase of it aside and asked herself candidly if she _could_ go back and take up the old threads where they had been broken off and make life run smoothly along the old, quiet channels? She was as sure as she was sure of the breath she drew that Fyfe wanted her, that he longed for and would welcome her. But she was equally sure that the old illusions would never serve. She couldn't even make him happy, much less herself. Monohan--well, Monohan was a dead issue. He had come to the Charteris to see her, all smiles and eagerness. She had been able to look at him and through him--and cut him dead--and do it without a single flutter of her heart. That brief and illuminating episode in Wain's had merely confirmed an impression that had slowly grown upon her, and her outburst of feeling that night had only been the overflowing of shamed anger at herself for letting his magnetic personality make so deep an impression on her that she could admit to him that she cared. She felt that she had belittled herself by that. But he was no longer a problem. She wondered now how he ever could have been. She recalled that once Jack Fyfe had soberly told her she would never sense life's real values while she nursed so many illusions. Monohan had been one of them. "But it wouldn't work," she whispered to herself. "I couldn't do it. He'd know I only did it because I was sorry, because I thought I should, because the old ties, and they seem so many and so strong in spite of everything, were harder to break than the new road is to follow alone. He'd resent anything like pity for his loneliness. And if Monohan has made any real trouble, it began over me, or at least it focussed on me. And he might resent that. He's ten times a better man than I am a woman. He thinks about the other fellow's side of things. I'm just what he said about Charlie, self-centered, a profound egotist. If I really and truly loved Jack Fyfe, I'd be a jealous little fury if he so much as looked at another woman. But I don't, and I don't see why I don't. I want to be loved; I want to love. I've always wanted that so much that I'll never dare trust my instincts about it again. I wonder why people like me exist to go blundering about in the world, playing havoc with themselves and everybody else?" Before she reached home, that self-sacrificing mood had vanished in the face of sundry twinges of pride. Jack Fyfe hadn't asked her to come back; he never would ask her to come back. Of that she was quite sure. She knew the stony determination of him too well. Neither hope or heaven nor fear of hell would turn him aside when he had made a decision. If he ever had moments of irresolution, he had successfully concealed any such weakness from those who knew him best. No one ever felt called upon to pity Jack Fyfe, and in those rocked-ribbed qualities, Stella had an illuminating flash, perhaps lay the secret of his failure ever to stir in her that yearning tenderness which she knew herself to be capable of lavishing, which her nature impelled her to lavish on some one. "Ah, well," she sighed, when she came back to her rooms and put Fyfe's letter away in a drawer. "I'll do the decent thing if they ask me. I wonder what Jack would say if he knew what I've been debating with myself this afternoon? I wonder if we were actually divorced and I'd made myself a reputation as a singer, and we happened to meet quite casually sometime, somewhere, just how we'd really feel about each other?" She was still musing on that, in a detached, impersonal fashion, when she caught a car down to the theater for the matinée. CHAPTER XXI AN UNEXPECTED MEETING The formally worded wedding card arrived in due course. Following close came a letter from Linda Abbey, a missive that radiated friendliness and begged Stella to come a week before the date. "You're going to be pretty prominent in the public eye when you sing here," Linda wrote. "People are going to make a to-do over you. Ever so many have mentioned you since the announcement was made that you'll sing at the Granada concerts. I'm getting a lot of reflected glory as the future sister-in-law of a rising singer. So you may as well come and get your hand into the social game in preparation for being fussed over in July." In the same mail was a characteristic note from Charlie which ran: "_Dear Sis:_ "As the Siwashes say, long time I see you no. I might have dropped a line before, but you know what a punk correspondent I am. They tell me you're becoming a real noise musically. How about it? "Can't you break away from the fame and fortune stuff long enough to be on hand when Linda and I get married? I wasn't invited to your wedding, but I'd like to have you at mine. Jack says it's up to you to represent the Fyfe connection, as he's too busy. I'll come over to Seattle and get you, if you say so." She capitulated at that and wrote saying that she would be there, and that she did not mind the trip alone in the least. She did not want Charlie asking pertinent questions about why she lived in such grubby quarters and practiced such strict economy in the matter of living. Then there was the detail of arranging a break in her engagements, which ran continuously to the end of June. She managed that easily enough, for she was becoming too great a drawing card for managers to curtly override her wishes. Almost before she realized it, June was at hand. Linda wrote again urgently, and Stella took the night boat for Vancouver a week before the wedding day. Linda met her at the dock with a machine. Mrs. Abbey was the essence of cordiality when she reached the big Abbey house on Vancouver's aristocratic "heights," where the local capitalists, all those fortunate climbers enriched by timber and mineral, grown wealthy in a decade through the great Coast boom, segregated themselves in "Villas" and "Places" and "Views," all painfully new and sometimes garish, striving for an effect in landscape and architecture which the very intensity of the striving defeated. They were well-meaning folk, however, the Abbeys included. Stella could not deny that she enjoyed the luxury of the Abbey ménage, the little festive round which was shaping about Linda in these last days of her spinsterhood. She relished the change from unremitting work. It amused her to startle little groups with the range and quality of her voice, when they asked her to sing. They made a much ado over that, a genuine admiration that flattered Stella. It was easy for her to fall into the swing of that life; it was only a lapsing back to the old ways. But she saw it now with a more critical vision. It was soft and satisfying and eminently desirable to have everything one wanted without the effort of striving for it, but a begging wheedling game on the part of these women. They were, she told herself rather harshly, an incompetent, helpless lot, dependent one and all upon some man's favor or affection, just as she herself had been all her life until the past few months. Some man had to work and scheme to pay the bills. She did not know why this line of thought should arise, neither did she so far forget herself as to voice these social heresies. But it helped to reconcile her with her new-found independence, to put a less formidable aspect on the long, hard grind that lay ahead of her before she could revel in equal affluence gained by her own efforts. All that they had she desired,--homes, servants, clothes, social standing,--but she did not want these things bestowed upon her as a favor by some man, the emoluments of sex. She expected she would have to be on her guard with her brother, even to dissemble a little. But she found him too deeply engrossed in what to him was the most momentous event of his career, impatiently awaiting the day, rather dreading the publicity of it. "Why in Sam Hill can't a man and a woman get married without all this fuss?" he complained once. "Why should we make our private affairs a spectacle for the whole town?" "Principally because mamma has her heart set on a spectacle," Linda laughed. "She'd hold up her hands in horror if she heard you. Decorated bridal bower, high church dignitary, bridesmaids, orange blossoms, rice, and all. Mamma likes to show off. Besides, that's the way it's done in society. _And_ the honeymoon." They both giggled, as at some mirthful secret. "Shall we tell her?" Linda nodded toward Stella. "Sure," Benton said. "I thought you had." "The happy couple will spend their honeymoon on a leisurely tour of the Southern and Eastern States, remaining for some weeks in Philadelphia, where the groom has wealthy and influential connections. It's all prepared for the pay-a-purs," Linda whispered with exaggerated secrecy behind her hand. Benton snorted. "Can you beat that?" he appealed to Stella. "And all the time," Linda continued, "the happy couple, unknown to every one, will be spending their days in peace and quietness in their shanty at Halfway Point. My, but mamma would rave if she knew. Don't give us away, Stella. It seems so senseless to squander a lot of money gadding about on trains and living in hotels when we'd much rather be at home by ourselves. My husband's a poor young man, Stella. 'Pore but worthy.' He has to make his fortune before we start in spending it. I'm sick of all this spreading it on because dad has made a pile of money," she broke out impatiently. "Our living used to be simple enough when I was a kid. I think I can relish a little simplicity again for a change. Mamma's been trying for four years to marry me off to her conception of an eligible man. It didn't matter a hang about his essential qualities so long as he had money and an assured social position." "Forget that," Charlie counseled slangily. "I have all the essential qualities, and I'll have the money and social position too; you watch my smoke." "Conceited ninny," Linda smiled. But there was no reproof in her tone, only pure comradeship and affection, which Benton returned so openly and unaffectedly that Stella got up and left them with a pang of envy, a dull little ache in her heart. She had missed that. It had passed her by, that clean, spontaneous fusing of two personalities in the biggest passion life holds. Marriage and motherhood she had known, not as the flowering of love, not as an eager fulfilling of her natural destiny, but as something extraneous, an avenue of escape from an irksomeness of living, a weariness with sordid things, which she knew now had obsessed her out of all proportion to their reality. She had never seen that tenderness glow in the eyes of a mating pair that she did not envy them, that she did not feel herself hopelessly defrauded of her woman's heritage. She went up to her room, moody, full of bitterness, and walked the thick-carpeted floor, the restlessness of her chafing spirit seeking the outlet of action. "Thank the Lord I've got something to do, something that's worth doing," she whispered savagely. "If I can't have what I want, I can make my life embrace something more than just food and clothes and social trifling. If I had to sit and wait for each day to bring what it would, I believe I'd go clean mad." A maid interrupted these self-communings to say that some one had called her over the telephone, and Stella went down to the library. She wasn't prepared for the voice that came over the line, but she recognized it instantly as Fyfe's. "Listen, Stella," he said. "I'm sorry this has happened, but I can't very well avoid it now, without causing comment. I had no choice about coming to Vancouver. It was a business matter I couldn't neglect. And as luck would have it, Abbey ran into me as I got off the train. On account of your being there, of course, he insisted that I come out for dinner. It'll look queer if I don't, as I can't possibly get a return train for the Springs before nine-thirty this evening. I accepted without stuttering rather than leave any chance for the impression that I wanted to avoid you. Now, here's how I propose to fix it. I'll come out about two-thirty and pay a hurry-up five-minute call. Then I'll excuse myself to Mrs. Abbey for inability to join them at dinner--press of important business takes me to Victoria and so forth. That'll satisfy the conventions and let us both out. I called you so you won't be taken by surprise. Do you mind?" "Of course not," she answered instantly. "Why should I?" There was a momentary silence. "Well," he said at last, "I didn't know how you'd feel about it. Anyway, it will only be for a few minutes, and it's unlikely to happen again." Stella put the receiver back on the hook and looked at her watch. It lacked a quarter of two. In the room adjoining, Charlie and Linda were jubilantly wading through the latest "rag" song in a passable soprano and baritone, with Mrs. Abbey listening in outward resignation. Stella sat soberly for a minute, then joined them. "Jack's in town," she informed them placidly, when the ragtime spasm ended. "He telephoned that he was going to snatch a few minutes between important business confabs to run out and see me." "I could have told you that half an hour ago, my dear," Mrs. Abbey responded with playful archness. "Mr. Fyfe will dine with us this evening." "Oh," Stella feigned surprise. "Why, he spoke of going to Victoria on the afternoon boat. He gave me the impression of mad haste--making a dash out here between breaths, as you might say." "Oh, I hope he won't be called away on such short notice as that," Mrs. Abbey murmured politely. She left the room presently. Out of one corner of her eye Stella saw Linda looking at her queerly. Charlie had turned to the window, staring at the blue blur of the Lions across the Inlet. "It's a wonder Jack would leave the lake," he said suddenly, "with things the way they are. I've been hoping for rain ever since I've been down. I'll be glad when we're on the spot again, Linda." "Wishing for rain?" Stella echoed. "Why?" "Fire," he said shortly. "I don't suppose you realize it, but there's been practically no rain for two months. It's getting hot. A few weeks of dry, warm weather, and this whole country is ready to blow away. The woods are like a pile of shavings. That would be a fine wedding present--to be cleaned out by fire. Every dollar I've got's in timber." "Don't be a pessimist," Linda said sharply. "What makes you so uneasy now?" Stella asked thoughtfully. "There's always the fire danger in the dry months. That's been a bugaboo ever since I came to the lake." "Yes, but never like it is this summer," Benton frowned. "Oh, well, no use borrowing trouble, I suppose." Stella rose. "When Jack comes, I'll be in the library," she said. "I'm going to read a while." But the book she took up lay idle in her lap. She looked forward to that meeting with a curious mixture of reluctance and regret. She could not face it unmoved. No woman who has ever lain passive in a man's arms can ever again look into that man's eyes with genuine indifference. She may hate him or love him with a degree of intensity according to her nature, be merely friendly, or nurse a slow resentment. But there is always that intangible something which differentiates him from other men. Stella felt now a shyness of him, a little dread of him, less sureness of herself, as he swung out of the machine and took the house steps with that effortless lightness on his feet that she remembered so well. She heard him in the hall, his deep voice mingling with the thin, penetrating tones of Mrs. Abbey. And then the library door opened, and he came in. Stella had risen, and stood uncertainly at one corner of a big reading table, repressing an impulse to fly, finding herself stricken with a strange recurrence of the feeling she had first disliked him for arousing in her,--a sense of needing to be on her guard, of impending assertion of a will infinitely more powerful than her own. But that was, she told herself, only a state of mind, and Fyfe put her quickly at her ease. He came up to the table and seated himself on the edge of it an arm's length from her, swinging one foot free. He looked at her intently. There was no shadow of expression on his face, only in his clear eyes lurked a gleam of feeling. "Well, lady," he said at length, "you're looking fine. How goes everything?" "Fairly well," she answered. "Seems odd, doesn't it, to meet like this?" he ventured. "I'd have dodged it, if it had been politic. As it is, there's no harm done, I imagine. Mrs. Abbey assured me we'd be free from interruption. If the exceedingly cordial dame had an inkling of how things stand between us, I daresay she'd be holding her breath about now." "Why do you talk like that, Jack?" Stella protested nervously. "Well, I have to say something," he remarked, after a moment's reflection. "I can't sit here and just look at you. That would be rude, not to say embarrassing." Stella bit her lip. "I don't see why we can't talk like any other man and woman for a few minutes," she observed. "I do," he said quietly. "You know why, too, if you stop to think. I'm the same old Jack Fyfe, Stella. I don't think much where you are concerned; I just feel. And that doesn't lend itself readily to impersonal chatter." "How do you feel?" she asked, meeting his gaze squarely. "If you don't hate me, you must at least rather despise me." "Neither," he said slowly. "I admire your grit, lady. You broke away from everything and made a fresh start. You asserted your own individuality in a fashion that rather surprised me. Maybe the incentive wasn't what it might have been, but the result is, or promises to be. I was only a milestone. Why should I hate or despise you because you recognized that and passed on? I had no business setting myself up for the end of your road instead of the beginning. I meant to have it that way until the kid--well, Fate took a hand there. Pshaw," he broke off with a quick gesture, "let's talk about something else." Stella laid one hand on his knee. Unbidden tears were crowding up in her gray eyes. "You were good to me," she whispered. "But just being good wasn't enough for a perverse creature like me. I couldn't be a sleek pussy-cat, comfortable beside your fire. I'm full of queer longings. I want wings. I must be a variation from the normal type of woman. Our marriage didn't touch the real me at all, Jack. It only scratched the surface. And sometimes I'm afraid to look deep, for fear of what I'll see. Even if another man hadn't come along and stirred up a temporary tumult in me, I couldn't have gone on forever." "A temporary tumult," Fyfe mused. "Have you thoroughly chucked that illusion? I knew you would, of course, but I had no idea how long it would take you." "Long ago," she answered. "Even before I left you, I was shaky about that. There were things I couldn't reconcile. But pride wouldn't let me admit it. I can't even explain it to myself." "I can," he said, a little sadly. "You've never poured out that big, warm heart of yours on a man. It's there, always has been there, those concentrated essences of passion. Every unattached man's a possible factor, a potential lover. Nature has her own devices to gain her end. I couldn't be the one. We started wrong. I saw the mistake of that when it was too late. Monohan, a highly magnetic animal, came along at a time when you were peculiarly and rather blindly receptive. That's all. Sex--you have it in a word. It couldn't stand any stress, that sort of attraction. I knew it would only last until you got one illuminating glimpse of the real man of him. But I don't want to talk about him. He'll keep. Sometime you'll really love a _man_, Stella, and he'll be a very lucky mortal. There's an erratic streak in you, lady, but there's a bigger streak that's fine and good and true. You'd have gone through with it to the bitter end, if Jack Junior hadn't died. The weaklings don't do that. Neither do they cut loose as you did, burning all their economic bridges behind them. Do you know that it was over a month before I found out that you'd turned your private balance back into my account? I suppose there was a keen personal satisfaction in going on your own and making good from the start. Only I couldn't rest until--until--" His voice trailed huskily off into silence. The gloves in his left hand were doubled and twisted in his uneasy fingers. Stella's eyes were blurred. "Well, I'm going," he said shortly. "Be good." He slipped off the table and stood erect, a wide, deep-chested man, tanned brown, his fair hair with its bronze tinge lying back in a smooth wave from his forehead, blue eyes bent on her, hot with a slumbering fire. Without warning, he caught her close in his arms so that she could feel the pounding of his heart against her breast, kissed her cheeks, her hair, the round, firm white neck of her, with lips that burned. Then he held her off at arm's length. "That's how _I_ care," he said defiantly. "That's how I want you. No other way. I'm a one-woman man. Some time you may love like that, and if you do, you'll know how I feel. I've watched you sleeping beside me and ached because I couldn't kindle the faintest glow of the real thing in you. I'm sick with a miserable sense of failure, the only thing I've ever failed at, and the biggest, most complete failure I can conceive of,--to love a woman in every way desirable; to have her and yet never have her." He caught up his hat, and the door clicked shut behind him. A minute later Stella saw him step into the tonneau of the car. He never looked back. And she fled to her own room, stunned, half-frightened, wholly amazed at this outburst. Her face was damp with his lip-pressure, damp and warm. Her arms tingled with the grip of his. The blood stood in her cheeks like a danger signal, flooding in hot, successive waves to the roots of her thick, brown hair. "If I thought--I could," she whispered into her pillow, "I'd try. But I daren't. I'm afraid. It's just a mood, I know it is. I've had it before. A--ah! I'm a spineless jellyfish, a weathercock that whirls to every emotional breeze. And I won't be. I'll stand on my own feet if I can--so help me God, I will!" CHAPTER XXII THE FIRE BEHIND THE SMOKE This is no intimate chronicle of Charlie Benton and Linda Abbey, save in so far as they naturally furnish a logical sequence in what transpired. Therefore the details of their nuptials is of no particular concern. They were wedded, ceremonially dined as befitted the occasion, and departed upon their hypothetical honeymoon, surreptitiously abbreviated from an extravagant swing over half of North America to seventy miles by rail and twenty by water,--and a month of blissful seclusion, which suited those two far better than any amount of Pullman touring, besides leaving them money in pocket. When they were gone, Stella caught the next boat for Seattle. She had drawn fresh breath in the meantime, and while she felt tenderly, almost maternally, sorry for Jack Fyfe, she swung back to the old attitude. Even granting, she argued, that she could muster courage to take up the mantle of wifehood where she laid it off, there was no surety that they could do more than compromise. There was the stubborn fact that she had openly declared her love for another man, that by her act she had plunged her husband into far-reaching conflict. Such a conflict existed. She could put her finger on no concrete facts, but it was in the air. She heard whispers of a battle between giants--a financial duel to the death--with all the odds against Jack Fyfe. Win or lose, there would be scars. And the struggle, if not of and by her deed, had at least sprung into malevolent activity through her. Men, she told herself, do not forget these things; they rankle. Jack Fyfe was only human. No, Stella felt that they could only come safe to the old port by virtue of a passion that could match Fyfe's own. And she put that rather sadly beyond her, beyond the possibilities. She had felt stirrings of it, but not to endure. She was proud and sensitive and growing wise with bitterly accumulated experience. It had to be all or nothing with them, a cleaving together complete enough to erase and forever obliterate all that had gone before. And since she could not see that as a possibility, there was nothing to do but play the game according to the cards she held. Of these the trump was work, the inner glow that comes of something worth while done toward a definite, purposeful end. She took up her singing again with a distinct relief. Time passed quickly and uneventfully enough between the wedding day and the date of her Granada engagement. It seemed a mere breathing space before the middle of July rolled around, and she was once more aboard a Vancouver boat. In the interim, she had received a letter from the attorney who had wound up her father's estate, intimating that there was now a market demand for that oil stock, and asking if he should sell or hold for a rise in price which seemed reasonably sure? Stella telegraphed her answer. If that left-over of a speculative period would bring a few hundred dollars, it would never be of greater service to her than now. All the upper reach of Puget Sound basked in its normal midsummer haze, the day Stella started for Vancouver. That great region of island-dotted sea spread between the rugged Olympics and the foot of the Coast range lay bathed in summer sun, untroubled, somnolent. But nearing the international boundary, the _Charlotte_ drove her twenty-knot way into a thickening atmosphere. Northward from Victoria, the rugged shores that line those inland waterways began to appear blurred. Just north of Active Pass, where the steamers take to the open gulf again, a vast bank of smoke flung up blue and gray, a rolling mass. The air was pungent, oppressive. When the _Charlotte_ spanned the thirty-mile gap between Vancouver Island and the mainland shore, she nosed into the Lion's Gate under a slow bell, through a smoke pall thick as Bering fog. Stella's recollection swung back to Charlie's uneasy growl of a month earlier. Fire! Throughout the midsummer season there was always the danger of fire breaking out in the woods. Not all the fire-ranger patrols could guard against the carelessness of fishermen and campers. "It's a tough Summer over here for the timber owners," she heard a man remark. "I've been twenty years on the coast and never saw the woods so dry." "Dry's no name," his neighbor responded. "It's like tinder. A cigarette stub'll start a blaze forty men couldn't put out. It's me that knows it. I've got four limits on the North Arm, and there's fire on two sides of me. You bet I'm praying for rain." "They say the country between Chehalis and Roaring Lake is one big blaze," the first man observed. "So?" the other replied. "Pity, too. Fine timber in there. I came near buying some timber on the lake this spring. Some stuff that was on the market as a result of that Abbey-Monohan split. Glad I didn't now. I'd just as soon have _all_ my money out of timber this season." They moved away in the press of disembarking, and Stella heard no more of their talk. She took a taxi to the Granada, and she bought a paper in the foyer before she followed the bell boy to her room. She had scarcely taken off her hat and settled down to read when the telephone rang. Linda's voice greeted her when she answered. "I called on the chance that you took the morning boat," Linda said. "Can I run in? I'm just down for the day. I won't be able to hear you sing, but I'd like to see you, dear." "Can you come right now?" Stella asked. "Come up, and we'll have something served up here. I don't feel like running the gauntlet of the dining room just now." "I'll be there in a few minutes," Linda answered. Stella went back to her paper. She hadn't noticed any particular stress laid on forest fires in the Seattle dailies, but she could not say that of this Vancouver sheet. The front page reeked of smoke and fire. She glanced through the various items for news of Roaring Lake, but found only a brief mention. It was "reported" and "asserted" and "rumored" that fire was raging at one or two points there, statements that were overshadowed by positive knowledge of greater areas nearer at hand burning with a fierceness that could be seen and smelled. The local papers had enough feature stuff in fires that threatened the very suburbs of Vancouver without going so far afield as Roaring Lake. Linda's entrance put a stop to her reading, without, however, changing the direction of her thought. For after an exchange of greetings, Linda divulged the source of her worried expression, which Stella had immediately remarked. "Who wouldn't be worried," Linda said, "with the whole country on fire, and no telling when it may break out in some unexpected place and wipe one out of house and home." "Is it so bad as that at the lake?" Stella asked uneasily. "There's not much in the paper. I was looking." "It's so bad," Linda returned, with a touch of bitterness, "that I've been driven to the Springs for safety; that every able-bodied man on the lake who can be spared is fighting fire. There has been one man killed, and there's half a dozen loggers in the hospital, suffering from burns and other hurts. Nobody knows where it will stop. Charlie's limits have barely been scorched, but there's fire all along one side of them. A change of wind--and there you are. Jack Fyfe's timber is burning in a dozen places. We've been praying for rain and choking in the smoke for a week." Stella looked out the north window. From the ten-story height she could see ships lying in the stream, vague hulks in the smoky pall that shrouded the harbor. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "It's devilish," Linda went on. "Like groping in the dark and being afraid--for me. I've been married a month, and for ten days I've only seen my husband at brief intervals when he comes down in the launch for supplies, or to bring an injured man. And he doesn't tell me anything except that we stand a fat chance of losing everything. I sit there at the Springs, and look at that smoke wall hanging over the water, and wonder what goes on up there. And at night there's the red glow, very faint and far. That's all. I've been doing nursing at the hospital to help out and to keep from brooding. I wouldn't be down here now, only for a list of things the doctor needs, which he thought could be obtained quicker if some one attended to it personally. I'm taking the evening train back." "I'm sorry," Stella repeated. She said it rather mechanically. Her mind was spinning a thread, upon which, strung like beads, slid all the manifold succession of things that had happened since she came first to Roaring Lake. Linda's voice, continuing, broke into her thoughts. "I suppose I shouldn't be croaking into your ear like a bird of ill omen, when you have to throw yourself heart and soul into that concert to-morrow," she said contritely. "I wonder why that Ancient Mariner way of seeking relief from one's troubles by pouring them into another ear is such a universal trait? You aren't vitally concerned, after all, and I am. Let's have that tea, dear, and talk about less grievous things. I still have one or two trifles to get in the shops too." After they had finished the food that Stella ordered sent up, they went out together. Later Stella saw her off on the train. "Good-by, dear," Linda said from the coach window. "I'm just selfish enough to wish you were going back with me; I wish you could sit with me on the bank of the lake, aching and longing for your man up there in the smoke as I ache and long for mine. Misery loves company." Stella's eyes were clouded as the train pulled out. Something in Linda Benton's parting words made her acutely lonely, dispirited, out of joint with the world she was deliberately fashioning for herself. Into Linda's life something big and elemental had come. The butterfly of yesterday had become the strong man's mate of to-day. Linda's heart was unequivocally up there in the smoke and flame with her man, fighting for their mutual possessions, hoping with him, fearing for him, longing for him, secure in the knowledge that if nothing else was left them, they had each other. It was a rare and beautiful thing to feel like that. And beyond that sorrowful vision of what she lacked to achieve any real and enduring happiness, there loomed also a self-torturing conviction that she herself had set in motion those forces which now threatened ruin for her brother and Jack Fyfe. There was no logical proof of this. Only intuitive, subtle suggestions gleaned here and there, shadowy finger-posts which pointed to Monohan as a deadly hater and with a score chalked up against Fyfe to which she had unconsciously added. He had desired her, and twice Fyfe had treated him like an urchin caught in mischief. She recalled how Monohan sprang at him like a tiger that day on the lake shore. She realized how bitter a humiliation it must have been to suffer that sardonic cuffing at Fyfe's hands. Monohan wasn't the type of man who would ever forget or forgive either that or the terrible grip on his throat. Even at the time she had sensed this and dreaded what it might ultimately lead to. Even while her being answered eagerly to the physical charm of him, she had fought against admitting to herself what desperate intent might have lain back of the killing of Billy Dale,--a shot that Lefty Howe declared was meant for Fyfe. She had long outgrown Monohan's lure, but if he had come to her or written to make out a case for himself when she first went to Seattle, she would have accepted his word against anything. Her heart would have fought for him against the logic of her brain. But--she had had a long time to think, to compare, to digest all that she knew of him, much that was subconscious impression rising late to the surface, a little that she heard from various sources. The sum total gave her a man of rank passions, of rare and merciless finesse where his desires figured, a man who got what he wanted by whatever means most fitly served his need. Greater than any craving to possess a woman would be the measure of his rancor against a man who humiliated him, thwarted him. She could understand how a man like Monohan would hate a man like Jack Fyfe, would nurse and feed on the venom of his hate until setting a torch to Fyfe's timber would be a likely enough counterstroke. She shrank from the thought. Yet it lingered until she felt guilty. Though it made no material difference to her that Fyfe might or might not face ruin, she could not, before her own conscience, evade responsibility. The powder might have been laid, but her folly had touched spark to the fuse, as she saw it. That seared her like a pain far into the night. For every crime a punishment; for every sin a penance. Her world had taught her that. She had never danced; she had only listened to the piper and longed to dance, as nature had fashioned her to do. But the piper was sending his bill. She surveyed it wearily, emotionally bankrupt, wondering in what coin of the soul she would have to pay. CHAPTER XXIII A RIDE BY NIGHT Stella sang in the gilt ballroom of the Granada next afternoon, behind the footlights of a miniature stage, with the blinds drawn and a few hundred of Vancouver's social elect critically, expectantly listening. She sang her way straight into the heart of that audience with her opening number. This was on Wednesday. Friday she sang again, and Saturday afternoon. When she came back to her room after that last concert, wearied with the effort of listening to chattering women and playing the gracious lady to an admiring contingent which insisted upon making her last appearance a social triumph, she found a letter forwarded from Seattle. She slit the envelope. A typewritten sheet enfolded a green slip,--a check. She looked at the figures, scarcely comprehending until she read the letter. "We take pleasure in handing you herewith," Mr. Lander wrote for the firm, "our check for nineteen thousand five hundred dollars, proceeds of oil stock sold as per your telegraphed instructions, less brokerage charges. We sold same at par, and trust this will be satisfactory." She looked at the check again. Nineteen thousand, five hundred--payable to her order. Two years ago such a sum would have lifted her to plutocratic heights, filled her with pleasurable excitement, innumerable anticipations. Now it stirred her less than the three hundred dollars she had just received from the Granada Concert committee. She had earned that, had given for it due measure of herself. This other had come without effort, without expectation. And less than she had ever needed money before did she now require such a sum. Yet she was sensibly aware that this windfall meant a short cut to things which she had only looked to attain by plodding over economic hills. She could say good-by to singing in photoplay houses, to vaudeville engagements, to concert work in provincial towns. She could hitch her wagon to a star and go straight up the avenue that led to a career, if it were in her to achieve greatness. Pleasant dreams in which the buoyant ego soared, until the logical interpretation of her ambitions brought her to a more practical consideration of ways and means, and that in turn confronted her with the fact that she could leave the Pacific coast to-morrow morning if she so chose. Why should she not so choose? She was her own mistress, free as the wind. Fyfe had said that. She looked out into the smoky veil that shrouded the water front and the hills across the Inlet, that swirled and eddied above the giant fir in Stanley Park, and her mind flicked back to Roaring Lake where the Red Flower of Kipling's _Jungle Book_ bloomed to her husband's ruin. Did it? She wondered. She could not think of him as beaten, bested in any undertaking. She had never been able to think of him in those terms. Always to her he had conveyed the impression of a superman. Always she had been a little in awe of him, of his strength, his patient, inflexible determination, glimpsing under his habitual repression certain tremendous forces. She could not conceive him as a broken man. Staring out into the smoky air, she wondered if the fires at Roaring Lake still ravaged that noble forest; if Fyfe's resources, like her brother's, were wholly involved in standing timber, and if that timber were doomed? She craved to know. Secured herself by that green slip in her hand against every possible need, she wondered if it were ordained that the two men whose possession of material resources had molded her into what she was to-day should lose all, be reduced to the same stress that had made her an unwilling drudge in her brother's kitchen. Then she recalled that for Charlie there was an equivalent sum due,--a share like her own. At the worst, he had the nucleus of another fortune. Curled among the pillows of her bed that night, she looked over the evening papers, read with a swift heart-sinking that the Roaring Lake fire was assuming terrific proportions, that nothing but a deluge of rain would stay it now. And more significantly, except for a minor blaze or two, the fire raged almost wholly upon and around the Fyfe block of limits. She laid aside the papers, switched off the lights, and lay staring wide-eyed at the dusky ceiling. At twenty minutes of midnight she was called to the door of her room to receive a telegram. It was from Linda, and it read: "Charlie badly hurt. Can you come?" Stella reached for the telephone receiver. The night clerk at the C.P.R. depot told her the first train she could take left at six in the morning. That meant reaching the Springs at nine-thirty. Nine and a half hours to sit with idle hands, in suspense. She did not knew what tragic dénouement awaited there, what she could do once she reached there. She knew only that a fever of impatience burned in her. The message had strung her suddenly taut, as if a crisis had arisen in which willy-nilly she must take a hand. So, groping for the relief of action, some method of spanning that nine hours' wait, her eye fell upon a card tucked beside the telephone case. She held it between, finger and thumb, her brows puckered. TAXIS AND TOURING CARS Anywhere . . . Anytime She took down the receiver again and asked for Seymour 9X. "Western Taxi," a man's voice drawled. "I want to reach Roaring Hot Springs in the shortest time possible," she told him rather breathlessly. "Can you furnish me a machine and a reliable chauffeur?" "Roaring Springs?" he repeated. "How many passengers?" "One. Myself." "Just a minute." She heard a faint burble of talk away at the other end of the wire. Then the same voice speaking crisply. "We gotta big six roadster, and a first-class driver. It'll cost you seventy-five dollars--in advance." "Your money will be waiting for you here," she answered calmly. "How soon can you bring the car around to the Hotel Granada?" "In ten minutes, if you say so." "Say twenty minutes, then." "All right." She dressed herself, took the elevator down to the lobby, instructed the night clerk to have a maid pack her trunk and send it by express to Hopyard, care of St. Allwoods Hotel on the lake. Then she walked out to the broad-stepped carriage entrance. A low-hung long-hooded, yellow car stood there, exhaust purring faintly. She paid the driver, sank into the soft upholstering beside him, and the big six slid out into the street. There was no traffic. In a few minutes they were on the outskirts of the city, the long asphalt ribbon of King's Way lying like a silver band between green, bushy walls. They crossed the last car track. The driver spoke to her out of one corner of his mouth. "Wanna make time, huh?" "I want to get to Roaring Lake as quickly as you can drive, without taking chances." "I know the road pretty well," he assured her. "Drove a party clear to Rosebud day before yesterday. I'll do the best I can. Can't drive too fast at night. Too smoky." She could not gage his conception of real speed if the gait he struck was not "too fast." They were through New Westminster and rolling across the Fraser bridge before she was well settled in the seat, breasting the road with a lurch and a swing at the curves, a noise under that long hood like giant bees in an empty barrel. Ninety miles of road good, bad and indifferent, forest and farm and rolling hill, and the swamps of Sumas Prairie, lies between Vancouver and Roaring Lake. At four in the morning, with dawn an hour old, they woke the Rosebud ferryman to cross the river. Twenty minutes after that Stella was stepping stiffly out of the machine before Roaring Springs hospital. The doctor's Chinaman was abroad in the garden. She beckoned him. "You sabe Mr. Benton--Charlie Benton?" she asked. "He in doctor's house?" The Chinaman pointed across the road. "Mist Bentle obah dah," he said. "Velly much sick. Missa Bentle lib dah, all same gleen house." Stella ran across the way. The front door of the green cottage stood wide. An electric drop light burned in the front room, though it was broad day. When she crossed the threshold, she saw Linda sitting in a chair, her arms folded on the table-edge, her head resting on her hands. She was asleep, and she did not raise her head till Stella shook her shoulder. Linda Abbey had been a pretty girl, very fair, with apple-blossom skin and a wonderfully expressive face. It gave Stella a shock to see her now, to gage her suffering by the havoc it had wrought. Linda looked old, haggard, drawn. There was a weary droop to her mouth, her eyes were dull, lifeless, just as one might look who is utterly exhausted in mind and body. Oddly enough, she spoke first of something irrelevant, inconsequential. "I fell asleep," she said heavily. "What time is it?" Stella looked at her watch. "Half-past four," she answered. "How is Charlie? What happened to him?" "Monohan shot him." Stella caught her breath. She hadn't been prepared for that. "Is he--is he--" she could not utter the words. "He'll get better. Wait." Linda rose stiffly from her seat. A door in one side of the room stood ajar. She opened it, and Stella, looking over her shoulder, saw her brother's tousled head on a pillow. A nurse in uniform sat beside his bed. Linda closed the door silently. "Come into the kitchen where we won't make a noise," she whispered. A fire burned in the kitchen stove. Linda sank into a willow rocker. "I'm weary as Atlas," she said. "I've been fretting for so long. Then late yesterday afternoon they brought him home to me--like that. The doctor was probing for the bullet when I wired you. I was in a panic then, I think. Half-past four! How did you get here so soon? How could you? There's no train." Stella told her. "Why should Monohan shoot him?" she broke out. "For God's sake, talk, Linda!" There was a curious impersonality in Linda's manner, as if she stood aloof from it all, as if the fire of her vitality had burned out. She lay back in her chair with eyelids drooping, speaking in dull, lifeless tones. "Monohan shot him because Charlie came on him in the woods setting a fresh fire. They've suspected him, or some one in his pay, of that, and they've been watching. There were two other men with Charlie, so there is no mistake. Monohan got away. That's all I know. Oh, but I'm tired. I've been hanging on to myself for so long. About daylight, after we knew for sure that Charlie was over the hill, something seemed to let go in me. I'm awful glad you came, Stella. Can you make a cup of tea?" Stella could and did, but she drank none of it herself. A dead weight of apprehension lay like lead in her breast. Her conscience pointed a deadly finger. First Billy Dale, now her brother, and, sandwiched in between, the loosed fire furies which were taking toll in bodily injury and ruinous loss. Yet she was helpless. The matter was wholly out of her hands, and she stood aghast before it, much as the small child stands aghast before the burning house he has fired by accident. Fyfe next. That was the ultimate, the culmination, which would leave her forever transfixed with remorseful horror. The fact that already the machinery of the law which would eventually bring Monohan to book for the double lawlessness of arson and attempted homicide must be in motion, that the Provincial police would be hard on his trail, did not occur to her. She could only visualize him progressing step by step from one lawless deed to another. And in her mind every step led to Jack Fyfe, who had made a mock of him. She found her hands clenching till the nails dug deep. Linda's head drooped over the teacup. Her eyelids blinked. "Dear," Stella said tenderly, "come and lie down. You're worn out." "Perhaps I'd better," Linda muttered. "There's another room in there." Stella tucked the weary girl into the bed, and went back to the kitchen, and sat down in the willow rocker. After another hour the nurse came out and prepared her own breakfast. Benton was still sleeping. He was in no danger, the nurse told Stella. The bullet had driven cleanly through his body, missing as by a miracle any vital part, and lodged in the muscles of his back, whence the surgeon had removed it. Though weak from shock, loss of blood, excitement, he had rallied splendidly, and fallen into a normal sleep. Later the doctor confirmed this. He made light of the wound. One couldn't kill a young man as full of vitality as Charlie Benton with an axe, he informed Stella with an optimistic smile. Which lifted one burden from her mind. The night nurse went away, and another from the hospital took her place. Benton slept; Linda slept. The house was very quiet. To Stella, brooding in that kitchen chair, it became oppressive, that funeral hush. When it was drawing near ten o'clock, she walked up the road past the corner store and post-office, and so out to the end of the wharf. The air was hot and heavy, pungent, gray with the smoke. Farther along, St. Allwoods bulked mistily amid its grounds. The crescent of shore line half a mile distant was wholly obscured. Up over the eastern mountain range the sun, high above the murk, hung like a bloody orange, rayless and round. No hotel guests strolled by pairs and groups along the bank. She could understand that no one would come for pleasure into that suffocating atmosphere. Caught in that great bowl of which the lake formed the watery bottom, the smoke eddied and rolled like a cloud of mist. She stood a while gazing at the glassy surface of the lake where it spread to her vision a little way beyond the piles. Then she went back to the green cottage. Benton lifted alert, recognizing eyes when she peeped in the bedroom door. "Hello, Sis," he greeted in strangely subdued tones. "When did you blow in? I thought you'd deserted the sinking ship completely. Come on in." She winced inwardly at his words, but made no outward sign, as she came up to his bedside. The nurse went out. "Perhaps you'd better not talk?" she said. "Oh, nonsense," he retorted feebly. "I'm all right. Sore as the mischief and weak. But I don't feel as bad as I might. Linda still asleep?" "I think so," Stella answered. "Poor kid," he breathed; "it's been tough on her. Well, I guess it's been tough on everybody. He turned out to be some bad actor, this Monohan party. I never did like the beggar. He was a little too high-handed in his smooth, kid-glove way. But I didn't suppose he'd try to burn up a million dollars' worth of timber to satisfy a grudge. Well, he put his foot in it proper at last. He'll get a good long jolt in the pen, if the boys don't beat the constables to him and take him to pieces." "He did start the fire then?" Stella muttered. "I guess so," Benton replied. "At any rate, he kept it going. Did it by his lonesome, too. Jack suspected that. We were watching for him as well as fighting fire. He'd come down from the head of the lake in that speed boat of his, and this time daylight caught him before he could get back to where he had her cached, after starting a string of little fires in the edge of my north limit. He had it in for me, too, you know; I batted him over the head with a pike-pole here at the wharf one day this spring, so he plunked me as soon as I hollered at him. I wish he'd done it earlier in the game. We might have saved a lot of good timber. As it was, we couldn't do much. Every time the wind changed, it would break out in a new place--too often to be accidental. Damn him!" "How is it going to end, the fire?" Stella forced herself to ask. "Will you and Jack be able to save any timber?" "If it should rain hard, and if in the meantime the boys keep it from jumping the fire-trails we've cut, I'll get by with most of mine," he said. "But Jack's done for. He won't have anything but his donkeys and gear and part of a cedar limit on the Tyee which isn't paid for. He had practically everything tied up in that big block of timber around the Point. Monohan made him spend money like water to hold his own. Jack's broke." Stella's head drooped. Benton reached out an axe-calloused hand, all grimy and browned from the stress of fire fighting, and covered her soft fingers that rested on his bed. "It's a pity everything's gone to pot like that, Stell," he said softly. "I've grown a lot wiser in human ways the last two years. You taught me a lot, and Jack a lot, and Linda the rest. It seems a blamed shame you and Jack came to a fork in the road. Oh, he never chirped. I've just guessed it the last few weeks. I owe him a lot that he'll never let me pay back in anything but good will. I hate to see him get the worst of it from every direction. He grins and doesn't say anything. But I know it hurts. There can't be anything much wrong between you two. Why don't you forget your petty larceny troubles and start all over again?" "I can't," she whispered. "It wouldn't work. There's too many scars. Too much that's hard to forget." "Well, you know about that better than I do," Benton said thoughtfully. "It all depends on how you _feel_." The poignant truth of that struck miserably home to her. It was not a matter of reason or logic, of her making any sacrifice for her conscience sake. It depended solely upon the existence of an emotion she could not definitely invoke. She was torn by so many emotions, not one of which she could be sure was the vital, the necessary one. Her heart did not cry out for Jack Fyfe, except in a pitying tenderness, as she used to feel for Jack Junior when he bumped and bruised himself. She had felt that before and held it too weak a crutch to lean upon. The nurse came in with a cup of broth for Benton, and Stella went away with a dumb ache in her breast, a leaden sinking of her spirits, and went out to sit on the porch steps. The minutes piled into hours, and noon came, when Linda wakened. Stella forced herself to swallow a cup of tea, to eat food; then she left Linda sitting with her husband and went back to the porch steps again. As she sat there, a man dressed in the blue shirt and mackinaw trousers and high, calked boots of the logger turned in off the road, a burly woodsman that she recognized as one of Jack Fyfe's crew. "Well," said he, "if it ain't Mrs. Jack. Say--ah--" He broke off suddenly, a perplexed look on his face, an uneasiness, a hesitation in his manner. "What is it, Barlow?" Stella asked kindly. "How is everything up the lake?" It was common enough in her experience, that temporary embarrassment of a logger before her. She knew them for men with boyish souls, boyish instincts, rude simplicities of heart. Long ago she had revised those first superficial estimates of them as gross, hulking brutes who worked hard and drank harder, coarsened and calloused by their occupation. They had their weaknesses, but their virtues of abiding loyalty, their reckless generosity, their simple directness, were great indeed. They took their lives in their hands on skid-road and spring-board, that such as she might flourish. They did not understand that, but she did. "What is it, Barlow?" she repeated. "Have you just come down the lake?" "Yes'm," he answered. "Say, Jack don't happen to be here, does he?" "No, he hasn't been here," she told him. The man's face fell. "What's wrong?" Stella demanded. She had a swift divination that something was wrong. "Oh, I dunno's anythin's wrong, particular," Barlow replied. "Only--well, Lefty he sent me down to see if Jack was at the Springs. We ain't seen him for a couple uh days." Her pulse quickened. "And he has not come down the lake?" "I guess not," the logger said. "Oh, I guess it's all right. Jack's pretty _skookum_ in the woods. Only Lefty got uneasy. It's desperate hot and smoky up there." "How did you come down? Are you going back soon?" she asked abruptly. "I got the _Waterbug_," Barlow told her. "I'm goin' right straight back." Stella looked out over the smoky lake and back at the logger again, a sudden resolution born of intolerable uncertainty, of a feeling that she could only characterize as fear, sprang full-fledged into her mind. "Wait for me," she said. "I'm going with you." CHAPTER XXIV "OUT OF THE NIGHT THAT COVERS ME" The _Waterbug_ limped. Her engine misfired continuously, and Barlow lacked the mechanical knowledge to remedy its ailment. He was satisfied to let it pound away, so long as it would revolve at all. So the boat moved slowly through that encompassing smoke at less than half speed. Outwardly the once spick and span cruiser bore every mark of hard usage. Her topsides were foul, her decks splintered by the tramping of calked boots, grimy with soot and cinders. It seemed to Stella that everything and every one on and about Roaring Lake bore some mark of that holocaust raging in the timber, as if the fire were some malignant disease menacing and marring all that it affected, and affecting all that trafficked within its smoky radius. But of the fire itself she could see nothing, even when late in the afternoon they drew in to the bay before her brother's camp. A heavier smoke cloud, more pungent of burning pitch, blanketed the shores, lifted in blue, rolling masses farther back. A greater heat made the air stifling, causing the eyes to smart and grow watery. That was the only difference. Barlow laid the _Waterbug_ alongside the float. He had already told her that Lefty Howe, with the greater part of Fyfe's crew, was extending and guarding Benton's fire-trail, and he half expected that Fyfe might have turned up there. Away back in the smoke arose spasmodic coughing of donkey engines, dull resounding of axe-blades. Barlow led the way. They traversed a few hundred yards of path through brush, broken tops, and stumps, coming at last into a fairway cut through virgin timber, a sixty-foot strip denuded of every growth, great firs felled and drawn far aside, brush piled and burned. A breastwork from which to fight advancing fire, it ran away into the heart of a smoky forest. Here and there blackened, fire-scorched patches abutted upon its northern flank, stumps of great trees smoldering, crackling yet. At the first such place, half a dozen men were busy with shovels blotting out streaks of fire that crept along in the dry leaf mold. No, they had not seen Fyfe. But they had been blamed busy. He might be up above. Half a mile beyond that, beside the first donkey shuddering on its anchored skids as it tore an eighteen-inch cedar out by the roots, they came on Lefty Howe. He shook his head when Stella asked for Fyfe. "He took twenty men around to the main camp day before yesterday," said Lefty. "There was a piece uh timber beyond that he thought he could save. I--well, I took a shoot around there yesterday, after your brother got hurt. Jack wasn't there. Most of the boys was at camp loadin' gear on the scows. They said Jack's gone around to Tumblin' Creek with one man. He wasn't back this mornin'. So I thought maybe he'd gone to the Springs. I dunno's there's any occasion to worry. He might 'a' gone to the head uh the lake with them constables that went up last night. How's Charlie Benton?" She told him briefly. "That's good," said Lefty. "Now, I'd go around to Cougar Bay, if I was you, Mrs. Jack. He's liable to come in there, any time. You could stay at the house to-night. Everything around there, shacks 'n' all, was burned days ago, so the fire can't touch the house. The crew there has grub an' a cook. I kinda expect Jack'll be there, unless he fell in with them constables." She trudged silently back to the _Waterbug_. Barlow started the engine, and the boat took up her slow way. As they skirted the shore, Stella began to see here and there the fierce havoc of the fire. Black trunks of fir reared nakedly to the smoky sky, lay crisscross on bank and beach. Nowhere was there a green blade, a living bush. Nothing but charred black, a melancholy waste of smoking litter, with here and there a pitch-soaked stub still waving its banner of flame, or glowing redly. Back of those seared skeletons a shifting cloud of smoke obscured everything. Presently they drew in to Cougar Bay. Men moved about on the beach; two bulky scows stood nose-on to the shore. Upon them rested half a dozen donkey engines, thick-bellied, upright machines, blown down, dead on their skids. About these in great coils lay piled the gear of logging, miles of steel cable, blocks, the varied tools of the logger's trade. The _Panther_ lay between the scows, with lines from each passed over her towing bitts. Stella could see the outline of the white bungalow on its grassy knoll. They had saved only that, of all the camp, by a fight that sent three men to the hospital, on a day when the wind shifted into the northwest and sent a sheet of flame rolling through the timber and down on Cougar Bay like a tidal wave. So Barlow told her. He cupped his hands now and called to his fellows on the beach. No, Fyfe had not come back yet. "Go up to the mouth of Tumbling Creek," Stella ordered. Barlow swung the _Waterbug_ about, cleared the point, and stood up along the shore. Stella sat on a cushioned seat at the back of the pilot house, hard-eyed, struggling against that dead weight that seemed, to grow and grow in her breast. That elemental fury raging in the woods made her shrink. Her own hand had helped to loose it, but her hands were powerless to stay it; she could only sit and watch and wait, eaten up with misery of her own making. She was horribly afraid, with a fear she would not name to herself. Behind that density of atmosphere, the sun had gone to rest. The first shadows of dusk were closing in, betokened by a thickening of the smoke-fog into which the _Waterbug_ slowly plowed. To port a dimming shore line; to starboard, aft, and dead ahead, water and air merged in two boat lengths. Barlow leaned through the pilot-house window, one hand on the wheel, straining his eyes on their course. Suddenly he threw out the clutch, shut down his throttle control with one hand, and yanked with the other at the cord which loosed the _Waterbug's_ shrill whistle. Dead ahead, almost upon them, came an answering toot. "I thought I heard a gas-boat," Barlow exclaimed. "Sufferin' Jerusalem! Hi, there!" He threw his weight on the wheel, sending it hard over. The cruiser still had way on; the momentum of her ten-ton weight scarcely had slackened, and she answered the helm. Out of the deceptive thickness ahead loomed the sharp, flaring bow of another forty-footer, sheering quickly, as her pilot sighted them. She was upon them, and abreast, and gone, with a watery purl of her bow wave, a subdued mutter of exhaust, passing so near than an active man could have leaped the space between. "Sufferin' Jerusalem!" Barlow repeated, turning to Stella. "Did you see that, Mrs. Jack? They got him." Stella nodded. She too had seen Monohan seated on the after deck, his head sunk on his breast, irons on his wrists. A glimpse, no more. "That'll help some," Barlow grunted. "Quick work. But they come blame near cuttin' us down, beltin' along at ten knots when you can't see forty feet ahead." An empty beach greeted them at Tumbling Creek. Reluctantly Stella bade Barlow turn back. It would soon be dark, and Barlow said he would be taking chances of piling on the shore before he could see it, or getting lost in the profound black that would shut down on the water with daylight's end. Less than a mile from Cougar Bay, the _Waterbug's_ engine gave a few premonitory gasps and died. Barlow descended to the engine room, hooked up the trouble lamp, and sought for the cause. He could not find it. Stella could hear him muttering profanity, turning the flywheel over, getting an occasional explosion. An hour passed. Dark of the Pit descended, shrouding the lake with a sable curtain, close-folded, impenetrable. The dead stillness of the day vanished before a hot land breeze, and Stella, as she felt the launch drift, knew by her experience on the lake that they were moving offshore. Presently this was confirmed, for out of the black wall on the west, from which the night wind brought stifling puffs of smoke, there lifted a yellow effulgence that grew to a red glare as the boat drifted out. Soon that red glare was a glowing line that rose and fell, dipping and rising and wavering along a two-mile stretch, a fiery surf beating against the forest. Down in the engine room Barlow finally located the trouble, and the motor took up its labors, spinning with a rhythmic chatter of valves. The man came up into the pilot house, wiping the sweat from his grimy face. "Gee, I'm sorry, Mrs. Fyfe," he said. "A gas-engine man would 'a' fixed that in five minutes. Took me two hours to find out what was wrong. It'll be a heck of a job to fetch Cougar Bay now." But by luck Barlow made his way back, blundering fairly into the landing at the foot of the path that led to the bungalow, as if the cruiser knew the way to her old berth. And as he reached the float, the front windows on the hillock broke out yellow, pale blurs in the smoky night. "Well, say," Barlow pointed. "I bet a nickel Jack's home. See? Nobody but him would be in the house." "I'll go up," Stella said. "All right, I guess you know the path better'n I do," Barlow said. "I'll take the _Bug_ around into the bay." Stella ran up the path. She halted halfway up the steps and leaned against the rail to catch her breath. Then she went on. Her step was noiseless, for tucked in behind a cushion aboard the _Waterbug_ she had found an old pair of her own shoes, rubber-soled, and she had put them on to ease the ache in her feet born of thirty-six hours' encasement in leather. She gained the door without a sound. It was wide open, and in the middle of the big room Jack Fyfe stood with hands thrust deep in his pockets, staring absently at the floor. She took a step or two inside. Fyfe did not hear her; he did not look up. "Jack." He gave ever so slight a start, glanced up, stood with head thrown back a little. But he did not move, or answer, and Stella, looking at him, seeing the flame that glowed in his eyes, could not speak. Something seemed to choke her, something that was a strange compound of relief and bewilderment and a slow wonder at herself,--at the queer, unsteady pounding of her heart. "How did you get way up here?" he asked at last. "Linda wired last night that Charlie was hurt. I got a machine to the Springs. Then Barlow came down this afternoon looking for you. He said you'd been missing for two days. So I--I--" She broke off. Fyfe was walking toward her with that peculiar, lightfooted step of his, a queer, tense look on his face. "Nero fiddled when Rome was burning," he said harshly. "Did you come to sing while _my_ Rome goes up in smoke?" A little, half-strangled sob escaped her. She turned to go. But he caught her by the arm. "There, lady," he said, with a swift change of tone, "I didn't mean to slash at you. I suppose you mean all right. But just now, with everything gone to the devil, to look up and see you here--I've really got an ugly temper, Stella, and it's pretty near the surface these days. I don't want to be pitied and sympathized with. I want to fight. I want to hurt somebody." "Hurt me then," she cried. He shook his head sadly. "I couldn't do that," he said. "No, I can't imagine myself ever doing that." "Why?" she asked, knowing why, but wishful to hear in words what his eyes shouted. "Because I love you," he said. "You know well enough why." She lifted her one free hand to his shoulder. Her face turned up to his. A warm wave of blood dyed the round, white neck, shot up into her cheeks. Her eyes were suddenly aglow, lips tremulous. "Kiss me, then," she whispered. "That's what I came for. Kiss me, Jack." If she had doubted, if she had ever in the last few hours looked with misgiving upon what she felt herself impelled to do, the pressure of Jack Fyfe's lips on hers left no room for anything but an amazing thrill of pure gladness. She was happy in his arms, content to rest there, to feel his heart beating against hers, to be quit of all the uncertainties, all the useless regrets. By a roundabout way she had come to her own, and it thrilled her to her finger tips. She could not quite comprehend it, or herself. But she was glad, weeping with gladness, straining her man to her, kissing his face, murmuring incoherent words against his breast. "And so--and so, after all, you do care." Fyfe held her off a little from him, his sinewy fingers gripping gently the soft flesh of her arms. "And you were big enough to come back. Oh, my dear, you don't know what that means to me. I'm broke, and I'd just about reached the point where I didn't give a damn. This fire has cleaned me out. I've--" "I know," Stella interrupted. "That's why I came back. I wouldn't have come otherwise, at least not for a long time--perhaps never. It seemed as if I ought to--as if it were the least I could do. Of course, it looks altogether different, now that I know I really want to. But you see I didn't know that for sure until I saw you standing here. Oh, Jack, there's such a lot I wish I could wipe out." "It's wiped out," he said happily. "The slate's clean. Fair weather didn't get us anywhere. It took a storm. Well, the storm's over." She stirred uneasily in his arms. "Haven't you got the least bit of resentment, Jack, for all this trouble I've helped to bring about?" she faltered. "Why, no" he said thoughtfully. "All you did was to touch the fireworks off. And they might have started over anything. Lord no! put that idea out of your head." "I don't understand," she murmured. "I never have quite understood why Monohan should attack you with such savage bitterness. That trouble he started on the Tyee, then this criminal firing of the woods. I've had hints, first from your sister, then from Linda. I didn't know you'd clashed before. I'm not very clear on that yet. But you knew all the time what he was. Why didn't you tell me, Jack?" "Well, maybe I should have," Fyfe admitted. "But I couldn't very well. Don't you see? He wasn't even an incident, until he bobbed up and rescued you that day. I couldn't, after that, start in picking his character to pieces as a mater of precaution. We had a sort of an armed truce. He left me strictly alone. I'd trimmed his claws once or twice already. I suppose he was acute enough to see an opportunity to get a whack at me through you. You were just living from day to day, creating a world of illusions for yourself, nourishing yourself with dreams, smarting under a stifled regret for a lot you thought you'd passed up for good. _He_ wasn't a factor, at first. When he did finally stir in you an emotion I had failed to stir, it was too late for me to do or say anything. If I'd tried, at that stage of the game, to show you your idol's clay feet, you'd have despised me, as well as refused to believe. I couldn't do anything but stand back and trust the real woman of you to find out what a quicksand you were building your castle on. I purposely refused to let you to, when you wanted to go away the first time,--partly on the kid's account, partly because I could hardly bear to let you go. Mostly because I wanted to make him boil over and show his teeth, on the chance that you'd be able to size him up. "You see, I knew him from the ground up. I knew that nothing would afford him a keener pleasure than to take away from me a woman I cared for, and that nothing would make him squirm more than for me to check-mate him. That day I cuffed him and choked him on the Point really started him properly. After that, you--as something to be desired and possessed--ran second to his feeling against me. He was bound to try and play even, regardless of you. When he precipitated that row on the Tyee, I knew it was going to be a fight for my financial life--for my own life, if he ever got me foul. And it was not a thing I could talk about to you, in your state of mind, then. You were through with me. Regardless of him, you were getting farther and farther away from me. I had a long time to realize that fully. You had a grudge against life, and it was sort of crystallizing on me. You never kissed me once in all those two years like you kissed me just now." She pulled his head down and kissed him again. "So that I wasn't restraining you with any hope for my own advantage," he went on. "There was the kid, and there was you. I wanted to put a brake on you, to make you go slow. You're a complex individual, Stella. Along with certain fixed, fundamental principles, you've got a streak of divine madness in you, a capacity for reckless undertakings. You'd never have married me if you hadn't. I trusted you absolutely. But, I was afraid in spite of my faith. You had draped such an idealistic mantle around Monohan. I wanted to rend that before it came to a final separation between us. It worked out, because he couldn't resist trying to take a crack at me when the notion seized him. "So," he continued, after a pause, "you aren't responsible, and I've never considered you responsible for any of this. It's between him and me, and it's been shaping for years. Whenever our trails crossed there was bound to be a clash. There's always been a natural personal antagonism between us. It began to show when we were kids, you might say. Monohan's nature is such that he can't acknowledge defeat, he can't deny himself a gratification. He's a supreme egotist. He's always had plenty of money, he's always had whatever he wanted, and it never mattered to him how he gratified his desires. "The first time we locked horns was in my last year at high school. Monohan was a star athlete. I beat him in a pole vault. That irked him so that he sulked and sneered, and generally made himself so insulting that I slapped him. We fought, and I whipped him. I had a temper that I hadn't learned to keep in hand those days, and I nearly killed him. I had nothing but contempt for him, anyway, because even then, when he wasn't quite twenty, he was a woman hunter, preying on silly girls. I don't know what his magic with women is, but it works, until they find him out. He was playing off two or three fool girls that I knew and at the same time keeping a woman in apartments down-town,--a girl he'd picked up on a trip to Georgia,--like any confirmed rounder. "Well, from that time on, he hated me, always laid for a chance to sting me. We went to Princeton the same year. We collided there, so hard that when word of it got to my father's ears, he called me home and read the riot act so strong that I flared up and left. Then I came to the coast here and got a job in the woods, got to be a logging boss, and went into business on my own hook eventually. I'd just got nicely started when I ran into Monohan again. He'd got into timber himself. I was hand logging up the coast, and I'd hate to tell you the tricks he tried. He kept it up until I got too big to be harassed in a petty way. Then he left me alone. But he never forgot his grudge. The stage was all set for this act long before you gave him his cue, Stella. You weren't to blame for that, or if you were in part, it doesn't matter now. I'm satisfied. Paradoxically I feel rich, even though it's a long shot that I'm broke flat. I've got something money doesn't buy. And he has overreached himself at last. All his money and pull won't help him out of this jack pot. Arson and attempted murder is serious business." "They caught him," Stella said. "The constables took him down the lake to-night. I saw him on their launch as they passed the _Waterbug_." "Yes?" Fyfe said. "Quick work. I didn't even know about the shooting till I came in here to-night about dark. Well," he snapped his fingers, "exit Monohan. He's a dead issue, far as we're concerned. Wouldn't you like something to eat, Stella? I'm hungry, and I was dog-tired when I landed here. Say, you can't guess what I was thinking about, lady, standing there when you came in." She shook her head. "I had a crazy notion of touching a match to the house," he said soberly, "letting it go up in smoke with the rest. Yes, that's what I was thinking I would do. Then I'd take the _Panther_ and what gear I have on the scows and pull off Roaring Lake. It didn't seem as if I could stay. I'd laid the foundation of a fortune here and tried to make a home--and lost it all, everything that was worth having. And then all at once there you were, like a vision in the door. Miracles _do_ happen!" Her arms tightened involuntarily about him. "Oh," she cried breathlessly. "Our little, white house!" "Without you," he replied softly, "it was just an empty shell of boards and plaster, something to make me ache with loneliness." "But not now," she murmured. "It's home, now." "Yes," he agreed, smiling. "Ah, but it isn't quite." She choked down a lump in her throat. "Not when I think of those little feet that used to patter on the floor. Oh, Jack--when I think of my baby boy! My dear, my dear, why did all this have to be, I wonder?" Fyfe stroked her glossy coils of hair. "We get nothing of value without a price," he said quietly. "Except by rare accident, nothing that's worth having comes cheap and easy. We've paid the price, and we're square with the world and with each other. That's everything." "Are you completely ruined, Jack?" she asked after an interval. "Charlie said you were." "Well," he answered reflectively, "I haven't had time to balance accounts, but I guess I will be. The timber's gone. I've saved most of the logging gear. But if I realized on everything that's left, and squared up everything, I guess I'd be pretty near strapped." "Will you take me in as a business partner, Jack?" she asked eagerly. "That's what I had in mind when I came up here. I made up my mind to propose that, after I'd heard you were ruined. Oh, it seems silly now, but I wanted to make amends that way; at least, I tried to tell myself that. Listen. When my father died, he left some supposedly worthless oil stock. But it proved to have a market value. I got my share of it the other day. It'll help us to make a fresh start--together." She had the envelope and the check tucked inside her waist. She took it out now and pressed the green slip into his hand. Fyfe looked at it and at her, a little chuckle deep in his throat. "Nineteen thousand, five hundred," he laughed. "Well, that's quite a stake for you. But if you go partners with me, what about your singing?" "I don't see how I can have my cake and eat it, too," she said lightly. "I don't feel quite so eager for a career as I did." "Well, we'll see," he said. "That light of yours shouldn't be hidden under a bushel. And still, I don't like the idea of you being away from me, which a career implies." He put the check back in the envelope, smiling oddly to himself, and tucked it back in her bosom. She caught and pressed his hand there, against the soft flesh. "Won't you use it, Jack?" she pleaded. "Won't it help? Don't let any silly pride influence you. There mustn't ever be anything like that between us again." "There won't be," he smiled. "Frankly, if I need it, I'll use it. But that's a matter there's plenty of time to decide. You see, although technically I may be broke, I'm a long way from the end of my tether. I think I'll have my working outfit clear, and the country's full of timber. I've got a standing in the business that neither fire nor anything else can destroy. No, I haven't any false pride about the money, dear. But the money part of our future is a detail. With the incentive I've got now to work and plan, it won't take me five years to be a bigger toad in the timber puddle than I ever was. You don't know what a dynamo I am when I get going." "I don't doubt that," she said proudly. "But the money's yours, if you need it." "I need something else a good deal more right now," he laughed. "That's something to eat. Aren't you hungry, Stella? Wouldn't you like a cup of coffee?" "I'm famished," she admitted--the literal truth. The vaulting uplift of spirit, that glad little song that kept lilting in her heart, filled her with peace and contentment, but physically she was beginning to experience acute hunger. She recalled that she had eaten scarcely anything that day. "We'll go down to the camp," Fyfe suggested. "The cook will have something left. We're camping like pioneers down there. The shacks were all burned, and somebody sank the cookhouse scow." They went down the path to the bay, hand in hand, feeling their way through that fire-blackened area, under a black sky. A red eye glowed ahead of them, a fire on the beach around which men squatted on their haunches or lay stretched on their blankets, sooty-faced fire fighters, a weary group. The air was rank with smoke wafted from the burning woods. The cook's fire was dead, and that worthy was humped on his bed-roll smoking a pipe. But he had cold meat and bread, and he brewed a pot of coffee on the big fire for them, and Stella ate the plain fare, sitting in the circle of tired loggers. "Poor fellows, they look worn out," she said, when they were again traversing that black road to the bungalow. "We've slept standing up for three weeks," Fyfe said simply. "They've done everything they could. And we're not through yet. A north wind might set Charlie's timber afire in a dozen places." "Oh, for a rain," she sighed. "If wishing for rain brought it," he laughed, "we'd have had a second flood. We've got to keep pegging away till it does rain, that's all. We can't do much, but we have to keep doing it. You'll have to go back to the Springs to-morrow, I'm afraid, Stella. I'll have to stay on the firing line, literally." "I don't want to," she cried rebelliously. "I want to stay up here with you. I'm not wax. I won't melt." She continued that argument into the house, until Fyfe laughingly smothered her speech with kisses. * * * * * An oddly familiar sound murmuring in Stella's ear wakened her. At first she thought she must be dreaming. It was still inky dark, but the air that blew in at the open window was sweet and cool, filtered of that choking smoke. She lifted herself warily, looked out, reached a hand through the lifted sash. Wet drops spattered it. The sound she heard was the drip of eaves, the beat of rain on the charred timber, upon the dried grass of the lawn. Beside her Fyfe was a dim bulk, sleeping the dead slumber of utter weariness. She hesitated a minute, then shook him. "Listen, Jack," she said. He lifted his head. "Rain!" he whispered. "Good night, Mister Fire. Hooray!" "I brought it," Stella murmured sleepily. "I wished it on Roaring Lake to-night." Then she slipped her arm about his neck, and drew his face down to her breast with a tender fierceness, and closed her eyes with a contented sigh. THE END 
45238	----	Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals. On page 227, [)a] represents "a" with breve. * * * * * Early Western Travels 1748-1846 Volume XXI Early Western Travels 1748-1846 A Series of Annotated Reprints of some of the best and rarest contemporary volumes of travel, descriptive of the Aborigines and Social and Economic Conditions in the Middle and Far West, during the Period of Early American Settlement Edited with Notes, Introductions, Index, etc., by Reuben Gold Thwaites, LL.D. Editor of "The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents," "Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition," "Hennepin's New Discovery," etc. Volume XXI Wyeth's Oregon, or a Short History of a Long Journey, 1832; and Townsend's Narrative of a Journey across the Rocky Mountains, 1834 [Illustration: logo] Cleveland, Ohio The Arthur H. Clark Company 1905 COPYRIGHT 1905, BY THE ARTHUR H. CLARK COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED The Lakeside Press R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY CHICAGO CONTENTS OF VOLUME XXI PREFACE. _The Editor_ 9 I OREGON; OR A SHORT HISTORY OF A LONG JOURNEY FROM THE ATLANTIC OCEAN TO THE REGION OF THE PACIFIC, BY LAND; drawn up from the notes and oral information of ... one of the party who left Mr. Nathaniel J. Wyeth, July 28th, 1832, four days' march beyond the Ridge of the Rocky Mountains, and the only one who has returned to New England. _John B. Wyeth._ Author's Motto 20 Text 21 II NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY ACROSS THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, TO THE COLUMBIA RIVER. _John K. Townsend._ Copyright Clause 112 Publisher's Advertisement 113 Author's Table of Contents 115 Text 121 ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOLUME XXI Facsimile of title-page to Wyeth's _Oregon_ 19 "Hunting the Buffalo." From the London edition (1840) of Townsend's _Narrative_ 110 Facsimile of title-page to Townsend's _Narrative_ 111 "Spearing the Salmon." From the London edition (1840) of Townsend's _Narrative_ 259 PREFACE TO VOLUME XXI With the present volume our series reverts to the far Northwest, and takes up the story of the Oregon country during the fourth decade of the nineteenth century. After the failure of the Astorian enterprise (1811-13), recounted with so much detail in the narratives of Franchère and Ross (reprinted in our volumes vi and vii), the Northwest Coast fell into the hands of the British fur-trade companies, who ruled the forest regions with a sway as absolute as that of a czar. The "Nor'westers" first occupied the field, sent out their daring "bourgeois" in all directions, and reaped a rich harvest of pelts. But upon the consolidation of the rival corporations (1821), the Hudson's Bay Company's men succeeded them, and for the first time law and order were enforced by the chief factors, and the denizens of the Northwest, white and red, soon learned to obey and revere their new masters. Prominent among the factors was Dr. John McLoughlin, the benevolent despot of Fort Vancouver, whose will was law not only for savages and fur-trade employés, but for all overland emigrants, British and American, who now began swarming to the banks of the Columbia. For twenty years he governed a province larger than France, and friend and foe alike testify to his probity and kindness, from which Americans profited quite as fully as those from his own land. To the world at large, during this long period, the land beyond the mountains remained unknown and almost unknowable. Occasionally a New England skipper ventured to the mouth of the Columbia, exchanging goods from Hawaii and the South Seas for the salmon and furs of the Northwest Coast; but the inhabitants of the interior of our country long found the Rockies and their outlying deserts insurmountable barriers to Western passage. Fur-traders finally led the way into the heart of the mountains. The Rocky Mountain Fur Company, under General William Ashley, began in 1822 that series of explorations and excursions that opened the highland fastnesses to the men of the West, and paved the way for the tracing of the Oregon Trail. But it was bona-fide settlers, not fur-traders or trappers, that captured Oregon for the United States. Among the earliest of these were members of the company escorted by Captain Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth, whose home was in the shades of academic learning at Cambridge, Massachusetts. Wyeth, however, owed the inception of the enterprise to another New Englander, his quondam fellow-townsman, Hall J. Kelley. An enterprising schoolmaster, the narratives of Lewis and Clark and of the Astorian participants fired his imagination with a desire to behold the Far West, while the joint-occupancy treaty with Great Britain (1818) aroused in him a patriotic desire that the region watered by the Columbia might be possessed by his native land. Throughout more than a decade he published pamphlets and articles for the local press, glowing with praise of Oregon, and succeeded in organizing the Oregon Colonization Society, from among whose members he hoped to lead an expedition to the far-away land of promise. Among those who hearkened to him was the young Cambridgian, Wyeth, whose mind, more practical than Kelley's, but as yet uninformed as to the real difficulties of the enterprise, conceived the project of a great commercial enterprise to the Northwest. In the winter of 1831-32, Wyeth formed his party of pioneers and formulated his plans. With the opening of the spring a vessel laden with supplies was to start around Cape Horn, to meet the overland adventurers at the mouth of the Columbia. Wyeth, meanwhile, was to lead a company of hale young men across the continent, who should hunt and trap on the way, and be ready on arrival to provide a cargo of furs for the vessel, and later to develop the products of the Oregon country. Wyeth's original plan for the land party included forty companions, but he finally set forth from Baltimore with an enrollment of but twenty-four. Arrived in St. Louis, he learned for the first time of the vast operations that Western fur-traders were already carrying on among the mountains--men to whom the experience of a life-time had taught the conditions and the methods of trade beyond the frontier. Nothing daunted, however, young Wyeth joined the yearly caravan of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, and under its protection proceeded to that company's rendezvous at Pierre's Hole. There the majority of his men, finding the hazard greater than they had anticipated, turned back; but the leader, with a handful of followers, pressed on, only to learn in the Oregon country that his vessel had been wrecked on a Pacific reef, and his cargo of supplies lost. Received at Fort Vancouver with hospitable courtesy on the part of the Hudson's Bay people, Wyeth passed the winter in exploring the region and learning its resources. He became more than ever eager to exploit the great possibilities lying before him, and returned across the continent to Boston, making en route the famous journey--commemorated by Washington Irving in his _Scenes in the Rocky Mountains_--down the Bighorn and Yellowstone in a bull-boat. While still among the mountain men, Wyeth confidently entered into a contract with Milton Sublette and the latter's partner, Thomas Fitzpatrick, to carry out to them their yearly supplies the following season. Intent on this and other projects, our adventurer hastened on to Boston, organized the Columbia River Fishing and Trading Company, and secured another vessel to proceed to Oregon by sea. This time Wyeth's party was trebled, and with a following of over seventy he started from St. Louis on March 7, 1834. Among his companions were the naturalists Nuttall and Townsend, and the missionaries Jason and Daniel Lee, all of whom were seeking the Oregon country on errands of their own. The fate of Wyeth's second expedition need not here be recounted, further than to state that the contract being repudiated by the Rocky Mountain men, Wyeth established a trading post in eastern Idaho, which he later (1837) sold to the Hudson's Bay Company and proceeded on to Oregon. After indefatigable efforts, and fatigues seldom paralleled, Wyeth finally (1836) abandoned the country and his ambitious project, and settled down to the humdrum role of ice-merchant in Cambridge, amassing a moderate fortune in shipping that useful commodity to the West Indies. In recent years the journals and correspondence of Nathaniel J. Wyeth, recounting the experience of his two expeditions, have come to light and been published by the Oregon Historical Society. These documents, however, furnish but terse and bald statements of events, whereas detailed narratives appeared in works published many years before. The historian of the first expedition was a kinsman of its leader--John B. Wyeth, a young man of eighteen summers, who had previously been to sea and acquired a taste for adventure. After the long journey into the mountains, young Wyeth became dissatisfied with the hardships and ill prospects of the venture, and joined those malcontents at Pierre's Hole who voted for return, thus abandoning his leader before the journey was more than two-thirds completed. Upon arrival at Cambridge, the narrative of the younger Wyeth's adventures sped around the circle of his acquaintances, and reached the ear of Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, a well-known local physician and scientist. Waterhouse desired to discourage the prevalent wild schemes of Western emigration, and published Wyeth's experiences as a useful warning against such projects. The little book as issued from the press bore the title: _Oregon; or a Short History of a Long Journey from the Atlantic Ocean to the Region of the Pacific by Land, drawn up from the notes and oral information of John B. Wyeth_ (Cambridge, 1833). It is not difficult for the reader to distinguish the work of the young traveller from that of the older scientist--the literary finish, the allusions, the moralizing and animadversions, of this composite book, are certainly the elder's; the racy adventures, the off-hand descriptions, surely those of the younger collaborator.[1] [1] In Harvard University Library, the book is catalogued under Waterhouse as author. John B. Wyeth's publication was distinctly annoying and hurtful to the plans of his cousin, and caused the latter to characterize it as "full of white lies." It is in the animus rather than the words themselves that the deceit is to be found; but disregarding its injudicious criticisms and comments, Wyeth's book is a readable work of travel, written in the full flush of health and spirits experienced by a vigorous youngster on a journey taken more as an escapade than with serious purpose. How far this motive carried him, is witnessed by the recitation of practical jokes in Cincinnati, and by the disasters of the home journey, when, abandoned by his companions, he was turned adrift in plague-stricken New Orleans to shift for himself. As a picture of early life on the plains and in the mountains, the account is graphic and attractive, as exampled by the descriptions of the scene at the rendezvous--also that at the conference between the Blackfoot chiefs and the envoys of the whites, previous to the battle of Pierre's Hole. Vivid pictures of the fur-trade leaders, and swift glimpses of friendly and hostile tribesmen, jostle the description of what was in effect a New England town-meeting in Pierre's Hole, and the report of an Indian battle famous in the annals of the West. The Wyeth narrative was printed privately, for circulation among friends, and therefore in a small edition. Examples are consequently now extremely rare, and it is believed that its reprint in the present series will be welcomed by students of early Western exploration. Nathaniel J. Wyeth's second expedition was even more fortunate in its historian. John K. Townsend, a well-known Philadelphia physician and naturalist, had long been desirous of exploring the far western country in the interests of science. Hearing from his friend, Thomas Nuttall, then botanist at Harvard College, that he was preparing to join an expedition across the continent, Townsend made arrangements to accompany him, and obtained from the American Philosophical Society and the Academy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia a commission to search for birds on their behalf. The two scientists joined Wyeth at Boonville, Missouri, after a pedestrian journey from St. Louis to that point. The adventurers left Independence on April 28, 1834, in company with the annual fur-trading caravan for the Far West, and late in June arrived at the famous Green River rendezvous. Thence the Wyeth party proceeded to the Columbia, where a hearty welcome from Hudson's Bay officials awaited them both at Walla Walla and Vancouver. Townsend remained in the Oregon district for nearly two years. In the winter of 1834-35 he spent several months in the Sandwich Islands, returning in Wyeth's vessel, the "May Dacre," in March, 1835. The next year he was employed by the Hudson's Bay Company as physician at Fort Vancouver, of which duties he was relieved by the coming of one of their own surgeons from the North (March, 1836). Still the ornithologist lingered in the country, anxious to complete his collection of native birds. He journeyed up the Columbia to Walla Walla, made a short excursion into the Blue Mountains, explored the river's mouth, visited the ruins of Lewis and Clark's Fort Clatsop, and finally embarked for home, by way of Cape Horn, on November 30, 1836. Three months were passed in Hawaii, en route; his stay in Chili was prolonged by illness; but at last, after a tedious voyage, he arrived off Cape Henlopen November 13, 1837, having been absent three years and eight months. Townsend's account of his travels appeared at Philadelphia in 1839, entitled: _Narrative of a Journey across the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia River, and a Visit to the Sandwich Islands, Chili, &c., with a Scientific Appendix._ A London edition followed in 1840, bearing the title, _Sporting Excursions to the Rocky Mountains including a Journey to the Columbia River and a Visit to the Sandwich Islands, Chili, etc._ This contains a few insignificant changes. Our reprint is from the original Philadelphia version, omitting both the now unessential appendix, and that portion of the narrative which deals with Hawaii and South America, these being outside the field of our present interest. Townsend wrote in an easy, flowing style, and a large share of his pages bear evidence of closely following his daily journals. Unlike Wyeth's kinsman, Townsend had much admiration for the ability and resource of his leader--for his "most indefatigable perseverance and industry"--and could only attribute his failure to the mysterious dealings of Providence. From the commercial and economic standpoint, Wyeth's enterprise was a failure; from the historian's point of view, it was eminently successful. Not only did he conduct considerable parties of Americans across the continent, but some of these became permanent settlers in the Oregon country; and his enterprise awakened the country to the dangers of joint political occupancy. Lewis and Clark's journals, as paraphrased by Nicholas Biddle in 1814, had first called popular attention to the region. John B. Wyeth's book, in 1833, was the first American publication on the subject, after the records of the initial exploration, and aroused a fresh interest in at least a limited group of influential readers; the spark was further kindled by the appearance, in 1836, of Washington Irving's classic _Astoria_; and then appeared, three years later, Townsend's admirable narrative, giving to the world some detailed knowledge of the resources of the Far Northwest. In the same year with Townsend's publication, Wyeth himself presented to Congress his "Memoir on Oregon,"[2] which was freighted with information concerning the worth of the new region. These several works were important influences in forcing the Oregon question upon the attention of Congress, and thus paving the way for the final acquisition of that country by the United States under the Oregon Treaty of 1846.[3] [2] _House Ex. Reports_, 25 Cong., 3 sess., 101, app. 1. [3] See Caleb B. Cushing "Discovery beyond the Rocky Mountains" in _North American Review_, 1 (1840), pp. 75-144. In the preparation of the present volume for the press, the Editor has had, throughout, the active assistance of Louise Phelps Kellogg, Ph.D. R. G. T. MADISON, WIS., October, 1905. [Illustration: title page Oregon] WYETH'S OREGON, OR A SHORT HISTORY OF A LONG JOURNEY Reprint of original edition: Cambridge, 1833 OREGON; OR A SHORT HISTORY OF A LONG JOURNEY FROM THE ATLANTIC OCEAN TO THE REGION OF THE PACIFIC. BY LAND. DRAWN UP FROM THE NOTES AND ORAL INFORMATION OF JOHN B WYETH ONE OF THE PARTY WHO LEFT MR NATHANIEL J WYETH, JULY 28TH, 1832, FOUR DAYS MARCH BEYOND THE RIDGE OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, AND THE ONLY ONE WHO HAS RETURNED TO NEW ENGLAND. CAMBRIDGE PRINTED FOR JOHN B. WYETH. 1833. A contented mind is a continual feast; but _entire satisfaction_ has never been procured by wealth however enormous, or ambition however successful. True happiness is to no place confin'd, But still is found in a _contented_ mind. OREGON EXPEDITION In order to understand this Oregon Expedition, it is necessary to say, that thirty years ago (1803), PRESIDENT JEFFERSON recommended to Congress to authorize competent officers to explore the river _Missouri_ from its mouth to its source, and by crossing the mountains to seek the best water communication thence to the _Pacific_ Ocean. This arduous task was undertaken by Captain M. Lewis and Lieutenant W. Clarke of the first regiment of infantry. They were accompanied by a select party of soldiers, and arrived at the Missouri in May, 1804, and persisted in their novel and difficult task into the year 1806, and with such success as to draw from President Jefferson the following testimonial of their heroic services, viz. "The expedition of Messrs. LEWIS & CLARKE, for exploring the river Missouri, and the best communication from that to the _Pacific Ocean_, has had all the success which could be expected; and for which arduous service they deserve well of their country."[4] [4] Quoted from Jefferson's annual message, December 2, 1806. See James D. Richardson (ed.), _Messages and Papers of the Presidents_ (Washington, 1896), i, p. 408.--ED. The object of this enterprise was to confer in a friendly manner with the Indian Nations throughout their whole journey, with a view to establish a friendly and equitable commerce with them, on {2} principles emulating those that marked and dignified the settlement of Pennsylvania by _William Penn_. It was beyond doubt that the President and Congress sincerely desired to treat the Indians with kindness and justice, and to establish peace, order, and good neighbourhood with all the savage tribes with whom they came in contact, and not to carry war or violence among any of them who appeared peaceably disposed. A few years before the period of which we have spoken, our government had acquired by purchase the vast and valuable Territory of Louisiana from the renowned NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, at that time the Chief of the French Nation. Considering his previous intentions, and actual preparations under his famous General _Bernadotte_,[5] nothing could be more fortunate for these United States than this purchase. Our possession of Louisiana was so grievous a sore to the very jealous Spaniards, that they have, till lately, done all in their power to debar and mislead us from pursuing discoveries in that quarter, or in the Arkansas, Missouri, or _Oregon_. Yet few or none of them probably believed that we should, during the present generation, or the next, attempt the exploration of the distant _Oregon_ Territory, which extends from the _Rocky Mountains_ to the shores of the Pacific Ocean, or in other words, from the Missouri and Yellow Stone rivers to that of the river Columbia or Oregon which pours into the Ocean by a wide mouth at the immense distance from us of about four thousand miles; yet one and twenty men, chiefly farmers and a few mechanics, had the hardihood to undertake it, and that too with deliberation and sober calculation. But what will not a New-England {3} man undertake when honor and interest are the objects before him? Have not the people of that sand-bank, Nantucket, redeemed it from the ocean, and sailed round Cape Horn in pursuit of whales for their oil, and seals for their skins? A score of our farmers seeing that Nantucket and New Bedford had acquired riches and independence by traversing the sea to the distant shores of the Pacific, determined to do something like it _by land_. Their ardor seemed to have hidden from their eyes the mighty difference between the facility of passing in a ship with the aid of sails, progressing day and night, by skilfully managing the winds and the helm, and that of a complicated wagon upon wheels, their journey to be over mountains and rivers, and through hostile tribes of savages who dreaded and hated the sight of a white man. [5] Referring probably to the fact that Bernadotte had in January, 1803, been chosen minister to the United States, and tarried in France during the negotiations for the purchase of Louisiana. After these were concluded, Bernadotte's services being required in the impending war with England, his projected mission to America was abandoned. Wyeth has probably confused Bernadotte's mission with the preparation in Holland of the armament which was, under command of General Victor, intended to take possession of Louisiana.--ED. This novel expedition was not however the original or spontaneous notion of Mr. Nathaniel J. Wyeth,[6] nor was it entirely owing to the publications of Lewis & Clarke or Mackenzie.[7] Nor was it entirely owing to the enterprise of Messrs. Barrell, Hatch, and Bulfinch, who fitted out two vessels that sailed from Boston in 1787, commanded by Captains Kendrick and Gray, which vessels arrived at Nootka in September, 1788.[8] They were roused to it by the writings of Mr. Hall J. Kelly, who had read all the books he could get on the voyages and travels in Asia, Africa, Europe, and America, until he had heated his mind to a degree little short of the valorous Knight of La Mancha, that is to say, he believed all he read, and was firm in the opinion that an Englishman and an American, or either, by himself, could endure and achieve any thing {4} that any man could do with the same help, and farther, that a New-England man or "Yankee," could with less.[9] That vast region, which stretches from between the east of the Mississippi, and south of the Lakes _Superior_, _Huron_, _Michigan_, _Erie_, and _Ontario_, was too narrow a space for the enterprise of men born and bred within a mile or two of the oldest University in the United States.[10] Whatever be the true character of the natives of New England, one thing must be allowed them, that of great and expansive ideas,--beyond, far beyond the generality of the inhabitants of the small Island of Britain. I say small, for if that Island should be placed in the midst of these United States, it would hardly form more than a single member of our extended republic. That vast rivers, enormous mountains, tremendous cataracts, with an extent corresponding to the hugeness of the features of America, naturally inspire men with boundless ideas, few will doubt. This adventurous disposition, at the same time, will as naturally banish from the mind what the _new-light_ doctrine of Phrenology calls the disposition bump of _Inhabitiveness_, or an inclination to stay at home, and in its place give rise to a roaming, wandering inclination, which, some how or other, may so affect the organs of vision, and of hearing, as to debar a person from perceiving what others may see, the innumerable difficulties in the way. Mr. Hall J. Kelly's writings operated like a match applied to the combustible matter accumulated in the mind of the energetic Nathaniel J. Wyeth, which reflected and multiplied the flattering glass held up to view by the ingenious and well-disposed schoolmaster. [6] Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth belonged to one of the oldest families of Cambridge, Massachusetts, his ancestor settling there in 1645, on a place held by his descendants for over two centuries. Nathaniel's grandfather, Ebenezer, in 1751, purchased an estate embracing part of the present Mount Auburn, and extending to Fresh Pond. There Nathaniel's father, Jacob (1764-1856), built a summer resort known as Fresh Pond Hotel. Nathaniel, the fourth son, was born January 29, 1802, and was intended for Harvard College, of which his father and eldest brother were graduates; his ambitious spirit, however, made him impatient to begin commercial life, and to his subsequent regret the college course was abandoned. He first aided his father in the management of the hotel, but soon entered the ice trade, in which he remained until his expedition of 1832-36. In 1824 marrying his cousin Elizabeth Jarvis Stone, he shortly before the first expedition moved into a new house on the family estate, in which he resided until his death in 1856. For the Oregon expeditions, see the preface of the present volume. Returning to Cambridge in 1836, he re-entered the ice traffic, and after 1840 was the head of the concern. His highly accentuated qualities of activity and enterprise, added to his strong personality, caused him to be esteemed by his contemporaries.--ED. [7] In the centennial years of the Lewis and Clark expedition, their original journals were for the first time printed as written--Thwaites (ed.), _Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition_ (New York, 1904-05). For an account of the earlier edition of their journals, edited by Nicholas Biddle, see Introduction to the work just cited. On Mackenzie, consult Franchère's _Narrative_ in our volume vi, p. 185, note 4.--ED. [8] On the expedition of Captains Kendrick and Gray, consult Franchère's _Narrative_, in our volume vi, p. 183, note 1.--ED. [9] Hall J. Kelley may properly be called the father of the Oregon emigration movement. Born in New Hampshire in 1790, he left home at the age of sixteen and engaged in teaching at Hallowell, Maine. In 1814 he was graduated from Middlebury College, and the following year removed to Boston, where he was occupied as teacher and philanthropist, assisting in founding the Boston Young Men's Education Society, the Penitent Female Refuge Society, and the first Sunday School in New England. He was also a surveyor and engineer, and in 1828 invested his entire patrimony in a canal project at Three Rivers (later, Palmer), Massachusetts, whither he removed in 1829. This enterprise proved a failure, and his investment a total loss. For many years he had been interested in the Oregon country, and soon after the publication of Biddle's version of the journals of the Lewis and Clark expedition (1814), Kelley began an agitation for the American occupation of the district. He tried to interest Congress, and the first Oregon bills (1820) bear the impress of his thought--see F. F. Victor, "Hall J. Kelley," in _Oregon Historical Quarterly_, ii, pp. 381-400. Finding his frequent petitions of no avail, he formed a company in 1829 (incorporated in 1831) known as the "American Society for encouraging the settlement of Oregon territory." The winter of 1831-32 was spent in preparation for an emigration movement. Wyeth was a member of this organization, and at first proposed to accompany Kelley; but finding the latter's plans impracticable, organized his own party. Kelley set out in the spring of 1832 with a small company, who all abandoned him at New Orleans. Proceeding alone to Vera Cruz, his goods were confiscated by the Mexican government; but although now penniless, he worked his way through to California. There, in the spring of 1834, he met Ewing Young (see our volume xx, p. 23, note 2), whom he persuaded to accompany him overland to Oregon. Kelley was ill, but was treated with slight respect by the British authorities at Fort Vancouver, and lived without the fort during the winter, exploring the country in the intervals of his fever. In the following spring (1835) he shipped for Hawaii, and returned to Boston, determined, notwithstanding his misfortunes, to further Oregon emigration--see report to Congress, _House Reports_, 26 Cong., 3 sess., i, 101. Kelley's health became undermined by the hardships which he had endured, his eyesight was impaired, and he passed his latter years in Palmer, Massachusetts, in poverty and obscurity, dying there in 1874.--ED. [10] Harvard College was established by act of the general court of Massachusetts in 1636.--ED. Mr. Nathaniel J. Wyeth had listened with peculiar {5} delight to all the flattering accounts from the Western regions, and that at a time when he was surrounded with apparent advantages, and even enviable circumstances. He was born and bred near the borders of a beautiful small Lake, as it would be called in Great Britain; but what we in this country call a large Pond; because we generally give the name of Lakes only to our vast inland seas, some of which almost rival in size the Caspian and Euxine in the old world. It seems that he gave entire credit to the stories of the wonderful fertility of the soil on the borders of the Ohio, Missouri, the river Platte, and the Oregon, with the equally wonderful healthfulness of the climate. We need not wonder that a mind naturally ardent and enterprising should become too enthusiastic to pursue the laborious routine of breaking up and harrowing the hard and stubborn soil of Massachusetts within four miles of the sea, where the shores are bounded and fortified by stones and rocks, which extend inland, lying just below the surface of the ground, while the regions of the West were represented as standing in need of very little laborious culture, such was the native vigor of its black soil. The spot where our adventurer was born and grew up, had many peculiar and desirable advantages over most others in the county of Middlesex. Besides rich pasturage, numerous dairies, and profitable orchards, and other fruit trees, it possessed the luxuries of well cultivated gardens of all sorts of culinary vegetables, and all within three miles of the Boston Market-House, and two miles of the largest live-cattle market in New England. All this, and more too, had not sufficient attractions to retain Mr. Wyeth in his native town and county. {6} Besides these blessings, I shall add another. The Lake I spoke of, commonly called _Fresh Pond_, is a body of delightful water, which seems to be the natural head or source of all the numerous underground rivers running between it and the National Navy Yard at Charlestown, which is so near to the city of Boston as to be connected to it by a bridge; for wherever you sink a well, between the body of water just mentioned, you strike a pelucid vein of it at from nineteen to twenty-two feet depth from the surface. With the aforesaid Lake or Pond is connected another not quite so large, but equally beautiful. Around these bodies of inosculating waters, are well cultivated farms and a number of gentlemen's country-seats, forming a picture of rural beauty and plenty not easily surpassed in Spring, Summer, and Autumn; and when winter has frozen the lakes and all the rivers, this spot has another and singular advantage; for our adventurer sold the _water_ of this pond; which was sent to the West-Indian Islands, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and other places south of this; which is so much of a singularity as to require explanation. In our very coldest weather, January and February, the body of water we spoke of is almost every year frozen to the thickness of from eighteen inches to two feet,--sometimes less, and very rarely more. It is then sawed into cubes of the size just mentioned, and deposited in large store-houses, and carted thence every month in the year, even through the dog-days, in heavy teams drawn by oxen and horses to the wharves in Boston, and put on board large and properly constructed vessels, and carried into the hot climates already {7} mentioned. The heavy teams five, or six, or more, close following each other, day and night, and even through the hottest months, would appear incredible to a stranger. Here was a traffic without any drawback, attended with no other charge than the labor of cutting and transporting the article; for the pond belonged to no man, any more than the air which hung above it. Both belonged to mankind. No one claimed any personal property in it, or control over it from border to border. A clearer profit can hardly be imagined. While the farmer was ploughing his ground, manuring and planting it, securing his well-tended crop by fencing, and yet after all his labor, the Hessian-fly, the canker or slug worm, or some other destructive insect, or some untimely frost, as was the case last winter, might lay waste all his pains and cut off all his expectations. The only risk to which the Ice-merchant was liable was a blessing to most of the community; I mean the mildness of a winter that should prevent his native lake from freezing a foot or two thick. Our fishermen have a great advantage over the farmer in being exempt from fencing, walling, manuring, taxation, and dry seasons; and only need the expence of a boat, line, and hook, and the risk of life and health; but from all these the Ice-man is in a manner entirely exempted; and yet the Captain of this Oregon Expedition seemed to say, All this availeth me nothing, so long as I read books in which I find, that by only going about _four thousand miles_, over land, from the shore of our _Atlantic_ to the shore of the _Pacific_, after we have there entrapped and killed the beavers and otters, we shall be able, after building vessels for {8} the purpose, to carry our most valuable peltry to China and Cochin China, our seal-skins to Japan, and our superfluous grain to various Asiatic ports, and lumber to the Spanish settlements on the Pacific; and to become rich by underworking and underselling the people of Hindostan; and, to crown all, to extend far and wide the traffic in oil by killing tame whales on the spot, instead of sailing round the stormy region of Cape Horn. All these advantages and more too were suggested to divers discontented and impatient young men. Talk to them of the great labor, toil, and risk, and they would turn a deaf ear to you: argue with them, and you might as well reason with a snow-storm. Enterprising young men run away with the idea that _the farther they go from home, the surer they will be of making a fortune_. The original projector of this golden vision first talked himself into the visionary scheme, and then talked twenty others into the same notion.[11] Some of their neighbours and well-wishers thought differently from them; and some of the oldest, and most thoughtful, and prudent endeavoured to dissuade them from so very ardous and hazardous an expedition. But young and single men are for tempting the untried scene; and when either sex has got a notion of that sort, the more you try to dissuade them, the more intent they are on their object. Nor is this bent of mind always to be censured, or wondered at. Were every man to be contented to remain in the town in which he was born, and to follow the trade of his father, there would be an end to improvement, and a serious impediment to spreading population. It is difficult to draw the exact line between contentment, and that inactivity {9} which approaches laziness. The disposition either way seems stamped upon us by _nature_, and therefore innate. This is certainly the case with birds and beasts;--the wild geese emigrate late in the Autumn to a southern climate, and return again in the Spring to a northern one, while the owl and several other birds remain all their lives near where they were hatched; whereas man is not so much confined by a natural bias to his native home. He can live in all climates from the equator to very near the dreary poles, which is not the case with other animals; and it would seem that nature intended he should live anywhere;--for whereas other animals are restricted in their articles of food, some living wholly on flesh, and others wholly on vegetables, man is capable of feeding upon every thing that is eatable by any creature, and of mixing every article together, and varying them by his knowledge and art of cookery,--a knowledge and skill belonging to man alone. Hence it appears that _Providence_, who directs everything for the best, intended that man should wander over the globe, inhabit every region, and dwell wherever the sun could shine upon him, and where water could be obtained for his use. [11] For partial lists of members of this party, consult H. S. Lyman, _History of Oregon_ (New York, 1903), iii, pp. 101, 108, 254; see also _post_.--ED. So far from deriding the disposition to explore unknown regions, we should consider judicious travellers as so many benefactors of mankind. It is most commonly a propensity that marks a vigorous intellect, and a benevolent heart. The conduct of the Spaniards, when they conquered Mexico and Peru with the sole view of robbing them of their gold and silver, and of forcing them to abandon their native religion, has cast an odium on those first adventurers upon this continent and their first {10} enterprises in India have stigmatized the Dutch and the English; nor were our own forefathers, who left England to enjoy religious freedom, entirely free from the stain of injustice and cruelty towards the native Indians.--Let us therefore in charity, nay, in justice, speak cautiously of what may seem to us censurable in the first explorers of uncivilized countries; and if we should err in judgment, let it be on the side of commendation. Mr. Wyeth, or as we shall hereafter call him, _Captain_ Wyeth, as being leader of the Band of the Oregon adventurers, after having inspired twenty-one persons with his own high hopes and expectations (among whom was his own brother, Dr. Jacob Wyeth,[12] and a gun-smith, a blacksmith, two carpenters, and two fishermen, the rest being farmers and laborers, brought up to no particular trade) was ready, with his companions, to start off to the Pacific Ocean, the first of March, 1832, to go from Boston to the mouth of Columbia river by land. [12] Dr. Jacob Wyeth, eldest brother of Nathaniel, was born February 10, 1779, at Cambridge, Massachusetts. After being graduated from Harvard (1820), he studied medicine both in Boston and Baltimore, and settled in New Jersey, whence he set out to join his brother's expedition. After returning from Pierre's Hole--as narrated _post_--Dr. Wyeth settled in the lead-mine region of northwest Illinois, and married into a prominent family. He died in his adopted state.--ED. I was the youngest of the company, not having attained my twentieth year; but, in the plentitude of health and spirits, I hoped every thing, believed every thing my kinsman, the Captain, believed and said, and all doubts and fears were banished. The Captain used to convene us every Saturday night at his house for many months previous to our departure, to arrange and settle the plan of our future movements, and to make every needful preparation; and such were his thoughtfulness and vigilance, that it seemed to us nothing was forgotten and every thing necessary provided. Our three vehicles, or wagons, if we may call by that name a _unique_ contrivance, half boat, and half carriage, may be mentioned as an instance of our Captain's {11} talents for snug contrivance. It was a boat of about thirteen feet long, and four feet wide, of a shape partly of a canoe, and partly of a gondola. It was not calked with tarred oakum, and payed with pitch, lest the rays of the sun should injure it while upon wheels; but it was nicely jointed, and dovetailed. The boat part was firmly connected with the lower, or axletree, or wheel part;--the whole was so constructed that the four wheels of it were to be taken off when we came to a river, and placed in the wagon, while the tongue or shaft was to be towed across by a rope. Every thing was as light as could be consistent with safety. Some of the Cambridge wags said it was a boat begot upon a wagon,--a sort of mule, neither horse nor ass,--a mongrel, or as one of the collegians said it was a thing _amphibious_, anatomically constructed like some equivocal animals, allowing it to crawl upon the land, or to swim on the water; and he therefore thought it ought to be denominated an _amphibium_. This would have gone off very well, and to the credit of the learned collegian, had not one of the gang, who could hardly write his own name, demurred at it; because he said that it reflected not back the honor due to the ingenious contriver of the commodious and truly original vehicle; and for his part, he thought that if they meant to give it a particular name, that should redound to the glory of the inventor, it ought to be called a _Nat-wye-thium_; and this was instantaneously agreed to by acclamation! Be that as it may, the vehicle did not disgrace the inventive genius of New England. This good-humored raillery, shows the opinion of indifferent people, merely lookers-on. The fact was, the generality {12} of the people in Cambridge considered it a hazardous enterprise, and considerably notional. About this time there appeared some well written essays in the Boston newspapers, to show the difficulty and impracticability of the scheme, purporting to doubt the assertions of Mr. Hall J. Kelly respecting the value and pleasantness of the Oregon territory. The three vehicles contained a gross of axes, a variety of articles, or "_goods_" so called, calculated for the Indian market, among which vermilion and other paints were not forgotten, glass beads, small looking-glasses, and a number of tawdry trinkets, cheap knives, buttons, nails, hammers, and a deal of those articles, on which young Indians of both sexes set a high value, and white men little or none. Such is the spirit of trade and traffic, from the London and Amsterdam merchant, down to an Indian trader and a yankee tin-ware man in his jingling go-cart; in which he travels through Virginia and the Carolinas to vend his wares, and cheat the Southerners, and bring home laughable anecdotes of their simplicity and ignorance, to the temporary disgrace of the common people of the Northern and Eastern part of the Union, where a travelling tin-man dare hardly show himself,--and yet is held up in the South as the real New-England character, and this by certain white people who know the use of letters! The company were uniform in their dress. Each one wore a coarse woollen jacket and pantaloons, a striped cotton shirt, and cowhide boots: every man had a musket, most of them rifles, all of them bayonets in a broad belt, together with a large clasped knife for eating and common purposes. The Captain and one or two more added pistols; but {13} every one had in his belt a small axe. This uniformity had a pleasing effect, which, together with their curious wagons, was noticed with commendation in the Baltimore newspapers, as a striking contrast with the family emigrants of husband, wife, and children, who have for thirty years and more passed on to the Ohio, Kentucky, and other territories. The whole bore an aspect of energy, good contrivance, and competent means. I forgot to mention that we carried tents, camp-kettles, and the common utensils for cooking victuals, as our plan was to live like soldiers, and to avoid, as much as possible, inns and taverns. The real and avowed object of this hardy-looking enterprise was to go to the river Columbia, otherwise called the river _Oregon_, or river of the _West_,[13] which empties by a very wide mouth into the Pacific Ocean, and there and thereabouts commence a fur trade by trafficking with the Indians, as well as beaver and other hunting by ourselves. We went upon shares, and each one paid down so much; and our association was to last during five years. Each man paid our Leader forty dollars. Captain Wyeth was our Treasurer, as well as Commander; and all the expenses of our travelling on wheels, and by water in steam-boats, were defrayed by our Leader, to whom we all promised fidelity and obedience. For twenty free-born New-England men, brought up in a sort of Indian freedom, to be bound together to obey a leader in all things reasonable, without something like _articles of war_, was, to say the least of it, a hazardous experiment. The Captain and crew of a Nantucket whaling ship came nearest to such an association; for in this case each man runs that great risk of his life, {14} in voluntarily attacking and killing a whale, which could not be expected from men hired by the day, like soldiers; so much stronger does association for gain operate, than ordinary wages. As fighting Indians from behind trees and rocks is next, in point of courage, to attacking a whale, the monarch of the main, in his own element, a common partnership is the only scheme for achieving and securing such dangerous purposes. [13] For the origin of the word Oregon, see Ross's _Oregon Settlers_, in our volume vii, p. 36, note 4.--ED. We left the city of Boston, 1st of March, 1832, and encamped on one of the numerous islands in its picturesque harbour, where we remained ten days, by way of inuring ourselves to the tented field; and on the 11th of the same month we hoisted sail for Baltimore, where we arrived after a passage of fifteen days,[14] not without experiencing a snow-storm, severe cold, and what the landsmen considered a hard gale, at which I, who had been one voyage to sea, did not wonder. It made every man on board look serious; and glad were we to be set on shore at the fair city of Baltimore, in which are to be found a great number of merchants, traders, and mechanics from different parts of New England, and where of course there are none, or very few, of those ridiculous prejudices against what they call Yankees, that are observable in Virginia and the Carolinas. [14] For further accounts of the preparation and voyage to Baltimore on the brig "Ida," consult F. G. Young, "Correspondence and Journals of Captain Nathaniel J. Wyeth, 1831-36," in _Sources of the History of Oregon_ (Eugene, Oregon, 1899), pp. 42-50. _Niles' Register_ xlii, p. 82 (March 31, 1832), notes their arrival and departure with twenty-two men and all necessary equipment.--ED. At Baltimore our amphibious carriages excited great attention, and I may add, our whole company was an object of no small curiosity and respect. This, said they, is "_Yankee all over!_"--bold enterprise, neatness, and good contrivance. As we carefully avoided the expense of inns and taverns, we marched two miles out of Baltimore, and there encamped during four days; and then we put {15} our wagons into the _cars_ on the rail-road; which extends from thence sixty miles, which brought us to the foot of the Alleghany mountains.[15] Quitting the rail-road at the foot of the Alleghany, we encountered that mountain. Here we experienced a degree of inhospitality not met with among the savages. The Innkeepers, when they found that we came from New England, betrayed an unwillingness to accommodate Yankees, from a ridiculous idea, that the common people, so nicknamed, were too shrewd at a bargain and trading, for a slow and straight-forward Dutchman; for the inhabitants of this mountainous region, were generally sons and grandsons of the Dutch and German first settlers; and it cannot be denied and concealed, that the New England land-jobbers were in their bargains too hard for the torpid Dutchman, who, it is true, loved money as much as any people, yet when they, or their fathers had been the sufferers from a set of roving sharpers, it is no wonder that an hereditary prejudice should descend with exaggeration and aggravation from father to son, and that their resentment should visit their innocent sons to the third and fourth generation. No one pretends to mention any fact or deed, in which those Dutch foreigners were defrauded of their rights and dues; and all that can be, with truth, said, was, that the land-speculators from Connecticut and Massachusetts were to New-England what Yorkshire men are thought to be to the rest of the people of England, a race more sharp and quick-sighted than their neighbours,--and with a sort of constitutional good humor, called _fun_, they could twist that uneducated progeny of a German stock around their fingers;--hence their reluctance {16} to have any thing to do with men, whose grand-fathers were too knowing for them. You never hear the French or the English complaining of the over-shrewdness of the New-England people. They accord very well together, and very frequently intermarry. No, it is the Dutch, and the descendants of transported convicts, who sneer at those they call Yankees, whom their fathers feared, and of course hated. [15] The line of the Baltimore and Ohio railway was first opened for traffic December 1, 1831, when the road extended as far as Frederick, sixty-one miles from Baltimore. On April 1, 1832, it was extended to Point of Rocks, some forty miles beyond; but by that time the expedition had passed farther west.--ED. At one public house on the mountains near which we halted, the master of it, learning that we came from Boston, refused us any refreshment and lodging. He locked up his bar-room, put the key in his pocket, went out, and came back with four or five of his neighbours, when the disagreement ran so high, that the tavern-keeper and the Yankee Captain each seized his rifle. The latter pointing to the other's _sign_ before his door, demanded both lodging and refreshment, as the legal condition of his tavern-license;[16] and the dispute ended in our Captain's sleeping in the house with three of his party, well armed, determined to defend their persons, and to insist on their rights as peaceable and unoffending travellers, while the rest of the company bivouacked near their wagons, and reposed themselves, like veteran soldiers, in their tents and wagons. [16] Taverners are by law to be provided with suitable bedding for travellers, and stables and provisions for horses and cattle. Brownsville is a flourishing town situated on the point, where the great Cumberland road strikes the head of navigation of the Monongahela, and has long been a place of embarkation for emigrants for the West.--WYETH. We gladly departed from the inhospitable Alleghany or Apalachian mountains, which extend from the river St. Lawrence to the confines of Georgia, {17} and which run nearly parallel to the sea-shore from sixty to one hundred and thirty miles from it, and dividing the rivers, which flow into the Atlantic on the east, from those that run into the lakes and into the Mississippi on the west. The part we passed was in the state of Pennsylvania. Our next stretch was for the river Monongahela, where we took the steamboat for _Pittsburg_.[17] This town has grown in size and wealth, in a few years, surprisingly. It is two hundred and thirty miles from Baltimore; three hundred from Philadelphia. It is built on a point of land jutting out towards the river Ohio, and washed on each side by the Alleghany and Monongahela, which rivers uniting are lost in the noble Ohio. It was originally a fortress built by the French, called _Fort du Quesne_ being afterwards taken by the English in 1759, it was called fort _Pitt_, in honor of the famous _William Pitt_, afterwards Earl of Chatham, under whose administration it was taken from the French, together with all Canada.[18] On this spot a city has been reared by the Americans, bearing the name of _Pittsburg_ which has thriven in a surprising manner by its numerous manufactories in glass, as well as in all the metals in common use. To call it the Birmingham of America is to underrate its various industry; and to call the English Birmingham Pittsburg, would be to confer upon that town additional honor; not but what the British Birmingham is by far the most pleasant place to live in. Pittsburg is the region of iron and fossil coal, of furnaces, glass-works, and a variety of such like manufactures. This town has somewhat the color of a coal-pit, or of a black-smith's shop. The wonder is, that any gentleman {18} of property should ever think of building a costly dwelling-house, with corresponding furniture, in the coal region of the western world; but there is no disputing _de gustibus_--_Chacun á son gout_. The rivers and the surrounding country are delightful, and the more so from the contrast between them and that hornet's nest of bustle and dirt, the rich capital. Thousands of miserable culprits are doomed to delve in deep mines of silver, gold, and quicksilver among the Spaniards for their crimes; but here they are all freemen, who choose to breathe smoke, and swallow dirt, for the sake of clean dollars and shining eagles. Hence it is that the Pittsburgh workmen appear, when their faces are washed, with the ruddiness of high health, the plenitude of good spirits, and the confidence of freemen. [17] The expedition proceeded by way of Brownsville, and arrived at Pittsburg on April 8, 1832. Pittsburg, as the point of departure for the West, is described by most early travelers. In particular, consult Cuming's _Tour_, in our volume iv, pp. 242-255.--ED. [18] For Fort Duquesne, see F. A. Michaux's _Travels_, in our volume iii, p. 156, note 20; for Fort Pitt, Post's _Journals_, in our volume i, p. 281, note 107, and A. Michaux's _Travels_, volume iii, p. 32, note 11.--ED. From the busy city of thriving Pittsburg our next important movement was down the Ohio. We accordingly embarked in a very large steam-boat called The Freedom; and soon found ourselves, bag and baggage very much at our ease and satisfaction, on board a truly wonderful floating inn, hotel, or tavern, for such are our steam-boats. Nothing of the kind can surpass the beauty of this winding river, with its fine back-ground of hills of all shapes and colors, according to the advancement of vegetation from the shrubs to the tallest trees. But the romantic scenery on both sides of the Ohio is so various and so captivating to a stranger, that it requires the talents of a painter to give even a faint idea of the picture; and the effect on my mind was, not to estimate them as I ought, but to feed my deluded imagination with the belief that we should find on the {19} Missouri, and on the Rocky Mountains, and Columbia river, object as much finer than the Ohio afforded, as this matchless river exceeded our Merrimac or Kennebeck: and so it is with the youth of both sexes; not satisfied with the present gifts of nature, they pant after _the untried scene_, which imagination is continually bodying forth, and time as constantly dissipating. The distance from Pittsburg to the Mississippi is about one thousand miles. Hutchins estimated it at one thousand one hundred and eighty-eight,--Dr. Drake at only nine hundred and forty-nine.[19] Wheeling is a town of some importance. Here the great national road into the interior from the city of Washington, meets that of Zanesville, Chillicothè, Columbus, and Cincinnati.[20] It is the best point to aim at in very low stages of the water, and from thence boats may go at all seasons of the year. We passed Marietta, distinguished for its remarkable remains of mounds, and works, resembling modern fortifications, but doubtless the labor of the ancient aboriginals, of whom there is now no existing account; but by these works, and articles found near them, they must have belonged to a race of men farther advanced in arts and civilization than the present Indian in that region,[21]--a people who, we may well suppose, were the ancestors of the Mexicans. Yet we see at this time little more than log-houses belonging to miserable tenants of white people. All the sugar used by the people here is obtained from the maple tree. Fossil coal is found along the banks. There is a creek pouring forth _Petroleum_, about one hundred miles from Pittsburg on the Alleghany, called _Oil_ Creek, which will blaze on the application of a {20} match. This is not uncommon in countries abounding in bituminous coal. Nitre is found wherever there are suitable caves and caverns for its collection. The people here are rather boisterous in their manners, and intemperate in their habits, by what we saw and heard, more so than on the other side of the river where slavery is prohibited. Indeed slavery carries a black moral mark with it visible on those whose skins are naturally of a different color; and Mr. Jefferson's opinion of the influence of slavery on the whites, justifies our remark.[22] [19] Thomas Hutchins (1730-89), born in New Jersey, entered the British army at an early age. He served in the French and Indian War, and later as assistant engineer under Bouquet (1764), for whom he prepared a map. In 1779 he was arrested in London, on a charge of sympathizing with the American cause. Escaping to Paris, he finally joined the continental army at Charleston, South Carolina, and was made geographer general by General Greene. The estimate here referred to is in his _Topographical Description of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and North Carolina_ (London, 1778), p. 5. For Dr. Daniel Drake, see Flint's _Letters_ in our volume ix, p. 121, note 61. The length of the Ohio from Pittsburg is estimated by the map of the U. S. corps of engineers, published in 1881, as 967 miles.--ED. [20] For Wheeling and the National Road, see A. Michaux's _Travels_, in our volume iii, p. 33, note 15, and Flint's _Letters_, in our volume ix, p. 105, notes 51, 52.--ED. [21] For a more extended description of Marietta and its antiquities, consult Cuming's _Tour_, in our volume iv, pp. 123-125. The mounds are now believed to be the work of North American Indians; consult Cyrus Thomas, "Mound Explorations," in U. S. Bureau of Ethnology _Report_, 1890-91.--ED. [22] Referring to Jefferson's account of the degradation of masters under the régime of slavery, in _Notes on Virginia_ (original edition, 1784), pp. 298-301.--ED. We stopped one day and night at the flourishing town of _Cincinnati_, the largest city in the Western country, although laid out so recently as 1788.[23] It is twenty miles above the mouth of the Great Miami, and four hundred and sixty-five miles below Pittsburg. It appears to great advantage from the river, the ground inclining gradually to the water. Three of us had an evidence of that by a mischievous trick for which we deserved punishment. We were staring about the fine city that has risen up with a sort of rapid, mushroom growth, surprising to every one who sees it, and who considers that it is not more than forty years old. In the evening we went into a public house, where we treated ourselves with that sort of refreshment which inspires fun, frolic, and mischief. We remained on shore till so late an hour that every body appeared to have gone to bed, when we set out to return to our steam-boat. In our way to it we passed by a store, in the front of which stood three barrels of lamp-oil, at the head of a fine sloping street. The evil spirit of mischief put it into our heads to set them a rolling down the inclined plane to the river. No sooner hinted, than executed. {21} We set all three a running, and we ran after them; and what may have been lucky for us, they were recovered next day whole. Had there been legal inquisition made for them, we had determined to plead _character_, that we were from Boston, the land of steady habits and good principles, and that it must have been some gentlemen Southerners, with whose characters for nightly frolics, we, who lived within sound of the bell of the University of Cambridge were well acquainted. The owners of the oil came down to the steam-boat, and carried back their property without making a rigid examination for the offenders; without suspecting that prudent New-England young men would indulge in a wanton piece of fun, where so much was at stake. But John Bull and Jonathan are queer fellows. [23] For the early history of this city, see Cuming's _Tour_, our volume iv, p. 256, note 166.--ED. From Cincinnati to St. Louis, we experienced some of those disagreeable occurrences, that usually happen to democratical adventurers. Our Captain, to lessen the expenses of the expedition, had bargained with the Captain of the steam-boat, that we of his band should assist in taking on board wood from the shore, to keep our boilers from cooling. Although every one saw the absolute necessity of the thing, for our common benefit and safety, yet some were for demurring at it, as not previously specified and agreed upon. Idleness engenders mutiny oftener than want. In scarcity and in danger men cling together like gregarious animals; but as soon as an enterprising gang can sit down, as in a steam-boat, with nothing to do but to find fault, they are sure to become discontented, and discontent indulged leads to mutiny. Whatever I thought then, I do not think now that Captain Wyeth was {22} to blame for directing his followers to aid in _wooding_; nor should the men have grumbled at it. I now am of opinion that our aiding in wooding the steam-boat was right, reasonable, and proper. Every man of us, except the surgeon of the company, Dr. Jacob Wyeth, ought, on every principle of justice and generosity, to have given that assistance. Our navigation from Cincinnati to St. Louis was attended with circumstances new, interesting, and very often alarming. Passing the rapids of the Ohio, or _falls_ as they are called, between the Indiana territory and Kentucky, was sufficiently appalling to silence all grumbling. These falls, or rapids are in the vicinity of Louisville, Jeffersonville, Clarksville, and Shipping-port, and are really terrific to an inexperienced farmer or mechanic.[24] Our Hell-gate in Long-Island Sound is a common brook compared with them; and when we had passed through them into the Mississippi, the assemblage of trees in the river, constituting snags and sawyers, offered themselves as a species of risk and danger, which none of us had ever calculated on or dreamt of. We knew that there was danger in great storms, of huge trees blowing down on one's head; and that those who took shelter under them in a thunder-storm, risked their lives from lightning; but to meet destruction from trees in an immense river, seemed to us a danger of life, which we had not bargained for, and entirely out of our agreement and calculation. We had braced ourselves up only against the danger of hostile Indians, and enraged beasts, which we meant to war against. Beyond that, all was smooth water to us. The truth of the matter is,--the {23} men whom Captain Wyeth had collected were not the sort of men for such an expedition. They were too much on an equality to be under strict orders like soldiers. Lewis & Clarke were very fortunate in the men they had under them. Major Long's company was, in a great degree, military, and yet three of his soldiers deserted him at one time, and a fourth soon after.[25] [24] Wyeth somewhat exaggerates the difficulties of the navigation of the Falls of the Ohio. See our volume i, p. 136, note 106; also Thwaites, _On the Storied Ohio_ (Chicago, 1903), pp. 218-222. For Jeffersonville, see Flint's _Letters_, in our volume ix, p. 160, note 80; for Clarksville and Shippingsport, Cuming's _Tour_, our volume iv, pp. 259, 260, notes 170, 171.--ED. [25] See our volumes xiv-xvii for James's _Long's Expedition_.--ED. On the 18th of April, 1832, we arrived at St. Louis. As we had looked forward to this town, as a temporary resting-place, we entered it in high spirits, and pleased ourselves with a notion that the rest of our way till we should come to the Rocky Mountains would be, if not down hill, at least on a level: but we counted without our host. _St. Louis_ was founded by a Frenchman named _Peter la Clade_ in 1764, eighty-four years after the establishment of Fort Crève-coeur on the Illinois river; and inhabited entirely by Frenchmen and the descendants of Frenchmen, who had carried on for the most part a friendly and lucrative trade with the Indians.[26] But since the vast Western country has been transferred to the United States, its population has been rapidly increased by numerous individuals and families from different parts of the Union; and its business extended by enterprising mechanics and merchants from the New-England States; and its wealth greatly augmented. The old part of St. Louis has a very different aspect from that of Cincinnati, where every thing appears neat, and new, and tasteful; as their public buildings, their theatre, and spacious hotels, not forgetting Madam Trollope's bazar, or, as it is commonly called, "Trollope's Folly,"[27] as well as its spacious streets, numerous coaches, and other {24} marks of rapid wealth, and growing luxury. As St. Louis has advanced in wealth, magnitude, and importance, it has gradually changed the French language and manners, and assumed the American. It however contains, I am told, many of the old stock that are very respectable for their literary acquirements and polished manners. [26] For the foundation of St. Louis, see A. Michaux's _Travels_, in our volume iii, p. 71, note 138. Fort Crêvecoeur was La Salle's Illinois stockade, built in 1680. See Ogden's _Letters_ in our volume xix, p. 46, note 34.--ED. [27] Frances Milton Trollope (1780-1863), an Englishwoman of note, came to the United States in 1827 with Frances Wright. She established herself at Cincinnati, and attempted to recuperate the family fortunes by the opening of a bazaar for the sale of small fancy articles. The experiment failed, and the Trollope family returned to England (1831), where Mrs. Trollope issued _Domestic Manners of Americans_ (London, 1832), a criticism of our national customs that gave great umbrage to our forebears in the West. She later became a novelist of note, dying in Florence in 1863. Her sons were Anthony and Adolphus Trollope, well-known English authors.--ED. We shall avoid, as we have avowed, any thing like censure of Captain Wyeth's scheme during his absence; but when we arrived at St. Louis, we could not but lament his want of information, respecting the best means of obtaining the great objects of our enterprise. Here we were constrained to sell our complicated wagons for less than half what they originally cost. We were convinced that they were not calculated for the rough roads, and rapid streams and eddies of some of the rivers we must necessarily pass. We here thought of the proverb, "that men never do a thing right the first time." Captain Wyeth might have learned at St. Louis, that there were two wealthy gentlemen who resided at or near that place, who had long since established a regular trade with the Indians, Mr. M----, and a young person, Mr. S----, and that a stranger could hardly compete with such established traders. The turbulent tribe, called the _Black-foot_ tribe, had long been supplied with fire arms and ammunition, beads, vermilion and other paints, tobacco and scarlet cloth, from two or three capital traders at, or near, St. Louis, and every article most saleable with the Indians. Both parties knew each other, and had confidence in each other; and having this advantage over our band of adventurers, it does not appear that Mr. Mackenzie, and Mr. Sublet felt any apprehensions or jealousy {25} of the new comers from Boston; but treated them with friendship, and the latter with confidence and cordiality; the former gentleman being, in a manner, retired from business, except through numerous agents.[28] He owns a small steam-boat called the Yellow Stone, the name of one of the branches of the Missouri river.[29] Through such means the Indians are supplied with all they want; and they appeared not to wish to have any thing to do with any one else, especially the adventurous Yankees. These old established traders enjoy a friendly influence, or prudent command, over those savages, that seems to operate to the exclusion of every one else; and this appeared from the manner in which they treated us, which was void of every thing like jealousy, or fear of rivalship. Their policy was to incorporate us with their own troop. [28] Kenneth McKenzie was born in Rossshire, Scotland, in 1801, of a good family, relatives of Sir Alexander Mackenzie the explorer. Coming to America at an early age, young McKenzie entered the service of the North West Company; but upon its consolidation with the Hudson's Bay Company (1821), he entered the fur-trade on his own account. Going to New York in 1822, he secured an outfit on credit, and for some time traded on the upper Mississippi. Later he formed a partnership with Joseph Renville in the establishment of the Columbia Fur Company. This concern was bought out by its rival, the American Fur Company in 1827, whereupon McKenzie was taken into the latter corporation. He was soon placed in command of what was known as the "Upper Missouri Outfit," and built Fort Union at the mouth of the Yellowstone, where for several years he ruled almost regally. Among his earliest successes--to which Wyeth here refers--was his acquisition of the Blackfoot trade. This tribe, influenced by British traders, had long been hostile to Americans; McKenzie had, however, been known to them in the North West Company, and through one of their interpreters, Berger, he secured a treaty with them and built (1831-32) a post in their country. McKenzie lost the good-will of the American Fur Company, by erecting a distillery at Fort Union, in defiance of United States laws. In 1834 he came down the river, and visited Europe; but at intervals he re-ascended to his old post, until in 1839 he disposed of his stock in the company. He then made his home in St. Louis, until his death in 1861. It does not appear that he had considered retirement as early as Wyeth's visit in 1832, for he was then in the full tide of success. He lived magnificently at Fort Union, ruling over a wide territory, an American example of the "bourgeois of the old Northwest." For William Sublette, see our volume xix, Gregg's _Commerce of the Prairies_, p. 221, note 55.--ED. [29] The "Yellowstone" was the first steamboat to visit the upper Missouri. McKenzie and Pierre Chouteau, Jr., convinced of the utility to the fur-trade of such a craft, persuaded the American Fur Company to secure a steamer. She was built at Louisville, Kentucky, in the winter of 1830-31, departing from St. Louis on her first voyage, April 16, 1831, with Captain B. Young as master. This season she ascended to Fort Tecumseh (near Pierre), and the following year made her initial trip to the mouth of the Yellowstone River. She had left St. Louis about a month before the arrival of Wyeth's party.--ED. We put our goods, and other baggage on board the steam-boat Otter, and proceeded two hundred and sixty miles up the Missouri river, which is as far as the white people have any settlements. We were obliged to proceed very slowly and carefully on account of the numerous _snags_ and _sawyers_ with which this river abounds. They are trees that have been loosened, and washed away from the soft banks of the river. They are detained by sandbanks, or by other trees, that have floated down some time before. Those of them whose sharp branches point opposite the stream are the _snags_, against which boats are often impelled, as they are not visible above water, and many are sunk by the wounds these make in their bows. The _sawyers_ are also held fast by their roots, while the body of the tree whips up and down, alternately visible and concealed beneath the surface. These {26} are the chief terrors of the Missouri and the Mississippi rivers. As to crocodiles they are little regarded, being more afraid of man than he of them. On account of these snags and sawyers, boatmen avoid passing in the night, and are obliged to keep a sharp look out in the day-time. The sawyers when forced to the bottom or near it by a strong current, or by eddies, rise again with such force that few boats can withstand the shock. The course of the boat was so tediously slow, that many of us concluded to get out and walk on the banks of the river. This, while it gave us agreeable exercise, was of some service in lightening our boat, for with other passengers from St. Louis, we amounted to a considerable crew. The ground was level, and free from underwood. We passed plenty of deer, wild turkeys, and some other wild fowl unknown to us, and expected to find it so all the way. We arrived at a town or settlement called _Independence_.[30] This is the last white settlement on our route to the Oregon, and this circumstance gave a different cast to our peregrination, and operated not a little on our hopes, and our fears, and our imaginations. Some of our company began to ask each other some serious questions; such as, Where are we going? and what are we going for? and sundry other questions, which would have been wiser had we asked them before we left Cambridge, and ruminated well on the answers. But _Westward ho_! was our watchword, and checked all doubts, and silenced all expressions of fear. [30] For Independence, see Gregg's _Commerce of the Prairies_, in our volume xix, p. 189, note 34.--ED. Just before we started from this place, a company of sixty-two in number arrived from St. Louis, under the command of _William Sublet, Esq._, an experienced Indian trader, bound, like ourselves, {27} to the American Alps, the Rocky Mountains, and we joined company with him, and it was very lucky that we did. Our minds were not entirely easy. We were about to leave our peaceable country-men, from whom we had received many attentions and much kindness, to go into a dark region of savages, of whose customs, manners, and language, we were entirely ignorant,--to go we knew not whither,--to encounter we knew not what. We had already sacrificed our amphibious wagons, the result of so much pains and cost. Here two of our company left us, named Kilham and Weeks. Whether they had any real cause of dissatisfaction with our Captain, or whether they only made that an excuse to quit the expedition and return home early, it is not for me to say. I suspect the abandonment of our travelling vehicles cooled their courage. We rested at Independence ten days; and purchased, by Captain Sublet's advice, two yoke of oxen, and fifteen sheep, as we learnt that we ought not to rely entirely upon transient game from our fire-arms for sustenance, especially as we were now going among a savage people who would regard us with suspicion and dread, and treat us accordingly. From this place we travelled about twenty-five miles a day. Nothing occurred worth recording, till we arrived at the first Indian settlement, which was about seventy miles from Independence.[31] They appeared to us a harmless people, and not averse to our passing through their country. Their persons were rather under size, and their complexion dark. As they lived near the frontier of the whites, they were not unacquainted with their usages and customs. They have cultivated spots or little farms, {28} on which they raise corn and pumpkins. They generally go out once a year to hunt, accompanied by their women; and on killing the Buffalo, or Bison, what they do not use on the spot, they dry to eat through the winter. To prevent a famine, however, it is their custom to keep a large number of dogs; and they eat them as we do mutton and lamb. This tribe have imitated the white people in having fixed and stationary houses. They stick poles in the ground in a circular form, and cover them with buffalo-skins, and put earth over the whole, leaving at the top an aperture for the smoke, but small enough to be covered with a buffalo-skin in case of rain or snow.--We found here little game; but honey-bees in abundance. [31] This appears to have been an insignificant village of somewhat sedentary Indians, probably of the Kansa tribe, near the northwestern corner of what is now Douglas County, Kansas. Joel Palmer notes it in 1845; see our volume xxx.--ED. We travelled on about a hundred miles farther, when we came to a large _prairie_, which name the French have given to extensive tracts of land, mostly level, destitute of trees, and covered with tall, coarse grass. They are generally dreary plains, void of water, and rendered more arid by the Indian custom of setting fire to the high grass once or twice a year to start the game that has taken shelter there, which occasions a hard crust unfavorable to any vegetable more substantial than grass. At this unpromising spot, three more of our company took French leave of us, there being, it seems, dissatisfaction on both sides; for each complained of the other. The names of the seceders were Livermore, Bell, Griswell.[32] In sixteen days more we reached the River _La Platte_, the water of which is foul and muddy.[33] We were nine days passing this dreary _prairie_. We were seven and twenty days winding our way along the borders of the La Platte, which river we could not leave on {29} account of the scarcity of water in the dry and comfortless plains. Here we slaughtered the last of our live stock, and at night we came to that region where buffaloes are often to be found; but we suffered some sharp gnawings of hunger before we obtained one, and experienced some foretaste of difficulties to come. [32] Thomas Livermore was a cousin of Nathaniel Wyeth, whose home was in Milford, New Hampshire. He was a minor, and his father's consent was essential that he might join the party. Bell appears to have been insubordinate from the start, and upon his return to the East, published letters injurious to Wyeth's reputation; consult Wyeth, _Oregon Expeditions_, index.--ED. [33] For the River Platte, see our volume xiv, p. 219, note 170. The Oregon Trail from Independence led westward, south of the Kansas, crossing the latter stream near the present site of Topeka; thence up the Big and Little Blue rivers, and across country to the Platte, coming in near Grand Island.--ED. The Missouri Territory[34] is a vast wilderness, consisting of immense plains, destitute of wood and of water, except on the edges of streams that are found near the turbid La Platte. This river owes its source to the Rocky mountains, and runs pretty much through the territory, without enlivening or fructifying this desert. Some opinion may be formed of it by saying that for the space of six hundred miles, we may be said to have been deprived of the benefits of two of the elements, _fire_ and _water_. Here were, to be sure, buffaloes, but after we had killed them we had no wood or vegetables of any kind wherewith to kindle a fire for cooking. We were absolutely compelled to dry the dung of the buffalo as the best article we could procure for cooking our coarse beef. That grumbling, discontent, and dejection should spring up amongst us, was what no one can be surprised at learning. We were at times very miserable, and our commander could be no less so; but we had put our hands to the plough, and most of us were too stuffy to flinch, and sneak off for home without reaching the Rocky Mountains; still hunger is hunger, and the young and the strong feel the greatest call for food. Every one who goes to sea may lay his account for coming to short allowance, from violent storms, head winds, damaged vessel, and the like; but for a band of New-England {30} men to come to short allowance upon land, with guns, powder, and shot, was a new idea to our Oregon adventurers, who had not prepared for it in the article of hard bread, or flour, or potatoes, or that snug and wholesome article, _salt fish_, so plenty at Marblehead and Cape Ann, and so convenient to carry. When the second company shall march from the seat of science, Cambridge, we would advise them to pack up a few quintals of salt fish, and a few pounds of ground sago, and salep, as a teaspoonful of it mixed with boiling water will make three pints of good gruel, and also a competent supply of portable soup. [34] The Territory of Missouri was formed in 1812 of all the Louisiana Purchase outside the limits of the newly-erected state of Louisiana. In 1819 Arkansas Territory was cut out, and the following year the state of Missouri. The remaining region was left with no definite organization; but by an act of 1830 it was defined as Indian Territory--south of a line drawn from Missouri River at the mouth of the Ponca, and west to the Rocky Mountains. This vast unorganized region was indefinitely called Missouri Territory, Indian Territory, Western Territory, and even (on one map of the period) Oregon Territory--although the latter name was usually confined to the region west of the Rockies, and north of Mexican bounds.--ED. Buffaloes were plenty enough. We saw them in frightful droves, as far as the eye could reach, appearing at a distance as if the ground itself was moving like the sea. Such large armies of them have no fear of man. They will travel over him and make nothing of him. Our company after killing ten or twelve of them, never enjoyed the benefit of more than two of them, the rest being carried off by the wolves before morning. Beside the scarcity of meat, we suffered for want of good and wholesome water. The La Platte is warm and muddy; and the use of it occasioned a diarrhoea in several of our company. Dr. Jacob Wyeth, brother of the Captain, suffered not a little from this cause.--Should the reader wonder how we proceeded so rapidly on our way without stopping to inquire, he must bear in mind that we were still under the guidance of Captain Sublet, who knew every step of the way, and had actually resided four years in different green valleys that are here and there in the Rocky Mountains. To me it seems that we must have perished for want of {31} sustenance in the deserts of Missouri, had we been by ourselves. It may have been good policy in Sublet, to attach us to him. He probably saw our rawness in an adventure so ill provided for as ours actually was. But for him we should hardly have provided ourselves with live stock; and but for him we should probably never have reached the American Alps. By this time every man began to think for himself. We travelled six days on the south branch of the La Platte, and then crossed over to the north branch, and on this branch of it, we travelled eighteen days.[35] But the first three days we could not find sufficient articles of food; and what added to our distress was the sickness of several of our company. We noticed many trails of the savages, but no Indians. The nearer we approached the range of the mountains the thicker were the trees. After travelling twelve days longer we came to the Black Hills. They are so called from their thick growth of cedar. Here is the region of rattle snakes, and the largest and fiercest bears,--a very formidable animal, which it is not prudent for a man to attack alone. I have known some of the best hunters of Sublet's company to fire five and six balls at one before he fell. We were four days in crossing these dismal looking hills. They would be called mountains, were they not in the neighborhood of the Rocky Mountains, whose peaks overtop every thing, and elevate themselves into the region of everlasting frost and snow. Our sick suffered extremely in ascending these hills, some of them slipped off the horses and mules they rode on, from sheer weakness, brought on by the bowel complaint already mentioned; among these was Dr. {32} Wyeth, our Captain's brother, who never had a constitution fit to encounter such an expedition. And yet we could not leave them under the care of a man, or two or three men, and pass on without them, to follow us, when they were able. It was to me particularly grievous to think that he, who was to take care of the health of the company, was the first who was disabled from helping himself or others, and this one a blood relation. It required a man of a firmer make than Dr. Jacob Wyeth to go through such a mountainous region as the one we were in: a man seldom does a thing right the first time. [35] The Oregon trail touched the North Platte at Ash Creek, now an important railway junction in Deuel County, Nebraska.--ED. From the north branch we crossed over to what was called Sweet-water Creek.[36] This water being cool, clear, and pleasant, proved a good remedy for our sick, as their bowel complaints were brought on and aggravated by the warm, muddy waters of the Missouri territory we had passed through. We came to a huge rock in the shape of a bowl upside down. It bore the name of Independence, from, it is said, being the resting-place of Lewis and Clarke on the 4th of July; but according to the printed journal of those meritorious travellers, they had not reached, or entered, the American Alps on the day of that memorable epoch.[37] Whether we are to consider the rock Independence as fairly in the Rocky Mountains, let others determine. We had now certainly begun our ascent to those lofty regions, previous to which we had to pass the chief branch of the river La Platte; but we had no boat whatever for the purpose; and had we not been in the company of Captain Sublet, it is hard to say what we should have done short of going a great way round. Here I, and others were entirely {33} convinced that we were engaged in an expedition without being provided with the means to accomplish it. Our boats and wagons we had disposed of at St. Louis, and here we were on the banks of a river without even a canoe. Captain Clarke brought his canoes to the foot of the range of mountains and there left them. The reader will understand that not only the Missouri river, but the Yellowstone river, the La Platte, and many other smaller ones commence by small beginnings in the Black Hills, and in the Rocky Mountains, and increase in size and depth as they proceed down to join the Arkansa, or the Canadian river, and finally the Mississippi, and so run into the vast salt ocean. Whether it was Captain Sublet's own invention, or an invention of the Indians, we know not, but the contrivance we used is worth mentioning. They called it a _Bull-boat_. They first cut a number of willows (which grow every where near the banks of all the rivers we had travelled by from St. Louis), of about an inch and a half diameter at the butt end, and fixed them in the ground at proper distances from each other, and as they approached nearer one end they brought them nearer together, so as to form something like the bow. The ends of the whole were brought and bound firmly together, like the ribs of a great basket; and then they took other twigs of willow and wove them into those stuck in the ground so as to make a sort of firm, huge basket of twelve or fourteen feet long. After this was completed, they sewed together a number of buffalo-skins, and with them covered the whole; and after the different parts had been trimmed off smooth, a slow fire was made under the Bull-boat, taking care to dry the skins moderately; and as {34} they gradually dried, and acquired a due degree of warmth, they rubbed buffalo-tallow all over the outside of it, so as to allow it to enter into all the seams of the boat, now no longer a willow-basket. As the melted tallow ran down into every seam, hole, and crevice, it cooled into a firm body capable of resisting the water, and bearing a considerable blow without damaging it. Then the willow-ribbed, buffalo-skin, tallowed vehicle was carefully pulled up from the ground, and behold a boat capable of transporting man, horse, and goods over a pretty strong current. At the sight of it, we Yankees all burst out into a loud laugh, whether from surprise, or pleasure, or both, I know not. It certainly was not from ridicule; for we all acknowledged the contrivance would have done credit to _old_ New-England. [36] Sweetwater River, a western affluent of the North Platte, rises in the Wind River Mountains, and for over a hundred miles flows almost directly east. The name is supposed to be derived from the loss at an early day of a pack-mule laden with sugar. Wyeth speaks of "crossing over" to this stream, because the trail abandoned the North Platte, which here flows through a formidable cañon, and reached the Sweetwater some miles above its mouth.--ED. [37] Lewis and Clark did not pass within hundreds of miles of Independence Rock, having ascended the Missouri to its source. Independence Rock is a well-known landmark on the Oregon Trail--an isolated mass covering twenty-seven acres, and towering 155 feet above Sweetwater River. On it were marked the names of travelers, so that it became the "register of the desert." Frémont in 1843 says, "Many a name famous in the history of this country, and some well known to science are to be found mixed with those of the traders and of travelers for pleasure and curiosity, and of missionaries to the savages."--ED. While Captain Sublet and his company were binding the gunwale of the boat with buffalo-sinews, to give it strength and due hardness, our Captain was by no means idle. He accordingly undertook to make a raft to transport our own goods across the river. Sublet expressed his opinion that it would not answer where the current was strong; but Captain Wyeth is a man not easily to be diverted from any of his notions, or liable to be influenced by the advice of others; so that while Sublet's men were employed on their Bull-boat, Wyeth and a chosen few were making a raft. When finished, we first placed our blacksmith's shop upon it, that is to say, our anvil, and large vice, and other valuable articles belonging to black-smithery, bar-iron, and steel traps, and alas! a cask of powder, and a number of smaller, but valuable articles. We fixed a rope to our raft, and with some difficulty got {35} the other end of it across the river to the opposite bank by a man swimming with a rope in his mouth, from some distance above the spot he aimed to reach. We took a turn of it round a tree. Captain Sublet gave it as his opinion that the line would not be sufficient to command the raft. But our Leader was confident that it would; but when they had pulled about half way over, the rope broke, and the raft caught under the limbs of a partly submerged tree, and tipped it on one side so that we lost our iron articles, and damaged our goods and a number of percussion caps. This was a very serious calamity and absolutely irreparable. Almost every disaster has some benefit growing out of it. It was even so here. Two thirds of our company were sick, and that without any particular disorder that we can name, but from fatigue, bad water, scanty food, and eating flesh half raw. Add to this, worry of mind, and serious apprehensions of our fate when the worthy Captain Sublet should leave us; for he was, under Providence, the instrument of our preservation. Our own individual sufferings were enough for us to bear; but Captain Wyeth had to bear the like, and more beside, as the responsibility lay heavy upon him. Most men would have sunk under it. At this point of our journey we were sadly tormented by musquetoes, that prevented our sleep after the fatigues of the day. This little contemptible insect, which they call here a gnat, disturbed us more than bears, or wolves, or snakes. The next day after we started from this unlucky place, we descried a number of men on horseback, approaching us at full speed. Various were our conjectures. Captain Sublet had an apprehension that they might be hostile Indians who fight on {36} horseback; he therefore ordered every man to make fast his horse as quick as possible, and prepare for battle on foot. But on their near approach, we found them a body of white men called _trappers_, whose occupation is to entrap the beaver and other animals that have valuable furs. Captain Sublet has, for several years, had about two hundred of these trappers in his pay, in and around the Rocky Mountains, and this troop was a party of them. His place of rendezvous for them is at _Pierre's Hole_, by which name they call one of those deep and verdant valleys which are to be found in the Rocky Mountains from the eastern boundary of them to their extreme edge in the west, where the Oregon or Columbia river commences under the name of Clark's river, some branches of which inosculate with the mighty Missouri on the east. It is to _Pierre's_ valley or _Hole_, that his trappers resort to meet their employer every summer. It is here they bring their peltry and receive their pay; and this traffic has been kept up between them a number of years with good faith on both sides, and to mutual satisfaction and encouragement. When Sublet leaves St. Louis, he brings up tobacco, coffee, rice, powder, shot, paint, beads, handkerchiefs and all those articles of finery that please both Indian women and men; and having established that sort of traffic with his friends, the Indians on and in the vicinity of the Rocky Mountains, what chance was there that any small band from Boston, or even Cambridge, could supplant him in the friendship and confidence of his old acquaintance, the Shoshonees, the Black-feet, or any other tribe? He must have seen this at once, and been convinced that nothing like rivalship could {37} rise up between him and the New-England adventurers. He therefore caressed them, and, in a manner, incorporated them with his troop. This gentleman was born in America of French parents,[38] and partakes largely of those good-humored, polite, and accommodating manners which distinguish the nation he sprang from. The old French war, and wars on this continent since then, amply prove how much better Frenchmen conciliate the natives than the English. The English and the Americans, when they come in contact with the untutored savage, most commonly fight. But not so the French. They please and flatter the Indian, give him powder, and balls, and flints, and guns, and make a Catholic of him, and make out to live in friendship with the red man and woman of the wilderness. It is strange that such extremes of character should meet. Some have said that they are not so very far distant as others have imagined,--that the refined French people love war, and the women paint their faces, grease their hair, and wear East India blankets, called shawls.--Captain Sublet possesses, doubtless, that conciliating disposition so characteristic of the French, and not so frequently found among the English or Americans; for the descendants of both nations bear strong marks of the stock they came from. The French have always had a stronger hold of the affections of the Indians than any other people. [38] Captain William Sublette was born in Kentucky. His maternal grandfather was Captain Whitby, a noted pioneer of Irish ancestry. The Sublettes were also of Kentucky stock; and if French originally, came early to America. See our volume xix, p. 221, note 55 (Gregg).--ED. The trappers kept company with us till we came to Pierre's Hole, or valley, which is twelve miles from the spot where we first met them. Three or four days after, we were fired on by the Indians about ten o'clock at night. They had assembled to about the number of three hundred. They stole {38} five horses from us, and three from Sublet's company.[39] About the first of July we crossed the highest part or ridge of the mountains.[40] In addition to the mountain composed of earth, sand, and stone, including common rocks, there were certain peaks resembling a loaf of sugar, from a hundred to two hundred feet high; and some appeared much higher; I cannot guess their height. They were to us surprising. Their sides deviated but little from perpendicular. They looked at a distance like some light-houses of a conical form, or like our Cambridge glass manufactories; but how they acquired that form is wonderful. Subsiding waters may have left them so, after washing away sandy materials. But nature is altogether wonderful, in her large works as well as small. How little do we know of the first cause of any thing! We had to creep round the base of these steep edifices of nature. We now more clearly understand and relish the question of one of our Indians who was carried to England as a show, who, on being shown that elegant pile of stone, the cathedral of St. Paul, after viewing it in silent admiration, asked his interpreter _whether it was made by men's hands, or whether it grew there_. We might ask the same question respecting these conical mountains. Had the scaffolding of St. Paul's remained, the surprise and wonder of the sensible savage had been less. [39] This attack was attributed to the same band of Blackfeet with whom the Battle of Pierre's Hole occurred some days later. See Wyeth, _Oregon Expeditions_, p. 158; Irving, _Rocky Mountains_, i, p. 75.--ED. [40] This is South Pass, so named in contradistinction to the northern passes undertaken by Lewis and Clark. It is not known by whom this mountain passage was discovered, but probably by some of Ashley's parties in 1823. The ascent is so gradual that, although 7,500 feet above sea-level, its elevation is not perceived, and in 1843 Frémont could with difficulty tell just where he crossed the highest point of the divide.--ED. It was difficult to keep our feet on these highest parts of the mountains; some of the pack-horses slipped and rolled over and over, and yet were taken up alive. Those that did not fall were sadly bruised and lamed in their feet and joints. Mules are best calculated, as we experienced, for such difficult travelling. They seem to think, and to judge {39} of the path before them, and will sometimes put their fore feet together and slip down without stepping. They are as sagacious in crossing a river, where there is a current. They will not attempt to go straight over, but will breast the tide by passing obliquely upwards. One of our horses was killed by a fall down one of these precipices, and it was surprising that more of them did not share the like fate. Buffaloes were so scarce here, that we were obliged to feed on our dried meat, and this scarcity continued till after we had gained the head sources of the Columbia river. For the last five days we have had to travel on the Colorado of the West, which is a very long river, and empties into the gulph of California.[41] [41] The upper waters of the Colorado River are now usually termed Green River, from the "Rio Verte" of the Spaniards. This great stream rises on the western slopes of the Wind River Mountains; flowing nearly south, gathering many mountain streams, it next turns abruptly east into the northwest corner of Colorado, and having rounded the Uintah range trends to the south-southwest through Utah, until joined by Grand River, when it becomes the Colorado proper. The first attempt to navigate this formidable waterway was made by Ashley's party in 1825, although Becknell is known to have visited it the previous year. Consult Chittenden's _Fur-Trade_, ii, pp. 509, 778-781, and F. S. Dellenbaugh, _Romance of the Colorado River_ (New York, 1902).--ED. On the 4th of July, 1832, we arrived at Lewis's fork, one of the largest rivers in these rocky mountains.[42] It took us all day to cross it. It is half a mile wide, deep, and rapid. The way we managed was this: one man unloaded his horse, and swam across with him, leading two loaded ones, and unloading the two, brought them back, for two more, and as Sublet's company and our own made over a hundred and fifty, we were all day in passing the river. In returning, my mule, by treading on a round stone, stumbled and threw me off, and the current was so strong, that a bush which I caught hold of only saved me from drowning. [42] From Green River the caravan crossed the divide between the Colorado and Columbia systems, and came upon a branch of Lewis (or Snake) River, probably Hoback's River. They did not reach the main Lewis until July 6, arriving at the rendezvous on the morning of July 8, after crossing Teton Pass. Consult Wyeth, _Oregon Expeditions_, pp. 158, 159.--ED. This being Independence-Day, we drank the health of our friends in Massachusetts, in good clear water, as that was the only liquor we had to drink in remembrance of our homes and dear connexions. If I may judge by my own feelings and by the looks of my companions, there was more of melancholy than joy amongst us. We were almost {40} four thousand miles from Boston, and in saying Boston we mean at the same time our native spot Cambridge, as they are separated by a wooden bridge only. From the north fork of Lewis's river we passed on to an eminence called Teton mountain, where we spent the night. The next day was pleasant, and serene. Captain Sublet came in the evening to inquire how many of our company were sick, as they must ride, it being impossible for them to go on foot any farther. His kindness and attention I never can forget. Dr. Jacob Wyeth, the Captain's brother, George More, and Stephen Burdit[43] were too weak to walk. To accommodate them with horses, Captain Wyeth was obliged to dig a hole in the earth, and therein bury the goods which had been hitherto carried on horseback. In the language of the Trappers this hiding of goods was called _cacher_ or hidden treasure, being the French term for 'to hide.' When they dig these hiding-holes they carefully carry the earth on a buffalo-skin to a distance, so as to leave no marks or traces of the ground being dug up or disturbed: and this was done to secure the _caché_ from being stolen by the Indians or the white men. The goods so hidden are wrapt up in buffalo-skins to keep them dry, before the earth is put over them. Nor is this all; they make a fire over the spot, and all this to prevent the Indians from suspecting that treasure is caché, or hidden there, while the owner of it takes care to mark the bearing of the spot on some tree, or rock, or some other object that may lead him to recognise the place again. But I have my doubts whether they who hid the goods will ever return that way to dig up their hidden treasure. We did not meddle with it on our return with Captain Sublet. [43] More was killed by Indians; see _post_. Captain Wyeth found his powder flask at Fort Union upon his return in the summer of 1833. Burdett went on to Oregon, where he resided for some years.--ED. {41} On the 5th of July we started afresh rather low-spirited. We looked with sadness on the way before us. The mountain was here pretty thickly timbered down its slopes, and wherever the ground is level. The pines and hemlock trees were generally about eighteen inches through. It had snowed, and we were now at a height where the snow commonly lies all the year round. Which ever way we looked, the region presented a dreary aspect. No one could wonder that even some of us who were in health, were, at times, somewhat homesick. If this was the case with us, what must have been the feelings of our three sick fellow travellers. We passed through a snow bank three feet deep. We well ones passed on with Captain Sublet to the top of the mountain, and there waited until our sick men came up with us. George More fell from his horse through weakness. He might have maintained his seat on level ground, but ascending and descending required more exertion than he could call forth; and this was the case also with Dr. Wyeth. Burdit made out a little better. When we encamped at night, we endured a snow storm. Sublet's company encamped about two miles from us; for at best we could hardly keep up with his veteran company. They were old and experienced trappers, and we, compared with them, young and inexperienced soldiers, little imagining that we should ever have to encounter such hardships, in realizing our dreams of making a fortune. Ignorance of the future is not always to be considered among the calamities of man. Captain Sublet's grand rendezvous, or Head Quarters, was about twelve miles from our encampment.[44] He had there about two hundred {42} trappers, or beaver-hunters; or more properly speaking, _skinners_ of entrapped animals; or _peltry_-hunters, for they chased but few of the captured beasts. To these were added about five hundred Indians, of the rank of warriors, all engaged in the same pursuit and traffic of the fur-trade. They were principally the _Flat-heads_,[45] so called from their flattening the heads of their young children, by forcing them to wear a piece of wood, like a bit of board, so as to cause the skull to grow flat, which they consider a mark of beauty even among the females. They are otherwise dandies and belles in their dress and ornaments. This large body of horse made a fine appearance, especially their long hair; for, as there was a pleasant breeze of wind, their hair blew out straight all in one direction, which had the appearance of so many black streamers. When we met they halted and fired three rounds by way of salute, which we returned; and then followed such friendly greetings as were natural and proper between such high contracting powers and great and good allies. This parade was doubtless made by Sublet for the sake of effect. It was showing us, Yankee barbarians, _their Elephants_;--like General and Lord Howe's military display to our commissioners of Congress on Staten Island, when the British Brothers proposed that celebrated interview; and when Dr. Franklin, Mr. Adams, and some others of the deputation, whose names I do not now recollect, assumed all that careless indifference, very common with the Indians on meeting a white embassy; for the express purpose of conveying an idea, that we, though the weakest in discipline and numbers, are not awe-struck by your fine dress, glittering arms, and full-fed persons. [44] Pierre's Hole, known more recently as Teton Basin, is a grassy valley trending northwest and southeast, thirty miles long, and from five to fifteen wide, in eastern Idaho, just across the Wyoming border. Pierre (or Teton) River flows through it gathering affluents on the way. The valley was a well-known rendezvous, taking its name from Pierre, an Iroquois employé of the Hudson's Bay Company, who was here murdered by the Blackfeet. The Astorian overland expedition passed through this valley both going and returning (1811, 1812). The most notable event in its history was the battle which Wyeth recounts. It was not on the regular Oregon trail; see Townsend's _Narrative_, _post._--ED. [45] For the Flatheads, see Franchère's _Narrative_, in our volume vi, p. 340, note 145.--ED. {43} It was now the 6th of July,[46] 1832, being sixty-four days since we left the settlements of the white people. Captain Sublet encamped his forces; and then pointed out to Captain Wyeth the ground which he thought would be most proper for us; and altogether we looked like a little army. Not but what we felt small compared with our great and powerful allies. [46] According to Nathaniel Wyeth's journal, it was July 8 before his party arrived in Pierre's Hole. They found that Drips, the American Fur Company agent, had, with many independent trappers, reached there before them.--ED. We were overjoyed to think that we had got to a resting-place, where we could repose our weary limbs, and recruit the lost strength of our sick. While Sublet was finishing his business with his Indian trappers, they delivering their peltry, and he remunerating them in his way with cloth, powder, ball, beads, knives, handkerchiefs, and all that gawdy trumpery which Indians admire, together with coffee, rice, and corn, also leather, and other articles,--we, being idle, had time to think, to reflect, and to be uneasy. We had been dissatisfied for some time, but we had not leisure to communicate it and systematize our grievances. I, with others, had spoken with Captain Sublet, and him we found conversable and communicative. Myself and some others requested Captain Wyeth to call a meeting of his followers, to ask information, and to know what we were now to expect, seeing we had passed over as we supposed the greatest difficulties, and were now nearly four thousand miles from the _Atlantic_, and within four hundred miles of the _Pacific Ocean_, the end and aim of our laborious expedition, the field where we expected to reap our promised harvest. We wished to have what we had been used to at home,--a town meeting,--or a parish meeting, where every freeman has an equal right to speak his sentiments, and to vote thereon. {44} But Captain Wyeth was by no means inclined to this democratical procedure. The most he seemed inclined to, was a _caucus_ with a select few; of whom neither his own brother, though older than himself, nor myself, was to be of the number. After considerable altercation, he concluded to call a meeting of the whole, on business interesting and applicable to all. We accordingly met, Captain Wyeth in the chair, or on the stump, I forget which. Instead of every man speaking his own mind, or asking such questions as related to matters that lay heaviest on his mind, the Captain commenced the business by ordering the roll to be called; and as the names were called, the clerk asked the person if he would go on. The first name was Nathaniel J. Wyeth, whom we had dubbed _Captain_, who answered--"I shall go on."--The next was William Nud, who, before he answered, wished to know what the Captain's plan and intentions were, whether to try to commence a small colony, or to trap and trade for beaver? To which Captain Wyeth replied, that _that_ was none of our business. Then Mr. Nud said, "I shall not go on;" and as the names of the rest were called, there appeared _seven_ persons out of the _twenty-one_, who were determined to return home. Of the number so determined was, besides myself, Dr. Jacob Wyeth, the Captain's brother, whose strength had never been equal to such a journey. His constitution forbade it. He was brought up at College. Here were discontents on both sides; criminations and recriminations. A commander of a band of associated adventurers has a very hard task. The commanded, whether in a school, or in a regiment, or company, naturally combine in feeling against {45} their leader; and this is so natural that armies are obliged to make very strict rules, and to pursue rigid discipline. It is so also on ship-board. Our merchant ships cannot sail in safety without exacting prompt obedience; and disobedience in the common seamen is mutiny, and mutiny is a high crime, and approximates to piracy. It is pretty much so in these long and distant exploring expeditions. The Captain cannot always with safety satisfy all the questions put to him by those under his command; and it would lead to great inconvenience to entrust any, even a brother, with any information concealed from the rest. There must be secrecy, and there must be confidence. We had travelled through a dreary wilderness, an infinitely worse country than Palestine; yet Moses himself could not have kept together the Israelites without the aid of miracles; and the history we have given of our boat-like arks, and the wreck of our raft, and the loss of our heaviest articles may lead most readers to suspect that our Leader to his Land of Promise was not an inspired man. In saying this, we censure no one, we only lament our common frailty. Reflect a moment, considerate reader! on our humble means, for an expedition of FOUR THOUSAND _miles_, compared with the ample means, rich and complete out-fit, letters of credit, and every thing deemed needful, given to _Captains Lewis_ and _Clarke_, under the orders of the government of the United States; and yet they several times came very near starving for the want of food, and of _fuel_, even in the _Oregon_ territory! In all books of voyages and travels, who ever heard of the utmost distress for want of wood, leaves, roots, coal, or turf to cook {46} with? Yet all through the dreary wilderness of Missouri, we were obliged to use the dung of buffaloes, or eat raw flesh. The reader will scarcely believe that this was the case even at mouth of the Oregon river. Clarke and Lewis had to buy wood of the Indians, who had hardly enough for themselves. To be deprived of solid food soon ends in death; but we were often deprived of the two elements out of four, _fire_ and _water_, and when on the Rocky mountains, of a _third_, I mean _earth_; for everything beneath our feet and around us was stone. We had, be sure, _air_ enough, and too much too, sometimes enough almost to blow our hair off. But to return to our dismal list of grievances. Almost every one of the company wished to go no farther; but they found themselves too feeble and exhausted to think of encountering the risk of a march on foot of three thousand five hundred miles through such a country as we came. We asked Captain Wyeth to let us have our muskets and a sufficiency of ammunition, which request he refused. Afterwards, he collected all the guns, and after selecting such as he and his companions preferred, he gave us the refuse; many of which were unfit for use. There were two tents belonging to the company, of which he gave us one; which we pitched about a quarter of a mile from his. George More expressed his determination of returning home, and asked for a horse, which after considerable difficulty he obtained. This was July 10th. The Captain likewise supplied his brother with a horse and a hundred dollars. On the 12th of July, Captain Wyeth, after moving his tent half a mile farther from ours, put himself under the command of Mr. Milton Sublet,[47] {47} brother of Captain William Sublet so often mentioned. This Captain Milton Sublet had about twenty men under his command, all trappers; so that hereafter as far as I know, it was Wyeth, Sublet and Co.; so that the reader will understand, that Dr. Jacob Wyeth, Palmer, Law, Batch, and myself concluded to retrace our steps to St. Louis in company with Captain William Sublet, while Captain Nathaniel J. Wyeth remained with Milton Sublet, and his twenty men. I have been unreasonably blamed for leaving my kinsman beyond the Rocky Mountains with only eleven of his company, and that too when we were within about four hundred miles of the mouth of the Columbia, _alias_ Oregon river, where it pours into the _boisterous_ Pacific Ocean, for such Lewis and Clarke found it to their cost. [47] Milton G. Sublette was a younger brother of William L.--for whom, see our volume xix, p. 221, note 55 (Gregg). He was a partner in the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, and an able trader; but disease in one of his legs obliged him to abandon the expedition of 1834. See Townsend's _Narrative_, _post_. The ailing leg was twice amputated, but to no avail, and he died at Fort Laramie, December 19, 1836.--ED. The spot where we now were, is a valley, between two mountains, about ten miles wide, so lofty that their tops are covered with snow, while it was warm and pleasant where we pitched our tent. This agreeable valley is called by the trappers _Pierre's-Hole_, as if it were a dismal residence; and was the most western point that I visited, being about, we conjectured, four hundred miles short of the mouth of the Oregon river, whence the territory derives its name, which Mr. Hall J. Kelly has described as another paradise! O! the magic of sounds and inflated words! Whether Captain Wyeth's expedition was wise or imprudent we are not prepared to say; but under existing circumstances, half of his company having left him, and among them his own brother, the surgeon of the expedition, we cannot see what better he could have done than to ally himself to an experienced band of hunters, as a step necessary {48} to his own preservation. He was three thousand and five hundred miles from the Atlantic Ocean, with only eleven men, and half his goods lost or expended, and no resource of supply short of St. Louis, nineteen hundred miles from them. Had not the Sublets been with them from that place through the wilderness of Missouri and La Platte, it is hardly probable they would have ever reached the west side of the Rocky Mountains. In passing judgment on this strange expedition, we must take in, beside facts, probabilities and casualties. On the 17th of July, Captain Wyeth and Captain Milton Sublet set out westward with their respective men to go to Salmon river to winter.[48] The former had eleven beside himself: that river they computed at two hundred miles distance. Wyeth accordingly purchased twenty-five horses from the Indians, who had a great number, and those very fine, and high-spirited. Indeed the Western region seems the native and congenial country for horses. They were, however, delayed till the next day. But when they were about moving, they perceived a drove of something, whether buffaloes or men they could not determine with the naked eye; but when aided by the glass, they recognized them for a body of the _Black-foot_ tribe of Indians, a powerful and warlike nation. As this movement was evidently hostile, Captain Milton Sublet dispatched two men to call on his brother, who was about eight miles off, for assistance; when Captain William Sublet ordered every man to get ready immediately. We had about five hundred friendly Indian warriors with us, who expressed their willingness to join in our defence. [48] The Salmon is entirely an Idaho River--one of the largest and most important affluents of the Lewis (or Snake). Its sources are in the central part of the state, nearly one hundred and fifty miles west of Wyeth's present position. It flows north, then directly west, and again makes a long northward sweep before losing itself in Lewis River. It is a mountainous stream, not navigable for any great distance. Lewis and Clark (1805) first saw Columbian waters upon the Lemhi--an eastern affluent of the Salmon. Later, Captain Clark made a reconnaissance some fifty miles down the Salmon, hoping to find the way thence to the Columbia; but he was turned back by the rocky cañons and rapids, and the expedition thenceforth took its way by land across the mountains. On the return journey (1806) a party of Lewis and Clark's men advanced to the lower Salmon in search of provisions. The river has since been of note in fur-trading and trapping annals.--ED. {49} As soon as we left Captain Wyeth we joined Captain Sublet, as he said that no white man should be there unless he was to be under his command; and his reason for it was that in case they had to fight the Indians, no one should flinch or sneak out of the battle. It seems that when the Black-foot Indians saw us moving in battle array, they appeared to hesitate; and at length they displayed a white flag as an ensign of peace; but Sublet knew their treacherous character. The chief of the friendly Flat-heads and Antoine[49] rode together, and concerted this savage arrangement; to ride up and accost them in a friendly manner; and when the Black-foot chief should take hold of the Flat-head chief's hand in token of friendship, then the other was to shoot him, which was instantly done! and at that moment the Flat-head chief pulled off the Black-foot's scarlet robe, and returned with the Captain to our party unhurt. As soon as the Black-foot Indians recovered from their surprise, they displayed a _red_ flag, and the battle began. This was _Joab_ with a vengeance,--_Art thou in health, my brother?_ [49] Antoine Godin was a half-breed whose father, of Iroquois origin, had been killed by Blackfeet upon a creek bearing his name. Antoine went out with Wyeth's company, that built Fort Hall in 1834; while in camp there, he was enticed across the river, and treacherously shot (see Townsend's _Narrative_, _post_).--ED. The Black-foot chief was a man of consequence in his nation. He not only wore on this occasion a robe of scarlet cloth, probably obtained from a Christian source, but was decorated with beads valued there at sixty dollars. The battle commenced on the Prairie. As soon as the firing began on both sides, the squaws belonging to the Black-foot forces, retreated about fifty yards into a small thicket of wood, and there threw up a ridge of earth by way of entrenchment, having first piled up a number of logs cob-fashion, to which the men at length fell back, and from {50} which they fired upon us, while some of their party with the women were occupied in deepening the trench. Shallow as it was, it afforded a considerable security to an Indian, who will often shoot a man from behind a tree near to its root, while the white man is looking to see his head pop out at man's height. This has taught the United States troops, to load their muskets while lying on their backs, and firing in an almost supine posture. When the Duke of Saxe-Weimer was in Cambridge,[50] he noticed this, to him, novel mode of firing, which he had never before seen; and this was in a volunteer company of militia.--I do not mean to say that the Indians fired only in a supine posture; when they had loaded they most commonly rose up and fired, and then down on the ground again to re-load.--In this action with the formidable Black-foot tribe, Captain Nathaniel J. Wyeth's party had no concern. He himself was in it a very short time, but retired from the contest doubtless for good reasons. After contesting the matter with the warlike tribe about six hours, Captain Sublet found it of little avail to fight them in this way. He therefore determined to charge them at once, which was accordingly done. He led, and ordered his men to follow him, and this proved effectual. Six beside himself first met the savages hand to hand; of these seven, four were wounded, and one killed. The Captain was wounded in his arm and shoulder-blade. The Indians did not, however, retreat entirely, so that we kept up a random fire until dark; the ball and the arrows were striking the trees after we could see the effects of one and of the other. There was something terrific to our men in their arrows. The idea of a barbed arrow sticking {51} in a man's body, as we had observed it in the deer and other animals, was appalling to us all, and it is no wonder that some of our men recoiled at it. They regarded a leaden bullet much less. We may judge from this the terror of the savages on being met the first time by fire arms,--a sort of thunder and lightning followed by death without seeing the fatal shot. [50] Carl Bernhard, duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (1792-1862), visited America, and published _Travels in North America in the years 1825 and 1826_ (Philadelphia, 1828).--ED. In this battle with the Indians, not one of those who had belonged to Captain Wyeth's company received any injury. There were, however, seven white men of Sublet's company killed, and thirteen wounded. Twenty-five of our Indians were killed and thirty-five wounded. The next morning a number of us went back to the Indian fort, so called, where we found one dead man and two women, and also twenty-five dead horses, a proof that the Black-foot were brave men.[51] The number of them was uncertain. We calculated that they amounted to about three hundred. We guessed that the reason the three dead bodies were left at the entrenchment was, that they had not enough left to carry off their dead and wounded. This affair delayed Captain Wyeth three days, and Captain Sublet ten days. The names of those who left Captain Wyeth to return home, were Dr. Jacob Wyeth, John B. Wyeth, his cousin, William Nud, Theophilus Beach, R. L. Wakefield, Hamilton Law, George More, ---- Lane, and Walter Palmer.[52] The names of those who remained attached to Captain Wyeth, and who went on with him to Salmon river, are J. Woodman, Smith, G. Sargent, ---- Abbot, W. Breck, S. Burditt, ---- Ball, St. Clair, C. Tibbits, G. Trumbull, and ---- Whittier.[53] [51] According to Irving (_Rocky Mountains_, i, p. 85), who had conversed with several of the participants, the Blackfeet left ten dead in the fort, and reported their loss as twenty-six. Irving also makes the number of dead and wounded whites and allied Indians smaller than Wyeth's estimate.--ED. [52] Of this company William Nudd and George More were afterwards killed in the mountains; the others reached the settlements.--ED. [53] Three of this number--Solomon Howard Smith, John Ball, and Calvin Tibbitts--became prominent in Oregon life. Trumbull died at Fort Vancouver during the winter of 1832-33. Wiggin Abbot accompanied Nathaniel Wyeth on his return (1833) and aided in preparing for the latter's second expedition. He was later murdered by the Bannock--see Townsend's _Narrative_, _post_. Solomon H. Smith, from New Hampshire, was employed as school-teacher at Fort Vancouver, and afterwards settled in the Willamette Valley. Having married Celiast, daughter of a Clatsop chief, he made his home at Clatsop Plains with the missionaries, and there lived until his death. His son, Silas B. Smith, was an attorney at Warrenton, Oregon. John Ball came from Troy, New York, and remained in Oregon until the autumn of 1833, teaching at Fort Vancouver, and raising grain on the Willamette. After returning to the United States, he contributed an article on the geology and geography of the region, through which he had travelled, to _Silliman's Journal_, xxviii, pp. 1-16. Ball left Troy in 1836, and removed to Grand Rapids, Michigan. See his letter in Montana Historical Society _Collections_, i, (1876), pp. 111, 112. Calvin Tibbitts was a stone-cutter from Maine. He settled at Chemyway and later removed to Clatsop Plains, where he lived with a native wife, and aided missionary enterprise. He made two successful journeys to California for cattle, and later was the judge of Clatsop County.--ED. When they had gone three days journey from us, {52} as they were riding securely in the middle of the afternoon, about thirty of the Black-foot Indians, who lay in ambush about twenty yards from them, suddenly sprang up and fired. The surprise occasioned the horses to wheel about, which threw off George More, and mortally wounded one of the men, Alfred K. Stevens.[54] As the Indians knew that More could not get away from them, they passed him, and about twenty Indians were coming up the hill where they were. Eight or ten Indians followed up while only five trappers had gained the hill. They were considering how to save George More, when one of them shot him through the head, which was a better fate than if they had taken him alive, as they would have tortured him to death. [54] Alfred K. Stephens had participated in the Santa Fé trade, and had in the summer of 1831 led a party of twenty-one men in a free trapping excursion along the Laramie River. Discouraged by ill success, he made an agreement with Fitzpatrick to serve under the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. After this attack in Jackson's Hole, Stephens returned to Pierre's Hole, and rejoined Sublette, only to fall victim to his wound, dying July 30, 1832. It would appear from John Wyeth's narrative at this point, that he remained with William Sublette at Pierre's Hole, while More and those more eager to set forth had gone on under the leadership of Alfred Stephens.--ED. We have said that Captain Wyeth and the few who had concluded to go on with him, were ready to begin their march for Salmon river. On this occasion Captain Milton Sublet escorted them about one hundred miles, so as to protect them from the enraged Black-feet, and then left them to take care of themselves for the winter; and this is the last tidings we have had of Captain Nathaniel J. Wyeth, and his reduced band of adventurers.[55] If we have been rightly informed, their chief hope was residing on a pleasant river where there was plenty of salmon, and probably elk and deer, and water-fowl; and we hope fuel, for to our surprise, we learnt that wood for firing was among their great wants. I have since been well-informed that in the valley of Oregon, so much extolled for its fertility and pleasantness, wood to cook with is one among their scarcest and very dear articles of necessity. From all accounts, except those given {53} to the public by Mr. Kelly, there is not a district at the mouth of any large river more unproductive than that of the _Columbia_, and it seems that this is pretty much the case from the tide water of that river to where it empties into the ocean. [55] Nathaniel Wyeth crossed to the Columbia, arriving at the Hudson's Bay Company post of Walla Walla, October 14, and at Fort Vancouver later in the same month. Here the remainder of his men left his service.--ED. The Flat-head Indians are a brave and we had reason to believe a sincere people. We had many instances of their honesty and humanity. They do not lie, steal, nor rob any one, unless when driven too near to starvation; and then any man black, white, or red will seize any thing to save himself from an agonizing death. The Flat-heads were well dressed. They wore buck-skin frocks and pantaloons, and moccasins, with seldom any thing on their heads. They draw a piece of fresh buffalo hide on their feet, and at night sleep with their feet not far from the fire, and in the morning find their shoes sitting as snug to their feet as if they had been measured by the first shoe-maker in Boston. It is probable that no people have so little shoe-pinching as these savages. I never heard any one complain of corns, or kibed-heels, severe as the weather is in winter. The women wear moccasins also, but whether made in the same extempore method as those of the men, I know not. I suspect they must experience some shoe-pinching. They wear a petticoat, and a frock of some sort of leather, according to fancy, but all decent and comfortable. In rainy weather, or when very cold, they throw a buffalo-skin over their shoulders, with the fur inside. They have no stationary wigwams; but have a sort of tent, which they fix down or remove with facility. In Major Long's book may be seen an engraved representation of them.[56] Their mode of cooking is by roasting and boiling. They {54} will pick a goose, or a brant, and run a stick through its body and so roast it, without taking out its entrails. They are, according to our notions, very nasty cooks. [56] The reference is to James's _Long's Expedition_, reprinted as volumes xiv-xvii of our series. The illustration here referred to is in our volume xvi, p. 107.--ED. I know not what to say of their religion. I saw nothing like images, or any objects of worship whatever, and yet they appeared to keep a sabbath; for there is a day on which they do not hunt nor gamble, but sit moping all day and look like fools. There certainly appeared among them an honor, or conscience, and sense of justice. They would do what they promised, and return our strayed horses, and lost articles. Now and then, but rarely, we found a pilferer, but not oftener than among the frontier white people. The Indians of all tribes are disposed to give you something to eat. It is a fact that we never found an Indian of any tribe disposed to treat us with that degree of inhospitality that we experienced in crossing the Alleghany Mountains, in the State of Pennsylvania. The Black-foot tribe are the tallest and stoutest men of any we have seen, nearly or quite six feet in stature, and of a lighter complexion than the rest. The Indian warriors carry muskets, bows, and arrows, the last in a quiver. The bows are made of walnut, about three feet long, and the string of the sinews of the buffalo, all calculated for great elasticity, and will reach an object at a surprising distance. It was to us a much more terrific weapon of war than a musket. We had one man wounded in the thigh by an arrow; he was obliged to ford a river in his hasty retreat, and probably took a chill, which occasioned a mortification, of {55} which he died. The arrows are headed with flint as sharp as broken glass; the other end of the arrow is furnished with an eagle's feather to steady its flight. Some of these aboriginals, as we learn from Lewis, Clarke, and Major Long, especially the last, have shields or targets; some so long as to reach from the head to the ancle. Now the question is how came our North American Indians with bows and arrows? It is not likely that they invented them, seeing they so exactly resemble the bows and arrows of the old world, the Greeks and Romans. They are the same weapon to a feather. This is a fresh proof that our savage tribes of this continent emigrated from the old one; and I have learned from a friend to whom I am indebted for several ideas, which no one could suppose to have originated with myself, that the Indian's bow goes a great way to settle a disputed point respecting what part of the old world the ancestors of our Indians came from,--whether Asia or Europe. Now the Asiatic bow and our Indian bow are of a different form. The first has a straight piece in the middle, like the crossbow, being such an one as is commonly depicted in the hands of Cupid; whereas our Indian bow is a section of a circle, while the Persian or Asiatic bow has two wings extending from a straight piece in the middle. Hence we have reason to conclude that the first comers from the old world to the new, came not from those regions renowned for their cultivation of the arts and sciences. The idea that our North American Indians came over from Scythia, that is, the northern part, so called, of Europe and Asia, whether it is correct to call them Scythians, Tartars, or Russians, I leave others to determine. We {56} have many evidences that our Northern Indians have a striking resemblance in countenance, color, and person to the most northern tribes of Tartars, who inhabit Siberia, or Asiatic Russia. The Black-foot Indians who inhabit small rivers that empty into the Missouri, resemble in mode of living, manners, and character, the Calmuc Tartars. Both fight on horseback, both are very brave, and both inured to what we should consider a very hard life as it regards food. Both avoid as much as they can stationary dwellings, and use tents made with skins. On this subject we ought not to omit mentioning that the Indians on all sides of the Rocky mountains have several customs both among men and the _women_, which might lead some to conclude that our Northern and Western Indians descended from the Israelites; and this similarity is certainly very remarkable; yet there is one very strong fact against that hypothesis, namely, there is not the least trace amongst our Indians of the _eight-day rite_ of the Jewish males, which sore, and, to us, strange ceremony would hardly have been forgotten, had it been practiced by our Indians. If our idea be well-founded on this subject, the custom could have originated only in warm and redundant climates, so that had Moses marched first from the shores of the Baltic, as did the Goths, instead of the shores of the Red sea, the Jews never would have been subjected to the operation of circumcision. After all, it is very likely that the Persians came from a different stock from that which peopled the Western and Northern parts of America,--I mean from the warmer regions of Asia. They seem possessed of more delicate marks of person and of mind {57} than the fighting savages of the North. There appears to be a strong line of separation between them, as far as our information goes. To return to our own story. After the battle at Pierre's Valley, I had an opportunity of seeing a specimen of Indian surgery in treating a wound. An Indian squaw first sucked the wound perfectly dry, so that it appeared white as chalk; and then she bound it up with a piece of dry buck-skin as soft as woollen cloth, and by this treatment the wound began to heal, and soon closed up, and the part became sound again. The sucking of it so effectually may have been from an apprehension of a poisoned arrow. But who taught the savage Indian that a person may take poison into his mouth without any risk, as the poison of a rattlesnake without harm, provided there be no scratch or wound in the mouth, so as to admit it into the blood? Three of the men that left Captain Wyeth when I did, enlisted with Captain Sublet to follow the trapping business for the period of one year, namely, Wakefield, Nud, and Lane, leaving Dr. Jacob Wyeth, H. Law, T. Beach, W. Palmer, and myself. We accordingly set out on the twenty-eighth day of July, 1832, with Captain William Sublet, for home; and thus ended all my fine prospects and flattering expectations of acquiring fortune, independence, and ease, and all my hopes that the time had now come in the order of Providence, when that uncultivated tract, denominated the _Oregon Territory_, was to be changed into a fruitful field, and the haunt of savages and wild beasts made the happy abode of refined and dignified man.--Mr. Hall J. Kelly published about two {58} years since a most inflated and extravagant account of that western tract which extends from the Rocky Mountains to the shore of the Pacific Ocean.[57] He says of it that no portion of the globe presents a more fruitful soil, or a milder climate, or equal facilities for carrying into effect the great purposes of a free and enlightened nation;--that a country so full of those natural means which best contribute to the comforts and conveniences of life, is worthy the occupancy of a people disposed to support a free representative government, and to establish civil, scientific, and religious institutions,--and all this and much more to the same effect after Lewis and Clarke's history of their expedition had been published, and very generally read;[58] yet this extravagant and fallacious account of the Oregon was read and believed by some people not destitute of a general information of things, nor unused to reading; but there were circles of people, chiefly among young farmers and journeymen mechanics, who were so thoroughly imbued with these extravagant notions of making a fortune by only going over land to the other side of the globe, to the Pacific Ocean, that a person who expressed a doubt of it was in danger of being either affronted, or, at least, accused of being moved by envious feelings. After a score of people had been enlisted in this Oregon expedition, they met together to feed and to magnify each other's hopes and visionary notions, which were wrought up to a high degree of extravagance, so that it was hardly safe to advise or give an opinion adverse to the scheme. When young people are so affected, it is in vain to reason with them; and when such sanguine persons are determined to fight, or to marry, it is dangerous to {59} attempt to part them; and when they have their own way and get their belly full of fight, and of matrimony, there comes a time of cool reflection. The first stage of our reflection began at St. Louis, when we parted with our amphibious wagons, in which we all more or less took a pride. Every one there praised the ingenuity of the contrivance and construction of them for roads and rivers such as at Cambridge, and other places near to Boston; but we were assured at St. Louis, that they were by no means calculated for our far distant journey. We were reminded that Lewis and Clarke carried canoes almost to the foot of the Rocky Mountains, by the route of Missouri river, but were obliged to leave them there, and ascend mountains so very steep, that sometimes their loaded horses slipped and rolled over and over, down into lower ground sixty or seventy feet. This may serve to show, among other things, how ill-informed Captain Wyeth and his company were of the true condition of the country through which they had to pass. We expected to support ourselves with game by our firearms, and therefore powder and shot were the articles we took the most care to be provided with. Nor were we followers undeceived before we were informed at St. Louis, that it would be necessary to take oxen and sheep to be slaughtered on the route for our support. We also found it advisable to sell at that place the large number of axes, great and small, with which we had encumbered our wagons. All these occurrences, following close after one another, operated to damp our ardor; and it was this probably that operated so powerfully on W. Bell, Livermore, and Griswold, that they _cut_ {60} and ran away before we entered upon the difficulties and hardships of our expedition. [57] Referring to Kelley's _Geographical Sketch of that part of North America called Oregon_ (Boston, 1830). Subsequent information has justified most of Kelley's statements, here derided by Wyeth.--ED. [58] What is known as the Biddle version of the Lewis and Clark journals was issued at Philadelphia in 1814. For the history of this version consult Thwaites, _Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition_ (New York, 1904-05), i, introduction.--ED. Nothing of importance occurred for the first ten days after we left Pierre's Valley. Our huntsmen were abroad in pursuit of buffaloes, when they were alarmed at the sight of a large body of the Black-foot tribe who had been watching our movements. Captain Sublet was not a little alarmed, for he had with him his whole stock of furs, very large in quantity and valuable in quality, which we were told would be worth eighty thousand dollars in St. Louis. But all the world exaggerates; nor even were we of the Oregon expedition entirely free from it, although not to be compared with Hall Jackson Kelly, who never stops short of superlatives, if we may judge by his publications. But he says, by way of apology, that it is needful that the friends of the contemplated Oregon colony should possess a little of the active and vital principle of enthusiasm, that shields against disappointments, and against the presumptious opinions and insults of others. Now the fact is, the sanguine and enthusiastic Mr. Kelly was never in that country, nor nearer to it than Boston; and his zeal in the colonization of that dreary territory led him to believe what he wished, and to disbelieve every thing adverse to his favorite enterprise. He had a right to enjoy his opinion; but when he took unweary pains to make ignorant people believe as he did, he was the remote cause of much misery and lasting regret in more than half the adventurers from Cambridge. If the blind lead the blind, we know what will be the consequence. But our business is not to censure from a disposition to find fault, {61} but to warn others from falling into the errors and difficulties which attended me and my companions, and chiefly through the misinformation of persons who never saw the country. Each man, when he left St. Louis, was allowed to carry but ten pounds' weight of his own private baggage, and not every one to encumber his march with whatever he chose; and we adhered to that order on our return. We were ten days in passing over the Rocky Mountains in going, and nine in returning; and I repeat it as my fixed opinion, that we never should have reached the western foot of the mountains had we not been under the guard and guidance of Captain Sublet, and his experienced company. He was acquainted with the best way, and the best mode of travelling. He knew the Indian chiefs and they knew him, and each confided in the other. An anecdote will illustrate this. There was a hunters' fort or temporary place of defence occupied by about a dozen white beaver-trappers from St. Louis, where were deposited furs, and goods belonging to the troop of trappers, and that to a considerable amount. One day this small garrison was alarmed at the sight of about six hundred warriors approaching on horseback. Upon this they barred their gate, and closed every door and window against the Indians, but with faint hopes of repelling such a powerful host of well-armed savages; for they had no other idea but that they had come for their destruction. But when the Indians saw them shutting themselves up, they displayed the white flag, and made signs to the white men to open their fort, for they came to trade and not to fight. And the little garrison thought it better to trust to Indian honor {62} than risk savage slaughter or captivity; and accordingly they unbarred their doors and let the chiefs in with every expression of cordiality and confidence. After remaining nine days, they departed in peace. And what ought to be recorded to their honor, the white people did not miss a single article, although axes, and utensils, and many other things were lying about, desirable to Indians. The savages did not consider, as white men too often do,--that "_might is right_." When I expressed my surprise at it, one of the white trappers replied, "Why, the word of these trading Indians is _as good as the Bible_." We were surprised to find the Indians in the vicinity of the mountains, and all round Pierre's Valley, and the Black-foot tribe, and the Shoshonees, or Snake-tribe, so well provided with muskets, powder and ball, woollen cloth, and many other articles, until we were informed that Mr. Mackenzie, an established and wealthy Indian trader, had long supplied them with every article they desired. Had the Captain of our band been acquainted with this fact, and also been informed of the trading connexion between the Indians and the two brothers, William and Milton Sublet, before he started from home, we should have avoided a great deal of trouble, and he escaped a great deal of expense, and for aught I know, suffering; for the last we heard of him, he was to pass the winter at the Salmon river. From all I could learn, St. Louis was the depot, or headquarters of the commerce with the Indians. Mackenzie, I was informed has a steam-boat called the Yellow-stone, by which he keeps up a trade with the natives inhabiting the region watered by {63} the river of that name. The _Yellow-stone_ is a noble river, being eight hundred and thirty-seven miles from the point where Captain Clarke reached it to the Missouri, and is so far navigable for batteaux; and eight hundred and fifty feet wide at its confluence with the river just named. By all accounts, the superiority of the Yellow-stone river over the Columbia, or Oregon, for a settlement of New-England adventurers, in point of fertility, climate, and pleasantness, is such as to impress one with regret that ever we extended our views beyond it; for the lamentable fact is, that the trade with the Indians all round the Rocky Mountains, and beyond it to the Oregon territory and Columbia river, is actually forestalled, or pre-occupied by wealthy, established, and experienced traders residing at, or near St. Louis, while we are more than twelve hundred miles in their rear, and very far behind them in time. Besides all these considerations, we may add another of great importance; I mean the fact, that Mackenzie's and Sublet's white trappers, or hunters, are a sort of half Indians in their manners and habits, and could assimilate with them, while we are strangers to the savages, and they to us, with all the dislikes natural to both sides. Captain Sublet, who appears to be a worthy character, and of sound judgment, perceived this, and must have seen, at once, that he had nothing to fear from us, and therefore he paid us great attention, conciliated and made use of us, and while he aided us, he benefited his own concern, and all without the least spice of jealousy, well knowing the impossibility, under existing circumstances, that we could supplant him in the affection of the red men of Missouri and Oregon. {64} The white traders, and the Indians have, if we may so term it, an annual _Fair_, that has been found by experience profitable to both sides.[59] It is true the white trader barters a tawdry bauble of a few cents' value, for a skin worth fifty of it. And so have we in our India shawls, and, a few years since, in Leghorn hats, in which we were taxed as high as the white merchant taxes the equally silly Indian. Coffee was sold at two dollars a pound, and so was tobacco. Indeed some of us gave that price to Mr. Nathaniel J. Wyeth for the latter article, a luxury more coveted by men in our situation, anxious and fatigued as we were, than whisky or brandy. This was the case under Lewis and Clarke. When deprived of tobacco, they cut up the old handles of tomahawks, which had been used as pipes, and chewed the wood for the sake of its smell and smack. It is not a singular case. It has been experienced among sailors at sea. They have pined more for the lulling effects of that nauseous weed than for ardent spirits; and it has been known that men will mutiny sooner when deprived of their tobacco, than when deprived of their usual food and rum. There was no small grumbling on being obliged to buy tobacco out of what we thought common stock, at the rate above mentioned, being, as we thought, all members of a commonwealth. [59] This was the well-known mountain rendezvous instituted to take the place of established forts, by General Ashley of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. Each year a caravan went up from St. Louis, carrying articles for trade, while parties of trappers and their Indian allies gathered at the appointed place. The first of these gatherings was in 1824; the institution flourished only for about a decade.--ED. The following may serve to show the knowledge or instinct of horses. When marching on our return home in the troop of Captain Sublet, not far from the eastern declivity of the Rocky Mountains, we were met by a large body of Indians on horseback. Sublet generally kept seven videts about two miles ahead {65} of his main body. The horses of this advance guard suddenly refused to go on, and turned round, and appeared alarmed, but the riders knew not the cause of it. Captain Sublet rode up, and said, that he knew by the behaviour of the horses that there was an enemy ahead. He said there was a valley several miles off where he apprehended we might be attacked. He therefore ordered every man to examine his arms, and be ready for action. After riding a few miles we discovered a large moving body of a living something. Some of us thought it was a drove of buffaloes; but the Captain said no, because they were of different colors, whereas bisons, or buffaloes appear all of one color. After viewing them through his glass, he said they were a body of the Black-foot tribe, who had on their war dresses, with their faces painted, bare heads, and other signs of hostility. Their appearance was very singular, and, to some of us, terrible. There was a pretty fresh breeze of wind, so as to blow the long manes and tails of their horses out straight. Nor was this all: the wind had the same effect on the long black hair of the warriors, which gave them not only a grotesque but a terrific appearance. Added to all this, they kept up a most horrid yell or war-hoop. They rode up and completely surrounded us; and then all was silent. Captain Sublet rode up to the chief, and expressed his hope that all was peace. The savage replied that there should be peace on their part, on condition that Sublet should give them _twenty-five pounds of tobacco_, which was soon complied with, when the Indian army remounted their horses, and rode off at full speed as they came on: and we {66} pushed off with like speed, lest they should repent their bargain and return upon us to mend it. Who will say that this gallant body of cavalry were not wiser than the common run of white soldiers, to make peace for a _quid_? and thereby save their horses and their own skins? Out of what book did this corps of savage dragoons learn that discretion was the better part of valor?--We answer, From out of that book of Nature which taught the videts' horses that an enemy was in the wind. The horse is the dumbest of all beasts. He is silent under torture. He never groans but once, and that is his _last_. Did they roar like bulls, or squeal like hogs, they would be useless in an army. That noble animal suffers from man a shameful weight of cruel usage in town and country. The wild horses are a great curiosity. They traverse the country, and stroll about in droves from a dozen to twenty or thirty; and always appear to have a leader, like a gander to a flock of geese. When our own horses were feeding fettered around our encampments, the wild horses would come down to them, and seem to examine them, as if counting them; and would sometimes come quite up to them if we kept out of sight; but when they discovered us, they would one and all give a jump off and fly like the wind. There is a method of catching a wild horse, that may appear to many "a traveller's story." It is called _creasing_ a horse. The meaning of the term is unknown to me.[60] It consists in shooting a {67} horse in the neck with a single ball so as to graze his neck bone, and not to cut the pith of it. This stuns the horse and he falls to the ground, but he recovers again, and is as well as ever, all but a little soreness in the neck, which soon gets well. But in his short state of stupefaction, the hunter runs up, and twists a noose around the skin of his nose, and then secures him with a thong of buffalo-hide. I do not give it merely as a story related; but I believe it, however improbable it may appear, because I saw it done. I saw an admirable marksman, young Andrew Sublet,[61] fire at a fine horse, and after he fell, treat him in the way I have mentioned; and he brought the horse into camp, and it turned out to be a very fine one. The marvel of the story is, that the dextrous marksman shall shoot so precisely as only to graze the vital part; and yet those who know these matters better than I do, say, that they conceive it possible. [60] _Creasing_ may be derived from _craze_, or the French _ecraser_, or the Teutonic _krossa_, or the English _crush_, to bruise, overwhelm, or subdue without killing. It may be Spanish; for it is said that the modern South Americans practice the same device. It would seem as if it jarred the vertebræ, or bony channel of the neck, without cutting any important vessel or nerve. But let the fact be established before we reason upon it.--WYETH. [61] Andrew Sublette, younger brother of William and Milton, was born in Kentucky, but early removed to the frontier. After the discovery of gold he emigrated to California, settling finally near Los Angeles, where he died from wounds received in an encounter with grizzly bears.--ED. After we had made peace with the large body of the Black-foot Indians, for, as we may say, a _quid_ of tobacco, nothing occurred worth relating until we arrived at the town of Independence, being the first white settlement in our way homewards. I would, however, here remark, that the warlike body just mentioned, though of the fierce Black-foot tribe, hunted and fought independently of that troop with which we had a battle in the Rocky Mountains; and were most probably ignorant of that affair, in which a chief was treacherously shot by one Antoine, who was half Indian and half French, when bearing a white flag, and with which {68} nefarious deed I believe Captain Sublet had no concern. But of all this I cannot speak with certainty, as I myself was half a mile distant, when the Black-foot chief was shot, and his scarlet robe torn off of him by the mongrel Indian, as a trophy instead of his scalp; for the Indians returned their fire so promptly, and continued fighting so long, even after dark, that there was no time nor opportunity of his securing that evidence of his savage blood and mode of warfare. When we arrived at the town of Independence, Dr. Jacob Wyeth, Palmer, Styles, and myself bought a canoe, being tired of travelling by land, and impatient to get on, and this was the last of my money except a single six-cent piece. A thick fog prevented our early departure, as it would be dangerous to proceed on account of the snags and sawyers in the river. To pass away the tedious time, I strolled out around the town, and lost my direct way back. At length the fog cleared off, and after my companions had waited for me an hour, they pushed off and left me behind! They, be sure, left word that they would wait for me at the next town, Boonsville,[62] twenty miles' distance. I hurried, however, as fast I could five miles down the banks of the river; when, finding that I could not overtake them, and being fatigued by running, I gave over the chase in despair. I was sadly perplexed, and vexed, at what I conceived worse than savage usage. In this state of mind, I saw a small skiff, with a pair of oars, when an heroic idea came into my half-crazed brain, and feeling my absolute necessities, I acted like certain ancient and some modern heroes, and jumped into the boat, cast off her painter, and pulled away for dear life down the stream. {69} The owner of the boat discovered me when not much more than a quarter of a mile on my way. He and another man got into a canoe and rowed after me, and gained upon me; on perceiving which, I laid out all my strength, and although two to one, I distanced them, and they soon saw they could not overtake me. When I started it was twelve o'clock, and I got to the next town, Boonsville, the sun half an hour high,--the distance about twenty miles. When my skiff struck the shore my pursuers were about twenty rods behind me. I ran into the first barn of a tavern I could reach. They soon raised the neighbors, and placed a watch around the barn, one side of which opened into a cornfield. In searching for me they more than once trod over me, but the thickness of the hay prevented them from feeling me. I knew the severe effects of their laws, by which those who were too poor to pay the fine were to atone for their poverty by stripes, which were reckoned to be worth a dollar a stripe in that cheap country; and hence I lay snug in the hay two nights and one day without any thing to eat. Hunger at length forced me from my hiding-place, when I went into the tavern, where I found Dr. Jacob Wyeth, Walter Palmer, and Styles. I told the landlord I was starving for want of food, and he gave me supper; and then I went back into the barn again, where I slept that night. [62] Boonville was the successor of Franklin as the metropolis of central Missouri. The site was first settled by the Cole family in 1810, laid out as a town in 1817, and made the seat of Cooper County upon the latter's erection in 1818. Its period of greatest prosperity was before the building of the railroad (1830-40), when it was the shipping point for northern Arkansas and southwest Missouri. It had a population in 1900 of 4,377.--ED. The next morning I went into the tavern again, and there I found my pursuers, and they found their prisoner, whom they soon put under the custody of two constables, who ordered me breakfast, which having eaten with a good relish, I watched my opportunity, while they were standing thick {70} around the bar, and crept unobserved out of the back-door into the extensive cornfield, and thence into the barn window out of which they threw manure, and regained my snug hiding-hole, where I remained one day and one night more. I now and then could see the constables and their _posse_ prowling about the barn, through a crevice in the boards. In the midst of my fears, I was amused with the solemn, and concernful phizes of the two constables, and one or two others. In the morning very early, I ventured out again, and ran down to the river; and there spying a boat, and feeling heroic, I jumped into her and pushed across the river, and landed on the opposite bank, so as to elude the pursuit of the authorities, who I knew would be after me on the right bank of the river, while I marched on the left. When I came to the ferry near St. Louis, I had only a six-cent piece, which the ferryman took for his full fare which was twelve cents, and so I got safe to St. Louis, but with scarcely clothing enough for decency, not to mention comfort: and yet I kept up a good heart, and never once despaired. My companions arrived a day before me; they on Thursday, I on Friday, at four o'clock in the afternoon; they in the steam-boat, like gentlemen, while I, the youngest in the whole Oregon company, like a runaway. But I do not regret the difference, seeing I have a story worth telling, and worth hearing. Where to get a lodging that night I did not know, nor where to obtain a morsel of bread. I went up to a large tavern, and asked permission of the keeper to lodge in his barn that night, but he sternly refused. I then went to the other tavern, and made the like request, when the landlord {71} granted it, saying that he never refused a man sleeping in his barn who was too poor to pay for a lodging in his house. I wish I knew his name. I turned in and had a very good night's rest. Should any one enquire how I came to leave my old companions, and they me, I need only say that I had a very serious quarrel with one of them, even to blows; and with that one too who ought to have been the last to treat me with neglect; "and further the deponent saith not." The next morning I went round in search of work, but no one seemed disposed to hire me; nor do I much wonder at it; for in truth I was so ragged and dirty, that I had nothing to recommend me; and I suffered more depression of spirits during the following six days of my sojourn at St. Louis, than in any part of my route. The steam-boats refused me and Dr. Wyeth started off for New Orleans before I could see him. Palmer let himself by the month on board a steam-boat running between St. Louis and Independence, while I was left alone at the former place six days without employ, victuals, or decent clothing. I could not bear to go to people's doors to beg; but I went on board steam-boats and begged for food. I was such a picture of wretchedness that I did not wonder they refused to hire me. My dress was buck-skin moccasins, and pantaloons; the remains of a shirt I put on in the Rocky Mountains, the remnants of a kersey waistcoat which I had worn ever since I left Cambridge, and a hat I had worn all the time from Boston, but without any coat whatever, or socks, or stockings; and to add to the wretchedness of my appearance, I was very dirty, and I could not help it. My looks drew the attention of a great many spectators. I thought {72} very hard of it then, but I have since reflected, and must say that when people saw a strong young man of eighteen in high health, and yet so miserable in appearance, it was natural in them to conclude that he must be some criminal escaped from justice, or some vagabond suffering under the just effects of his own crimes. At length, wearied out by my ill fortune, I plucked up courage, and went to the Constitution steam-boat, Captain Tufts, of Charlestown, near Boston, and told him my name and family; and detailed to him my sufferings, and said that he _must_ give me a passage, and I would work for it. To my great joy he consented, and he gave me shirt, pantaloons, &c.; and I acted at a _fireman_, or one who feeds the fire with pine wood under the steam-boilers. I forbear narrating the particulars of my sufferings for want of food during the six days I tarried at St. Louis. Suffice it to say, that I was in a condition of starvation, and all owing to my wretched appearance. When I at times went on board the steam-boats, I was glad to scrape up any thing after the sailors and firemen had done eating. At length I obtained employ in the steam-boat Constitution, and a passage to New-Orleans, on the condition of acting as one of the firemen, there being twelve in all, with five men as sailors, and two hundred and forty passengers, party emigrants, but chiefly men belonging to the settlements on the Mississippi, going down to Natchez, and to New-Orleans to work. We tarried one night at the Natchez; but soon after we left it the _cholera_ broke out among the passengers, eighty of whom died before we reached New-Orleans, and two of our own firemen. A most shocking scene followed. {73} I felt discouraged. My miseries seemed endless. After trying day after day in vain to get a passage in a steam-boat, I was made happy in procuring one, though I paid for it, by working as a fireman, the hardest and most disagreeable occupation on board; still I was contented, as I had victuals enough to eat; and yet, after all, I saw men perishing every minute about me, and thrown into the river like so many dead hogs. It is an unexaggerated fact that I witnessed more misery in the space of eight months than most old men experience in a long life. On arriving at New-Orleans, Captain Tufts sent off every man of the passengers, leaving those only who belonged to the boat. He gave me shirts and other clothing, and offered me twenty dollars a month, if I would go back to St. Louis with him. I remained on board about a week; and so desirous was I to get home, that I preferred going ashore, although I knew that the yellow fever and black vomit, as well as cholera were committing great havoc in the city. The shops, stores, taverns, and even the _gambling-houses_, were shut up, and people were dying in-doors, and out of doors, much faster than they could be buried. More white people were seized with it than black; but when the latter were attacked, more died than the former. The negroes sunk under the disorder at once. When a negro gets very sick, he loses all his spirits, and refuses all remedies. He wishes to die, and it is no wonder, if he believes that he shall go into a pleasant country where there are no white men or women. I soon got full employ as a grave-digger, at two dollars a day, and could have got twice that sum had I been informed of the true state of things. In {74} the first three days we dug a separate grave for each person; but we soon found that we could not clear the hearses and carts. I counted eighty-seven dead bodies uninterred on the ground. Yet where I worked, was only one of the three grave-yards belonging to the city, and the other two were larger. We therefore began on a new plan. There were twenty-five of us grave-diggers. We dug a trench fifty-seven feet long, eight feet wide, and four feet deep, and laid them as compactly as we could, and filled up the vacant spaces with children. It was an awful piece of business. In this large trench we buried about, perhaps, three hundred; and this business we carried on about a month. During this time, you might traverse the streets of New-Orleans, without meeting a single person, except those belonging to the hearses, and carts, loaded with the dead. Men were picked up in the morning who died after dark before they could reach their own houses. If you ask me if they died with yellow fever, or cholera, I must answer that I cannot tell. Some said the one, and some the other. Every thing was confusion. If a negro was sent by his master to a carpenter, for what they called a coffin, which was only a rough board box, he was commonly robbed of it before he got home. I myself saw an assault of this kind, when the poor black slave was knocked down and the rude coffin taken from him. New-Orleans is a dreadful place in the eyes of a New-England man. They keep Sunday as we in Boston keep the 4th of July, or any other day of merriment and frolic. It is also a training day every other Sunday for their military companies. I was in part witness to a shocking sight at the marine hospital, where had been many patients {75} with the yellow fever. When the doctors, and those who had the care of that establishment had deserted the house, between twenty-five and thirty dead bodies were left in it; and these were so offensive from putrefaction, that when the city corporation heard of it, they ordered the house, together with the bodies to be burnt up; but this was not strictly complied with. A number of negro slaves were employed to remove the bodies, which being covered with wood and other combustibles, were all consumed together. At length I was attacked myself with symptoms of the yellow fever,--violent pain in my head, back, and stomach. I lived at that time in the family of a Frenchman, who, among his various occupations, pretended to skill in physic. He fed me on castor oil. I took in one day four wineglasses of it, which required as much resolution as I was master of: but my doctor assured me that he had repeatedly scared away the yellow fever at the beginning of it, by large and often repeated doses of that medicine. Its operation was not one way, but every way. I thought I should have no insides left to go home with. Yet it is a fact, and I record it with pleasure, that it carried off all my dreadful symptoms, and in a very few days, I had nothing to complain of but weakness, which a good appetite soon cured. I therefore recommend a man in the first stage of yellow fever to take down a gill of castor oil, made as hot as he can swallow it; and repeat the dose in eight hours. I remained nine weeks in New-Orleans, a city so unlike Boston, in point of neatness, order, and good government, that I do not wonder at its character for unhealthiness. Stagnant water remains in the streets as {76} green as grass, with a steam rising out of it that may be smelt at the distance of half a mile. Besides this, their population is so mixed, that they appear running against each other in the streets, every one having a different object and a different complexion. In one thing they seem to be agreed, and to concur in the same object, namely, _gaming_. In that delirous pursuit, they all speak the same language, and appear to run down the same road to ruin. I am glad that it is in my power to support what I have said respecting the Marine Hospital, by the following public testimony, published by authority, taken from one of their newspapers. "NEW-ORLEANS.--The following report from a committee appointed to examine one of the hospitals, will account, in some degree, for the unprecedented mortality which has afflicted New-Orleans. The report is addressed to the mayor. "The undersigned, standing committee named by the city council during the prevalence of the epidemic now desolating the city, have the honor to report, that, in consequence of information given by sundry respectable persons, relative to the condition of the hospital kept by Dr. M'Farlane, they repaired to-day, at half-past one o'clock, to said hospital; that in all the apartments they found the most disgusting filth; that all the night _vessels_ were full, and that the patients have all declared that for a long time they had received no kind of succour; that in many of the apartments of the building they found corpses, several of which had been a number of days in putrefaction; that thence they repaired to a chamber adjoining the kitchen, where they found the body of a negro, which had been a long time dead, in a most offensive state. They finally went to another apartment opposite the kitchen, {77} which was equally filthy with the other rooms, and that they there found many corpses of persons a long time dead; that in a bed, between others, they found a man dying, stretched upon the body of a man many days dead. "Finally, they declare that it is impossible for one to form an idea of what they have witnessed, without he had himself seen it; that it is indispensably necessary for the patients to evacuate this hospital, and above all, to watch lest the corpses in a state of putrefaction occasion pestilence in that quarter, and perhaps in the whole city. "_November 7._ The standing committee has the honor to present the following additional report. "In one of the apartments where were many living and dead bodies, they found under a bed a dead body partly eaten, whose belly and entrails lay upon the floor. It exhaled a most pestiferous odor. In a little closet upon the gallery there were two dead bodies, one of which lay flat upon the floor, and the other had his feet upon the floor and his back upon the bed forming a curve; the belly prodigiously swelled and the thighs green. Under a shed in the yard was the dead body of a negro, off which a fowl was picking worms. The number of corpses amounted to twelve or fourteen. "Signed, E. A. CANNON, _Chairman_. FELIX LABATUT, _Alderman_, _Second Ward_. CHARLES LEE, _Alderman_, _First Ward_." I took passage in the ship Henry Thomson, Captain Williams, and arrived in Boston, January 2d, 1833, after an absence of ten months, having experienced in that time a variety of hardships. {78} CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS The lesson to be collected from this short history is the great danger in _making haste to be rich_, instead of relying upon patient industry, which never fails to give a man his just deserts. Making haste to become rich is the most fruitful source of the calamities of life; for here cunning, contrivance, and circumvention, take the place of diligence. After the schemer's plans have all failed, there seems only one tempting means left to obtain riches in a hurry, and that is by gaming, the most prosperous invention ever devised by the arch enemy of mankind; and when that fails, the next downward step to destruction, excepting drunkenness, is robbery, many instances of which we find recorded in the annals of Newgate and the records of the Old Bailey in London. Such atrocities have never, or very rarely, occurred in our own country, and never will so long as we are wisely contented with the fruits of patient industry, and so long as we believe that the diligent hand maketh rich. These reflections refer to extreme cases, and are not applicable, or meant to be personally applicable, to the unfortunate expedition in which we have been concerned. It is not meant to reprehend those enormous vices and crimes which are known in the old countries, but only to correct a spirit of discontent in men well situated and circumstanced. "_If you stand well, stand still_," says the Italian proverb. Some may say this doctrine, if put in practice, would check all enterprise. Not entirely so, provided the means and the end were cautiously adjusted. Christopher Columbus ran a great risk; {79} yet he knew, from the reasonings of his capacious mind, that there must be "another and a better world" than that he was born in; and under that strong and irrestistible impression he tempted the trackless ocean and found it. But what shall we say of our Oregon adventurers, who set out to pass over the Rocky Mountains, and thence down the Columbia river to the Pacific ocean, in boats upon wheels? and that too with a heavy load of goods, and those chiefly of iron. What renders the project more surprising is, that they should take with them the most ponderous articles of a blacksmith's shop,--anvils, and a large vice. It is more than probable that the old and long established wholesale Indian traders at St. Louis laughed in their sleeves, when they saw such a cargo fresh from the city of "_notions_," paraded with all the characteristic confidence of the unwavering Yankee spirit. After assuring them that their ingenious and well-constructed amphibious vehicles would not answer for travelling in such a rough country as they must go through, they purchased all three of them, and advised our leader to buy sheep and oxen to live on between the white settlements and the country of the savages, and not to trust to their guns for food. This turned out very wholesome advice, as they must have starved without that provision. The party under Captains Lewis and Clarke, sent out by the government of the United States, consisted of nine young men from Kentucky, fourteen soldiers of the United States army who volunteered their services, two French watermen,--an interpreter and hunter,--and a black servant belonging to Captain Clarke. All these, except the last, were enlisted to serve as privates during the expedition, {80} and three sergeants were appointed from amongst them by the captains. In addition to these, were engaged a corporal and six soldiers, and nine watermen, to accompany the expedition as far as the Mandan nation, in order to assist in carrying the stores, or repelling an attack, which was most to be apprehended between Wood river and that tribe. This select party embarked on board three boats. One was a keel-boat fifty-five feet long, drawing three feet of water, with a large square sail, and twenty-two oars, with a forecastle and cabin, while the middle was covered by lockers, which might be raised so as to form a breast-work. There were beside two _periogues_, or open boats of seven oars each. They had two horses, for any purpose, which they led along the banks; and fourteen bales of goods, with a variety of clothing, working utensils, locks, flints, ammunition, and richly-laced coats, and other gay dresses, and a variety of ornaments suited to the taste of the Indians, together with knives, flags, tomahawks, and medals.[63] Yet all these articles were exhausted, without any accident or particular loss. The party was led by two experienced military officers, and the men were under military regulations; which was not the case with the Cambridge adventurers, who were upon shares, and all on a level. [63] These statements in regard to the Lewis and Clark expedition are taken verbatim from the published edition (Biddle's, 1814) of the journals. For recent light on the personnel of the party, consult O. D. Wheeler, _On the Trail of Lewis and Clark_ (New York, 1904).--ED. We are unwilling that our readers should rely entirely on our opinion of the inadequacy of the outfits for such a formidable undertaking as that of going from the Atlantic shore of New-England to the shore of the Pacific by land. We shall therefore subjoin the opinion of a sensible gentleman, who had spent some time in the Missouri territory, and traversed its dreary prairies, where no tree {81} appears, and where there is, during the greater part of the year, no fuel for cooking, nor water fit to drink. He says: "Do the Oregon emigrants seek a fine country on the Oregon river? They will pass through lands [to get to it] of which they may buy two hundred acres for less than the farther expenses of their journey."[64] He tells us that a gentleman (Mr. Kelly) has been employing his leisure in advising schemes to better the condition of his fellow countrymen, and has issued advertisements, inviting the good people of New-England to leave their homes, their connexions, and the comforts of civilized society, and follow him across the continent to the shores of the Pacific. He tells those who may reach St. Louis, that they will find there many who have been to Oregon, and found no temptation to remain there;--that they may possibly charter a steamboat from St. Louis to the mouth of the river Platte, but no farther, as that stream is not navigable for steamboats unless during freshets. And after they reach the mouth of the Platte, they will have a _thousand_ miles to go before they reach the Rocky Mountains; and the country through which the adventurers must pass is a level plain, where the eye seeks in vain for a tree or a shrub,--that in some places they must travel days and nights without finding wood or water, for that the streams only are scantily fringed with wood. Our Cambridge emigrants actually found this to be the case, as they had no other fuel for cooking their live stock than buffalo-dung. The writer says, (and he had been there), that the ground is covered with {82} herbage for a few weeks in the year only, and that this is owing to the Indians burning the Prairies regularly twice a year, which occasions them to be as bare of vegetation as the deserts of Arabia. The same experienced traveller assures them that they could not take provisions with them sufficient for their wants, and that a dependence on their guns for support was fallacious, and the same uncertainty as to the buffaloes;--that sometimes those animals were plenty enough, and sometimes more than enough, so as to be dangerous. When they trot smartly off, ten thousand and more in a drove, they are as irresistible as a mountain-torrent, and would tread into nothing a larger body than the Cambridge fortune-hunters. Their flesh is coarse beef, and the grisly bear's, coarse pork; but this kind of bear, called the _horrible_ from his strength and ferocity, is a most terrific beast, and more disposed and able to feed on the hunter than the huntsman upon him. We can assure the emigrants, says the writer already quoted, from our own experience, that not one horse in five can perform a journey of a thousand miles, without a constant supply of something better than prairie-grass. [64] See New-England Magazine for February and April, 1832, under the signature of W. J. S.--WYETH. _Comment by Ed._ The _New England Magazine_ was published monthly (1831-35) by J. T. and E. Buckingham, Boston. The journal of Lewis and Clarke to the Pacific ocean, over the Rocky Mountains, was a popular book in the hands of every body; and the Expedition of Major Long and company was as much read; and both of these works detail events and facts enough, one would suppose, to deter men from such an arduous enterprise; not to mention the hostile tribes of Indians through which they must pass. It seems strange, but it is true, that a theoretical man need not despair of making the multitude believe any thing but truth. They believed the enthusiastic {83} Mr. Hall J. Kelley, who had never been in the Oregon territory, or seen the Rocky Mountains, or a prairie-dog, or a drove of buffaloes, and who in fact knew nothing of the country beyond some guess-work maps; yet they would not read, consider, or trust to the faithful records of those officers who had been sent by the government to explore the country and make report of it. There is a passage in the essay written by W. J. S. which we shall insert here on his authority, as it cannot be supposed that we, at this distance, should be so well acquainted with the affairs in Missouri, as one who had resided on the spot. We assume not to keep pace with the professed eulogist of Oregon, of its river, and its territory, its mild climate, its exuberant soil, and its boisterous Pacific, so inviting to the distressed poor in the neighbourhood of Boston; who are exhorted by him to pluck up stakes and courage, and march over the Rocky Mountains to wealth, ease, and independence. The passage we allude to reads thus:--"About twelve years since, it was discovered by a public-spirited citizen of St. Louis, that the supply of furs was not equal to the demand. To remedy this evil, he raised a corps of sharp-shooters, equipped them with guns, ammunition, steel-traps, and horses, and sent them into the wilderness to teach the Indians that their right was only a right of occupancy. They did the savages irreparable injury. They frightened the buffaloes from their usual haunts,--destroyed the fur-clad animals, and did more mischief than we have room to relate." He adds, sarcastically, that "the Indians were wont to hunt in a slovenly manner, leaving a few animals yearly for breeding. But that the white hunters were more thorough-spirited, {84} and made root-and-branch work of it. When they settled on a district, they destroyed the old and young alike; and when they left it, they left no living thing behind them. The first party proving successful, more were fitted out, and every successive year has seen several armed and mounted bands of hunters, from twenty to a hundred men and more in each, pouring into the Indian hunting grounds; and _all this has been done in open and direct violation of a law of the United States, which expressly forbids trapping and hunting on Indian lands_. The consequence has been that there are now few fur-clad animals this side the mountains." Lewis and Clarke, and some other travellers, speak of friendly Indians,--of their kindness and hospitality, and expatiate on their amiable disposition, and relate instances of it. Yet after all, this Indian friendship is very like the affection of the negroes in the Southern States for their masters and mistresses, and for their children,--the offspring merely of fear. There can be no friendship where there is such a disparity of condition. As to their presents, an Indian gift is proverbial. They never give without expecting double in return. What right have we to fit out armed expeditions, and enter the long occupied country of the natives, to destroy their game, not for subsistence, but for their skins? They are a contented people, and do not want our aid to make them happier. We prate of civilizing and Christianizing the savages. What have we done for their benefit? We have carried among them _rum_, _powder_ and _ball_, small-pox, starvation, and misery. What is the reason that Congress,--the great council of the nation,--the collected wisdom of these United States, has turned a deaf {85} ear to all applications for establishing a colony on the Oregon river? Some of the members of that honorable house of legislation know that the district in question is a boisterous and inclement region, with less to eat, less to warm the traveller, and to cook with, than at the mouth of any other known river in the United States. We deem the mouth of the river St. Lawrence as eligible a spot for a settlement of peltry merchants as the mouth of the Columbia. When Lewis and Clarke were on that river, they had not a single fair day in two months. They were drenched with rain day and night; and what added to their comfortless condition was the incessant high winds, which drove the waves furiously into the Columbia river with the tide; and on its ebb, raised such commotion, and such a chopping sea, that the travellers dared not venture upon it in their boats; yet the Indians did, and managed their canoes with a dexterity which the explorers greatly admired, but could not imitate. The boisterous Pacific was among the new discoveries of our American adventurers. Had their expedition been to the warm climate of Africa, or to South America, they would have been sure of plenty to eat; but in the western region, between the Rocky Mountains and the great river of the West, the case is far otherwise. It is devoutly to be wished that truth may prevail respecting those distant regions. Indeed the sacred cause of humanity calls loudly on its votaries to disabuse the people dwelling on these Atlantic shores respecting the Oregon paradise, lest our farmers' sons and young mechanics should, in every sense of the phrase, stray from home, and go they know not whither,--to seek they know not what. {86} Or must Truth wait on the Rocky Mountains until some Indian historian,--some future _Clavigero_[65] shall publish his annals, and separate facts from fiction? We esteem the "_History of the Expedition under the command of Captains Lewis and Clarke to the Sources of the Missouri, thence across the Rocky Mountains, and down to the Pacific Ocean_," substantially correct. Their conduct towards the Indians was marked throughout with justice and humanity; and the journal of that expedition will be a lasting monument of their judicious perseverance, and of the wisdom of the government of the United States. [65] The Abbé Clavigero, a native of Vera Cruz, who resided forty years in the Provinces of New Spain, spoke the language of the natives, and has written the History of Mexico.--WYETH. Reader! The book you have in your hands is not written for your amusement merely, or to fill up an idle hour, but for your instruction,--particularly to warn young farmers and mechanics not to leave a certainty for an uncertainty, and straggle away over a sixth part of the globe in search of what they leave behind them at home. It is hoped that it may correct that too common opinion that the farther you go from home the surer you are of making your fortune. Agriculture gives to the industrious farmer the riches which he can call his own; while the indefatigable mechanic is sure to acquire a sufficiency, provided he "build not his house too high." Industry conducted by Prudence is a virtue of so diffusive a nature that it mixes with all our concerns. No business can be managed and accomplished without it. Whatever be a man's calling or way of life, he must, to be happy, be actuated by {87} a spirit of industry, and that will keep him from want, from dishonesty, and from the vice of gambling and lottery-dealing, and its long train of miseries. The first and most common deviation from sober industry is a desire to roam abroad, or in one word, a feeling of _discontent_,--a making haste to be rich, without the patient means of it. These are reflections general and not particular, as it regards all such high hopes and expectations, as lead to our Oregon expedition and to its disappointments. The most that we shall say of it is,--that it was an injudicious scheme arising from want of due information, and the whole conducted by means inadequate to the end in view. Oh happy--if he knew his happy state, The man, who, free from turmoil and debate, Receives his wholesome food from Nature's hand, The just return of _cultivated_ land. THE END TOWNSEND'S NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY ACROSS THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, TO THE COLUMBIA RIVER Reprint of pp. 1-186, 217-264, of original edition: Philadelphia, 1839. "A Visit to the Sandwich Islands, Chili, &c., with a Scientific Appendix," also contained in this edition, is here omitted as irrelevant to the scope of the present series. [Illustration: Hunting the Buffalo] [Illustration: title page] NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY ACROSS THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, TO THE COLUMBIA RIVER, AND A VISIT TO THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, CHILI, &c. WITH A SCIENTIFIC APPENDIX. BY JOHN K. TOWNSEND, Member of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. PHILADELPHIA: HENRY PERKINS, 134 CHESTNUT STREET. BOSTON: PERKINS & MARVIN. 1839. ENTERED according to Act of Congress, in the year 1839, by JOHN K. TOWNSEND, in the Office of the Clerk of the District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. ADVERTISEMENT The Columbia River Fishing and Trading Company was formed in 1834, by several individuals in New York and Boston. Capt. WYETH, having an interest in the enterprise, collected a party of men to cross the continent to the Pacific, with the purpose chiefly of establishing trading posts beyond the Rocky Mountains and on the coast. The idea of making one of Capt. Wyeth's party was suggested to the author by the eminent botanist, Mr. NUTTALL, who had himself determined to join the expedition across the North American wilderness. Being fond of Natural History, particularly the science of Ornithology, the temptation to visit a country hitherto unexplored by naturalists was irresistible; and the following pages, originally penned for the family-circle, and without the slightest thought of publication, will furnish some account of his travels. CONTENTS CHAPTER I Arrival at St. Louis--Preparations for the journey--Sâque Indians--Their appearance, dress, and manners--Squaws-- Commencement of a pedestrian tour--Sandhill cranes-- Prairie settlers--Their hospitality--Wild pigeons, golden plovers and prairie hens--Mr. P. and his daughters--An abundant repast--Simplicity of the prairie maidens--A deer and turkey hunt--Loutre Lick hotel--A colored charon--Comfortable quarters--Young men of the west--Reflections on leaving home--Loquacity of the inhabitants--Gray squirrels--Boonville--Parroquets-- Embarkation in a steamboat--Large catfish--Accident on board the boat--Arrival at Independence--Description of the town--Encampment of the Rocky Mountain company-- Character of the men--Preparation for departure--Requisites of a leader--Backwoods familiarity--Milton Sublette and his band--Rev. Jason Lee, the missionary--A letter from home-- Mormonites--Military discipline and its consequences, 121 CHAPTER II Departure of the caravan--A storm on the prairie--Arrangement of the camp--Kanzas Indians--Kanzas river--Indian lodges-- Passage of the river--Buffalo canoes--Kanzas chief--Upper Kaw village--their wigwams--Catfish and ravens--Return of Mr. Sublette--Pawnee trace--Desertion of three men-- Difficulties occasioned by losing the trail--Intelligence of Mr. Sublette's party--Escape of the band of horses--Visit of three Otto Indians--Anecdote of Richardson, the chief hunter--his appearance and character--White wolves and antelopes--Buffalo bones--Sublette's deserted camps--Lurking wolves, 141 CHAPTER III Arrival at the Platte river--Wolves and antelopes--Anxiety of the men to see buffalo--Visit of two spies from the Grand Pawnees--Forced march--A herd of buffalo--Elk--Singular conduct of the horses--Killing a buffalo--Indian mode of procuring buffalo--Great herd--Adventure with an Indian in the tent--Indian feat with bow and arrow--Notice of the Pawnee tribes--Disappearance of the buffalo from the plains of the Platte--A hunting adventure--Killing a buffalo-- Butchering of a bull--Shameful destruction of the game-- Hunters' mode of quenching thirst, 157 CHAPTER IV Change in the face of the country--Unpleasant visitation--N. fork of the Platte--A day's journey over the hills--Poor pasture--Marmots--Rattlesnake and gopher--Naturalist's success and sacrifices--A sand storm--Wild horses--Killing of a doe antelope--Bluffs--The Chimney--"Zip Koon," the young antelope--Birds--Feelings and cogitations of a naturalist--Laramie's fork--Departure of two "free trappers" on a summer "hunt"--Black hills--Red butes--Sweet-water river, and Rock Independence--Avocets--Wind river mountains-- Rocky Mountain sheep--Adventure with a grizzly bear-- Rattlesnakes--Toilsome march, and arrival at Sandy river-- Suffering of the horses--Anticipated delights of the rendezvous, 173 CHAPTER V Arrival at the Colorado--The author in difficulty--Loss of a journal, and advice to travelling tyros--The rendezvous-- Motley groups infesting it--Rum drinking, swearing, and other accomplishments in vogue--Description of the camp-- Trout--Abundance of game--Cock of the plains--{vi} Leave the rendezvous--An accession to the band--A renegado Blackfoot chief--Captain Stewart and Mr. Ashworth--Muddy creek--More carousing--Abundance of trout--Bear river--A hard day's march--Volcanic country--White-clay pits and "Beer spring"--Rare birds and common birds--Mr. Thomas McKay--Captain Bonneville's party--Captains Stewart and Wyeth's visit to the lodge of the "bald chief"--Blackfoot river--Adventure with a grizzly bear--Death of "Zip Koon"-- Young grizzly bears and buffalo calves--A Blackfoot Indian-- Dangerous experiment of McKay--the three "Tetons"--Large trout--Shoshoné river--Site of "Fort Hall"--Preparations for a buffalo hunt, 189 CHAPTER VI Departure of the hunting camp--A false alarm--Blackfeet Indians--Requisites of a mountain-man--Good fare, and good appetites--An experiment--Grizzly bears--Nez Percé Indian--Adventure with a grizzly bear--Hunters' anecdotes--Homeward bound--Arrival at "Fort Hall"--A salute--Emaciation from low diet--Mr. McKay's company-- Buffalo lodges--Effects of judicious training--Indian worship--A "Camp Meeting"--Mr. Jason Lee, a favorite--A fatal accident and a burial, 212 CHAPTER VII Departure of McKay's party, Captain Stewart, and the missionaries--Debauch at the fort--Departure of the company--Poor provision--Blackfeet hunting ground-- Sufferings from thirst--Goddin's creek--Antoine Goddin, the trapper--Scarcity of game--A buffalo--Rugged mountains--More game--Unusual economy--Habits of the white wolf--"Thornburg's pass"--Difficult travelling-- The captain in jeopardy among the snow--A countermarch-- Deserted Banneck camp--Toilsome and dangerous passage of the mountain--Mallade river--Beaver dams, and beaver--A party of Snake Indians--Another Banneck camp--"Kamas prairie"--Indian mode of preparing the kamas--Racine blanc, or biscuit root--Loss of horses by fatigue--Boisée or Big-wood river--Salmon--Choke-cherries, &c. 230 CHAPTER VIII A substitute for game, and a luxurious breakfast--Expectations of a repast, and a disappointment--Visit of a Snake chief-- his abhorrence of horse meat--A band of Snake Indians--Their chief--Trade with Indians for salmon--Mr. Ashworth's adventure--An Indian horse-thief--Visit to the Snake camp-- A Banneck camp--Supercilious conduct of the Indians--Snake river--Equipment of a trapping party--Indian mode of catching salmon--Loss of a favorite horse--Powder river--Cut rocks-- Grand Ronde--Captain Bonneville--Kayouse and Nez Percé Indians--An Indian beauty--Blue mountains--A feline visit, 250 CHAPTER IX Passage of the Blue mountains--Sufferings from thirst--Utalla river--A transformation--A novel meal--Columbia river and Fort Walla-walla--A dinner with the missionaries-- Anecdote of Mr. Lee--Brief notice of the Fort--Departure of the missionaries--Notice of the Walla-walla Indians-- Departure for Fort Vancouver--Wild ducks--Indian graves--Visits from Indians--Ophthalmia, a prevalent disease--A company of Chinook Indians--The Dalles--The party joined by Captain Wyeth--Embarkation in canoes--A heavy gale--Dangerous navigation--Pusillanimous conduct of an Indian helmsman--A zealous botanist--Departure of Captain Wyeth with five men--Cascades--A portage--Meeting with the missionaries--Loss of a canoe--A toilsome duty-- Arrival at Fort Vancouver--Dr. John McLoughlin, the chief factor--Domiciliation of the travellers at Fort Vancouver, 275 CHAPTER X Fort Vancouver--Agricultural and other improvements--Vancouver "camp"--Expedition to the Wallammet--The falls--A village of {vii} Klikatat Indians--Manner of flattening the head--A Flathead infant--Brig "May Dacre"--Preparations for a settlement--Success of the naturalists--Chinook Indians-- their appearance and costume--Ague and fever--Desertion of the Sandwich Islanders--Embarkation for a trip to the Islands--George, the Indian pilot--Mount Coffin--A visit to the tombs--Superstition--Visit to an Indian house--Fort George--Site of Astoria--A blind Indian boy--Cruel and unfeeling conduct of the savages--Their moral character--Baker's Bay--Cape Disappointment--Dangerous bar at the entrance of the river--The sea beach--Visit of Mr. Ogden--Passage across the bar, 297 CHAPTER XII ... Arrival at the Columbia, 317 CHAPTER XIII Passage up the Columbia--Birds--A trip to the Wallammet-- Methodist missionaries--their prospects--Fort William-- Band-tail pigeons--Wretched condition of the Indians at the falls--A Kallapooyah village--Indian cemetery-- Superstitions--Treatment of diseases--Method of steaming--"Making medicine"--Indian sorcerers--Death of Thornburg--An inquest--Verdict of the jury--Inordinate appetite for ardent spirits--Eight men drowned--Murder of two trappers by the Banneck Indians--Arrival of Captain Thing--His meeting and skirmish with the Blackfeet Indians-- Massacre--A narrow escape, 318 CHAPTER XIV Indians of the Columbia--Departure of Mr. Nuttall and Dr. Gairdner--Arrival of the Rev. Samuel Parker--his object-- Departure of the American brig--Swans--Indian mode of taking them--A large wolf--A night adventure--A discovery, and restoration of stolen property--Fraternal tenderness of an Indian--Indian vengeance--Death of Waskéma, the Indian girl--"Busy-body," the little chief--A village of Kowalitsk Indians--Ceremony of "making medicine"--Exposure of an impostor--Success of legitimate medicines--Departure from Fort Vancouver for a visit to the interior--Arrival of a stranger--"Cape Horn"--Tilki, the Indian chief--Indian villages {viii}--Arrival at Fort Walla-walla--Sharp-tailed grouse--Commencement of a journey to the Blue mountains, 332 CHAPTER XV A village of Kayouse Indians--Appearance and dresses of the women--family worship--Visit to the Blue mountains--Dusky grouse--Return to Walla-walla--Arrival of Mr. McLeod, and the missionaries--Letters from home--Death of Antoine Goddin--A renegado white man--Assault by the Walla-walla Indians--Passage down the Columbia--Rapids--A dog for supper--Prairies on fire--Fishing Indians--Their romantic appearance--Salmon huts--The shoots--Dangerous navigation-- Death of Tilki--Seals--Indian stoicism and contempt of pain--Skookoom, the strong chief--his death--Maiming, an evidence of grief--Arrival at Fort Vancouver--A visit to Fort George--Indian cemeteries--Lewis and Clarke's house--A medal--Visit to Chinook--Hospitality of the Indians-- Chinamus' home--The idol--Canine inmates, 349 CHAPTER XVI Northern excursion--Salmon--Indian mode of catching them-- Flathead children--A storm on the bay--Pintail ducks-- Simple mode of killing salmon--Return to Chinook--Indian garrulity--Return to Fort George--Preparations for a second trip to the Sandwich Islands--Detention within the cape, 365 NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY ACROSS THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, &c. CHAPTER I Arrival at St. Louis--Preparations for the journey--Sâque Indians--Their appearance, dress, and manners--Squaws--Commencement of a pedestrian tour--Sandhill cranes--Prairie settlers--Their hospitality--Wild pigeons, golden plovers and prairie hens--Mr. P. and his daughters--An abundant repast--Simplicity of the prairie maidens--A deer and turkey hunt--Loutre Lick hotel--Unwelcome bed-fellows--A colored Charon--Comfortable quarters--Young men of the west--Reflections on leaving home--Loquacity of the inhabitants--Gray squirrels--Boonville--Parroquets--Embarkation in a steamboat--Large catfish--Accident on board the boat--Arrival at Independence--Description of the town--Procure a supply of horses--Encampment of the Rocky Mountain company--Character of the men--Preparation for departure--Requisites of a leader--Backwoods familiarity--Milton Sublette and his band--Rev. Jason Lee, the missionary--A letter from home--Mormonites--Military discipline and its consequences. On the evening of the 24th of March, 1834, Mr. NUTTALL[66] and myself arrived at St. Louis, in the steamboat Boston, from Pittsburg. [66] For sketch of Thomas Nuttall, see preface to Nuttall's _Journal_, our volume xiii.--ED. On landing, we had the satisfaction to learn that Captain WYETH was already there, and on the afternoon of the next day we called upon him, and consulted him in reference to the outfit which it would be necessary to purchase for the journey. He accompanied us to a store in the town, and selected a number of articles for us, among which were several pairs of leathern {10} pantaloons, enormous overcoats, made of green blankets, and white wool hats, with round crowns, fitting tightly to the head, brims five inches wide, and almost hard enough to resist a rifle ball. The day following we saw about one hundred Indians of the Sâque tribe, who had left their native forests for the purpose of treating for the sale of some land at the Jefferson barracks.[67] They were dressed and decorated in the true primitive style; their heads shaved closely, and painted with alternate stripes of fiery red and deep black, leaving only the long scalping tuft, in which was interwoven a quantity of elk hair and eagle's feathers. Each man was furnished with a good blanket, and some had an under dress of calico, but the greater number were entirely naked to the waist. The faces and bodies of the men were, almost without an exception, fantastically painted, the predominant color being deep red, with occasionally a few stripes of dull clay white around the eyes and mouth. I observed one whose body was smeared with light colored clay, interspersed with black streaks. They were unarmed, with the exception of tomahawks and knives. The chief of the band, (who is said to be Black Hawk's father-in-law,[68]) was a large dignified looking man, of perhaps fifty-five years of age, distinguished from the rest, by his richer habiliments, a more profuse display of trinkets in his ears, (which were cut and gashed in a frightful manner to receive them,) and above all, by a huge necklace made of the claws of the grizzly bear. The squaws, of whom there were about twenty, were dressed very much like the men, and at a little distance could scarcely be distinguished from them. Among them was an old, superannuated crone, who, soon after her arrival, had been presented with a broken umbrella. The only use that she made of it was to wrench the plated ends from the whalebones, string them on a piece of wire, take her knife from her belt, with which she deliberately cut a slit of an inch in length {11} along the upper rim of her ear, and insert them in it. I saw her soon after this operation had been performed; her cheeks were covered with blood, and she was standing with a vast deal of assumed dignity among her tawny sisters, who evidently envied her the possession of the worthless baubles. [67] For the early history of the Sauk Indians, see J. Long's _Voyages_, in our volume ii, p. 185, note 85. By the treaty of 1804 they ceded a large portion of their lands (in the present Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois) to the United States. Upon removing to the west of the Mississippi, as per agreement with the federal government, they broke into several well-defined and often quarrelsome bands. This division was intensified by the War of 1812-15, when part of the tribe aided the British against the American border. The so-called Missouri band, dwelling north of that river in the present state of the name, in 1815 made with the United States a treaty of friendship, which was kept with fidelity. In 1830 a second land cession was made by the Sauk, and after the Black Hawk War (1832), in which the Missouri band took no part, they were desirous of moving to some permanent home south of the Missouri River. It was in pursuit of this intention, doubtless, that the visit recorded by Townsend was made. The final treaty therefor was not drawn until 1836. Jefferson Barracks, just south of St. Louis on the Mississippi River, were built for the federal government (1826) on a site secured from the village of Carondolet (1824). General Henry Atkinson was in charge of the erection of the fort to which the garrison was (August, 1826) transferred from Bellefontaine on the Missouri. The post has been in continuous occupation since its erection.--ED. [68] Black Hawk whose Indian name was Makataineshekiakiah (black sparrow-hawk) was born among the Sauk in 1767. A chief neither by heredity nor election, he became by superior ability leader of the so-called British band, with headquarters at Saukenak, near Rock Island, Illinois. He participated in Tecumseh's battle (1811), and those about Detroit in the War of 1812-15, and made many raids upon the American settlements, until 1816 when a treaty of amity was signed with the United States. The chief event of his career was the war of 1832, known by his name. Consult on this subject, Thwaites, "Black Hawk War," in _How George Rogers Clark won the Northwest_ (Chicago, 1903). At its conclusion this picturesque savage leader was captured, sent a prisoner to Jefferson Barracks, and later confined at Fortress Monroe, Virginia. After an extended tour of the Eastern states, Black Hawk returned to Iowa, where he was placed under the guardianship of his rival Keokuk, and where in 1838 he died. His wife was Asshawequa (Singing Bird), who died in Kansas (1846).--ED. _28th._--Mr. N. and myself propose starting to-morrow on foot towards the upper settlements, a distance of about three hundred miles. We intend to pursue our journey leisurely, as we have plenty of time before us, and if we become tired, we can enter the stage which will probably overtake us. _29th._--This morning our Indians returned from the barracks, where I understand they transacted their business satisfactorily. I went on board the boat again to see them. I feel very much interested in them, as they are the first Indians I have ever seen who appear to be in a state of uncultivated nature, and who retain the savage garb and manners of their people. They had engaged the entire covered deck for their especial use, and were lolling about in groups, wrapped in their blankets. Some were occupied in conversation, others seemed more contemplative, and appeared to be thinking deeply, probably of the business which brought them amongst us. Here and there two might be seen playing a Spanish game with cards, and some were busily employed in rendering themselves more hideous with paint. To perform this operation, the dry paint is folded in a thin muslin or gauze cloth, tied tightly and beaten against the face, and a small looking-glass is held in the other hand to direct them where to apply it. Two middle-aged squaws were frying beef, which they distributed around to the company in wooden bowls, and several half loaves of bread were circulating rapidly amongst them, by being tossed from one to another, each taking a huge bite of it. There were among the company, several younger females, but they were all so _hard favored_ that I could not feel much sympathy with them, and was therefore not anxious to cultivate {12} their acquaintance. There was another circumstance, too, that was not a very attractive one; I allude to the custom so universal amongst Indians, of seeking for vermin in each other's heads, and then _eating_ them. The fair damsels were engaged in this way during most of the time that I remained on board, only suspending their delectable occupation to take their bites of bread as it passed them in rotation. The effect upon my person was what an Irishman would call the attraction of repulsion, as I found myself almost unconsciously edging away until I halted at a most respectable distance from the scene of slaughter. At noon, Mr. N. and myself started on our pedestrian tour, Captain Wyeth offering to accompany us a few miles on the way. I was glad to get clear of St. Louis, as I felt uncomfortable in many respects while there, and the bustle and restraint of a town was any thing but agreeable to me. We proceeded over a road generally good, a low dry prairie, mostly heavily timbered, the soil underlaid with horizontal strata of limestone, abounding in organic remains, shells, coralines, &c., and arrived in the evening at Florisant, where we spent the night.[69] The next day Captain Wyeth left us for St. Louis, and my companion and myself proceeded on our route. We observed great numbers of the brown, or sandhill crane, (_Grus canadensis_,) flying over us; some flocks were so high as to be entirely beyond the reach of vision, while their harsh, grating voices were very distinctly heard. We saw several flocks of the same cranes while ascending the Mississippi, several days since. At about noon, we crossed the river on a boat worked by horses, and stopped at a little town called St. Charles.[70] [69] Florissant is an old Spanish town not far from St. Louis, founded soon after the latter. At first it was a trading post and Jesuit mission station, whence it acquired the name of San Fernando, which still applies to the township. Later it was made the country residence of the Spanish governors, and in 1793 was by their authority incorporated and granted five thousand arpents of land for a common. The titles were confirmed by the United States in 1812. In 1823 there was established at Florissant a Jesuit novitiate, among whose founders was Father Pierre de Smet, who was buried there in 1873. Florissant had (1900) a population of 732.-- ED. [70] For St. Charles, see Bradbury's _Travels_, in volume v of our series, p. 39, note 9.--ED. We find it necessary, both for our comfort and convenience, to travel very slowly, as our feet are already becoming tender, and that we may have an opportunity of observing the country, and collecting interesting specimens. Unfortunately for the pursuits of my companion, the plants (of which he finds a {13} number that are rare and curious) are not yet in flower, and therefore of little use to him. The birds are in considerable numbers, among the principal of which is the large pileated woodpecker, (_Picus pileatus._) Mr. N. and myself are both in high spirits. We travel slowly, and without much fatigue, and when we arrive at a house, stop and rest, take a drink of milk, and chat with those we see. We have been uniformly well treated; the living is good, and very cheap, and at any house at which we stop the inhabitants are sure to welcome us to their hospitality and good cheer. They live comfortably, and without much labor; possess a fruitful and easily tilled soil, for which they pay the trifling sum of one dollar and a quarter per acre; they raise an abundance of good Indian corn, potatoes, and other vegetables; have excellent beef and pork, and, in short, every thing necessary for good, wholesome living. _31st._--The road to-day was muddy and slippery, rendered so by a heavy rain which fell last night. This morning, we observed large flocks of wild pigeons passing over, and on the bare prairies were thousands of golden plovers; the ground was often literally covered with them for acres. I killed a considerable number. They were very fat, and we made an excellent meal of them in the evening. The prairie hen, or pinnated grouse, is also very numerous, but in these situations is shy, and difficult to be procured. Towards evening we were overtaken by a bluff, jolly looking man, on horseback, who, as is usual, stopped, and entered into conversation with us. I saw immediately that he was superior to those we had been accustomed to meet. He did not ply us with questions so eagerly as most, and when he heard that we were naturalists, and were travelling in that capacity, he seemed to take considerable interest in us. He invited us to stop at his house, which was only a mile beyond, and as night was almost {14} upon us, we accepted the invitation with cheerfulness. Upon arriving at his mansion, our good host threw wide his hospitable doors, and then with a formal, and rather ultra-dignified politeness, making us a low bow, said, "Gentlemen, my name is P., and I am very happy of your company." We seated ourselves in a large, and well-furnished parlor. Mr. P. excused himself for a few minutes, and soon returned, bringing in three fine looking girls, whom he introduced as his daughters. I took a particular fancy to one of them, from a strong resemblance which she bore to one of my female friends at home. These girls were certainly very superior to most that I had seen in Missouri, although somewhat touched with the awkward bashfulness and prudery which generally characterizes the prairie maidens. They had lost their mother when young, and having no companions out of the domestic circle, and consequently no opportunity of aping the manners of the world, were perfect children of nature. Their father, however, had given them a good, plain education, and they had made some proficiency in needle work, as was evinced by numerous neatly worked _samplers_ hanging in wooden frames around the room. Anon, supper was brought in. It consisted of pork chops, ham, eggs, Indian bread and butter, tea, coffee, milk, potatoes, _preserved ginger_, and though last, certainly not least in value, an enormous tin dish of plovers, (the contents of my game-bag,) _fricaseed_. Here was certainly a most abundant repast, and we did ample justice to it. I endeavored to do the agreeable to the fair ones in the evening, and Mr. N. was monopolized by the father, who took a great interest in plants, and was evidently much gratified by the information my companion gave him on the subject. The next morning when we rose, it was raining, and much had evidently fallen during the night, making the roads wet and muddy, and therefore unpleasant for pedestrians. I confess {15} I was not sorry for this, for I felt myself very comfortably situated, and had no wish to take to the road. Mr. P. urged the propriety of our stopping at least another day, and the motion being seconded by his fair daughter, (my favorite,) it was irresistible. On the following morning the sun was shining brightly, the air was fresh and elastic, and the roads tolerably dry, so that there was no longer any excuse for tarrying, and we prepared for our departure. Our good host, grasping our hands, said that he had been much pleased with our visit, and hoped to see us again, and when I bid good bye to the pretty Miss P., I told her that if I ever visited Missouri again, I would go many miles out of my way to see her and her sisters. Her reply was unsophisticated enough. "Do come again, and come in May or June, for then there are plenty of prairie hens, and you can shoot as many as you want, and you must stay a long while with us, and we'll have nice times; good bye; I'm so sorry you're going." _April 4th._--I rose this morning at daybreak, and left Mr. N. dreaming of weeds, in a little house at which we stopped last night, and in company with a long, lanky boy, (a son of the poor widow, our hostess,) set to moulding bullets in an old iron spoon, and preparing for deer hunting. The boy shouldered a rusty rifle, that looked almost antediluvian, and off we plodded to a thicket, two miles from the house. We soon saw about a dozen fine deer, and the boy, clapping his old fire-lock to his shoulder, brought down a beautiful doe at the distance of a full hundred yards. Away sprang the rest of the herd, and I crept round the thicket to meet them. They soon came up, and I fired my piece at a large buck, and wounded the poor creature in the leg; he went limping away, unable to overtake his companions; I felt very sorry, but consoled myself with the reflection that he would soon get well again. {16} We then gave up the pursuit, and turned our attention to the turkies, which were rather numerous in the thicket. They were shy, as usual, and, when started from their lurking places, ran away like deer, and hid themselves in the underwood. Occasionally, however, they would perch on the high limbs of the trees, and then we had some shots at them. In the course of an hour we killed four, and returned to the house, where, as I expected, Mr. N. was in a fever at my absence, and after a late, and very good breakfast, proceeded on our journey. We find in this part of the country less timber in the same space than we have yet seen, and when a small belt appears, it is a great relief, as the monotony of a bare prairie becomes tiresome. Towards evening we arrived at Loutre Lick.[71] Here there is a place called a _Hotel_. A Hotel, forsooth! a pig-stye would be a more appropriate name. Every thing about it was most exceedingly filthy and disagreeable, but no better lodging was to be had, for it might not be proper to apply for accommodation at a private house in the immediate vicinity of a public one. They gave us a wretched supper, not half so good as we had been accustomed to, and we were fain to spend the evening in a comfortless, unfurnished, nasty bar-room, that smelt intolerably of rum and whiskey, to listen to the profane conversation of three or four uncouth individuals, (among whom were the host and his brother,) and to hear long and disagreeably minute discussions upon horse-racing, gambling, and other vices equally unpleasant to us. [71] Loutre Lick appears to be the hamlet now known as Big Spring, on Loutre Creek, in Loutre Township, Montgomery County. The settlement was made between 1808 and 1810, and was on the highway between St. Charles and Côte sans Dessein.--ED. The host's brother had been to the Rocky Mountains, and soon learning _our_ destination, gave us much unsought for advice regarding our method of journeying; painted in strong colors the many dangers and difficulties which we must encounter, and concluded by advising us to give up the expedition. My fast ebbing patience was completely exhausted. I told him that {17} nothing that he could say would discourage us,--that we went to that house in order to seek repose, and it was unfair to intrude conversation upon us unasked. The ruffian made some grumbling reply, and left us in quiet and undisturbed possession of our bench. We had a miserable time that night. The only spare bed in the house was so intolerably filthy that we dared not undress, and we had hardly closed our eyes before we were assailed by swarms of a vile insect, (the very name of which is offensive,) whose effluvia we had plainly perceived immediately as we entered the room. It is almost needless to say, that very early on the following morning, after paying our reckoning, and refusing the landlord's polite invitation to "_liquorize_," we marched from the house, shook the dust from our feet, and went elsewhere to seek a breakfast. Soon after leaving, we came to a deep and wide creek, and strained our lungs for half an hour in vain endeavors to waken a negro boy who lived in a hut on the opposite bank, and who, we were told, would ferry us over. He came out of his den at last, half naked and rubbing his eyes to see who had disturbed his slumbers so early in the _marning_. We told him to hurry over, or we'd endeavor to assist him, and he came at last, with a miserable leaky little skiff that wet our feet completely. We gave him a _pickayune_ for his trouble, and went on. We soon came to a neat little secluded cottage in the very heart of a thick forest, where we found a fine looking young man, with an interesting wife, and a very pretty child about six months old. Upon being told that we wanted some breakfast, the woman tucked up her sleeves, gave the child to her husband, and went to work in good earnest. In a very short time a capital meal was smoking on the board, and while we were partaking of the good cheer, we found our vexation rapidly evaporating. We complimented the handsome young hostess, {18} patted the chubby cheeks of the child, and were in a good humor with every body. _6th._--Soon after we started this morning, we were overtaken by a stage which was going to Fulton, seven miles distant, and as the roads were somewhat heavy, we concluded to make use of this convenience. The only passengers were three young men from the far west, who had been to the eastward purchasing goods, and were then travelling homeward. Two of them evidently possessed a large share of what is called _mother wit_, and so we had jokes without number. Some of them were not very refined, and perhaps did not suit the day very well, (it being the Sabbath,) yet none of them were really offensive, but seemed to proceed entirely from an exuberance of animal spirits. In about an hour and a half we arrived at Fulton, a pretty little town, and saw the villagers in their holiday clothes parading along to church.[72] The bell at that moment sounded, and the peal gave rise to many reflections. It might be long ere I should hear the sound of the "church-going bell" again. I was on my way to a far, far country, and I did not know that I should ever be permitted to revisit my own. I felt that I was leaving the scenes of my childhood; the spot which had witnessed all the happiness I ever knew, the home where all my affections were centered. I was entering a land of strangers, and would be compelled hereafter to mingle with those who might look upon me with indifference, or treat me with neglect. [72] Fulton is the seat of Callaway County, laid out in 1825, and originally christened Volney; but its appellation was soon changed in honor of Robert Fulton, inventor of the steamboat. The first settler and proprietor was George Nichols. In 1832 the population was about two hundred; by 1900 it had increased to nearly five thousand.--ED. These reflections were soon checked, however. We took a light lunch at the tavern where we stopped. I shouldered my gun, Mr. N. his stick and bundle, and off we trudged again, westward, ho! We soon lost sight of the prairie entirely, and our way lay through a country thickly covered with heavy timber, the roads very rough and stony, and we had frequently to ford {19} the creeks on our route, the late freshets having carried away the bridges. Our accommodation at the farm houses has generally been good and comfortable, and the inhabitants obliging, and anxious to please. They are, however, exceedingly inquisitive, propounding question after question, in such quick succession as scarcely to allow you breathing time between them. This kind of catechising was at first very annoying to us, but we have now become accustomed to it, and have hit upon an expedient to avoid it in a measure. The first question generally asked, is, "where do you come from, gentlemen?" We frame our answer somewhat in the style of Dr. Franklin. "We come from Pennsylvania; our names, Nuttall and Townsend; we are travelling to Independence on foot, for the purpose of seeing the country to advantage, and we intend to proceed from thence across the mountains to the Pacific. Have you any mules to sell?" The last clause generally changes the conversation, and saves us trouble. To a stranger, and one not accustomed to the manners of the western people, this kind of interrogating seems to imply a lack of modesty and common decency, but it is certainly not so intended, each one appearing to think himself entitled to gain as much intelligence regarding the private affairs of a stranger, as a very free use of his lingual organ can procure for him. We found the common gray squirrel very abundant in some places, particularly in the low bottoms along water courses; in some situations we saw them skipping on almost every tree. On last Christmas day, at a squirrel hunt in this neighborhood, about thirty persons killed the astonishing number of _twelve hundred_, between the rising and setting of the sun. This may seem like useless barbarity, but it is justified by the consideration that all the crops of corn in the country are frequently {20} destroyed by these animals. This extensive extermination is carried on every year, and yet it is said that their numbers do not appear to be much diminished. About mid-day on the 7th, we passed through a small town called Columbia, and stopped in the evening at Rocheport, a little village on the Missouri river.[73] We were anxious to find a steam-boat bound for Independence, as we feared we might linger too long upon the road to make the necessary preparations for our contemplated journey. [73] Columbia, seat of Boone County and of the Missouri State University, was organized first as Smithton. Later (1820), when made the county seat, the name was changed, and a period of prosperity began. The location of the university was secured in 1839. In 1900 the population was 5,651. Rocheport, on the Missouri River, at the mouth of Moniteau Creek, was laid out in 1832 on land obtained on a New Madrid certificate. At one time the place rivaled Columbia. Its present population is about six hundred.--ED. On the following day, we crossed the Missouri, opposite Rocheport, in a small skiff. The road here, for several miles, winds along the bank of the river, amid fine groves of sycamore and Athenian poplars, then stretches off for about three miles, and does not again approach it until you arrive at Boonville. It is by far the most hilly road that we have seen, and I was frequently reminded, while travelling on it, of our Chester county. We entered the town of Boonville early in the afternoon, and took lodgings in a very clean, and respectably kept hotel. I was much pleased with Boonville. It is the prettiest town I have seen in Missouri; situated on the bank of the river, on an elevated and beautiful spot, and overlooks a large extent of lovely country. The town contains two good hotels, (but no _grog shops_, properly so called,) several well-furnished stores, and five hundred inhabitants. It was laid out thirty years ago by the celebrated western pioneer, whose name it bears.[74] [74] For Boonville, see note 59, p. 89, _ante_. Townsend is in error in attributing its founding to Daniel Boone, although named in his honor.--ED. We saw here vast numbers of the beautiful parrot of this country, (the _Psittacus carolinensis_.) They flew around us in flocks, keeping a constant and loud screaming, as though they would chide us for invading their territory; and the splendid green and red of their plumage glancing in the sunshine, as they whirled and circled within a few feet of us, had a most magnificent appearance. They seem entirely unsuspicious of danger, and after being fired at, only huddle closer together, as if to obtain protection {21} from each other, and as their companions are falling around them, they curve down their necks, and look at them fluttering upon the ground, as though perfectly at a loss to account for so unusual an occurrence. It is a most inglorious sort of shooting; down right, cold-blooded murder.[75] [75] For the appearance of paroquets in this latitude, see Cuming's _Tour_ in our volume iv, p. 161, note 108.--ED. On the afternoon of the 9th, a steamboat arrived, on board of which we were surprised and pleased to find Captain Wyeth, and our "_plunder_." We embarked immediately, and soon after, were puffing along the Missouri, at the rate of seven miles an hour. When we stopped in the afternoon to "wood," we were gratified by a sight of one of the enormous catfish of this river and the Mississippi, weighing full sixty pounds. It is said, however, that they are sometimes caught of at least double this weight. They are excellent eating, coarser, but quite as good as the common small catfish of our rivers. There is nothing in the scenery of the river banks to interest the traveller particularly. The country is generally level and sandy, relieved only by an occasional hill, and some small rocky acclivities. A shocking accident happened on board during this trip. A fine looking black boy (a slave of one of the deck passengers) was standing on the platform near the fly-wheel. The steam had just been stopped off, and the wheel was moving slowly by the impetus it had acquired. The poor boy unwittingly thrust his head between the spokes; a portion of the steam was at that moment let on, and his head and shoulders were torn to fragments. We buried him on shore the same day; the poor woman, his mistress, weeping and lamenting over him as for her own child. She told me she had brought him up from an infant; he had been as an affectionate son to her, and for years her only support. _March 20th._--On the morning of the 14th, we arrived at Independence landing, and shortly afterwards, Mr. N. and {22} myself walked to the town, three miles distant. The country here is very hilly and rocky, thickly covered with timber, and no prairie within several miles. The site of the town is beautiful, and very well selected, standing on a high point of land, and overlooking the surrounding country, but the town itself is very indifferent;[76] the houses, (about fifty,) are very much scattered, composed of logs and clay, and are low and inconvenient. There are six or eight stores here, two taverns, and a few tipling houses. As we did not fancy the town, nor the society that we saw there, we concluded to take up our residence at the house on the landing until the time of starting on our journey. We were very much disappointed in not being able to purchase any mules here, all the salable ones having been bought by the Santa Fee traders, several weeks since. Horses, also, are rather scarce, and are sold at higher prices than we had been taught to expect, the demand for them at this time being greater than usual. Mr. N. and myself have, however, been so fortunate as to find five excellent animals amongst the hundreds of wretched ones offered for sale, and have also engaged a man to attend to packing our loads, and perform the various duties of our camp. [76] For Independence, see our volume xix, p. 189, note 34 (Gregg).--ED. The men of the party, to the number of about fifty, are encamped on the bank of the river, and their tents whiten the plain for the distance of half a mile. I have often enjoyed the view on a fine moonlight evening from the door of the house, or perched upon a high hill immediately over the spot. The beautiful white tents, with a light gleaming from each, the smouldering fires around them, the incessant hum of the men, and occasionally the lively notes of a bacchanalian song, softened and rendered sweeter by distance. I probably contemplate these and similar scenes with the more interest, as they exhibit the manner in which the next five months of my life are to be spent. {23} We have amongst our men, a great variety of dispositions. Some who have not been accustomed to the kind of life they are to lead in future, look forward to it with eager delight, and talk of stirring incidents and hair-breadth 'scapes. Others who are more experienced seem to be as easy and unconcerned about it as a citizen would be in contemplating a drive of a few miles into the country. Some have evidently been reared in the shade, and not accustomed to hardships, but the majority are strong, able-bodied men, and many are almost as rough as the grizzly bears, of their feats upon which they are fond of boasting. During the day the captain keeps all his men employed in arranging and packing a vast variety of goods for carriage. In addition to the necessary clothing for the company, arms, ammunition, &c., there are thousands of trinkets of various kinds, beads, paint, bells, rings, and such trumpery, intended as presents for the Indians, as well as objects of trade with them. The bales are usually made to weigh about eighty pounds, of which a horse carries two. I am very much pleased with the manner in which Captain W. manages his men. He appears admirably calculated to gain the good will, and ensure the obedience of such a company, and adopts the only possible mode of accomplishing his end. They are men who have been accustomed to act independently; they possess a strong and indomitable spirit which will never succumb to authority, and will only be conciliated by kindness and familiarity. I confess I admire this spirit. It is noble; it is free and characteristic, but for myself, I have not been accustomed to seeing it exercised, and when a rough fellow comes up without warning, and slaps me on the shoulder, with, "stranger what for a gun is that you carry?" I start, and am on the point of making an angry reply, but I remember where I am, check the feeling instantly, and submit the weapon to his inspection. Captain W. {24} may frequently be seen sitting on the ground, surrounded by a knot of his independents, consulting them as to his present arrangements and future movements, and paying the utmost deference to the opinion of the least among them. We were joined here by Mr. Milton Sublette, a trader and trapper of some ten or twelve years' standing. It is his intention to travel with us to the mountains, and we are very glad of his company, both on account of his intimate acquaintance with the country, and the accession to our band of about twenty trained hunters, "true as the steel of their tried blades," who have more than once followed their brave and sagacious leader over the very track which we intend to pursue. He appears to be a man of strong sense and courteous manners, and his men are enthusiastically attached to him.[77] [77] For Milton Sublette, see note 44, p. 67, _ante_.--ED. Five missionaries, who intend to travel under our escort, have also just arrived. The principal of these is a Mr. Jason Lee, (a tall and powerful man, who looks as though he were well calculated to buffet difficulties in a wild country,) his nephew, Mr. Daniel Lee, and three younger men of respectable standing in society, who have arrayed themselves under the missionary banner, chiefly for the gratification of seeing a new country, and participating in strange adventures.[78] [78] The establishment of the Oregon mission was due to the appeal published in the East, of a deputation (1831) of Flathead chiefs to General William Clark at St. Louis for the purpose of gaining religious instruction. The leaders of the Methodist church, thus aroused, chose (1833) Jason Lee to found the mission to the Western Indians, and made an appropriation for the purpose. Jason Lee was born in Canada (1803), of American parents; he had already taught Indians in his native village, and attended Wesleyan Seminary at Wilbraham, Massachusetts. After several efforts to arrange the journey to Oregon, he heard of Wyeth's return, and requested permission to join his outgoing party. Arrived at Vancouver, he determined to establish his mission station in the Willamette valley, where he labored for ten years, building a colony as well as a mission. Once he returned to the United States (1838-40) for money and reinforcements. In 1844, while visiting Honolulu, he learned that he had been superseded in the charge of the mission, and returned to the United States to die the following year, near his birthplace in Lower Canada. Daniel Lee, who accompanied his uncle, seconded the latter's efforts in the mission establishment. In 1835 he voyaged to Hawaii for his health, and in 1838 established the Dalles mission, where he labored until his return to the United States in 1843. The other missionaries were Cyrus Shepard, a lay helper and teacher--who died at the Willamette mission, January 1, 1840--C. M. Walker, and A. L. Edwards, who joined the party in Missouri.--ED. My favorites, the birds, are very numerous in this vicinity, and I am therefore in my element. Parroquets are plentiful in the bottom lands, the two species of squirrel are abundant, and rabbits, turkies, and deer are often killed by our people. I was truly rejoiced to receive yesterday a letter from my family. I went to the office immediately on my arrival here, confidently expecting to find one lying there for me; I was told there was none, and I could not believe it, or would not; I took all the letters in my hand, and examined each of them myself, and I suppose that during the process my expressions of disappointment were "loud and deep," as I observed the eyes of a number {25} of persons in the store directed towards me with manifest curiosity and surprise. The obtuse creatures could not appreciate my feelings. I was most anxious to receive intelligence from home, as some of the members of the family were indisposed when I left, and in a few days more I should be traversing the uncultivated prairie and the dark forest, and perhaps never hear from my home again. The letter came at last, however, and was an inexpressible consolation to me. The little town of Independence has within a few weeks been the scene of a brawl, which at one time threatened to be attended with serious consequences, but which was happily settled without bloodshed. It had been for a considerable time the stronghold of a sect of fanatics, called Mormons, or Mormonites, who, as their numbers increased, and they obtained power, showed an inclination to lord it over the less assuming inhabitants of the town. This was a source of irritation which they determined to rid themselves of in a summary manner, and accordingly the whole town rose, _en masse_, and the poor followers of the prophet were forcibly ejected from the community. They took refuge in the little town of Liberty, on the opposite side of the river, and the villagers here are now in a constant state of feverish alarm. Reports have been circulated that the Mormons are preparing to attack the town, and put the inhabitants to the sword, and they have therefore stationed sentries along the river for several miles, to prevent the landing of the enemy.[79] The troops parade and study military tactics every day, and seem determined to repel, with spirit, the threatened invasion. The probability is, that the report respecting the attack, is, as John Bull says, "all humbug," and this training and marching has already been a source of no little annoyance to us, as the miserable little skeleton of a saddler who is engaged to work for our party, has neglected his business, and must go a soldiering in stead. A day or two ago, I tried to convince the little man that he was of no use to the army, {26} for if a Mormon were to say _pooh_ at him, it would blow him away beyond the reach of danger or of glory; but he thought not, and no doubt concluded that he was a "marvellous proper man," so we were put to great inconvenience waiting for our saddles. [79] For these Mormon troubles, see Gregg's _Commerce of the Prairies_, in our volume xx, pp. 93-99.--ED. {27} CHAPTER II Departure of the caravan--A storm on the prairie--Arrangement of the camp--The cook's desertion--Kanzas Indians--Kanzas river--Indian lodges--Passage of the river--Buffalo canoes--Kanzas chief--Costume of the Indians--Upper Kaw village--Their wigwams--Catfish and ravens--Return of Mr. Sublette--Pawnee trace--Desertion of three men--Difficulties occasioned by losing the trail--Intelligence of Mr. Sublette's party--Escape of the band of horses--Visit of three Otto Indians--Anecdote of Richardson, the chief hunter--His appearance and character--White wolves and antelopes--Buffalo bones--Sublette's deserted camp--Lurking wolves. On the 28th of April, at 10 o'clock in the morning, our caravan, consisting of seventy men, and two hundred and fifty horses, began its march; Captain Wyeth and Milton Sublette took the lead, Mr. N. and myself rode beside them; then the men in double file, each leading, with a line, two horses heavily laden, and Captain Thing (Captain W.'s assistant) brought up the rear. The band of missionaries, with their horned cattle, rode along the flanks. I frequently sallied out from my station to look at and admire the appearance of the cavalcade, and as we rode out from the encampment, our horses prancing, and neighing, and pawing the ground, it was altogether so exciting that I could scarcely contain myself. Every man in the company seemed to feel a portion of the same kind of enthusiasm; uproarious bursts of merriment, and gay and lively songs, were constantly echoing along the line. We were certainly a most merry and happy company. What cared we for the future? We had reason to expect that ere long difficulties and dangers, in various shapes, {28} would assail us, but no anticipation of reverses could check the happy exuberance of our spirits. Our road lay over a vast rolling prairie, with occasional small spots of timber at the distance of several miles apart, and this will no doubt be the complexion of the track for some weeks. In the afternoon we crossed the _Big Blue_ river at a shallow ford.[80] Here we saw a number of beautiful yellow-headed troopials, (_Icterus zanthrocephalus_,) feeding upon the prairie in company with large flocks of black birds, and like these, they often alight upon the backs of our horses. [80] Townsend is here in error. It would be impossible to reach the Big Blue River the first day out from Independence, and before crossing the Kansas. The former stream is a northern tributary of the latter, over a hundred miles from its mouth. The Oregon Trail led along its banks for some distance, crossing at the entrance of the Little Blue.--ED. _29th._--A heavy rain fell all the morning, which had the effect of calming our transports in a great measure, and in the afternoon it was succeeded by a tremendous hail storm. During the rain, our party left the road, and proceeded about a hundred yards from it to a range of bushes, near a stream of water, for the purpose of encamping. We had just arrived here, and had not yet dismounted, when the hail storm commenced. It came on very suddenly, and the stones, as large as musket balls, dashing upon our horses, created such a panic among them, that they plunged, and kicked, and many of them threw their loads, and fled wildly over the plain. They were all overtaken, however, and as the storm was not of long duration, they were soon appeased, and _staked_ for the night. To stake or fasten a horse for the night, he is provided with a strong leathern halter, with an iron ring attached to the chin strap. To this ring, a rope of hemp or plaited leather, twenty-two feet in length, is attached, and the opposite end of the line made fast with several clove hitches around an oak or hickory pin, two and a half feet long. The top of this pin or stake is ringed with iron to prevent its being bruised, and it is then driven to the head in the ground. For greater security, hopples made of stout leather are buckled around the fore legs; and then, {29} if the tackling is good, it is almost impossible for a horse to escape. Care is always taken to stake him in a spot where he may eat grass all night. The animals are placed sufficiently far apart to prevent them interfering with each other. Camping out to-night is not so agreeable as it might be, in consequence of the ground being very wet and muddy, and our blankets (our only bedding) thoroughly soaked; but we expect to encounter greater difficulties than these ere long, and we do not murmur. A description of the formation of our camp may, perhaps, not be amiss here. The party is divided into messes of eight men, and each mess is allowed a separate tent. The captain of a mess, (who is generally an "old hand," _i. e._ an experienced forester, hunter, or trapper,) receives each morning the rations of pork, flour, &c. for his people, and they choose one of their body as cook for the whole. Our camp now consists of nine messes, of which Captain W.'s forms one, although it only contains four persons besides the cook. When we arrive in the evening at a suitable spot for an encampment, Captain W. rides round a space which he considers large enough to accommodate it, and directs where each mess shall pitch its tent. The men immediately unload their horses, and place their bales of goods in the direction indicated, and in such manner, as in case of need, to form a sort of fortification and defence. When all the messes are arranged in this way, the camp forms a hollow square, in the centre of which the horses are placed and staked firmly to the ground. The guard consists of from six to eight men, and is relieved three times each night, and so arranged that each gang may serve alternate nights. The captain of a guard (who is generally also the captain of a mess) collects his people at the appointed hour, and posts them around outside the camp in such situations that they may command {30} a view of the environs, and be ready to give the alarm in case of danger. The captain cries the hour regularly by a watch, and _all's well_, every fifteen minutes, and each man of the guard is required to repeat this call in rotation, which if any one should fail to do, it is fair to conclude that he is asleep, and he is then immediately visited and stirred up. In case of defection of this kind, our laws adjudge to the delinquent the hard sentence of walking three days. As yet none of our poor fellows have incurred this penalty, and the probability is, that it would not at this time be enforced, as we are yet in a country where little molestation is to be apprehended; but in the course of another week's travel, when thieving and ill-designing Indians will be outlying on our trail, it will be necessary that the strictest watch be kept, and, for the preservation of our persons and property, that our laws shall be rigidly enforced. _May 1st._--On rising this morning, and inquiring about our prospects of a breakfast, we discovered that the cook of our mess (a little, low-browed, ill-conditioned Yankee) had decamped in the night, and left our service to seek for a better. He probably thought the duties too hard for him, but as he was a miserable cook, we should not have much regretted his departure, had he not thought proper to take with him an excellent rifle, powder-horn, shot-pouch, and other matters that did not belong to him. It is only surprising that he did not select one of our best horses to carry him; but as he had the grace to take his departure on foot, and we have enough men without him, we can wish him God speed, and a fair run to the settlements. We encamped this evening on a small branch of the Kanzas river. As we approached our stopping place, we were joined by a band of Kanzas Indians, (commonly called _Kaw_ Indians.)[81] They are encamped in a neighboring copse, where they have {31} six lodges. This party is a small division of a portion of this tribe, who are constantly wandering; but although their journeys are sometimes pretty extensive, they seldom approach nearer to the settlements than they are at present. They are very friendly, are not so tawdrily decorated as those we saw below, and use little or no paint. This may, however, be accounted for by their not having the customary ornaments, &c., as their ears are filled with trinkets of various kinds, and are horribly gashed in the usual manner. The dress of most that we have seen, has consisted of ordinary woollen pantaloons received from the whites, and their only covering, from the waist up, is a blanket or buffalo robe. The head is shaved somewhat in the manner of the Sâques and Foxes, leaving the well known scalping tuft; but unlike the Indians just mentioned, the hair is allowed to grow upon the middle of the head, and extends backwards in a longitudinal ridge to the occiput. It is here gathered into a kind of queue, plaited, and suffered to hang down the back. There were amongst them several squaws, with young children tied to their backs, and a number of larger urchins ran about our camp wholly naked. [81] For the first stretches of the Oregon Trail and the crossing of the Kansas, see note 30, p. 49, _ante_. The Kansa Indians are noticed in Bradbury's _Travels_, our volume v, p. 67, note 37.--ED. The whole of the following day we remained in camp, trading buffalo robes, _apishemeaus_,[82] &c., of the Indians. These people became at length somewhat troublesome to us who were not traders, by a very free exercise of their begging propensities. They appear to be exceedingly poor and needy, and take the liberty of asking unhesitatingly, and without apparent fear of refusal, for any articles that happen to take their fancy. [82] These are mats made of rushes, used for building wigwams, carpets, beds, and coverings of all sorts. The early Algonquian term was "apaquois;" see _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, xvi, index. "Apichement" is the usual form of the word.--ED. I have observed, that among the Indians now with us, none but the chief uses the pipe. He smokes the article called _kanikanik_,--a mixture of tobacco and the dried leaves of the poke plant, (_Phytolacca decandra_.) I was amused last evening by the old chief asking me in his impressive manner, (first by pointing with his finger towards the sunset, and then raising his {32} hands high over his head,) if I was going to the mountains. On answering him in the affirmative, he depressed his hands, and passed them around his head in both directions, then turned quickly away from me, with a very solemn and significant _ugh_! He meant, doubtless, that my brain was turned; in plain language, that I was a fool. This may be attributed to his horror of the Blackfeet Indians, with whom a portion of his tribe was formerly at war. The poor Kaws are said to have suffered dreadfully in these savage conflicts, and were finally forced to abandon the country to their hereditary foes. We were on the move early the next morning, and at noon arrived at the Kanzas river, a branch of the Missouri.[83] This is a broad and not very deep stream, with the water dark and turbid, like that of the former. As we approached it, we saw a number of Indian lodges, made of saplings driven into the ground, bent over and tied at top, and covered with bark and buffalo skins. These lodges, or wigwams, are numerous on both sides of the river. As we passed them, the inhabitants, men, women, and children, flocked out to see us, and almost prevented our progress by their eager greetings. Our party stopped on the bank of the river, and the horses were unloaded and driven into the water. They swam beautifully, and with great regularity, and arrived safely on the opposite shore, where they were confined in a large lot, enclosed with a fence. After some difficulty, and considerable detention, we succeeded in procuring a large flat bottomed boat, embarked ourselves and goods in it, and landed on the opposite side near our horse pen, where we encamped. The lodges are numerous here, and there are also some good frame houses inhabited by a few white men and women, who subsist chiefly by raising cattle, which they drive to the settlements below. They, as well as the Indians, raise an abundance of good corn; potatoes and other vegetables are also plentiful, and they can therefore live sufficiently well. [83] For the Kansas River, see James's _Long's Expedition_, in our volume xiv, p. 174, note 140.--ED. {33} The canoes used by the Indians are mostly made of buffalo skins, stretched, while recent, over a light frame work of wood, the seams sewed with sinews, and so closely, as to be wholly impervious to water. These light vessels are remarkably buoyant, and capable of sustaining very heavy burthens.[84] [84] For these skin canoes, see illustration in Maximilian's _Travels_, atlas, our volume xxv.--ED. In the evening the principal Kanzas chief paid us a visit in our tent. He is a young man about twenty-five years of age, straight as a poplar, and with a noble countenance and bearing, but he appeared to me to be marvellously deficient in most of the requisites which go to make the character of a _real_ Indian chief, at least of such Indian chiefs as we read of in our popular books. I begin to suspect, in truth, that these lofty and dignified attributes are more apt to exist in the fertile brain of the novelist, than in reality. Be this as it may, _our_ chief is a very lively, laughing, and rather playful personage; perhaps he may put on his dignity, like a glove, when it suits his convenience. We remained in camp the whole of next day, and traded with the Indians for a considerable number of robes, _apishemeaus_, and halter ropes of hide. Our fat bacon and tobacco were in great demand for these useful commodities. The Kaws living here appear to be much more wealthy than those who joined our camp on the prairie below. They are in better condition, more richly dressed, cleaner, and more comfortable than their wandering brothers. The men have generally fine countenances, but all the women that I have seen are homely. I cannot admire them. Their dress consists, universally of deer skin leggings, belted around the loins, and over the upper part of the body a buffalo robe or blanket. On the 20th in the morning, we packed our horses and rode out of the Kaw settlement, leaving the river immediately, and making a N. W. by W. course--and the next day came to another village of the same tribe, consisting of about thirty lodges, and situated in the midst of a beautiful level prairie. {34} The Indians stopped our caravan almost by force, and evinced so much anxiety to trade with us, that we could not well avoid gratifying them. We remained with them about two hours, and bought corn, moccasins and leggings in abundance. The lodges here are constructed very differently from those of the lower village. They are made of large and strong timbers, a ridge pole runs along the top, and the different pieces are fastened together by leathern thongs. The roofs,--which are single, making but one angle,--are of stout poplar bark, and form an excellent defence, both against rain and the rays of the sun, which must be intense during midsummer in this region. These prairies are often visited by heavy gales of wind, which would probably demolish the huts, were they built of frail materials like those below. We encamped in the evening on a small stream called Little Vermillion creek,[85] where we found an abundance of excellent catfish, exactly similar to those of the Schuylkill river. Our people caught them in great numbers. Here we first saw the large ravens, (_Corvus corax_.) They hopped about the ground all around our camp; and as we left it, they came in, pell-mell, croaking, fighting, and scrambling for the few fragments that remained. [85] Now usually known as the Red Vermilion, a northern tributary of Kansas River in Pottawatomie County, Kansas.--ED. _8th._--This morning Mr. Sublette left us to return to the settlements. He has been suffering for a considerable time with a fungus in one of his legs, and it has become so much worse since we started, in consequence of irritation caused by riding, that he finds it impossible to proceed. His departure has thrown a gloom over the whole camp. We all admired him for his amiable qualities, and his kind and obliging disposition. For myself, I had become so much attached to him, that I feel quite melancholy about his leaving us.[86] [86] I have since learned that his limb was twice amputated; but notwithstanding this, the disease lingered in the system, and about a year ago, terminated his life.--TOWNSEND. {35} The weather is now very warm, and there has been a dead calm all day, which renders travelling most uncomfortable. We have frequently been favored with fresh breezes, which make it very agreeable, but the moment these fail us we are almost suffocated with intense heat. Our rate of travelling is about twenty miles per day, which, in this warm weather, and with heavily packed horses, is as much as we can accomplish with comfort to ourselves and animals. On the afternoon of the next day, we crossed a broad Indian trail, bearing northerly, supposed to be about five days old, and to have been made by a war party of Pawnees. We are now in the country traversed by these Indians, and are daily expecting to see them, but Captain W. seems very desirous to avoid them, on account of their well known thieving propensities, and quarrelsome disposition. These Indians go every year to the plains of the Platte, where they spend some weeks in hunting the buffalo, jerking their meat, and preparing their skins for robes; they then push on to the Black Hills, and look out for the parties of Blackfeet, which are also bound to the Platte river plains. When the opposing parties come in collision, (which frequently happens,) the most cruel and sanguinary conflicts ensue. In the evening, three of our men deserted. Like our quondam cook, they all took rifles, &c., that did not belong to them, and one of these happened to be a favorite piece of Captain W.'s, which had done him good service in his journey across this country two years ago. He was very much attached to the gun, and in spite of his calm and cool philosophy in all vexatious matters, he cannot altogether conceal his chagrin. The little streams of this part of the country are fringed with a thick growth of pretty trees and bushes, and the buds are now swelling, and the leaves expanding, to "welcome back the spring." The birds, too, sing joyously amongst them, grosbeaks, thrushes, and buntings, a merry and musical band. I am particularly {36} fond of sallying out early in the morning, and strolling around the camp. The light breeze just bends the tall tops of the grass on the boundless prairie, the birds are commencing their matin carollings, and all nature looks fresh and beautiful. The horses of the camp are lying comfortably on their sides, and seem, by the glances which they give me in passing, to know that their hour of toil is approaching, and the patient kine are ruminating in happy unconsciousness. _11th._--We encountered some rather serious difficulties to-day in fording several wide and deep creeks, having muddy and miry bottoms. Many of our horses, (and particularly those that were packed,) fell into the water, and it was with the greatest difficulty and labor that they were extricated. Some of the scenes presented were rather ludicrous to those who were not actors in them. The floundering, kicking, and falling of horses in the heavy slough, man and beast rolling over together, and _squattering_ amongst the black mud, and the wo-begone looks of horse, rider, and horse-furniture, often excited a smile, even while we pitied their begrimed and miserable plight. All these troubles are owing to our having lost the trail yesterday, and we have been travelling to-day as nearly in the proper course as our compass indicated, and hope soon to find it. _12th._--Our scouts came in this morning with the intelligence that they had found a large trail of white men, bearing N. W. We have no doubt that this is Wm. Sublette's party, and that it passed us last evening.[87] They must have travelled very rapidly to overtake us so soon, and no doubt had men ahead watching our motions. It seems rather unfriendly, perhaps, to run by us in this furtive way, without even stopping to say good morning, but Sublette is attached to a rival company, and all stratagems are deemed allowable when interest is concerned. It is a matter of some moment to be the first at the mountain rendezvous, {37} in order to obtain the furs brought every summer by the trappers. [87] For biographical sketch of William Sublette, see our volume xix, p. 221 note 55 (Gregg). His haste to reach the rendezvous in the mountains before the arrival of Wyeth's party, was connected with the arrangements for supplies; see preface to the present volume.--ED. Last night, while I was serving on guard, I observed an unusual commotion among our band of horses, a wild neighing, snorting, and plunging, for which I was unable to account. I directed several of my men to go in and appease them, and endeavor to ascertain the cause. They had scarcely started, however, when about half of the band broke their fastenings, snapped the hopples on their legs, and went dashing right through the midst of the camp. Down went several of the tents, the rampart of goods was cleared in gallant style, and away went the frightened animals at full speed over the plain. The whole camp was instantly aroused. The horses that remained, were bridled as quickly as possible; we mounted them without saddles, and set off in hard pursuit after the fugitives. The night was pitch dark, but we needed no light to point out the way, as the clattering of hoofs ahead on the hard ground of the prairie, sounded like thunder. After riding half an hour, we overtook about forty of them, and surrounding them with difficulty, succeeded in driving them back, and securing them as before. Twenty men were then immediately despatched to scour the country, and bring in the remainder. This party was headed by Mr. Lee, our missionary, (who, with his usual promptitude, volunteered his services,) and they returned early this morning, bringing nearly sixty more. We find, however, upon counting the horses in our possession, that there are yet three missing. While we were at breakfast, three Indians of the Otto tribe, came to our camp to see, and smoke with us.[88] These were men of rather short stature, but strong and firmly built. Their countenances resemble in general expression those of the Kanzas, and their dresses are very similar. We are all of opinion, that it is to these Indians we owe our difficulties of last night, and we have no doubt that the three missing horses are now in their {38} possession, but as we cannot prove it upon them, and cannot even converse with them, (having no interpreters,) we are compelled to submit to our loss in silence. Perhaps we should even be thankful that we have not lost more. [88] For the Oto, see Bradbury's _Travels_, in our volume v, p. 74, note 42.--ED. While these people were smoking the pipe of peace with us, after breakfast, I observed that Richardson, our chief hunter, (an experienced man in this country, of a tall and iron frame, and almost child-like simplicity of character, in fact an exact counterpart of _Hawk-eye_ in his younger days,) stood aloof, and refused to sit in the circle, in which it was always the custom of the _old hands_ to join. Feeling some curiosity to ascertain the cause of this unusual diffidence, I occasionally allowed my eyes to wander to the spot where our sturdy hunter stood looking moodily upon us, as the calamet passed from hand to hand around the circle, and I thought I perceived him now and then cast a furtive glance at one of the Indians who sat opposite to me, and sometimes his countenance would assume an expression almost demoniacal, as though the most fierce and deadly passions were raging in his bosom. I felt certain that hereby hung a tale, and I watched for a corresponding expression, or at least a look of consciousness, in the face of my opposite neighbor, but expression there was none. His large features were settled in a tranquillity which nothing could disturb, and as he puffed the smoke in huge volumes from his mouth, and the fragrant vapor wreathed and curled around his head, he seemed the embodied spirit of meekness and taciturnity. The camp moved soon after, and I lost no time in overhauling Richardson, and asking an explanation of his singular conduct. "Why," said he, "that _Injen_ that sat opposite to you, is my bitterest enemy. I was once going down alone from the rendezvous with letters for St. Louis, and when I arrived on the lower {39} part of the Platte river, (just a short distance beyond us here,) I fell in with about a dozen Ottos. They were known to be a friendly tribe, and I therefore felt no fear of them. I dismounted from my horse and sat with them upon the ground. It was in the depth of winter; the ground was covered with snow, and the river was frozen solid. While I was thinking of nothing but my dinner, which I was then about preparing, four or five of the cowards jumped on me, mastered my rifle, and held my arms fast, while they took from me my knife and tomahawk, my flint and steel, and all my ammunition. They then loosed me, and told me to be off. I begged them, for the love of God, to give me my rifle and a few loads of ammunition, or I should starve before I could reach the settlements. No--I should have nothing, and if I did not start off immediately, they would throw me under the ice of the river. And," continued the excited hunter,--while he ground his teeth with bitter, and uncontrollable rage,--"that man that sat opposite to you was the chief of them. He recognised me, and knew very well the reason why I would not smoke with him. I tell you, sir, if ever I meet that man in any other situation than that in which I saw him this morning, I'll shoot him with as little hesitation as I would shoot a deer. Several years have passed since the perpetration of this outrage, but it is still as fresh in my memory as ever, and I again declare, that if ever an opportunity offers, I will kill that man." "But, Richardson, did they take your horse also?" "To be sure they did, and my blankets, and every thing I had, except my clothes." "But how did you subsist until you reached the settlements? You had a long journey before you." "Why, set to _trappin'_ prairie squirrels with little nooses made out of the hairs of my head." I should remark that his hair was so long, that it fell in heavy masses on his shoulders. "But squirrels in winter, Richardson, I never heard of squirrels in winter." "Well but there was plenty of them, though; little white ones, that lived among the {40} snow." "Well, really, this was an unpleasant sort of adventure enough, but let me suggest that you do very wrong to remember it with such blood-thirsty feelings." He shook his head with a dogged and determined air, and rode off as if anxious to escape a lecture. A little sketch of our hunter may perhaps not be uninteresting, as he will figure somewhat in the following pages, being one of the principal persons of the party, the chief hunter, and a man upon whose sagacity and knowledge of the country we all in a great measure depended. In height he is several inches over six feet, of a spare but remarkably strong and vigorous frame, and a countenance of almost infantile simplicity and openness. In disposition he is mild and affable, but when roused to indignation, his keen eyes glitter and flash, the muscles of his large mouth work convulsively, and he looks the very impersonation of the spirit of evil. He is implacable in anger, and bitter in revenge; never forgetting a kindness, but remembering an injury with equal tenacity. Such is the character of our hunter, and none who have known him as I have, will accuse me of delineating from fancy. His native place is Connecticut, which he left about twelve years ago, and has ever since been engaged in roaming through the boundless plains and rugged mountains of the west, often enduring the extremity of famine and fatigue, exposed to dangers and vicissitudes of every kind, all for the paltry, and often uncertain pittance of a Rocky Mountain hunter. He says he is now tired of this wandering and precarious life, and when he shall be enabled to save enough from his earnings to buy a farm in Connecticut, he intends to settle down a quiet tiller of the soil, and enjoy the sweets of domestic felicity. But this day will probably never arrive. Even should he succeed in realizing a little fortune, and the farm should be taken, the monotony and tameness of the scene will weary his free spirit; he will often sigh for a habitation {41} on the broad prairie, or a ramble over the dreary mountains where his lot has so long been cast. _15th._--We saw to-day several large white wolves, and two herds of antelopes. The latter is one of the most beautiful animals I ever saw. When full grown, it is nearly as large as a deer. The horns are rather short, with a single prong near the top, and an abrupt backward curve at the summit like a hook. The ears are very delicate, almost as thin as paper, and hooked at the tip like the horns. The legs are remarkably light and beautifully formed, and as it bounds over the plain, it seems scarcely to touch the ground, so exceedingly light and agile are its motions. This animal is the _Antelope furcifer_ of zoologists, and inhabits the western prairies of North America exclusively. The ground here is strewn with great quantities of buffalo bones; the skulls of many of them in great perfection. I often thought of my friend Doctor M. and his _golgotha_, while we were kicking these fine specimens about the ground. We are now travelling along the banks of the Blue river,--a small fork of the Kanzas. The grass is very luxuriant and good, and we have excellent and beautiful camps every night. This morning a man was sent ahead to see W. Sublette's camp, and bear a message to him, who returned in the evening with the information that the company is only one day's journey beyond, and consists of about thirty-five men. We see his deserted camps every day, and, in some cases, the fires are not yet extinguished. It is sometimes amusing to see the wolves lurking like guilty things around these camps seeking for the fragments that may be left; as our party approaches, they sneak away with a mean, hang-dog air which often coaxes a whistling bullet out of the rifle of the wayfarer. {42} CHAPTER III Arrival at the Platte river--Wolves and antelopes--Saline efflorescences--Anxiety of the men to see buffalo--Visit of two spies from the Grand Pawnees--Forced march--A herd of buffalo--Elk--Singular conduct of the horses--Killing a buffalo--Indian mode of procuring buffalo--Great herd--Intention of the men to desert--Adventure with an Indian in the tent--Circumspection necessary--Indian feat with bow and arrow--Notice of the Pawnee tribes--Disappearance of the buffalo from the plains of the Platte--A hunting adventure--Killing a buffalo--Butchering of a bull--Shameful destruction of the game--Hunters' mode of quenching thirst. On the 18th of May we arrived at the Platte river. It is from one and a half to two miles in width, very shoal; large sand flats, and small, verdant islands appearing in every part. Wolves and antelopes were in great abundance here, and the latter were frequently killed by our men. We saw, also, the sandhill crane, great heron, (_Ardea heroidas_,) and the long-billed curlew, stalking about through the shallow water, and searching for their aquatic food. The prairie is here as level as a race course, not the slightest undulation appearing throughout the whole extent of vision, in a north and westerly direction; but to the eastward of the river, and about eight miles from it, is seen a range of high bluffs or sand banks, stretching away to the south-east until they are lost in the far distance. The ground here is in many places encrusted with an impure salt, which by the taste appears to be a combination of the sulphate and muriate of soda; there are also a number of little pools, of only a few inches in depth, scattered over the plain, the water of which is so bitter and pungent, that it seems to penetrate {43} into the tongue, and almost to produce decortication of the mouth. We are now within about three days' journey of the usual haunts of the buffalo, and our men (particularly the uninitiated) look forward to our arrival amongst them with considerable anxiety. They have listened to the garrulous hunter's details of "_approaching_," and "_running_," and "_quartering_," until they fancy themselves the very actors in the scenes related, and are fretting and fuming with impatience to draw their maiden triggers upon the unoffending rangers of the plain. The next morning, we perceived two men on horseback, at a great distance; and upon looking at them with our telescope, discovered them to be Indians, and that they were approaching us. When they arrived within three or four hundred yards, they halted, and appeared to wish to communicate with us, but feared to approach too nearly. Captain W. rode out alone and joined them, while the party proceeded slowly on its way. In about fifteen minutes he returned with the information that they were of the tribe called Grand Pawnees.[89] They told him that a war party of their people, consisting of fifteen hundred warriors, was encamped about thirty miles below; and the captain inferred that these men had been sent to watch our motions, and ascertain our place of encampment; he was therefore careful to impress upon them that we intended to go but a few miles further, and pitch our tents upon a little stream near the main river. When we were satisfied that the messengers were out of sight of us, on their return to their camp, our whole caravan was urged into a brisk trot, and we determined to steal a march upon our neighbors. The little stream was soon passed, and we went on, and on, without slackening our pace, until 12 o'clock at night. We then called a halt on the bank of the river, made a hasty meal, threw ourselves down in our blankets, without pitching the tents, and slept soundly for three hours. We were {44} then aroused, and off we went again, travelling steadily the whole day, making about thirty-five miles, and so got quite clear of the Grand Pawnees. [89] On the different branches of Pawnee, see James's _Long's Expedition_, in our volume xiv, p. 233, note 179.--ED. The antelopes are very numerous here. There is not half an hour during the day in which they are not seen, and they frequently permit the party to approach very near them. This afternoon, two beautiful does came bounding after us, bleating precisely like sheep. The men imitated the call, and they came up to within fifty yards of us, and stood still; two of the hunters fired, and both the poor creatures fell dead. We can now procure as many of these animals as we wish, but their flesh is not equal to common venison, and is frequently rejected by our people. A number are, however, slaughtered every day, from mere wantonness and love of killing, the greenhorns glorying in the sport, like our striplings of the city, in their annual murdering of robins and sparrows. _20th._--This afternoon, we came in sight of a large _gang_ of the long-coveted buffalo. They were grazing on the opposite side of the Platte, quietly as domestic cattle, but as we neared them, the foremost _winded_ us, and started back, and the whole herd followed in the wildest confusion, and were soon out of sight. There must have been many thousands of them. Towards evening, a large band of elk came towards us at full gallop, and passed very near the party. The appearance of these animals produced a singular effect upon our horses, all of which became restive, and about half the loose ones broke away, and scoured over the plain in full chase after the elk. Captain W. and several of his men went immediately in pursuit of them, and returned late at night, bringing the greater number. Two have, however, been lost irrecoverably. Our observed latitude, yesterday, was 40° 31', and our computed distance from the Missouri settlements, about 360 miles. {45} The day following, we saw several small herds of buffalo on our side of the river. Two of our hunters started out after a huge bull that had separated himself from his companions, and gave him chase on fleet horses. Away went the buffalo, and away went the men, hard as they could dash; now the hunters gained upon him, and pressed him hard; again the enormous creature had the advantage, plunging with all his might, his terrific horns often ploughing up the earth as he spurned it under him. Sometimes he would double, and rush so near the horses as almost to gore them with his horns, and in an instant would be off in a tangent, and throw his pursuers from the track. At length the poor animal came to bay, and made some unequivocal demonstrations of combat; raising and tossing his head furiously, and tearing up the ground with his feet. At this moment a shot was fired. The victim trembled like an aspen, and fell to his knees, but recovering himself in an instant, started again as fast as before. Again the determined hunters dashed after him, but the poor bull was nearly exhausted, he proceeded but a short distance and stopped again. The hunters approached, rode slowly by him, and shot two balls through his body with the most perfect coolness and precision. During the race,--the whole of which occurred in full view of the party,--the men seemed wild with the excitement which it occasioned; and when the animal fell, a shout rent the air, which startled the antelopes by dozens from the bluffs, and sent the wolves howling like demons from their lairs. This is the most common mode of killing the buffalo, and is practised very generally by the travelling hunters; many are also destroyed by approaching them on foot, when, if the bushes are sufficiently dense, or the grass high enough to afford concealment, the hunter,--by keeping carefully to leeward of his game,--may sometimes approach so near as almost to touch {46} the animal. If on a plain, without grass or bushes, it is necessary to be very circumspect; to approach so slowly as not to excite alarm, and, when observed by the animal, to imitate dexterously, the clumsy motions of a young bear, or assume the sneaking, prowling attitude of a wolf, in order to lull suspicion. The Indians resort to another stratagem, which is, perhaps, even more successful. The skin of a calf is properly dressed, with the head and legs left attached to it. The Indian envelopes himself in this, and with his short bow and a brace of arrows, ambles off into the very midst of a herd. When he has selected such an animal as suits his fancy, he comes close alongside of it, and without noise, passes an arrow through its heart. One arrow is always sufficient, and it is generally delivered with such force, that at least half the shaft appears through the opposite side. The creature totters, and is about to fall, when the Indian glides around, and draws the arrow from the wound lest it should be broken. A single Indian is said to kill a great number of buffaloes in this way, before any alarm is communicated to the herd. Towards evening, on rising a hill, we were suddenly greeted by a sight which seemed to astonish even the oldest amongst us. The whole plain, as far as the eye could discern, was covered by one enormous mass of buffalo. Our vision, at the very least computation, would certainly extend ten miles, and in the whole of this great space, including about eight miles in width from the bluffs to the river bank, there was apparently no vista in the incalculable multitude. It was truly a sight that would have excited even the dullest mind to enthusiasm. Our party rode up to within a few hundred yards of the edge of the herd, before any alarm was communicated; then the bulls,--which are always stationed around as sentinels,--began pawing the ground, and {47} throwing the earth over their heads; in a few moments they started in a slow, clumsy canter; but as we neared them, they quickened their pace to an astonishingly rapid gallop, and in a few minutes were entirely beyond the reach of our guns, but were still so near that their enormous horns, and long shaggy beards, were very distinctly seen. Shortly after we encamped, our hunters brought in the choice parts of five that they had killed. For the space of several days past, we have observed an inclination in five or six of our men to leave our service. Immediately as we encamp, we see them draw together in some secluded spot, and engage in close and earnest conversation. This has occurred several times, and as we are determined, if possible, to keep our horses, &c., for our own use, we have stationed a sentry near their tent, whose orders are peremptory to stop them at any hazard in case of an attempt on their part, to appropriate our horses. The men we are willing to lose, as they are of very little service, and we can do without them; but horses here are valuable, and we cannot afford to part with them without a sufficient compensation. _22d._--On walking into our tent last night at eleven o'clock, after the expiration of the first watch, (in which I had served as supernumerary, to prevent the desertion of the men,) and stooping to lay my gun in its usual situation near the head of my pallet, I was startled by seeing a pair of eyes, wild and bright as those of a tiger, gleaming from a dark corner of the lodge, and evidently directed upon me. My first impression, was that a wolf had been lurking around the camp, and had entered the tent in the prospect of finding meat. My gun was at my shoulder instinctively, my aim was directed between the eyes, and my finger pressed the trigger. At that moment a tall Indian sprang before me with a loud _wah_! seized the gun, and elevated the muzzle above my head; in another instant, a second Indian was by my side, and I saw his keen knife glitter as it left the {48} scabbard. I had not time for thought, and was struggling with all my might with the first savage for the recovery of my weapon, when Captain W., and the other inmates of the tent were aroused, and the whole matter was explained, and set at rest in a moment. The Indians were chiefs of the tribe of Pawnee Loups,[90] who had come with their young men to shoot buffalo: they had paid an evening visit to the captain, and as an act of courtesy had been invited to sleep in the tent. I had not known of their arrival, nor did I even suspect that Indians were in our neighborhood, so could not control the alarm which their sudden appearance occasioned me. [90] For the Pawnee Loup (Wolf) Indians, consult Bradbury's _Travels_, in our volume v, p. 78, note 44.--ED. As I laid myself down, and drew my blanket around me, Captain W. touched me lightly with his finger, and pointed significantly to his own person, which I perceived,--by the fire light at the mouth of the tent,--to be garnished with his knife and pistols; I observed also that the muzzle of his rifle laid across his breast, and that the breech was firmly grasped by one of his legs. I took the hint; tightened my belt, drew my gun closely to my side, and composed myself to sleep. But the excitement of the scene through which I had just passed, effectually banished repose. I frequently directed my eyes towards the dark corner, and in the midst of the shapeless mass which occupied it, I could occasionally see the glittering orbs of our guest shining amidst the surrounding obscurity. At length fatigue conquered watchfulness, and I sank to sleep, dreaming of Indians, guns, daggers, and buffalo. Upon rising the next morning, all had left the tent: the men were busied in cooking their morning meal; kettles were hanging upon the rude cranes, great ribs of meat were roasting before the fires, and loading the air with fragrance, and my dreams and midnight reveries, and apprehensions of evil, fled upon the wings of the bright morning, and nought remained but a feeling of surprise that the untoward events of the night should have disturbed my equanimity. {49} While these thoughts were passing in my mind, my eye suddenly encountered the two Indians. They were squatting upon the ground near one of the fires, and appeared to be surveying, with the keenness of morning appetite, the fine "_hump ribs_" which were roasting before them. The moment they perceived me, I received from them a quick glance of recognition: the taller one,--my opponent of the previous night,--rose to his feet, walked towards me, and gave me his hand with great cordiality; then pointed into the tent, made the motions of raising a gun to his shoulder, taking aim, and in short repeated the entire pantomime with great fidelity, and no little humor, laughing the whole time as though he thought it a capital joke. Poor fellow! it was near proving a dear joke for him, and I almost trembled as I recollected the eager haste with which I sought to take the life of a fellow creature. The Indian evidently felt no ill will towards me, and as a proof of it, proposed an exchange of knives, to which I willingly acceded. He deposited mine,--which had my name engraved upon the handle,--in the sheath at his side, and walked away to his _hump ribs_ with the air of a man who is conscious of having done a good action. As he left me, one of our old trappers took occasion to say, that in consequence of this little act of savage courtesy, the Indian became my firm friend; and that if I ever met him again, I should be entitled to share his hospitality, or claim his protection. While the men were packing the horses, after breakfast, I was again engaged with my Indian friend. I took his bow and arrows in my hand, and remarked that the latter were smeared with blood throughout: upon my expressing surprise at this he told me, by signs, that they had passed through the body of the buffalo. I assumed a look of incredulity; the countenance of the savage brightened, and his peculiar and strange eyes actually flashed with eagerness, as he pointed to a dead antelope lying upon the ground about forty feet from us, and which one of {50} the guard had shot near the camp in the morning. The animal lay upon its side with the breast towards us: the bow was drawn slightly, without any apparent effort, and the arrow flew through the body of the antelope, and skimmed to a great distance over the plain. These Indians were the finest looking of any I have seen. Their persons were tall, straight, and finely formed; their noses slightly aqualine, and the whole countenance expressive of high and daring intrepidity. The face of the taller one was particularly admirable; and Gall or Spurzheim, at a single glance at his magnificent head, would have invested him with all the noblest qualities of the species.[91] I know not what a physiognomist would have said of his eyes, but they were certainly the most wonderful eyes I ever looked into; glittering and scintillating constantly, like the mirror-glasses in a lamp frame, and rolling and dancing in their orbits as though possessed of abstract volition. [91] Noted German phrenologists. Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828) was founder of the school of phrenology; his chief work was _Anatomie et Physiologie du système nerveux_ (1810-20). Kasper Spurzheim (1776-1832) was a disciple of Gall's, publishing _Physiognomical System of Drs. Gall and Spurzheim_ (1815). He died in Boston.--ED. The tribe to which these Indians belong, is a division of the great Pawnee nation. There are four of these divisions or tribes, known by the names of Grand Pawnees, Pawnee Loups, Pawnee Republicans, and Pawnee Picts. They are all independent of each other, governed exclusively by chiefs chosen from among their own people, and although they have always been on terms of intimacy and friendship, never intermarry, nor have other intercourse than that of trade, or a conjunction of their forces to attack the common enemy. In their dealings with the whites, they are arbitrary and overbearing, chaffering about the price of a horse, or a beaver skin, with true huckster-like eagerness and mendacity, and seizing with avidity every unfair advantage, which circumstances or their own craft may put in their power. The buffalo still continue immensely numerous in every direction around, and our men kill great numbers, so that we are in truth living upon the fat of the land, and better feeding need {51} no man wish. The savory buffalo hump has suffered no depreciation since the "man without a cross" vaunted of its good qualities to "the stranger;" and in this, as in many other particulars, we have realized the truth and fidelity of Cooper's admirable descriptions. _23d._--When we rose this morning, not a single buffalo, of the many thousands that yesterday strewed the plain, was to be seen. It seemed like magic. Where could they have gone? I asked myself this question again and again, but in vain. At length I applied to Richardson, who stated that they had gone to the bluffs, but for what reason he could not tell; he, however, had observed their tracks bearing towards the bluffs, and was certain that they would be found there. He and Sandsbury (another hunter) were then about starting on a hunt to supply the camp, and I concluded to accompany them; Mr. Lee, the missionary, also joined us, and we all rode off together. The party got under way about the same time, and proceeded along the bank of the river, while we struck off south to look for the buffalo. About one hour's brisk trotting carried us to the bluffs, and we entered amongst large conical hills of yellow clay, intermixed with strata of limestone, but without the slightest vegetation of any kind. On the plains which we had left, the grass was in great luxuriance, but here not a blade of it was to be seen, and yet, as Richardson had predicted, here were the buffalo. We had not ridden a mile before we entered upon a plain of sand of great extent, and observed ahead vast clouds of dust rising and circling in the air as though a tornado or a whirlwind were sweeping over the earth. "Ha!" said Richardson, "there they are; now let us take the wind of them, and you shall see some sport." We accordingly went around to leeward, and, upon approaching nearer, saw the huge animals rolling over and over in the sand with astonishing agility enveloping themselves by the exercise in a perfect atmosphere of dust; occasionally two of the bulls would {52} spring from the ground and attack each other with amazing address and fury, retreating for ten or twelve feet, and then rushing suddenly forward, and dashing their enormous fronts together with a shock that seemed annihilating. In these rencontres, one of the combatants was often thrown back upon his haunches, and tumbled sprawling upon the ground; in which case, the victor, with true prize-fighting generosity, refrained from persecuting his fallen adversary, contenting himself with a hearty resumption of his rolling fit, and kicking up the dust with more than his former vigor, as if to celebrate his victory. This appeared to be a good situation to approach and kill the buffalo, as, by reason of the plentiful distribution of the little clay hills, an opportunity would be afforded of successful concealment; we separated, therefore, each taking his own course. In a very few minutes I heard the crack of a rifle in the direction in which Richardson had gone, and immediately after saw the frightened animals flying from the spot. The sound reverberated among the hills, and as it died away the herd halted to watch and listen for its repetition. For myself, I strolled on for nearly an hour, leading my horse, and peering over every hill, in the hope of finding a buffalo within range, but not one could I see that was sufficiently near; and when I attempted the stealthy approach which I had seen Richardson practise with so much success, I felt compelled to acknowledge my utter insufficiency. I had determined to kill a buffalo, and as I had seen it several times done with so much apparent ease, I considered it a mere moonshine matter, and thought I could compass it without difficulty; but now I had attempted it, and was grievously mistaken in my estimate of the required skill. I had several times heard the guns of the hunters, and felt satisfied that we should not go to camp without meat, and was on the point of altering my course to join them, when, as I wound around the base of a little hill, I saw about twenty buffalo lying quietly on the ground within {53} thirty yards of me. Now was my time. I took my picket from my saddle, and fastened my horse to the ground as quietly as possible, but with hands that almost failed to do their office, from my excessive eagerness and trembling anxiety. When this was completed, I crawled around the hill again, almost suspending my breath from fear of alarming my intended victims, until I came again in full view of the unsuspecting herd. There were so many fine animals that I was at a loss which to select; those nearest me appeared small and poor, and I therefore settled my aim upon a huge bull on the outside. Just then I was attacked with the "_bull fever_" so dreadfully, that for several minutes I could not shoot. At length, however, I became firm and steady, and pulled my trigger at exactly the right instant. Up sprang the herd like lightning, and away they scoured, and my bull with them. I was vexed, angry, and discontented; I concluded that I could never kill a buffalo, and was about to mount my horse and ride off in despair, when I observed that one of the animals had stopped in the midst of his career. I rode towards him, and sure enough, there was my great bull trembling and swaying from side to side, and the clotted gore hanging like icicles from his nostrils. In a few minutes after, he fell heavily upon his side, and I dismounted and surveyed the unwieldy brute, as he panted and struggled in the death agony. When the first ebullition of my triumph had subsided, I perceived that my prize was so excessively lean as to be worth nothing, and while I was exerting my whole strength in a vain endeavor to raise the head from the ground for the purpose of removing the tongue, the two hunters joined me, and laughed heartily at my achievement. Like all inexperienced hunters, I had been particular to select the largest bull in the gang, supposing it to be the best, (and it proved, as usual, the poorest,) while more than a dozen fat cows were nearer me, either of which I might have killed with as little trouble. {54} As I had supposed, my companions had killed several animals, but they had taken the meat of only one, and we had, therefore, to be diligent, or the camp might suffer for provisions. It was now past mid-day; the weather was very warm, and the atmosphere was charged with minute particles of sand, which produced a dryness and stiffness of the mouth and tongue, that was exceedingly painful and distressing. Water was now the desideratum, but where was it to be found? The arid country in which we then were, produced none, and the Platte was twelve or fourteen miles from us, and no buffalo in that direction, so that we could not afford time for so trifling a matter. I found that Mr. Lee was suffering as much as myself, although he had not spoken of it, and I perceived that Richardson was masticating a leaden bullet, to excite the salivary glands. Soon afterwards, a bull was killed, and we all assembled around the carcass to assist in the manipulations. The animal was first raised from his side where he had lain, and supported upon his knees, with his hoofs turned under him; a longitudinal incision was then made from the nape, or anterior base of the hump, and continued backward to the loins, and a large portion of the skin from each side removed; these pieces of skin were placed upon the ground, with the under surface uppermost, and the _fleeces_, or masses of meat, taken from along the back, were laid upon them. These fleeces, from a large animal, will weigh, perhaps, a hundred pounds each, and comprise the whole of the hump on each side of the vertical processes, (commonly called the _hump ribs_,) which are attached to the vertebra. The fleeces are considered the choice parts of the buffalo, and here, where the game is so abundant, nothing else is taken, if we except the tongue, and an occasional marrow bone. This, it must be confessed, appears like a useless and unwarrantable waste of the goods of Providence; but when are men economical, unless compelled to be so by necessity? Here are {55} more than a thousand pounds of delicious and savory flesh, which would delight the eyes and gladden the heart of any epicure in Christendom, left neglected where it fell, to feed the ravenous maw of the wild prairie wolf, and minister to the excesses of the unclean birds of the wilderness. But I have seen worse waste and havoc than this, and I feel my indignation rise at the recollection. I have seen dozens of buffalo slaughtered merely for the tongues, or for practice with the rifle; and I have also lived to see the very perpetrators of these deeds, lean and lank with famine, when the meanest and most worthless parts of the poor animals they had so inhumanly slaughtered, would have been received and eaten with humble thankfulness. But to return to ourselves. We were all suffering from excessive thirst, and so intolerable had it at length become, that Mr. Lee and myself proposed a gallop over to the Platte river, in order to appease it; but Richardson advised us not to go, as he had just thought of a means of relieving us, which he immediately proceeded to put in practice. He tumbled our mangled buffalo over upon his side, and with his knife opened the body, so as to expose to view the great stomach, and still crawling and twisting entrails. The good missionary and myself stood gaping with astonishment, and no little loathing, as we saw our hunter plunge his knife into the distended paunch, from which gushed the green and gelatinous juices, and then insinuate his tin pan into the opening, and by depressing its edge, strain off the water which was mingled with its contents. Richardson always valued himself upon his politeness, and the cup was therefore first offered to Mr. Lee and myself, but it is almost needless to say that we declined the proffer, and our features probably expressed the strong disgust which we felt, for our companion laughed heartily before he applied the cup to his own mouth. He then drank it to the dregs, smacking his lips, and drawing a long breath after it, with the satisfaction of a man {56} taking his wine after dinner. Sansbury, the other hunter, was not slow in following the example set before him, and we, the audience, turned our backs upon the actors. Before we left the spot, however, Richardson induced me to taste the blood which was still fluid in the heart, and immediately as it touched my lips, my burning thirst, aggravated by hunger, (for I had eaten nothing that day,) got the better of my abhorrence; I plunged my head into the reeking ventricles, and drank until forced to stop for breath. I felt somewhat ashamed of assimilating myself so nearly to the brutes, and turned my ensanguined countenance towards the missionary who stood by, but I saw no approval there: the good man was evidently attempting to control his risibility, and so I smiled to put him in countenance; the roar could no longer be restrained, and the missionary laughed until the tears rolled down his cheeks. I did not think, until afterwards, of the horrible ghastliness which must have characterized my smile at that particular moment. When we arrived at the camp in the evening, and I enjoyed the luxury of a hearty draft of water, the effect upon my stomach was that of a powerful emetic: the blood was violently ejected without nausea, and I felt heartily glad to be rid of the disgusting encumbrance. I never drank blood from that day. {57} CHAPTER IV Change in the face of the country--Unpleasant visitation--its effects--North fork of the Platte--A day's journey over the hills--Wormwood bushes, and poor pasture--Marmots--Rattlesnake and gopher--Naturalist's success and sacrifices--A sand storm--Wild horses--Killing of a doe antelope--Bluffs of the Platte--The chimney--"Zip Koon," the young antelope--Birds--Feelings and cogitations of a naturalist--Arrival at Laramie's fork--Departure of two "free trappers" on a summer "hunt"--Black Hills--Rough travelling--Red butes--Sweet-water river, and Rock Independence--Avocets--Wind river mountains--Rocky Mountain sheep--Adventure of one of the men with a grizzly bear--Rattlesnakes--Toilsome march, and arrival at Sandy river--Suffering of the horses--Anticipated delights of the rendezvous. On the morning of the 24th of May we forded the Platte river, or rather its south fork, along which we had been travelling during the previous week.[92] On the northern side, we found the country totally different in its aspect. Instead of the extensive and apparently interminable green plains, the monotony of which had become so wearisome to the eye, here was a great sandy waste, without a single green thing to vary and enliven the dreary scene. It was a change, however, and we were therefore enjoying it, and remarking to each other how particularly agreeable it was, when we were suddenly assailed by vast swarms of most ferocious little black gnats; the whole atmosphere seemed crowded with them, and they dashed into our faces, assaulted our eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouths, as though they were determined to bar our passage through their territory. These little creatures were so exceedingly minute that, singly, they were scarcely visible; and yet their sting caused such excessive pain, that for {58} the rest of the day our men and horses were rendered almost frantic, the former bitterly imprecating, and the latter stamping, and kicking, and rolling in the sand, in tremendous, yet vain, efforts to rid themselves of their pertinacious little foes. It was rather amusing to see the whole company with their handkerchiefs, shirts, and coats, thrown over their heads, stemming the animated torrent, and to hear the greenhorns cursing their tormenters, the country, and themselves, for their foolhardiness in venturing on the journey. When we encamped in the evening, we built fires at the mouths of the tents, the smoke from which kept our enemies at a distance, and we passed a night of tolerable comfort, after a day of most peculiar misery. [92] There were two fords to the South Platte, both of which led toward the North Platte at Ash Creek. Wyeth's party took the lower ford, eight miles above the forks.--ED. The next morning I observed that the faces of all the men were more or less swollen, some of them very severely, and poor Captain W. was totally blind for two days afterwards. _25th._--We made a noon camp to-day on the north branch or fork of the river, and in the afternoon travelled along the bank of the stream.[93] In about an hour's march, we came to rocks, precipices, and cedar trees, and although we anticipated some difficulty and toil in the passage of the heights, we felt glad to exchange them for the vast and wearisome prairies we had left behind. Soon after we commenced the ascent, we struck into an Indian path very much worn, occasionally mounting over rugged masses of rock, and leaping wide fissures in the soil, and sometimes picking our way over the jutting crags, directly above the river. On the top of one of the stunted and broad spreading cedars, a bald eagle had built its enormous nest; and as we descended the mountain, we saw the callow young lying within it, while the anxious parents hovered over our heads, screaming their alarm. [93] See note 32 (Wyeth), _ante_, p. 52.--ED. In the evening we arrived upon the plain again; it was thickly covered with ragged and gnarled bushes of a species of wormwood, (_Artemesia_,) which perfumed the air, and at first was {59} rather agreeable. The soil was poor and sandy, and the straggling blades of grass which found their way to the surface were brown and withered. Here was a poor prospect for our horses; a sad contrast indeed to the rich and luxuriant prairies we had left. On the edges of the little streams, however, we found some tolerable pasture, and we frequently stopped during the day to bait our poor animals in these pleasant places. We observed here several species of small marmots, (_Arctomys_,) which burrowed in the sand, and were constantly skipping about the ground in front of our party. The short rattlesnake of the prairies was also abundant, and no doubt derived its chief subsistence from foraging among its playful little neighbors. Shortly before we halted this evening, being a considerable distance in advance of the caravan, I observed a dead gopher, (_Diplostoma_,)--a small animal about the size of a rat, with large external cheek pouches,--lying upon the ground; and near it a full grown rattlesnake, also dead. The gopher was yet warm and pliant, and had evidently been killed but a few minutes previously; the snake also gave evidence of very recent death, by a muscular twitching of the tail, which occurs in most serpents, soon after life is extinct. It was a matter of interest to me to ascertain the mode by which these animals were deprived of life. I therefore dismounted from my horse, and examined them carefully, but could perceive nothing to furnish even a clue. Neither of them had any external or perceptible wound. The snake had doubtless killed the quadruped, but what had killed the snake? There being no wound upon its body was sufficient proof that the gopher had not used his teeth, and in no other way could he cause death. I was unable to solve the problem to my satisfaction, so I pocketed the animal to prepare its skin, and rode on to the camp. The birds thus far have been very abundant. There is a considerable {60} variety, and many of them have not before been seen by naturalists. As to the plants, there seems to be no end to them, and Mr. N. is finding dozens of new species daily. In the other branches of science, our success has not been so great, partly on account of the rapidity and steadiness with which we travel, but chiefly from the difficulty, and almost impossibility, of carrying the subjects. Already we have cast away all our useless and superfluous clothing, and have been content to mortify our natural pride, to make room for our specimens. Such things as spare waistcoats, shaving boxes, soap, and stockings, have been ejected from our trunks, and we are content to dress, as we live, in a style of primitive simplicity. In fact, the whole appearance of our party is sufficiently primitive; many of the men are dressed entirely in deerskins, without a single article of civilized manufacture about them; the old trappers and hunters wear their hair flowing on their shoulders, and their large grizzled beards would scarcely disgrace a Bedouin of the desert. The next morning the whole camp was suddenly aroused by the falling of all the tents. A tremendous blast swept as from a funnel over the sandy plain, and in an instant precipitated our frail habitations like webs of gossamer. The men crawled out from under the ruins, rubbing their eyes, and, as usual, muttering imprecations against the country and all that therein was; it was unusually early for a start, but we did not choose to pitch the tents again, and to sleep without them here was next to impossible; so we took our breakfast in the open air, devouring our well sanded provisions as quickly as possible, and immediately took to the road. During the whole day a most terrific gale was blowing directly in our faces, clouds of sand were driving and hurtling by us, often with such violence as nearly to stop our progress; and when we halted in the evening, we could scarcely recognise each other's faces beneath their odious mask of dust and dirt. {61} There have been no buffalo upon the plain to-day, all the game that we have seen, being a few elk and antelopes; but these of course we did not attempt to kill, as our whole and undivided attention was required to assist our progress. _28th._--We fell in with a new species of game to-day;--a large band of wild horses. They were very shy, scarcely permitting us to approach within rifle distance, and yet they kept within sight of us for some hours. Several of us gave them chase, in the hope of at least being able to approach sufficiently near to examine them closely, but we might as well have pursued the wind; they scoured away from us with astonishing velocity, their long manes and tails standing out almost horizontally, as they sprang along before us. Occasionally they would pause in their career, turn and look at us as we approached them, and then, with a neigh that rang loud and high above the clattering of the hoofs, dart their light heels into the air, and fly from us as before. We soon abandoned this wild chase, and contented ourselves with admiring their sleek beauty at a distance. In the afternoon, I committed an act of cruelty and wantonness, which distressed and troubled me beyond measure, and which I have ever since recollected with sorrow and compunction. A beautiful doe antelope came running and bleating after us, as though she wished to overtake the party: she continued following us for nearly an hour, at times approaching within thirty or forty yards, and standing to gaze at us as we moved slowly on our way. I several times raised my gun to fire at her, but my better nature as often gained the ascendency, and I at last rode into the midst of the party to escape the temptation. Still the doe followed us, and I finally fell into the rear, but without intending it, and again looked at her as she trotted behind us. At that moment, my evil genius and love of sport triumphed; I slid down from my horse, aimed at the poor antelope, and shot a ball through her side. Under other circumstances, {62} there would have been no cruelty in this; but here, where better meat was so abundant, and the camp was so plentifully supplied, it was unfeeling, heartless murder. It was under the influence of this too late impression, that I approached my poor victim. She was writhing in agony upon the ground, and exerting herself in vain efforts to draw her mangled body farther from her destroyer; and as I stood over her, and saw her cast her large, soft, black eyes upon me with an expression of the most touching sadness, while the great tears rolled over her face, I felt myself the meanest and most abhorrent thing in creation. But now a finishing blow would be mercy to her, and I threw my arm around her neck, averted my face, and drove my long knife through her bosom to the heart. I did not trust myself to look upon her afterwards, but mounted my horse, and galloped off to the party, with feelings such as I hope never to experience again. For several days the poor antelope haunted me, and I shall never forget its last look of pain and upbraiding. The bluffs on the southern shore of the Platte, are, at this point, exceedingly rugged, and often quite picturesque; the formation appears to be simple clay, intermixed, occasionally, with a stratum of limestone, and one part of the bluff bears a striking and almost startling resemblance to a dilapidated feudal castle. There is also a kind of obelisk, standing at a considerable distance from the bluffs, on a wide plain, towering to the height of about two hundred feet, and tapering to a small point at the top. This pillar is known to the hunters and trappers who traverse these regions, by the name of the "_chimney_." Here we diverged from the usual course, leaving the bank of the river, and entered a large and deep ravine between the enormous bluffs.[94] [94] These are called "Scott's Bluffs;" so named from an unfortunate trader, who perished here from disease and hunger, many years ago. He was deserted by his companions; and the year following, his crumbling bones were found in this spot.--TOWNSEND. _Comment by Ed._ See this story in detail in Irving, _Rocky Mountains_, i, pp. 45, 46. {63} The road was very uneven and difficult, winding from amongst innumerable mounds six to eight feet in height, the space between them frequently so narrow as scarcely to admit our horses, and some of the men rode for upwards of a mile kneeling upon their saddles. These mounds were of hard yellow clay, without a particle of rock of any kind, and along their bases, and in the narrow passages, flowers of every hue were growing. It was a most enchanting sight; even the men noticed it, and more than one of our matter-of-fact people exclaimed, _beautiful, beautiful_! Mr. N. was here in his glory. He rode on ahead of the company, and cleared the passages with a trembling and eager hand, looking anxiously back at the approaching party, as though he feared it would come ere he had finished, and tread his lovely prizes under foot. The distance through the ravine is about three miles. We then crossed several beautiful grassy knolls, and descending to the plain, struck the Platte again, and travelled along its bank. Here one of our men caught a young antelope, which he brought to the camp upon his saddle. It was a beautiful and most delicate little creature, and in a few days became so tame as to remain with the camp without being tied, and to drink, from a tin cup, the milk which our good missionaries spared from their own scanty meals. The men christened it "_Zip Coon_," and it soon became familiar with its name, running to them when called, and exhibiting many evidences of affection and attachment. It became a great favorite with every one. A little pannier of willows was made for it, which was packed on the back of a mule, and when the camp moved in the mornings, little _Zip_ ran to his station beside his long-eared hack, bleating with impatience until some one came to assist him in mounting. On the afternoon of the 31st, we came to green trees and bushes again, and the sight of them was more cheering than can {64} be conceived, except by persons who have travelled for weeks without beholding a green thing, save the grass under their feet. We encamped in the evening in a beautiful grove of cottonwood trees, along the edge of which ran the Platte, dotted as usual with numerous islands. In the morning, Mr. N. and myself were up before the dawn, strolling through the umbrageous forest, inhaling the fresh, bracing air, and making the echoes ring with the report of our gun, as the lovely tenants of the grove flew by dozens before us. I think I never before saw so great a variety of birds within the same space. All were beautiful, and many of them quite new to me; and after we had spent an hour amongst them, and my game bag was teeming with its precious freight, I was still loath to leave the place, lest I should not have procured specimens of the whole. None but a naturalist can appreciate a naturalist's feelings--his delight amounting to ecstacy--when a specimen such as he has never before seen, meets his eye, and the sorrow and grief which he feels when he is compelled to tear himself from a spot abounding with all that he has anxiously and unremittingly sought for. This was peculiarly my case upon this occasion. We had been long travelling over a sterile and barren tract, where the lovely denizens of the forest could not exist, and I had been daily scanning the great extent of the desert, for some little _oasis_ such as I had now found; here was my wish at length gratified, and yet the caravan would not halt for me; I must turn my back upon the _El Dorado_ of my fond anticipations, and hurry forward over the dreary wilderness which lay beyond. What valuable and highly interesting accessions to science might not be made by a party, composed exclusively of naturalists, on a journey through this rich and unexplored region! The botanist, the geologist, the mamalogist, the ornithologist, and {65} the entomologist, would find a rich and almost inexhaustible field for the prosecution of their inquiries, and the result of such an expedition would be to add most materially to our knowledge of the wealth and resources of our country, to furnish us with new and important facts relative to its structure, organization, and natural productions, and to complete the fine native collections in our already extensive museums. On the 1st of June, we arrived at Laramie's fork of the Platte, and crossed it without much difficulty.[95] [95] Wyeth relates in his journal that he found thirteen of Sublette's men building a fort at this place. Such was the origin of the famous Fort Laramie, first known as Fort William, then Fort John, and in 1846, removed a mile farther up the stream, and re-christened Fort Laramie. It became a government post in 1849.--ED. Here two of our "free trappers" left us for a summer "hunt" in the rugged Black Hills. These men joined our party at Independence, and have been travelling to this point with us for the benefit of our escort. Trading companies usually encourage these free trappers to join them, both for the strength which they add to the band, and that they may have the benefit of their generally good hunting qualities. Thus are both parties accommodated, and no obligation is felt on either side. I confess I felt somewhat sad when I reflected upon the possible fate of the two adventurous men who had left us in the midst of a savage wilderness, to depend entirely upon their unassisted strength and hardihood, to procure the means of subsistence and repel the aggression of the Indian. Their expedition will be fraught with stirring scenes, with peril and with strange adventure; but they think not of this, and they care not for it. They are only two of the many scores who annually subject themselves to the same difficulties and dangers; they see their friends return unscathed, and laden with rich and valuable furs, and if one or two should have perished by Indian rapacity, or fallen victims to their own daring and fool-hardy spirit, they mourn the loss of their brethren who have not returned, and are only the more anxious to pursue the same track in order to avenge them. On the 2d, we struck a range of high and stony mountains, {66} called the Black Hills. The general aspect here, was dreary and forbidding; the soil was intersected by deep and craggy fissures; rock jutted over rock, and precipice frowned over precipice in frightful, and apparently endless, succession. Soon after we commenced the ascent, we experienced a change in the temperature of the air; and towards mid-day, when we had arrived near the summit, our large blanket _capeaus_,--which in the morning had been discarded as uncomfortable,--were drawn tightly around us, and every man was shivering in his saddle as though he had an ague fit. The soil here is of a deep reddish or ferruginous hue, intermixed with green sand; and on the heights, pebbles of chalcedony and agate are abundant. We crossed, in the afternoon, the last and steepest spur of this chain, winding around rough and stony precipices, and along the extreme verges of tremendous ravines, so dangerous looking that we were compelled to dismount and lead our horses. On descending to the plain, we saw again the north fork of the Platte, and were glad of an opportunity of encamping. Our march to-day has been an unusually wearisome one, and many of our loose horses are bruised and lame. _7th._--The country has now become more level, but the prairie is barren and inhospitable looking to the last degree. The twisted, aromatic wormwood covers and extracts the strength from the burnt and arid soil. The grass is dry and brown, and our horses are suffering extremely for want of food. Occasionally, however, a spot of lovely green appears, and here we allow our poor jaded friends to halt, and roam without their riders, and their satisfaction and pleasure is expressed by many a joyous neigh, and many a heart-felt roll upon the verdant sward. In the afternoon, we arrived at the "Red Butes," two or three brown-red cliffs, about two thousand feet in height.[96] This is a remarkable point in the mountain route. One of these cliffs terminates a long, lofty, wooded ridge, which has bounded our {67} southern view for the past two days. The summits of the cliffs are covered with patches of snow, and the contrast of the dazzling white and brick-red produces a very pretty effect. [96] The trail continued along the North Platte until it reached Red Buttes, described by Townsend. They form the western end of what is known as Caspar range, in Natrona County, Wyoming.--ED. The next day, we left the Platte river, and crossed a wide, sandy desert, dry and desolate; and on the 9th, encamped at noon on the banks of the Sweet-water. Here we found a large rounded mass of granite, about fifty feet high, called Rock Independence.[97] Like the Red Butes, this rock is also a rather remarkable point in the route. On its smooth, perpendicular sides, we see carved the names of most of the mountain _bourgeois_,[98] with the dates of their arrival. We observed those of the two Sublette's, Captains Bonneville, Serre, Fontinelle, &c.,[99] and after leaving our own, and taking a hearty, but hasty lunch in the shade of a rock, and a draught from the pure and limpid stream at its base, we pursued our journey. [97] For Sweetwater River and Independence Rock, see notes 33, 34 (Wyeth), _ante_, p. 53.--ED. [98] In fur-trade parlance the _bourgeois_ was the leader or commander of an expedition or a trading post. See J. Long's _Voyages_ in our volume ii, p. 75, note 35.--ED. [99] For Captain Bonneville, see Gregg's _Commerce of the Prairies_, in our volume xx, p. 267, note 167. Michael Lamie Cerré belonged to a French family of note in the annals of the West. His grandfather, Gabriel, was an early merchant at Kaskaskia, and acquired a fortune in the fur-trade. Later he removed to St. Louis, where one of his daughters married Auguste Chouteau. Pascal Cerré, father of Michael, was also a fur-trader of note. The son had been employed in the Santa Fé trade, and was persuaded to act as Bonneville's business agent in his expeditions of 1832-35. For Lucien Fontenelle, see our volume xiv, p. 275, note 196.--ED. The river is here very narrow, often only twelve or fifteen feet wide, shallow, and winding so much, that during our march, to-day, we crossed it several times, in order to pursue a straight course. The banks of the stream are clothed with the most luxuriant pasture, and our invaluable dumb friends appear perfectly happy. We saw here great numbers of a beautiful brown and white avocet, (the _Recurvirostra americana_ of ornithologists.) These fine birds were so tame as to allow a very near approach, running slowly before our party, and scarcely taking wing at the report of a gun. They frequent the marshy plains in the neighborhood of the river, and breed here. On the 10th, about ninety miles to the west, we had a striking view of the Wind-river mountains. They are almost wholly of a dazzling whiteness, being covered thickly with snow, and the lofty peaks seem to blend themselves with the dark clouds which hang over them.[100] This chain gives rise to the sources of the Missouri, the Colorado of the west, and Lewis' river of the {68} Columbia, and is the highest land on the continent of North America. [100] The Wind River Mountains, in Fremont County, Wyoming, trend nearly north from South Pass to the Yellowstone. They are covered with snow during all the year, and were credited by the early explorers with being the highest chain of the Rockies. In 1843 Frémont ascended the peak named for him, which has an altitude of 13,790 feet.--ED. We saw, to-day, a small flock of the hairy sheep of the Rocky Mountains, the big horn of the hunters, (_Ovis montana_.) We exerted ourselves in vain to shoot them. They darted from us, and hid themselves amongst the inaccessible cliffs, so that none but a chamois hunter might pretend to reach them. Richardson says that he has frequently killed them, but he admits that it is dangerous and wearisome sport; and when good beef is to be found upon the plains, men are not anxious to risk their necks for a meal of mutton. In the afternoon, one of our men had a somewhat perilous adventure with a grizzly bear. He saw the animal crouching his huge frame in some willows which skirted the river, and approaching on horseback to within twenty yards, fired upon him. The bear was only slightly wounded by the shot, and with a fierce growl of angry malignity, rushed from his cover, and gave chase. The horse happened to be a slow one, and for the distance of half a mile, the race was hard contested; the bear frequently approaching so near the terrified animal as to snap at his heels, while the equally terrified rider,--who had lost his hat at the start,--used whip and spur with the most frantic diligence, frequently looking behind, from an influence which he could not resist, at his rugged and determined foe, and shrieking in an agony of fear, "shoot him, shoot him?" The man, who was one of the greenhorns, happened to be about a mile behind the main body, either from the indolence of his horse, or his own carelessness; but as he approached the party in his desperate flight, and his lugubrious cries reached the ears of the men in front, about a dozen of them rode to his assistance, and soon succeeded in diverting the attention of his pertinacious foe. After he had received the contents of all the guns, he fell, and was soon dispatched. The man rode in among his fellows, pale and {69} haggard from overwrought feelings, and was probably effectually cured of a propensity for meddling with grizzly bears. A small striped rattlesnake is abundant on these plains:--it is a different species from our common one at home, but is equally malignant and venomous. The horses are often startled by them, and dart aside with intuitive fear when their note of warning is sounded in the path. _12th._--The plains of the Sweet-water at this point,--latitude 43° 6', longitude 110° 30',--are covered with little salt pools, the edges of which are encrusted with alkaline efflorescences, looking like borders of snow. The rocks in the vicinity are a loose, fine-grained sandstone, the strata nearly horizontal, and no organic remains have been discovered. We have still a view of the lofty Wind-river mountains on our right hand, and they have for some days served as a guide to determine our course. On the plain, we passed several huge rhomboidal masses of rock, standing alone, and looking, at a little distance, like houses with chimneys. The freaks of nature, as they are called, have often astonished us since we have been journeying in the wilderness. We have seen, modeled without art, representations of almost all the most stupendous works of man; and how do the loftiest and most perfect creations of his wisdom and ingenuity sink into insignificance by the comparison. Noble castles, with turrets, embrazures, and loop holes, with the drawbridge in front, and the moat surrounding it: behind, the humble cottages of the subservient peasantry, and all the varied concomitants of such a scene, are so strikingly evident to the view, that it requires but little stretch of fancy to imagine that a race of antediluvian giants may here have swayed their iron sceptre, and left behind the crumbling palace and the tower, to tell of their departed glory. On the 14th, we left the Sweet-water, and proceeded in a south-westerly direction to Sandy river, a branch of the Colorado of the west.[101] We arrived here at about 9 o'clock in the evening, {70} after a hard and most toilsome march for both man and beast. We found no water on the route, and not a single blade of grass for our horses. Many of the poor animals stopped before night, and resolutely refused to proceed; and others with the remarkable sagacity, peculiar to them, left the track in defiance of those who drove and guided them, sought and found water, and spent the night in its vicinity. The band of missionaries, with their horses and horned cattle, halted by the way, and only about half the men of the party accompanied us to our encampment on Sandy. We were thus scattered along the route for several miles; and if a predatory band of Indians had then found us, we should have fallen an easy prey. [101] Sandy River is a northern affluent of the Green, rising just beyond South Pass and flowing southwest into the main stream, through Fremont and Sweetwater counties, Wyoming. The Little Sandy was the first stream beyond the divide, but eight miles from the pass. The trail followed the Big Sandy almost its entire length.--ED. The next morning by about 10 o'clock all our men and horses had joined us, and, in spite of the fatigues of the previous day, we were all tolerably refreshed, and in good spirits. Towards noon we got under way, and proceeded seven or eight miles down the river to a spot where we found a little poor pasture for our horses. Here we remained until the next morning, to recruit. I found here a beautiful new species of mocking bird,[102] which I shot and prepared. Birds are, however, generally scarce, and there is here very little of interest in any department of natural history. We are also beginning to suffer somewhat for food: buffalo are rarely seen, the antelopes are unusually shy, and the life of our little favorite, "Zip," has been several times menaced. I believe, however, that his keeper, from sheer fondness, would witness much greater suffering in the camp, ere he would consent to the sacrifice of his playful little friend. [102] This is the mountain mocking bird, (_Orpheus montanus_), described in the Appendix [not included in our reprint].--TOWNSEND. _16th._--We observed a hoar frost and some thin ice, this morning at sunrise; but at mid-day, the thermometer stood at 82°. We halted at noon, after making about fifteen miles, and dined. Saw large herds of buffalo on the plains of Sandy river, {71} grazing in every direction on the short and dry grass. Domestic cattle would certainly starve here, and yet the bison exists, and even becomes fat; a striking instance of the wonderful adaptation of Providence. _17th._--We had yesterday a cold rain, the first which has fallen in our track for several weeks. Our vicinity to the high mountains of Wind river will perhaps account for it. To-day at noon, the mercury stood at 92° in the shade, but there being a strong breeze, we did not suffer from heat. Our course was still down the Sandy river, and we are now looking forward with no little pleasure to a rest of two or more weeks at the mountain rendezvous on the Colorado. Here we expect to meet all the mountain companies who left the States last spring, and also the trappers who come in from various parts, with the furs collected by them during the previous year. All will be mirth and jollity, no doubt, but the grand desideratum with some of us, is to allow our horses to rest their tired limbs and exhausted strength on the rich and verdant plains of the Siskadee. At our camp this evening, our poor horses were compelled to fast as heretofore, there being absolutely nothing for them to eat. Some of the famished animals attempted to allay their insatiable cravings, by cropping the dry and bitter tops of the wormwood with which the plain is strewed. We look forward to brighter days for them ere long; soon shall they sport in the green pastures, and rest and plenty shall compensate for their toils and privations. {72} CHAPTER V Arrival at the Colorado--The author in difficulty--Loss of a journal, and advice to travelling tyros--The rendezvous--Motley groups infesting it--Rum drinking, swearing, and other accomplishments in vogue--Description of the camp--Trout and grayling--Abundance of game--Cock of the plains--Departure from the rendezvous--An accession to the band--A renegado Blackfoot chief--Captain Stewart and Mr. Ashworth--Muddy creek--More carousing--Abundance of trout--Bear river--A hard day's march--Volcanic country--White clay pits and "Beer spring"--Rare birds and common birds--Mr. Thomas McKay--Rough and arid country--Meeting with Captain Bonneville's party--Captains Stewart and Wyeth's visit to the lodge of the "bald chief"--Blackfoot river--Adventure with a grizzly bear--Death of "Zip Koon"--Young grizzly bears and buffalo calves--A Blackfoot Indian--Dangerous experiment of McKay--the three "Tetons"--Large trout--Departure of our Indian companions--Shoshoné river--Site of "Fort Hall"--Preparations for a buffalo hunt. _June 19th._--We arrived to-day on the Green river, Siskadee[103] or Colorado of the west,--a beautiful, clear, deep, and rapid stream, which receives the waters of Sandy,--and encamped upon its eastern bank. After making a hasty meal, as it was yet early in the day, I sallied forth with my gun, and roamed about the neighborhood for several hours in quest of birds. On returning, towards evening, I found that the whole company had left the spot, the place being occupied only by a few hungry wolves, ravens, and magpies, the invariable gleaners of a forsaken camp. [103] For this river see note 38 (Wyeth), _ante_, p. 60. The term "Siskadee" signified Prairie Hen River.--ED. I could not at first understand the meaning of all I saw. I thought the desertion strange, and was preparing to make the best of it, when a quick and joyful neigh sounded in the bushes near me, and I recognized the voice of my favorite horse. I found him carefully tied, with the saddle, &c., lying near him. I had not the least idea where the company had gone, but I knew that on the rich, alluvial banks of the river, the trail of the horses would be distinct enough, and I determined to place my dependence, in a great measure, upon the sagacity of my excellent dumb friend, satisfied that he would take me the right course. I accordingly mounted, and off we went at a speed which I found some difficulty in restraining. About half an hour's hard riding brought us to the edge of a large branch of the stream, and I observed that the horses had here entered. I noticed other tracks lower down, but supposed them to have been made by the wanderings of the loose animals. Here then seemed the proper fording place, and with some little hesitation, I allowed my nag to enter the water; we had proceeded but a few yards, however, when down he went off a steep bank, far beyond his depth. This was somewhat disconcerting; but there was but one thing to be done, so I turned my horse's head against the swift current, and we went snorting and blowing for the opposite shore. We arrived at length, though in a sadly wet and damaged state, and in a few minutes after, came in view of the new camp. Captain W. explained to me that he had heard of good pasture here, and had concluded to move immediately, on account of the horses; he informed me, also, that he had crossed the stream about fifty yards below the point where I had entered, and had found an excellent ford. I did not regret my adventure, however, and was congratulating myself upon my good fortune in arriving so seasonably, when, upon looking to my saddle, I discovered that my coat was missing. I had felt uncomfortably warm when I mounted, and had removed the coat and attached it carelessly to the saddle; the rapidity of the current had disengaged it, and it was lost forever. The coat itself was not of much consequence after the hard service it had seen, but it contained the {74} second volume of my journal, a pocket compass, and other articles of essential value to me. I would gladly have relinquished every thing the garment held, if I could have recovered the book; and although I returned to the river, and searched assiduously until night, and offered large rewards to the men, it could not be found. The journal commenced with our arrival at the Black Hills, and contained some observations upon the natural productions of the country, which to me, at least, were of some importance; as well as descriptions of several new species of birds, and notes regarding their habits, &c., which cannot be replaced. I would advise all tourists, who journey by land, never to carry their itineraries upon their persons; or if they do, let them be attached by a cord to the neck, and worn under the clothing. A convenient and safe plan would probably be, to have the book deposited in a close pocket of leather, made on the inner side of the saddle-wing; it would thus be always at hand, and if a deep stream were to be passed the trouble of drying the leaves would not be a very serious matter. In consequence of remaining several hours in wet clothes, after being heated by exercise, I rose the next morning with so much pain, and stiffness of the joints, that I could scarcely move. But notwithstanding this, I was compelled to mount my horse with the others, and to ride steadily and rapidly for eight hours. I suffered intensely during this ride; every step of my horse seemed to increase it, and induced constant sickness and retching. When we halted, I was so completely exhausted, as to require assistance in dismounting, and shortly after, sank into a state of insensibility from which I did not recover for several hours. Then a violent fever commenced, alternating for two whole days, with sickness and pain. I think I never was more unwell in my {75} life; and if I had been at home, lying on a feather bed instead of the cold ground, I should probably have fancied myself an invalid for weeks.[104] [104] I am indebted to the kindness of my companion and friend, Professor Nuttall, for supplying, in a great measure, the deficiency occasioned by the loss of my journal.--TOWNSEND. _22d._--We are now lying at the rendezvous. W. Sublette, Captains Serre, Fitzpatrick, and other leaders, with their companies, are encamped about a mile from us, on the same plain, and our own camp is crowded with a heterogeneous assemblage of visitors.[105] The principal of these are Indians, of the Nez Percé, Banneck and Shoshoné tribes, who come with the furs and peltries which they have been collecting at the risk of their lives during the past winter and spring, to trade for ammunition, trinkets, and "fire water."[106] There is, in addition to these, a great variety of personages amongst us; most of them calling themselves white men, French-Canadians, half-breeds, &c., their color nearly as dark, and their manners wholly as wild, as the Indians with whom they constantly associate. These people, with their obstreperous mirth, their whooping, and howling, and quarrelling, added to the mounted Indians, who are constantly dashing into and through our camp, yelling like fiends, the barking and baying of savage wolf-dogs, and the incessant cracking of rifles and carbines, render our camp a perfect bedlam. A more unpleasant situation for an invalid could scarcely be conceived. I am confined closely to the tent with illness, and am compelled all day to listen to the hiccoughing jargon of drunken traders, the _sacré_ and _foutre_ of Frenchmen run wild, and the swearing and screaming of our own men, who are scarcely less savage than the rest, being heated by the detestable liquor which circulates freely among them. [105] The rendezvous for 1834 changed sites several times; see Wyeth's _Oregon Expeditions_, p. 225. The Rocky Mountain men were first met on Green River; the twentieth, they moved over to Ham's Fork, which was on the twenty-seventh again ascended a short distance for forage. Thomas Fitzpatrick was one of the partners in the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, whose daring exploits and explorations of the mountains filled the thoughts of the men of his day. He was known to the Indians as "Broken Hand," from having shattered one of those members. He joined Ashley on his early expeditions, and was in the Arikara campaign of 1823; but his chief operations were between 1830 and 1836. In 1831, he went out on the Santa Fé trail, barely escaping when Jedidiah S. Smith was killed. From 1832 to 1835, he conducted the trade at the mountain rendezvous, once (1832) being lost some days in the mountains. In 1833 he was robbed by the Crows, probably at the instigation of a rival fur company. Upon the decline of the fur-trade, he continued to dwell on the frontier, acting as guide for government exploring expeditions, being commissioned captain, and later major. In 1850 he was agent for all the upper region of the Platte, and of great use in Indian negotiations.--ED. [106] For the Shoshoni, see Bradbury's _Travels_, in our volume v, p. 227, note 123; for the Nez Percés, Franchère's _Narrative_, vi, p. 340, note 145. The Bannock are a Shoshonean tribe, whose habitat was midway between that of the Shoshoni proper and the Comanche, about the upper Lewis River and Great Salt Lake. They had the reputation of being fierce and treacherous, and next to the Blackfeet, were dreaded by white travelers. Lying athwart both the California and Oregon trails, they occasionally were formidable, although usually on trading terms with the trappers. They are now concentrated on the Fort Hall and Lemhi reservations in Idaho, intermingled with Shoshoni.--ED. It is very much to be regretted that at times like the present, there should be a positive necessity to allow the men as much rum as they can drink, but this course has been sanctioned and {76} practised by all leaders of parties who have hitherto visited these regions, and reform cannot be thought of now. The principal liquor in use here is alcohol diluted with water. It is sold to the men at _three dollars_ the pint! Tobacco, of very inferior quality, such as could be purchased in Philadelphia at about ten cents per pound, here brings two dollars! and everything else in proportion. There is no coin in circulation, and these articles are therefore paid for by the independent mountain-men, in beaver skins, buffalo robes, &c.; and those who are hired to the companies, have them charged against their wages. I was somewhat amused to-day by observing one of our newly hired men enter the tent, and order, with the air of a man who knew he would not be refused, _twenty dollars' worth of rum, and ten dollars worth of sugar_, to treat two of his companions who were about leaving the rendezvous! _30th._--Our camp here is a most lovely one in every respect, and as several days have elapsed since we came, and I am convalescent, I can roam about the country a little and enjoy it. The pasture is rich and very abundant, and it does our hearts good to witness the satisfaction and comfort of our poor jaded horses. Our tents are pitched in a pretty little valley or indentation in the plain, surrounded on all sides by low bluffs of yellow clay. Near us flows the clear deep water of the Siskadee, and beyond, on every side, is a wide and level prairie, interrupted only by some gigantic peaks of mountains and conical _butes_ in the distance. The river, here, contains a great number of large trout, some grayling, and a small narrow-mouthed white fish, resembling a herring. They are all frequently taken with the hook, and, the trout particularly, afford excellent sport to the lovers of angling. Old Izaac Walton would be in his glory here, and the precautionary measures which he so strongly recommends in approaching a trout stream, he would not need to practise, as the fish is not {77} shy, and bites quickly and eagerly at a grasshopper or minnow. Buffalo, antelopes, and elk are abundant in the vicinity, and we are therefore living well. We have seen also another kind of game, a beautiful bird, the size of a half grown turkey, called the cock of the plains, (_Tetrao urophasianus_.) We first met with this noble bird on the plains, about two days' journey east of Green river, in flocks, or _packs_, of fifteen or twenty, and so exceedingly tame as to allow an approach to within a few feet, running before our horses like domestic fowls, and not unfrequently hopping under their bellies, while the men amused themselves by striking out their feathers with their riding whips. When we first saw them, the temptation to shoot was irresistible; the guns were cracking all around us, and the poor grouse falling in every direction; but what was our disappointment, when, upon roasting them nicely before the fire, we found them so strong and bitter as not to be eatable. From this time the cock of the plains was allowed to roam free and unmolested, and as he has failed to please our palates, we are content to admire the beauty of his plumage, and the grace and spirit of his attitudes. _July 2d._--We bade adieu to the rendezvous this morning; packed up our moveables, and journied along the bank of the river. Our horses are very much recruited by the long rest and good pasture which they have enjoyed, and, like their masters, are in excellent spirits. During our stay at the rendezvous, many of us looked anxiously for letters from our families, which we expected by the later caravans, but we were all disappointed. For myself, I have received but one since I left my home, but this has been my solace through many a long and dreary journey. Many a time, while pacing my solitary round as night-guard in the wilderness, have I {78} sat myself down, and stirring up the dying embers of the camp fire, taken the precious little memento from my bosom, undrawn the string of the leathern sack which contained it, and poured over the dear characters, till my eyes would swim with sweet, but sad recollections, then kissing the inanimate paper, return it to its sanctuary, tighten up my pistol belt, shoulder my gun, and with a quivering voice, swelling the "_all's well_" upon the night breeze, resume my slow and noiseless tramp around my sleeping companions. Many of our men have left us, and joined the returning companies, but we have had an accession to our party of about thirty Indians; Flat-heads, Nez Percés, &c., with their wives, children, and dogs. Without these our camp would be small; they will probably travel with us until we arrive on Snake river, and pass over the country where the most danger is to be apprehended from their enemies, the Black-feet. Some of the women in this party, particularly those of the Nez Percé nation, are rather handsome, and their persons are decked off in truly savage taste. Their dresses of deer skin are profusely ornamented with beads and porcupine quills; huge strings of beads are hung around their necks, and their saddles are garnished with dozens of little hawk's bells, which jingle and make music for them as they travel along. Several of these women have little children tied to their backs, sewed up papoose fashion, only the head being seen; as they jolt along the road, we not unfrequently hear their voices ringing loud and shrill above the music of the bells. Other little fellows who have ceased to require the maternal contributions, are tied securely on other horses, and all their care seems to be to sleep, which they do most pertinaciously in spite of jolting, noise, and clamor. There is among this party, a Blackfoot chief, a renegado from his tribe, who sometime since killed the principal chief of his nation, and was {79} in consequence under the necessity of absconding. He has now joined the party of his hereditary foes, and is prepared to fight against his own people and kindred. He is a fine, warlike looking fellow, and although he takes part in all the war-songs, and sham-battles of his adopted brothers, and whoops, and howls as loud as the best of them, yet it is plain to perceive that he is distrusted and disliked. All men, whether, civilized or savage, honorable, or otherwise, detest and scorn a traitor! We were joined at the rendezvous by a Captain Stewart, an English gentleman of noble family, who is travelling for amusement, and in search of adventure. He has already been a year in the mountains, and is now desirous of visiting the lower country, from which he may probably take passage to England by sea. Another Englishman, a young man, named Ashworth, also attached himself to our party, for the same purpose.[107] [107] Sir William Drummond Stuart, Bart., of Perthshire, Scotland, who was rumored to have served under Wellington, came to the United States (1833) to hunt big game in the Rockies. He sustained his share of the caravan's work, mounting guard and serving in the skirmishes against the Indians, and was highly respected by the mountain men. He went as far as the Columbia, on this expedition. See also Elliott Coues, _Forty Years a Fur-Trader on the Upper Missouri_ (New York, 1898), index. Townsend is, so far as we are aware, the only contemporary traveller who mentions Ashworth in a published work.--ED. Our course lay along the bank of Ham's fork, through a hilly and stony, but not a rocky country; the willow flourished on the margin of the stream, and occasionally the eye was relieved, on scanning the plain, by a pretty clump of cottonwood or poplar trees. The cock of the plains is very abundant here, and our pretty little summer yellow bird, (_Sylvia æstiva_,) one of our most common birds at home, is our constant companion. How natural sounds his little monotonous stave, and how it seems to carry us back to the dear scenes which we have exchanged for the wild and pathless wilderness! _4th._--We left Ham's fork this morning,--now diminished to a little purling brook,--and passed across the hills in a north-westerly direction for about twenty miles, when we struck Muddy creek.[108] This is a branch of Bear river, which empties into the Salt lake, or "lake Bonneville," as it has been lately named, for what reason I know not. Our camp here, is a beautiful and most delightful one. A large plain, like a meadow, of rich, waving {80} grass, with a lovely little stream running through the midst, high hills, capped with shapely cedars on two sides, and on the others an immense plain, with snow clad mountains in the distance. This being a memorable day, the liquor kegs were opened, and the men allowed an abundance. We, therefore, soon had a renewal of the coarse and brutal scenes of the rendezvous. Some of the bacchanals called for a volley in honor of the day, and in obedience to the order, some twenty or thirty "happy" ones reeled into line with their muzzles directed to every point of the compass, and when the word "fire" was given, we who were not "happy" had to lie flat upon the ground to avoid the bullets which were careering through the camp. [108] Ham's Fork is a western affluent of Black Fork of Green River, in south-western Wyoming. It was an important stream on the Oregon Trail, which later bent southward from this point to Fort Bridger, going by Muddy Creek, another affluent of the Green. The Muddy Creek of Townsend, however, is a different stream, flowing into Bear River; it is not now known by this name. The Oregon Short Line railway, which follows Ham's Fork and crosses to the Bear, approximating Townsend's route, follows the valley of Rock Creek to the latter river.--ED. In this little stream, the trout are more abundant than we have yet seen them. One of our _sober_ men took, this afternoon, upwards of thirty pounds. These fish would probably average fifteen or sixteen inches in length, and weigh three-quarters of a pound; occasionally, however, a much larger one is seen. _5th._--We travelled about twenty miles this day, over a country abounding in lofty hills, and early in the afternoon arrived on Bear river, and encamped. This is a fine stream of about one hundred and fifty feet in width, with a moveable sandy bottom. The grass is dry and poor, the willow abounds along the banks, and at a distance marks the course of the stream, which meanders through an alluvial plain of four to six miles in width. At the distance of about one hundred miles from this point, the Bear river enters the Salt lake, a large body of salt water, without outlet, in which there is so large an island as to afford streams of fresh water for goats and other animals living upon it.[109] [109] Bear River rises in the Uintah Mountains of northeastern Utah, and flows north and slightly northwest along the borders of Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho; until in Idaho, it takes a sudden bend southwest and south, and after a course of more than a hundred miles, enters Great Salt Lake. The trail struck this river near the southeastern corner of Idaho, following its course northwest to its bend--almost the identical route of the present Oregon Short Line railway. Great Salt Lake had probably been seen by white men before the explorations of Ashley's party; but no authentic account of its discovery has been found before that of James Bridger, who in the winter of 1824-25 followed Bear River to its outlet. Finding the water salt he concluded it to be an arm of the ocean; but the following spring some of the party explored its coast line in skin-boats, finding no outlet. Captain Bonneville gave it his own name, but this is applied only to the geological area occupied by the lake in the quaternary era.--ED. On the next day we crossed the river, which we immediately left, to avoid a great bend, and passed over some lofty ranges of hills and through rugged and stony valleys between them; the wind was blowing a gale right ahead, and clouds of dust were flying in our faces, so that at the end of the day, our countenances {81} were disguised as they were on the plains of the Platte. The march to-day has been a most laborious and fatiguing one both for man and beast; we have travelled steadily from morning till night, not stopping at noon; our poor horses' feet are becoming very much worn and sore, and when at length we struck Bear river again and encamped, the wearied animals refused to eat, stretching themselves upon the ground and falling asleep from very exhaustion. Trout, grayling, and a kind of char are very abundant here--the first very large. The next day we travelled but twelve miles, it being impossible to urge our worn-out horses farther. Near our camp this evening we found some large gooseberries and currants, and made a hearty meal upon them. They were to us peculiarly delicious. We have lately been living entirely upon dried buffalo, without vegetables or bread; even this is now failing us, and we are upon short allowance. Game is very scarce, our hunters cannot find any, and our Indians have killed but two buffalo for several days. Of this small stock they would not spare us a mouthful, so it is probable we shall soon be hungry. The alluvial plain here presents many unequivocal evidences of volcanic action, being thickly covered with masses of lava, and high walls and regular columns of basalt appear in many places. The surrounding country is composed, as usual, of high hills and narrow, stony valleys between them; the hills are thickly covered with a growth of small cedars, but on the plain, nothing flourishes but the everlasting wormwood, or _sage_ as it is here called. Our encampment on the 8th, was near what are called the "White-clay pits," still on Bear river. The soil is soft chalk, white and tenacious; and in the vicinity are several springs of strong supercarbonated water, which bubble up with all the activity of artificial fountains. The taste was very agreeable {82} and refreshing, resembling Saratoga water, but not so saline.[110] The whole plain to the hills, is covered with little mounds formed of calcareous sinter, having depressions on their summits, from which once issued streams of water. The extent of these eruptions, at some former period, must have been very great. At about half a mile distant, is an eruptive thermal spring of the temperature of 90°, and near this is an opening in the earth from which a stream of gas issues without water. [110] This is what is now known as Soda Springs, at the upper bend of Bear River. Irving describes it (_Rocky Mountains_, ii, p. 31) as an area of half a mile, with a dazzling surface of white clay, on which the springs have built up their mounds It is, in miniature, what is found on a large scale in Yellowstone Park. One geyser exists in the form that Townsend describes. See Palmer's account, in our volume xxx.--ED. In a thicket of common red cedars, near our camp, I found, and procured several specimens of two beautiful and rare birds which I had never before seen--the Lewis' woodpecker and Clark's crow, (_Picus torquatus_ and _Corvus columbianus_.) We remained the whole of the following day in camp to recruit our horses, and a good opportunity was thus afforded me of inspecting all the curiosities of this wonderful region, and of procuring some rare and valuable specimens of birds. Three of our hunters sallied forth in pursuit of several buffalo whose tracks had been observed by some of the men, and we were overjoyed to see them return in the evening loaded with the meat and marrow bones of two animals which they had killed. We saw here the whooping crane, and white pelican, numerous; and in the small streams near the bases of the hills, the common canvass-back duck, shoveller, and black duck, (_Anas obscura_,) were feeding their young. We were this evening visited by Mr. Thomas McKay,[111] an Indian trader of some note in the mountains. He is a step-son of Dr. McLaughlin, the chief factor at Fort Vancouver, on the {83} Columbia, and the leader of a party of Canadians and Indians, now on a hunt in the vicinity. This party is at present in our rear, and Mr. McKay has come ahead in order to join us, and keep us company until we reach Portneuf river, where we intend building a fort. [111] This is the son of Mr. Alexander McKay, who was massacred by the Indians of the N. W. Coast on board the ship "Tonquin," an account of which is given in Irving's "Astoria." I have often heard McKay speak of the tragical fate of his parent, and with the bitter animosity and love of revenge inherited from his Indian mother, I have heard him declare that he will yet be known on the coast as the avenger of blood.--TOWNSEND. _Comment by Ed._ For Alexander McKay, consult Franchère's _Narrative_ in our volume vi, p. 186, note 9. Thomas McKay was born at Sault Ste. Marie, and when a lad (1811) came with his father to Oregon. After the failure of the Astoria enterprise, he entered the North West Company, and fought under their banner in the battle on Red River in 1816. Returning to Oregon, he became an important agent of the Hudson's Bay Company, under his step-father's management, usually in charge of the Snake River brigade. He was brave, dashing, a sure shot, and the idol of the half-breeds. He had a farm in Multnomah valley, and became a United States citizen, raising a company of militia which did active service in the Cayuse War of 1848. _10th._--We were moving early this morning: our horses were very much recruited, and seemed as eager as their masters to travel on. It is astonishing how soon a horse revives, and overcomes the lassitude consequent upon fatigue, when he is allowed a day's rest upon tolerable pasture. Towards noon, however, after encountering the rough lava-strewn plain for a few hours, they became sufficiently sobered to desist from all unnecessary curvetting and prancing, and settled down into a very matter-of-fact trudge, better suited to the country and to the work which they have yet to do. Soon after we left, we crossed one of the high and stony hills by which our late camp is surrounded; then making a gentle descent, we came to a beautiful and very fertile plain. This is, however, very different from the general face of the country; in a short time, after passing over the rich prairie, the same dry aridity and depauperation prevailed, which is almost universal west of the mountains. On the wide plain, we observed large sunken spots, some of them of great extent, surrounded by walls of lava, indicating the existence, at some very ancient date, of active craters. These eruptions have probably been antediluvian, or have existed at a period long anterior to the present order of creation. On the side of the hills are high walls of lava and basaltic dykes, and many large and dark caves are formed by the juxtaposition of the enormous masses. Early in the afternoon we passed a large party of white men, encamped on the lava plain near one of the small streams. Horses were tethered all around, and men were lolling about playing games of cards, and loitering through the camp, as {84} though at a loss for employment. We soon ascertained it to be Captain Bonneville's company resting after the fatigues of a long march.[112] Mr. Wyeth and Captain Stewart visited the lodge of the "bald chief," and our party proceeded on its march. The difficulties of the route seemed to increase as we progressed, until at length we found ourselves wedged in among huge blocks of lava and columns of basalt, and were forced, most reluctantly, to retrace our steps for several miles, over the impediments which we had hoped we were leaving forever behind us. We had nearly reached Bonneville's camp again, when Captains Wyeth and Stewart joined us, and we struck into another path which proved more tolerable. Wyeth gave us a rather amusing account of his visit to the worthy captain. He and Captain Stewart were received very kindly by the veteran, and every delicacy that the lodge afforded was brought forth to do them honor. Among the rest, was some _metheglen_ or diluted alcohol sweetened with honey, which the good host had concocted; this dainty beverage was set before them, and the thirsty guests were not slow in taking advantage of the invitation so obligingly given. Draught after draught of the precious liquor disappeared down the throats of the visitors, until the anxious, but still complaisant captain, began to grow uneasy. [112] Compare Irving's account of this meeting, in _Rocky Mountains_, ii, pp. 175-182.--ED. "I beg you will help yourselves, gentlemen," said the host, with a smile which he intended to express the utmost urbanity, but which, in spite of himself, had a certain ghastliness about it. "Thank you, sir, we will do so freely," replied the two worthies, and away went the metheglen as before. Cup after cup was drained, until the hollow sound of the keg indicated that its contents were nearly exhausted, when the company rose, and thanking the kind host for his noble entertainment, were bowed out of the tent with all the polite formality which the accomplished captain knows so well how to assume. Towards evening, we struck Blackfoot river, a small, sluggish, {85} stagnant stream, heading with the waters of a rapid rivulet passed yesterday, which empties into the Bear river.[113] This stream passes in a north-westerly direction through a valley of about six miles in width, covered with quagmires, through which we had great difficulty in making our way. As we approached our encampment, near a small grove of willows, on the margin of the river, a tremendous grizzly bear rushed out upon us. Our horses ran wildly in every direction, snorting with terror, and became nearly unmanageable. Several balls were instantly fired into him, but they only seemed to increase his fury. After spending a moment in rending each wound, (their invariable practice,) he selected the person who happened to be nearest, and darted after him, but before he proceeded far, he was sure to be stopped again by a ball from another quarter. In this way he was driven about amongst us for perhaps fifteen minutes, at times so near some of the horses, that he received several severe kicks from them. One of the pack horses was fairly fastened upon by the terrific claws of the brute, and in the terrified animal's efforts to escape the dreaded gripe, the pack and saddle were broken to pieces and disengaged. One of our mules also lent him a kick in the head while pursuing it up an adjacent hill, which sent him rolling to the bottom. Here he was finally brought to a stand. [113] Blackfoot River is an eastern affluent of Lewis (or Snake) River, next above Portneuf. Its general course is northwest, entering the main river at Blackfoot, Idaho. Wyeth passed only along its upper reaches.--ED. The poor animal was so completely surrounded by enemies that he became bewildered. He raised himself upon his hind feet, standing almost erect, his mouth partly open, and from his protruding tongue the blood fell fast in drops. While in this position, he received about six more balls, each of which made him reel. At last, as in complete desperation, he dashed into the water, and swam several yards with astonishing strength and agility, the guns cracking at him constantly; but he was not to proceed far. Just then, Richardson, who had been absent, rode up, and fixing his deadly aim upon him, fired a ball into the back {86} of his head, which killed him instantly. The strength of four men was required to drag the ferocious brute from the water, and upon examining his body, he was found completely riddled; there did not appear to be four inches of his shaggy person, from the hips upward, that had not received a ball. There must have been at least thirty shots made at him, and probably few missed him; yet such was his tenacity of life, that I have no doubt he would have succeeded in crossing the river, but for the last shot in the brain. He would probably weigh, at the least, six hundred pounds, and was about the height of an ordinary steer. The spread of the foot, laterally, was ten inches, and the claws measured seven inches in length. This animal was remarkably lean; when in good condition, he would, doubtless, much exceed in weight the estimate I have given. Richardson, and two other hunters, in company, killed two in the course of the afternoon, and saw several others. This evening, our pet antelope, poor little "Zip Koon," met with a serious accident. The mule on which he rode, got her feet fastened in some lava blocks, and, in the struggle to extricate herself, fell violently on the pointed fragments. One of the delicate legs of our favorite was broken, and he was otherwise so bruised and hurt, that, from sheer mercy, we ordered him killed. We had hoped to be able to take him to the fort which we intend building on the Portneuf river, where he could have been comfortably cared for. This is the only pet we have had in the camp, which continued with us for more than a few days. We have sometimes taken young grizzly bears, but these little fellows, even when not larger than puppies, are so cross and snappish, that it is dangerous to handle them, and we could never become attached to any animal so ungentle, and therefore young "_Ephraim_," (to give him his mountain cognomen,) generally meets with but little mercy from us when his evil genius throws him in our way. The young buffalo calf is also very {87} often taken, and if removed from the mother, and out of sight of the herd, he will follow the camp as steadily as a dog; but his propensity for keeping close to the horse's heels often gets him into trouble, as he meets with more kicks than caresses from them. He is considered an interloper, and treated accordingly. The bull calf of a month or two old, is sometimes rather difficult to manage; he shows no inclination to follow the camp like the younger ones, and requires to be dragged along by main force. At such times, he watches for a good opportunity, and before his captor is aware of what is going on, he receives a _butt_ from the clumsy head of the intractable little brute, which, in most cases, lays him sprawling upon the ground. I had an adventure of this sort a few days before we arrived at the rendezvous. I captured a large bull calf, and with considerable difficulty, managed to drag him into the camp, by means of a rope noosed around his neck, and made fast to the high pommel of my saddle. Here I attached him firmly by a cord to a stake driven into the ground, and considered him secure. In a few minutes, however, he succeeded in breaking his fastenings, and away he scoured out of the camp. I lost no time in giving chase, and although I fell flat into a ditch, and afforded no little amusement to our people thereby, I soon overtook him, and was about seizing the stranded rope, which was still around his neck, when, to my surprise, the little animal showed fight; he came at me with all his force, and dashing his head into my breast, bore me to the ground in a twinkling. I, however, finally succeeded in recapturing him, and led and pushed him back into the camp; but I could make nothing of him; his stubbornness would neither yield to severity or kindness, and the next morning I loosed him and let him go. _11th._--On ascending a hill this morning, Captain Wyeth, who was at the head of the company, suddenly espied an Indian stealing cautiously along the summit, and evidently endeavoring {88} to conceal himself. Captain W. directed the attention of McKay to the crouching figure, who, the moment he caught a glimpse of him, exclaimed, in tones of joyful astonishment, "a Blackfoot, by ----!" and clapping spurs to his horse, tore up the hill with the most frantic eagerness, with his rifle poised in his hand ready for a shot. The Indian disappeared over the hill like a lightning flash, and in another second, McKay was also out of sight, and we could hear the rapid clatter of his horse's hoofs, in hot pursuit after the fugitive. Several of the men, with myself, followed after at a rapid gait, with, however, a very different object. Mine was simply curiosity, mingled with some anxiety, lest the wily Indian should lead our impetuous friend into an ambushment, and his life thus fall a sacrifice to his temerity. When we arrived at the hill-top, McKay was gone, but we saw the track of his horse passing down the side of it, and we traced him into a dense thicket about a quarter of a mile distant. Several of our hardy fellows entered this thicket, and beat about for some time in various directions, but nothing could they see either of McKay or the Indian. In the mean time, the party passed on, and my apprehensions were fast settling into a certainty that our bold companion had found the death he had so rashly courted, when I was inexpressibly relieved by hearing the crackling of the bushes near, which was immediately followed by the appearance of the missing man himself. He was in an excessively bad humor, and grumbled audibly about the "Blackfoot rascal getting off in that cowardly fashion," without at all heeding the congratulations which I was showering upon him for his almost miraculous escape. He was evidently not aware of having been peculiarly exposed, and was regretting, like the hunter who loses his game by a sudden shift of wind, that his human prey had escaped him. The appearance of this Indian is a proof that others are lurking near; and if the party happens to be large, they may give us {89} some trouble. We are now in a part of the country which is almost constantly infested by the Blackfeet; we have seen for several mornings past, the tracks of moccasins around our camp, and not unfrequently the prints of unshod horses, so that we know we are narrowly watched; and the slumbering of one of the guard, or the slightest appearance of carelessness in the conduct of the camp, may bring the savages whooping upon us like demons. Our encampment this evening is on one of the head branches of the Blackfoot river, from which we can see the three remarkable conic summits known by the name of the "_Three Butes_" or "_Tetons_." Near these flows the Portneuf, or south branch of Snake or Lewis' river.[114] Here is to be another place of rest, and we look forward to it with pleasure both on our own account and on that of our wearied horses. [114] Townsend probably refers to the Three Buttes of the Lewis River plain, about forty miles west of their camp. The Three Tetons--a magnificent group of snow-clad mountains--were sixty miles northeast, in the present Teton Forest Reservation, Wyoming. Portneuf is an eastern affluent of Lewis River, and a well-known halting pace on the Oregon Trail.--ED. _12th._--In the afternoon we made a camp on Ross's creek, a small branch of Snake river.[115] The pasture is better than we have had for two weeks, and the stream contains an abundance of excellent trout. Some of these are enormous, and very fine eating. They bite eagerly at a grasshopper or minnow, but the largest fish are shy, and the sportsman requires to be carefully concealed in order to take them. We have here none of the fine tackle, jointed rods, reels, and silkworm gut of the accomplished city sportsman; we have only a piece of common cord, and a hook seized on with half-hitches, with a willow rod cut on the banks of the stream; but with this rough equipment we take as many trout as we wish, and who could do more, even with all the curious contrivances of old Izaac Walton or Christopher North? [115] Ross's Creek is in reality an affluent of Portneuf. The usual route from Soda Springs, on Bear River, was by way of the Portneuf; the route by Blackfoot and Ross's Creek was somewhat shorter, although rougher.--ED. The band of Indians which kept company with us from the rendezvous, left us yesterday, and fell back to join Captain Bonneville's party, which is travelling on behind. We do not regret their absence; for although they added strength to our band, and {90} would have been useful in case of an attack from Blackfeet, yet they added very materially to our cares, and gave us some trouble by their noise, confusion, and singing at night. On the 14th, we travelled but about six miles, when a halt was called, and we pitched our tents upon the banks of the noble Shoshoné or Snake river. It seems now, as though we were really nearing the western extremity of our vast continent. We are now on a stream which pours its waters directly into the Columbia, and we can form some idea of the great Oregon river by the beauty and magnitude of its tributary. Soon after we stopped, Captain W., Richardson, and two others left us to seek for a suitable spot for building a fort, and in the evening they returned with the information that an excellent and convenient place had been pitched upon, about five miles from our present encampment. On their route, they killed a buffalo, which they left at the site of the fort, suitably protected from wolves, &c. This is very pleasing intelligence to us, as our stock of dried meat is almost exhausted, and for several days past we have been depending almost exclusively upon fish. The next morning we moved early, and soon arrived at our destined camp. This is a fine large plain on the south side of the Portneuf, with an abundance of excellent grass and rich soil. The opposite side of the river is thickly covered with large timber of the cottonwood and willow, with a dense undergrowth of the same, intermixed with service-berry and currant bushes.[116] [116] This statement concerning the site of Fort Hall does not agree with that of later writers; possibly the fort was removed later, for Frémont in 1844 describes it as being nine miles above the mouth of Portneuf, on the narrow plain between that and Lewis River. The fort was named for Henry Hall, senior member of the firm furnishing Wyeth's financial backing. Wyeth sold this fort to the Hudson's Bay Company in 1836. The present Fort Hall, a government post, is forty miles northeast of the old fort, on Lincoln Creek, an affluent of Blackfoot River. It was built in May, 1870, and there, since that time, a garrison has been maintained.--ED. Most of the men were immediately put to work, felling trees, making horse-pens, and preparing the various requisite materials for the building, while others were ordered to get themselves in readiness for a start on the back track, in order to make a hunt, and procure meat for the camp. To this party I have attached myself, and all my leisure time to-day is employed in preparing for it. Our number will be twelve, and each man will lead a mule with {91} a pack-saddle, in order to bring in the meat that we may kill. Richardson is the principal of this party, and Mr. Ashworth has also consented to join us, so that I hope we shall have an agreeable trip. There will be but little hard work to perform; our men are mostly of the best, and no rum or cards are allowed. {92} CHAPTER VI Departure of the hunting camp--A false alarm--Blackfeet Indians--their ferocity--Requisites of a mountain-man--Good fare, and good appetites--An experiment--Grizzly bears--Visit of a Nez Percé Indian--Adventure with a grizzly bear--Hunter's anecdotes--Homeward bound--Accident from gunpowder--Arrival at "Fort Hall"--A salute--Emaciation of some of the party from low diet--Mr. McKay's company--Buffalo lodges--Progress of the building--Effects of judicious training--Indian worship--A "Camp Meeting"--Mr. Jason Lee, a favorite--A fatal accident and a burial. _July 16th._--Our little hunting party of twelve men, rode out of the encampment this morning, at a brisk trot, which gait was continued until we arrived at our late encampment on Ross' creek, having gone about thirty miles. Here we came to a halt, and made a hearty meal on a buffalo which we had just killed. While we were eating, a little Welshman, whom we had stationed outside our camp to watch the horses, came running to us out of breath, crying in a terrified falsetto, "_Indians, Indians!_" In a moment every man was on his feet, and his gun in his hand; the horses were instantly surrounded, by Richardson's direction, and driven into the bushes, and we were preparing ourselves for the coming struggle, when our hunter, peering out of the thick copse to mark the approach of the enemy, burst at once into a loud laugh, and muttering something about a Welsh coward, stepped boldly from his place of concealment, and told us to follow him. When we had done so, we perceived the band approaching steadily, and it seemed warily, along the path directly in our front. Richardson said something to them in an unknown tongue, which immediately brought several of the strangers towards {93} us at full gallop. One of these was a Canadian, as his peculiar physiognomy, scarlet sash, and hat ribbons of gaudy colors, clearly proved, and the two who accompanied him, were Indians. These people greeted us with great cordiality, the more so, perhaps, as they had supposed, on seeing the smoke from our fire, that we were a band of Blackfeet, and that, therefore, there was no alternative for them but to fight. While we were conversing, the whole party, of about thirty, came up, and it needed but a glance at the motley group of tawdrily dressed hybrid boys, and blanketted Indians, to convince us that this was McKay's company travelling on to join him at Fort Hall. They inquired anxiously about their leader, and seemed pleased on being informed that he was so near; the prospect of a few days' rest at the fort, and the _regale_ by which their arrival was sure to be commemorated, acted upon the spirits of the mercurial young half-breeds, like the potent liquor which they expected soon to quaff in company with the kindred souls who were waiting to receive them. They all seemed hungry, and none required a second invitation to join us at our half finished meal. The huge masses of savoury fleece meat, hump-ribs, and side-ribs disappeared, and were polished with wonderful dispatch; the Canadians ate like half famished wolves, and the sombre Indians, although slower and more sedate in their movements, were very little behind their companions in the agreeable process of mastication. The next day we rode thirty-four miles, and encamped on a pretty little stream, fringed with willows, running through the midst of a large plain. Within a few miles, we saw a small herd of buffalo, and six of our company left the camp for a hunt. In an hour two of them returned, bringing the meat of one animal. We all commenced work immediately, cutting it in thin slices, and hanging it on the bushes to dry. By sundown, our work was finished, and soon after dark, the remaining hunters {94} came in, bringing the best parts of three more. This will give us abundance of work for to-morrow, when the hunters will go out again. Richardson and Salisbury mention having seen several Blackfeet Indians to-day, who, on observing them, ran rapidly away, and, as usual, concealed themselves in the bushes. We are now certain that our worst enemies are around us, and that they are only waiting for a favorable time and opportunity to make an attack. They are not here for nothing, and have probably been dogging us, and reconnoitering our outposts, so that the greatest caution and watchfulness will be required to prevent a surprise. We are but a small company, and there may be at this very moment hundreds within hearing of our voices. The Blackfoot is a sworn and determined foe to all white men, and he has often been heard to declare that he would rather hang the scalp of a "pale face" to his girdle, than kill a buffalo to prevent his starving. The hostility of this dreaded tribe is, and has for years been, proverbial. They are, perhaps, the only Indians who do not fear the power, and who refuse to acknowledge the superiority of the white man; and though so often beaten in conflicts with them, even by their own mode of warfare, and generally with numbers vastly inferior, their indomitable courage and perseverance still urges them on to renewed attempts; and if a single scalp is taken, it is considered equal to a great victory, and is hailed as a presage of future and more extensive triumphs. It must be acknowledged, however, that this determined hostility does not originate solely in savage malignity, or an abstract thirst for the blood of white men; it is fomented and kept alive from year to year by incessant provocatives on the part of white hunters, trappers, and traders, who are at best but intruders on the rightful domains of the red man of the wilderness. {95} Many a night have I sat at the camp-fire, and listened to the recital of bloody and ferocious scenes, in which the narrators were the actors, and the poor Indians the victims, and I have felt my blood tingle with shame, and boil with indignation, to hear the diabolical acts applauded by those for whose amusement they were related. Many a precious villain, and merciless marauder, was made by these midnight tales of rapine, murder, and robbery; many a stripling, in whose tender mind the seeds of virtue and honesty had never germinated, burned for an opportunity of loading his pack-horse with the beaver skins of some solitary Blackfoot trapper, who was to be murdered and despoiled of the property he had acquired by weeks, and perhaps months, of toil and danger. Acts of this kind are by no means unfrequent, and the subjects of this sort of atrocity are not always the poor and despised Indians: white men themselves often fall by the hands of their companions, when by good fortune and industry they have succeeded in loading their horses with fur. The fortunate trapper is treacherously murdered by one who has eaten from the same dish and drank from the same cup, and the homicide returns triumphantly to his camp with his ill gotten property. If his companion be inquired for, the answer is that some days ago they parted company, and he will probably soon join them. The poor man never returns--no one goes to search for him--he is soon forgotten, or is only remembered by one more steadfast than the rest, who seizes with avidity the first opportunity which is afforded, of murdering an unoffending Indian in revenge for the death of his friend. On the 20th, we moved our camp to a spot about twelve miles distant, where Richardson, with two other hunters, stopped yesterday and spent the night. They had killed several buffalo here, and were busily engaged in preparing the meat when we joined them. They gave us a meal of excellent cow's flesh, and {96} I thought I never had eaten anything so delicious. Hitherto we have had only the bulls which are at this season poor and rather unsavory, but now we are feasting upon the _best food in the world_. It is true we have nothing but meat and good cold water, but this is all we desire: we have excellent appetites, no dyspepsia, clear heads, sharp ears, and high spirits, and what more does a man require to make him happy? We rise in the morning with the sun, stir up our fires, and _roast_ our breakfast, eating usually from one to two pounds of meat at a morning meal. At ten o'clock we lunch, dine at two, sup at five, and lunch at eight, and during the night-watch commonly provide ourselves with two or three "hump-ribs" and a marrow bone, to furnish employment and keep the drowsy god at a distance. Our present camp is a beautiful one. A rich and open plain of luxuriant grass, dotted with buffalo in all directions, a high picturesque hill in front, and a lovely stream of cold mountain water flowing at our feet. On the borders of this stream, as usual, is a dense belt of willows, and under the shade of these we sit and work by day, and sleep soundly at night. Our meat is now dried upon scaffolds constructed of old timber which we find in great abundance upon the neighboring hill. We keep a fire going constantly, and when the meat is sufficiently dried, it is piled on the ground, preparatory to being baled. _21st._--The buffalo appear even more numerous than when we came, and much less suspicious than common. The bulls frequently pass slowly along within a hundred yards of us, and toss their shaggy and frightful looking heads as though to warn us against attacking or approaching them. Towards evening, to-day, I walked out with my gun, in the direction of one of these prowling monsters, and the ground in his vicinity being covered densely with bushes, I determined to {97} approach as near him as possible, in order to try the efficacy of a ball planted directly in the centre of the forehead. I had heard of this experiment having been tried without success and I wished to ascertain the truth for myself. "Taking the wind" of the animal, as it is called, (that is, keeping to leeward, so that my approach could not be perceived by communicating a taint to the air,) I crawled on my hands and knees with the utmost caution towards my victim. The unwieldy brute was quietly and unsuspiciously cropping the herbage, and I had arrived to within feet of him, when a sudden flashing of the eye, and an impatient motion, told me that I was observed. He raised his enormous head, and looked around him, and so truly terrible and grand did he appear, that I must confess, (in your ear,) I felt awed, almost frightened, at the task I had undertaken. But I had gone too far to retreat; so, raising my gun, I took deliberate aim at the bushy centre of the forehead, and fired. The monster shook his head, pawed up the earth with his hoofs, and making a sudden spring, accompanied by a terrific roar, turned to make his escape. At that instant, the ball from the second barrel penetrated his vitals, and he measured his huge length upon the ground. In a few seconds he was dead. Upon examining the head, and cutting away the enormous mass of matted hair and skin which enveloped the skull, my large bullet of twenty to the pound, was found completely flattened against the bone, having carried with it, through the interposing integument, a considerable portion of the coarse hair, but without producing the smallest fracture. I was satisfied; and taking the tongue, (the hunter's perquisite,) I returned to my companions. This evening the roaring of the bulls in the _gang_ near us is terrific, and these sounds are mingled with the howling of large packs of wolves, which regularly attend upon them, and the hoarse screaming of hundreds of ravens flying over head. The dreaded {98} grizzly bear is also quite common in this neighborhood; two have just been seen in some bushes near, and they visit our camp almost every night, attracted by the piles of meat which are heaped all around us. The first intimation we have of his approach is a great _grunt_ or _snort_, unlike any sound I ever heard, but much more querulous than fierce; then we hear the scraping and tramping of his huge feet, and the snuffing of his nostrils, as the savory scent of the meat is wafted to them. He approaches nearer and nearer, with a stealthy and fearful pace, but just as he is about to accomplish the object of his visit, he suddenly stops short; the snuffing is repeated at long and trembling intervals, and if the slightest motion is then made by one of the party, away goes "_Ephraim_," like a cowardly burglar as he is, and we hear no more of him that night. On the 23d a Nez Percé Indian, belonging to Mr. McKay's company visited us. He is one of several hundred who have been sent from the fort on the same errand as ourselves. This was a middle aged man, with a countenance in which shrewdness or cunning, and complaisance, appeared singularly blended. But his person was a perfect wonder, and would have served admirably for the study of a sculptor. The form was perfection itself. The lower limbs were entirely naked, and the upper part of the person was only covered by a short checked shirt. His blanket lay by his side as he sat with us, and was used only while moving. I could not but admire the ease with which the man squatted on his haunches immediately as he alighted, and the position both of body and limbs was one that, probably, no white man unaccustomed to it, could have endured for many minutes together. The attitude, and indeed the whole figure was graceful and easy in the extreme; and on criticising his person, one was forcibly reminded of the Apollo Belvidere of Canova. His only weapons were a short bow and half a dozen arrows, a scalping knife and tomahawk; with these, however, weak and inefficient {99} as they seemed, he had done good service, every arrow being smeared with blood to the feathers. He told Richardson that he and his three or four companions had killed about sixty buffalo, and that now, having meat enough, they intended to return to their camp to-morrow. This afternoon I observed a large flock of wild geese passing over; and upon watching them, perceived that they alighted about a mile and a half from us, where I knew there was a lake. Concluding that a little change of diet might be agreeable, I sallied forth with my gun across the plain in quest of the birds. I soon arrived at a thick copse of willow and currant bushes, which skirted the water, and was about entering, when I heard a sort of angry growl or grunt directly before me--and instantly after, saw a grizzly bear of the largest kind erect himself upon his hind feet within a dozen yards of me, his savage eyes glaring with horrible malignity, his mouth wide open, and his tremendous paws raised as though ready to descend upon me. For a moment, I thought my hour had come, and that I was fated to die an inglorious death away from my friends and my kindred; but after waiting a moment in agonizing suspense, and the bear showing no inclination to advance, my lagging courage returned, and cocking both barrels of my gun, and presenting it as steadily as my nerves would allow, full at the shaggy breast of the creature, I retreated slowly backwards. Bruin evidently had no notion of braving gunpowder, but I did not know whether, like a dog, if the enemy retreated he would not yet give me a chase; so when I had placed about a hundred yards between us, I wheeled about and flew, rather than ran, across the plain towards the camp. Several times during this run for life, (as I considered it,) did I fancy that I heard the bear at my heels; and not daring to look over my shoulder to ascertain the fact, I only increased my speed, until the camp was nearly gained, when, from sheer exhaustion I relaxed my efforts, fell flat upon the ground, and {100} looked behind me. The whole space between me and the copse was untenanted, and I was forced to acknowledge, with a feeling strongly allied to shame, that my fears alone had represented the bear in chase of me. When I arrived in camp, and told my break-neck adventure to the men, our young companion, Mr. Ashworth, expressed a wish to go and kill the bear, and requested the loan of my double-barrelled gun for this purpose. This I at first peremptorily refused, and the men, several of whom were experienced hunters, joined me in urging him not to attempt the rash adventure. At length, however, finding him determined on going, and that rather than remain, he would trust to his own single gun, I was finally induced to offer him mine, with a request, (which I had hoped would check his daring spirit,) that he would leave the weapon in a situation where I could readily find it; for after he had made one shot, he would never use a gun again. He seemed to heed our caution and advice but little, and, with a dogged and determined air, took the way across the plain to the bushes, which we could see in the distance. I watched him for some time, until I saw him enter them, and then, with a sigh that one so young and talented should be lost from amongst us, and a regret that we did not forcibly prevent his going, I sat myself down, distressed and melancholy. We all listened anxiously to hear the report of the gun; but no sound reaching our ears, we began to hope that he had failed in finding the animal, and in about fifteen minutes, to my inexpressible relief, we saw him emerge from the copse, and bend his steps slowly towards us. When he came in, he seemed disappointed, and somewhat angry. He said he had searched the bushes in every direction, and although he had found numerous footprints, no bear was to be seen. It is probable that when I commenced my retreat in one direction, bruin made off in the other, and that although he was willing to dispute the ground with me, and prevent my {101} passing his lair, he was equally willing to back out of an engagement in which his fears suggested that he might come off the loser. This evening, as we sat around the camp fire, cozily wrapped in our blankets, some of our old hunters became garrulous, and we had several good "_yarns_," as a sailor would say. One told of his having been shot by a Blackfoot Indian, who was disguised in the skin of an elk, and exhibited, with some little pride, a great cicatrix which disfigured his neck. Another gave us an interesting account of an attack made by the Comanche Indians upon a party of Santa-Fee traders, to which he had been attached. The white men, as is usual in general engagements with Indians, gained a signal victory, not, however, without the loss of several of their best hunters; and the old man who told the story,--"uncle John," as he was usually called,--shed tears at the recollection of the death of his friends; and during that part of his narrative, was several times so much affected as to be unable to speak.[117] [117] I have repeatedly observed these exhibitions of feeling in some of our people upon particular occasions, and I have been pleased with them, as they seemed to furnish an evidence, that amid all the mental sterility, and absence of moral rectitude, which is so deplorably prevalent, there yet lingers some kindliness of heart, some sentiments which are not wholly depraved.--TOWNSEND. The best story, however, was one told by Richardson, of a meeting he once had with three Blackfeet Indians. He had been out alone hunting buffalo, and towards the end of the day was returning to the camp with his meat, when he heard the clattering of hoofs in the rear, and, upon looking back, observed three Indians in hot pursuit of him. He immediately _discharged his cargo_ of meat to lighten his horse, and then urged the animal to his utmost speed, in an attempt to distance his pursuers. He soon discovered, however, that the enemy was rapidly gaining upon him, and that in a few {102} minutes more, he would be completely at their mercy, when he hit upon an expedient, as singular as it was bold and courageous. Drawing his long scalping knife from the sheath at his side, he plunged the keen weapon through his horse's neck, and severed the spine. The animal dropped instantly dead, and the determined hunter, throwing himself behind the fallen carcass, waited calmly the approach of his sanguinary pursuers. In a few moments, one Indian was within range of the fatal rifle, and at its report, his horse galloped riderless over the plain. The remaining two then thought to take him at advantage by approaching simultaneously on both sides of his rampart; but one of them, happening to venture too near in order to be sure of his aim, was shot to the heart by the long pistol of the white man, at the very instant that the ball from the Indian's gun whistled harmlessly by. The third savage, being wearied of the dangerous game, applied the whip vigorously to the flanks of his horse, and was soon out of sight, while Richardson set about collecting the trophies of his singular victory. He caught the two Indians' horses; mounted one, and loaded the other with the meat which he had discarded, and returned to his camp with two spare rifles, and a good stock of ammunition. On the morning of the 25th, we commenced baling up our meat in buffalo skins dried for the purpose. Each bale contains about a hundred pounds, of which a mule carries two; and when we had finished, our twelve long-eared friends were loaded. Our limited term of absence is now nearly expired, and we are anxious to return to the fort in order to prepare for the journey to the lower country. At about 10 o'clock, we left our pleasant encampment, and bade adieu to the cold spring, the fat buffalo, and grizzly bears, and urging our mules into their fastest walk, we jolted along with our _provant_ towards the fort. {103} In about an hour after, an unpleasant accident happened to one of our men, named McCarey. He had been running a buffalo, and was about reloading the gun, which he had just discharged, when the powder in his horn was ignited by a burning wad remaining in the barrel; the horn was burst to fragments, the poor man dashed from his horse, and his face, neck, and hands, burnt in a shocking manner. We applied, immediately, the simple remedies which our situation and the place afforded, and in the course of an hour he was somewhat relieved, and travelled on with us, though in considerable suffering. His eyes were entirely closed, the lids very much swollen, and his long, flowing hair, patriarchal beard and eye-brows, had all vanished in smoke. It will be long ere he gets another such crop. The weather here is generally uncomfortably warm, so much so, that we discard, while travelling, all such encumbrances as coats, neckcloths, &c., but the nights are excessively cold, ice often forming in the camp kettles, of the thickness of half an inch, or more. My custom has generally been to roll myself in my blanket at night, and use my large coat as a pillow; but here the coat must be worn, and my saddle has to serve the purpose to which the coat is usually applied. We travelled, this day, thirty miles, and the next afternoon, at 4 o'clock, arrived at the fort. On the route we met three hunters, whom Captain W. had sent to kill game for the camp. They informed us that all hands have been for several days on short allowance, and were very anxious for our return. When we came in sight of the fort, we gave them a mountain salute, each man firing his gun in quick succession. They did not expect us until to-morrow, and the firing aroused them instantly. In a very few minutes, a score of men were armed and mounted, and dashing out to give battle to the advancing Indians, as they thought us. The general supposition was, that {104} their little hunting party had been attacked by a band of roving Blackfeet, and they made themselves ready for the rescue in a space of time that did them great credit. It was perhaps "_bad medicine_," (to use the mountain phrase,) to fire a salute at all, inasmuch as it excited some unnecessary alarm, but it had the good effect to remind them that danger might be near when they least expected it, and afforded them an opportunity of showing the promptness and alacrity with which they could meet and brave it. Our people were all delighted to see us arrive, and I could perceive many a longing and eager gaze cast upon the well filled bales, as our mules swung their little bodies through the camp. My companion, Mr. N., had become so exceedingly thin that I should scarcely have known him; and upon my expressing surprise at the great change in his appearance, he heaved a sigh of inanity, and remarked that I "would have been as thin as he if I had lived on old _Ephraim_ for two weeks, and short allowance of that." I found, in truth, that the whole camp had been subsisting, during our absence, on little else than two or three grizzly bears which had been killed in the neighborhood; and with a complacent glance at my own rotund and _cow-fed_ person, I wished my _poor_ friend better luck for the future. We found Mr. McKay's company encamped on the bank of the river within a few hundred yards of our tents. It consists of thirty men, thirteen of whom are Indians, Nez Percés, Chinooks and Kayouse,[118] with a few squaws. The remainder are French-Canadians, and half-breeds. Their lodges,--of which there are several,--are of a conical form, composed of ten long poles, the lower ends of which are pointed and driven into the ground; the upper blunt, and drawn together at the top by thongs. Around these poles, several dressed buffalo skins, sewed together, are stretched, a hole being left on one side for entrance. [118] For the Chinook, see Franchère's _Narrative_ in our volume vi, p. 240, note 40; for the Cayuse, Ross's _Oregon Settlers_, our volume vii, p. 137, note 37.--ED. These are the kind of lodges universally used by the mountain {105} Indians while travelling: they are very comfortable and commodious, and a squaw accustomed to it, will erect and prepare one for the reception of her husband, while he is removing the trapping, from his horse. I have seen an expert Indian woman stretch a lodge in half the time that was required by four white men to perform the same operation with another in the neighborhood. At the fort, affairs look prosperous: the stockade is finished; two bastions have been erected, and the work is singularly good, considering the scarcity of proper building tools. The house will now soon be habitable, and the structure can then be completed at leisure by men who will be left here in charge, while the party travels on to its destination, the Columbia. On the evening of the 26th, Captain W., Mr. Nuttall and myself supped with Mr. McKay in his lodge. I am much pleased with this gentleman: he unites the free, frank and open manners of the mountain man, with the grace and affability of the Frenchman. But above all, I admire the order, decorum, and strict subordination which exists among his men, so different from what I have been accustomed to see in parties composed of Americans. Mr. McKay assures me that he had considerable difficulty in bringing his men to the state in which they now are. The free and fearless Indian was particularly difficult to subdue; but steady, determined perseverance, and bold measures, aided by a rigid self-example, made them as clay in his hand, and has finally reduced them to their present admirable condition. If they misbehaved, a commensurate punishment is sure to follow: in extreme cases, flagellation is resorted to, but it is inflicted only by the hand of the Captain; were any other appointed to perform this office _on an Indian_, the indignity would be deemed so great, that nothing less than the blood of the individual could appease the wounded feelings of the savage. {106} After supper was concluded, we sat ourselves down on a buffalo robe at the entrance of the lodge, to see the Indians at their devotions. The whole thirteen were soon collected at the call of one whom they had chosen for their chief, and seated with sober, sedate countenances around a large fire. After remaining in perfect silence for perhaps fifteen minutes, the chief commenced an harangue in a solemn and impressive tone, reminding them of the object for which they were thus assembled, that of worshipping the "Great Spirit who made the light and the darkness, the fire and the water," and assured them that if they offered up their prayers to him with but "one tongue," they would certainly be accepted. He then rose from his squatting position to his knees, and his example was followed by all the others. In this situation he commenced a prayer, consisting of short sentences uttered rapidly but with great apparent fervor, his hands clasped upon his breast, and his eyes cast upwards with a beseeching look towards heaven. At the conclusion of each sentence, a choral response of a few words was made, accompanied frequently by low moaning. The prayer lasted about twenty minutes. After its conclusion, the chief, still maintaining the same position of his body and hands, but with his head bent to his breast, commenced a kind of psalm or sacred song, in which the whole company presently joined. The song was a simple expression of a few sounds, no intelligible words being uttered. It resembled the words, _Ho-h[)a]-ho-h[)a]-ho-h[)a]-hã-ã_, commencing in a low tone, and gradually swelling to a full, round, and beautifully modulated chorus. During the song, the clasped hands of the worshippers were moved rapidly across the breast, and their bodies swung with great energy to the time of the music. The chief ended the song that he had commenced, by a kind of swelling groan, which was echoed in chorus. It was then taken up by another, and the same routine was gone {107} through. The whole ceremony occupied perhaps, one and a half hours; a short silence then succeeded, after which each Indian rose from the ground, and disappeared in the darkness with a step noiseless as that of a spectre. I think I never was more gratified by any exhibition in my life. The humble, subdued, and beseeching looks of the poor untutored beings who were calling upon their heavenly father to forgive their sins, and continue his mercies to them, and the evident and heart-felt sincerity which characterized the whole scene, was truly affecting, and very impressive. The next day being the Sabbath, our good missionary, Mr. Jason Lee, was requested to hold a meeting, with which he obligingly complied. A convenient, shady spot was selected in the forest adjacent, and the greater part of our men, as well as the whole of Mr. McKay's company, including the Indians, attended. The usual forms of the Methodist service, (to which Mr. L. is attached,) were gone through, and were followed by a brief, but excellent and appropriate exhortation by that gentleman. The people were remarkably quiet and attentive, and the Indians sat upon the ground like statues. Although not one of them could understand a word that was said, they nevertheless maintained the most strict and decorous silence, kneeling when the preacher kneeled, and rising when he rose, evidently with a view of paying him and us a suitable respect, however much their own notions as to the proper and most acceptable forms of worship, might have been opposed to ours. A meeting for worship in the Rocky mountains is almost as unusual as the appearance of a herd of buffalo in the settlements. A sermon was perhaps never preached here before; but for myself, I really enjoyed the whole scene; it possessed the charm {108} of novelty, to say nothing of the salutary effect which I sincerely hope it may produce. Mr. Lee is a great favorite with the men, deservedly so, and there are probably few persons to whose preaching they would have listened with so much complaisance. I have often been amused and pleased by Mr. L.'s manner of reproving them for the coarseness and profanity of expression which is so universal amongst them. The reproof, although decided, clear, and strong, is always characterized by the mildness and affectionate manner peculiar to the man; and although the good effect of the advice may not be discernible, yet it is always treated with respect, and its utility acknowledged. In the evening, a fatal accident happened to a Canadian belonging to Mr. McKay's party. He was running his horse, in company with another, when the animals were met in full career by a third rider, and horses and men were thrown with great force to the ground. The Canadian was taken up completely senseless, and brought to Mr. McKay's lodge, where we were all taking supper. I perceived at once that there was little chance of his life being saved. He had received an injury of the head which had evidently caused concussion of the brain. He was bled copiously, and various local remedies were applied, but without success; the poor man died early next morning. He was about forty years of age, healthy, active, and shrewd, and very much valued by Mr. McKay as a leader in his absence, and as an interpreter among the Indians of the Columbia. At noon the body was interred. It was wrapped in a piece of coarse linen, over which was sewed a buffalo robe. The spot selected, was about a hundred yards south of the fort, and the funeral was attended by the greater part of the men of both camps. Mr. Lee officiated in performing the ordinary church {109} ceremony, after which a hymn for the repose of the soul of the departed, was sung by the Canadians present. The grave is surrounded by a neat palisade of willows, with a black cross erected at the head, on which is carved the name "_Casseau_."[119] [119] According to Wyeth's journal his name was Kanseau, and the services were Protestant, Catholic, and Indian--"as he had an Indian family; he at least was well buried."--ED. {110} CHAPTER VII Departure of Mr. McKay's party, Captain Stewart, and the missionaries--Debauch at the fort--Departure of the company--Poor provision--Blackfeet hunting ground--A toilsome journey, and sufferings from thirst--Goddin's creek--Antoine Goddin, the trapper--Scarcity of game--A buffalo--Rugged mountains--Comforting reflections of the traveller--More game--Unusual economy--Habits of the white wolf--"Thornburg's pass"--Difficult travelling--The captain in jeopardy among the snow--A countermarch--Deserted Banneck camp--Toilsome and dangerous passage of the mountain--Mallade river--Beaver dams, and beaver--A party of Snake Indians--Scarcity of pasture--Another Banneck camp--"Kamas prairie"--Indian mode of preparing the kamas--Racine blanc, or biscuit root--Travelling over the hills--Loss of horses by fatigue--Boisée or Big-wood river--Salmon--Choke-cherries, &c. On the 30th of July, Mr. McKay and his party left us for Fort Vancouver, Captain Stewart and our band of missionaries accompanying them. The object of the latter in leaving us, is, that they may have an opportunity of travelling more slowly than we should do, on account, and for the benefit of the horned cattle which they are driving to the lower country. We feel quite sad in the prospect of parting from those with whom we have endured some toil and danger, and who have been to some of us as brothers, throughout our tedious journey; but, if no unforeseen accident occurs, we hope to meet them all again at Walla-Walla, the upper fort on the Columbia. As the party rode off, we fired three rounds, which were promptly answered, and three times three cheers wished the travellers success. _August 5th._--At sunrise this morning, the "star-spangled banner" was raised on the flag-staff at the fort, and a salute {111} fired by the men, who, according to orders, assembled around it. All in camp were then allowed the free and uncontrolled use of liquor, and, as usual, the consequence was a scene of rioting, noise, and fighting, during the whole day; some became so drunk that their senses fled them entirely, and they were therefore harmless; but by far the greater number were just sufficiently under the influence of the vile trash, to render them in their conduct disgusting and tiger-like. We had "gouging," biting, fisticuffing, and "stamping" in the most "scientific" perfection; some even fired guns and pistols at each other, but these weapons were mostly harmless in the unsteady hands which employed them. Such scenes I hope never to witness again; they are absolutely sickening, and cause us to look upon our species with abhorrence and loathing. Night at last came, and cast her mantle over our besotted camp; the revel was over, and the men retired to their pallets peaceably, but not a few of them will bear palpable evidence of the debauch of the 5th of August. The next morning we commenced packing, and at 11 o'clock bade adieu to "Fort Hall."[120] Our company now consists of but thirty men, several Indian women, and one hundred and sixteen horses. We crossed the main Snake or Shoshoné river, at a point about three miles from the fort. It is here as wide as the Missouri at Independence, but, beyond comparison, clearer and more beautiful. [120] Upon leaving Fort Hall, the usual trail followed the valley of the Lewis (or Snake) to Fort Boise. Wyeth, however, struck directly northwest across the Snake River Desert, past the Three Buttes. Godin's Creek was what is now known as Lost River, from having no outlet.--ED. Immediately on crossing the river, we entered upon a wide, sandy plain, thickly covered with wormwood, and early in the afternoon, encamped at the head of a delightful spring, about ten miles from our starting place. On the route, our hunters killed a young grizzly bear, which, with a few grouse, made us an excellent dinner. Fresh meat is now very grateful to our palates, as we have been living for weeks past on nothing but poor, dried buffalo, the better, and {112} far the larger part, having been deposited in the fort for the subsistence of the men who remain. We have no flour, nor vegetables of any kind, and our meat may be aptly compared to dry chips, breaking short off in our fingers; and when boiled to soften it a little, and render it fit for mastication, not a star appears in the pot. It seems astonishing that life can be sustained upon such miserable fare, and yet our men (except when under the influence of liquor) have never murmured, but have always eaten their crusty meal, and drunk their cold water with light and excellent spirits. We hope soon to fall in with the buffalo, and we shall then endeavor to prepare some good provision to serve until we reach the salmon region. We shall now, for about ten days, be travelling through the most dangerous country west of the mountains, the regular hunting ground of the Blackfeet Indians, who are said to be often seen here in parties of hundreds, or even thousands, scouring the plains in pursuit of the buffalo. Traders, therefore, seldom travel this route without meeting them, and being compelled to prove their valor upon them; the white men are, however, generally the victors, although their numbers are always vastly inferior. _7th._--We were moving this morning with the dawn, and travelled steadily the whole day, over one of the most arid plains we have seen, covered thickly with jagged masses of lava, and twisted wormwood bushes. Both horses and men were jaded to the last degree; the former from the rough, and at times almost impassable nature of the track, and the latter from excessive heat and parching thirst. We saw not a drop of water during the day, and our only food was the dried meat before spoken of, which we carried, and chewed like biscuits as we travelled. There are two reasons by which the extreme thirst which the way-farer suffers in these regions, may be accounted {113} for; first, the intense heat of the sun upon the open and exposed plains; and secondly, the desiccation to which every thing here is subject. The air feels like the breath of a sirocco, the tongue becomes parched and horny, and the mouth, nose, and eyes are incessantly assailed by the fine pulverized lava, which rises from the ground with the least breath of air. Bullets, pebbles of chalcedony, and pieces of smooth obsidian, were in great requisition to-day; almost every man was mumbling some of these substances, in an endeavor to assuage his burning thirst. The camp trailed along in a lagging and desponding line over the plain for a mile or more, the poor horses' heads hanging low, their tongues protruding to their utmost extent, and their riders scarcely less drooping and spiritless. We were a sad and most forlorn looking company, certainly; not a man of us had any thing to say, and none cared to be interrupted in his blissful dream of cool rivers and streams. Occasionally we would pass a ravine or gorge in the hills, by which one side of the plain was bounded, and up this some of the men would steer, leaping over blocks of lava, and breaking a path through the dense bushes; but the poor searcher soon returned, disheartened and wo-begone, and those who had waited anxiously to hear his cheering call, announcing success, passed onward without a word. One of our men, a mulatto, after failing in a forage of this sort, cast himself resolutely from his horse to the ground, and declared that he would lie there till he died; "there was no water in the cursed country and he might as well die here as go farther." Some of us tried to infuse a little courage into him, but it proved of no avail, and each was too much occupied with his own particular grief to use his tongue much in persuasion; so we left him to his fate. Soon after night-fall, some signs of water were seen in a small valley to our left, and, upon ascending it, the foremost of the party found a delightful little cold spring; but they soon exhausted {114} it, and then commenced, with axes and knives, to dig it out and enlarge it. By the time that Mr. N., and myself arrived, they had excavated a large space which was filled to overflowing with muddy water. We did not wait for it to settle, however, but throwing ourselves flat upon the ground, drank until we were ready to burst. The tales which I had read of suffering travellers in the Arabian deserts, then recurred with some force to my recollection, and I thought I could,--though in a very small measure,--appreciate their sufferings by deprivation, and their unmingled delight and satisfaction in the opportunity of assuaging them. Poor Jim, the mulatto man, was found by one of the people, who went back in search of him, lying where he had first fallen, and either in a real or pretended swoon, still obstinate about dying, and scarcely heeding the assurances of the other that water was within a mile of him. He was, however, at length dragged and carried into camp, and soused head foremost into the mud puddle, where he guzzled and guzzled until his eyes seemed ready to burst from his head, and he was lifted out and laid dripping and flaccid upon the ground. The next morning we made an early start towards a range of willows which we could distinctly see, at the distance of fifteen or twenty miles, and which we knew indicated Goddin's creek, so called from a Canadian of that name who was killed in this vicinity by the Blackfeet. Goddin's son, a half-breed, is now with us as a trapper; he is a fine sturdy fellow, and of such strength of limb and wind, that he is said to be able to run down a buffalo on foot, and kill him with arrows. Goddin's creek was at length gained, and after travelling a few miles along its bank we encamped in some excellent pasture. Our poor horses seemed inclined to make up for lost time here, as yesterday their only food was the straggling blades of a little {115} dry and parched grass growing among the wormwood on the hills. We have been considerably disappointed in not seeing any buffalo to-day, and their absence here has occasioned some fear that we may not meet with them on our route. Should this be the case, we shall have to depend upon such small game, hares, grouse, &c., as may happen to lie in our path. In a short time, however, even this resource will fail; and if we do not happen to see Indians on the upper waters of the Columbia, from whom we can purchase dried salmon, we shall be under the necessity of killing our horses for food. We perhaps derive one advantage, however, from the absence of game here,--that of there being less probability of lurking Blackfeet in the vicinity; but this circumstance, convenient as it is, does not compensate for empty stomachs, and I believe the men would rather fight for the privilege of obtaining food, than live without it. The next morning we left Goddin's creek, and travelled for ten miles over a plain, covered as usual with wormwood bushes and lava. Early in the day, the welcome cry of "a buffalo! a buffalo!" was heard from the head of the company, and was echoed joyfully along the whole line. At the moment, a fine large bull was seen to bound from the bushes in our front, and tear off with all his speed over the plain. Several hunters gave him chase immediately, and in a few minutes we heard the guns that proclaimed his death. The killing of this animal is a most fortunate circumstance for us: his meat will probably sustain us for three or four days, and by that time we are sanguine of procuring other provision. The appearance of this buffalo is not considered indicative of the vicinity of others: he is probably a straggler from a travelling band, and has been unable to proceed with it, in consequence of sickness or wounds. {116} On leaving the plain this morning, we struck into a defile between some of the highest mountains we have yet seen. In a short time we commenced ascending, and continued passing over them, until late in the afternoon, when we reached a plain about a mile in width, covered with excellent grass, and a delightful cool stream flowing through the middle of it. Here we encamped, having travelled twenty-seven miles. Our journey, to-day, has been particularly laborious. We were engaged for several hours, constantly in ascending and descending enormous rocky hills, with scarcely the sign of a valley between them; and some of them so steep, that our horses were frequently in great danger of falling, by making a mis-step on the loose, rolling stones. I thought the Black Hills, on the Platte, rugged and difficult of passage, but they sink into insignificance when compared with these.[121] [121] These mountains--in Custer County, Idaho, between the different branches of Lost River--have apparently no local name that has been cartographically recorded; they lie between the Sawtooth and Lost River ranges.--ED. We observed, on these mountains, large masses of green-stone, and beautiful pebbles of chalcedony and fine agate; the summits of the highest are covered with snow. In the mountain passes, we found an abundance of large, yellow currants, rather acid, but exceedingly palatable to men who have been long living on animal food exclusively. We all ate heartily of them; indeed, some of our people became so much attached to the bushes, that we had considerable difficulty to induce them to travel again. _10th_.--We commenced our march at seven this morning, proceeding up a narrow valley, bordering our encampment in a north-easterly direction. The ravine soon widened, until it became a broad, level plain, covered by the eternal "sage" bushes, but was much less stony than usual. About mid-day, we left the plain, and shaped our course over a spur of one of the large mountains; then taking a ravine, in about an hour we came to the level land, and struck Goddin's creek again, late in the afternoon. Our provision was all exhausted at breakfast, this morning, {117} (most of our bull meat having been given to a band of ten trappers, who left us yesterday,) we had seen no game on our route, and we were therefore preparing ourselves to retire supperless to our pallets, when Richardson and Sansbury were descried approaching the camp and, to our great comfort, we observed that they had meat on their saddles. When they arrived, however, we were somewhat disappointed to find that they had only killed a calf, but they had brought the entire little animal with them, the time for picking and choosing of choice pieces having passed with us; and after making a hearty meal, we wrapped ourselves in our blankets and slept soundly. Although but a scant breakfast was left for us in the morning, and we knew not if any dinner would fall in our way, yet "none of these things moved us;" we lived altogether upon the present, and heeded not the future. We had always been provided for; often, when we had despaired of procuring sustenance, and when the pangs of hunger had soured our temper, and made us quarrelsome, when we thought there was no prospect before us but to sacrifice our valuable horses, or die of starvation, have the means been provided for our relief. A buffalo, an elk, or an antelope, has appeared like the goat provided for the faithful Abraham, to save a more valuable life, and I hope that some of us have been willing, reverently to acknowledge from whom these benefits and blessings have been received. On the day following, Richardson killed two buffalo, and brought his horse heavily laden with meat to the camp. Our good hunter walked himself, that the animal might be able to bear the greater burthen. After depositing the meat in the camp, he took a fresh horse, and accompanied by three men, returned to the spot where the game had been killed, (about four miles distant,) and in the evening, brought in every pound of it, leaving only the heavier bones. The wolves will be disappointed this evening; they are accustomed to dainty picking when they {118} glean after the hunters, but we have now abandoned the "wasty ways" which so disgraced us when game was abundant; the despised leg bone, which was wont to be thrown aside with such contempt, is now polished of every tendon of its covering, and the savory hump is used as a kind of _dessert_ after a meal of coarser meat. Speaking of wolves, I have often been surprised at the perseverance and tenacity with which these animals will sometimes follow the hunter for a whole day, to feed upon the carcass he may leave behind him. When an animal is killed, they seem to mark the operation, and stand still at a most respectful distance, with drooping tail and ears, as though perfectly indifferent to the matter in progress. Thus will they stand until the game is butchered, the meat placed upon the saddle, and the hunter is mounted and on his way; then, if he glances behind him, he will see the wily forager stealthily crawling and prowling along towards the smoking remains, and pouncing upon it, and tearing it with tooth and nail, immediately as he gets out of reach. During the day, the wolves are shy, and rarely permit an approach to within gun-shot; but at night, (where game is abundant,) they are so fearless as to come quite within the purlieus of the camp, and there sit, a dozen together, and howl hideously for hours. This kind of serenading, it may be supposed, is not the most agreeable; and many a time when on guard, have I observed the unquiet tossing of the bundles of blankets near me, and heard issue from them, the low, husky voice of some disturbed sleeper, denouncing heavy anathemas on the unseasonable music. _12th._--We shaped our course, this morning, towards what appeared to us a gap in a high and rugged mountain, about twenty miles ahead. After proceeding eight or ten miles, the character of the country underwent a remarkable and sudden change. Instead of the luxuriant sage bushes, by which the {119} whole plains have hitherto been covered, and the compact and dense growth of willows which has uniformly fringed every stream and rivulet, the ground was completely denuded; not a single shrub was to be seen, nor the smallest appearance of vegetation, except in small patches near the water. The mountains, also, which had generally been rocky, and covered with low, tangled bushes, here abound in beautiful and shapely pine trees. Some of the higher peaks are, however, completely bare, and capped with enormous masses of snow. After we had travelled about twelve miles, we entered a defile between the mountains, about five hundred yards wide, covered, like the surrounding country, with pines; and, as we proceeded, the timber grew so closely, added to a thick undergrowth of bushes, that it appeared almost impossible to proceed with our horses. The farther we advanced, the more our difficulties seemed to increase; obstacles of various kinds impeded our progress;--fallen trees, their branches tangled and matted together, large rocks and deep ravines, holes in the ground, into which our animals would be precipitated without the possibility of avoiding them, and an hundred other difficulties which beggar description. We travelled for six miles through such a region as I have attempted to describe, and at 2 o'clock encamped in a clear spot of ground, where we found excellent grass, and a cold, rapid stream. Soon after we stopped, Captain W. and Richardson left us, to look for a pass through the mountains, or for a spot where it would be possible to cross them. Strange as it may appear, yet in this desolate and almost impassable region we have observed, to-day, the tracks of a buffalo which must have passed here last night, or this morning; at least so our hunters say, and they are rarely deceived in such matters. Captain W. and Richardson returned early next morning, with the mortifying intelligence that no practicable pass through the {120} mountain could be found. They ascended to the very summit of one of the highest peaks, above the snow and the reach of vegetation, and the only prospect which they had beyond, was a confused mass of huge angular rocks, over which even a wild goat could scarcely have made his way. Although they utterly failed in the object of their exploration, yet they were so fortunate as to kill a buffalo, (_the_ buffalo,) the meat of which they brought on their horses. Wyeth told us of a narrow escape he had while travelling on foot near the summit of one of the peaks. He was walking on a ridge which sloped from the top at an angle of about forty degrees, and terminated, at its lower part, in a perpendicular precipice of a thousand or twelve hundred feet. He was moving along in the snow cautiously, near the lower edge, in order to attain a more level spot beyond, when his feet slipped and he fell. Before he could attempt to fix himself firmly, he slid down the declivity till within a few feet of the frightful precipice. At the instant of his fall, he had the presence of mind to plant the rifle which he held in one hand, and his knife which he drew from the scabbard with the other, into the snow, and as he almost tottered on the verge, he succeeded in checking himself, and holding his body perfectly still. He then gradually moved, first the rifle and then the knife, backward up the slanting hill behind him, and fixing them firmly, drew up his body parallel to them. In this way he moved slowly and surely until he had gained his former station, when, without further difficulty, he succeeded in reaching the more level land. After a good breakfast, we packed our horses, and struck back on our trail of yesterday, in order to try another valley which we observed bearing parallel with this, at about three miles distant, and which we conclude must of course furnish a path through the mountain. Although our difficulties in returning by the same wretched route were very considerable, yet they were {121} somewhat diminished by the road having been partially broken, and we were enabled also to avoid many of the sloughs and pitfalls which had before so much incommoded us. We have named this rugged valley, "Thornburg's _pass_," after one of our men of this name, (a tailor,) whom we have to thank for leading us into all these troubles. Thornburg crossed this mountain two years ago, and might therefore be expected to know something of the route, and as he was the only man in the company who had been here, Captain W. acted by his advice, in opposition to his own judgment, which had suggested the other valley as affording a more probable chance of success. As we are probably the only white men who have ever penetrated into this most vile and abominable region, we conclude that the name we have given it must stand, from priority.[122] [122] The expedition apparently followed the east fork of Lost River, into a maze of mountains known locally as the "Devil's Bedstead."--ED. In the bushes, along the stream in this valley, the black-tailed deer (_Cervus macrourus_) is abundant. The beautiful creatures frequently bounded from their cover within a few yards of us, and trotted on before us like domestic animals; "they are so unacquainted with man" and his cruel arts, that they seem not to fear him. We at length arrived on the open plain again, and in our route towards the other valley, we came to a large, recent Indian encampment, probably of Bannecks,[123] who are travelling down to {122} the fisheries on Snake river. We here took their trail which led up the valley to which we had been steering. The entrance was very similar in appearance to that of Thornburg's pass, and it is therefore not very surprising that our guide should have been deceived. We travelled rapidly along the level land at the base of the mountain, for about three miles; we then began to ascend, and our progress was necessarily slow and tedious. The commencement of the Alpine path was, however, far better than we had expected, and we entertained the hope that the passage could be made without difficulty or much toil, but the farther we progressed, the more laborious the travelling became. Sometimes we mounted steep banks of intermingled flinty rock, and friable slate, where our horses could scarcely obtain a footing, frequently sliding down several feet on the loose, broken stones:--again we passed along the extreme verge of tremendous precipices at a giddy height, whereat almost every step the stones and earth would roll from under our horses' feet, and we could hear them strike with a dull, leaden sound on the craggy rocks below. The whole journey, to-day, from the time we arrived at the heights, until we had crossed the mountain, has been a most fearful one. For myself, I might have diminished the danger very considerably, by adopting the plan pursued by the rest of the company, that of walking, and leading my horse over the most dangerous places, but I have been suffering for several days with a lame foot, and am wholly incapable of such exertion. I soon discovered that an attempt to guide my horse over the most rugged and steepest ranges was worse than useless, so I dropped the rein upon the animal's neck, and allowed him to take his own course, closing my eyes, and keeping as quiet as possible in the saddle. But I could not forbear {123} starting occasionally, when the feet of my horse would slip on a stone, and one side of him would slide rapidly towards the edge of the precipice, but I always recovered myself by a desperate effort, and it was fortunate for me that I did so. [123] We afterwards learned, that only three days before our arrival, a hard contested, and most sanguinary battle, had been fought on this spot, between the Bannecks and Blackfeet, in which the former gained a signal and most complete victory, killing upwards of forty of their adversaries, and taking about three dozen scalps. The Blackfeet, although much the larger party, were on foot, but the Bannecks, being all well mounted, had a very decided advantage; and the contest occurring on an open plain, where there was no chance of cover, the Blackfeet were run down with horses, and, without being able to load their guns, were trampled to death, or killed with salmon spears and axes. This was not the first time that we narrowly escaped a contest with this savage and most dreaded tribe. If we had passed there but a few days earlier, there is every probability to suppose that we should have been attacked, as our party at that time consisted of but twenty-six men.--TOWNSEND. Late in the afternoon, we completed the passage across the mountain, and with thankful hearts, again trod the level land. We entered here a fine rich valley or plain, of about half a mile in width, between two ranges of the mountain. It was profusely covered with willow, and through the middle of it, ran a rapid and turbulent mountain torrent, called Mallade river.[124] It contains a great abundance of beaver, their recent dams being seen in great numbers, and in the night, when all was quiet, we could hear the playful animals at their gambols, diving from the shore into the water, and striking the surface with their broad tails. The sound, altogether, was not unlike that of children at play, and the animated description of a somewhat similar scene, in the "Mohicans," recurred to my recollection, where the single-minded Gamut is contemplating with feelings of strong reprobation, the wayward freaks of what he supposes to be a bevy of young savages. [124] According to Wyeth's account, the expedition retraced their steps to the forks of the river, then followed the south branch, passing over the mountains which form the boundary between Custer and Blaine counties, Idaho, and emerging on Trail Creek, the affluent of the Malade, which joins the main stream at Ketchum, the present terminus of the Wood River branch of the Oregon Short Line railway.--ED. 14th.--We travelled down the Mallade river,[125] and followed the Indian trail through the valley. The path frequently passed along near the base of the mountain, and then wound its way a considerable distance up it, to avoid rocky impediments and thick tangled bushes below, so that we had some climbing to do; but the difficulties and perils of the route of yesterday are still so fresh in our memory, that all minor things are disregarded, at least by _us_. Our poor horses, however, no doubt feel differently, as they are very tired and foot sore. [125] Malade (or Wood) River is a northern tributary of Lewis in Blaine County, Idaho. The mining town of Hailey is upon its banks. It was named Rivière des Malades (Sick Men's River) by Alexander Ross, who trapped upon it in 1824, and whose men fell ill from eating beaver that had fed upon a poisonous root. See Ross, _Fur Hunters_ (London, 1855), ii, pp. 114-116.--ED. The next day we came to a close and almost impenetrable thicket of tangled willows, through which we had great difficulty in urging our horses. The breadth of the thicket was {124} about one hundred yards, and a full hour was consumed in passing through it. We then entered immediately a rich and beautiful valley, covered profusely with a splendid blue Lupin. The mountains on either side are of much less height than those we have passed, and entirely bare, the pine trees which generally cover and ornament them, having disappeared. During the morning, we ascended and descended several high and stony hills, and early in the afternoon, emerged upon a large, level prairie, and struck a branch of Mallade river, where we encamped. While we were unloading, we observed a number of Indians ahead, and not being aware of their character, stood with our horses saddled, while Captain W. and Richardson rode out to reconnoitre. In about half an hour they returned, and informed us that they were _Snakes_ who were returning from the fisheries, and travelling towards the buffalo on the "big river," (Shoshoné.) We therefore unsaddled our poor jaded horses and turned them out to feed upon the luxuriant pasture around the camp, while we, almost equally jaded, threw ourselves down in our blankets to seek a little repose and quiet after the toils and fatigues of a long day's march. Soon after we encamped, the Snake chief and two of his young men visited us. We formed a circle around our lodge and smoked the pipe of peace with them, after which we made them each a present of a yard of scarlet cloth for leggings, some balls and powder, a knife, and a looking glass. Captain W. then asked them a number of questions, through an interpreter, relative to the route, the fishery, &c. &c.,--and finally bought of them a small quantity of dried salmon, and a little fermented kamas or _quamash_ root. The Indians remained with us until dark, and then left us quietly for their own camp. There are two lodges of them, in all about twenty persons, but none of them presumed to come near us, with the exception of the three men, two {125} squaws, and a few children. The chief is a man about fifty years of age, tall, and dignified looking, with large, strong aqualine features. His manners were cordial and agreeable, perhaps remarkably so, and he exhibited very little of that stoical indifference to surrounding objects which is so characteristic of an Indian. His dress consisted of plain leggings of deer skin, fringed at the sides, unembroidered moccasins, and a _marro_ or waist-covering of antelope skin dressed without removing the hair. The upper part of his person was simply covered with a small blanket, and his ears were profusely ornamented with brass rings and beads. The men and squaws who accompanied him, were entirely naked, except that the latter had marros of deer skin covering the loins. The next morning we steered west across the wide prairie, crossing within every mile or two, a branch of the tortuous Mallade, near each of which good pasture was seen; but on the main prairie scarcely a blade of grass could be found, it having lately been fired by the Indians to improve the crops of next year. We have seen to-day some lava and basalt again on the sides of the hills, and on the mounds in the plain, but the level land was entirely free from it. At noon on the 17th, we passed a deserted Indian camp, probably of the same people whose trail we have been following. There were many evident signs of the Indians having but recently left it, among which was that of several white wolves lurking around in the hope of finding remnants of meat, but, as a Scotchman would say, "I doubt they were mistaken," for meat is scarce here, and the frugal Indians rarely leave enough behind them to excite even the famished stomach of the lank and hungry wolf. The encampment here has been but a temporary one, occupying a little valley densely overgrown with willows, the tops of which have been bent over, and tied so as to form a sort of lodge; over these, they have probably stretched deer {126} skins or blankets, to exclude the rays of the sun. Of these lodges there are about forty in the valley, so that the party must have been a large one. In the afternoon we arrived at "_Kamas prairie_," so called from a vast abundance of this esculent root which it produces, (the _Kamassa esculenta_, of Nuttall.)[126] The plain is a beautiful level one of about a mile over, hemmed in by low, rocky hills, and in spring, the pretty blue flowers of the Kamas are said to give it a peculiar, and very pleasing appearance. At this season, the flowers do not appear, the vegetable being indicated only by little dry stems which protrude all over the ground among the grass. [126] After crossing the Malade, the expedition moved along one of its several western branches until reaching Camas Prairie, in Elmore County. Camas (quamash) is a bulbous root much used for food by the Indians of the Columbia. Its Shoshoni name is passheco. For further description consult Thwaites, _Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition_, iii, p. 78.--ED. We encamped here, near a small branch of Mallade river; and soon after, all hands took their kettles and scattered over the prairie to dig a mess of kamas. We were, of course, eminently successful, and were furnished thereby with an excellent and wholesome meal. When boiled, this little root is palatable, and somewhat resembles the taste of the common potato; the Indian mode of preparing it, is, however, the best--that of fermenting it in pits under ground, into which hot stones have been placed. It is suffered to remain in these pits for several days; and when removed, is of a dark brown color, about the consistence of softened glue, and sweet, like molasses. It is then often made into large cakes, by being mashed, and pressed together, and slightly baked in the sun. There are several other kinds of bulbous and tuberous roots, growing in these plains, which are eaten by the Indians, after undergoing a certain process of fermentation or baking. Among these, that which is most esteemed, is the white or biscuit root, the _Racine blanc_ of the Canadians,--(_Eulophus ambiguus_, of Nuttall.) This is dried, pulverized with stones, and after being moistened with water, is made into cakes and baked in the sun. The taste is not unlike that of a stale {127} biscuit, and to a hungry man, or one who has long subsisted without vegetables of any kind, is rather palatable.[127] [127] This root is probably the one usually spoken of by the French-Canadian trappers as "white-apple" (_pomme blanche_), or "swan-apple," and well known to scientists as _Psoralea esculenta_.--ED. On the morning of the 18th, we commenced ascending the hills again, and had a laborious and toilsome day's march. One of our poor wearied horses gave up, and stopped; kicking, and cuffing, and beating had no effect to make him move; the poor animal laid himself down with his load, and after this was detached and shifted to the back of another, we left him where he fell, to recruit, and fall into the hands of the Indians, or die among the arid hills. This is the first horse we have lost in this manner; but we have great fears that many others will soon fail, as their riders and drivers are compelled to use the whip constantly, to make them walk at the slowest gait. We comfort ourselves, however, by supposing that we have now nearly passed the most rugged country on the route, and hope, before many days, to reach the valley of the Shoshoné, where the country will be level, and the pasture good. We are anxious, also, to fall in with the Snake Indians, in order to get a supply of salmon, as we have been living for several days on a short allowance of wretched, dry meat, and this poor pittance is now almost exhausted. _19th._--This morning was cold, the thermometer stood at 28°, and a thick skim of ice was in the camp kettles at sunrise. Another hard day's travel over the hills, during which we lost two of our largest and stoutest horses. Towards evening, we descended to a fine large plain, and struck _Boisée_, or Big Wood river, on the borders of which we encamped.[128] This is a beautiful stream, about one hundred yards in width, clear as crystal, and, in some parts, probably twenty feet deep. It is literally _crowded_ with salmon, which are springing from the water almost constantly. Our mouths are watering most abundantly for some of them, but we are not provided with suitable implements for {128} taking any, and must therefore depend for a supply on the Indians, whom we hope soon to meet. We found, in the mountain passes, to-day, a considerable quantity of a small fruit called the choke-cherry, a species of prunus, growing on low bushes. When ripe, they are tolerable eating, somewhat astringent, however, producing upon the mouth the same effect, though in a less degree, as the unripe persimmon. They are now generally green, or we should feast luxuriantly upon them, and render more tolerable our miserable provision. We have seen, also, large patches of service bushes, but no fruit. It seems to have failed this year, although ordinarily so abundant that it constitutes a large portion of the vegetable food of both Indians and white trappers who visit these regions. [128] Boise River is an important eastern affluent of Lewis, rising in the mountains of Blaine County, through which Townsend had just passed; it flows nearly west for about a hundred miles. Boise, the capital of Idaho, is upon its banks. Of the two forks which unite to form the main stream, Wyeth's expedition encountered the southern.--ED. {129} CHAPTER VIII A substitute for game, and a luxurious breakfast--Expectations of a repast, and a disappointment--Visit of a Snake chief--his abhorrence of horse meat--A band of Snake Indians--their chief--Trade with Indians for salmon--Mr. Ashworth's adventure--An Indian horse-thief--Visit to the Snake camp--its filthiness--A Banneck camp--Supercilious conduct of the Indians--Arrival at Snake river--Equipment of a trapping party--Indian mode of catching salmon--Loss of a favorite horse--Powder river--Cut rocks--Recovery of the lost trail--Grand Ronde--Captain Bonneville--his fondness for a roving life--Kayouse and Nez Percé Indians--their appearance--An Indian Beauty--Blue mountains--A feline visit. _August 20th._--At about daylight this morning, having charge of the last guard of the night, I observed a beautiful, sleek little _colt_, of about four months old, trot into the camp, whinnying with great apparent pleasure, and dancing and curvetting gaily amongst our sober and sedate band. I had no doubt that he had strayed from Indians, who were probably in the neighborhood; but as here, every animal that comes near us is fair game, and as we were hungry, not having eaten any thing of consequence since yesterday morning, I thought the little stranger would make a good breakfast for us. Concluding, however, that it would be best to act advisedly in the matter, I put my head into Captain W.'s tent, and telling him the news, made the proposition which had occurred to me. The captain's reply was encouraging enough,--"Down with him, if you please, Mr. T., it is the Lord's doing; let us have him for breakfast." In five minutes afterwards, a bullet sealed the fate of the unfortunate visitor, and my men were set to work making fires, and rummaging {130} out the long-neglected stew-pans, while I engaged myself in flaying the little animal, and cutting up his body in readiness for the pots. When the camp was aroused, about an hour after, the savory steam of the cookery was rising and saluting the nostrils of our hungry people with its fragrance, who, rubbing their hands with delight, sat themselves down upon the ground, waiting with what patience they might, for the unexpected repast which was preparing for them. It was to me almost equal to a good breakfast, to witness the pleasure and satisfaction which I had been the means of diffusing through the camp. The repast was ready at length, and we did full justice to it; every man ate until he was filled, and all pronounced it one of the most delicious meals they had ever assisted in demolishing. When our breakfast was concluded, but little of the colt remained; that little was, however, carefully packed up, and deposited on one of the horses, to furnish, at least, a portion of another meal. The route, this morning, lay along Boisée. For an hour, the travelling was toilsome and difficult, the Indian trail, leading along the high bank of the river, steep and rocky, making our progress very slow and laborious. We then came to a wide plain, interrupted only by occasional high banks of earth, some of them of considerable extent, across which ran the path. Towards mid-day, we lost sight of these banks, the whole country appearing level, with the exception of some distant hills in the south-west, which we suppose indicate the vicinity of some part of Snake river. We have all been disappointed in the distance to this river, and the length of time required to reach it. Not a man in our camp has ever travelled this route before, and all we have known about it has been the general course. {131} In the afternoon, we observed a number of Indians on the opposite side of the river, engaged in fishing for salmon. Captain W. and two men immediately crossed over to them, carrying with them a few small articles to exchange for fish. We congratulated ourselves upon our good fortune in seeing these Indians, and were anticipating a plentiful meal, when Captain W. and his companions returned, bringing only _three_ small salmon. The Indians had been unsuccessful in fishing, not having caught enough for themselves, and even the offer of exorbitant sums was not sufficient to induce them to part with more. In the afternoon, a grouse and a beaver were killed, which, added to the remains of the colt, and our three little salmon, made us a tolerable supper. While we were eating, we were visited by a Snake chief, a large and powerful man, of a peculiarly dignified aspect and manner. He was naked, with the exception of a small blanket which covered his shoulders, and descended to the middle of the back, being fastened around the neck with a silver skewer. As it was pudding time with us, our visitor was of course invited to sit and eat; and he, nothing loath, deposited himself at once upon the ground, and made a remarkably vigorous assault upon the mixed contents of the dish. He had not eaten long, however, before we perceived a sudden and inexplicable change in his countenance, which was instantly followed by a violent ejectment of a huge mouthful of our luxurious fare. The man rose slowly, and with great dignity, to his feet, and pronouncing the single word "_shekum_," (horse,) in a tone of mingled anger and disgust, stalked rapidly out of the camp, not even wishing us a good evening. It struck me as a singular instance of accuracy and discrimination in the organs of taste. We had been eating of the multifarious compound without being able to recognize, by the taste, a single ingredient which it contained; a stranger came amongst us, who did not know, when he {132} commenced eating, that the dish was formed of more than one item, and yet in less than five minutes he discovered one of the very least of its component parts. It would seem from this circumstance that the Indians, or it may be the particular tribe to which this man belongs, are opposed to the eating of horse flesh, and yet, the natural supposition would be, that in the gameless country inhabited by them they would often be reduced to such shifts, and thus readily conquer any natural reluctance which they might feel to partake of such food. I did not think until after he left us, that if the chief knew how the horse meat he so much detested was procured, and where, he might probably have expressed even more indignation, for it is not at all unlikely that the colt had strayed from his own band. _21st._--The timber along the river banks is plentiful, and often attains a large size. It is chiefly of the species called balsam poplar, (_Populus balsamifera_.) Towards noon to-day, we observed ahead several groups of Indians, perhaps twenty in each, and on the appearance of our cavalcade, they manifested their joy at seeing us, by the most extravagant and grotesque gestures, dancing and capering most ludicrously. Every individual of them was perfectly naked, with the exception of a small thong around the waist, to which was attached a square piece of flannel, skin, or canvass, depending half way to the knees. Their stature was rather below the middle height, but they were strongly built and very muscular. Each man carried his salmon spear, and these, with the knives stuck in their girdles, appeared to be their only weapons, not one of them having a gun. As we neared them, the first group ran towards us, crying "Shoshoné, Shoshoné," and caused some delay by their eagerness to grasp our hands and examine our garments. After one group had become satisfied with fingering {133} us, we rode on and suffered the same process by the next, and so on until we had passed the whole, every Indian crying with a loud voice, "_Tabiboo sant, tabiboo sant!_" (white man is good, white man is good.) In a short time the chief joined us, and our party stopped for an hour, and had a "talk" with him. He told us, in answer to our questions, that his people had fish, and would give them for our goods if we would sleep one night near their camp, and smoke with them. No trade, of consequence, can ever be effected with Indians, unless the pipe be first smoked, and the matter calmly and seriously deliberated upon. An Indian chief would think his dignity seriously compromised if he were expected to do _any thing_ in a hurry, much less so serious a matter as a salmon or beaver trade; and if we had refused his offered terms, he would probably have allowed us to pass on, and denied himself the darling rings, bells, and paint, rather than infringe a custom so long religiously practised by his people. We were therefore inclined to humor our Snake friend, and accordingly came to a halt, on the bank of the river. The chief and several of his favored young braves sat with us on the bank, and we smoked with them, the other Indians forming a large circle around. The chief is a man rather above the ordinary height, with a fine, noble countenance, and remarkably large, prominent eyes. His person, instead of being naked, as is usual, is clothed in a robe made of the skin of the mountain sheep; a broad band made of large blue beads, is fastened to the top of his head, and hangs over on his cheeks, and around his neck is suspended the foot of a huge grizzly bear. The possession of this uncouth ornament is considered among them, a great honor, since none but those whose prowess has enabled them to kill the animal, are allowed to wear it, and with their weak and inefficient weapons, {134} the destruction of so fierce and terrible a brute, is a feat that may well entitle them to some distinction. We remained two hours at the spot where we halted, and then passed on about four miles, accompanied by the chief and his people, to their camp, where we pitched our tents for the night. In a short time the Indians came to us in great numbers, with bundles of dried salmon in their arms, and a few recent ones. We commenced our trading immediately, giving them in exchange, fish-hooks, beads, knives, paint, &c., and before evening, had procured sufficient provision for the consumption of our party until we arrive at the falls of Snake river, where we are told we shall meet the Bannecks, from whom we can doubtless trade a supply, which will serve us until we reach Walla-walla. While we were pursuing our trade, Richardson and Mr. Ashworth rode into the camp, and I observed by the countenance of the latter, that something unusual had occurred. I felt very certain that no ordinary matter would be capable of ruffling this calm, intrepid, and almost fool-hardy young man; so it was with no little interest that I drew near, to listen to the tale which he told Captain W. with a face flushed with unusual anger, while his whole person seemed to swell with pride and disdain. He said that while riding about five miles behind the party, (not being able to keep up with it on account of his having a worn out horse,) he was attacked by about fifty of the Indians whom we passed earlier in the day, dragged forcibly from his horse and thrown upon the ground. Here, some held their knives to his throat to prevent his rising, and others robbed him of his saddle bags, and all that they contained. While he was yet in this unpleasant situation, Richardson came suddenly upon them, and the cowardly Indians released their captive instantly, throwing the saddle bags and every thing else upon the ground and flying like frightened antelopes over the plain. The only real damage that Mr. Ashworth sustained, was the total loss of his {135} saddle bags, which were cut to pieces by the knives of the Indians, in order to abstract the contents. These, however, we think he deserves to lose, inasmuch, as with all our persuasion, we have never been able to induce him to carry a gun since we left the country infested by the Blackfeet; and to-day, the very show of such a weapon would undoubtedly have prevented the attack of which he complains. Richardson gives an amusing account of the deportment of our young English friend while he was lying under the knives of his captors. The heavy whip of buffalo hide, which was his only weapon, was applied with great energy to the naked backs and shoulders of the Indians, who winced and stamped under the infliction, but still feared to use their knives, except to prevent his rising. Richardson says, that until he approached closely, the blows were descending in rapid succession, and our hunter was in some danger of losing his characteristic dignity in his efforts to repress a loud and hearty laugh at the extreme ludicrousness of the whole scene. Captain W., when the circumstances of the assault were stated to him, gave an immediate order for the suspension of business, and calling the chief to him, told him seriously, that if an attempt were again made to interrupt any of his party on their march, the offenders should be tied to a tree and whipped severely. He enforced his language by gestures so expressive that none could misunderstand him, and he was answered by a low groan from the Indians present, and a submissive bowing of their heads. The chief appeared very much troubled, and harangued his people for considerable time on the subject, repeating what the captain had said, with some additional remarks of his own, implying that even a worse fate than whipping would be the lot of future delinquents. _22d._--Last night during the second guard, while on my walk {136} around the camp, I observed one of my men squatted on the ground, intently surveying some object which appeared to be moving among the horses. At his request, I stooped also, and could distinctly perceive something near us which was certainly not a horse, and yet was as certainly a living object. I supposed it to be either a bear or a wolf, and at the earnest solicitation of the man, I gave the word "fire." The trigger was instantly pulled, the sparks flew from the flint, but the rifle was not exploded. At the sound, an Indian sprang from the grass where he had been crouching, and darted away towards the Snake camp. His object certainly was to appropriate one of our horses, and very fortunate for him was it that the gun missed fire, for the man was an unerring marksman. This little warning will probably check other similar attempts by these people. Early in the morning I strolled into the Snake camp. It consists of about thirty lodges or wigwams, formed generally of branches of trees tied together in a conic summit, and covered with buffalo, deer, or elk skins. Men and little children were lolling about the ground all around the wigwams, together with a heterogeneous assemblance of dogs, cats, some tamed prairie wolves, and other "_varmints_." The dogs growled and snapped when I approached, the wolves cowered and looked cross, and the cats ran away and hid themselves in dark corners. They had not been accustomed to the face of a white man, and all the quadrupeds seemed to regard me as some monstrous production, more to be feared than loved or courted. This dislike, however, did not appear to extend to the bipeds, for many of every age and sex gathered around me, and seemed to be examining me critically in all directions. The men looked complacently at me, the women, the dear creatures, smiled upon me, and the little naked, pot-bellied children crawled around my feet, examining the fashion of my hard shoes, and playing with the {137} long fringes of my leathern inexpressibles. But I scarcely know how to commence a description of the _tout en semble_ of the camp, or to frame a sentence which will give an adequate idea of the extreme filth, and most horrific nastiness of the whole vicinity. I shall therefore but transiently glance at it, omitting many of the most disgusting and abominable features. [Illustration: Spearing the Salmon] Immediately as I entered the village, my olfactories were assailed by the most vile and mephitic odors, which I found to proceed chiefly from great piles of salmon entrails and garbage which were lying festering and rotting in the sun, around the very doors of the habitations. Fish, recent and half dried, were scattered all over the ground, under the feet of the dogs, wolves and Indian children; and others which had been split, were hanging on rude platforms erected within the precincts of the camp. Some of the women were making their breakfast of the great red salmon eggs as large as peas, and using a wooden spoon to convey them to their mouths. Occasionally, also, by way of varying the repast, they would take a huge pinch of a drying fish which was lying on the ground near them. Many of the children were similarly employed, and the little imps would also have hard contests with the dogs for a favorite morsel, the former roaring and blubbering, the latter yelping and snarling, and both rolling over and over together upon the savory soil. The whole economy of the lodges, and the inside and outside appearance, was of a piece with every thing else about them--filthy beyond description--the very skins which covered the wigwams were black and stiff with rancid salmon fat, and the dresses (if dresses they may be called) of the women, were of the same color and consistence, from the same cause. These _dresses_ are little square pieces of deer skin, fastened with a thong around the loins, and reaching about half way to the knees; the rest of the person is entirely naked. Some of the women had little children clinging like bullfrogs to their backs, without being fastened, and in that situation {138} extracting their lactiferous sustenance from the breast, which was thrown over the shoulders. It is almost needless to say, that I did not remain long in the Snake camp; for although I had been a considerable time estranged from the abodes of luxury, and had become somewhat accustomed to, at least, a partial assimilation to a state of nature, yet I was not prepared for what I saw here. I never had fancied any thing so utterly abominable, and was glad to escape to a purer and more wholesome atmosphere. When I returned to our camp, the trading was going on as briskly as yesterday. A large number of Indians were assembled around, all of whom had bundles of fish, which they were anxious to dispose of. The price of a dried salmon is a straight awl, and a small fish hook, value about one cent; ten fish are given for a common butcher knife that costs eight cents. Some, however, will prefer beads, paint, &c., and of these articles, about an equal amount in value is given. A beaver skin can be had for a variety of little matters, which cost about twelve and a half cents; value, in Boston, from eight to ten dollars! Early in the afternoon, we repacked our bales of goods and rode out of the encampment, the Indians yelling an adieu to us as we passed them. We observed that one had wrapped a buffalo robe around him, taken a bow and arrows in his hand, and joined us as we went off. Although we travelled rapidly during the afternoon, the man kept with us without apparent over-exertion or fatigue, trotting along constantly for miles together. He is probably on a visit to a village of his people who are encamped on the "Big river." _23d._--Towards noon, to-day, we fell in with a village, consisting of thirty willow lodges of Bannecks. The Indians flocked out to us by hundreds, leaving their fishing, and every other employment, to visit the strangers. The chief soon made himself known to us, and gave us a pressing invitation to stop a {139} short time with them, for the purpose of trade. Although we had a good supply of fish on hand, and did not expect soon to suffer from want, yet we knew not but we might be disappointed in procuring provision lower in the country, and concluded, therefore, to halt for half an hour, and make a small increase to our stock. We were in some haste, and anxious to travel on as quickly as possible, to Snake river. Captain W., therefore, urged the chief to have the fish brought immediately, as he intended soon to leave them. The only reply he could obtain to this request, was "_te sant_," (it is good,) accompanied by signs, that he wished to smoke. A pipe was provided, and he, with about a dozen of his young men, formed a circle near, and continued smoking, with great tranquillity, for half an hour. Our patience became almost exhausted, and they were told that if their fish were not soon produced, we should leave them empty as we came; to this, the only answer of the chief was a sign to us to remain still, while he deliberated yet farther upon the subject. We sat a short time longer in silent expectation, and were then preparing to mount our horses and be off, when several squaws were despatched to one of the lodges. They returned in a few minutes, bringing about a dozen dried fish. These were laid in small piles on the ground, and when the usual price was offered for them, they refused it scornfully, making the most exorbitant demands. As our articles of trade were running low, and we were not in immediate want, we purchased only a sufficiency for one day, and prepared for our departure, leaving the ground strewn with the neglected salmon. The Indians were evidently very much irritated, as we could perceive by their angry countenances, and loud words of menace. Some loosed the bows from their shoulders, and shook them at us with violent gestures of rage, and a boy, of seventeen or eighteen years of age, who stood near me, struck my horse on the head with a {140} stick, which he held in his hand. This provoked me not a little; and spurring the animal a few steps forward, I brought my heavy whip several times over his naked shoulders, and sent him screeching into the midst of his people. Several bows were drawn at me for this act, and glad would the savages have been to have had me for a short time at their mercy, but as it was, they feared to let slip their arrows, and soon dropped their points, contenting themselves with vaporing away in all the impotence of childish rage. As we rode off, they greeted us, not with the usual gay yell, but with a scornful, taunting laugh, that sounded like the rejoicings of an infernal jubilee. Had these people been provided with efficient arms, and the requisite amount of courage to use them, they might have given us some inconvenience. Towards evening, we arrived on Snake river, crossed it at a ford, and encamped near a number of lodges along the shore. Shortly afterwards, Captain W., with three men, visited the Indians, carrying with them some small articles, to trade for fish. In about half an hour they returned, bringing only about ten salmon. They observed, among the Indians, the same disinclination to traffic that the others had manifested; or rather, like the first, they placed a higher value than usual upon the commodity, and wanted, in exchange, articles which we were not willing to spare them. They treated Captain W. with the same insolence and contempt which was so irritating from those of the other village. This kind of conduct is said to be unusual among this tribe, but it is probably now occasioned by their having recently purchased a supply of small articles from Captain Bonneville, who, they inform us, has visited them within a few days. Being desirous to escape from the immediate vicinity of the village, we moved our camp about four miles further, and stopped for the night. {141} _24th._--The sudden and entire change from flesh exclusively, to fish, ditto, has affected us all more or less, with diarrhoea and pain in the abdomen; several of the men have been so extremely sick, as scarcely to be able to travel; we shall, however, no doubt, become accustomed to it in a few days. We passed, this morning, over a flat country, very similar to that along the Platte, abounding in wormwood bushes, the pulpy-leaved thorn, and others, and deep with sand, and at noon stopped on a small stream called _Malheur's creek_.[129] [129] Malheur River rises in a lake of that name in Harney County, Oregon, and flows east and northeast into the Lewis, being one of the latter's important western tributaries.--ED. Here a party of nine men was equipped, and despatched up the river, and across the country, on a trapping expedition, with orders to join us early in the ensuing winter, at the fort on the Columbia. Richardson was the chief of this party, and when I grasped the hand of our worthy hunter, and bade him farewell, I felt as though I were taking leave of a friend. I had become particularly attached to him, from the great simplicity and kindness of his heart, and his universally correct and proper deportment. I had been accustomed to depend upon his knowledge and sagacity in every thing connected with the wild and roving life which I had led for some months past, and I felt that his absence would be a real loss, as well to myself, as to the whole camp, which had profited so much by his dexterity and skill. Our party will now consist of only seventeen men, but the number is amply sufficient, as we have passed over the country where danger is to be apprehended from Indians. We followed the course of the creek during the afternoon, and in the evening encamped on Snake river, into which Malheur empties. The river is here nearly a mile wide, but deep and clear, and for a considerable distance, perfectly navigable for steamboats, or even larger craft, and it would seem not improbable, that at some distant day, these facilities, added to the excellence of the alluvial soil, should induce the stout and hardy adventurers of our country to make permanent settlements here. {142} I have not observed that the Indians often attempt fishing in the "big river," where it is wide and deep; they generally prefer the slues, creeks, &c. Across these, a net of closely woven willows is stretched, placed vertically, and extending from the bottom to several feet above the surface. A number of Indians enter the water about a hundred yards above the net, and, walking closely, drive the fish in a body against the wicker work. Here they frequently become entangled, and are always checked; the spear is then used dexterously, and they are thrown out, one by one, upon the shore. With industry, a vast number of salmon might be taken in this manner; but the Indians are generally so indolent and careless of the future, that it is rare to find an individual with provision enough to supply his lodge for a week. _25th._--Early in the day the country assumed a more hilly aspect. The rich plains were gone. Instead of a dense growth of willow and the balsam poplar, low bushes of wormwood, &c., predominated, intermixed with the tall, rank prairie grass. Towards noon, we fell in with about ten lodges of Indians, (Snakes and Bannecks,) from whom we purchased eighty salmon. This has put us in excellent spirits. We feared that we had lost sight of the natives, and as we had not reserved half the requisite quantity of provisions for our support to the Columbia, (most of our stock having been given to Richardson's trapping party,) the prospect of several days abstinence seemed very clear before us. In the afternoon, we deviated a little from our general course, to cut off a bend in the river, and crossed a short, high hill, a part of an extensive range which we have seen for two days ahead, and which we suppose to be in the vicinity of Powder river, and {143} in the evening encamped in a narrow valley, on the borders of the Shoshoné.[130] [130] Lewis River here makes a considerable bend to the east, hence the short cut across country. The mountains are apparently the Burnt River Range, with Powder River beyond. Wyeth identifies this as the same place at which he encamped two years previous--near the point where the Oregon Short Line railway crosses Lewis River.--ED. _26th._--Last night I had the misfortune to lose my favorite, and latterly my only riding horse, the other having been left at Fort Hall, in consequence of a sudden lameness, with which he became afflicted only the night before our departure.[131] The animal was turned out as usual, with the others, in the evening, and as I have never known him to stray in a single instance, I conclude that some lurking Indian has stolen him. It was the fattest and handsomest horse in the band, and was no doubt carefully selected, as there was probably but a single Indian, who was unable to take more, for fear of alarming the guard. This is the most serious loss I have met with. The animal was particularly valuable to me, and no consideration would have induced me to part with it here. It is, however, a kind of accident that we are always more or less liable to in this country, and as a search would certainly be fruitless, must be submitted to with as good a grace as possible. Captain W. has kindly offered me the use of horses until we arrive at Columbia. [131] I afterwards ascertained that this lameness of my "buffalo horse," was intentionally caused by one of the hopeful gentry left in charge of the fort, for the purpose of rendering the animal unable to travel, and as a consequence, confining him to the fort at the time of our departure. The good qualities of the horse as a buffalo racer, were universally known and appreciated, and I had repeatedly refused large sums for him, from those who desired him for this purpose.--TOWNSEND. We commenced our march early, travelling up a broad, rich valley, in which we encamped last night, and at the head of it, on a creek called Brulé, we found one family, consisting of five Snake Indians, one man, two women, and two children.[132] They had evidently but very recently arrived, probably only last night, and as they must certainly have passed our camp, we feel little hesitation in believing that my lost horse is in their possession. It is, however, impossible to prove the theft upon them in {144} any way, and time is not allowed us to search the premises. We cannot even question them concerning it, as our interpreter, McCarey, left us with the trapping party. [132] Burnt (Brulé) River rises in Strawberry Mountains of eastern Oregon, and flows northeast, then southeast, through Baker County into Lewis River. The Oregon Trail left the latter river at the mouth of Burnt River, and advanced up that valley to its northern bend.--ED. We bought, of this family, a considerable quantity of dried choke-cherries, these being the only article of commerce which they possessed. This fruit they prepare by pounding it with stones, and drying it in masses in the sun. It is then good tasted, and somewhat nutritive, and it loses, by the process, the whole of the astringency which is so disagreeable in the recent fruit. Leaving the valley, we proceeded over some high and stony hills, keeping pretty nearly the course of the creek. The travelling was, as usual in such places, difficult and laborious, and our progress necessarily slow and tedious. Throughout the day, there was no change in the character of the country, and the consequence was, that three of our poor horses gave up and stopped. _27th._--This morning, two men were left at the camp, for the purpose of collecting and bringing on, moderately, the horses left yesterday, and others that may hereafter fail. We were obliged to leave with them a stock of provision greater in proportion than our own rather limited allowance, and have thus somewhat diminished our chance of performing the remainder of the journey with satisfied appetites, but there is some small game to be found on the route, grouse, ducks, &c., and occasionally a beaver may be taken, if our necessities are pressing. We made a noon camp on Brulé, and stopped at night in a narrow valley, between the hills. _28th._--Towards noon to-day, we lost the trail among the hills, and although considerable search was made, we were not able to find it again. We then directed our course due north, and at 2 o'clock struck Powder river, a narrow and shallow stream, plentifully fringed with willows. We passed down this {145} river for about five miles and encamped.[133] Captain W. immediately left us to look for the lost trail, and returned in about two hours, with the information that no trace of it could be found. He therefore concludes that it is up stream, and to-morrow we travel back to search for it in that direction. Our men killed, in the afternoon, an antelope and a deer fawn, which were particularly acceptable to us; we had been on an allowance of one dried salmon per day, and we had begun to fear that even this poor pittance would fail before we could obtain other provision. Game has been exceedingly scarce, with the exception of a few grouse, pigeons, &c. We have not seen a deer, antelope, or any other quadruped larger than a hare, since we left the confines of the buffalo country. Early this morning, one of our men, named Hubbard, left us to hunt, and as he has not joined us this evening, we fear he is lost, and feel some anxiety about him, as he has not been accustomed to finding his way through the pathless wilds. He is a good marksman, however, and will not suffer much for food; and as he knows the general course, he will probably join us at Walla-walla, if we should not see him earlier. [133] Powder River rises in the Blue Mountains and flows first east, then north, then abruptly southeast into the Lewis; the trail followed its north-bearing course. These western affluents of the Lewis (or Snake) were explored (1819) and probably named by Donald McKenzie, then of the North West Company.--ED. _29th._--We commenced our march early this morning, following the river to a point about six miles above where we struck it yesterday. We then took to the hills, steering N. N. W.,--it being impossible, from the broken state of the country, to keep the river bank. Soon after we commenced the ascent, we met with difficulties in the shape of high, steep, banks, and deep ravines, the ground being thickly strewed with sharp, angular masses of lava and basalt. As we proceeded, these difficulties increased to such a degree, as to occasion a fear that our horses could never proceed. The hills at length became like a consolidated mass of irregular rock, and the small strips of earthy matter that occasionally appeared, were burst into wide fissures by the desiccation to which {146} the country at this season is subject. Sometimes, as we approached the verges of the cliffs, we could see the river winding its devious course many hundred feet below, rushing and foaming in eddies and whirlpools, and fretting against the steep sides of the rocks, which hemmed it in. These are what are called the cut-rocks, the sides of which are in many places as smooth and regular as though they had been worked with the chisel, and the opening between them, through which the river flows, is frequently so narrow that a biscuit might be thrown across it. We travelled over these rocks until 1 o'clock in the day, when we stopped to rest in a small ravine, where we found a little water, and pasture for our horses. At 3, we were again on the move, making across the hills towards the river, and after a long, circuitous march, we arrived on its banks, considerably wearied, and every horse in our band lamed and completely exhausted. We have not yet found any clue to the trail for which we have been searching so anxiously; indeed it would be impossible for a distinguishable trace to be left over these rugged, stony hills, and the difficulty of finding it, or determining its direction is not a little increased by a dense fog which constantly envelopes these regions, obscuring the sun, and rendering it impossible to see an object many hundred yards in advance. The next day we were still travelling over the high and steep hills, which, fortunately for our poor horses, were far less stony than hitherto. At about noon we descended to the plain, and struck the river in the midst of a large level prairie. We proceeded up stream for an hour, and to our great joy suddenly came in sight of a broad, open trail stretching away to the S. W. We felt, in some degree, the pleasure of a sailor who has found the port of which he has been long and anxiously in search. We made a noon camp here, at which we remained two hours, and then travelled on in fine spirits over a beautiful, level, and unobstructed country. Our horses seemed to participate in our {147} feelings, and trotted on briskly, as though they too rejoiced in the opportunity of escaping the dreaded hills and rocks. Towards evening we crossed a single range of low hills and came to a small round prairie, with good water and excellent pasture. Here we found a family of _Kayouse_ Indians, and encamped within sight of them. Two squaws from this family, visited us soon after, bringing some large kamas cakes and fermented roots, which we purchased of them. _31st._--Our route this morning, was over a country generally level and free from rocks; we crossed, however, one short, and very steep mountain range, thickly covered with tall and heavy pine trees, and came to a large and beautiful prairie, called the _Grand ronde_.[134] Here we found Captain Bonneville's company, which has been lying here several days, waiting the arrival of its trapping parties. We made a noon camp near it, and were visited by Captain Bonneville. This was the first time I had seen this gentleman. His manners were affable and pleasing, and he seemed possessed of a large share of bold, adventurous, and to a certain extent, romantic spirit, without which no man can expect to thrive as a mountain leader. He stated that he preferred the "free and easy" life of a mountain hunter and trapper, to the comfortable and luxurious indolence of a dweller in civilized lands, and would not exchange his homely, but wholesome mountain fare, and his buffalo lodge, for the most piquant dishes of the French _artiste_, and the finest palace in the land.[135] This came well from him, and I was pleased with it, although I could not altogether agree with him in sentiment, for I confess I had become somewhat weary of rough travelling and rough fare, and looked forward with no little pleasure to a long rest under a Christian roof, and a general participation in Christian living. [134] Grande Ronde, a noted halting place on the Oregon Trail, was so called from its apparently circular shape, as the traveller wound down the precipitous road into its level basin; it really is an oval twenty miles long, containing three hundred thousand acres of rich land. It is in the present Union County, and Grande Ronde River flows northeasterly through it.--ED. [135] For a brief sketch of Bonneville consult Gregg's _Commerce of the Prairies_ in our volume xx, p. 267, note 167.--ED. With the captain, came a whole troop of Indians, Kayouse, {148} Nez Percés, &c. They were very friendly towards us, each of the chiefs taking us by the hand with great cordiality, appearing pleased to see us, and anxious to point out to us the easiest and most expeditious route to the lower country. These Indians are, almost universally, fine looking, robust men, with strong aqualine features, and a much more cheerful cast of countenance than is usual amongst the race. Some of the women might almost be called beautiful, and none that I have seen are homely. Their dresses are generally of thin deer or antelope skin, with occasionally a bodice of some linen stuffs, purchased from the whites, and their whole appearance is neat and cleanly, forming a very striking contrast to the greasy, filthy, and disgusting Snake females. I observed one young and very pretty looking woman, dressed in a great superabundance of finery, glittering with rings and beads, and flaunting in broad bands of scarlet cloth. She was mounted astride,--Indian fashion,--upon a fine bay horse, whose head and tail were decorated with scarlet and blue ribbons, and the saddle, upon which the fair one sat, was ornamented all over with beads and little hawk's bells. This damsel did not do us the honor to dismount, but seemed to keep warily aloof, as though she feared that some of us might be inordinately fascinated by her fine person and splendid equipments, and her whole deportment proved to us, pretty satisfactorily, that she was no common beauty, but the favored companion of one high in office, who was jealous of her slightest movement. After making a hasty meal, and bidding adieu to the captain, and our friendly Indian visitors, we mounted our horses, and rode off. About half an hour's brisk trotting brought us to the foot of a steep and high mountain, called the _Blue_. This is said to be the most extensive chain west of the dividing ridge, and, with one exception perhaps the most difficult of passage.[136] The whole mountain is densely covered with tall pine trees, with {149} an undergrowth of service bushes and other shrubs, and the path is strewed, to a very inconvenient degree, with volcanic rocks. In some of the ravines we find small springs of water; they are, however, rather rare, and the grass has been lately consumed, and many of the trees blasted by the ravaging fires of the Indians. These fires are yet smouldering, and the smoke from them effectually prevents our viewing the surrounding country, and completely obscures the beams of the sun. We travelled this evening until after dark, and encamped on a small stream in a gorge, where we found a plot of grass that had escaped the burning. [136] Blue Mountains are a continuation of the chains of western Idaho, trending southwest, then west, toward the centre of the state of Oregon, forming a watershed between the Lewis and Columbia systems. Frémont suggests that their name arises from the dark-blue appearance given to then by the pines with which they are covered. The trail led northwest from Union into Umatilla County, following the present railway route, only less circuitous.--ED. _September 1st._--Last evening, as we were about retiring to our beds, we heard, distinctly, as we thought, a loud halloo, several times repeated, and in a tone like that of a man in great distress. Supposing it to be a person who had lost his way in the darkness, and was searching for us, we fired several guns at regular intervals, but as they elicited no reply, after waiting a considerable time, we built a large fire, as a guide, and lay down to sleep. Early this morning, a large panther was seen prowling around our camp, and the hallooing of last night was explained. It was the dismal, distressing yell by which this animal entices its prey, until pity or curiosity induces it to approach to its destruction. The panther is said to inhabit these forests in considerable numbers, and has not unfrequently been known to kill the horses of a camp. He has seldom the temerity to attack a man, unless sorely pressed by hunger, or infuriated by wounds. {150} CHAPTER IX Passage of the Blue Mountains--Sufferings from thirst--Utalla river--A transformation--A novel meal--Walla-walla river--Columbia river and Fort Walla-walla--A dinner with the missionaries--Anecdote of Mr. Lee--A noble repast--Brief notice of the Fort--Departure of the missionaries--Notice of the Walla-walla Indians--Departure for Fort Vancouver--Wild ducks--Indian graves--Indian horses--Visits from Indians--Ophthalmia, a prevalent disease--Rough travelling--A company of Chinook Indians--The Dalles--The party joined by Captain Wyeth--Embarkation in canoes--A heavy gale--Dangerous navigation--Pusillanimous conduct of an Indian helmsman--A zealous botanist--Departure of Captain Wyeth with five men--Cascades--A portage--Meeting with the missionaries--Loss of a canoe--A toilsome duty--Arrival at Fort Vancouver--reflections suggested by it--Dr. John McLoughlin, the chief factor--Domiciliation of the travellers at Fort Vancouver. _September 1st._--The path through the valley, in which we encamped last night, was level and smooth for about a mile; we then mounted a short steep hill and began immediately to descend. The road down the mountain wound constantly, and we travelled in short, zig-zag lines, in order to avoid the extremely abrupt declivities; but occasionally, we were compelled to descend in places that made us pause before making the attempt: they were, some of them, almost perpendicular, and our horses would frequently slide several yards, before they could recover. To this must be added enormous jagged masses of rock, obstructing the road in many places, and pine trees projecting their horizontal branches across the path. The road continued, as I have described it, to the valley in the plain, and a full hour was consumed before we reached it. {151} The country then became comparatively level again to the next range, where a mountain was to be ascended of the same height as the last. Here we dismounted and led our horses, it being impracticable, in their present state, to ride them. It was the most toilsome march I ever made, and we were all so much fatigued, when we arrived at the summit, that rest was as indispensable to us as to our poor jaded horses. Here we made a noon camp, with a handful of grass and no water. This last article appears very scarce, the ravines affording none, and our dried salmon and kamas bread were eaten unmoistened. The route, in the afternoon, was over the top of the mountain, the road tolerably level, but crowded with stones. Towards evening, we commenced descending again, and in every ravine and gulley we cast our anxious eyes in search of water; we even explored several of them, where there appeared to exist any probability of success, but not one drop did we find. Night at length came on, dark and pitchy, without a moon or a single star to give us a ray of light; but still we proceeded, depending solely upon the vision and sagacity of our horses to keep the track. We travelled steadily until 9 o'clock, when we saw ahead the dark outline of a high mountain, and soon after heard the men who rode in front, cry out, joyously, at the top of their voices, "_water! water!_" It was truly a cheering sound, and the words were echoed loudly by every man in the company. We had not tasted water since morning, and both horses and men have been suffering considerably for the want of it. _2d._--Captain W. and two men, left us early this morning for Walla-walla, where they expect to arrive this evening, and send us some provision, of which we shall be in need, to-morrow. Our camp moved soon after, under the direction of Captain Thing, and in about four miles reached _Utalla river_, where it stopped, and remained until 12 o'clock.[137] [137] Umatilla River, whose earlier name appears to have been Utalla. Consult Franchère's _Narrative_ in our volume vi, p. 338.--ED. As we were approaching so near the abode of those in whose {152} eyes we wished to appear like fellow Christians, we concluded that there would be a propriety in attempting to remove at least one of the heathenish badges which we had worn throughout the journey; so Mr. N.'s razor was fished out from its hiding place in the bottom of his trunk, and in a few minutes our encumbered chins lost their long-cherished ornaments; we performed our ablutions in the river, arrayed ourselves in clean linen, trimmed our long hair, and then arranged our toilet before a mirror, with great self-complacence and satisfaction. I admired my own appearance considerably, (and this is, probably, an acknowledgement that few would make,) but I could not refrain from laughing at the strange, party-colored appearance of my physiognomy, the lower portion being fair, like a woman's, and the upper, brown and swarthy as an Indian. Having nothing prepared for dinner to-day, I strolled along the stream above the camp, and made a meal on rose buds, of which I collected an abundance; and on returning, I was surprised to find Mr. N. and Captain T. picking the last bones of a bird which they had cooked. Upon inquiry, I ascertained that the subject was an unfortunate owl which I had killed in the morning, and had intended to preserve, as a specimen. The temptation was too great to be resisted by the hungry Captain and naturalist, and the bird of wisdom lost the immortality which he might otherwise have acquired. In the afternoon, soon after leaving the Utalla, we ascended a high and very steep hill, and came immediately in view of a beautiful, and regularly undulating country of great extent. We have now probably done with high, rugged mountains; the sun shines clear, the air is bracing and elastic, and we are all in fine spirits. The next day, the road being generally level, and tolerably free from stones, we were enabled to keep our horses at the swiftest gait to which we dare urge them. We have been somewhat {153} disappointed in not receiving the expected supplies from Walla-walla, but have not suffered for provision, as the grouse and hares are very abundant here, and we have shot as many as we wished. At about noon we struck the Walla-walla river, a very pretty stream of fifty or sixty yards in width, fringed with tall willows, and containing a number of salmon, which we can see frequently leaping from the water. The pasture here, being good, we allowed our horses an hour's rest to feed, and then travelled on over the plain, until near dark, when, on rising a sandy hill, the noble Columbia burst at once upon our view. I could scarcely repress a loud exclamation of delight and pleasure, as I gazed upon the magnificent river, flowing silently and majestically on, and reflected that I had actually crossed the vast American continent, and now stood upon a stream that poured its waters directly into the Pacific. This, then, was the great Oregon, the first appearance of which gave Lewis and Clark so many emotions of joy and pleasure, and on this stream our indefatigable countrymen wintered, after the toils and privations of a long, and protracted journey through the wilderness. My reverie was suddenly interrupted by one of the men exclaiming from his position in advance, "there is the fort." We had, in truth approached very near, without being conscious of it.[138] There stood the fort on the bank of the river; horses and horned cattle were roaming about the vicinity, and on the borders of the little Walla-walla, we recognized the white tent of our long lost missionaries. These we soon joined, and were met and received by them like brethren. Mr. N. and myself were invited to sup with them upon a dish of stewed hares which they had just prepared, and it is almost needless to say that we did full justice to the good men's cookery. They told us that they had travelled comfortably from Fort Hall, without any unusual fatigue, and like ourselves, had no particularly stirring adventures. Their {154} route, although somewhat longer, was a much less toilsome and difficult one, and they suffered but little for food, being well provided with dried buffalo meat, which had been prepared near Fort Hall. [138] Fort Walla Walla (or Nez Percés) was built by Alexander Ross of the North West Company in July, 1818--see Ross, _Fur Hunters_, i, p. 171, for description and representation. It passed into the possession of the Hudson's Bay Company upon the consolidation of the corporations, and being rebuilt of adobé after its destruction by fire, was maintained until 1855-56, when it was abandoned during an Indian war. It was near the sight of the present Wallula, Washington, on the left bank of the Columbia, about half a mile above Walla Walla River.--ED. Mr. Walker, (a young gentleman attached to the band,) related an anecdote of Mr. Lee, the principal, which I thought eminently characteristic. The missionaries were, on one occasion, at a considerable distance behind the main body, and had stopped for a few moments to regale themselves on a cup of milk from a cow which they were driving. Mr. L. had unstrapped the tin pan from his saddle, and was about applying himself to the task, when a band of a dozen Indians was descried at a distance, approaching the little party at full gallop. There was but little time for consideration. The rifles were looked to, the horses were mounted in eager haste, and all were ready for a long run, except Mr. Lee himself, who declared that nothing should deprive him of his cup of milk, and that he meant to "lighten the old cow before he moved." He accordingly proceeded coolly to fill his tin pan, and, after a hearty drink, grasped his rifle, and mounted his horse, at the very moment that the Indians had arrived to within speaking distance. To the great relief of most of the party, these proved to be of the friendly Nez Percé tribe, and after a cordial greeting, they travelled on together. The missionaries informed us that they had engaged a large barge to convey themselves and baggage to Fort Vancouver, and that Captain Stewart and Mr. Ashworth were to be of the party. Mr. N. and myself were very anxious to take a seat with them, but to our disappointment, were told that the boat would scarcely accommodate those already engaged. We had therefore to relinquish it, and prepare for a journey on horseback to the _Dalles_, about eighty miles below, to which place Captain W. would {155} precede us in the barge, and engage canoes to convey us to the lower fort. This evening, we purchased a large bag of Indian meal, of which we made a kettle of mush, and mixed with it a considerable quantity of horse tallow and salt. This was, I think, one of the best meals I ever made. We all ate heartily of it, and pronounced it princely food. We had been long without bread stuff of any kind, and the coarsest farinaceous substance, with a proper allowance of grease, would have been highly prized. The next morning, we visited Walla-walla Fort, and were introduced, by Captain W., to Lieutenant Pierre S. Pambrun, the superintendent.[139] Wyeth and Mr. Pambrun had met before, and were well acquainted; they had, therefore, many reminiscences of by-gone days to recount, and long conversations, relative to the variety of incidents which had occurred to each, since last they parted. [139] Lieutenant Pierre Chrysologue Pambrun was born near Quebec in 1792. In the War of 1812-15, he was an officer in the Canadian light troops, and soon after peace was declared entered the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company. At the Red River disturbances (1816) he was taken prisoner, but soon released. Later he served at several far Western fur-trade posts, and coming to the Columbia was placed in charge at Fort Walla Walla (1832). He showed many courtesies to the overland emigrants, but refused supplies to Captain Bonneville as being a rival trader; he appears, however, to have had no such feeling with regard to Captain Wyeth. Pambrun was severely hurt by a fall from his horse (1840), and died of the injury at Walla Walla.--ED. The fort is built of drift logs, and surrounded by a stoccade of the same, with two bastions, and a gallery around the inside. It stands about a hundred yards from the river, on the south bank, in a bleak and unprotected situation, surrounded on every side by a great, sandy plain, which supports little vegetation, except the wormwood and thorn-bushes. On the banks of the little river, however, there are narrow strips of rich soil, and here Mr. Pambrun raises the few garden vegetables necessary for the support of his family. Potatoes, turnips, carrots, &c., thrive well, and Indian corn produces eighty bushels to the acre. At about 10 o'clock, the barge got under way, and soon after, our company with its baggage, crossed the river in canoes, and encamped on the opposite shore. There is a considerable number of Indians resident here, Kayouse's and a collateral band of the same tribe, called Walla-wallas.[140] {156} They live along the bank of the river, in shantys or wigwams of drift wood, covered with buffalo or deer skins. They are a miserable, squalid looking people, are constantly lolling around and in the fort, and annoy visitors by the importunate manner in which they endeavor to force them into some petty trade for a pipe, a hare, or a grouse. All the industrious and enterprising men of this tribe are away trading salmon, kamas root, &c. to the mountain companies. [140] For the Walla Walla Indians, see Ross's _Oregon Settlers_, in our volume vii, p. 137, note 37.--ED. Notwithstanding the truly wretched plight in which these poor people live, and the privations which they must necessarily have to suffer, they are said to be remarkably honest and upright in their dealings, and generally correct in their moral deportment. Although they doubtless have the acquisitive qualities so characteristic of the race, they are rarely known to violate the principles of common honesty. A man may leave his tent unguarded, and richly stored with every thing which ordinarily excites the cupidity of the Indian, yet, on returning after a long absence, he may find all safe. What a commentary is this on the habits and conduct of our _Christian_ communities! The river is here about three-fourths of a mile in width,--a clear, deep, and rapid stream, the current being generally from three to four miles an hour. It is the noblest looking river I have seen since leaving our Delaware. The banks are in many places high and rocky, occasionally interrupted by broad, level sandy beaches. The only vegetation along the margin, is the wormwood, and other low, arid plants, but some of the bottoms are covered with heavy, rank grass, affording excellent pasture for horses. _5th._--This morning we commenced our march down the Columbia. We have no provision with us except flour and horse tallow, but we have little doubt of meeting Indians daily, with whom we can trade for fish. Our road will now be a rather monotonous one {157} along the bank of the river, tolerably level, but often rocky, so that very rapid travelling is inadmissible. The mallard duck, the widgeon, and the green-winged teal are tolerably abundant in the little estuaries of the river. Our men have killed several, but they are poor, and not good. _6th._--We have observed to-day several high, conical stacks of drift-wood near the river. These are the graves of the Indians. Some of these cemeteries are of considerable extent, and probably contain a great number of bodies. I had the curiosity to peep into several of them, and even to remove some of the coverings, but found nothing to compensate for the trouble. We bought some salmon from Indians whom we met to-day, which, with our flour and tallow, enable us to live very comfortably. _7th._--We frequently fall in with large bands of Indian horses. There are among them some very beautiful animals, but they are generally almost as wild as deer, seldom permitting an approach to within a hundred yards or more. They generally have owners, as we observe upon many of them strange hieroglyphic looking characters, but there are no doubt some that have never known the bit, and will probably always roam the prairie uncontrolled. When the Indians wish to catch a horse from one of these bands, they adopt the same plan pursued by the South Americans for taking the wild animal. _8th._--Our road to-day has been less monotonous, and much more hilly than hitherto. Along the bank of the river, are high mountains, composed of basaltic rock and sand, and along their bases enormous drifts of the latter material. Large, rocky promontories connected with these mountains extend into the river to considerable distances, and numerous islands of the same dot its surface. We are visited frequently as we travel along, by Indians of {158} the Walla-walla and other tribes, whose wigwams we see on the opposite side of the river. As we approach these rude huts, the inhabitants are seen to come forth in a body; a canoe is immediately launched, the light bark skims the water like a bird, and in an incredibly short time its inmates are with us. Sometimes a few salmon are brought to barter for our tobacco, paint, &c., but more frequently they seem impelled to the visit by mere curiosity. To-day a considerable number have visited us, and among them some very handsome young girls. I could not but admire the gaiety and cheerfulness which seemed to animate them. They were in high spirits, and evidently very much pleased with the unusual privilege which they were enjoying. At our camp in the evening, eight Walla-walla's came to see us. The chief was a remarkably fine looking man, but he, as well as several of his party, was suffering from a severe purulent ophthalmia which had almost deprived him of sight. He pointed to his eyes, and contorting his features to indicate the pain he suffered, asked me by signs to give him medicine to cure him. I was very sorry that my small stock of simples did not contain anything suited to his complaint, and I endeavored to tell him so. I have observed that this disease is rather prevalent among the Indians residing on the river, and I understood from the chief's signs that most of the Indians towards the lower country were similarly affected. _9th._--The character of the country has changed considerably since we left Walla-walla. The river has become gradually more narrow, until it is now but about two hundred yards in width, and completely hemmed in by enormous rocks on both sides. Many of these extend for considerable distances into the stream in perpendicular columns, and the water dashes and breaks against them until all around is foam. The current is here very swift, probably six or seven miles to the hour; and the {159} Indian canoes in passing down, seem literally to _fly_ along its surface. The road to-day has been rugged to the very last degree. We have passed over continuous masses of sharp rock for hours together, sometimes picking our way along the very edge of the river, several hundred feet above it; again, gaining the back land, by passing through any casual chasm or opening in the rocks, where we were compelled to dismount, and lead our horses. This evening, we are surrounded by a large company of Chinook Indians, of both sexes, whose temporary wigwams are on the bank of the river. Many of the squaws have young children sewed up in the usual Indian fashion, wrapped in a skin, and tied firmly to a board, so that nothing but the head of the little individual is seen.[141] [141] This must have been a roving party, far from their base, for the Chinook were rarely found so high up the Columbia.--ED. These Indians are very peaceable and friendly. They have no weapons except bows, and these are used more for amusement and exercise, than as a means of procuring them sustenance, their sole dependence being fish and beaver, with perhaps a few hares and grouse, which are taken in traps. We traded with these people for a few fish and beaver skins, and some roots, and before we retired for the night, arranged the men in a circle, and gave them a smoke in token of our friendship. _10th._--This afternoon we reached the _Dalles_.[142] The entire water of the river here flows through channels of about fifteen feet in width, and between high, perpendicular rocks; there are several of these channels at distances of from half a mile to a mile apart, and the water foams and boils through them like an enormous cauldron. [142] The first obstruction in the Columbia on descending from Walla Walla consists of the Falls and Long and Short Narrows frequently called the Dalles. See descriptions in _Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition_, iii, pp. 146-173; Franchère's _Narrative_, in our volume vi, p. 337; and Ross's _Oregon Settlers_, our volume vii, pp. 128-133.--ED. On the opposite side of the river there is a large Indian village, belonging to a chief named Tilki, and containing probably five hundred wigwams. As we approached, the natives swarmed like bees to the shore, launched their canoes, and joined us in a few {160} minutes. We were disappointed in not seeing Captain W. here, as this was the spot where we expected to meet him; the chief, however, told us that we should find him about twelve miles below, at the next village. We were accordingly soon on the move again, and urging our horses to their fastest gait, we arrived about sunset. The captain, the chief of the village, and several other Indians, came out to meet us and make us welcome. Captain W. has been here two days, and we were pleased to learn that he had completed all the necessary arrangements for transporting ourselves and baggage to Vancouver in canoes. The route by land is said to be a very tedious and difficult one, and, in some places, almost impassable, but even were it otherwise, I believe we should all much prefer the water conveyance, as we have become very tired of riding. Since leaving the upper village this afternoon, we have been followed by scores of Indians on foot and on horseback; some of the animals carrying three at a time; and although we travelled rapidly, the pedestrians were seldom far behind us. We have concluded to leave our horses here, in charge of the chief of the village, who has promised to attend to them during the winter, and deliver them to our order in the spring. Captain W. having been acquainted with this man before, is willing to trust him. _11th._--Early this morning, we launched our three canoes, and each being provided with an Indian, as helmsman, we applied ourselves to our paddles, and were soon moving briskly down the river. In about an hour after, the wind came out dead ahead, and although the current was in favor, our progress was sensibly checked. As we proceeded, the wind rose to a heavy gale, and the waves ran to a prodigious height. At one moment our frail bark danced upon the crest of a wave, and at the next, fell with a surge into the trough of the sea, and as we looked at the swell before us, it seemed that in an instant we {161} must inevitably be engulphed. At such times, the canoe ahead of us was entirely hidden from view, but she was observed to rise again like a seagull, and hurry on into the same danger. The Indian in my canoe soon became completely frightened; he frequently hid his face with his hands, and sang, in a low melancholy voice, a prayer which we had often heard from his people, while at their evening devotions. As our dangers were every moment increasing, the man became at length absolutely childish, and with all our persuasion and threats, we could not induce him to lay his paddle into the water. We were all soon compelled to put in shore, which we did without sustaining any damage; the boats were hauled up high and dry, and we concluded to remain in our quarters until to-morrow, or until there was a cessation of wind. In about an hour it lulled a little, and Captain W. ordered the boats to be again launched, in the hope of being able to weather a point about five miles below, before the gale again commenced, where we could lie by until it should be safe to proceed. The calm proved, as some of us had suspected, a treacherous one; in a very few minutes after we got under way, we were contending with the same difficulties as before, and again our cowardly helmsman laid by his paddle and began mumbling his prayer. It was too irritating to be borne. Our canoe had swung round broad side to the surge, and was shipping gallons of water at every dash. At this time it was absolutely necessary that every man on board should exert himself to the utmost to head up the canoe and make the shore as soon as possible. Our Indian, however, still sat with his eyes covered, the most abject and contemptible looking thing I ever saw. We took him by the shoulders and threatened to throw him overboard, if he did not immediately lend his assistance: we might as well have spoken to a stone. He was finally aroused, however, by our presenting a loaded gun at his breast; he dashed the muzzle away, seized his paddle {162} again, and worked with a kind of desperate and wild energy, until he sank back in the canoe completely exhausted. In the mean time the boat had become half full of water, shipping a part of every surf that struck her, and as we gained the shallows every man sprang overboard, breast deep, and began hauling the canoe to shore. This was even a more difficult task than that of propelling her with the oars; the water still broke over her, and the bottom was a deep kind of quicksand, in which we sank almost to the knees at every step, the surf at the same time dashing against us with such violence as to throw us repeatedly upon our faces. We at length reached the shore, and hauled the canoe up out of reach of the breakers. She was then unloaded as soon as possible, and turned bottom upwards. The goods had suffered considerably by the wetting; they were all unbaled and dried by a large fire, which we built on the shore. We were soon visited by several men from the other boats, which were ahead, and learned that their situation had been almost precisely similar to our own, except that their Indians had not evinced, to so great a degree, the same unmanly terror which had rendered ours so inefficient and useless. They were, however, considerably frightened, much more so than the white men. It would seem strange that Indians, who have been born, and have lived during their whole lives, upon the edge of the water, who have been accustomed, from infancy, to the management of a canoe, and in whose childish sports and manly pastimes these frail barks have always been employed, should exhibit, on occasions like this, such craven and womanly fears; but the probability is, as their business is seldom of a very urgent nature, that they refrain from making excursions of any considerable extent in situations known to be dangerous, except during calm weather; it is possible, also, that such gales may be rare, and they have not been accustomed to them. Immediately after we landed, our redoubtable helmsman broke away from us, {163} and ran at full speed back towards the village. We have doubtless lost him entirely, but we do not much regret his departure, as he proved himself so entirely unequal to the task he had undertaken.[143] [143] On this matter consult _Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition_, iii, pp. 166-210, 217, 221, 256, where the Indians are represented as venturing forth into rough water that no white man dared breast.--ED. _12th._--The gale continues with the same violence as yesterday, and we do not therefore think it expedient to leave our camp. Mr. N.'s large and beautiful collection of new and rare plants was considerably injured by the wetting it received; he has been constantly engaged since we landed yesterday, in opening and drying them. In this task he exhibits a degree of patience and perseverance which is truly astonishing; sitting on the ground, and steaming over the enormous fire, for hours together, drying the papers, and re-arranging the whole collection, specimen by specimen, while the great drops of perspiration roll unheeded from his brow. Throughout the whole of our long journey, I have had constantly to admire the ardor and perfect indefatigability with which he has devoted himself to the grand object of his tour. No difficulty, no danger, no fatigue has ever daunted him, and he finds his rich reward in the addition of nearly _a thousand_ new species of American plants, which he has been enabled to make to the already teeming flora of our vast continent. My bale of birds, which was equally exposed to the action of the water, escaped without any material injury. In the afternoon, the gale not having abated, Captain W. became impatient to proceed, as he feared his business at Vancouver would suffer by delay; he accordingly proposed taking one canoe, and braving the fury of the elements, saying that he wished five men, who were not afraid of water, to accompany him. A dozen of our fearless fellows volunteered in a moment, and the captain selecting such as he thought would best suit his purpose, lost no time in launching his canoe, and away she went over the foaming waters, dashing the spray from her bows, and laboring through the heavy swells until she was lost to our view. {164} The more sedate amongst us did not much approve of this somewhat hasty measure of our principal; it appeared like a useless and daring exposure of human life, not warranted by the exigencies of the case. Mr. N. remarked that he would rather lose all his plants than venture his life in that canoe. On the 13th the wind shifted to due north, and was blowing somewhat less furiously than on the previous day. At about noon we loaded our canoes, and embarked; our progress, however, during the afternoon, was slow; the current was not rapid, and the wind was setting up stream so strongly that we could not make much headway against it; we had, also, as before, to contend with turbulent waves, but we found we could weather them with much less difficulty, since the change of the wind. _14th._--Before sunrise, a light rain commenced, which increased towards mid-day to a heavy shower, and continued steadily during the afternoon and night. There was, in the morning, a dead calm, the water was perfectly smooth, and disturbed only by the light rain pattering upon its surface. We made an early start, and proceeded on very expeditiously until about noon, when we arrived at the "cascades," and came to a halt above them, near a small Indian village. These cascades, or cataracts are formed by a collection of large rocks, in the bed of the river, which extend, for perhaps half a mile. The current for a short distance above them, is exceedingly rapid, and there is said to be a gradual fall, or declivity of the river, of about twenty feet in the mile. Over these rocks, and across the whole river, the water dashes and foams most furiously, and with a roar which we heard distinctly at the distance of several miles.[144] [144] The cascades are the last obstructions on the Lower Columbia. Consult _Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition_, iii, pp. 179-185; Franchère's _Narrative_ in our volume vi, p. 336; and Ross's _Oregon Settlers_ in our volume vii, pp. 121-125.--ED. It is wholly impossible for any craft to make its way through these difficulties, and our light canoes would not live an instant in them. It is, therefore, necessary to make a portage, either by carrying the canoes over land to the opposite side of the cataracts, or by wading in the water near the shore, where the surges are {165} lightest, and dragging the unloaded boat through them by a cable. Our people chose the latter method, as the canoes felt very heavy and cumbersome, being saturated with the rain which was still falling rapidly. They were accordingly immediately unloaded, the baggage placed on the shore, and the men entered the water to their necks, headed by Captain Thing, and addressed themselves to the troublesome and laborious task. In the meantime, Mr. N., and myself were sent ahead to take the best care of ourselves that our situation and the surrounding circumstances permitted. We found a small Indian trail on the river bank, which we followed in all its devious windings, up and down hills, over enormous piles of rough flinty rocks, through brier bushes, and pools of water, &c. &c., for about a mile, and descending near the edge of the river, we observed a number of white men who had just succeeded in forcing a large barge through the torrent, and were then warping her into still water near the shore. Upon approaching them more closely, we recognised, to our astonishment, our old friend Captain Stewart, with the good missionaries, and all the rest who left us at Walla-walla on the 4th. Poor fellows! Every man of them had been over breast deep in water, and the rain, which was still falling in torrents, was more than sufficient to drench what the waves did not cover, so that they were most abundantly soaked and bedraggled. I felt sadly inclined to laugh heartily at them, but a single glance at the sorry appearance of myself and my companion was sufficient to check the feeling. We joined them, and aided in kindling a fire to warm and dry ourselves a little, as there was not a dry rag on us, and we were all in an ague with cold. After a very considerable time, we succeeded in igniting the wet timber, and had a tolerably large fire. We all seated ourselves on the ground around it, and related our adventures. They had, like ourselves, suffered somewhat from the head-wind and heavy swells, but unlike us they had a craft that would weather it easily; even they, however, {166} shipped some water, and made very little progress for the last two days. They informed us that Captain W.'s canoe had been dashed to pieces on the rocks above, and that he and all his crew were thrown into the water, and forced to swim for their lives. They all escaped, and proceeded down the river, this morning, in a canoe, hired of the Indians here, one of whom accompanied them, as pilot. After a hasty meal of fish, purchased on the spot, our friends reloaded their boat and got under way, hoping to reach Vancouver by next morning. Mr. N. and myself remained some time longer here, expecting intelligence from our people behind; we had begun to feel a little uneasy about them, and thought of returning to look into their situation, when Captain T. came in haste towards us, with the mortifying intelligence that one canoe had been stove upon the rocks, and the other so badly split, that he feared she would not float; the latter was, however, brought on by the men, and moored where we had stopped. A man was then despatched to an Indian village, about five miles below, to endeavor to procure one or two canoes and a pilot. In the mean time, we had all to walk back along the circuitous and almost impassable Indian trail, and carry our wet and heavy baggage from the spot where the boats had been unloaded. The distance, as I have stated, was a full mile, and the road so rough and encumbered as to be scarcely passable. In walking over many of the large and steep rocks, it was often necessary that the hands should be used to raise and support the body; this, with a load, was inconvenient. Again, in ascending and descending the steep and slippery hills, a single mis-step was certain to throw us in the mud, and bruise us upon the sharp rocks which were planted all around. This accident occurred several times with us all. Over this most miserable of all roads, with the cold rain dashing and pelting upon us during the whole time, until we felt as {167} though we were frozen to the very marrow, did we all have to travel and return four separate times, before our baggage was properly deposited. It was by far the most fatiguing, cheerless, and uncomfortable business in which I was ever engaged, and truly glad was I to lie down at night on the cold, wet ground, wrapped in my blankets, out of which I had just wrung the water, and I think I never slept more soundly or comfortably than that night.[145] [145] I could not but recollect at that time, the last injunction of my dear old grandmother, not to sleep in damp beds!!--TOWNSEND. I arose the next morning rested and refreshed, though somewhat sore from sundry bruises received on the hills to which I have alluded. _15th._--The rain still continued falling, but lightly, the weather calm and cool. The water immediately below the cascades foams and boils in a thousand eddies, forming little whirlpools, which, however insignificant they may appear, are exceedingly dangerous for light canoes, whirling their bows around to the current, and capsising them in an instant. Near the shore, at the foot of the cataract, there is a strong backward tow, through which it is necessary to drag the canoe, by a line, for the distance of a hundred yards; here it feels the force of the opposite current, and is carried on at the rate of seven or eight miles to the hour. The man whom we sent yesterday to the village, returned this morning; he stated that one canoe only could be had, but that three Indians, accustomed to the navigation, would accompany us; that they would soon be with us, and endeavor to repair our damaged boat. In an hour they came, and after the necessary clamping and caulking of our leaky vessel, we loaded, and were soon moving rapidly down the river. The rain ceased about noon, but the sun did not appear during the day. {168} _16th._--The day was a delightful one; the sky was robed in a large flaky cumulus, the glorious sun occasionally bursting through among the clouds, with dazzling splendor. We rose in the morning in fine spirits, our Indians assuring us that "King George," as they called the fort, was but a short distance from us. At about 11 o'clock, we arrived, and stepped on shore at the _end of our journey_. It is now three days over six months since I left my beloved home. I, as well as the rest, have been in some situations of danger, of trial, and of difficulty, but I have passed through them all unharmed, with a constitution strengthened, and invigorated by healthful exercise, and a heart which I trust can feel deeply, sincerely thankful to that kind and overruling Providence who has watched over and protected me. We have passed for months through a country swarming with Indians who thirsted for our blood, and whose greatest pride and glory consisted in securing the scalp of a white man. Enemies, sworn, determined enemies to all, both white and red, who intrude upon his hunting grounds, the Blackfoot roams the prairie like a wolf seeking his prey, and springing upon it when unprepared, and at the moment when it supposes itself most secure. To those who have always enjoyed the comforts and security of civilized life, it may seem strange that persons who know themselves to be constantly exposed to such dangers--who never lie down at night without the weapons of death firmly grasped in their hands, and who are in hourly expectation of hearing the terrific war whoop of the savage, should yet sleep soundly and refreshingly, and feel themselves at ease; such however is the fact. I never in my life enjoyed rest more than when travelling through the country of which I speak. I had become accustomed to it: I felt constant apprehension certainly, but not to such an extent as to deprive me of any of the few comforts which I could command in such an uncomfortable country. The {169} guard might pass our tent, and cry "all's well," in his loudest key, without disturbing my slumbers: but if the slightest _unusual_ noise occurred, I was awake in an instant, and listening painfully for a repetition of it. On the beach in front of the fort, we were met by Mr. Lee, the missionary, and Dr. John McLoughlin, the chief factor, and Governor of the Hudson's Bay posts in this vicinity. The Dr. is a large, dignified and very noble looking man, with a fine expressive countenance, and remarkably bland and pleasing manners. The missionary introduced Mr. N. and myself in due form, and we were greeted and received with a frank and unassuming politeness which was most peculiarly grateful to our feelings. He requested us to consider his house our home, provided a separate room for our use, a servant to wait upon us, and furnished us with every convenience which we could possibly wish for. I shall never cease to feel grateful to him for his disinterested kindness to the poor houseless and travel-worn strangers.[146] [146] Dr. John McLoughlin, born near Quebec, October 19, 1784, was educated as a physician, and for a time studied in Paris. Early in the nineteenth century he entered the North West Company's employ, and was stationed at Fort William, on Lake Superior, where he knew Sir Alexander Mackenzie and other frontier celebrities. In 1818 he married Margaret, widow of Alexander McKay, who perished in the "Tonquin" (1811). In 1824 McLoughlin was transferred to the Columbia, as chief factor for the Hudson's Bay Company in all the transmontane region. Making his headquarters at Fort Vancouver, he for upwards of twenty years ruled with a firm but mild justice this vast forest empire. On the great American emigration to Oregon, McLoughlin's humanity and kindness of heart led him to succor the weary homeseekers, for which cause he was reprimanded by the company and thereupon resigned (1846). The remainder of his life was passed at Oregon City, and was somewhat embittered by land controversies. He became a naturalized American citizen, and after his death (September 7, 1857) the Oregon legislature made to his heirs restitution of his lands, in recognition of the great service of the "Father of Oregon." Brief sketches from his life are included in E. E. Dye, _McLoughlin and Old Oregon, a Chronicle_ (Chicago, 1900).--ED. {170} CHAPTER X Fort Vancouver--Agricultural and other improvements--Vancouver "camp"--Approach of the rainy season--Expedition to the Wallammet--The falls--A village of Klikatat Indians--Manner of flattening the head--A Flathead infant--Brig "May Dacre"--Preparations for a settlement--Success of the naturalists--Chinook Indians--their appearance and costume--Ague and fever--Superstitious dread of the Indians--Desertion of the Sandwich Islanders from Captain Wyeth's party--Embarkation for a trip to the Islands--George, the Indian pilot--Mount Coffin--A visit to the tombs--Superstition--Visit to an Indian house--Fort George--Site of Astoria--A blind Indian boy--Cruel and unfeeling conduct of the savages--their moral character--Baker's Bay--Cape Disappointment--Dangerous bar at the entrance of the river--The sea beach--Visit of Mr. Ogden--Passage across the bar.... Fort Vancouver is situated on the north bank of the Columbia on a large level plain, about a quarter of a mile from the shore.[147] The space comprised within the stoccade is an oblong square, of about one hundred, by two hundred and fifty feet. The houses built of logs and frame-work, to the number of ten or twelve, are ranged around in a quadrangular form, the one occupied by the doctor being in the middle. In front, and enclosed on three sides by the buildings, is a large open space, where all the in-door work of the establishment is done. Here the Indians assemble with their multifarious articles of trade, beaver, otter, venison, and various other game, and here, once a week, several scores of Canadians are employed, beating the furs which have been collected, in order to free them from dust and vermin. [147] Fort Vancouver was the centre of the Hudson's Bay Company's operations in Oregon, and the most important post in that country. Built in 1824-25 under the supervision of Dr. John McLoughlin, who decided to transfer thither his headquarters from Fort George (Astoria), its site was on the north bank of the Columbia, a hundred and fourteen miles from the mouth of the river, and six miles above that of the Willamette. It was not a formidable enclosure, for the Indians thereabout were in general peaceful, and a large farm and an agricultural settlement were attached to the post. After McLoughlin resigned (1846), James Douglas was chief factor until the American possession. In 1849 General Harney took charge, and by orders from Washington destroyed part of the trading post, and established a United States military post now known as Vancouver Barracks.--ED. {171} Mr. N. and myself walked over the farm with the doctor, to inspect the various improvements which he has made. He has already several hundred acres fenced in, and under cultivation, and like our own western prairie land, it produces abundant crops, particularly of grain, without requiring any manure. Wheat thrives astonishingly; I never saw better in any country, and the various culinary vegetables, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, &c., are in great profusion, and of the first quality. Indian corn does not flourish so well as at Walla-walla, the soil not being so well adapted to it; melons are well flavored, but small; the greatest curiosity, however, is the apples, which grow on small trees, the branches of which would be broken without the support of props. So profuse is the quantity of fruit that the limbs are covered with it, and it is actually _packed_ together precisely in the same manner that onions are attached to ropes when they are exposed for sale in our markets. On the farm is a grist mill, a threshing mill, and a saw mill, the two first, by horse, and the last, by water power; besides many minor improvements in agricultural and other matters, which cannot but astonish the stranger from a civilized land, and which reflect great credit upon the liberal and enlightened chief factor. In the propagation of domestic cattle, the doctor has been particularly successful. Ten years ago a few head of neat cattle were brought to the fort by some fur traders from California; these have now increased to near seven hundred. They are a large framed, long horned breed, inferior in their milch qualities to those of the United States, but the beef is excellent, and in consequence of the mildness of the climate, it is never necessary to provide them with fodder during the winter, an abundant supply of excellent pasture being always found. On the farm, in the vicinity of the fort, are thirty or forty log huts, which are occupied by the Canadians, and others attached {172} to the establishment. These huts are placed in rows, with broad lanes or streets between them, and the whole looks like a very neat and beautiful village. The most fastidious cleanliness appears to be observed; the women may be seen sweeping the streets and scrubbing the door-sills as regularly as in our own proverbially cleanly city.[148] [148] I have given this notice of the suburbs of the fort, as I find it in my journal written at the time; I had reason, subsequently, to change my opinion with regard to the scrupulous cleanliness of the Canadians' Indian wives, and particularly after inspecting the internal economy of the dwellings. What at first struck me as neat and clean, by an involuntary comparison of it with the extreme filthiness to which I had been accustomed amongst the Indians, soon revealed itself in its proper light, and I can freely confess that my first estimate was too high.--TOWNSEND. _Sunday, September 25th._--Divine service was performed in the fort this morning by Mr. Jason Lee. This gentleman and his nephew had been absent some days in search of a suitable place to establish themselves, in order to fulfil the object of their mission. They returned yesterday, and intend leaving us to-morrow with their suite for the station selected, which is upon the Wallammet river, about sixty miles south of the fort.[149] [149] Jason Lee had intended to settle among the Flatheads; but upon the advice of McLoughlin, reinforced by his own observations, the missionary decided to establish his first station in the fertile Willamette valley. He proceeded to the small settlement of French Canadian ex-servants of the company and built his house on the east side of the river, at Chemyway, in Marion County.--ED. In the evening we were gratified by the arrival of Captain Wyeth from below, who informed us that the brig from Boston, which was sent out by the company to which Wyeth is attached, had entered the river, and was anchored about twenty miles below, at a spot called Warrior's point, near the western entrance of the Wallammet.[150] [150] Warriors' Point is at the lower end of Wappato (or Sauvie) Island, the eastern boundary of the lower Willamette mouth. Probably it received its name from a party of Indians who in 1816 fired upon a trading party from Fort George and drove them back from the Willamette; see Alexander Ross, _Fur Hunters_, i, pp. 100, 101.--ED. Captain W. mentioned his intention to visit the Wallammet country, and seek out a convenient location for a fort which he wishes to establish without delay, and Mr. N. and myself accepted an invitation to accompany him in the morning. He has brought with him one of the brig's boats, and eight oarsmen, five of whom are Sandwich Islanders. We have experienced for several days past, gloomy, lowering, and showery weather; indeed the sun has scarcely been seen for {173} a week past. This is said to indicate the near approach of the rainy season, which usually sets in about the middle of October, or even earlier. After this time, until December, there is very little clear weather, showers or heavy clouds almost constantly prevailing. On the 29th, Captain Wyeth, Mr. N., and myself, embarked in the ship's boat for our exploring excursion. We had a good crew of fine robust sailors, and the copper-colored islanders,--or _Kanakas_, as they are called,--did their duty with great alacrity and good will. At about five miles below the fort, we entered the upper mouth of the Wallammet. This river is here about half the width of the Columbia, a clear and beautiful stream, and navigable for large vessels to the distance of twenty-five miles. It is covered with numerous islands, the largest of which is that called _Wappatoo Island_, about twenty miles in length.[151] The vegetation on the main land is good, the timber generally pine and post oak, and the river is margined in many places with a beautiful species of willow with large ob-lanceolate leaves like those of the peach, and white on their under surface. The timber on the islands is chiefly oak, no pine growing there. At about 10 o'clock we overtook three men whom Captain W. had sent ahead in a canoe and we all landed soon after on the beach and dined on a mess of salmon and peas which we had provided. We were under way again in the afternoon, and encamped at about sunset. We have as yet seen no suitable place for an establishment, and to-morrow we proceed to the falls of the river, about fifteen miles further. Almost all the land in the vicinity is excellent and well calculated for cultivation, and several spots which we have visited, would be admirably adapted to the captain's views, but that there is not a sufficient extent unincumbered, or which could be fitted for the purposes of tillage in a space of time short enough {174} to be serviceable; others are at some seasons inundated, which is an insurmountable objection. [151] This large island across the mouth of the Willamette valley was by Lewis and Clark named Image-Canoe, later Wappato Island. It is now known as Sauvie for Jean Baptiste Sauvé, who was for many years a faithful servant of the Hudson's Bay Company, and maintained the dairy farm on this island.--ED. We embarked early the next morning, and at 11 o'clock arrived at the falls, after encountering some difficulties from rapids, through which we had to warp our boat.[152] There are here three falls on a line of rocks extending across the river, which forms the bed of the upper channel. The water is precipitated through deep abrazed gorges, and falls perhaps forty feet at an angle of about twenty degrees. It was a beautiful sight when viewed from a distance, but it became grand and almost sublime as we approached it nearer. I mounted the rocks and stood over the highest fall, and although the roar of the cataract was almost deafening, and the rays of the bright sun reflected from the white and glittering foam threatened to deprive me of sight, yet I became so absorbed in the contemplation of the scene, and the reflections which were involuntarily excited, as to forget every thing else for the time, and was only aroused by Captain W. tapping me on the shoulder, and telling me that every thing was arranged for our return. While I visited the falls, the captain and his men had found what they sought for; and the object of our voyage being accomplished, we got on board immediately and shaped our course down the river with a fair wind, and the current in favor. [152] The falls of Willamette were not discovered by Lewis and Clark, who explored that river only to the site of Portland. Probably the first white men to visit them were a party led by Franchère and William Henry in 1814; see Franchère's _Narrative_ in our volume vi, p. 313. McLoughlin staked out a claim around these falls in 1829, and made some improvements. Later (1840) his claims were contested, but in 1842 the land was laid off in lots and entitled Oregon City. The falls are now passed by locks, in order to facilitate navigation on the upper Willamette.--ED. About two miles below the cataract is a small village of Klikatat Indians.[153] Their situation does not appear different from what we have been accustomed to see in the neighborhood of the fort. They live in the same sort of miserable loose hovels, and are the same wretched, squalid looking people. Although enjoying far more advantages, and having in a much greater degree the means of rendering themselves comfortable, yet their mode of living, their garments, their wigwams, and every thing connected with them, is not much better than the Snakes and {175} Bannecks, and very far inferior to that fine, noble-looking race, the Kayouse, whom we met on the _Grand ronde_. [153] The Klikitat were a Shahaptian tribe, near kin to the Yakima. Their habitat was on both sides of the Cascade Range, north of the Columbia. Early in the nineteenth century they made a futile attempt to settle in the Willamette valley. They were probably the Wahhowpums of Lewis and Clark.--ED. A custom prevalent, and almost universal amongst these Indians, is that of flattening, or mashing in the whole front of the skull, from the superciliary ridge to the crown. The appearance produced by this unnatural operation is almost hideous, and one would suppose that the intellect would be materially affected by it. This, however, does not appear to be the case, as I have never seen, (with a single exception, the Kayouse,) a race of people who appeared more shrewd and intelligent. I had a conversation on this subject, a few days since, with a chief who speaks the English language. He said that he had exerted himself to abolish the practice in his own tribe, but although his people would listen patiently to his talk on most subjects, their ears were firmly closed when this was mentioned; "they would leave the council fire, one by one, until none but a few squaws and children were left to drink in the words of the chief." It is even considered among them a degradation to possess a round head, and one whose _caput_ has happened to be neglected in his infancy, can never become even a subordinate chief in his tribe, and is treated with indifference and disdain, as one who is unworthy a place amongst them. The flattening of the head is practiced by at least ten or twelve distinct tribes of the lower country, the Klikatats, Kalapooyahs, and Multnomahs, of the Wallammet, and its vicinity;[154] the Chinooks, Klatsaps, Klatstonis, Kowalitsks, Katlammets, Killemooks, and Chekalis of the lower Columbia and its tributaries, and probably by others both north and south.[155] The tribe called Flatheads, or _Salish_, who reside near the sources of the Oregon, have long since abolished this custom.[156] [154] For the Kalapuya and Multnomah tribes of the Willamette valley, consult Ross's _Oregon Settlers_, in our volume vii, p. 230, note 80, and Franchère's _Narrative_ in our volume vi, p. 247, note 53, respectively.--ED. [155] Consult Franchère's _Narrative_, notes 39, 40, 49, 65, 67, and Ross's _Oregon Settlers_, pp. 102, 103, note 13.--ED. [156] For the use of Flathead as a generic term, consult Franchère's _Narrative_, p. 340, note 145. Lewis and Clark noted that instances of the custom of flattening the forehead by pressure diminished in frequency from the coast east: among the tribes of eastern Oregon and Washington, only an occasional female appeared with flattened head, while among the coast tribes the custom was universal for both sexes.--ED. The mode by which the flattening is effected, varies considerably with the different tribes. The Wallammet Indians place the infant, soon after birth, upon a board, to the edges of which {176} are attached little loops of hempen cord or leather, and other similar cords are passed across and back, in a zig-zag manner, through these loops, enclosing the child, and binding it firmly down. To the upper edge of this board, in which is a depression to receive the back part of the head, another smaller one is attached by hinges of leather, and made to lie obliquely upon the forehead, the force of the pressure being regulated by several strings attached to its edge, which are passed through holes in the board upon which the infant is lying, and secured there. The mode of the Chinooks, and others near the sea, differs widely from that of the upper Indians, and appears somewhat less barbarous and cruel. A sort of cradle is formed by excavating a pine log to the depth of eight or ten inches. The child is placed in it on a bed of little grass mats, and bound down in the manner above described. A little boss of tightly plaited and woven grass is then applied to the forehead, and secured by a cord to the loops at the side. The infant is thus suffered to remain from four to eight months, or until the sutures of the skull have in some measure united, and the bone become solid and firm. It is seldom or never taken from the cradle, except in case of severe illness, until the flattening process is completed.[157] [157] See illustration in _Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition_, iv, p. 10.--ED. I saw, to-day, a young child from whose head the board had just been removed. It was, without exception, the most frightful and disgusting looking object that I ever beheld. The whole front of the head was completely flattened, and the mass of brain being forced back, caused an enormous projection there. The poor little creature's eyes protruded to the distance of half an inch, and looked inflamed and discolored, as did all the surrounding parts. Although I felt a kind of chill creep over me from the contemplation of such dire deformity, yet there was something so stark-staring, and absolutely queer in the physiognomy, that I could not repress a smile; and when the mother amused the little object and made it laugh, it looked so irresistibly, {177} so _terribly_ ludicrous, that I and those who were with me, burst into a simultaneous roar, which frightened it and made it cry, in which predicament it looked much less horrible than before. On the 1st of November we arrived at the brig. She was moored, head and stern, to a large rock near the lower mouth of the Wallammet. Captain Lambert with his ship's company, and our own mountain men, were all actively engaged at various employments; carpenters, smiths, coopers, and other artisans were busy in their several vocations; domestic animals, pigs, sheep, goats, poultry, &c., were roaming about as if perfectly at home, and the whole scene looked so like the entrance to a country village, that it was difficult to fancy oneself in a howling wilderness inhabited only by the wild and improvident Indian, and his scarcely more free and fearless neighbors, the bear and the wolf.[158] An excellent temporary storehouse of twigs, thatched with grass, has been erected, in which has been deposited the extensive assortment of goods necessary for the settlement, as well as a number of smaller ones, in which the men reside. It is intended as soon as practicable, to build a large and permanent dwelling of logs, which will also include the store and trading establishment, and form the groundwork for an _American fort_ on the river Columbia. [158] The brig was the "May Dacre;" Captain Lambert had been in command of Wyeth's earlier vessel, the "Sultana," which was wrecked on a South Pacific reef. He later made many voyages in command of various vessels, the last of which sailed from Hawaii to New Bedford, Massachusetts. He died at "Sailor's Snug Harbor" on Staten Island. See F. H. Victor, "Flotsom and Jetsom of the Pacific," in _Oregon Historical Society Quarterly_, ii, pp. 36-54.--ED. _5th._--Mr. N. and myself are now residing on board the brig, and pursuing with considerable success our scientific researches through the neighborhood. I have shot and prepared here several new species of birds, and two or three undescribed quadrupeds, besides procuring a considerable number, which, though known to naturalists, are rare, and therefore valuable. My companion is of course in his element; the forest, the plain, the rocky hill, and the mossy bank yield him a rich and most abundant supply. {178} We are visited daily by considerable numbers of Chinook and Klikatat Indians, many of whom bring us provisions of various kinds, salmon, deer, ducks, &c., and receive in return, powder and shot, knives, paint, and _Indian rum_, i. e. rum and water in the proportion of one part of the former to two of the latter. Some of these Indians would be handsome were it not for the abominable practice, which, as I have said, is almost universal amongst them, of destroying the form of the head. The features of many are regular, though often devoid of expression, and the persons of the men generally are rather symmetrical; their stature is low, with light sinewy limbs, and remarkably small delicate hands. The women are usually more rotund, and, in some instances, even approach obesity. The principal clothing worn by them is a sort of short petticoat made of strands of pine bark or twisted hempen strings, tied around the loins like a marro. This article they call a _kalaquarté_; and is often their only dress; some, however, cover the shoulders with a blanket, or robe made of muskrat or hare skins sewed together.[159] [159] See _Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition_, iii, pp. 239-242.--ED. A disease of a very fatal character is prevalent among these Indians; many of them have died of it; even some of those in the neighborhood of the fort, where medical assistance was always at hand. The symptoms are a general coldness, soreness and stiffness of the limbs and body, with violent tertian ague. Its fatal termination is attributable to its tendency to attack the liver, which is generally affected in a few days after the first symptoms are developed. Several of the white people attached to the fort have been ill with it, but no deaths have occurred amongst them, the disease in their case having yielded to the simple tonic remedies usually employed at home. This I have no doubt would be equally the case with the Indians, were they {179} willing to submit to proper restrictions during the time of administering medicine. Captain Lambert informs me that on his first landing here the Indians studiously avoided his vessel, and all kind of intercourse with his crew, from the supposition, (which they have since acknowledged) that the malady which they dread so much was thus conveyed. As in a short time it became desirable, on account of procuring supplies of provision, to remove this impression, some pains were taken to convince the Indians of their error, and they soon visited the ship without fear. Mr. N. and myself have been anxious to escape the wet and disagreeable winter of this region, and visit some other portion of the country, where the inclemency of the season will not interfere with the prosecution of our respective pursuits. After some reflection and consultation, we concluded to take passage in the brig, which will sail in a few weeks for the Sandwich Islands. We shall remain there about three months, and return to the river in time to commence our peregrinations in the spring. _23d._--At Fort Vancouver. A letter was received yesterday by Dr. McLoughlin, from Captain Wyeth, dated Walla-walla, stating that the twelve Sandwich Islanders whom he took with him a week since for a journey to Fort Hall, had deserted, each taking a horse. They had no doubt heard from some of their countrymen, whom they met at the fort, of the difficulties of the route before them, which were probably very much exaggerated. Captain W. is on the alert to find them, and is sending men on their trail in every direction, but it is more than probable that they will not be overtaken, and the consequence will then be, that the expedition must be abandoned, and the captain return to the fort to spend the winter. _December 3d._--Yesterday Mr. N. and myself went down the river to the brig, and this morning early the vessel left her {180} moorings, and with her sails unloosed stood out into the channel way. The weather was overcast, and we had but little wind, so that our progress during the morning was necessarily slow. In the afternoon we ran aground in one and a half fathoms water, but as the tide was low, we were enabled to get her clear in the evening. The navigation of this river is particularly difficult in consequence of numerous shoals and sand bars, and good pilots are scarce, the Indians alone officiating in that capacity. Towards noon the next day, a Kowalitsk Indian with but one eye, who said his name was _George_, boarded us, and showed a letter which he carried, written by Captain McNeall, in the Hudson's Bay service, recommending said George as a capable and experienced pilot. We accepted his services gladly, and made a bargain with him to take us into Baker's bay near the cape, for four bottles of rum; with the understanding, however, that every time the brig ran aground, one bottle of the precious liquor was to be forfeited.[160] George agreed to the terms, and taking his station at the bow, gave his orders to the man at the wheel like one having authority, pointing with his finger when he wished a deviation from the common course, and pronouncing in a loud voice the single word _ookook_, (here.) [160] For Baker's Bay, and the origin of its name, see Franchère's _Narrative_, our volume vi, p. 234, note 38.--ED. On the afternoon of the 4th, we passed along a bold precipitous shore, near which we observed a large isolated rock, and on it a great number of canoes, deposited above the reach of the tides. This spot is called _Mount Coffin_, and the canoes contain the dead bodies of Indians. They are carefully wrapped in blankets, and all the personal property of the deceased, bows and arrows, guns, salmon spears, ornaments, &c., are placed within, and around his canoe. The vicinity of this, and all other cemeteries, is held so sacred by the Indians, that they never approach it, except to make similar deposites; they will often even travel a considerable distance out of their course, in order to avoid intruding upon the sanctuary of their dead.[161] [161] For Mount Coffin see both Franchère and Ross, volume vi, p. 244, and volume vii, pp. 117, 118, respectively.--ED. {181} We came to anchor near this rock in the evening, and Captain Lambert, Mr. N., and myself visited the tombs. We were especially careful not to touch or disarrange any of the fabrics, and it was well we were so, for as we turned to leave the place, we found that we had been narrowly watched by about twenty Indians, whom we had not seen when we landed from our boat. After we embarked, we observed an old withered crone with a long stick or wand in her hand, who approached, and walked over the ground which we had defiled with our sacrilegious tread, waving her enchanted rod over the mouldering bones, as if to purify the atmosphere around, and exorcise the evil spirits which we had called up. I have been very anxious to procure the skulls of some of these Indians, and should have been willing, so far as I alone was concerned, to encounter some risk to effect my object, but I have refrained on account of the difficulty in which the ship and crew would be involved, if the sacrilege should be discovered; a prejudice might thus be excited against our little colony which would not soon be overcome, and might prove a serious injury. _6th._--The weather is almost constantly rainy and squally, making it unpleasant to be on deck; we are therefore confined closely to the cabin, and are anxious to get out to sea as soon as possible, if only to escape this. In the afternoon, the captain and myself went ashore in the long-boat, and visited several Indian houses upon the beach. These are built of roughly hewn boards and logs, usually covered with pine bark, or matting of their own manufacture, and open at the top, to allow the smoke to escape. In one of these houses we found men, women, and children, to the number of fifty-two, seated as usual, upon the ground, around numerous fires, the smoke from which filled every cranny of the building, and to us was almost stifling, although the Indians did not appear to suffer {182} any inconvenience from it. Although living in a state of the most abject poverty, deprived of most of the absolute necessaries of life, and frequently enduring the pangs of protracted starvation, yet these poor people appear happy and contented. They are scarcely qualified to enjoy the common comforts of life, even if their indolence did not prevent the attempt to procure them. On the afternoon of the 8th, we anchored off _Fort George_, as it is called, although perhaps it scarcely deserves the name of a fort, being composed of but one principal house of hewn boards, and a number of small Indian huts surrounding it, presenting the appearance, from a distance, of an ordinary small farm house with its appropriate outbuildings. There is but one white man residing here, the superintendent of the fort; but there is probably no necessity for more, as the business done is not very considerable, most of the furs being taken by the Indians to Vancouver. The establishment is, however, of importance, independent of its utility as a trading post, as it is situated within view of the dangerous cape, and intelligence of the arrival of vessels can be communicated to the authorities at Vancouver in time for them to render adequate assistance to such vessels by supplying them with pilots, &c. This is the spot where once stood the fort established by the direction of our honored countryman, John Jacob Astor. One of the chimneys of old Fort Astoria is still standing, a melancholy monument of American enterprise and domestic misrule. The spot where once the fine parterre overlooked the river, and the bold stoccade enclosed the neat and substantial fort, is now overgrown with weeds and bushes, and can scarce be distinguished from the primeval forest which surrounds it on every side.[162] [162] Compare Franchère's _Narrative_, in our volume vi, p. 241, note 42, and Ross's _Oregon Settlers_, our volume vii, pp. 243-247, 250. The fort had been abandoned in 1824, but later was restored as a post of observation.--ED. Captain Lambert, Mr. N. and myself visited the Indian houses in the neighborhood. In one of them we saw a poor little boy about three years of age who had been blind from his birth. He {183} was sitting on the ground near the fire, surrounded by a quantity of fish bones which he had been picking. Our sympathy was very much excited for the poor little unfortunate, particularly as he was made a subject for the taunting jibes and laughter of a number of men and women, squatting around, and his mother sat by with the most cruel apathy and unconcern, and only smiled at the commiseration which we expressed for her innocent and peculiarly unhappy offspring. It seems difficult to believe that those who possess the form and countenance of human creatures, should so debase the natural good feelings which God has implanted in them: but these ignorant and gross wretches seemed to take credit to themselves in rendering this afflicted being unhappy, and smiled and looked at each other when we endeavored to infuse a little pity into them. The child had evidently been very much neglected, and almost starved, and the little articles which we presented it, (in the hope, that the Indians on seeing us manifest an interest in it, would treat it more tenderly,) it put to its mouth eagerly, but finding them not eatable, threw them aside in disgust. Oh! how I wished at that moment for a morsel of bread to give this little famished and neglected creature. We soon left the place, and returned to the brig, but I could think of nothing during the remainder of the evening but the little blind child, and at night I dreamed I saw it, and it raised its dim and sightless orbs, and stretched out its little emaciated arms towards me, as if begging for a crumb to prevent its starving. These people, as I have already said, do not appear to possess a particle of natural good feeling, and in their moral character, they are little better than brutes. In the case of the blind boy, they seemed to take pride in tormenting it, and rendering it miserable, and vied with each other in the skill and dexterity with which they applied to it the most degrading and insulting epithets. These circumstances, with others, in regard to their {184} moral character, which I shall not even mention, have tended very considerably to lower the estimation in which I have always held the red man of the forest, and serve to strengthen the opinion which I had long since formed, that nothing but the introduction of civilization, with its good and wholesome laws, can ever render the Indian of service to himself, or raise him from the state of wretchedness which has so long characterized his expiring race. The next morning, we ran down into Baker's bay, and anchored within gunshot of the cape, when Captain Lambert and myself went on shore in the boat, to examine the channel, and decide upon the prospect of getting out to sea. This passage is a very dangerous one, and is with reason dreaded by mariners. A wide bar of sand extends from Cape Disappointment to the opposite shore,--called Point Adams,--and with the exception of a space, comprehending about half a mile, the sea at all times breaks furiously, the surges dashing to the height of the mast head of a ship, and with the most terrific roaring.[163] Sometimes the water in the channel is agitated equally with that which covers the whole length of the bar, and it is then a matter of imminent risk to attempt a passage. Vessels have occasionally been compelled to lie in under the cape for several weeks, in momentary expectation of the subsidence of the dangerous breakers, and they have not unfrequently been required to stand off shore, from without, until the crews have suffered extremely for food and water. This circumstance must ever form a barrier to a permanent settlement here; the sands, which compose the bar, are constantly shifting, and changing the course and depth of the channel, so that none but the small coasting vessels in the service of the company can, with much safety, pass back and forth. [163] For Cape Disappointment, and Point Adams, consult Franchère's _Narrative_, in our volume vi, p. 233, notes 36, 37.--ED. Mr. N. and myself visited the sea beach, outside the cape, in the hope of finding peculiar marine shells, but although we {185} searched assiduously during the morning, we had but little success. We saw several deer in the thick forest on the side of the cape, and a great number of black shags, or cormorants, flying over the breakers, and resting upon the surf-washed rocks. On the morning of the 11th, Mr. Hanson, the mate, returned from the shore, and reported that the channel was smooth; it was therefore deemed safe to attempt the passage immediately. While we were weighing our anchor, we descried a brig steering towards us, which soon crossed the bar, and ran up to within speaking distance. It was one of the Hudson's Bay Company's coasters, and, as we were getting under way, a boat put off from her, and we were boarded by Mr. Ogden, a chief factor from one of the Company's forts on the coast.[164] He informed us that the brig left Naas about the first of October, but had been delayed by contrary winds, and rough, boisterous weather.[165] Thus the voyage which usually requires but about eight days for its performance, occupied upwards of _two months_. They had been on an allowance of a pint of water per day, and had suffered considerably for fresh provision. Mr. Ogden remained with us but a short time, and we stood out past the cape. [164] Peter Skeen Ogden was the son of Isaac, chief justice of the Province of Quebec--originally a loyalist from New York. Early entering the fur-trade, young Ogden was sent out to Astoria, arriving after its transference to the British. He thereupon entered the North West Company, and spent his life in the Oregon country. A successful trapper and trader, he led for many years parties into the interior, where he explored the Yellowstone and Lewis River countries, and Utah, giving his name to Ogden's Hole and the Utah city therein. In 1825 he had a disastrous encounter with Ashley, and from that time onward competition with American traders was keen. He followed Jedidiah S. Smith west to California, trapping on the upper Sacramento and discovering Ogden River--which Frémont renamed Humboldt. In 1835 Ogden was appointed chief factor of New Caledonia, and made his headquarters at Fort St. James, on Stuart Lake. Ogden married Julia, daughter of a Flathead chief, and her intrepidity and understanding of Indian nature aided her husband's undertakings. He died at Oregon City in 1854, aged about sixty years.--ED. [165] Nass Bay and Harbor, in upper British Columbia, near the Alaska boundary.--ED. When we entered the channel, the water which had before been so smooth, became suddenly very much agitated, swelling, and roaring, and foaming around us, as if the surges were upheaved from the very bottom, and as [if] our vessel would fall in the trough of the sea, pitching down like a huge leviathan seeking its native depths, I could not but feel positive, that the enormous wave, which hung like a judgment over our heads, would inevitably engulph us; but the good ship, like a creature instinct with life, as though she knew her danger, gallantly rose upon it, and but dipped her bows into its crest, as if in scorn of its mighty and irresistible power. This is my first sea voyage, and every thing upon the great deep is of course novel and interesting to me. During the scene which I have just described, although I was {186} aware of our imminent peril, and the tales that I had frequently heard of vessels perishing in this very spot, and in precisely such a sea, recurred to my mind with some force, yet I could not but feel a kind of secret and wild joy at finding myself in a situation of such awful and magnificent grandeur. I thought of the lines of Shelley, and repeated them to myself in a kind of ecstasy. "And see'st thou, and hear'st thou, And fear'st thou, and fear'st thou, And ride we not free O'er the terrible sea, I and thou?" In about twenty minutes we had escaped all the danger, and found ourselves riding easily in a beautiful placid sea. We set the sails, which had been shortened on the bar, and the gallant vessel feeling the impulse of the wind, rushed ahead as if exulting in the victory she had achieved. CHAPTER XII ... Arrival at the Columbia. {217} On the 15th,[166] the wind, which had for several days been light, began steadily to increase, until we were running ten knots by the log. In the afternoon, the atmosphere became thick and hazy, indicating our approach to the shores of the continent. In a short time, a number of the small Auks,--of which we saw a few immediately after leaving the Columbia,--were observed sporting in the waves, close under our bows; then several gulls of the species common on the river, and soon after large flocks of geese and canvass-back ducks. [166] This date is April 15, 1835. The interval between this and December 11, 1834 (the part omitted) was spent in a visit to the Hawaiian Islands. Townsend returned on Wyeth's vessel, the "May Dacre."--ED. The sea gradually lost its legitimate deep blue color, and assumed a dirty, green appearance, indicating soundings. Upon heaving the lead here, we got only eleven fathoms, and found that we had approached nearer than was prudent, having been misled by the haze. Wore ship immediately, and soon saw land, bearing east, which we ascertained to be south of Cape Disappointment. Stood off during the night, and the next morning at 4 o'clock, the wind favoring us, we bore up for the cape, and at 7 crossed the dangerous bar safely, and ran direct for the river. {218} CHAPTER XIII Passage up the Columbia--Birds--A trip to the Wallammet--Methodist missionaries--their prospects--Fort William--Band-tail pigeons--Wretched condition of the Indians at the falls--A Kallapooyah village--Indian cemetery--Superstitions--Treatment of diseases--Method of steaming--"Making medicine"--Indian sorcerers--An interruption of festivities--Death of Thornburg--An inquest--Verdict of the jury--Inordinate appetite for ardent spirits--Misfortunes of the American Company--Eight men drowned--Murder of two trappers by the Banneck Indians--Arrival of Captain Thing--His meeting and skirmish with the Blackfeet Indians--Massacre--A narrow escape. On the 16th, we anchored abreast of Oak point.[167] Our decks were almost immediately crowded with Indians to welcome us, and among them we recognised many faces with which we were familiar. _Chinamus_, the Chinook chief, was the principal of these, who, with his wife, _Aillapust_, or _Sally_, as she is called at the fort, paid us an early visit, and brought us red deer and sturgeon to regale upon after our voyage. [167] For a brief account of Oak Point, see Franchère's _Narrative_ in our volume vi, p. 261, note 74.--ED. On the afternoon of the next day, we ran up to Warrior's point, the brig's old mooring ground. The people here had been anxious to see us; extensive preparations had been made to prosecute the salmon fishery, and the coopers have been engaged the whole winter in making barrels to accommodate them. Mr. Walker, the missionaries' quondam associate, was in charge of the post, and he informed us that Captain Wyeth had returned only a few weeks since from the upper country, where he had been spending the winter, engaged in the arduous business of {219} trapping, in the prosecution of which he had endured great and various hardships.[168] [168] Captain Wyeth returned to Fort Vancouver February 12, 1835. The journal of his hardships during this trapping expedition is in his _Oregon Expeditions_, pp. 234-250.--ED. _May 12th._--The rainy season is not yet over; we have had almost constant showers since we arrived, but now the weather appears settled. Birds are numerous, particularly the warblers, (_Sylvia_.) Many of these are migratory, remaining but a few weeks: others breed here, and reside during the greater part of the summer. I have already procured several new species. _20th._--Mr. Wyeth, came down from Walla-walla yesterday, and this morning I embarked with him in a large canoe, manned by Kanakas, for a trip to the Wallammet falls in order to procure salmon. We visited fort William, (Wyeth's new settlement upon Wappatoo island,) which is about fifteen miles from the lower mouth of the Wallammet.[169] We found here the missionaries, Messrs. Lee and Edwards, who arrived to-day from their station, sixty miles above. They give flattering accounts of their prospects here; they are surrounded by a considerable number of Indians who are friendly to the introduction of civilization and religious light, and who treat them with the greatest hospitality and kindness. They have built several comfortable log houses, and the soil in their vicinity they represent as unusually rich and productive. They have, I think, a good prospect of being serviceable to this miserable and degraded people; and if they commence their operations judiciously, and pursue a steady, unwavering course, the Indians in this section of country may yet be redeemed from the thraldom of vice, superstition, and indolence, to which they have so long submitted, and above which their energies have not enabled them to rise. [169] According to Wyeth's statements, Fort William was eight miles from Vancouver, on the southwest side of the island. Built in the spring of 1835, it was upon Wyeth's return to the United States (1836) left in charge of C. M. Walker, who came out with Jason Lee. Walker was given instructions to lease the place, but no tenant offering, it was soon abandoned, and the Hudson's Bay Company established a dairy farm near the site.--ED. The spot chosen by Captain W. for his fort is on a high piece of land, which will probably not be overflown by the periodical freshets, and the soil is the rich black loam so plentifully distributed through this section of country. The men now live in tents and temporary huts, but several log houses are constructing {220} which, when finished, will vie in durability and comfort with Vancouver itself. _21st._--The large band-tail pigeon (_Colomba fasciata_) is very abundant near the river, found in flocks of from fifty to sixty, and perching upon the dead trees along the margin of the stream. They are feeding upon the buds of the balsam poplar; are very fat, and excellent eating. In the course of the morning, and without leaving the canoe, I killed enough to supply our people with provision for two days. _24th._-We visited the falls to-day, and while Captain W. was inspecting the vicinity to decide upon the practicability of drawing his seine here, I strolled into the Indian lodges on the bank of the river. The poor creatures were all living miserably, and some appeared to be suffering absolute want. Those who were the best supplied, had nothing more than the fragments of a few sturgeons and lamprey eels, kamas bread, &c. To the roofs of the lodges were hung a number of crooked bladders, filled with rancid seal oil, used as a sort of condiment with the dry and unsavory sturgeon. On the Klakamas river,[170] about a mile below, we found a few lodges belonging to Indians of the Kalapooyah tribe. We addressed them in Chinook, (the language spoken by all those inhabiting the Columbia below the cascades,)[171] but they evidently did not comprehend a word, answering in a peculiarly harsh and gutteral language, with which we were entirely unacquainted. However, we easily made them understand by signs that we wanted salmon, and being assured in the same significant manner that they had none to sell, we decamped as soon as possible, to escape the fleas and other vermin with which the interior of their wretched habitations were plentifully supplied. We saw here a large Indian cemetery. The bodies had been buried under the ground, and each tomb had a board at its head, upon which was rudely painted some strange, uncouth figure. The {221} pans, kettles, clothing, &c., of the deceased, were all suspended upon sticks, driven into the ground near the head board. [170] Clackamas River rises in the Cascade Range, between Mounts Hood and Jefferson, and flows northwest through a county of the same name into the Willamette, at the present Oregon City.--ED. [171] On the Chinook jargon--the medium of communication between the whites and Indians of the Northwest coast--see Franchère's _Narrative_ in our volume vi, p. 240, note 40.--ED. _June 6th._--The Indians frequently bring us salmon, and we observe that, invariably, before they part with them, they are careful to remove the hearts. This superstition, is religiously adhered to by all the Chinook tribe. Before the fish is split and prepared for eating, a small hole is made in the breast, the heart taken out, roasted, and eaten in silence, and with great gravity. This practice is continued only during the first month in which the salmon make their appearance, and is intended as a kind of propitiation to the particular deity or spirit who presides over the finny tribes. Superstition in all its absurd and most revolting aspects is rife among this people. They believe in "black spirits, and white, blue spirits, and grey," and to each grizzly monster some peculiar virtue or ghastly terror is attributed. When a chief goes on a hunting or fishing excursion, he puts himself under the care of one of these good spirits, and if his expedition is unsuccessful, he affirms that the antagonist evil principle has gained the victory; but this belief does not prevent his making another, and another attempt, in the hope, each time, that his guardian genius will have the ascendency. In their treatment of diseases, they employ but few remedies, and these are generally simple and inefficacious. Wounds are treated with an application of green leaves, and bound with strips of pine bark, and in some febrile cases, a sweat is administered. This is effected by digging a hole two or three feet deep in the ground, and placing within it some hemlock or spruce boughs moistened with water; hot stones are then thrown in, and a frame work of twigs is erected over the opening, and covered closely with blankets to prevent the escape of the steam. Under this contrivance, the patient is placed; and after remaining {222} fifteen or twenty minutes, he is removed, and plunged into cold water. Their mode of "_making medicine_," to use their own term, is, however, very different from this. The sick man is laid upon a bed of mats and blankets, elevated from the ground, and surrounded by a raised frame work of hewn boards. Upon this frame two "medicine men" (sorcerers) place themselves, and commence chaunting, in a low voice, a kind of long drawn, sighing song. Each holds a stout stick, of about four feet long, in his hand, with which he beats upon the frame work, and keeps accurate time with the music. After a few minutes, the song begins to increase in loudness and quickness, (a corresponding force and celerity being given to the stick,) until in a short time the noise becomes almost deafening, and may well serve, in many instances, to accelerate the exit of him whom it is their intention to benefit. During the administration of the medicine, the relations and friends of the patient are often employed in their usual avocations in the same house with him, and by his bedside; the women making mats, moccasins, baskets, &c., and the men lolling around, smoking or conversing upon general subjects. No appearance of sorrow or concern is manifested for the brother, husband, or father, expiring beside them, and but for the presence and ear-astounding din of the medicine men, you would not know that anything unusual had occurred to disturb the tranquillity of the family circle. These medicine men are, of course, all impostors, their object being simply the acquisition of property; and in case of the recovery of the patient, they make the most exorbitant demands of his relations; but when the sick man dies, they are often compelled to fly, in order to escape the vengeance of the survivors, who generally attribute the fatal termination to the evil influence of the practitioner. {223} _July 4th._--This morning was ushered in by the firing of cannon on board our brig, and we had made preparations for spending the day in festivity, when, at about 9 o'clock, a letter was received from Mr. Walker, who has charge of the fort on Wappatoo island, stating that the tailor, Thornburg, had been killed this morning by Hubbard, the gunsmith, and requesting our presence immediately, to investigate the case, and direct him how to act. Our boat was manned without loss of time, and Captain L. and myself repaired to the fort, where we found every thing in confusion. Poor Thornburg, whom I had seen but two days previously, full of health and vigor, was now a lifeless corpse; and Hubbard, who was more to be pitied, was walking up and down the beach, with a countenance pale and haggard, from the feelings at war within. We held an inquest over the body, and examined all the men of the fort severally, for the purpose of eliciting the facts of the case, and, if warranted by the evidence, to exculpate Hubbard from blame in the commission of the act. It appeared that, several weeks since, a dispute arose between Hubbard and Thornburg, and the latter menaced the life of the former, and had since been frequently heard to declare that he would carry the threat into effect on the first favorable opportunity. This morning, before daylight, he entered the apartment of Hubbard, armed with a loaded gun, and a large knife, and after making the most deliberate preparations for an instant departure from the room, as soon as the deed should be committed, cocked his gun, and prepared to shoot at his victim. Hubbard, who was awakened by the noise of Thornburg's entrance, and was therefore on the alert, waited quietly until this crisis, when cocking his pistol, without noise, he took deliberate aim at the assassin, and fired. Thornburg staggered back, his gun fell from his grasp, and the two combatants struggled hand to hand. The tailor, being wounded, {224} was easily overcome, and was thrown violently out of the house, when he fell to the ground, and died in a few minutes. Upon examining the body, we found that the two balls from the pistol had entered the arm below the shoulder, and escaping the bone, had passed into the cavity of the chest. The verdict of the jury was "justifiable homicide," and a properly attested certificate, containing a full account of the proceedings, was given to Hubbard, as well for his satisfaction, as to prevent future difficulty, if the subject should ever be investigated by a judicial tribunal. This Thornburg was an unusually bold and determined man, fruitful in inventing mischief, as he was reckless and daring in its prosecution. His appetite for ardent spirits was of the most inordinate kind. During the journey across the country, I constantly carried a large two-gallon bottle of whiskey, in which I deposited various kinds of lizards and serpents and when we arrived at the Columbia the vessel was almost full of these crawling creatures. I left the bottle on board the brig when I paid my first visit to the Wallammet falls, and on my return found that Thornburg had decanted the liquor from the precious reptiles which I had destined for immortality, and he and one of his pot companions had been "happy" upon it for a whole day. This appeared to me almost as bad as the "tapping of the Admiral," practised with such success by the British seamen; but unlike their commander, I did not discover the theft until too late to save my specimens, which were in consequence all destroyed. _11th._--Mr. Nuttall, who has just returned from the dalles, where he has been spending some weeks, brings distressing intelligence from above. It really seems that the "Columbia River Fishing and Trading Company" is devoted to destruction; disasters meet them at every turn, and as yet none of their schemes have prospered. This has not been for want of energy or exertion. Captain W. has pursued the plans which seemed {225} to him best adapted for insuring success, with the most indefatigable perseverance and industry, and has endured hardships without murmuring, which would have prostrated many a more robust man; nevertheless, he has not succeeded in making the business of fishing and trapping productive, and as we cannot divine the cause, we must attribute it to the Providence that rules the destinies of men and controls all human enterprises. Two evenings since, eight Sandwich Islanders, a white man and an Indian woman, left the cascades in a large canoe laden with salmon, for the brig. The river was as usual rough and tempestuous, the wind blew a heavy gale, the canoe was capsized, and eight out of the ten sank to rise no more. The two who escaped, islanders, have taken refuge among the Indians at the village below, and will probably join us in a few days. Intelligence has also been received of the murder of one of Wyeth's principal trappers, named Abbot, and another white man who accompanied him, by the Banneck Indians. The two men were on their way to the Columbia with a large load of beaver, and had stopped at the lodge of the Banneck chief, by whom they had been hospitably entertained. After they left, the chief, with several of his young men, concealed themselves in a thicket, near which the unsuspicious trappers passed, and shot and scalped them both. These Indians have been heretofore harmless, and have always appeared to wish to cultivate the friendship of the white people. The only reason that can be conceived for this change in their sentiments, is that some of their number may lately have received injury from the white traders, and, with true Indian animosity, they determined to wreak their vengeance upon the whole race. Thus it is always unsafe to travel among Indians, as no one {226} knows at what moment a tribe which has always been friendly, may receive ill treatment from thoughtless, or evil-designing men, and the innocent suffer for the deeds of the guilty. _August 19th._--This morning, Captain Thing (Wyeth's partner) arrived from the interior. Poor man! he looks very much worn by fatigue and hardships, and seven years older than when I last saw him. He passed through the Snake country from Fort Hall, without knowing of the hostile disposition of the Bannecks, but, luckily for him, only met small parties of them, who feared to attack his camp. He remarked symptoms of distrust and coolness in their manner, for which he was, at the time, unable to account. As I have yet been only an hour in his company, and as a large portion of this time was consumed in his business affairs, I have not been able to obtain a very particular account of his meeting and skirmish with the Blackfeet last spring, a rumor of which we heard several weeks since. From what I have been enabled to gather, amid the hurry and bustle consequent upon his arrival, the circumstances appear to be briefly these. He had made a camp on Salmon river, and, as usual, piled up his goods in front of it, and put his horses in a pen erected temporarily for the purpose, when, at about daybreak, one of his sentries heard a gun discharged near. He went immediately to Captain T.'s tent to inform him of it, and at that instant a yell sounded from an adjacent thicket, and about five hundred Indians,--three hundred horse and two hundred foot,--rushed out into the open space in front. The mounted savages were dashing to and fro across the line of the camp, discharging their pieces with frightful rapidity, while those who had not horses, crawled around to take them in the rear. Notwithstanding the galling fire which the Indians were constantly pouring into them, Captain T. succeeded in driving his horses into the thicket behind, and securing them there, placing over them a guard of three men as a check to the savages who {227} were approaching from that quarter. He then threw himself with the remainder of his little band, behind the bales of goods, and returned the fire of the enemy. He states that occasionally he was gratified by the sight of an Indian tumbling from his horse, and at such times a dismal, savage yell was uttered by the rest, who then always fell back a little, but returned immediately to the charge with more than their former fury. At length the Indians, apparently wearied by their unsuccessful attempts to dislodge the white men, changed their mode of attack, and rode upon the slight fortification, rapidly and steadily. Although they lost a man or two by this (for them) unusually bold proceeding, yet they succeeded in driving the brave little band of whites to the cover of the bushes. They then took possession of the goods, &c., which had been used as a defence, and retired to a considerable distance, where they were soon joined by their comrades on foot, who had utterly failed in their attempt to obtain the horses. In a short time, a man was seen advancing from the main body of Indians towards the scene of combat, holding up his hand as a sign of amity, and an intimation of the suspension of hostilities, and requested a "talk" with the white people. Captain T., with difficulty repressing his inclination to shoot the savage herald down, was induced, in consideration of the safety of his party, to dispatch an interpreter towards him. The only information that the Blackfeet wished to communicate was, that having obtained all the goods of the white people, they were now willing that they should continue their journey in peace, and that they should not again be molested. The Indians then departed, and the white men struck back on their trail, towards Fort Hall. Captain Thing lost every thing he had with him, all his clothing, papers, journals, &c. But he should probably be thankful that he escaped with his life, for {228} it is known to be very unusual for these hostile Indians to spare the lives of white men, when in their power, the acquisition of property being generally with them only a secondary consideration. Captain T. had two men severely, but not mortally, wounded. The Indians had seven killed, and a considerable number wounded. _20th._--Several days since a poor man came here in a most deplorable condition, having been gashed, stabbed, and bruised in a manner truly frightful. He had been travelling on foot constantly for fifteen days, exposed to the broiling sun, with nothing to eat during the whole of this time, except the very few roots which he had been able to find. He was immediately put in the hospital here, and furnished with every thing necessary for his comfort, as well as surgical attendance. He states that he left Monterey, in California, in the spring, in company with seven men, for the purpose of coming to the Wallammet to join Mr. Young, an American, who is now settled in that country.[172] They met with no accident until they arrived at a village of _Potámeos_ Indians,[173] about ten days journey south of this. Not knowing the character of these Indians, they were not on their guard, allowing them to enter their camp, and finally to obtain possession of their weapons.[174] The Indians then fell upon the defenceless little band with their tomahawks and knives, (having no fire arms themselves, and not knowing the use of those they had taken,) and, ere the white men had recovered from the panic which the sudden and unexpected attack occasioned, killed four of them. The remaining four fought with their knives as long as they were able, but were finally overpowered, and this poor fellow left upon the ground, covered with wounds, and in a state {229} of insensibility. How long he remained in this situation, he has no means of ascertaining; but upon recovering, the place was vacated by all the actors in the bloody scene, except his three dead companions, who were lying stark and stiff where they fell. By considerable exertion, he was enabled to drag himself into a thicket near, for the purpose of concealment, as he rightly conjectured that their captors would soon return to secure the trophies of their treacherous victory, and bury the corpses. This happened almost immediately after; the scalps were torn from the heads of the slain, and the mangled bodies removed for interment. After the most dreadful and excruciating sufferings, as we can well believe, the poor man arrived here, and is doing well under the excellent and skilful care of Doctor Gairdner.[175] I examined most of his wounds yesterday. He is literally covered with them, but one upon the lower part of his face is the most frightful. It was made by a single blow of a tomahawk, the point of which entered the upper lip, just below the nose, cutting entirely through both the upper and lower jaws and chin, and passing deep into the side of the neck, narrowly missing the large jugular vein. He says he perfectly recollects receiving this wound. It was inflicted by a powerful savage, who at the same time tripped him with his foot, accelerating his fall. He also remembers distinctly feeling the Indian's long knife pass five separate times into his body; of what occurred after this he knows nothing. This is certainly by far the most horrible looking wound I ever saw, rendered so, however, by injudicious treatment and entire want of care in the proper apposition of the sundered parts; he simply bound it up as well as he could with his handkerchief, and his extreme anguish caused him to forget the necessity of accuracy in this respect. The consequence is, that the lower part of his face is dreadfully contorted, one side being considerably lower than the other. A union by the {230} first intention has been formed, and the ill-arranged parts are uniting. [172] This was a party arranged by John Turner, who had previously visited Oregon with Jedidiah S. Smith. For Ewing Young, see our volume xx, p. 23, note 2. The wounded man was Dr. William J. Bailey, an Englishman who, after being educated for a physician, enlisted as a sailor, and after much roving had been a year or two in California. On recovering from his wounds, he settled in Willamette valley, married Margaret Smith, a mission teacher, and had a large farm and an important practice. Bailey became a man of note in early Oregon history, was a member of the executive committee of the provisional government in 1844, and died at Champoeg in 1876.--ED. [173] Called by the inhabitants of this country, the "_rascally Indians_," from their uniformly evil disposition, and hostility to white people.--TOWNSEND. [174] The Loloten or Tototen tribe of Klamath Indians. From their hostile and thievish disposition, their habitat was styled Rogue River, and they are usually spoken of as Rogue River Indians. The river is in southwestern Oregon, and the tribe related to those of northern California. Trouble arose between this tribe and the miners, lasting from 1850 to 1854, in which several battles were fought. There were in 1903 but fifty-two survivors, on Grande Ronde Reservation, in western Oregon.--ED. [175] Dr. Gairdner was a young English physician and scientist who had studied with Ehrenberg, in Germany, and Sir William Hooker, in Scotland. Under the patronage of the latter he had come as physician to Fort Vancouver. He died in Hawaii, whither he had gone for his health. His name is perpetuated in that of one of the Columbia salmon.--ED. This case has produced considerable excitement in our little circle. The Potámeos have more than once been guilty of acts of this kind, and some of the gentlemen of the fort have proposed fitting out an expedition to destroy the whole nation, but this scheme will probably not be carried into effect. {231} CHAPTER XIV Indians of the Columbia--their melancholy condition--Departure of Mr. Nuttall and Dr. Gairdner--A new vocation--Arrival of the Rev. Samuel Parker--his object--Departure of the American brig--Swans--Indian mode of taking them--A large wolf--An Indian mummy--A night adventure--A discovery, and restoration of stolen property--Fraternal tenderness of an Indian--Indian vengeance--Death of Waskéma, the Indian girl--"Busybody," the little chief--A village of Kowalitsk Indians--Ceremony of "making medicine"--Exposure of an impostor--Success of legitimate medicines--Departure from Fort Vancouver for a visit to the interior--Arrival of a stranger--"Cape Horn"--Tilki, the Indian chief--Indian villages--Arrival at Fort Walla-walla--Sharp-tailed grouse--Commencement of a journey to the Blue mountains. The Indians of the Columbia were once a numerous and powerful people; the shore of the river, for scores of miles, was lined with their villages; the council fire was frequently lighted, the pipe passed round, and the destinies of the nation deliberated upon. War was declared against neighboring tribes; the deadly tomahawk was lifted, and not buried until it was red with the blood of the savage; the bounding deer was hunted, killed, and his antlers ornamented the wigwam of the red man; the scalps of his enemies hung drying in the smoke of his lodge, and the Indian was happy. Now, alas! where is he?--gone;--gathered to his fathers and to his happy hunting grounds; his place knows him no more. The spot where once stood the thickly peopled village, the smoke curling and wreathing above the closely packed lodges, the lively children playing in the front, and their indolent {232} parents lounging on their mats, is now only indicated by a heap of undistinguishable ruins. The depopulation here has been truly fearful. A gentleman told me, that only four years ago, as he wandered near what had formerly been a thickly peopled village, he counted no less than sixteen dead, men and women, lying unburied and festering in the sun in front of their habitations. Within the houses all were sick; not one had escaped the contagion; upwards of a hundred individuals, men, women, and children, were writhing in agony on the floors of the houses, with no one to render them any assistance. Some were in the dying struggle, and clenching with the convulsive grasp of death their disease-worn companions, shrieked and howled in the last sharp agony. Probably there does not now exist one, where, five years ago, there were a hundred Indians; and in sailing up the river, from the cape to the cascades, the only evidence of the existence of the Indian, is an occasional miserable wigwam, with a few wretched, half-starved occupants. In some other places they are rather more numerous; but the thoughtful observer cannot avoid perceiving that in a very few years the race must, in the nature of things, become extinct; and the time is probably not far distant, when the little trinkets and toys of this people will be picked up by the curious, and valued as mementoes of a nation passed away for ever from the face of the earth. The aspect of things is very melancholy. It seems as if the fiat of the Creator had gone forth, that these poor denizens of the forest and the stream should go hence, and be seen of men no more.[176] [176] When Lewis and Clark visited the Columbia (1805-06), they noted signs of a declining population, and thought it due to an epidemic of small-pox that a few years before had decimated the native population. In 1829, shortly after the ground had been broken for a farm at Fort Vancouver, a form of intermittent fever broke out among both white men and Indians. To the latter it proved deadly, and for three years raged without abatement. This epidemic had occasioned the desolation noted by Townsend.--ED. In former years, when the Indians were numerous, long after the establishment of this fort, it was not safe for the white men attached to it to venture beyond the protection of its guns without being fully armed. Such was the jealousy of the natives towards them, that various deep laid schemes were practised to obtain possession of the post, and massacre all whom it had harbored; {233} now, however, they are as submissive as children. Some have even entered into the services of the whites, and when once the natural and persevering indolence of the man is worn off, he will work well and make himself useful. About two hundred miles southward, the Indians are said to be in a much more flourishing condition, and their hostility to the white people to be most deadly. They believe that we brought with us the fatal fever which has ravaged this portion of the country, and the consequence is, that they kill without mercy every white man who trusts himself amongst them. _October 1st._--Doctor Gairdner, the surgeon of Fort Vancouver, took passage a few days ago to the Sandwich Islands, in one of the Company's vessels. He has been suffering for several months, with a pulmonary affection, and is anxious to escape to a milder and more salubrious climate. In his absence, the charge of the hospital will devolve on me, and my time will thus be employed through the coming winter. There are at present but few cases of sickness, mostly ague and fever, so prevalent at this season. My companion, Mr. Nuttall, was also a passenger in the same vessel. From the islands, he will probably visit California, and either return to the Columbia by the next ship, and take the route across the mountains, or double Cape Horn to reach his home. _16th._--Several days since, the Rev. Samuel Parker, of Ithaca, N. York, arrived at the fort. He left his home last May, travelled to the rendezvous on the Colorado, with the fur company of Mr. Fontinelle, and performed the remainder of the journey with the Nez Percé or Cheaptin Indians. His object is to examine the country in respect to its agricultural and other facilities, with a view to the establishment of missions among the Indians.[177] He will probably return to the States next spring, and report the {234} result of his observations to the board of commissioners, by whose advice his pioneer journey has been undertaken.[178] [177] Reverend Samuel Parker was born in New Hampshire (1779); educated at Williams and Andover, he settled at Ithaca, where he died in 1866. At the meeting of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (1834), the subject of an Oregon mission was discussed and Parker appointed to make investigations. Arriving at St. Louis too late for the annual brigade, he returned home, only to come out the succeeding year in company with Marcus Whitman. At the Green River rendezvous, Whitman went back for reinforcements, but Parker pushed on, with Nez Percés as his sole companions, as far as Fort Walla Walla, where he arrived October 6, 1835. He remained in Oregon until June, 1836, then embarked for Hawaii, reaching home in May, 1837.--ED. [178] Mr. Parker has since published an account of this tour, to which the reader is referred, for much valuable information, relative to the condition of the Indians on our western frontier.--TOWNSEND. _Comment by Ed. The Journal of an Exploring Tour beyond the Rocky Mountains_ (Ithaca, 1838). Five American editions and one English appeared. The popularity of the work was considerable, and it spread information concerning the Oregon country. On the 17th, I embarked with this gentleman in a canoe, for a visit to the lower part of the river. We arrived at the American brig in the afternoon, on board of which we quartered for the night, and the next morning early, the vessel cast off from the shore. She has her cargo of furs and salmon on board, and is bound to Boston, via the Sandwich and Society Islands. Mr. Parker took passage in her to Fort George, and in the afternoon I returned in my canoe to Vancouver.[179] [179] This was Wyeth's vessel, the "May Dacre."--ED. _December 1st._--The weather is now unusually fine. Instead of the drenching rains which generally prevail during the winter months, it has been for some weeks clear and cool, the thermometer ranging from 35° to 45°. The ducks and geese, which have swarmed throughout the country during the latter part of the autumn, are leaving us, and the swans are arriving in great numbers. These are here, as in all other places, very shy; it is difficult to approach them without cover; but the Indians have adopted a mode of killing them which is very successful; that of drifting upon the flocks at night, in a canoe, in the bow of which a large fire of pitch pine has been kindled. The swans are dazzled, and apparently stupefied by the bright light, and fall easy victims to the craft of the sportsman. _20th._--Yesterday one of the Canadians took an enormous wolf in a beaver-trap. It is probably a distinct species from the common one, (_lupus_,) much larger and stronger, and of a yellowish cinereous color.[180] The man states that he found considerable difficulty in capturing him, even after the trap had been fastened on {235} his foot. Unlike the lupus, (which is cowardly and cringing when made prisoner,) he showed fight, and seizing the pole in his teeth, with which the man attempted to despatch him, with one backward jerk, threw his assailant to the ground, and darted at him, until checked by the trap chain. He was finally shot, and I obtained his skin, which I have preserved. [180] Probably an individual of what Lewis and Clark call the large brown wolf of the wooded regions of the Columbia (_canis lupus occidentalis_).--ED. I have just had a visit from an old and intelligent Indian chief, who lives near. It is now almost midnight, but for the last hour I have heard the old man wandering about like an unquiet spirit, in the neighborhood of my little mansion, and singing snatches of the wild, but sweetly musical songs of his tribe. It is a bitter night, and supposing the old man might be cold, I invited him to a seat by my comfortable fire. He says, "eighty snows have chilled the earth since _Maniquon_ was born." Maniquon has been a great warrior; he has himself taken twenty scalps between the rising and setting of the sun. Like most old people, he is garrulous, and, like all Indians, fond of boasting of his warlike deeds. I can sit for hours and hear old Maniquon relate the particulars of his numerous campaigns, his ambushes, and his "scrimmages," as old Hawk-eye would say. When he once gets into the spirit of it, he springs upon his feet, his old, sunken eyes sparkle like diamonds set in bronze, and he whirls his shrunken and naked arm around his head, as though it still held the deadly tomahawk. But in the midst of his excitement, seeming suddenly to recollect his fallen state, he sinks into his chair. "Maniquon is not a warrior now--he will never raise his axe again--his young men have deserted his lodge--his sons will go down to their graves, and the squaws will not sing of their great deeds." I have several times heard him speak the substance of these words in his own language, and in one instance he concluded thus: {236} "And who made my people what they are?" This question was put in a low voice, almost a whisper, and was accompanied by a look so savage and malignant, that I almost quailed before the imbecile old creature. I, however, answered quickly, without giving him time to reply to his own question. "The Great Spirit, Maniquon," pointing with my finger impressively upwards. "Yes, yes--it _was_ the Great Spirit; it was not the _white man_!" I could have been almost angry with the old Indian for the look of deadly hostility with which he uttered these last words, but that I sympathized with his wounded pride, and pitied his sorrows too much to harbor any other feeling than commiseration for his manifold wrongs. _February 3d, 1836._--During a visit to Fort William, last week, I saw, as I wandered through the forest, about three miles from the house, a canoe, deposited, as is usual, in the branches of a tree, some fourteen feet from the ground. Knowing that it contained the body of an Indian, I ascended to it for the purpose of abstracting the skull; but upon examination, what was my surprise to find a perfect, embalmed body of a young female, in a state of preservation equal to any which I had seen from the catacombs of Thebes. I determined to obtain possession of it, but as this was not the proper time to carry it away, I returned to the fort, and said nothing of the discovery which I had made. That night, at the witching hour of twelve, I furnished myself with a rope, and launched a small canoe, which I paddled up against the current to a point opposite the mummy tree. Here I ran my canoe ashore, and removing my shoes and stockings, proceeded to the tree, which was about a hundred yards from the river. I ascended, and making the rope fast around the body, lowered it gently to the ground; then arranging the fabric which had been displaced, as neatly as the darkness allowed, I descended, and taking the body upon my shoulders, bore it to my {237} canoe, and pushed off into the stream. On arriving at the fort, I deposited my prize in the store house, and sewed around it a large Indian mat, to give it the appearance of a bale of guns. Being on a visit to the fort, with Indians whom I had engaged to paddle my canoe, I thought it unsafe to take the mummy on board when I returned to Vancouver the next day, but left directions with Mr. Walker to stow it away under the hatches of a little schooner, which was running twice a week between the two forts. On the arrival of this vessel, several days after, I received, instead of the body, a note from Mr. Walker, stating that an Indian had called at the fort, and demanded the corpse. He was the brother of the deceased, and had been in the habit of visiting the tomb of his sister every year. He had now come for that purpose, from his residence near the "_tum-water_," (cascades,) and his keen eye had detected the intrusion of a stranger on the spot hallowed to him by many successive pilgrimages. The canoe of his sister was tenantless, and he knew the spoiler to have been a white man, by the tracks upon the beach, which did not incline inward like those of an Indian. The case was so clearly made out, that Mr. W. could not deny the fact of the body being in the house, and it was accordingly delivered to him, with a present of several blankets, to prevent the circumstance from operating upon his mind to the prejudice of the white people. The poor Indian took the body of his sister upon his shoulders, and as he walked away, grief got the better of his stoicism, and the sound of his weeping was heard long after he had entered the forest. _25th._--Several weeks ago the only son of Ke-ez-a-no, the principal chief of the Chinooks, died.[181] The father was almost distracted with grief, and during the first paroxysm attempted to take the life of the boy's mother, supposing that she had exerted an evil influence over him which had caused his death. She {238} was compelled to fly in consequence, and put herself under the protection of Dr. McLoughlin, who found means to send her to her people below. Disappointed in this scheme of vengeance, the chief determined to sacrifice all whom he thought had ever wronged his son, or treated him with indignity; and the first victim whom he selected was a very pretty and accomplished Chinook girl, named Waskéma, who was remarkable for the exceeding beauty of her long black hair. Waskéma had been solicited by the boy in marriage, but had refused him, and the matter had been long forgotten, until it was revived in the recollection of the father by the death of his son. Ke-ez-a-no despatched two of his slaves to Fort William, (where the girl was at that time engaged in making moccasins for Mr. W. and where I had seen her a short time previously,) who hid themselves in the neighborhood until the poor creature had embarked in her canoe alone to return to her people, when they suddenly rushed upon her from the forest which skirted the river, and shot two balls through her bosom. The body was then thrown into the water, and the canoe broken to pieces on the beach. [181] This appears to be the chief mentioned by Franchère in our volume vi, p. 246, and by Ross in our volume vii, p. 118.--ED. Tapeo the brother of Waskéma delivered to me a letter from Mr. W. detailing these circumstances, and amid an abundance of tears which he shed for the loss of his only and beloved sister, he denounced the heaviest vengeance upon her murderer. These threats, however, I did not regard, as I knew the man would never dare to raise his hand against his chief, but as expression relieves the overcharged heart, I did not check his bursts of grief and indignation. A few days after this, Ke-ez-a-no himself stalked into my room. After sitting a short time in silence, he asked if I believed him guilty of the murder of Waskéma. I replied that I did, and that if the deed had been committed in my country, he would be hanged. He denied all agency in the matter, and placing one hand upon his bosom, and pointing upwards with the other, called {239} God to witness that he was innocent. For the moment I almost believed his asseverations; but calling to mind the strong and undeniable evidence against him, with a feeling of horror and repugnance, I opened the door and bowed him out of the house. _March 1st._--There is an amusing little Indian living in this neighborhood, who calls himself, "_tanas tie_," (little chief,) and he is so probably in every sense of the term. In person, he stands about four feet six, in his moccasins; but no exquisite in the fashionable world, no tinselled dandy in high life, can strut and stamp, and fume with more dignity and self consequence. His name, he says, is Quâlaskin; but in the fort, he is known by the cognomen of "_busy body_," from his restless anxiety to pry into every body's business, and his curiosity to know the English name of every article he sees; _ikata ookook?_--_ikata ookook?_ (what is this?--what is this?) _kahtah pasiooks yahhalle?_ (what is its English name?) are expressions which he is dinning in your ears, whenever he enters a room in the fort. If you answer him, he attempts the pronunciation after you, and it is often not a little ludicrous. He is evidently proud of the name the white people have given him, not understanding its import, but supposing it to be a title of great honor and dignity. If he is asked his Indian name, he answers very modestly, Quâlaskin, (muddy river,) but if his _pasiooks yahhalle_ is required, he puffs up his little person to its utmost dimensions, and tells you with a simper of pride and self complacency, that it is "_mizzy moddy_." _16th._--Doctor W. F. Tolmie, one of the surgeons of the Hudson's Bay Company, has just arrived from Fort Langley, on the coast, and has relieved me of the charge of the hospital, which will afford me the opportunity of peregrinating again in pursuit of specimens.[182] The spring is just opening, the birds are arriving, the plants are starting from the ground, and in a few weeks, the wide prairies of the Columbia will appear like the richest flower gardens. [182] Dr. William Fraser Tolmie was born in Inverness, educated at Glasgow, and joined (1832) the Hudson's Bay Company as a physician. The following spring he arrived at Vancouver by way of Cape Horn, and was sent north to the Puget Sound region with a party engaged in planting a new post. There he remained until the return noted by Townsend. He lived at Fort Vancouver and vicinity until 1841. A visit to England (1841-43) was made in the interest of the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, of which Tolmie was superintendent at Fort Nisqually (1843-59). Upon the final cession of all the territory to the United States Dr. Tolmie removed to Victoria, British Columbia, where he was still living in 1878. Fort Langley was founded in 1827 upon the left bank of the Fraser River, about thirty miles above its mouth.--ED. {240} _May 13th._--Two days ago I left the fort, and am now encamped on a plain below Warrior's point. Near me are several large lodges of Kowalitsk Indians;[183] in all probably one hundred persons. As usual, they give me some trouble by coming around and lolling about my tent, and importuning me for the various little articles that they see. My camp-keeper, however, (a Klikatat,) is an excellent fellow, and has no great love for Kowalitsk Indians, so that the moment he sees them becoming troublesome, he clears the coast, _sans ceremonie_. There is in one of the lodges a very pretty little girl, sick with intermittent fever; and to-day the "medicine man" has been exercising his functions upon the poor little patient; pressing upon its stomach with his brawny hands until it shrieked with the pain, singing and muttering his incantations, whispering in its ears, and exhorting the evil spirit to pass out by the door, &c. These exhibitions would be laughable did they not involve such serious consequences, and for myself I always feel so much indignation against the unfeeling impostor who operates, and pity for the deluded creatures who submit to it, that any emotions but those of risibility are excited. [183] For the habitat of this tribe, see Franchère's _Narrative_, in our volume vi, p. 245, note 49.--ED. I had a serious conversation with the father of this child, in which I attempted to prove to him, and to some twenty or thirty Indians who were squatted about the ground near, that the "medicine man" was a vile impostor, that he was a fool and a liar, and that his manipulations were calculated to increase the sufferings of the patient instead of relieving them. They all listened in silence, and with great attention to my remarks, and the wily conjurer himself had the full benefit of them: he stood by during the whole time, assuming an expression of callous indifference which not even my warmest vituperations could affect. Finally I offered to exhibit the strongest proof of the truth of what I had been saying, by pledging myself to cure the child in three days, provided the "medicine man" was dismissed without delay. This, the father told me, required some consideration {241} and consultation with his people, and I immediately left the lodge and took the way to my camp, to allow them an opportunity of discussing the matter alone. Early next morning the Indian visited me, with the information that the "medicine man" had departed, and he was now anxious that I should make trial of my skill. I immediately administered to the child an active cathartic, followed by sulphate of quinine, which checked the disease, and in two days the patient was perfectly restored. In consequence of my success in this case, I had an application to administer medicine to two other children similarly affected. My stock of quinine being exhausted, I determined to substitute an extract of the bark of the dogwood, (_Cornus Nuttalli_,) and taking one of the parents into the wood with his blanket, I soon chipped off a plentiful supply, returned, boiled it in his own kettle, and completed the preparation in his lodge, with most of the Indians standing by, and staring at me, to comprehend the process. This was exactly what I wished; and as I proceeded, I took some pains to explain the whole matter to them, in order that they might at a future time be enabled to make use of a really valuable medicine, which grows abundantly every where throughout the country. I have often thought it strange that the sagacity of the Indians should not long ago have made them acquainted with this remedy; and I believe, if they had used it, they would not have had to mourn the loss of hundreds, or even thousands of their people who have been swept away by the demon of ague and fever. I administered to each of the children about a scruple of the extract per day. The second day they escaped the paroxysm, and on the third were entirely well. _June 26th._--I left Vancouver yesterday, with the summer brigade, for a visit to Walla-walla, and its vicinity. The gentlemen {242} of the party are, Peter Ogden, Esq., chief factor, bound to New Caledonia, Archibald McDonald, Esq., for Colville, and Samuel Black, Esq., for Thompson's river, and the brigade consists of sixty men, with nine boats.[184] [184] Archibald McDonald was a Hudson's Bay officer who had been in charge of forts in the Thompson River district (1822-26), when he became chief factor for Kamloops. In 1828 he was chosen to accompany Sir George Simpson in a transmontane tour, and his diary thereof was published as _Peace River: A Canoe Voyage from Hudson Bay to the Pacific_ (Ottawa, 1872). On this expedition he was left in charge of the newly-built Fort Langley, where he remained about eight years, constructing Fort Nisqually on Puget Sound (1833). In 1836 he was appointed to Fort Colville, where he remained for many years. This post was on the upper Columbia, not far from Kettle Falls, in the present state of Washington; built in 1825, it was maintained by the Hudson's Bay Company until the discovery of gold in that region (1858), whereupon the stockade was removed across the border into British Columbia, to avoid United States customs duties. Samuel Black had been a North West Company trader; but later was placed in charge of Hudson's Bay posts at Fort Dunveyan (1823) and at Walla Walla (1828). He commanded at Fort Kamloops (see our volume vii, p. 199, note 64), on Thompson's River for some years, before his murder (1841) by a neighboring native.--ED. _27th._--We arrived yesterday at the upper cascades, and made in the course of the day three portages. As is usual in this place, it rained almost constantly, and the poor men engaged in carrying the goods, were completely drenched. A considerable number of Indians are employed here in fishing, and they supply us with an abundance of salmon. Among them I recognise many of my old friends from below. _29th._--This morning the Indian wife of one of the men gave birth to a little girl. The tent in which she was lying was within a few feet of the one which I occupied, and we had no intimation of the matter being in progress until we heard the crying of the infant. It is truly astonishing with what ease the parturition of these women is performed; they generally require no assistance in delivery, being fully competent to manage the whole paraphernalia themselves. In about half an hour after this event we got under way, and the woman walked to the boat, carrying her new born infant on her back, embarked, laughed, and talked as usual, and appeared in every respect as well as if nothing had happened. This woman is a most noble specimen of bone and muscle, and so masculine in appearance, that were she to cast the petticoat, and don the breeches, the cheat would never be discovered, and but few of the _lords of the creation_ would be willing to face the Amazon. She is particularly useful to her husband. As he is becoming rather infirm, she can protect him most admirably. If he wishes to cross a stream in travelling without horses or boats, she plunges in without hesitation, takes him upon her back, and lands him safely and expeditiously upon the opposite bank. She can also kill and dress an elk, run down and shoot a buffalo, {243} or spear a salmon for her husband's breakfast in the morning, as well as any man-servant he could employ. Added to all this, she has, in several instances, saved his life in skirmishes with Indians, at the imminent risk of her own, so that he has some reason to be proud of her. In the afternoon, we passed the bold, basaltic point, known to the _voyageurs_ by the name of "Cape Horn."[185] The wind here blew a perfect hurricane, and but for the consummate skill of those who managed our boats, we must have had no little difficulty. [185] Cape Horn is a high basaltic cliff towering two thousand five hundred feet above the river bank, not far above Vancouver, in Skamania County, Washington. It was so named because boats were frequently wind-bound in passing this point.--ED. _30th._--We were engaged almost the whole of this day in making portages, and I had, in consequence, some opportunity of prosecuting my researches on the land. We have now passed the range of vegetation; there are no trees or even shrubs; nothing but huge, jagged rocks of basalt, and interminable sand heaps. I found here a large and beautiful species of marmot, (the _Arctomys Richardsonii_,) several of which I shot. Encamped in the evening at the village of the Indian chief, _Tilki_. I had often heard of this man, but I now saw him for the first time. His person is rather below the middle size, but his features are good, with a Roman cast, and his eye is deep black, and unusually fine. He appears to be remarkably intelligent, and half a century before the generality of his people in civilization. _July 3d._--This morning we came to the open prairies, covered with wormwood bushes. The appearance, and strong odor of these, forcibly remind me of my journey across the mountains, when we frequently saw no vegetation for weeks, except this dry and barren looking shrub. The Indians here are numerous, and are now engaged in catching salmon, lamprey eels, &c. They take thousands of the latter, and they are seen hanging in great numbers in their lodges to dry in the smoke. As soon as the Indians see us approach, they leave their wigwams, and run out towards us, {244} frequently wading to their breasts in the water, to get near the boats. Their constant cry is _pi-pi, pi-pi_, (tobacco, tobacco,) and they bring a great variety of matters to trade for this desirable article; fish, living birds of various kinds, young wolves, foxes, minks, &c. On the evening of the 6th, we arrived at Walla-walla or Nez Percés fort, where I was kindly received by Mr. Pambrun, the superintendent. The next day the brigade left us for the interior, and I shouldered my gun for an excursion through the neighborhood. On the west side of the little Walla-walla river, I saw, during a walk of two miles, at least thirty rattlesnakes, and killed five that would not get out of my way. They all seemed willing to dispute the ground with me, shaking their rattles, coiling and darting at me with great fury. I returned to the fort in the afternoon with twenty-two sharp-tailed grouse, (_Tetrao phasianellus_,) the product of my day's shooting. _25th._--I mounted my horse this morning for a journey to the Blue mountains. I am accompanied by a young half breed named Baptiste Dorion,[186] who acts as guide, groom, interpreter, &c., and I have a pack horse to carry my little _nick-nackeries_. We shaped our course about N. E. over the sandy prairie, and in the evening encamped on the Morro river,[187] having made about thirty miles. On our way, we met two Walla-walla Indians driving down a large band of horses. They inform us that the Snakes have crossed the mountain to commence their annual thieving of horses, and they are taking them away to have them secure. I shall need to keep a good look out to my own small caravan, or I shall be under the necessity of turning pedestrian. [186] This is the son of old Pierre Dorion, who makes such a conspicuous figure in Irving's "Astoria."--TOWNSEND. _Comment by Ed._ Consult Bradbury's _Travels_ in our volume v, p. 38, note 7; also Ross's _Oregon Settlers_, our volume vii, pp. 265-269, wherein the murder of the elder Dorion and the escape of his wife and children are related. [187] The direction appears to be wrong, as a northeast course would be directly away from the Blue Mountains; moreover it would necessitate crossing Walla Walla River before reaching Umatilla. It should therefore, obviously, be read "S. E. over the sandy prairie." Morro River must be an upper affluent of Walla Walla (or Umatilla).--ED. {245} CHAPTER XV A village of Kayouse Indians--their occupation--appearance and dresses of the women--family worship--its good effects--Visit to the Blue mountains--Dusky grouse--Return to Walla-walla--Arrival of Mr. McLeod, and the missionaries--Letters from home--Death of Antoine Goddin, the trapper--A renegado white man--Assault by the Walla-walla Indians--Missionary duties--Passage down the Columbia--Rapids--A dog for supper--Prairies on fire--A nocturnal visit--Fishing Indians--Their romantic appearance--Salmon huts--The shoots--Dangerous navigation--Death of Tilki--Seals--Indian stoicism and contempt of pain--Skookoom, the strong chief--his death--Maiming, an evidence of grief--Arrival at Fort Vancouver--A visit to Fort George--Indian cemeteries--Lewis and Clarke's house--A medal--Visit to Chinook--Hospitality of the Indians--Chinamus' house--The idol--Canine inmates. _July 26th._--At noon, to-day, we arrived at the Utalla, or Emmitilly river, where we found a large village of Kayouse Indians, engaged in preparing kamas. Large quantities of this root were strewed about on mats and buffalo robes; some in a crude state, and a vast quantity pounded, to be made into cakes for winter store. There are of the Indians, about twelve or fifteen lodges. A very large one, about sixty feet long by fifteen broad, is occupied by the chief, and his immediate family. This man I saw when I arrived at Walla-walla, and I have accepted an invitation to make my home in his lodge while I remain here. The house is really a very comfortable one; the rays of the sun are completely excluded, and the ground is covered with buffalo robes. There are in the chief's lodge about twenty women, all busy as usual; some pounding kamas, others making {246} leathern dresses, moccasins, &c. Several of the younger of these are very good looking,--I might almost say handsome. Their heads are of the natural form,--not flattened and contorted in the horrible manner of the Chinooks;--their faces are inclining to oval, and their eyes have a peculiarly sleepy and languishing appearance. They seem as if naturally inclined to lasciviousness, but if this feeling exists, it is effectually checked by their self-enacted laws, which are very severe in this respect, and in every instance rigidly enforced. The dresses of the women, (unlike the Chinooks, they all _have_ dresses,) are of deer or antelope skin, more or less ornamented with beads and _hyquâs_.[188] It consists of one piece, but the part covering the bust, projects over the lower portion of the garment, and its edges are cut into strings, to which a quantity of blue beads are generally attached. [188] A long white shell, of the genus _Dentalium_, found on the coast.--TOWNSEND. In the evening all the Indians belonging to the village assembled in our lodge, and, with the chief for minister, performed divine service, or family worship. This, I learn, is their invariable practice twice every twenty-four hours, at sunrise in the morning, and after supper in the evening. When all the people had gathered, our large lodge was filled. On entering, every person squatted on the ground, and the _clerk_ (a sort of sub-chief) gave notice that the Deity would now be addressed. Immediately the whole audience rose to their knees, and the chief supplicated for about ten minutes in a very solemn, but low tone of voice, at the conclusion of which an amen was pronounced by the whole company, in a loud, swelling sort of groan. Three hymns were then sung, several of the individuals present leading in rotation, and at the conclusion of each, another amen. The chief then pronounced a short exhortation, occupying about fifteen minutes, which was repeated by the clerk at his elbow in a voice loud enough to be heard by the whole assembly. At the {247} conclusion of this, each person rose, and walked to one of the doors of the lodge, where, making a low inclination of his body, and pronouncing the words "_tots sekan_," (good night,) to the chief, he departed to his home. I shall hear this ceremony every night and morning while I remain, and so far from being irksome, it is agreeable to me. It is pleasant to see these poor degraded creatures performing a religious service; for to say nothing of the good influence which it will exert in improving their present condition, it will probably soften and harmonize their feelings, and render them fitter subjects for the properly qualified religious instruction which it is desirable they may some day receive. The next morning, my friend the chief furnished me with fresh horses, and I and my attendant, with two Indian guides, started for a trip to the mountain. We passed up one of the narrow valleys or gorges which here run at right angles from the alpine land, and as we ascended, the scenery became more and more wild, and the ground rough and difficult of passage, but I had under me one of the finest horses I ever rode; he seemed perfectly acquainted with the country; I had but to give him his head, and not attempt to direct him, and he carried me triumphantly through every difficulty. Immediately as we reached the upper land, and the pine trees, we saw large flocks of the dusky grouse, (_Tetrao obscurus_,) a number of which we killed. Other birds were, however, very scarce. I am at least two months too late, and I cannot too much regret the circumstance. Here is a rich field for the ornithologist at the proper season. We returned to our lodge in the evening loaded with grouse, but with very few specimens to increase my collection. _29th._--Early this morning our Indians struck their lodges, and commenced making all their numerous movables into bales for packing on the horses. I admired the facility and despatch with which this was done; the women alone worked at it, the {248} men lolling around, smoking and talking, and not even once directing their fair partners in their task. The whole camp travelled with me to Walla-walla, where we arrived the next day. _Sept. 1st._--Mr. John M'Leod, a chief trader of the Hudson's Bay Company, arrived this morning from the rendezvous, with a small trading party.[189] I had been anxiously expecting this gentleman for several weeks, as I intended to return with him to Vancouver. He is accompanied by several Presbyterian missionaries, the Rev. Mr. Spalding and Doctor Whitman,[190] with their wives, and Mr. Gray, teacher.[191] Doctor Whitman presented me with a large pacquet of letters from my beloved friends at home. I need not speak of the emotions excited by their reception, nor of the trembling anxiety with which I tore open the envelope and devoured the contents. This is the first intelligence which I have received from them since I left the state of Missouri, and was as unexpected as it was delightful.[192] [189] John McLeod had for some years been with the Hudson's Bay Company. He was in charge at Kamloops from 1822 to 1826, and in the latter year built Norway House. In 1832 he founded, in conjunction with Michel La Framboise, Fort Umpqua, the only establishment of the company south of the Columbia. At the time Townsend met him he appears to have headed the Snake country brigade.--ED. [190] Henry H. Spalding was born in Bath County, New York, in 1803. He studied at Western Reserve, and afterwards at Lane Theological Seminary, which latter school he left to join Dr. Whitman (1836) in a mission to Oregon. Settled at Lapwai, in western Idaho, among the Nez Percés, he maintained the mission at that place until the Whitman massacre in 1847. Narrowly escaping therefrom, he accepted in 1850, at the solicitation of the missionary board, the position of United States Indian agent, and served also as commissioner of schools (1850-55). In 1862 he returned to Lapwai to re-commence mission work, and died among the Nez Percés in 1874. Dr. Marcus Whitman was born in Rushville, New York, in 1802. Graduating as a physician he was appointed to the Oregon mission in 1834, actually reaching his station in September, 1836, as Townsend narrates--see note 112, p. 335, _ante_. He established his mission at Waiilatpu among the Cayuse, and there labored until 1842, when news from the mission board, advising abandonment of his station, caused his return to the United States. This was the journey regarding which so much controversy has arisen. According to some writers, Whitman's object was to awaken the United States authorities to the necessity of occupying Oregon, and how "Marcus Whitman saved Oregon" to the United States has been much discussed. Recently exceptions have been taken to this view, and eminent historical scholars have minimized Whitman's national services. The first stage of the controversy began about 1883. See Myron Eells, _Marcus Whitman, M. D., Proofs of his work in Saving Oregon to the United States_ (Portland, 1883). Later Professor Edward G. Bourne took up the subject and presented a paper at the American Historical Association meeting of 1900 (published in _American Historical Review_, vii, pp. 276-300); this has been expanded into "The Legend of Marcus Whitman" in _Essays in Historical Criticism_ (New York, 1901). William I. Marshall of Chicago, discussed Professor Bourne's paper (see American Historical Association _Report_ for 1900, i, pp. 219-236) offering additional evidence. Marshall has since published _History vs. the Whitman Saved Oregon Story_ (Chicago, 1904). Myron Eells also issued _A Reply to Professor Bourne's "The Whitman Legend"_ (Walla Walla, 1902). William A. Mowry essays a defense in _Marcus Whitman and the early days of Oregon_ (New York, 1901) which contains a good bibliography. See also additional evidence in articles by William E. Griffis and others, contributed to the _Sunday School Times_, Philadelphia, August 9, November 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, December 3, 1902; January 10, 29, 1903. Whitman returned to his mission, and despite threatening aspects, remained at Waiilatpu until 1847, when suddenly in October the Cayuse arose and massacred most of the members of the mission, including both Dr. Whitman and his wife.--ED. [191] William H. Gray (born in Utica, New York, in 1810) joined Dr. Whitman as business manager and agent of the expedition. In 1837 he went East for reinforcements, and married Mary Augusta Dix, with whom he returned to Oregon in September, 1838. They labored at Lapwai and Waiilatpu until 1842, when Gray resigned and retired to the Willamette, where he was instrumental in establishing the provisional government. In 1849 Gray went to California during the gold excitement, but returned to Oregon, settling first at Clatsop Plains, and later in Astoria, where he died in 1889. His _History of Oregon_ (Portland, San Francisco, and New York, 1870) is a main source for the early decades.--ED. [192] See reference to this fact and to the meeting with Townsend, in Mrs. Whitman's "Journal," published in Oregon Pioneer Association _Transactions_ (1891), pp. 57, 63.--ED. Mr. M'Leod informed me of the murder of Antoine Goddin, the half-breed trapper, by the Blackfeet Indians, at Fort Hall.--A band of these Indians appeared on the shore of the Portneuf river, opposite the fort, headed by a white man named Bird.--This man requested Goddin, whom he saw on the opposite side of the river, to cross to him with a canoe, as he had beaver which he wished to trade. The poor man accordingly embarked alone, and landing near the Indians, joined the circle which they had made, and _smoked the pipe of peace with them_. While Goddin was smoking in his turn, Bird gave a sign to the Indians, and a volley was fired into his back. While he was yet living, Bird himself tore the scalp from the poor fellow's head, and deliberately cut Captain Wyeth's initials, N. J. W. in large letters upon his forehead. He then hallooed to the fort people, telling them to bury the carcass if they wished, and immediately went off with his party. {249} This Bird was formerly attached to the Hudson's Bay Company, and was made prisoner by the Blackfeet, in a skirmish several years ago. He has since remained with them, and has become a great chief, and leader of their war parties. He is said to be a man of good education, and to possess the most unbounded influence over the savage people among whom he dwells. He was known to be a personal enemy of Goddin, whom he had sworn to destroy on the first opportunity. We also hear, that three of Captain Wyeth's men who lately visited us, had been assaulted on their way to Fort Hall, by a band of Walla-walla Indians, who, after beating them severely, took from them all their horses, traps, ammunition, and clothing. They were, however, finally induced to return them each a horse and gun, in order that they might proceed to the interior, to get fresh supplies. This was a matter of policy on the part of the Indians, for if the white men had been compelled to travel on foot, they would have come immediately here to procure fresh horses, &c., and thus exposed the plunderers. Mr. Pambrun is acquainted with the ringleader of this band of marauders, and intends to take the first opportunity of inflicting upon him due punishment, as well as to compel him to make ample restitution for the stolen property, and broken heads of the unoffending trappers. I have had this evening, some interesting conversation with our guests, the missionaries. They appear admirably qualified for the arduous duty to which they have devoted themselves, their minds being fully alive to the mortifications and trials incident to a residence among wild Indians; but they do not shrink from the task, believing it to be their religious duty to engage in this work. The ladies have borne the journey astonishingly; they look robust and healthy.[193] [193] Mrs. Narcissa Prentice Whitman was a native of Pittsburgh, Steuben County, New York, and married Dr. Whitman just before his journey across the plains (1836). She was of much assistance to him in the mission work, and perished in the massacre of 1847. See her letters and "Journal" in Oregon Pioneer Association _Transactions_ (1891). She and Mrs. Spalding were the first white women to cross the plains to Oregon. Mrs. Spalding (_née_ Eliza Hart) was born in Connecticut (1807) and reared in Ontario County, New York. She was less strong than Mrs. Whitman, and her journey at first fatigued her so greatly that it was feared she would not reach its end. Her health improved after passing the mountains, and she was an efficient aid in the mission, learning the Indian languages with great aptitude. After the Whitman massacre she never recovered from the shock, and died in 1851.--ED. _3d._--Mr. M'Leod and myself embarked in a large batteau, with six men, and bidding farewell to Mr. Pambrun and the missionaries, were soon gliding down the river. We ran, to-day, {250} several rapids, and in the evening encamped about fifteen miles below the mouth of the Utalla river. This running of rapids appears rather a dangerous business to those unaccustomed to it, and it is in reality sufficiently hazardous, except when performed by old and skilful hands. Every thing depends upon the men who manage the bow and stern of the boat. The moment she enters the rapid, the two guides lay aside their oars taking in their stead paddles, such as are used in the management of a canoe. The middle-men ply their oars; the guides brace themselves against the gunwale of the boat, placing their paddles edgewise down her sides, and away she goes over the curling, foaming, and hissing waters, like a race horse. We passed to-day several large lodges of Indians, from whom we wished to have purchased fish, but they had none, or were not willing to spare any, so that we were compelled to purchase a _dog_ for supper. I have said _we_, but I beg leave to correct myself, as I was utterly averse to the proceeding; not, however, from any particular dislike to the quality of the food, (I have eaten it repeatedly, and relished it.) but I am always unwilling, unless when suffering absolute want to take the life of so noble and faithful an animal. Our hungry oarsmen, however, appeared to have no such scruples. The Indian called his dog, and he came to him, _wagging his tail_! He sold his companion for ten balls and powder! One of our men approached the poor animal with an axe. I turned away my head to avoid the sight, but I heard the dull, _sodden_ sound of the blow. The tried friend and faithful companion lay quivering in the agonies of death at its master's feet. We are enjoying a most magnificent sight at our camp this evening. On the opposite side of the river, the Indians have fired the prairie, and the whole country for miles around is most brilliantly illuminated. Here am I sitting cross-legged on the {251} ground, scribbling by the light of the vast conflagration with as much ease as if I had a ton of oil burning by my side; but my eyes are every moment involuntarily wandering from the paper before me, to contemplate and admire the grandeur of the distant scene. The very heavens themselves appear ignited, and the fragments of ashes and burning grass-blades, ascending and careering about through the glowing firmament, look like brilliant and glorious birds let loose to roam and revel amid this splendid scene. It is past midnight: every one in the camp is asleep, and I am this moment visited by half a dozen Indian fishermen, who are peering over my shoulders, and soliciting a smoke, so that I shall have to stop, and fill my calamet. _5th._--The Indians are numerous along the river, and all engaged in fishing; as we pass along, we frequently see them posted upon the rocks overhanging the water, surveying the boiling and roaring flood below, for the passing salmon. In most instances, an Indian is seen entirely alone in these situations, often standing for half an hour perfectly still, his eyes rivetted upon the torrent, and his long fish spear poised above his head. The appearance of a solitary and naked savage thus perched like an eagle upon a cliff, is sometimes,--when taken in connexion with the wild and rugged river scenery,--very picturesque. The spear is a pole about twelve feet in length, at the end of which a long wooden fork is made fast, and between the tines is fixed a barbed iron point. They also, in some situations, use a hand scoopnet, and stand upon scaffolds ingeniously constructed over the rapid water. Their winter store of dried fish is stowed away in little huts of mats and branches, closely interlaced, and also in _caches_ under ground. It is often amusing to see the hungry ravens tearing and tugging at the strong twigs of the houses, in a vain attempt to reach the savory food within. In the afternoon, we passed John Day's river,[194] and encamped about sunset at the "shoots." Here is a very large village of {252} Indians, (the same that I noticed in my journal, on the passage down,) and we are this evening surrounded by some scores of them. [194] For the pioneer in whose honor this river was named, see Bradbury's _Travels_ in our volume v, p. 181, note 104. The John Day River rises in the Blue Mountains and flows west and northwest, entering the Columbia a few miles above the falls. It is an important stream for central Oregon, forming the boundary, in part, of several counties.--ED. _6th._--We made the portage of the shoots this morning by carrying our boat and baggage across the land, and in half an hour, arrived at one of the upper _dalles_. Here Mr. M'Leod and myself debarked, and the men ran the dall. We walked on ahead to the most dangerous part, and stood upon the rocks about a hundred feet above to observe them. It really seemed exceedingly dangerous to see the boat dashing ahead like lightning through the foaming and roaring waters, sometimes raised high above the enormous swells, and dashed down again as if she were seeking the bottom with her bows, and at others whirled around and nearly sucked under by the whirlpools constantly forming around her. But she stemmed every thing gallantly, under the direction of our experienced guides, and we soon embarked again, and proceeded to the lower dalles. Here it is utterly impossible, in the present state of the water, to pass, so that the boat and baggage had to be carried across the whole portage. This occupied the remainder of the day, and we encamped in the evening at a short distance from the lower villages. The Indians told us with sorrowful faces of the recent death of their principal chief, Tilki. Well, thought I, the white man has lost a friend, and long will it be before we see his like again! The poor fellow was unwell when I last saw him, with a complaint of his breast, which I suspected to be pulmonary. I gave him a few simple medicines, and told him I should soon see him again. Well do I remember the look of despondency with which he bade me farewell, and begged me to return soon and give him more medicine. About two weeks since he ruptured a blood vessel, and died in a short time. We see great numbers of seals as we pass along. Immediately {253} below the Dalles they are particularly abundant, being attracted thither by the vast shoals of salmon which seek the turbulent water of the river. We occasionally shoot one of them as he raises his dog-like head above the surface, but we make no use of them; they are only valuable for the large quantity of oil which they yield. We observe on the breasts and bellies of many of the Indians here, a number of large red marks, mostly of an oval form, sometimes twenty or thirty grouped together. These are wounds made by their own hands, to display to their people the unwavering and stoical resolution with which they can endure pain. A large fold of the skin is taken up with the fingers, and sliced off with a knife; the surrounding fibre then retreats, and a large and ghastly looking wound remains. Many that I saw to-day are yet scarcely cicatrized. There is a chief here who obtained the dignity which he now enjoys, solely by his numerous and hardy feats of this kind. He was originally a common man, and possessed but one wife; he has now _six_, and any of the tribe would think themselves honored by his alliance. He is a most gigantic fellow, about six feet four inches in height, and remarkably stout and powerful. The whole front of his person is covered with the red marks of which I have spoken, and he displays with considerable pride the two scars of a bullet, which entered the left breast, and passed out below the shoulder blade. This wound he also made with his own hand, by placing the muzzle of his gun against his breast, and pressing the trigger with his toe; and by this last, and most daring act, he was raised to the chief command of all the Indians on the north side of the river. Now that Tilki is no more, he will probably be chosen chief of all the country from the cascades to Walla-walla. I asked him if he felt no fear of death from the wound in his chest, at the time it was inflicted. He said, no; that his heart was strong, and that a bullet could never kill him. He told me that he was entirely {254} well in a week after this occurrence, but that for two days he vomited blood constantly. He is named by the Indians "_Skookoom_," (the strong.) About six weeks after, Mr. M'Leod, who again returned from a visit to Walla-walla, informed me that the strong chief was dead. A bullet, (or rather two of them,) killed him at last, in spite of his supposed invulnerability. He was shot by one of his people in a fit of jealousy. _Skookoom_ had assisted Mr. M'Leod with his boats across the portage, and, being a chief, he of course received more for the service than a common man. This wretch, who was but a serf in the tribe, chose to be offended by it, and vented his rage by murdering his superior. He fired a ball from his own gun into his breast, which brought him to the ground, and then despatched him with a second, which he seized from another. So poor Skookoom has passed away, and such is the frail tenure upon which an Indian chief holds his authority and his life. The murderer will no doubt soon die by the hand of some friend or relative of the deceased; he in his turn will be killed by another, and as usual, the bloody business will go on indefinitely, and may even tend to produce an open war between the rival parties. I saw an old man here, apparently eighty years of age, who had given himself three enormous longitudinal gashes in his leg, to evince his grief for the loss of Tilki. From the sluggishness of the circulation in the body of the poor old creature, combined with a morbid habit, these wounds show no disposition to heal. I dressed his limb, and gave him a strict charge to have it kept clean, but knowing the universal carelessness of Indians in this respect, I fear my directions will not be attended to, and the consequence will probably be, that the old man will die miserably. I spoke to him of the folly of such inflictions, and took this opportunity of delivering a short lecture upon the same subject to the others assembled in his lodge. {255} At 11 o'clock next day we arrived at the cascades, where we made the long portage, and at nine in the evening encamped in an ash grove, six miles above _Prairie de Thé_. On the 8th, reached Vancouver, where we found two vessels which had just arrived from England. On the 24th, I embarked in a canoe with Indians for Fort George, and arrived in two days. Here I was kindly received by the superintendent, Mr. James Birnie,[195] and promised every assistance in forwarding my views. [195] James Birnie was a native of Aberdeen, Scotland. Coming early to America he entered the North West Company's employ and was on the Columbia before 1820, when he was in charge of the post at the Dalles. He was then retained by the Hudson's Bay Company, and given command at Fort George (Astoria) where he remained many years. Later he became a naturalized American, and resided at Cathlamet.--ED. _30th._--I visited to-day some cemeteries in the neighborhood of the fort, and obtained the skulls of four Indians. Some of the bodies were simply deposited in canoes, raised five or six feet from the ground, either in the forks of trees, or supported on stakes driven into the earth. In these instances it was not difficult to procure the skulls without disarranging the fabric; but more frequently, they were nailed in boxes, or covered by a small canoe, which was turned bottom upwards, and placed in a larger one, and the whole covered by strips of bark, carefully arranged over them. It was then necessary to use the utmost caution in removing the covering, and also to be careful to leave every thing in the same state in which it was found. I thought several times to-day, as I have often done in similar situations before:--Now suppose an Indian were to step in here, and see me groping among the bones of his fathers, and laying unhallowed hands upon the mouldering remains of his people, what should I say?--I know well what the Indian would _do_. He would instantly shoot me, unless I took the most effectual measures to prevent it; but could I have time allowed me to temporize a little, I could easily disarm his hostility and ensure his silence, by the offer of a shirt or a blanket; but the difficulty in most cases would be, that in a paroxysm of rage he would put a bullet through your head, and then good bye to temporizing. Luckily for my pursuits in this way, there are at present but few Indians here, and I do not therefore incur {256} much risk; were it otherwise, there would be no little danger in these aggressions. The corpses of the several different tribes which are buried here, are known by the difference in the structure of their canoes; and the _sarcophagi_ of the chiefs from those of the common people, by the greater care which has been manifested in the arrangement of the tomb. _October 14th._--I walked to-day around the beach to the foot of Young's bay,[196] a distance of about ten miles, to see the remains of the house in which Lewis and Clark's party resided during the winter which they spent here. The logs of which it is composed, are still perfect, but the roof of bark has disappeared, and the whole vicinity is overgrown with thorn and wild currant bushes.[197] [196] For Young's Bay, see Franchére's _Narrative_, our volume vi, p. 259, note 69.--ED. [197] This is an interesting description of the place, seen thirty years later, where the explorers passed the dismal winter months of 1805-06. For a ground plan of the fort, known as Fort Clatsop, see Thwaites, _Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition_, iii, pp. 282, 283, 298.--ED. One of Mr. Birnie's children found, a few days since, a large silver medal, which had been brought here by Lewis and Clark, and had probably been presented to some chief, who lost it. On one side was a head, with the name "Th. Jefferson, President of the United States, 1801." On the other, two hands interlocked, surmounted by a pipe and tomahawk; and above the words, "Peace and Friendship."[198] [198] A close description of the medals carried by the expedition. See engraving in O. D. Wheeler, _On the Trail of Lewis and Clark_ (New York, 1904), ii, pp. 123, 124.--ED. _15th._--This afternoon I embarked in a canoe with _Chinamus_, and went with him to his residence at Chinook.[199] The chief welcomed me to his house in a style which would do no discredit to a more civilized person. His two wives were ordered to make a bed for me, which they did by piling up about a dozen of their soft mats, and placing my blankets upon them, and a better bed I should never wish for. I was regaled, before I retired, with sturgeon, salmon, wappatoos, cranberries, and every thing else that the mansion afforded, and was requested to ask for any thing I wanted, and it should be furnished me. Whatever may be said derogatory to these people, I can testify that inhospitality is not among the number of their failings. I never went into the {257} house of an Indian in my life, in any part of the country, without being most cordially received and welcomed. [199] The site of this Chinook village opposite Astoria, was probably that of the present Fort Columbia, built to protect the entrance to the river.--ED. The chief's house is built in the usual way, of logs and hewn boards, with a roof of cedar bark, and lined inside with mats. The floor is boarded and matted, and there is a depression in the ground about a foot in depth and four feet in width, extending the whole length of the building in the middle, where the fires are made. In this, as in almost every house, there is a large figure, or idol, rudely carved and painted upon a board, and occupying a conspicuous place. To this figure many of the Indians ascribe supernatural powers. Chinamus says that if he is in any kind of danger, and particularly, if he is under the influence of an evil spell, he has only to place himself against the image, and the difficulty, of whatever kind, vanishes at once. This certainly savors of idolatry, although I believe they never address the uncouth figure as a deity. Like all other Indians, they acknowledge a great and invisible spirit, who governs and controls, and to whom all adoration is due. Attached to this establishment, are three other houses, similarly constructed, inhabited by about thirty Indians, and at least that number of dogs. These, although very useful animals in their place, are here a great nuisance. They are of no possible service to the Indians, except to eat their provisions, and fill their houses with fleas, and a stranger approaching the lodges, is in constant danger of being throttled by a legion of fierce brutes, who are not half as hospitable as their masters. I remained here several days, making excursions through the neighborhood, and each time when I returned to the lodge, the dogs growled and darted at me. I had no notion of being bitten, so I gave the Indians warning, that unless the snarling beasts were tied up when I came near, I would shoot every one of them. The threat had the effect desired, and after this, whenever {258} I approached the lodges, there was a universal stir among the people, and the words, "_iskam kahmooks, iskam kahmooks, kalak'alah tie chahko_," (take up your dogs, take up your dogs, the _bird chief_ is coming,) echoed through the little village, and was followed by the yelping and snarling of dozens of wolf-dogs, and "curs of low degree," all of which were gathered in haste to the cover and protection of one of the houses. {259} CHAPTER XVI Northern excursion--Large shoals of salmon--Indian mode of catching them--House near the beach--Flathead children--A storm on the bay--Loss of provision--Pintail ducks--Simple mode of killing salmon--Return to Chinook--Indian garrulity--Return to Fort George--Preparations for a second trip to the Sandwich Islands--Detention within the cape.... _October 17th._--I left Chinook this morning in a canoe with Chinamus, his two wives, and a slave, to procure shell-fish, which are said to be found in great abundance towards the north. We passed through a number of narrow _slues_ which connect the numerous bays in this part of the country, and at noon debarked, left our canoe, took our blankets on our shoulders, and struck through the midst of a deep pine forest. After walking about two miles, we came to another branch, where we found a canoe which had been left there for us yesterday, and embarking in this, we arrived in the evening at an Indian house, near the seaside, where we spent the night. In our passage through some of the narrow channels to-day, we saw vast shoals of salmon, which were leaping and curvetting {260} about in every direction, and not unfrequently dashing their noses against our canoe, in their headlong course. We met here a number of Indians engaged in fishing. Their mode of taking the salmon is a very simple one. The whole of the tackle consists of a pole about twelve feet long, with a large iron hook attached to the end. This machine they keep constantly trailing in the water, and when the fish approaches the surface, by a quick and dexterous jerk, they fasten the iron into his side, and shake him off into the canoe. They say they take so many fish that it is necessary for them to land about three times a day to deposit them. The house in which we sleep to-night is not near so comfortable as the one we have left. It stinks intolerably of salmon, which are hanging by scores to the roof, to dry in the smoke, and our bed being on the dead level, we shall probably suffer somewhat from fleas, not to mention another unmentionable insect which is apt to inhabit these dormitories in considerable profusion. There are here several young children; beautiful, flat-headed, broad-faced, little individuals. One of the little dears has taken something of a fancy to me, and is now hanging over me, and staring at my book with its great goggle eyes. It is somewhat strange, perhaps, but I have become so accustomed to this universal deformity, that I now scarcely notice it. I have often been evilly disposed enough to wish, that if in the course of events one of these little beings should die, I could get possession of it. I should like to plump the small carcass into a keg of spirits, and send it home for the observation of the curious. _18th._--Last night the wind rose to a gale, and this morning it is blowing most furiously, making the usually calm water of these bays so turbulent as to be dangerous for our light craft. Notwithstanding this disadvantage, the Indians were in favor of starting for the sea, which we accordingly did at an early hour. Soon after we left, in crossing one of the bays, about three-quarters {261} of a mile in width, the water suddenly became so agitated as at first nearly to upset our canoe. A perfect hurricane was blowing right ahead, cold as ice, and the water was dashing over us, and into our little bark, in a manner to frighten even the experienced chief who was acting as helmsman. In a few minutes we were sitting nearly up to our waistbands in water, although one of the women and myself were constantly bailing it out, employing for the purpose the only two hats belonging to the party, my own and that of the chief. We arrived at the shore at length in safety, although there was scarcely a dry thread on us, and built a tremendous fire with the drift-wood which we found on the beach. We then dried our clothes and blankets as well as we could, cooked some ducks that we killed yesterday, and made a hearty breakfast. My stock of bread, sugar, and tea, is completely spoiled by the salt water, so that until I return to Fort George, I must live simply; but I think this no hardship: what has been done once can be done again. In the afternoon the women collected for me a considerable number of shells, several species of _Cardium_, _Citherea_, _Ostrea_, &c., all edible, and the last very good, though small. The common pintail duck, (_Anas acuta_,) is found here in vast flocks. The chief and myself killed _twenty-six_ to-day, by a simultaneous discharge of our guns. They are exceedingly fat and most excellent eating; indeed all the game of this lower country is far superior to that found in the neighborhood of Vancouver. The ducks feed upon a small submerged vegetable which grows in great abundance upon the reedy islands in this vicinity. The next day we embarked early, to return to Chinook. The wind was still blowing a gale, but by running along close to the shore of the stormy bay, we were enabled, by adding greatly to our distance, to escape the difficulties against which we contended {262} yesterday, and regained the slues with tolerably dry garments. At about 10 o'clock, we arrived at the portage, and struck into the wood, shouldering our baggage as before. We soon came to a beautiful little stream of fresh water, where we halted, and prepared our breakfast. In this stream, (not exceeding nine feet at the widest part,) I was surprised to observe a great number of large salmon. Beautiful fellows, of from fifteen to twenty-five pounds weight, darting and playing about in the crystal water, and often exposing three-fourths of their bodies in making their way through the shallows. I had before no idea that these noble fish were ever found in such insignificant streams, but the Indians say that they always come into the rivulets at this season, and return to the sea on the approach of winter. Our slave killed seven of these beautiful fish, while we made our hasty breakfast, his only weapon being a light cedar paddle. We reached Chinook in the evening, and as we sat around the fires in the lodge, I was amused by the vivid description given to the attentive inhabitants by Chinamus and his wives, of the perils of our passage across the stormy bay. They all spoke at once, and described most minutely every circumstance that occurred, the auditors continually evincing their attention to the relation by a pithy and sympathizing _hugh_. They often appealed to me for the truth of what they were saying, and, as in duty bound, I gave an assenting nod, although at times I fancied they were yielding to a propensity, not uncommon among those of Christian lands, and which is known by the phrase, "drawing a long bow." _21st._--The wind yesterday was so high, that I did not consider it safe to attempt the passage to Fort George. This morning it was more calm, and we put off in a large canoe at sunrise. When we had reached the middle of Young's bay, the wind again rose, and the water was dashing over us in fine style, so that we {263} were compelled to make for the shore and wait until it subsided. We lay by about an hour, when, the water becoming more smooth, we again got under way, and arrived at Fort George about noon. On the 5th of November, I returned to Vancouver, and immediately commenced packing my baggage, collection, &c., for a passage to the Sandwich Islands, in the barque Columbia, which is now preparing to sail for England. This is a fine vessel, of three hundred tons, commanded by Captain Royal; we shall have eight passengers in the cabin; Captain Darby, formerly of this vessel, R. Cowie, chief trader, and others. On the 21st, we dropped down the river, and in two days anchored off the cape. We have but little prospect of being able to cross the bar; the sea breaks over the channel with a roar like thunder, and the surf dashes and frets against the rocky cape and drives its foam far up into the bay. I long to see blue water again. I am fond of the sea; it suits both my disposition and constitution; and then the reflection, that now every foot I advance will carry me nearer to my beloved home, is in itself a most powerful inducement to urge me on. But much as I desire again to see home, much as I long to embrace those to whom I am attached by the strongest ties, I have nevertheless felt something very like regret at leaving Vancouver and its kind and agreeable residents. I took leave of Doctor McLoughlin with feelings akin to those with which I should bid adieu to an affectionate parent; and to his fervent, "God bless you, sir, and may you have a happy meeting with your friends," I could only reply by a look of the sincerest gratitude. Words are inadequate to express my deep sense of the obligations which I feel under to this truly generous and excellent man, and I fear I can only repay them by the sincerity with which I shall always cherish the recollection of his kindness, and the ardent prayers I shall breathe for his prosperity and happiness. {264} _30th._--At daylight this morning, the wind being fair, and the bar more smooth, we weighed anchor and stood out. At about 9 o'clock we crossed the bar, and in a few minutes were hurrying along on the open sea before a six-knot breeze. We are now out, and so good bye to Cape Disappointment and the Columbia, and now for _home_, dear home again! * * * * * Transcriber's note: The section "NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY ACROSS THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, TO THE COLUMBIA RIVER" does not include a chapter XI in the table of contents on page 115, or in the book itself. There are numbers within the text represented like {27}. These are page references to the original manuscripts. In the book these are enclosed in square brackets [27] rather than curly brackets. Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as printed. The cover for the eBook version of this book was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain. 
43590	----	images generously made available by the Google Books Library Project (http://books.google.com) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 43590-h.htm or 43590-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43590/43590-h/43590-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43589/43590-h.zip) Project Gutenberg has the other volume of this work. Volume I: see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43589 Images of the original pages are available through the Google Books Library Project. See http://books.google.com/books?id=yfABAAAAMAAJ Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). A carat character is used to denote superscription. A single character following the carat is superscripted (example: Isaac^1). The 'oe' ligature appears only in the words 'Coeur d'Alene', and is rendered as 'C[oe]ur.' Words printed using "small capitals" are shifted to all upper-case. Please consult the note at the end of this text for details of corrections made. THE LIFE OF ISAAC INGALLS STEVENS By His Son HAZARD STEVENS With Maps and Illustrations In Two Volumes VOL. I [Illustration] Boston and New York Houghton, Mifflin and Company The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1900 Copyright, 1900, by Hazard Stevens All Rights Reserved CONTENTS CHAPTER XXVI THE CHEHALIS COUNCIL Graphic account by Judge James G. Swan--Indians assemble on lower Chehalis River--The camp and scenes--Method of proceeding--Indians object to leaving their wonted resorts--Tleyuk, young Chehalis chief, proves recusant and insolent--Governor Stevens rebukes him--Tears up his commission before his face--Dismisses the council--His forbearance, and desire to assist the Indians--Treaty made with Quenaiults and Quillehutes next fall as result of this council 1 CHAPTER XXVII PERSONAL AND POLITICAL.--SAN JUAN CONTROVERSY Death of George Watson Stevens--Governor Stevens keeps Indians in order--Visits Vancouver--Confers with Superintendent Palmer, of Oregon--Firm stand against British claim to San Juan Archipelago--Purchases Taylor donation claim--Democratic convention to nominate delegate in Congress--Governor Stevens a candidate--Effect of speech before convention: "If he gets into Congress, we can never get him out"--J. Patton Anderson nominated 10 CHAPTER XXVIII INDIANS OF THE UPPER COLUMBIA Manly Indians--Ten Great Tribes--Nez Perces--Missionary Spalding--His work--Abandons mission--Escorted in safety by Nez Perces--Intractable Cuyuses--Religious rivalry--Dr. Whitman--Yakimas, Spokanes, Coeur d'Alenes, Flatheads, Pend Oreilles, Koutenays--Upper country free from settlers--Indian jealousy--Conspiracy to destroy whites discovered by Major Alvord--Warnings disregarded--Governor Stevens thrown in gap--Prepares for council--Walla Walla valley chosen by Kam-i-ah-kan--Journey to Dalles--Incidents--Unfavorable outlook--Escort secured--Trip to Walla Walla--"Call yourself a great chief and steal wood?"--Council ground--Scenes--General Palmer arrives--Programme for treaty--Officers--Lieutenant Gracie, Mr. Lawrence Kip, and escort arrive--Governor Stevens urges General Wool to establish post there 16 CHAPTER XXIX THE WALLA WALLA COUNCIL Nez Perces arrive--Savage parade--Head chief Hal-hal-tlos-sot or Lawyer, an Indian Solon--Cuyuses, Walla Wallas, Umatillas arrive--Pu-pu-mox-mox--Feasting the chiefs--Fathers Chirouse and Pandosy arrive--Kam-i-ah-kan--Four hundred mounted braves ride around Nez Perce camp--Young Chief--Spokane Garry--Palouses fail to attend--Timothy preaches in Nez Perce camp--Yakimas arrive--Commissioners visit Lawyer--Spotted Eagle discloses Cuyuse plots--Council opened--Treaties explained--Five thousand Indians present--Horse and foot races--Young Chief asks holiday--Pu-pu-mox-mox's bitter speech--Lawyer discloses conspiracy of Cuyuses to massacre whites--Moves his lodge into camp to put it under protection of Nez Perces--Governor Stevens prepares for trouble--Determines to continue council--Invites Indians to speak their minds--Lawyer favorable--Kam-i-ah-kan scornful--Pathetic speech of Eagle-from-the-Light--Steachus wants reservation in his own country--General Stevens's tent flooded--Lawyer accepts treaty--Young Chief and others refuse--Governor Stevens's pointed words--Separate reservations for Cuyuses, Walla Wallas, and Umatillas--Sudden arrival of Looking Glass--His indignation-- Orders Nez Perces to their lodges--Night conference with Yakimas--Stormy council--Lawyer goes to his lodge--Kam-i-ah-kan, Pu-pu-mox-mox sign treaties--Lawyer's advice--Nez Perces and Cuyuses counsel by themselves--Lawyer's authority confirmed-- Last day of treaty--Both tribes sign--Eagle-from-the-Light presents his medicine, a grizzly bear's skin, to Governor Stevens--Satisfactory ending great relief--Delegations to Blackfoot council--Nez Perce scalp-dance--Treachery of other tribes--Outbreak--Compelled to live under treaties--Provisions of treaties--Benefits of council--Present prosperity 34 CHAPTER XXX CROSSING THE BITTER ROOTS Party for Blackfoot council--Crossing Snake River--Red Wolf and Timothy thrifty chiefs--Traverse fine country--Coeur d'Alene Mission--Council with Indians--Wrestling match--Crossing the Bitter Root Mountains--Rafting the Bitter Root River--Bitter Root or St. Mary's valley--Reception by the Flatheads and Pend Oreilles--Victor complains of the Blackfeet 66 CHAPTER XXXI THE FLATHEAD COUNCIL Chiefs unwilling to unite on one reservation--Alexander dreads strictness of the white man's rule--Big Canoe--What need of treaty between friends?--Let us live together--Protracted debates--Indians feast and counsel among themselves--No result--Victor leaves the council--Two days' intermission--Governor Stevens accepts Victor's proposition and concludes treaty--Moses refuses to sign treaty--"The Blackfeet will get his hair" 81 CHAPTER XXXII MARCH TO FORT BENTON.--MARSHALING THE TRIBES Nez Perces and Flatheads to hunt south of Missouri pending council--Prairie Plateau on summit of Rocky Mountains--Elk for supper--Lewis and Clark's Pass--Management of train--Traverse the plains--Abundant game--Bewildering buffalo trails--Reach Fort Benton--Governor Stevens meets Commissioner Cumming on Milk River--Boats belated--Provisions exhausted--Leathery jerked meat--Pemmican two years old--Hunting buffalo on Judith--Bighorn at Citadel Rock--Metsic, the hunter--Two thousand western Indians fraternizing with Blackfeet--Stolen horses--Doty recovers them--Cumming claims sole authority--Forced to subside into proper place--He stigmatizes Blackfeet and country--Disagrees on all points--Governor Stevens's views--A million and a half buffalo find sustenance on these plains 92 CHAPTER XXXIII THE BLACKFOOT COUNCIL Twelve thousand Indians kept in hand for months--Nez Perces and Snakes move to Yellowstone for food--Adams and Tappan seek Crows--Delay of boats imperils council--Indians summoned--Council changed to mouth of Judith River--Remarkable express service--Three thousand five hundred Indians assemble--Best feeling--Treaty concluded--Peace established--Terms well kept by Blackfeet--Scenes at council ground--Grand chorus of one hundred Germans--Homeric feasts--Disgruntled commissioner 107 CHAPTER XXXIV CROSSING THE MOUNTAINS IN MIDWINTER.--SURPRISE OF THE COEUR D'ALENES AND SPOKANES The start homeward--The haggard expressman brings news of Indian outbreak--How Pearson ran the gauntlet of hostile Indians--Governor Stevens disregards warning dispatches--Resolves to force his way back by the direct route--Sends to Fort Benton for arms and ammunition--Hastens ahead of train to Bitter Root valley--Confers with Flatheads and Nez Perces--Alarming reports--Procures fresh animals--Nez Perce chiefs join the party--Taking the unexpected route--Crossing the snowy Bitter Roots--Ten dead horses--The surprise of the Coeur d'Alenes--"Peace or war?"--Craig and the Nez Perces take direct route home--Surprise of the Coeur d'Alenes--Rescue of blockaded miners--Indians called to council--The Stevens Guards and Spokane Invincibles organized 120 CHAPTER XXXV STORMY COUNCIL WITH THE SPOKANES Disaffected Indians--Kam-i-ah-kan's emissaries and falsehoods--Governor Stevens's firm front preserves friendship--Looking Glass's treachery discovered and frustrated--Dubious speeches--Indians' friendship gained--Light marching order--Four days' march in driving storm to the Nez Perce country 133 CHAPTER XXXVI THE FAITHFUL NEZ PERCES Two thousand assemble in council--Offer two hundred and fifty warriors to force way through hostiles--Battle of Oregon volunteers--The way cleared--The Nez Perce guard of honor--March to Walla Walla--Capture of Ume-how-lish--Reception by the volunteers--Governor Stevens's speech--Winter campaign--Letter to General Wool--His inaction and mistaken views--In camp, 27° below zero--The Nez Perces dismissed-- Governor Stevens pushes on to the Dalles in advance of train--Crossing the gorged Deschutes--By trail down the Columbia to Vancouver--The sail at night in the storm--Arrival at Olympia after nine months' absence--Mrs. Stevens and children visit Whitby Island--In danger from northern Indians 143 CHAPTER XXXVII PROSTRATION.--RESCUE Country utterly prostrated--Settlers take refuge in towns--Abandon farms--General Wool disbands volunteers, takes the defensive, and maligns the people--Review of war-- Kam-i-ah-kan, leading spirit--Treacherous chiefs, fresh from signing treaties, incite war--Miners massacred--Agent Bolon murdered--Major Haller's repulse--Settlers driven from Walla Walla--Massacre on White River--Volunteers raised-- Lieutenant Slaughter killed--Impenetrable forests and swamps--Cascades afford hidden resorts--Fruitless march of Major Rains to Yakima--Governor Stevens addresses legislature--His measures of relief--Calls out volunteers-- Visits lower Sound--Enlists Indian auxiliaries--Settlers return to farms--Build blockhouses--Organization of volunteers 156 CHAPTER XXXVIII WAGING THE WAR ON THE SOUND Volunteers form Northern, Central, and Southern battalions--Plan of campaign--Cooperation sought with regulars--Memoir of information sent General Wool and Colonel Wright--Campaign east of Cascades suggested--Wool's flying visit to Sound--Demands virtual disbanding of volunteers--Governor Stevens's caustic letter of refusal--Pat-ka-nim fights hostiles--Naval forces--Battle of Connell's prairie--Scouring the forests and swamps amid rains and storms--Red allies--Massacre at Cascades--Two companies of rangers called out to reassure settlers--Unremitting warfare--Hostiles surrender or flee across Cascades--Posts and blockhouses turned over to regulars--Volunteers on Sound disbanded 171 CHAPTER XXXIX THE WAR IN THE UPPER COUNTRY Fruitless movements of Oregon volunteers--Colonel Wright marches to Yakima valley in May--Parleys instead of fighting--Governor Stevens proposes joint movement across Cascades--Colonel Casey declines--Colonel Shaw crosses Nahchess Pass--Marches to Walla Walla--Governor Stevens journeys to Dalles--Dispatches Goff's and Williams's companies to Walla Walla--Seeks coöperation with Colonel Wright--Warns him against amnesty to Sound murderers--Three columns reach Walla Walla the same day--Shaw defeats hostiles in Grande Ronde--His victory restrains disaffected Nez Perces--Governor Stevens invites Colonel Wright to attend peace council in Walla Walla--That officer fooled by the Yakimas--His abortive campaign--Ow-hi's diplomacy 194 CHAPTER XL THE FRUITLESS PEACE COUNCIL Governor Stevens, assured of support by Colonel Wright, revokes call for additional volunteers--Council with Klikitats--Refuses to receive Indian murderers on reservation--Pushes forward to Walla Walla--Indians take pack-train--Steptoe arrives with four companies--Indians assemble--Manifest hostility--Steptoe moves off--Volunteers start for Dalles--Steptoe refuses guard--Governor Stevens recalls volunteers--Hostile and threatening Indians--Steptoe refusing support, Governor Stevens moves to his camp-- Disaffected chiefs demand that treaties be abrogated, whites leave the country--Governor Stevens demands submission--Terminates council--Starts for Dalles--Attacked on march--The fight--Moves back to Steptoe's camp--Indians attack it--Repulsed--Blockhouse built--One company left--Both commands march to Dalles--Steptoe's change of views--Demand on Colonel Wright to deliver up Sound murderers, who gives order--Cleverly evaded--Colonel Wright marches to Walla Walla--Counsels with hostile chiefs--Yields to their demands--Whites ordered out of the country--Shameful betrayal of duty--Governor Stevens's indignant letters to the War and Indian departments--Pernicious influence of missionaries and Hudson Bay Company--Governor Stevens's views finally adopted--Steptoe's defeat--Wright defeats hostiles--Summary executions--Fate of Ow-hi and Qualchen 206 CHAPTER XLI DISBANDING THE VOLUNTEERS Entire force disbanded--Their character, discipline--Public property sold--So many captured animals that more were sold than purchased--Transportation cost nothing--Anecdote of Captain Henness--Thirty-five forts built by volunteers, twenty-three by settlers, seven by regulars--Colonel Casey refuses demand for surrender of murderers--Governor Stevens insists--Sharply rebukes Colonel Casey's slurs--Leschi surrendered for trial--Is finally hanged--Qui-e-muth killed 232 CHAPTER XLII MARTIAL LAW.--DIFFICULTIES OVERCOME Hudson Bay Company's ex-employees remain in Indian country--Suspected of aiding enemy--Governor Stevens orders them to the towns--Five return to farms, at instigation of trouble-makers--Arrested and thrown in jail Judge Lander issues writ of habeas corpus--Martial law proclaimed in Pierce County--Colonel Shaw arrests judge and clerk, who are taken to Olympia and released--Lawyers pass condemnatory resolutions--Judge Lander holds court in Olympia--Issues writs--Martial law in Thurston County--Judge Lander arrested--Held prisoner at Camp Montgomery until end of war--Martial law abrogated--Governor Stevens fined fifty dollars--His action in proclaiming martial law disapproved by the President--Dishonorable discharge used to maintain discipline--Company A refuse to take field--Pass contumacious resolutions--Are dishonorably discharged--Control of disaffected Indians--Agents in constant danger--Summary dealing with whiskey-sellers--Agents men of high qualities--Statement of temporary reserves--Indians and agents--Northern Indians depredate on Sound--Captain Gansevoort severely punishes them at Port Gamble, and sends them north--Colonel Ebey falls victim to their revenge 242 CHAPTER XLIII LEGISLATIVE CENSURE.--POPULAR VINDICATION Governor Stevens's habits of labor--Adopts costume of the country--Builds home--Housewarming--Fourth message to legislature--Renders account of Indian war--Resolutions censuring Governor Stevens, for dismissing Company A and proclaiming martial law, pooled and passed--Indignation of the people--Governor Stevens nominated for Congress-- Canvasses the Territory--Elected by two thirds vote-- Resigns as governor--Death of James Doty--Turns over governorship to Governor McMullan; Indian affairs, to Superintendent Nesmith--Return journey East--Incidents 260 CHAPTER XLIV IN CONGRESS.--VINDICATING HIS COURSE Passing Superintendent Nesmith's accounts--Obtaining funds for Indian service--President recommends confirmation of the treaties--Welcomed back by old friends--General Lane a tower of strength--Demands that military deliver Yakima murderers to punishment--They abandon their protégés--Takes house and moves family to Washington--Mr. James G. Swan, secretary--Circular letter to emigrants--Appeals to Indian Department to establish farms promised Blackfeet--Has Lieutenant John Mullan placed in charge of building wagon-road between Fort Benton and Walla Walla--Exposes memoir of Captain Cram--Convinces Senate Indian committee that treaties ought to be confirmed--Advocates Northwestern boundary commission--Speeches on Indian war--Pacific Railroad--Defends Nesmith--Matters engaging attention--Resists exactions of Hudson Bay Company in memoir to Secretary of State--Steptoe's defeat--Colonel Wright punishes Indians--General Harney placed in command of Washington and Oregon departments--He revokes Wool's order excluding settlers from upper country--Address on Northwest--Walter W. Johnson, private secretary--Treaties all confirmed March 8, 1859--Dictates his final report on Northern route before breakfast 271 CHAPTER XLV SAVING SAN JUAN Returns to Puget Sound--Guest of General Harney--Close relations with--Renominated for Congress--The canvass--Elected--Death of Mr. Mason--San Juan dispute waxes warm over a pig--General Harney advised by Governor Stevens--Sends Captain Pickett to occupy the island--British fleet blockade--Reinforcements sent to Pickett--British powerless on land--Thousands of American miners in Victoria and on Fraser River--Governor Gholson guided by Governor Stevens--Offers support of militia to General Harney, who places ammunition at his disposal--General Scott pacifies British lion--Governor Stevens's influence in saving the archipelago 288 CHAPTER XLVI THE STAND AGAINST DISUNION Governor Stevens becomes chief exponent and authority on Northern route--Letter to Vancouver railroad convention-- Contending for the Northern route--Governor Stevens lives down prejudice--Gains respect--Great influence with President and departments--His habits--Rebuke of self-seekers--Political issues--Governor Stevens a national man--Sustained constitutional rights of South, as matter of justice and to defeat disunion--Patriotism of men of this view--Attends Charleston and Baltimore Democratic conventions--Supports General Lane--Split in party--Governor Stevens accepts as chairman of executive committee of National Democracy--Writes address in a single night--Labors hard--Hopes of success--Abraham Lincoln elected President--Act to pay Indian war debt passed--W.W. Miller appointed Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Washington Territory--Governor Stevens's achievements in seven years--His firm Union sentiments--Denounces secession--Strengthens the hands of the President 296 CHAPTER XLVII THE OFFER OF SWORD AND SERVICES Governor Stevens returns to Washington Territory--Recommends supporting the government and arming the militia--Elected captain of Puget Sound Rifles of Olympia--Democratic convention meets--Governor Stevens withdraws his name as candidate for delegate--His speech--Offers services--Hastens to Washington--Meets cold reception--Accepts colonelcy of 79th Highlanders--Governors Andrew and Sprague offer regiments 313 CHAPTER XLVIII THE 79TH HIGHLANDERS.--THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC The Highland Guard, a New York city militia battalion, volunteer as the 79th Highlanders--Splendid material--Severe losses at Bull Run--Promised to be sent home to recruit--Disappointed-- Colonel Stevens takes command--Breaks unworthy officers--The mutiny and its suppression--Colonel Stevens enforces discipline--Marches through Washington with band playing the dead march--Removes camp guards and appeals to honor of the regiment--Crossing the Potomac into Virginia--Colonel Stevens's brief speech at midnight--Building Fort Ethan Allen--Digging forts and felling forests--Picket alarms--The reconnoissance of Lewinsville--General McClellan meets returning column; his anxiety to avoid a general engagement-- Colonel Stevens deprived of his brigade and given three green regiments--President Lincoln reminded, directs appointment of Colonel Stevens as brigadier-general; says delay is owing to General McClellan's advice--Hazard Stevens appointed adjutant 79th Highlanders--Colonel Stevens appointed brigadier-general-- Moves forward four miles to Camp of the Big Chestnut--The recusant wagon-master--The unexpected rebuke--McClellan's passive-defensive--General Stevens ordered to Annapolis--Bids farewell to the Highlanders--Whole line cries, "Tak' us wi' ye!"--Secures appointment of his son as captain and assistant adjutant-general--Condemns McClellan's management--Predicts disaster--Reaches Annapolis--Applies for Highlanders--McClellan objects, but President Lincoln overrules him and sends them 321 CHAPTER XLIX THE PORT ROYAL EXPEDITION General Thomas W. Sherman--His army--General Stevens's brigade--The embarkation--Fleet assemble off Fortress Monroe--Boat's crew of Highlanders--Lively scenes--Sailing out to sea--Storm scatters the fleet--Opening sealed orders--Sail for Port Royal--The rebel defenses--Commodore Dupont's attack--The enemy's flight--Landing of the troops--Demoralized by sweet-potato field--General Stevens alone urges advance inland--Constructs a mile of defensive works--Sickness--Life on Hilton Head 341 CHAPTER L BEAUFORT.--ACTION OF PORT ROYAL FERRY General Stevens occupies Beaufort, the Newport of the South--Abandoned by white population--Sacked by negroes; their ignorance, habits, condition--Faint attack on the pickets--General Stevens advances across Port Royal Island--Pickets outer side, throwing enemy on the defensive--Enemy close the Coosaw River--General Stevens's plan to dislodge them authorized--Reinforcement by two regiments and gunboats--Flatboats assembled in a hidden creek--Troops embark at midnight, cross Coosaw, and effect landing--March in echelon toward Port Royal Ferry--The action--The enemy's hasty retreat--The Ferry occupied--The forts destroyed--Troops bivouac for the night--Cross the ferry and march to Beaufort in triumph--Thanked in general orders for the victory of Port Royal Ferry 353 CHAPTER LI BEAUFORT.--CAMPAIGN PLANNED AGAINST CHARLESTON General Stevens restores public library--It is confiscated by Treasury agents against his protest--The Gideonites come to elevate the freedmen--General Stevens moderates their zeal; wins their gratitude--Other visitors--Thorough course of drill and discipline--Twenty-five-mile picket line--Detachment of 8th Michigan defeat 13th Georgia regiment on Wilmington Island--Death of Mr. Caverly--Governor Stevens's views on military situation--General Stevens's force a menace to Charleston and Savannah Railroad--Six miles trestle bridges--General Robert E. Lee's defensive measures--General Stevens eager to cross swords with Lee--Plans movement to destroy railroad and hurl whole army on Charleston--Captain Elliott's scouting trips--General Sherman adopts plan--Commodore Dupont to coöperate--General Hunter supersedes General Sherman--Fort Pulaski taken--General Hunter proclaims negroes forever free, then impresses them as soldiers--General Stevens's views on the negro soldier--He is confirmed as brigadier-general 367 CHAPTER LII JAMES ISLAND CAMPAIGN AGAINST CHARLESTON Enemy abandon lower part of Stono River and batteries--General Benham plans movement on Charleston by way of James Island--General Stevens lands on James Island--Drives back enemy in sharp action--Takes three guns--Cautions Benham of need of a day's preparation before attacking--Incompetent commanders--Wright joins, a week later, with his division--Organization of the army--Enemy strengthening works across island--Fort Lamar, strong advanced work--General Stevens erects counter-battery--Reconnoissances 387 CHAPTER LIII BATTLE OF JAMES ISLAND General Benham's precipitate determination to assault Fort Lamar--Protests of his generals--He orders General Stevens to assault at dawn, Wright and Williams to support--Attacking column--Forms at two P.M.--Drives in and follows hard on enemy's pickets--Enters field in front of fort at daylight--Rushes on the work in column of regiments--The fight over the parapet--Deadly fire from enemy's reserves in rear of the work--Troops withdrawn in good order and reformed--General Williams attacks on left--General Wright takes position to protect left and rear--General Stevens about to assault a second time, when General Benham suddenly gives up the fight and orders both columns to retreat--Forces and losses--Causes of the repulse--Highlanders' revenge at Fort Saunders--Benham deprived of command and sent North 399 CHAPTER LIV RETURN TO VIRGINIA The Highlanders present General Stevens with a sword--His response--Death of Daniel Lyman Arnold--General Stevens's letters to his wife--Holds Benham to account--General Wright succeeds to command on Benham's arrest--James Island evacuated--Troops uselessly harassed--Jean Ribaut's fort--Voyage to Virginia--General Stevens's letter to President Lincoln recommending such movement--His views of military situation--Lands at Newport News--Ninth corps formed, General Stevens commanding first division--Meets General Cullum 416 CHAPTER LV POPE'S CAMPAIGN General Stevens moves to Fredericksburg--Division in three brigades, and joined by two light batteries--Stevens and Reno's division, march up the Rappahannock; join Pope's army at Culpeper Court House--General Stevens stops straggling and marauding--Battle of Cedar Mountain--Army of Virginia--Pope advances to Rapidan--General Stevens holds Raccoon Ford--Lee leaves McClellan--Concentrates against Pope, who withdraws behind Rappahannock--General Stevens's action at Kelly's Ford--Marching up the river to head off Lee--Benjamin silences enemy's gun with a single shot--Reinforcements arrive from Army of the Potomac--Jackson marches around right flank and falls on rear--Positions and movements, August 26, 27, 28--Description of Bull Run battlefield--Jackson withdraws from Manassas and takes position there--Movements of Pope's forces--Fiasco of McDowell and Sigel--Jackson attacks--Stubborn fight of General Gibbon near Groveton--Generals King and Ricketts march away from the enemy--Pope reiterates order to attack 425 CHAPTER LVI THE SECOND BATTLE OF BULL RUN Jackson resumes his position--Sigel's troops move forward slowly and become engaged--Reynolds, on left, advances, but falls back--Troops of right wing arrive, scattered to meet Sigel's cries for reinforcements--General Stevens advances with small force to Groveton--Unexpectedly fired on by enemy's skirmishers--Benjamin maintains unequal artillery combat--Sigel and Schenck withdraw troops from key-point--Jackson forces back Milroy and Schurz--General Porter's movement--Inactive all day--Pope hurls disconnected brigades on Jackson's corps--Attacks by Grover, Reno, Kearny, Stevens, all repulsed--King's division slaughtered--General Stevens collects his scattered division--Union attacks repulsed the first day--Lee master of the situation--August 30, second day--Pope sure the enemy had retreated--General Stevens expresses contrary view--Captain John More finds enemy in force--Pope's fatuous Order of pursuit--Porter slowly forms column in centre--Pope's faulty dispositions-- Whole army bunched in centre--Wings stripped of troops-- Porter's attack--General Stevens joins in it--The repulse-- Lee's opportunity--Longstreet's onslaught--The battle on left and centre--The right firmly held--General Stevens's remark--Pope orders retreat--General Stevens withdraws deliberately--Checks pursuit--Capture of Lieutenant Heffron--Crosses Bull Run at Lock's Ford--Bivouac for night--Battle lost by incompetent commander--Troops fought bravely 446 CHAPTER LVII THE BATTLE OF CHANTILLY Retreat to Centreville--Rear-guard--Bivouac on Centreville heights--Counting stacks--Two thousand and twelve muskets left--Loss nearly one half--General Stevens's last letter--Sudden orders--March to intercept Jackson--Battle of Chantilly--General Stevens's charge--He falls, bearing the colors--The enemy driven from his position--Sudden and furious thunderstorm bursts over the field 477 CHAPTER LVIII THE BATTLE OF CHANTILLY Progress of the fight--General Kearny responds to General Stevens's summons with Birney's brigade--His death--Three of Reno's regiments engaged--Night ends the contest--Sixteen Union regiments against forty-eight Confederate--Respective losses and forces--General Stevens averted great disaster 487 CHAPTER LIX FINAL SCENE General Stevens's body borne from battle to Washington--President considering placing him in command at time of his death-- Burial in Newport, R.I.--City erects monument--Inscription-- Poem--General Stevens's descendants 498 APPENDIX--Census of Indians 503 INDEX 507 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Arrival of Nez Perce Cavalcade at the Council 34 Feasting the Chiefs 36 Kam-i-ah-kan, Head Chief of the Yakimas 38 U-u-san-male-e-can: Spotted Eagle, a chief of the Nez Perces 40 Walla Walla Council 42 Pu-pu-mox-mox: Yellow Serpent, Head Chief of the Walla Wallas 46 We-ah-te-na-tee-ma-ny: Young Chief, Head Chief of the Cuyuses 50 She-ca-yah: Five Crows, a Chief of the Cuyuses 52 Appushwa-hite: Looking Glass, War Chief of the Nez Perces 54 Hal-hal-tlos-sot: The Lawyer, Head Chief of the Nez Perces 58 The Scalp Dance 60 Ow-hi, a Chief of the Yakimas 64 The Flathead Council 82 The Blackfoot Council 112 Group of Blackfoot Chiefs--Ha-ca-tu-she-ye-hu, Star Robe, Chief of the Gros Ventres; Th-ke-te-pers, The Rider, Great War Chief of the Gros Ventres; Sak-uis-tan, Heavy Shield, Great Warrior of the Blood Indians; Stam-yekh-sas-ci-cay, Lame Bull, Piegan Chief 114 Blackfoot Chiefs--Tat-tu-ye, The Fox, Chief of the Blood Indians; Mek-ya-py, Red Dye, Piegan Warrior 116 Group: Commissioner Alfred Cumming, Alexander Culbertson, William Craig, Delaware Jim, James Bird 118 Crossing the Bitter Roots in Midwinter 126 Coeur d'Alene Mission 128 Spokane Garry: Head Chief of the Spokanes 140 Ume-how-lish, War Chief of the Cuyuses 148 Homestead in Olympia 260 Letter offering Sword and Services (facsimile) 316 Captain Hazard Stevens at the age of 19, from a photograph 340 Headquarters at Beaufort 372 General Stevens and Staff: Captain B.F. Porter, Lieutenant William T. Lusk, Captain Hazard Stevens, Lieutenant Abraham Cottrell, General Stevens, Major George S. Kemble, Lieutenant Benjamin R. Lyons 386 Headquarters on James Island 398 Camp of General Stevens's Division at Newport News 422 Headquarters at Newport News 424 The Monument 502 The portraits of Indian chiefs were made by Gustavus Sohon, a private soldier of the 4th infantry, an intelligent and well-educated German, who had great skill in making expressive likenesses. He also made the views of the councils and expedition. These portraits, with many others taken by the same artist, were intended by General Stevens to be used to illustrate a complete account of his treaty operations. The views of camps and headquarters were sketched by E. Henry, E Company, 79th Highlanders. MAPS AND PLANS The Interior from Cascade Mountains to Fort Benton. Made on reduced scale from Governor Stevens's map of April 30, 1857, sent to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Routes traversed by Governor Stevens taken from maps accompanying his final report of the Northern Pacific Railroad route. See Appendix for marginal notes 16 Theatre of Indian War of 1855-56 on Puget Sound and West of Cascade Mountains. Made on reduced scale from map sent by Governor Stevens to the Secretary of War with report of March 21, 1856 172 Reconnoissance of Lewinsville, September 11, 1862 330 Port Royal and Sea Islands of South Carolina 352 Action at Port Royal Ferry, January 1, 1862 358 Battle of James Island, June 16, 1862 402 Virginia--Potomac to Rapidan River 426 Positions of forces August 26, 1862, 9 P.M. 432 Positions of forces August 27, 9 P.M. 433 Positions of forces August 28, 9 P.M. 443 Second Battle of Bull Run, August 29 446 Second Battle of Bull Run, August 30 464 Jackson's flank march, August 31 480 Battle of Chantilly, September 1 482 THE LIFE OF ISAAC INGALLS STEVENS CHAPTER XXVI THE CHEHALIS COUNCIL While treating with the Sound Indians, the governor sent William H. Tappan, agent for the southwestern tribes, Henry D. Cock, and Sidney Ford to summon the Chinooks, Chehalis, and coast Indians to meet in council on the Chehalis River, just above Gray's Harbor, on February 25, and on returning to Olympia dispatched Simmons and Shaw on the same duty. On the 22d he left Olympia on horseback, rode to the Chehalis, thirty miles, and the following day descended that stream in a canoe to the treaty ground. Among other settlers who attended the council at the governor's invitation was James G. Swan, then residing on Shoalwater Bay, and since noted for his interesting writings on the Pacific Northwest, and for the valuable collections of Indian implements and curiosities, and monographs of their languages, customs, and history that he has made for the Smithsonian Institution. Judge Swan gives the following graphic and lively account of this council in his "Three Years' Residence in Washington Territory." He describes how he and Dr. J.G. Cooper, accompanied by twenty canoe-loads of Indians, paddled up the Chehalis one cold, damp morning, without waiting for breakfast, finding it difficult to keep warm:-- "But the Indians did not seem to mind it at all; for, excited with the desire to outvie each other in their attempts to be first to camp, they paddled, and screamed, and shouted, and laughed, and cut up all kinds of antics, which served to keep them in a glow. As we approached the camp we all stopped at a bend in the river, about three quarters of a mile distant, when all began to wash their faces, comb their hair, and put on their best clothes. The women got out their bright shawls and dresses, and painted their faces with vermilion, or red ochre and grease, and decked themselves out with their beads and trinkets, and in about ten minutes we were a gay-looking set; and certainly the appearance of the canoes filled with Indians dressed in their brightest colors was very picturesque, but I should have enjoyed it better had the weather been a little warmer. "The camp ground was situated on a bluff bank of the river, on its south side, about ten miles from Gray's Harbor, on the claim of Mr. James Pilkington. A space of two or three acres had been cleared from logs and brushwood, which had been piled up so as to form an oblong square. One great tree, which formed the southern side to the camp, served also as an immense backlog, against which our great camp-fire and sundry smaller ones were kindled, both to cook by and to warm us. In the centre of the square, and next the river, was the governor's tent; and between it and the south side of the ground were the commissary's and other tents, all ranged in proper order. Rude tables, laid in open air, and a huge framework of poles, from which hung carcasses of beef, mutton, deer, elk, and salmon, with a cloud of wild geese, ducks, and smaller game, gave evidence that the austerities of Lent were not to form any part of our services. "Around the sides of the square were ranged the tents and wigwams of the Indians, each tribe having a space allotted to it. The coast Indians were placed at the lower part of the camp; first the Chinooks, then the Chehalis, Quen-ai-ult, and Quaitso, Satsop, upper Chehalis, and Cowlitz. These different tribes had sent representatives to the council, and there were present about three hundred and fifty of them, and the best feeling prevailed among all. "The white persons present consisted of only fourteen, viz., Governor Stevens, George Gibbs (who officiated as secretary to the commission), Judge Ford, with his two sons, who were assistant interpreters, Lieutenant-Colonel B.F. Shaw, the chief interpreter, Colonel Simmons and Mr. Tappan, Indian agents, Dr. Cooper, Mr. Pilkington, the owner of the claim, Colonel Cock, myself, and last, though by no means the least, Cushman, our commissary, orderly sergeant, provost marshal, chief story-teller, factotum, and life of the party,--'Long may he wave.' Nor must I omit Green McCafferty, the cook, whose name had become famous for his exploits in an expedition to Queen Charlotte's Island to rescue some sailors from the Indians. He was a good cook and kept us well supplied with hot biscuit and roasted potatoes. "Our table was spread in the open air, and at breakfast and supper was pretty sure to be covered with frost, but the hot dishes soon cleared that off, and we found the clear, fresh breeze very conducive to a good appetite. After supper we all gathered round the fire to smoke our pipes, toast our feet, and tell stories. "The next morning the council was commenced. The Indians were all drawn up in a large circle in front of the governor's tent, and around a table on which were placed the articles of treaty and other papers. The governor, General Gibbs, and Colonel Shaw sat at the table, and the rest of the whites were honored with camp-stools, to sit around as a sort of guard, or as a small cloud of witnesses. "Although we had no regimentals on, we were dressed pretty uniform. His Excellency the Governor was dressed in a red flannel shirt, dark frock coat and pants, and these last tucked in his boots, California fashion; a black felt hat, with, I think, a pipe stuck through the band; and a paper of fine-cut tobacco in his coat pocket. We also were dressed like the governor, not in ball-room or dress-parade uniform, but in good, warm, serviceable clothes. "After Colonel Mike Simmons, the agent, and, as he has been termed, the Daniel Boone of the Territory, had marshaled the savages into order, an Indian interpreter was selected from each tribe to interpret the jargon of Shaw into such language as their tribes could understand. The governor then made a speech, which was translated by Colonel Shaw into jargon, and spoken to the Indians, in the same manner the good old elders of ancient times were accustomed to deacon out the hymns to the congregation. First the governor spoke a few words, then the colonel interpreted, then the Indians; so that this threefold repetition made it rather a lengthy operation. After this speech the Indians were dismissed till the following day, when the treaty was to be read. We were then requested by the governor to explain to those Indians we were acquainted with what he had said, and they seemed very well satisfied. The governor had purchased of Mr. Pilkington a large pile of potatoes,--about a hundred bushels,--and he told the Indians to help themselves. They made the heap grow small in a short time, each taking what he required for food; but lest any one should get an undue share, Commissary Cushman and Colonel Simmons were detailed to stand guard on the potato pile, which they did with the utmost good feeling, keeping the savages in a roar of laughter by their humorous ways. "At night we again gathered around the fire, and the governor requested that we should enliven the time by telling anecdotes, himself setting the example. Governor Stevens has a rich fund of interesting and amusing incidents that he has picked up in his camp life, and a very happy way of relating them. We were all called upon in turn. There were some tales told of a wild and romantic nature, and Judge Ford and Colonel Mike did their part. Old frontiersmen and early settlers, they had many a legend to relate of toil, privation, fun, and frolic; but the palm was conceded to Cushman, who certainly could vie with Baron Munchausen or Sindbad the Sailor in his wonderful romances. His imitative powers were great, and he would take off some speaker at a political gathering or a camp-meeting in so ludicrous a style that even the governor could not preserve his gravity, but would be obliged to join the rest in a general laughing chorus. Whenever Cushman began one of his harangues, he was sure to draw up a crowd of Indians, who seemed to enjoy the fun as much as we, although they could not understand a word he said. He usually wound up by stirring up the fire; and this, blazing up brightly and throwing off a shower of sparks, would light the old forest, making the night look blacker in the distance, and showing out in full relief the dusky, grinning faces of the Indians, with their blankets drawn around them, standing up just outside the circle where we were sitting. Cushman was a most capital man for a camp expedition, always ready, always prompt and good-natured. "The second morning after our arrival the terms of the treaty were made known. This was read line by line by General Gibbs, and then interpreted by Colonel Shaw to the Indians. The provisions of the treaty were these: They were to be placed on a reservation between Gray's Harbor and Cape Flattery, and were to be paid forty thousand dollars in different installments. Four thousand dollars in addition was also to be paid them, to enable them to clear and fence in land and cultivate. No spirituous liquors were to be allowed on the reservation; and any Indian who should be guilty of drinking liquor would have his or her annuity withheld. "Schools, carpenters' and blacksmiths' shops were to be furnished by the United States; also a sawmill, agricultural implements, teachers, and a doctor. All their slaves were to be free, and none afterwards to be bought or sold. The Indians, however, were not to be restricted to the reservation, but were to be allowed to procure their food as they had always done, and were at liberty at any time to leave the reservation to trade with or work for the whites. "After this had all been interpreted to them, they were dismissed till the next day, in order that they might talk the matter over together, and have any part explained to them which they did not understand. The following morning the treaty was again read to them after a speech from the governor, but although they seemed satisfied, they did not perfectly comprehend. The difficulty was in having so many tribes to talk to at the same time, and being obliged to use the jargon, which at best is a poor medium of conveying intelligence. The governor requested any one of them that wished, to reply to him. Several of the chiefs spoke, some in jargon and some in their own tribal language, which would be interpreted into jargon by one of their people who was conversant with it; so that, what with this diversity of tongues, it was difficult to have the subject properly understood. But their speeches finally resulted in one and the same thing, which was that they felt proud to have the governor talk with them; they liked his proposition to buy their land, but they did not want to go to the reservation. The speech of Narkarty, one of the Chinook chiefs, will convey the idea they all had. 'When you first began to speak,' said he to the governor, 'we did not understand you; it was all dark to us as the night; but now our hearts are enlightened, and what you say is clear to us as the sun. We are proud that our Great Father in Washington thinks of us. We are poor, and can see how much better off the white men are than we are. We are willing to sell our land, but we do not want to go away from our homes. Our fathers and mothers and ancestors are buried there, and by them we wish to bury our dead and be buried ourselves. We wish, therefore, each to have a place on our own land where we can live, and you may have the rest; but we can't go to the north among the other tribes. We are not friends, and if we went together we should fight, and soon we would all be killed.' This same idea was expressed by all, and repeated every day. The Indians from the interior did not want to go on a reservation with the coast or canoe Indians. The whole together only numbered 843 all told, as may be seen by the following census, which was taken on the ground:-- Lower Chehalis 217 Upper Chehalis 216 Quenaiults 158 Chinooks 112 Cowlitz 140 --- 843 "But though few in numbers, there were among them men possessed of shrewdness, sense, and great influence. They felt that though they were few, they were as much entitled to a separate treaty as the more powerful tribes in the interior. We all reasoned with them to show the kind intentions of the governor, and how much better off they would be if they could content themselves to live in one community; and our appeals were not altogether in vain. Several of the tribes consented, and were ready to sign the treaty, and of these the Quenaiults were the most prompt, evidently, however, from the fact that the proposed reservation included their land, and they would consequently remain at home. "I think the governor would have eventually succeeded in inducing them all to sign, had it not been for the son of Carcowan, the old Chehalis chief. This young savage, whose name is Tleyuk, and who was the recognized chief of his tribe, had obtained great influence among all the coast Indians. He was very willing at first to sign the treaty, provided the governor would select _his_ land for the reservation, and make him the grand _Tyee_, or chief, over the whole five tribes; but when he found he could not effect his purpose, he changed his behavior, and we soon found his bad influence among the other Indians, and the meeting broke up that day with marked symptoms of dissatisfaction. This ill-feeling was increased by old Carcowan, who smuggled some whiskey into the camp, and made his appearance before the governor quite intoxicated. He was handed over to Provost Marshal Cushman, with orders to keep him quiet till he got sober. The governor was very much incensed at this breach of his orders, for he had expressly forbidden either whites or Indians bringing one drop of liquor into the camp. "The following day Tleyuk stated that he had no faith in anything the governor said, for he had been told that it was the intention of the United States government to put them all on board steamers and send them away out of the country, and that the Americans were not their friends. He gave the names of several white persons who had been industrious in circulating these reports to thwart the governor in his plans, and most all of them had been in the employ of the Hudson Bay Company. He was assured that there was no truth in the report, and pretended to be satisfied, but in reality was doing all in his power to break up the meeting. That evening the governor called the chiefs into his tent, but to no purpose, for Tleyuk made some insolent remarks, and peremptorily refused to sign the treaty, and with his people refused to have anything to do with it. That night in his camp they behaved in a very disorderly manner, firing off guns, shouting, and making a great uproar. "The next morning, when the council was called, the governor gave Tleyuk a severe reprimand, and, taking from him his paper, which had been given to show that the government recognized him as chief, he tore it to pieces before the assemblage. Tleyuk felt this disgrace very keenly, but said nothing. The paper was to him of great importance, for they all look on a printed or written document as possessing some wonderful charm. The governor then informed them that as all would not sign the treaty it was of no effect, and the camp was then broken up. "Throughout the whole of the conference Governor Stevens evinced a degree of forbearance, and a desire to do everything he could for the benefit of the Indians. Nothing was done in a hurry. We remained in the camp a week, and ample time was given them each day to perfectly understand the views of the governor. The utmost good feeling prevailed, and every day they were induced to some games of sport to keep them good humored. Some would have races on the river in their canoes, others danced, and others gambled; all was friendly till the last day, when Tleyuk's bad conduct spoiled the whole." That was an intrepid and resolute act of Governor Stevens, thus to tear up the turbulent chief's commission before his face, surrounded by three hundred and fifty Indians and supported by only fourteen whites; but it effectually cowed the insolent young savage, and preserved the respect of the Indians. The council was by no means abortive, for in consequence of it the following fall Colonel Simmons obtained the assent and signature of the chiefs of the Quenaiult and Quillehute coast tribes to the treaty so carefully explained to them at the Chehalis council, and it was signed by Governor Stevens at Olympia, January 25, 1856, on his return from the Blackfoot council, and duly confirmed with the other treaties on March 8, 1859. These Indians were given $25,000 in annuities, and $2500 to improve the reservation, the selection of which was left to the President. A reservation of ten thousand acres was set off at the mouth of the Quenaiult River, including their principal village and salmon fishery, renowned as yielding the richest and finest salmon on the coast, a fish of medium size, deep, rich color, and exquisite flavor. The other provisions were the same as those secured to the Sound Indians. Tah-ho-lah and How-yatl, head chiefs of the two tribes, and twenty-nine other chiefs signed the treaty, and it was witnessed by M.T. Simmons, general Indian agent; H.A. Goldsborough, surveyor; B.F. Shaw, interpreter; James Tilton, surveyor-general; F. Kennedy, J.Y. Miller, and H.D. Cock. These two tribes numbered four hundred and ninety-three, a number greatly in excess of the census given in Swan's account. In their distrust the Indians invariably reported less than their actual numbers, and nearly every tribe was found to be larger than the first estimate. The numbers of the Chinook, Chehalis, and Cowlitz Indians were reported by Governor Stevens in 1857 as one thousand one hundred and fifteen. Including the Quenaiults and the Cowlitz, and other Indians not on reservations, they now number some seven hundred, and are in about the same condition as the Sound Indians.[1] FOOTNOTES: [1] A census of all the tribes in the Territory, returned with Governor Stevens's report and map of April 30, 1857, is given in the Appendix. CHAPTER XXVII PERSONAL AND POLITICAL.--SAN JUAN CONTROVERSY Just before going to the Chehalis council, Governor Stevens and his family suffered a sad and severe affliction in the death of his young kinsman, George Watson Stevens, who was drowned on February 16 at the debouch of the Skookumchuck Creek into the Chehalis River, as he was returning from Portland, whither he had gone to cash some government drafts. He was accompanied on the journey by A.B. Stuart, the mail and express carrier, who, as they approached the stream, had occasion to stop at a settler's house, while George Stevens kept on, and, although cautioned by Stuart, lost his life in the attempt to cross by the usual ford. The Skookumchuck empties into the Chehalis at right angles, and although ordinarily a stream of moderate size, becomes, when swollen by rains, a mighty and furious flood, which, encountering the rapid current of the Chehalis, forms a dangerous whirlpool in the centre of that river. Not realizing the danger, and anxious to reach his journey's end that day, he forced his horse into the raging torrent, and was swept, man and steed, into the whirlpool below, where, although a fine swimmer and a strong, vigorous man, he met his death. Stuart reached the ford soon afterwards, and finding it impassable and his companion nowhere visible, rightly concluded that he was lost, and hastened to Olympia with the sad tidings. Governor Stevens with a party hastened to the scene, and diligently searched for the missing one. The governor caused a band of horses to be driven into the stream to test its power, but all were instantly swept down into the larger river, several of them clear to the whirlpool, although the water had fallen considerably. The unfortunate youth's horse swam ashore, and was found with the saddle and saddle-bags soaked with water, and a few days later his remains were found in the river a mile below the whirlpool. This sad event cast a deep gloom upon the family, and indeed all the community, for he was a young man of great promise, noble traits, and only twenty-two years of age. The governor said of him:-- "His whole character was an admirable blending of strength and gentleness. He was essentially a man of great resolution, daring, enterprise, and purpose, who adhered with great inflexibility to his determinations; yet he was so gentle, so kindly, so courteous, and so disinterested that his strength did not fully appear in ordinary intercourse. To his friends his death is a sad bereavement, which time only can obliterate. His memory will be precious, his life an example, his bright and pure spirit is now in the heavenly mansion." "He was a brother in the house," wrote Mrs. Stevens to her mother; "evenings he always spent at home, and took an interest in everything about the house, played with the children, seemed to be happy just staying in our society. Here is my garden he made, and the flowers he set out, and marks of him all about us." It was a sad time when his remains were brought in, and the little toys and candy he had thoughtfully purchased for the children were found in his pockets and saddle-bags. He was buried on the beautiful green Bush Prairie, amid the scenes of mountain, prairie, and forest he loved so well. His intimate friends, Mason and Doty, were soon to be laid at rest by his side. In a letter to a sister Mrs. Stevens relates another instance of the governor's firmness and fearlessness in dealing with the Indians:-- "There are three different tribes of Indians in Olympia now, all different,--the Nisquallies, Chissouks, and northern Fort Simpson Indians. A curious sight it is to see them. They are all gambling, their mats spread on the ground; and you will see groups of fifty seated on the ground, and playing all day and night. The town is full of them. Mr. Stevens has them right under his thumb. They are as afraid as death of him, and do just what he tells them. He told the chiefs of the tribes he would not let them disturb the whites. That night they kept up an awful howling and singing, making night hideous like a pack of wolves. Mr. Stevens got up, took a big club, and went right in among them, and talked to them, and told them that the first man that opened his lips he would knock down. The chief said, 'Close' (All right), and not another sound came from them that night. When he came back, he said the biggest lodge was full of men sitting in a circle around a big fire, smoking and singing." Returning from the Chehalis council, Governor Stevens remained the next two months in Olympia, hard at work with his multifarious duties, reviewing legislative acts, preparing reports of the councils and treaties, instructing the Indian agents, and attending to the unceasing cares and questions arising from the Indians, and preparing for the trip east of the mountains. In April he made the arduous horseback and river trip to Vancouver, and there met Superintendent Joel Palmer, of Oregon, by appointment, having previously invited him, in order to arrange with him in regard to the proposed council with the Indians of the upper country, some of whom were within General Palmer's superintendency. This spring began the San Juan Island controversy with Great Britain, which came near involving the two countries in war, and lasted with various phases for eighteen years, until it was finally decided in favor of the United States by Emperor William I., of Germany. By the treaty of 1846 the main ship-channel which separates the continent from Vancouver Island was fixed as the boundary from the point where the 49th parallel intersects the Gulf of Georgia, in order to give the whole of that island to Great Britain, for the parallel intersects it. It happens, however, that there are two channels, with a valuable group of islands between them, answering this description. The Americans claimed the western-most, the Canal de Haro, which runs next to Vancouver Island, and is the shorter, broader, and deeper, in every respect the main ship-channel, while the English insisted that the eastern channel, Rosario Straits, was the proper boundary. The shrewd and aggressive officers of the Hudson Bay Company at Victoria, Sir James Douglass at their head, originated the British claim, which otherwise had never arisen, so little merit had it, and in order to gain a foothold on, and claim possession of, these valuable islands, placed a flock of sheep on San Juan, and stationed there a petty official of the company. The island was included in Whatcom County by act of the Washington legislature, the property thereon became subject to taxation, and the sheriff of the county levied upon and seized a number of the sheep in default of payment of taxes. Sir James Douglass thereupon addressed Governor Stevens, complaining of the seizure, and demanding to know if the sheriff's proceedings were authorized or sanctioned in any manner by the executive officer of Washington Territory. The governor promptly replied, May 12, 1855, and firmly and uncompromisingly asserted the American right, and justified the sheriff. After reciting the acts of Oregon and Washington assuming jurisdiction over the islands, he continued:-- "The sheriff, in proceeding to collect taxes, acts under a law directing him to do so. Should he be resisted in such an attempt, it would become the duty of the governor to sustain him to the full force of the authority vested in him. "The ownership remains now as it did at the execution of the treaty of June 11, 1846, and can in no wise be affected by the alleged 'possession of British subjects.'" The correspondence was communicated to the Secretary of State, who in reply deprecated any action by the territorial authorities pending a settlement of the question by the respective governments, and the dispute remained in abeyance until excited some years afterwards by another British act of aggression. Had our government firmly asserted its undoubted right at this time, the matter would have been settled. To the resolute and patriotic stand of Governor Stevens on this occasion, and his subsequent course in defense of this American territory, as will be seen hereafter, were due the ultimate defeat of the persistent and hard-fought British demands. At this time the governor purchased of William Taylor for $2000 his donation claim, a fine tract of half a section, 320 acres, six miles southwest of Olympia, and in the northwestern corner of Bush Prairie. It comprised a few acres of prairie, over a hundred acres of heavy meadow, and the remainder in heavy fir timber. A small house and a field fenced off the prairie were the only improvements. The governor always took great interest and pleasure in the soil, in gardening and farming. He soon put a man on the place, and laid out extensive plans of improving it. In April the Democratic convention met in Olympia to nominate a candidate for delegate in Congress, to succeed Judge Lancaster. The delegates assembled in a large store building on the southwest corner of Main and First streets, belonging to George A. Barnes. Governor Stevens was a candidate for the nomination. He was desirous, after completing his treaty operations and returning from the Blackfoot council, to represent the Territory in Congress, and there push forward his plans for the public service, further railroad surveys, wagon roads, mail routes, steamer service, Indian treaties and policy, and, above all, the Northern Pacific Railroad. Many of the first settlers were strong in his support, recognizing how much such a man in Congress could accomplish for the Territory. There were two other candidates, Judge Columbia Lancaster, very anxious to succeed himself, and J. Patton Anderson, United States marshal, who had traveled all over the Territory in taking the census the previous year, and, it was said, had diligently improved his opportunities as census-taker by paying court to all the women, kissing all the babies, and pledging all the men to support him for delegate. He was a man of good appearance, cordial, pleasant Southern manners, and well calculated to make friends. The convention divided between the three candidates, and balloted an entire day without result. In the evening the candidates were invited to address the convention. Colonel Shaw, who was one of the governor's supporters, although not a member of the convention, says that he advised the governor not to accept the invitation, lest the friends of the other candidates, hearing him speak, should become alarmed at his ability and power, and combine against him. Such advice was the very last that the governor, with his straightforward and positive character, would relish. He went before the convention, and in a forcible and patriotic speech, without reference to himself, set forth the needs of the Territory, and the public measures required for its advancement, so ably and clearly that his friends were delighted, and felt sure that he would be chosen on the next ballot. But it turned out as Shaw feared. Although he gained votes, his opponents combined on Anderson, and nominated him, some of them exclaiming, "It won't do to nominate the governor, for if he once gets into Congress, we can never get him out again." CHAPTER XXVIII INDIANS OF THE UPPER COLUMBIA The Indians of the upper Columbia, with whom Governor Stevens was next to treat, presented a far more pressing and difficult problem than the reduced tribes of the Sound. They numbered fourteen thousand souls, comprised in ten powerful tribes, viz., Nez Perces, Cuyuses, Umatillas, Walla Wallas, Yakimas, Spokanes, Coeur d'Alenes, Flatheads, Pend Oreilles, and Kootenais.[2] They were a manly, athletic race, still uncontaminated by the vices and diseases which so often result from contact with the whites, and far superior in courage and enterprise, as well as in form and feature, to the canoe Indians of the Sound and coast. Each tribe possessed its own country, clearly defined by well-known natural boundaries, within whose limits their wanderings were restrained, save when they "went to buffalo," or attended some grand council or horse-race with a neighboring tribe. The chase, the salmon fishery, the root ground, the numerous bands of horses and cattle, furnished easy and ample sustenance. It was estimated that the Nez Perces owned twenty thousand head of these animals, and the Cuyuses, Umatillas, and Walla Wallas not less than fifteen thousand. The Yakimas and Spokanes also possessed great numbers. [Illustration: THE INTERIOR FROM CASCADE MOUNTAINS TO FORT BENTON] Of all these tribes, the Nez Perces or Sahaptin were the most numerous and progressive. They numbered 3300, and occupied the country along the western base of the Bitter Root Mountains for over two hundred miles, and a hundred miles in width, including both banks of the Snake and its tributaries, the Kooskooskia or Clearwater, Salmon, Grande Ronde, Tucañon, etc. Yearly, in the spring or fall, their war chief would lead a strong party across the Rocky Mountains to hunt the buffalo on the plains of the Missouri, and many were the bloody encounters they had with the dreaded Blackfeet, the Arabs of the plains. They owned great numbers of horses, and the advent of the horse among them, about the middle of the eighteenth century, obtained from the Spaniards of New Mexico or California, of which they preserved the tradition, was the chief cause of their prosperous condition. From the days of Lewis and Clark, the first of the white race to meet their astonished gaze, they were famed as the firm friends of the white man. During all the fur-hunting and trading epoch the "mountain men," as the trappers and voyageurs delighted to call themselves, were welcome in the lodges of the Nez Perces. Together they wintered in safety on the banks of the Kooskooskia, and together they hunted the buffalo on the plains of the Missouri, and made common cause against the Blackfeet. Among the most noted of the numerous encounters in which they were allied against their common foe was the stubborn fight of Pierre's Hole in 1832, so graphically described by Washington Irving in his "Bonneville Adventures." It was in this fight that Lawyer, then a promising young brave, and afterwards for many years the powerful head chief of the Sahaptin, received a severe wound in the hip, which never entirely healed, and doubtless hastened his death. In 1836 Rev. H.H. Spalding with his wife was sent out by the Presbyterians, and settled as a missionary on the Lapwai, a branch on the southern side of the Kooskooskia, twelve miles above its confluence with the Snake. Here he was preceded by William Craig, a Virginian, one of the best type of mountain men, who had married a Nez Perce maiden and made his home among her people. Aided by Craig's knowledge of the Nez Perce tongue and character, and of the Indians themselves, Mr. Spalding taught the whole tribe a simple Christian faith, made a dictionary of their language, and translated and had printed in the native tongue a hymn-book, catechism, and New Testament, taught a number of the young men to read and write their own language, built a saw and grist mill, and labored to induce them, not without success, to till the soil. Yet, after all this achievement, he was in the end led to abandon his mission. In an unhappy hour he opened a store and went to trading with the Indians. In their experience a trader was the personification of greed and falsehood. To them the union of the trader, all selfishness and fraud, and the preacher of morality and truth was monstrous, nay, impossible. Mr. Spalding, too, was hard and exacting in his dealings, and offended in that way. With all his zeal and energy, he evidently lacked knowledge of Indian nature, perhaps of human nature. What wonder that some of the Nez Perces, seeing that the trading-post was a fact, concluded that his preaching was a fraud, and warned him out of their country! The massacre of the devoted missionary, Dr. Marcus Whitman, and his family, by the Cuyuses, in 1847, had just occurred, and Mr. Spalding, fearing a like fate if he remained after the warning, abandoned the mission where he had done so much. The majority of the Nez Perces, however, desired him to remain; and when he decided upon going, they formed a strong party of warriors, and escorted him with his family and effects unharmed through the hostile Indians to the frontier settlement. They magnanimously refused the large reward offered them, saying, "We will not sell Mr. Spalding; he left our country of his own free will, and we escorted him as his friends." In the war which ensued they remained the firm friends of the whites, and the officers of the Oregon volunteers engaged in it presented them with a fine, large American flag, in which they took great pride. It was their boast that "We are the friends of the white man. The white man is our brother. His blood has never stained our hands." Craig remained among them in perfect safety, and was treated with undiminished kindness. Although abandoned by Mr. Spalding, they by no means discarded the good he had taught them. They maintained, unaided, their simple religious worship, and held services regularly every Sabbath, with preaching, singing of hymns, and reading of the Bible, all in their own language, with the books translated and printed for them by the devoted missionary. They prided themselves upon their superior intelligence, upon having young men who could read and write, and upon their ancient and fast friendship with the whites. This friendship indeed was not merely a matter of sentiment. They were shrewd enough to turn it to good account. Large emigrations crossed the plains to Oregon during the period from 1843 to 1855; and the Nez Perces used to go down to the emigrant road on the Grande Ronde or Umatilla, with bands of fat, sleek, handsome ponies, and exchange them with the emigrants for their worn-out horses, oxen, and sometimes a cow, clothing, groceries, ammunition, etc. The Pikes, as the Missourians who comprised the majority of the emigrants were called, "allowed that the Nez Perces could beat a Yankee on a trade." By these means they were beginning to obtain cattle as well as horses, were learning to wear blankets and shirts instead of skins, and individuals were even beginning to set out fruit trees, and plant corn and potatoes, and in a word the Nez Perces were making rapid strides toward civilization. There is no more interesting and instructive example of the amelioration of a savage tribe by the introduction of domestic animals, and its steady growth from abject barbarism, than that afforded by the Nez Perces. But little more than a century ago they were a tribe of naked savages, engaged in a perpetual struggle against starvation. Their country afforded but little game, and they subsisted almost exclusively on salmon, berries, and roots. The introduction of the horse enabled them to make long journeys to the buffalo plains east of the Rocky Mountains, where they could lay in great abundance of meat and furs; furnished them with a valuable animal for trading with other less favored tribes; soon raised them to comparative affluence, and developed in their hunting and trading expeditions a manly, enterprising, shrewd, and intelligent character. They had improved and profited still more from their intercourse with the whites, until there seemed every prospect that, with the introduction of cattle, they might lay aside their nomadic habits, and become a pastoral and then an agricultural people. The Cuyuses were the most disaffected and intractable of all the tribes. But little is known of their early history. They are said to have come from the east many years ago. No tribe could resist their prowess, and when they settled on the Umatilla and Walla Walla rivers, having driven out the original inhabitants, none dared molest them; since which, wars and pestilence had reduced their numbers to but five hundred, and continual intermarriages with the neighboring tribes had caused their own language to fall into disuse. But they still maintained their separate independence, and were as haughty and arrogant as ever. The Jesuits established a mission on the Umatilla and made some progress in their conversion, and then Dr. Whitman came among them, establishing his mission in the Walla Walla valley, and for several years possessed their confidence and accomplished much good. The rivalry between Jesuit and Protestant missionary was carried to a high pitch. Pictorial cards were issued by each party, representing its opponents descending into the fiery depths of the infernal regions, where Satan and his imps, with red-hot pitchforks, were impatiently waiting to receive their prey, while the converts to the true faith were ascending to heaven up a broad flight of stairs with winged angels on either side. This hostile and bigoted attitude of the missionaries towards each other must have weakened the respect and confidence of the Indians, and contributed not a little to the troubles that followed. Dr. Whitman was accustomed to attend the Indians when sick, and these labors, undertaken in the purest benevolence, were ultimately the cause of his death; for, the measles having broken out among them, and great numbers, especially of the children, dying, their suspicions were directed towards this devoted and able missionary. In the war which ensued the Cuyuses suffered severely, were deprived of great numbers of horses, compelled to relinquish their white captives, and to surrender to well-deserved death some of the most active in the massacre. Their head chief was known as the Young Chief, and next in rank and influence was the Five Crows. The Walla Wallas and Umatillas numbered upwards of one thousand, and inhabited the banks of the rivers which bear their names, and those of the Columbia. Their head chief was Pu-pu-mox-mox or the Yellow Serpent, a man of great intelligence and force of character, but well stricken in years. The Yakimas, including outlying bands,[3] were over 3900 strong, and occupied the large region between the Columbia and the Cascades, with their principal abodes in the Yakima valley. One band, the Palouses, lived on the Palouse River, on the north side of the Snake and east of the Columbia, next the Nez Perce country. Large bands of the Yakimas had crossed the Cascades and were pressing on the feebler races on the west, by whom they were appropriately termed "Klik-i-tats" or robbers. The Jesuits had a mission on the Ah-ti-nam Creek, on the Yakima, but do not seem to have acquired much influence over them. The Spokanes numbered 2200, including the Colvilles, 500, and Okinakanes, 600, and held the country north of Snake River to Pend Oreille Lake and the 49th parallel, and extending west from the Nez Perce country, and that occupied by the Coeur d'Alenes at the base of the Bitter Root Mountains, to the Columbia River. A Presbyterian mission was also established among them under Rev. E. Walker and G.C. Eells, and abandoned about the same time as that of Mr. Spalding. Immediately east of the Spokanes, under the western slope of the Bitter Roots, lived the Coeur d'Alenes, a tribe of about five hundred. There was a Catholic mission among them presided over by Father Ravalli, and they had been converted to the ancient faith, and their material condition greatly improved by the good fathers. The Flatheads, Pend Oreilles, and Koutenays lived in the mountain valleys between the main range of the Rockies and the Bitter Roots, upon the tributaries of Clark's Fork chiefly, and depended largely upon the buffalo for their subsistence. They, too, like the Nez Perces, were distinguished as the constant friends of the whites, and were exposed to the unceasing forays of the Blackfeet. They numbered 2250. They termed themselves the Salish, and the Spokanes and Coeur d'Alenes were of the same stock. There were also some small independent bands along the Columbia, who subsisted chiefly on salmon. Five sixths of the Indians lived within the Washington superintendency,--all, indeed, except the Cuyuses, Umatillas, Walla Wallas, and a small number of the Nez Perces, who dwelt or roamed in both territories, and the small bands about the Dalles and on the Columbia, Des Chutes, and John Day's rivers, who lived wholly in Oregon. The whole vast region occupied by these numerous, brave, and manly Indians was still free from the intrusion of white settlers, save a handful in the Walla Walla valley and about Colville. But year after year they saw the long trains of emigrants pass through their country and settle, like swarming bees, upon the fertile plains of the Wallamet. They saw the Indians there dispossessed of their hunting grounds, and rapidly dying off the face of the earth. The tale of every Indian wronged or aggrieved, or who thought himself wronged or aggrieved, was borne with startling rapidity to their ears. Thus far their intercourse with the whites had been of immense benefit to them. The fur traders supplied them with superior weapons, blankets, and many articles of comfort, and had greatly improved their condition. Devoted missionaries had labored among them for years, and with marked success. By trade with the emigrants they were growing rich in cattle. But the actual occupation of the soil by the settlers filled them with alarm. Amid all these benefits, the fear was fast growing into conviction that the fate of the Chinooks and the Wallamets was the presage of their fate, and that the whites would sooner or later pour with increasing numbers into their country, and appropriate it for themselves. The Flatheads, Pend Oreilles, and Koutenays, remote from the settlements, retained their ancient friendship for the whites. But among the other tribes the desperate resolution was extending and deepening itself to rise and wipe out the dreaded invaders ere it was too late. For several years the bold and turbulent spirits among them had been enlisting the disaffected Indians far and wide in a great combination designed to crush the unsuspecting whites simultaneously at all points by one sudden and mighty blow. In 1853 the wild rumors of impending outbreaks, the forerunners of every Indian war, but which have been invariably unheeded by the over-confident whites, were flying about the land. Yet outwardly all was serene. The great tribes of the upper country, from whom alone danger was to be feared, were as yet unmolested by settlers, had reaped only benefits from the whites, and were as friendly as ever to all appearance. Both authorities and people were lulled into a sense of complete security, and disregarded with contempt the warnings of the few who foresaw the danger. In truth, a similar state of affairs has preceded nearly all our great Indian wars. They have not been caused by petty acts of aggression, stinging whole tribes to frenzied revenge. Indians who undergo such treatment are usually too degraded and helpless to resist. But powerful tribes, unbroken by too long contact with the whites, fired and led by their master spirits, have from time to time risen in arms, and vainly striven to arrest and drive back the white race ere it overwhelmed them, as it had overwhelmed their kindred. Many chiefs have shown profound sagacity in foreseeing the danger menacing their race, and the highest talents and bravery in their bloody struggles to avert it. The Nez Perces saw the danger, but they alone realized the hopelessness of averting it by war. The Nez Perces alone discerned that their only safety was to "follow the white man's road," and that his mode of life was better than their own. Under the wise guidance of Lawyer, they had become imbued with these convictions, by which their traditional friendship to the whites was strengthened and confirmed, and the time was fast approaching when their fidelity was to save many a valuable life, and preserve the settlements from destruction. In the spring of 1853 General Benjamin Alvord, then a major and commanding the military post at the Dalles, heralded among the Indians the approach of Governor Stevens with the exploring parties, and in reply was visited by a delegation of chiefs of the Yakimas, Cuyuses, and Walla Wallas, who said that "they always liked to have gentlemen, Hudson Bay Company men, or officers of the army, or engineers, pass through their country, to whom they would extend every token of hospitality. They did not object to persons merely hunting, or those wearing swords, but they dreaded the approach of the whites with ploughs, axes, and shovels in their hands." Major Alvord had largely dealt with and studied these Indians, and moreover he had confidential sources of information from the Catholic priests of the Yakima Mission. He became so impressed with the danger of an outbreak that he reported the facts and rumors to his superior, General Hitchcock, commanding the Pacific Department, by whom they were discredited, and Major Alvord was soon afterwards relieved from the Dalles. Events were soon to prove that the magnitude and imminence of the danger were even greater than he apprehended. Says General Alvord:[4]-- "I informed Governor Stevens of these threatened Indian difficulties, and of the gigantic scale of their proposed insurrection. What should he do? Was he to remain idle and let the storm come? No, he set to work to provide for the inevitable. As the whites would come as five or six, or ten thousand would come every summer, he did his best to get the Indians to sell their Indian titles." It was on reaching the Dalles on his overland exploration that the governor first learned of this smouldering fire. Quick to grasp the situation, to see the breach into which, as Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs, it was his duty to throw himself, he lost no time, by his earnest and forcible reports, and by his visit in Washington, in obtaining the necessary authority for treating with these Indians. Five years had elapsed since Congress, by the Donation Acts, had invited settlers to take possession of the lands of these brave and numerous Indians, utterly disregarding their rights, and now, when the volcano was ready to burst forth, the effort was to be made for the first time to treat with them, and the herculean task was devolved upon Governor Stevens of buying their country, allaying their well-founded fears, adjusting their jealousies and disputes with the whites and with each other, and inducing them to relinquish their savage and nomadic mode of life for agriculture and civilization. Many of the best informed settlers and army officers thought that any attempt to treat with these Indians for their lands was a useless and dangerous enterprise, and would surely lead to collision and bloodshed. During the spring Mr. Doty and agents A.J. Bolen and R.H. Lansdale were visiting the powerful tribes of the upper country, and preparing them for treating. The Walla Walla valley was chosen for the council ground at the instance of Kam-i-ah-kan, the head chief of the Yakimas, who said, "There is the place where in ancient times we held our councils with the neighboring tribes, and we will hold it there now." A large quantity of goods was taken up the Columbia to Walla Walla in keel-boats. A party of twenty-five men was organized at the Dalles, outfitted with a complete pack-train, mules, riding animals, and provisions, and sent to the council ground to make ready for the reception of the Indians, and afterwards to accompany the governor to the Blackfoot council. The Walla Walla council, like the Blackfoot, was conceived and planned exclusively by Governor Stevens. He alone impressed the necessity of them upon the government, and obtained the requisite authority. The work of collecting the Indians was done chiefly by his agents, and it was not until he learned from Doty that the Indians had agreed to attend, and that the council was assured, that he invited Superintendent Palmer to take part in it as joint commissioner with himself for such tribes as lived partly in both Territories. This fact he caused to be entered on the joint record of the council. Leaving the gubernatorial office in the hands of Mr. Mason, and the Indian service, now well organized, in charge of Colonel Simmons and other agents, Governor Stevens early in May left Olympia on his treaty-making expedition east of the mountains, calculating to be absent from five to six months. He was accompanied by Lieutenant Richard Arnold, en route to San Francisco; Captain A.J. Cain, Indian agent for the lower Columbia; R.H. Crosby; his son Hazard, whom he decided to take as far as the Dalles and then send home; and some other gentlemen. The little cavalcade trotted rapidly across the prairies amidst severe and drenching showers, and after a brisk ride of thirty miles reached the hospitable log-house of Judge Ford for supper and shelter. It rained heavily during the night, and on continuing the journey the next morning, and fording the Skookumchuck, where poor George Stevens was so recently lost, and which was then barely passable, a terribly swift, turbulent, and dangerous-looking torrent, the whole country seemed to be under water. The prairie upon which the town of Newarkum is built was flooded, and the horses laboriously waded across the plain in single file, belly-deep in water. The narrow track through the timber beyond the prairie was like a canal. Dick Arnold, who led the party, a tall, erect, athletic, soldierly figure, suddenly sunk down into the water with a plunge until only his head and his horse's ears were visible. He had ridden into a deep slough, which here crossed the road, indistinguishable in the general flood, but his steed swam and struggled across it and climbed out on the other side, the water dripping from man and horse, but the rider remaining firm in his seat through it all. After some delay the rest of the party effected a crossing on foot by a fallen tree, and drove the horses across by the road, swimming. Without further mishap, save the toils and discomforts of muddy roads and rains, they reached Cowlitz Landing that afternoon, descended the Cowlitz in canoes the next day, and proceeded by steamboat to Vancouver. After a day's stay here the governor continued his journey up the river by steamboat to the lower Cascades, where he spent the night, crossed the Cascades portage on horseback early the next morning, proceeded by steamboat to the Dalles, and found hospitable quarters with Major Granville O. Haller at the military post, where were stationed two companies of the 4th infantry, under Major G.J. Rains. Superintendent Palmer was found at the Dalles, awaiting the governor's arrival. The outlook for effecting a treaty was deemed unfavorable by all. Governor Stevens was warned by Father Ricard, of the Yakima Mission, that the Indians were plotting to cut off the white chiefs who might attempt to hold a council.[5] The Snake Indians had attacked and massacred parties of emigrants recently, and Major Rains was under orders to send a force on the emigrant road to protect them. General Palmer and his Indian agents were reluctant to attempt to treat with the Indians at that time. The governor relates in his diary how he induced Major Rains to send from his small force a detachment of forty soldiers, under Lieutenant Archibald Gracie, to the council as a guard. Mr. Lawrence Kip, afterwards a colonel of the United States army, accompanied Mr. Gracie on the trip, and published an interesting account of the council:-- "After supper, went with Major Haller to see Major Rains. It was about midnight, but the major got up, and we talked for two hours on Indian matters. I dwelt particularly on the necessity of a small force on the treaty ground to maintain order. He saw the necessity, but had no suitable force at his disposal, etc. The bearing of the proposed council on the Snakes was then alluded to by me, and I remarked that the services of a small force in checking insolence would be as good as two hundred men subsequently. We deemed it necessary to maintain our dignity and that of our government at the council, and we would seize any person, whether white man or Indian, who behaved in an improper manner. There were unquestionably a great many malcontents in each tribe. A few determined spirits, if not controlled, might embolden all not well disposed, and defeat the negotiations. Should this spirit be shown, they must be seized; the well affected would then govern in the deliberations, and I anticipated little or no difficulty in negotiating. I then alluded to my determination to call out the militia of the Territory should I find, on reaching the council ground, that any plan of hostilities was being matured, or should a feeling of hostility be manifested, in case a small force was not sent from the garrison. "So doubtful did General Palmer consider the whole matter of the council, that it was only the circumstance of a military force being dispatched which determined him to send to the treaty ground presents to the Indians. He stated to me that he had concluded to send up no goods; but, the escort having been ordered, he would send up his goods. At this time the Oregon officers expected little from the council, and evidently believed that the whole thing was premature and ill-advised." Stopping at the Dalles only long enough to obtain this detachment and outfit his own small party with riding animals, seven pack-mules, two packers, and a cook, the governor again took the saddle, and traveling rapidly overland two hundred miles to the Walla Walla valley in four days, camping the first night on the Des Chutes River, the second on John Day's River, the third on the Umatilla, reached the council ground on May 21 towards evening, the party thoroughly drenched by the soaking rain in which they had traveled all day. An amusing incident occurred at the camp on John Day's River, which the governor was fond of relating as a good joke on himself. There was no wood to be found in that vicinity, except some drift sticks, which were claimed by an old Indian who had pitched his lodge on the river's bank. After many fruitless attempts to purchase some of his wood, the men took advantage of the temporary absence of the old fellow to purloin a small quantity of it. This was nearly all consumed, and a hot and savory supper was smoking before our travelers, when the old Indian returned and discovered his loss. Dismounting from his pony, he approached the governor, and, in a tone of indignation and scorn, exclaimed, "Do you call yourself a great chief and steal wood?" A liberal present mollified him considerably, and after partaking of the supper, he departed in great good humor. The council ground was situated on the right bank of Mill Creek, a tributary of the Walla Walla River, and about six miles above the site of the unfortunate Whitman Mission, in the midst of a wide and fertile valley, bounded in the distance on either hand by high, bare, rolling hills, and extending, fan-shaped, far eastward to the Blue Mountains, whose lofty and wooded heights bounded and overlooked the plain. The valley was almost a perfect level, covered with the greatest profusion of waving bunch grass and flowers, amidst which grazed numerous bands of beautiful, sleek mustangs, and herds of long-horned Spanish cattle belonging to the Indians, and was intersected every half mile by a clear, rapid, sparkling stream, whose course could be easily traced in the distance by its fringe of willows and tall cottonwoods. Now every foot of this rich valley is under cultivation, a dozen gristmills run their wheels by these streams, and the very treaty ground is the centre of the thriving town of Walla Walla, with a population of six thousand souls. Under the energetic hands of Doty and C.P. Higgins, the packmaster,--a position corresponding to the chief mate on shipboard, or the orderly sergeant of a company of troops,--the camp was found pitched, and everything in readiness for the council. A wall tent, with a large arbor of poles and boughs in front, stood on level, open ground a short distance from the creek, and facing the Blue Mountains, all ready for the governor. This was also to serve as the council chamber, and ample clear space was left for the Indians to assemble and seat themselves on the ground in front of the arbor. A little farther in front, and nearer the creek, were ranged the tents of the rest of the party, a stout log-house to safely hold the supplies and Indian goods, and a large arbor to serve as a banqueting-hall for distinguished chiefs, so that, as in civilized lands, gastronomy might aid diplomacy. A large herd of beef cattle and a pile of potatoes, purchased of Messrs. Lloyd Brooke, Bumford & Noble, traders and stock-raisers, who were occupying the site of the Whitman Mission, and ample stores of sugar, coffee, bacon, and flour furnished the materials for the feasts. General Palmer arrived the same day with R.R. Thompson and R.B. Metcalfe, Indian agents for Oregon tribes, who had visited the Cuyuses and Umatillas and small bands living wholly in Oregon, and summoned them to attend the council. Fatigued and uncomfortable as they must have been after the day's journey and drenching, the commissioners had a long conference in the evening, listened to Doty's report of his visits to the tribes and the talk and dispositions of the chiefs, and discussed the location of reservations and other points. The following programme was agreed upon:-- 1. Governor Stevens to preside at the council. 2. Each superintendent to be sole commissioner for the Indians within his jurisdiction. 3. Both to act jointly for tribes common to both Territories, each to appoint an agent and commissary for them, and goods and provisions to be distributed to them in proportion to the number under the respective jurisdictions. 4. To keep separate records, to be carefully compared and certified jointly as far as related to tribes common to both Territories. 5. To keep a public table for the chiefs. The following officers were appointed for the joint treaties, in each case the first named for Washington, the second for Oregon: Governor Isaac I. Stevens and Superintendent Joel Palmer, commissioners; James Doty and William C. McKay, secretaries; R.H. Crosby and N. Olney, commissaries; R. H. Lansdale and R.R. Thompson, agents; William Craig, N. Raymond, Matthew Danpher, and John Flette, interpreters. The governor also appointed as interpreters A.D. Pambrun, John Whitford, James Coxie, and Patrick McKensie. Lieutenant Gracie, with his little detachment, arrived on the 23d. A tent, furnished by the governor, was pitched for the officer and his guest, Mr. Kip, while the soldiers built huts of boughs, and spread over them canvas pack-covers. The two gentlemen dined with the governor under the arbor near his tent, "off a table constructed from split pine logs, smoothed off, but not very smooth," says Mr. Kip. The scanty treating party of whites were now all assembled, and awaited the arrival of the Indians with interest, not unmixed with apprehension; for it seemed a bold and perilous step to meet so many brave and warlike Indians, many of whom were known to be disaffected and ready to provoke an outbreak, in the heart of the Indian country, two hundred miles from the nearest settlement or military post, with such a mere handful. They numbered barely a hundred men,--the governor's party of thirty-five, twelve with General Palmer, the military guard of forty-seven, two Catholic missionaries, and a few settlers. The second day after reaching the valley Governor Stevens, learning that General Wool had just arrived at Vancouver, wrote him a letter urging the importance of occupying the Walla Walla valley with a strong military force, preferably of cavalry, pointing out the central location of the point, and its strategic advantages for protecting the emigrant road, the trails to the Missouri on the east, the Puget Sound on the west, and for controlling the disaffected Indians, particularly the Cuyuses and Snakes. This, like other sound and indeed necessary measures recommended by the governor, was ignored by the self-sufficient Wool and his officers, until they were obliged to adopt them from necessity. FOOTNOTES: [2] Numbers and names of all these tribes as given in tabular statement or census, in Governor Stevens's map and report of April 30, 1857, to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, now on file in Indian Bureau. See Appendix. [3] Pisquouse or Wenatchee, 600; Yakimas, 700; Ps-hawn-appan, 500; Columbia River bands, 1000; Palouses, 600; Klikitats, 500. [4] Letter to author; Report of J. Ross Browne, H. Doc., p. 38, 1st session, 35th Congress; Swan's Three Years, Washington Territory, pp. 324-425; Speech of Governor Stevens, 1st session, 35th Congress, Congressional Globe, vol. 37, pp. 490-494. [5] Speech of Governor Stevens, 1st session, 35th Congress, Congressional Globe, vol. 37, p. 490. CHAPTER XXIX THE WALLA WALLA COUNCIL The Nez Perces, the first to arrive, came the next day, May 24, 2500 strong. Hearing of their approach, the commissioners drew up their little party on a knoll commanding a fine view of the unbroken level of the valley. The standard of the Nez Perces, the large American flag given them by the officers engaged in the Cuyuse war, was sent forward and planted on the knoll. Soon their cavalcade came in sight, a thousand warriors mounted on fine horses and riding at a gallop, two abreast, naked to the breech-clout, their faces covered with white, red, and yellow paint in fanciful designs, and decked with plumes and feathers and trinkets fluttering in the sunshine. The ponies were even more gaudily arrayed, many of them selected for their singular color and markings, and many painted in vivid colors contrasting with their natural skins,--crimson slashed in broad stripes across white, yellow or white against black or bay; and with their free and wild action, the thin buffalo line tied around the lower jaw,--the only bridle, almost invisible,--the naked riders, seated as though grown to their backs, presented the very picture of the fabled centaurs. Halting and forming a long line across the prairie, they again advanced at a gallop still nearer, then halted, while the head chief, Lawyer, and two other chiefs rode slowly forward to the knoll, dismounted and shook hands with the commissioners, and then took post in rear of them. The other chiefs, twenty-five in number, then rode forward, and went through the same ceremony. Then came charging on at full gallop in single file the cavalcade of braves, breaking successively from one flank of the line, firing their guns, brandishing their shields, beating their drums, and yelling their war-whoops, and dashed in a wide circle around the little party on the knoll, now charging up as though to overwhelm it, now wheeling back, redoubling their wild action and fierce yells in frenzied excitement. At length they also dismounted, and took their stations in rear of the chiefs. Then a number of young braves, forming a ring, while others beat their drums, entertained the commissioners with their dances, after which the Indians remounted and filed off to the place designated for their camp. This was on a small stream, flowing parallel to Mill Creek, on the same side with and over half a mile from the council camp. The chiefs accompanied the governor to his tent and arbor, smoked the pipe of peace, and had an informal talk. [Illustration: THE ARRIVAL OF THE NEZ PERCES] Hal-hal-tlos-sot or the Lawyer, the head chief of the Nez Perces, was an Indian Solon in his efforts to improve the condition of his people. Without any advantages of birth or wealth, he made himself the first in his tribe, while yet in middle life, by his unrivaled wisdom and force of character. His first acts were directed against gambling, which was indulged in to great excess, and against polygamy. Finding, however, that his influence as head chief was insufficient to carry out his plans for the improvement of his people, he reorganized the government of the tribe, appointed an additional number of chiefs from the young men, and, having thus increased and strengthened his influence, was enabled to accomplish his reforms. He early perceived that the growing power of the whites, which threatened to swallow up all before it, could not be resisted by force, and in consequence all his efforts were directed to inducing the Indians to adopt the customs and civilization of the whites, and to preserving the unbroken friendship between the two races. From the effects of the wound received at the battle of Pierre's Hole he was still suffering, and his right arm had been twice broken in a fight with a grizzly bear. Wise, enlightened, and magnanimous, the head chief, yet one of the poorest of his tribe, he stood head and shoulders above the other chiefs, whether in intellect, nobility of soul, or influence. Provisions were issued to the Nez Perces, and some petty tribes which had come in, at the rate of one and a half pounds of beef, two pounds of potatoes, and one half a pound of corn to each person. The Cuyuses, Walla Wallas, and Umatillas next arrived, and went into camp without any parade or salutations on a stream on the other side of Mill Creek, and over a mile distant from the camp of the whites, from which the intervening fringes of trees completely hid them. The head chief of the Walla Wallas and Umatillas was Pu-pu-mox-mox or the Yellow Serpent, who held despotic sway over his own people, and great influence with neighboring tribes. He owned thousands of horses and cattle, and had amassed a large sum in specie, from trade with settlers and emigrants. Some years before one of his sons, a youth of promise, was murdered by a miner in California, and although he had always been on friendly terms with the whites, not even allowing his people to take part in the Cuyuse war, it was believed that the outrage rankled in his heart. He was well advanced in years, and somewhat childish and capricious in small things, but his form was as erect, his mind as firm, and his authority as unimpaired as ever. [Illustration: FEASTING THE CHIEFS] The day after their arrival many of the Nez Perce chiefs came to see the commissioners, and after much friendly conversation were invited to dine. Governor Stevens and General Palmer presided at opposite ends of the long table, at which were seated some thirty chiefs, and, having heard of the enormous appetites of the Indians, piled the tin plates, as they were presented, to the brim. Again and again were the plates passed up for a fresh supply; the chiefs feasted and gorged like famished wolves; and the arms of the hosts became so wearied from carving and dispensing the food that they were glad to resign the posts of honor to a couple of stalwart packers. The table for the chiefs was kept up during the council, and every day was well attended, but it was not again graced by the presence of the commissioners. During the morning an express was received from the Yellow Serpent. He sent word that the Cuyuses, Walla Wallas, and Yakimas would accept no provisions from the commissioners, but would bring their own, and proposed that the Young Chief, Lawyer, Kam-i-ah-kan, and himself, the head chiefs of the Cuyuses, Nez Perces, Yakimas, and Walla Wallas respectively, should do all the talking for the Indians at the council. The messenger would accept no tobacco for the chief, a very unfriendly sign, and muttered as he rode off, loud enough to be overheard by the interpreter, "You will find out by and by why we won't take provisions." Every effort was made by the other Indians to induce the Nez Perces to refuse provisions, but without avail. The latter took great pride in their unwavering friendship to the whites, and were fond of contrasting their course with that of the Cuyuses. Considerable jealousy sprung up between them in consequence. Two of the priests, Fathers Chirouse, of the Walla Walla, and Pandosy, of the Yakima Mission, arrived for the purpose of attending the council. They reported that these Indians were generally well disposed towards the whites, with the exception of Kam-i-ah-kan. The latter said, referring to the proposed council: "If the governor speaks hard, I will speak hard, too." Other Indians had said, "Kam-i-ah-kan will come with his young men with powder and ball." They were opposed to selling their lands; and when Secretary Doty visited and invited them to attend the council, Kam-i-ah-kan refused the presents offered him, saying that he "had never accepted anything from the whites, not even to the value of a grain of wheat, without paying for it, and that he did not wish to purchase the presents." He was a man of fine presence and bearing, over six feet in height, well built and athletic. Governor Stevens said of him: "He is a peculiar man, reminding me of the panther and the grizzly bear. His countenance has an extraordinary play, one moment in frowns, the next in smiles, flashing with light and black as Erebus the same instant. His pantomime is great, and his gesticulation much and characteristic. He talks mostly in his face, and with his hands and arms." Reports were flying about that these tribes had combined to resist a treaty, and fears were expressed that an attempt to open the council would be the signal for an outbreak. The following day a body of four hundred mounted Indians, supposed to be Cuyuses and Walla Wallas, were observed approaching, armed and in full gala dress, and uttering their war-whoops like so many demons, and, after riding three times around the Nez Perce camp, they departed. Soon after the Young Chief, accompanied by his principal chiefs, rode into camp, and, being invited to dismount, did so with evident reluctance, and shook hands in a very cold manner. They refused to smoke, and remained but a short time. "The haughty carriage of these chiefs," remarks Governor Stevens in his journal, "and their manly character have, for the first time in my Indian experience, realized the descriptions of the writers of fiction." [Illustration: KAM-I-AH-KAN _Head Chief of the Yakimas_] Garry, the head chief of the Spokanes, came, not to take part in the council, but as a spectator. When a boy he had been sent to the Red River settlements in Manitoba by Sir George Simpson, then governor of the Hudson Bay Company, where he acquired a common-school, English education. It being impracticable to assemble so distant and widely scattered a tribe as the Spokanes in time for this council, Governor Stevens designed making a separate treaty with them later in the season on his return from the Missouri. Father Menetrey, from the Catholic mission among the Pend Oreilles, also arrived to attend the council,--a cultivated man, who spoke English fluently. A messenger sent to invite the Palouses returned accompanied by only one of the chiefs, who reported that his people were indifferent to the matter, and would not come. A number of scattered and insignificant bands, who lived at different points on the Columbia, also arrived. The following is from Governor Stevens's journal:-- May 27, Sunday. There was service in the Nez Perce camp and in the Nez Perce language, Timothy being the preacher. The commissioners attended. The sermon was on the Ten Commandments. Timothy has a natural and graceful delivery, and his words were repeated by a prompter. The Nez Perces have evidently profited much from the labor of Mr. Spalding, who was with them ten years, and their whole deportment throughout the service was devout. The next day agent Bolon, with an interpreter, was sent to meet the Yakimas, who were thought to be near at hand. He soon returned, having met Kam-i-ah-kan and also the Yellow Serpent. The latter said to Mr. Bolon that he was very sorry to hear that the chiefs and others in the commissioners' camp had said that he was unfriendly to the whites,--that his heart was with the Cuyuses, whose hearts were bad. He had always been friendly to the whites, and was so now, and he would go to-day to see the commissioners, and ask why such things had been said of him. Accordingly, soon after Bolon's return, Pu-pu-mox-mox, Kam-i-ah-kan, Ow-hi, and Skloom, the two latter being chiefs of the Yakimas, accompanied by a number of their braves, rode into camp. Dismounting, they shook hands in the most friendly manner, and seating themselves under the arbor indulged in a smoke, using their own tobacco exclusively, although other was offered them. Governor Stevens addressed them, saying that he had important business to lay before them, and proposed to open the council the next day at noon. The Yellow Serpent replied that he wanted more than one interpreter at the council, that they might know they translated truly. Being assured on this point, and invited to designate an interpreter in whom he had confidence, he said, in a scornful manner, "I do not wish my boys running around the camp of the whites like these young men," alluding to some young Nez Perces present and feeling quite at home. He added that he had only ridden over to-day to see the commissioners, and soon withdrew with his party. In the morning the commissioners and Secretary Doty visited the Lawyer at his lodge, as, his wound having broken out afresh, he was unable to walk without great pain and difficulty. He exhibited and explained a map of his country, which he had drawn at Governor Stevens's request. During the conference several chiefs came in, and suddenly one of them, U-u-san-male-e-can or Spotted Eagle, said:-- [Illustration: SPOTTED EAGLE _A Chief of the Nez Perces_] "The Cuyuses want us to go to their camp and hold a council with them and Pu-pu-mox-mox. What are their hearts to us? Did we propose to hold a council with them, or ask them for advice? Our hearts are Nez Perce hearts, and we know them. We came here to hold a great council with the great chiefs of the Americans, and we know the straightforward path to pursue, and are alone responsible for our actions. Three Cuyuses came last night and spoke to me and two other chiefs, urging us to come to a council at the Cuyuse camp to meet Pu-pu-mox-mox and Kam-i-ah-kan. We did not wish to go. They insisted. Then I said to them, 'You had best say no more. My mind is made up. Why do you come here and ask three chiefs to come to a council, while to the head chief and the rest you say nothing? Have we not told your messenger yesterday that our hearts are not Cuyuse hearts? Go home! Our chiefs will not go. We have our own people to take care of; they give us trouble enough, and we will not have the Cuyuse troubles on our hands.'" The Lawyer then opened a book containing in their own language the advice left them by their former head chief, Ellis, and read as follows:-- "Whenever the great chief of the Americans shall come into your country to give you laws, accept them. A Walla Walla heart is a Walla Walla, a Cuyuse heart is a Cuyuse, so is a Yakima heart a Yakima, but a Nez Perce heart is a Nez Perce heart. While the Nez Perces are going straight, why should they turn aside to follow others? Ellis's advice is to accept the white law. I have read it to you to show my heart." The speech of U-u-san-male-e-can afforded new evidence that the Cuyuses were plotting underhand, although but little could be learned as to the nature of their designs. At two P.M., on May 29, 1855, the council was formally opened by Governor Stevens. Under the roomy arbor in front of the tent were seated the commissioners, secretaries who kept the records, interpreters, and Indian agents, while the Indians were seated on the ground in front in semicircular rows forty deep, one behind another. Timothy, the chief and preacher, concerning whom Governor Stevens said, "He and others are very devout, and seem to form a theocracy in the tribe, and, like the old New England fathers, to require every one to worship God in some visible way,"--this Timothy, assisted by several of the young men, who were very tolerable penmen, kept the records of the council for the Nez Perces. They were accommodated with a table under the arbor, where everything could be seen and heard. Some two thousand Indians were present, fully half of whom were Nez Perces. The pipe having been smoked with due solemnity, two interpreters were appointed and sworn for each tribe, some preliminary remarks were made, and the council was adjourned until ten o'clock the next morning. Before adjourning Governor Stevens renewed the offer of provisions to the recusant Indians, proposing that each tribe should take two oxen to its own camp and slaughter for themselves. Young Chief: "We have plenty of cattle. They are close to our camp. We have already killed three, and have plenty of provisions." General Palmer to the interpreter: "Say to the Yakimas, 'You have come a long way. You may not have provisions. If you want any, we have them, and you are welcome.'" Young Chief: "Kam-i-ah-kan is supplied at our camp." The Yellow Serpent and Kam-i-ah-kan dined with the commissioners, and remained in their tent for a long time, smoking in a friendly manner, but the Young Chief declined the invitation to dine. [Illustration: WALLA WALLA COUNCIL] The two following days Governor Stevens explained the proposed treaties at length, item by item. There were to be two reservations,--one in the Nez Perce country of three million acres, on the north side of Snake River, embracing both the Kooskooskia and Salmon rivers, including a large extent of good arable land, with fine fisheries, root grounds, timber and mill-sites, and was for the accommodation of the Cuyuses, Walla Wallas, Umatillas, and Spokanes, as well as the Nez Perces. The other embraced a large and fertile tract on the upper waters of the Yakima, and was for the Yakimas, Klikitats, Palouses, and kindred bands. The reservations were to belong to the Indians, and no white man should come upon them without their consent. An agent, with school-teachers, mechanics, and farmers, would take charge of each reservation, and instruct them in agriculture, trades, etc.; grist and saw mills were to be built; the head chiefs were to receive an annuity of five hundred dollars each, in order that they might devote their whole time to their people; and annuities in clothing, tools, and useful articles were to be given for twenty years, after which they were to be self-supporting. At first the reservations were to be used in common, but provision was made for the survey and subdivision of the land, and its allotment to the Indians in severalty as soon as they should be prepared to receive and utilize it. As it was evidently impracticable to make so radical a change in their habits suddenly, the Indians were to have the privilege of hunting, root-gathering, and pasturing stock on vacant land until appropriated by settlers, and the right of fishing. The advantages of the reservations were dwelt upon. They embraced some of the best land in the country, and were large enough to afford each family a farm to itself, besides grazing for all their stock; they contained good fisheries, abundance of roots and berries, and considerable game. They were near enough to the great roads for trade with the emigrants, yet far enough from them to be undisturbed by travelers. By having so many tribes on the same reservation, the agent could better look after them, and could accomplish more with the means at his disposal. The staple argument held out was the superior advantages of civilization, and the absolute necessity of their adopting the habits and mode of life of the white man in order to escape extinction. Governor Stevens also exhorted them to treat, for the sake of the example upon their inveterate enemies, the Blackfeet, that thereby they would prove themselves firm friends of the whites, and that he would then take delegations from each tribe with his party and proceed to the Blackfoot country, and make a lasting treaty of peace, so that they could ever after hunt the buffalo in safety, and trade horses with the Indians east of the Rocky Mountains. The Indians listened gravely and in silence, as these matters were slowly unfolded to them, sentence by sentence through the interpreters, for five or six hours each day, and upon the adjournment of the council, quietly dispersed to their lodges. The third day the Young Chief for the first time dined at Governor Stevens's table with the other head chiefs, and General Palmer and the gentlemen of the party; and in the evening he sent word that his young men were tired of such close confinement as they had undergone at the council, and desired to have a feast and holiday to-morrow, and he requested that no council be held until the day after (Saturday). The commissioners cheerfully acceded to his request, well pleased at these signs of mollifying the opposition of the haughty savage. There were now assembled on the ground between five and six thousand Indians. Says Colonel Kip: "About five thousand Indians, including squaws and children. Their encampment and lodges are scattered over the valley for more than a mile, presenting a wild and fantastic appearance." Every afternoon, after the council adjourned for the day, horse-races and foot-races were held at the Nez Perce camp, attended by the sporting bloods of the other tribes, and witnessed by many of the whites. The usual course was a long one,--some two miles out and back, making four miles. Oftentimes thirty horses would start together in a grand sweepstakes; the riders and betters would throw into one common pile the articles put up as stakes,--blankets, leggings, horse equipments, and whatever was bet, and the winner would take the whole pile. The foot-races were equally long, and the runners would be escorted in their course by a crowd of mounted Indians, galloping behind and beside them so closely that the exhausted ones could hardly stop without being run down. The riders and runners were invariably stripped to the breech-cloth, and presented many fine, manly forms, perfect Apollos in bronze. Everything was very quiet about the council ground the day begged for a holiday by the Young Chief, the Indians remaining at their own camps. But the next day, Saturday, June 2, they reassembled as usual; and after several hours had been spent in further explaining the provisions of the treaties, Governor Stevens called them to speak freely, saying, "We want you to open your hearts to us," etc. Hitherto the Indians had listened in grave silence, but now the opponents of the treaties took the lead in the discussion. The Yellow Serpent, in a speech marked by strength and sarcasm, uttered the prevailing reluctance to part with their lands, and their dread and distrust of the whites:-- "We have listened to all you have to say, and we desire you to listen when any Indian speaks. It appears that Craig knows the heart of his people; that the whole has been prearranged in the hearts of the Indians; that he wants an answer immediately, without giving them time to think; that the Indians have had nothing to say, so that it would appear that we have no chief. I know the value of your speech from having experienced the same in California, having seen treaties there. We have not seen in a true light the object of your speeches, as if there was a post set between us, as if my heart wept for what you have said. Look at yourselves: your flesh is white; mine is different, mine looks poor; our languages are different. If you would speak straight, then I would think that you spoke well. "Should I speak to you of things that happened long ago, as you have done? The whites made me do what they pleased. They told me to do this, and I did it. They used to make our women to smoke. I supposed then they did what was right. When they told me to dance with all these nations that are here, then I danced. From that time, all the Indians became proud and called themselves chiefs. "Now, how are we here as at a post? From what you have said, I think that you intend to win our country, or how is it to be? In one day the Americans become as numerous as the grass. This I learned in California. I know it is not right; you have spoken in a roundabout way. Speak straight. I have ears to hear you, and here is my heart. Suppose you show me goods, shall I run up and take them? That is the way with all us Indians as you know us. Goods and the earth are not equal. Goods are for using on the earth. I do not know where they have given lands for goods. "We require time to think quietly, slowly. You have spoken in a manner partly tending to evil. Speak plain to us. I am a poor Indian. Show me charity. If there was a chief among the Nez Perces or Cuyuses, if they saw evil done they would put a stop to it, and all would be quiet. Such chiefs I hope Governor Stevens and General Palmer have. I should feel very much ashamed if the Americans did anything wrong. I had but a little to say, that is all. I do not wish a reply to-day. Think over what I have said." After a stinging rebuke administered by Camospelo, a Cuyuse chief, to some of his young men who had behaved in a surly manner, talking and walking about during the proceedings, the council was adjourned until Monday. [Illustration: PU-PU-MOX-MOX: YELLOW SERPENT _Head Chief of the Walla Wallas_] This speech of the Yellow Serpent is marked in every sentence by his bitter distrust of the whites. He intimates, almost asserts, that the commissioners are trying to deceive and overreach the Indians, and with biting irony declares that he would feel very much ashamed if the Americans did anything wrong. Late that evening the Lawyer came unattended to see Governor Stevens. He disclosed a conspiracy on the part of the Cuyuses to suddenly rise upon and massacre all the whites on the council ground,--that this measure, deliberated in nightly conferences for some time, had at length been determined upon in full council of the tribe the day before, which the Young Chief had requested for a holiday; they were now only awaiting the assent of the Yakimas and Walla Wallas to strike the blow; and that these latter had actually joined, or were on the point of joining, the Cuyuses in a war of extermination against the whites, for which the massacre of the governor and his party was to be the signal. They had conducted these plottings with the greatest secrecy, not trusting the Nez Perces; and the Lawyer, suspecting that all was not right, had discovered the plot by means of a spy with the greatest difficulty, and only just in time to avert the catastrophe. The Lawyer concluded by saying: "I will come with my family and pitch my lodge in the midst of your camp, that those Cuyuses may see that you and your party are under the protection of the head chief of the Nez Perces." He did so immediately, although it was now after midnight, and, without awakening the suspicions of any one, he caused it to be reported among the other Indians that the commissioners were under the protection of the Nez Perces. Governor Stevens on his part imparted his knowledge of the conspiracy to Secretary Doty and Packmaster Higgins, and to them alone, for he feared that, should the party generally learn of it, a stampede would ensue. Having through these efficient officers quietly caused the men to put their arms in readiness, and posting night guards, he determined to continue the council as usual, hoping that the Cuyuses, foiled in their design, would finally conclude to treat. On Monday the governor opened the council by inviting the Indians to speak their minds freely, and, no one responding, finally called on the Lawyer. He expressed himself in terms favorable to the treaty, and was followed by several of his chiefs in a similar strain. Kam-i-ah-kan, on the other hand, avowed his distrust of the whites, and alluded in a contemptuous manner to the speeches of the Lawyer and the others:-- "I have something different to say from what the others have said. They are young men who have spoken as they have spoken. I have been afraid of the white man. His doings are different from ours. Perhaps you have spoken straight that your children will do what is right. Let them do as they have promised." The Yellow Serpent said with bitter irony, "I do not wish to speak. I leave it to the old men." Steachus, the only chief of the Cuyuses reported to be well disposed, commended the speech of the Lawyer, and exhorted all present to speak their minds freely. But the most impressive speech by far was that of Tip-pee-il-lan-oh-cow-pook, the Eagle-from-the-Light, a pathetic and touching speech:-- "You are now come to join together the white man and the red man. And why should I hide anything? I am going now to tell you a tale. I like the President's talk. I am glad of it when I hear it here, and for that reason I am going to tell you a tale. "The time the whites first passed through this country, although the people of this country were blind, it was their heart to be friendly to them. Although they did not know what the white people said to them, they answered Yes, as if they were blind. They traveled about with the white people as if they had been lost. "I have been talked to by the French [Hudson Bay Company men] and by the Americans, and one says to me go this way, and the other says go another way, and that is the reason I am lost between them. "A long time ago they hung my brother for no offense, and this I say to my brother here, that he may think of it. Afterwards came Spalding and Whitman. They advised us well, and taught us well,--very well. It was from the same source,--the light [the east]. They had pity on us, and we were pitied, and Spalding sent my father to the east,--the States,--and he went. His body has never returned. He was sent to learn good counsel, and friendship and many things. This is another thing to think of. At the time, in this place here, when there was blood spilled on the ground, we were friends to the whites and they to us. At that time they found it out that we were friends to them. My chief, my own chief, said, 'I will try to settle all the bad matters with the whites,' and he started to look for counsel to straighten up matters, and there his body lies beyond here. He has never returned. "At the time the Indians held a grand council at Fort Laramie, I was with the Flatheads, and I heard there would be a grand council this side next year. We were asked to go and find counsel, friendship, and good advice. Many of my people started, and died in the country,--died hunting what was right. There were a good many started; on Green River the smallpox killed all but one. They were going to find good counsel in the east, and here am I looking still for counsel, and to be taught what is best to be done. "And now look at my people's bodies scattered everywhere, hunting for knowledge,--hunting for some one to teach them to go straight. And now I show it to you, and I want you to think of it. I am of a poor people. A preacher came to us, Mr. Spalding. He talked to us to learn, and from that he turned to be a trader, as though there were two in one, one a preacher and the other a trader. He made a farm and raised grain and bought our stock, as though there were two in one, one a preacher, the other a trader. And now one from the east has spoken, and I have heard it, and I do not wish another preacher to come, and be both trader and preacher in one. A piece of ground for a preacher big enough for his own use is all that is necessary for him. "Look at that; it is the tale I had to tell you, and now I am going to hunt friendship and good advice. We will come straight here,--slowly perhaps, but we will come straight." The next two days Governor Stevens continued, explaining the treaties still further. A large map was brought forth, and the boundaries of the reservations accurately marked out and shown. The Indians took great interest in this map, asking many questions about the mountains and streams they saw represented upon it, and in some instances adding streams which were not laid down. Superintendent Palmer spoke for some time, going over the same ground as Governor Stevens. After he had concluded, Steachus, the friendly Cuyuse, arose and said:-- "My friends, I wish to show you my heart. If your mother were in this country, gave you birth and suckled you, and, while you were suckling, some person came and took away your mother and left you alone and sold your mother, how would you feel then? This is our mother,--this country,--as if we drew our living from her. My friends, all of this you have taken. Had I two rivers, I would leave the one, and be content to live on the other. I name the place for myself, the Grande Ronde, the Touchet towards the mountains, and the Tucañon." Thus even Steachus, the most friendly of the Cuyuses, was the first to express his dissatisfaction with a treaty which left him none of his own country, and to request a reservation within its borders. The Indians were slow to speak; they required time to make up their minds, and the council was therefore adjourned. [Illustration: WE-AH-TE-NA-TEE-MA-NY: YOUNG CHIEF _Head Chief of the Cuyuses_] About midnight the governor and his little son were awakened by Lawyer, who shook the tent and said, in a low, soft voice, without a trace of hurry or excitement, "Water come now." On springing out of bed, they splashed knee-deep in water flooding the tent, and were forced to make a hasty flight to higher ground. The creek had risen suddenly without warning, probably from a waterspout or heavy rains in the mountains. The following day it subsided again as rapidly as it rose. When the council met the next day, Lawyer spoke first, and expressed the assent of himself and his people to the treaty. A great part of his speech was addressed to the Indians. He traced the increase of the whites from the discovery of the New World by Columbus; alluded in a touching manner to the way in which the Indians had passed and were passing away; and urged his auditors, as their only refuge, to place themselves under the protection of the Great Father in Washington. When Lawyer concluded, the Young Chief, the haughty Cuyuse, was the first to break the silence:-- "He would not sell his country. He heard what the earth said. The earth said, 'God has placed me here to take care of the Indian, to produce roots for him, and grass for his horses and cattle.' The water spoke the same way. God has forbidden the Indian to sell his country except for a fair price, and he did not understand the treaty." Five Crows, the Yellow Serpent, Ow-hi, and several other chiefs followed in similar strain. The Yellow Serpent proposed that another council should be held at some future time. He insisted that the whites should not be allowed to come into his country to settle. He complained that the Indians were treated like children, were not consulted in drawing up the terms of the treaties, etc. Kam-i-ah-kan refused to speak, although several times urged to do so. His invariable reply was, "I have nothing to say." The commissioners replied, explaining those parts of the treaties which the Indians did not understand, and answering their objections. The discussion on the part of the Indians was captious, stormy, and unsatisfactory. Governor Stevens in pointed words, well calculated to touch their pride, urged the recusant and evasive chiefs to speak plainly:-- "My brother and myself have talked straight. Have all of you talked straight? Lawyer has, and his people here, and their business will be done to-morrow. "The Young Chief says he is blind, and does not understand. What is it that he wants? Steachus says that his heart is in one of three places, the Grande Ronde, the Touchet, and the Tucañon. Where is the heart of Young Chief? "Pu-pu-mox-mox (the Yellow Serpent) cannot be wafted off like a feather. Does he prefer the Yakima reservation to that of the Nez Perces? We have asked him before. We ask him now. Where is his heart? "And Kam-i-ah-kan, the great chief of the Yakimas, he has not spoken at all. His people have had no voice here to-day. He is not ashamed to speak. He is not afraid to speak. Then speak out! "But Ow-hi is afraid lest God be angry at his selling his land. Ow-hi, my brother, I do not think that God will be angry if you do your best for yourself and your children. Ask yourself this question to-night: 'Will not God be angry with me if I neglect this opportunity to do them good?' Ow-hi says his people are not here. Why did he promise to come here, then, to hear our talk? I do not want to be ashamed of Ow-hi. We expect him to speak straight out. We expect to hear from Kam-i-ah-kan, from Skloom." [Illustration: SHE-CA-YAH: FIVE CROWS _Cuyuse Chief_] At length Five Crows proposed an adjournment. "Listen to me, you chiefs. We have been as one people with the Nez Perces hitherto. This day we are divided. We, the Cuyuses, the Walla Wallas, and Kam-i-ah-kan's people and others will think over the matter to-night, and give you an answer to-morrow." The feature of the treaties which met with the greatest opposition was the provision that the Cuyuses, Walla Wallas, and Umatillas should relinquish the whole of their own lands, and remove to a reservation in the Nez Perce country. The commissioners therefore decided to establish a separate reservation for these three tribes on the headwaters of the Umatilla, at the base of the Blue Mountains. Conferences were had with the recusant chiefs separately, the proposition of a reservation in their own country was broached, and the whole ground of the treaties again gone over and fully discussed. Steachus expressed himself as highly pleased with the new arrangement, and, although the others gave less encouragement, the commissioners were hopeful that a successful result would soon be reached. The change of reservations was brought forward in council the next day. The annuities of five hundred dollars for ten years to each of the head chiefs were extended to twenty years. The Yellow Serpent was given the privilege of establishing a trading-post for trade with the settlers and emigrants, and an annuity of one hundred dollars a year for twenty years was given his son. Young Chief and Yellow Serpent were the principal speakers, and in lengthy and rambling speeches gave their assent to the treaties. The latter, on declaring his acceptance, exclaimed, "Now you may send me provisions!" Kam-i-ah-kan was sullen, and refused his assent. Some commotion was now observed among the Indians, and suddenly a small party of warriors were seen approaching, painted and armed, singing a war-song, and flourishing on the top of a pole a freshly taken scalp. It proved to be a party of Nez Perces, headed by Looking Glass, the war chief, just from the Blackfoot country, where they had been for three years hunting the buffalo. Looking Glass was old, irascible, and treacherous, yet second only to Lawyer in influence. While hunting the buffalo he had several fights with the Blackfeet. At one time seventy of his horses were stolen by them; but the vigorous old chief hotly pursued the depredators, killed two, put the rest to flight, and recovered his horses. He had reached the Bitter Root valley on his return home, when he heard that the Nez Perces were at a great council, and concluding a treaty without his presence. Leaving his party to follow more slowly, he pushed on with a few chosen braves, crossed the Bitter Root Mountains, where for some distance the snow was shoulder-deep on their horses, and, having ridden three hundred miles in seven days at the age of seventy, reached the council ground while Governor Stevens was urging Kam-i-ah-kan to give his assent to the treaty, for the governor, hearing the arrival of Looking Glass announced, seized the occasion to call upon the Yakima chief to sign the treaty in the name of Looking Glass, there being great friendship between these two. Scarcely had he concluded when Looking Glass, surrounded by his knot of warriors with the scalps tossing above them, rode up, excited and agitated, received his friends coldly, and finally broke forth into a most angry philippic against his tribe and the treaty:-- "My people, what have you done? While I was gone, you have sold my country. I have come home, and there is not left me a place on which to pitch my lodge. Go home to your lodges. I will talk to you." [Illustration: LOOKING GLASS _War Chief of the Nez Perces_] The council was immediately adjourned. Governor Stevens consulted Lawyer, who was of opinion that Looking Glass would calm down in a day or two and accept the treaty. He said, however, that the latter's return would make it impossible to reduce the Nez Perce reservation, which, originally intended for the Cuyuses, Walla Wallas, and Umatillas, in addition to the Nez Perces, was larger than they alone required, and it was determined to make it a general reservation for other tribes, not exceeding in numbers those for whom it was at first designed. In the evening Governor Stevens assembled the Yakima chiefs in his tent, and discussed the treaties with them until one o'clock in the morning. Kam-i-ah-kan was not present, but Skloom acted as the principal spokesman. The governor remarks in his journal, "Skloom was desirous that his land should first be surveyed." The council of the following day, however, soon made it evident that Looking Glass had not yet calmed down. He declared himself the head chief of the tribes present; that the boys had spoken yesterday, but that he would speak to-day. He made many inquiries, raised many objections, and finally marked another line for the reservation, including nearly the whole of the Nez Perce territory. The Cuyuses seized the occasion to retract their assent to their treaty, and the Young Chief strenuously supported Looking Glass in his objections, and omitted no opportunity to assert his supremacy as head chief of the Nez Perces. At length Lawyer abruptly left the council in the midst of one of Looking Glass's philippics, and retired to his lodge. Governor Stevens refused to submit to the demands of the angry and grasping old chief, and adjourned the council until the following Monday. After the adjournment the Yellow Serpent and Kam-i-ah-kan, who had at length yielded to the advice of the other chiefs, with all the chiefs and prominent men of the two tribes, came forward and signed their respective treaties. The former had remarked in the morning that his word was pledged, and that he should sign the treaty no matter what Looking Glass and the Nez Perces did. It was thought that his example had great weight with Kam-i-ah-kan. Late in the evening Governor Stevens had an interview with Lawyer, who said:-- "Governor Stevens, you are my chief. You come from the President. He has spoken kind words to us, a poor people. We have listened to them, and have agreed to a treaty. We are bound by the agreement. When Looking Glass asked you, 'How long will the agent live with us?' you might have replied by asking the question, 'How long have you been head chief of the Nez Perces?' When he said, 'I, the head chief, have just got back; I will talk; the boys talked yesterday,' you might have replied, 'The Lawyer, and not you, is the head chief. The whole Nez Perce tribe have said in council Lawyer was the head chief. Your faith is pledged. You have agreed to the treaty. I call upon you to sign it.' Had this course been taken, the treaty would have been signed." "In reply," says the governor, "I told the Lawyer that we considered all the talk of Looking Glass as the outpourings of an angry and excited old man, whose heart would become all right if left to himself for a time; that the Lawyer had left the council whilst in session, and without speaking. It was his business to have interfered in this way, had it been necessary. We considered the Lawyer's leaving as saying, 'Nothing more can be done to-day; it must be finished to-morrow.' Your authority will be sustained, and your people will be called upon to keep their word. You will be sustained. The Looking Glass will not be allowed to speak as head chief. You, and you alone, will be recognized. Should Looking Glass persist, the appeal will be made to your people. They must sign the treaty agreed to by them through you as head chief, or the council will be broken up and you will return home, your faith broken, your hopes of the future gone." The council being adjourned, the Cuyuses and Nez Perces retired to their respective camps to hold councils by themselves, which lasted all night. The position of Looking Glass was determined by the latter to be second to Lawyer, who was reaffirmed head chief. The council was stormy, but the chiefs at length all agreed on a paper sent in by Lawyer, and read in council, which declared the faith of the tribe pledged to Governor Stevens, and that the treaty must be signed. "Those who would advise breaking their word were no better than the Cuyuses. Let them share the lot of the Cuyuses." The morning after this council being Sunday, Timothy preached a sermon for the times, and held up to the indignation of the tribe, and the retribution of the Almighty, those who would coalesce with the Cuyuses, and break the faith of the Nez Perces. The governor had a conversation with Kam-i-ah-kan, who said:-- "Looking Glass, if left alone, will sign the treaty. Don't ask me to accept presents. I have never taken one from a white man. When the payments are made, I will take my share." Steachus, the friendly Cuyuse chief, expressed his earnest desire that his tribe should sign the treaty, and both Pu-pu-mox-mox and Kam-i-ah-kan used their influence to induce them to accept it. Early Monday morning Governor Stevens saw Lawyer, and said to him: "We are now ready to go into council. I shall call upon your people to keep their word, and upon you as head chief to sign first. We want no speeches. This will be the last day of the council. Call your people together as soon as possible." The Lawyer replied, "This is the right course," and immediately summoned his tribe. The closing scene of the council is best given in Governor Stevens's own words:-- "The Looking Glass took his seat in council in the very best humor. The Cuyuses and Nez Perces were all present. Kam-i-ah-kan sat down near the Young Chief. The council was opened by me in a brief speech: 'We meet for the last time. Your words are pledged to sign the treaty. The tribes have spoken through their head chiefs, Joseph, Red Wolf, the Eagle, Ip-se-male-e-con, all declaring Lawyer was the head chief. I call upon Lawyer to sign first.' Lawyer then signed the treaty. 'I now call upon Joseph and the Looking Glass.' Looking Glass signed, then Joseph. Then every chief and man of note, both Nez Perces and Cuyuses, signed their respective treaties. "After the treaties were signed, I spoke briefly of the Blackfoot council, and asked each tribe to send delegations, the Nez Perces a hundred chiefs and braves, the whole under the head chief, or some chief of acknowledged authority, as Looking Glass. There was much talk on the subject on the part of the Indians. Looking Glass said he would have a talk with me alone some other time." The council being completed, presents were made to all the assembled tribes, who began packing up and moving off. Eagle-from-the-Light, the Nez Perce chief, who was at first opposed to the treaty and refused to accept provisions, now presented a magnificent grizzly bear's skin, with the teeth and claws intact, to Governor Stevens with the following speech: "This skin is my medicine. It came with me every day to council. It tells me everything. It says what has been done is right. Had anything been done wrong, it would have spoken out. I have now no use for it. I give it to you that you may know my heart is right." Every day Eagle-from-the-Light had brought this skin to the council, and, placing it with the teeth and claws turned towards the commissioners, had used it as a seat, declining the roll of blankets offered him. [Illustration: HAL-HAL-TLOS-SOT: THE LAWYER _Head Chief of the Nez Perces_] "Thus ended," says the journal, "in the most satisfactory manner, this great council, prolonged through so many days,--a council which--in the number of Indians assembled and the different tribes, old difficulties and troubles between them and the whites, a deep-seated dislike to and determination against giving up their lands, and the great importance, nay, absolute necessity, of opening this land by treaty to occupation by the whites, that bloodshed and the enormous expense of Indian wars might be avoided, and in its general influence and difficulty--has never been equaled by any council held with the Indian tribes of the United States. "It was so considered by all present, and a final relief from the intense anxiety and vexation of the last month was especially grateful to all concerned." The following day the Nez Perces celebrated the happy conclusion of the treaty, and the return of Looking Glass and his braves from the buffalo country, by a scalp-dance. The chiefs and braves, in full war-paint and adorned with all their savage finery, formed a large circle, standing several ranks deep. Within this arena a chosen body of warriors performed the war-dance, while the densely massed ranks of braves circled around them, keeping time in measured tread, and accompanying it with their wild and barbaric war-song. The ferocious and often hideous mien of these stalwart savages, their frenzied attitudes and shrill and startling yells, formed a subject worthy the pen of Dante and the pencil of Doré. The missionary still had work to do. Presently an old hag, the very picture of squalor and woe, burst into the circle, bearing aloft upon a pole one of the fresh scalps so recently taken by Looking Glass, and, dancing and jumping about with wild and extravagant action, heaped upon the poor relic of a fallen foe every mark of indignity and contempt. Shaking it aloft, she vociferously abused it; she beat it, she spat upon it, she bestrode the pole and rushed around the ring, trailing it in the dust, again and again; while the warriors, with grim satisfaction, kept up their measured tread, chanted their war-songs, and uttered if possible yet more ear-piercing yells. A softer and more pleasing scene succeeded. The old hag retired with her bedraggled trophy, and a long line of Indian maidens stepped within the circle, and, forming an inner rank, moved slowly round and round, chanting a mild and plaintive air. A number of the stylish young braves, real Indian beaux in the height of paint and feathers, next took post within the circle, near the rank of moving maidens, and each one, as the object of his adoration passed him, placed a gayly decorated token upon her shoulder. If she allowed it to remain, his affection was returned and he was accepted, but if she shook it off, he knew that he was a rejected suitor. Coquetry evidently is not confined to the civilized fair, for, without exception, the maidens, as if indignant at such public wooing, threw off the token with disdain, while every new victim of delusive hopes was greeted with shouts of laughter from the spectators. The turning-point in the council was undoubtedly the discovery of the Cuyuse conspiracy by Lawyer, and his act of moving his lodge into Governor Stevens's camp, thereby placing the whites under the protection of the Nez Perces. This was all that prevented the hostile chiefs and braves from striking the blow. They refrained because they knew that if Lawyer was killed in an attack on the camp, which was to be expected in the mêlée, the whole Nez Perce nation would avenge his slaughter in their blood. The real extent and imminence of the danger was known to but few, but the fact of the plot was soon generally bruited about. [Illustration: THE SCALP DANCE] "Their design," says Colonel Kip, "was first to massacre the escort, which _could have been easily_ done. Fifty soldiers against three thousand Indian warriors, out on the open plains, made rather too great odds. We should have had time, like Lieutenant Grattan at Fort Laramie last season, to deliver one fire, and then the contest would have been over. Their next move was to surprise the post at the Dalles, as they could also have easily done, as most of the troops were withdrawn, and the Indians in the neighborhood had recently united with them. This would have been the beginning of their war of extermination against the settlers." Foiled in their plot, why did they then so quickly agree to the treaties, which up to that time they had so bitterly spurned? All the circumstances and evidence go to show that, with the exception of Steachus, the friendly Cuyuse, they all--Young Chief, Five Crows, Pu-pu-mox-mox, Kam-i-ah-kan, and their sub-chiefs--all signed the treaties as a deliberate act of treachery, in order to lull the whites into fancied security, give time for Governor Stevens to depart to the distant Blackfoot country, where he would probably be "wiped out" by those truculent savages, and for the Nez Perces to return home, and also for completing their preparations for a widespread and simultaneous onslaught on all the settlements. Scarcely had they reached home from the council when they resumed such preparations, buying extra stores of ammunition, and sending emissaries to the Spokanes, Coeur d'Alenes, and even to some of the Nez Perces and to other tribes, to incite them to war, actually held a council of the disaffected at a point in the Palouse country the following month, and, within three months of accepting ostensibly the protection of the Great Father, precipitated the conflict. Agent Bolon and many white miners and settlers in the upper country were massacred, and settlements as widespread as Puget Sound and southern Oregon, six hundred miles apart, were attacked on the same day. In this conspiracy and contest Kam-i-ah-kan was the moving spirit, the organizer, the instigator, whose crafty wiles never slept, and whose stubborn resolution no disaster could break. But in the end, after protracted and stubborn resistance, they were defeated and compelled to move on their reservations, and live under the very treaties they so treacherously agreed to, and under which they still live and have greatly prospered. Whether or not the Walla Walla council precipitated the outbreak, as has been claimed, it is certain that it confirmed the Nez Perces in their friendship, neutralized the Spokanes for two years, kept even some of the Cuyuses friendly all through the war, namely, Steachus and his band, extinguished the Indian title, and permanently settled the status of the Indian and his relation with the white man, without which peace was an impossibility. The outbreak itself could have been suppressed in a single season, had Governor Stevens's firm policy and sagacious views been sustained. Over sixty thousand square miles were ceded by these treaties. The Nez Perce reservation contained five thousand square miles, including mountain and forest as well as good land, and provision was made for moving other tribes upon it. The payment for the Nez Perce lands comprised $200,000 in the usual annuities, and $60,000 for improving the reservation, saw and grist mills, schools, shops, teachers, farmers, mechanics, etc. Ardent spirits were excluded; the right to hunt, fish, gather roots and berries, and pasture stock on vacant land was secured, and provision was made for ultimately allotting the land in severalty. An annuity of $500 for twenty years was given the head chief, and a house was to be built for him, and ten acres of land fenced and broken up the first year. At the special request of the Indians, the claim and homestead of William Craig was confirmed to him, and was not to be considered part of the reservation, although within its boundaries. Besides Lawyer and Looking Glass, fifty-six chiefs signed this treaty, and among them were Joseph (the father of the chief Joseph, who in 1877 fought the brilliant campaign against Generals Howard, Gibbon, and Miles, the only conflict that has ever occurred between the Nez Perces and the whites), James, Red Wolf, Timothy, Spotted Eagle, and Eagle-from-the-Light. The Umatilla reservation contained eight hundred square miles. $100,000 to be given for annuities in goods, etc., for twenty years; $50,000 for improving the reservation; $10,000 for moving the emigrant road, which passed through it, around its borders; a sawmill, a flour-mill; two schoolhouses; a blacksmith's shop, a wagon and plough making shop, a carpenter and joiner shop; tools and equipments; and teachers, farmers, and mechanics to instruct them for twenty years,--were the very liberal payments for their lands. Moreover, the head chief of each tribe was to have his annuity of $500 for twenty years, a house built, and ten acres fenced and ploughed. Pu-pu-mox-mox, in addition, was to be allowed to maintain a trading-post at the mouth of the Yakima; his first year's salary was to be paid him on signing the treaty; he was also to receive three yoke of oxen, three yokes and four chains, a wagon, two ploughs, twelve axes, two shovels, twelve hoes, one saddle and bridle, a set of wagon harness and one of plough harness; and his son was to have an annuity of $100 for twenty years, and have a house built, and five acres of land ploughed and fenced. The wily old chief had certainly gotten all he could. The other provisions were similar to those of the Nez Perce treaty. It was signed by the three head chiefs and thirty-two sub-chiefs. The Yakima treaty contained the same general provisions. A large reservation on the Simcoe, a southern branch of the Yakima, and a smaller one on the Wenatchee, including the fishery there, were set apart for them. The payments include $200,000 in annuities, $60,000 for improving the reservations, the annuity, house and field for the chief, etc. In all the treaties provision is made for finally dividing the land among the Indians in severalty. Kam-i-ah-kan, Ow-hi, Skloom, and eleven other chiefs signed the treaty. The first three were able and persistent inciters of, and leaders in, the Indian war. Ow-hi is mentioned in "The Canoe and Saddle," by Theodore Winthrop, and met a tragic end, being slain while a prisoner trying to escape from the troops under Colonel George Wright. After their exemplary punishment the Yakimas settled down on their reservation, and for many years were prosperous and contented under the charge of the faithful agent Wilbur. They number 2556, showing little diminution; have taken their lands in severalty; most of them wear civilized dress in whole or part; have 17,000 acres under cultivation; raise 50,000 bushels of grain, 9600 of vegetables, and 25,000 tons of hay. The Spokanes number 3000. While some of the bands are backward, others have made encouraging progress, "are thrifty and industrious, have splendid farms, and raise large crops of grain and hay, ... are self-supporting, and, but for the intemperance of some of them, are making rapid strides towards civilization." The agent says of one band: "They accept no issues from the government, and are independent and self-supporting. They are peaceable in their own social relations, and courteous to their white brethren. They have made material progress, having good farms, fine horses, and many of them small herds of cattle." [Illustration: OW-HI _A Chief of the Yakimas_] The Coeur d'Alenes, numbering 506, are further advanced in civilization, and in better condition financially than any other tribe. They are well supplied with all kinds of farming implements, from a plough to a threshing-machine, of which latter they now have thirteen in operation, purchased by themselves with their own money. The Nez Perces, the most progressive and deserving of all, seem to have fared the worst. Their reservation was early overrun by thousands of miners, and they were outrageously swindled by dishonest agents. They number only 1795, having diminished one half. But they have taken their lands in severalty; have 10,000 acres under cultivation, 100,000 acres under fence; raise 55,000 bushels of grain, 15,000 bushels of vegetables; own 30,000 horses, 15,000 cattle, 3000 swine, and 20,000 fowls. "Very enthusiastic revival meetings were conducted here last winter by the native elders, which resulted in quite a number of converts being made."[6] [6] Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1899, pp. 147, 148, 297, 298, 304, 612, 618, 626, 628. CHAPTER XXX CROSSING THE BITTER ROOTS On the close of the council the Indians homeward-bound filled all the trails leading out of the valley with their wild and picturesque cavalcades,--the braves resplendent with scarlet blankets and leggings; the squaws and pappooses decked with bright calico shirts and kerchiefs. Lieutenant Gracie marched away to join Major Haller in an expedition against the predatory Snakes. The secretaries and other treaty officers toiled early and late making up the records and reports for Washington, which, with letters and instructions for Olympia, were dispatched on the 14th by W.H. Pearson, the express rider. It will be noted how carefully and fully the proceedings of all Governor Stevens's councils were recorded; not merely a statement of what was done, but a complete verbatim report of the deliberations, the speeches, every word uttered by both whites and Indians in council, and many of the talks out of council, was reduced to writing and made part of the official record,--a record which now affords the most convincing evidence of the wisdom, foresight, and benevolence of the treaties, as well as the difficulties and dangers attending them, and presents a most interesting and historically valuable picture of the characters, dispositions, and feelings of the Indians. General Palmer had been appointed one of the commissioners to treat with the Blackfeet, Governor Stevens and Alfred Cumming, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Nebraska, being the others, but he declined the arduous and dangerous duty, and, with the Oregon Indian officers, started for home. A.J. Bolon, the Yakima Indian agent, with a small party, was sent to old Fort Walla Walla with a quantity of Indian goods intended for the Spokanes, there to be stored for safe-keeping. He was instructed to visit and inspect the Yakima reservation, thence proceed to the Dalles and bring the Nez Perce Indian goods to Walla Walla, deposit them, and, loading up with the Spokane goods, take them to Antoine Plante's ranch on the Spokane River, in readiness for the council on the governor's return from the Blackfoot country. Mr. Henry R. Crosby was dispatched to Colville to notify the Indians, the Hudson Bay Company officers, and the missionaries of the proposed council. Agent W.H. Tappan was sent with Craig to Lapwai to organize a delegation of the Nez Perces to go to the Blackfoot council, and was to accompany them himself. All the officers were charged to examine the regions traversed by them, and report on the topographical and agricultural features, etc. The governor had procured from New York a supply of barometers and other instruments, and was determined to continue and complete his railroad explorations, so summarily arrested by Jefferson Davis, as far as possible on this expedition, although it was one primarily on the Indian service. In his final railroad report he gives a daily journal of this trip, and a graphic description of the country passed over, together with an immense amount of new information, the fruits of his own indefatigable personal exertions and those of his subordinates, amplifying and triumphantly vindicating his first report. It was a beautiful, sunny June morning, the 16th, when the little train drew out from the deserted council ground, and took its way in single file across the level valley prairie, covered with luxuriant bunch grass and vivid-hued flowers. A large, fine-looking Coeur d'Alene Indian, named Joseph, led the way as guide; then rode the governor with his son, Secretary Doty, Agent Lansdale, and Gustave Sohon the artist, barometer-carrier, and observer; then came Packmaster Higgins, followed by the train of eleven packers and two cooks, and forty-one sleek, long-eared pack-mules, each bearing a burden of two hundred pounds, the men interspersed with the mules to keep them moving on the trail; while seventeen loose animals, in a disorderly bunch, driven by a couple of herders, brought up the rear. It was a picked force, both men and animals, and made up in efficiency for scanty numbers. The artist, Gustave Sohon, a soldier of the 4th infantry, detailed for the trip, was an intelligent German, a clever sketcher, and competent to take instrumental observations. Higgins, ex-orderly sergeant of dragoons, a tall, broad-shouldered, spare, sinewy man, a fine swordsman and drill-master, a scientific boxer, was a man of unusual firmness, intelligence, and good judgment, and quiet, gentlemanly manners, and held the implicit respect, obedience, and goodwill of his subordinates. He afterwards became the founder, banker, and first citizen of the flourishing town of Missoula, at Hell Gate, in the Bitter Root valley. A.H. Robie worked up from the ranks, married a daughter of Craig, and settled at Boisé City, Idaho, where he achieved a highly prosperous and respected career. Sidney Ford, a son of Judge Ford, already mentioned, was a handsome, stalwart young Saxon in appearance, broad-shouldered, sensible, capable, and kindly. The others were all men of experience on the plains and mountains, brave and true; several had been members of the exploring expedition; others had served the fur companies, or voyageured and trapped on their own account. By all odds the most skillful and picturesque of these mountain men, and having the most varied and romantic history, was Delaware Jim, whose father was a Delaware chief and his mother a white woman, and who had spent a lifetime--for he was now past middle age--in hunting and traveling over all parts of the country, from the Mississippi to the Pacific, meeting with many thrilling adventures and hair-breadth escapes. He had a tall, slender form, a keen eye, an intelligent face, and reserved manners. He was reticent in speech, although he spoke English well; but when he was induced to relate his varied experiences and adventures, his simple and modest narrative impressed every auditor with its truth. Many of the men were clad in buckskin moccasins, breeches, and fringed hunting-shirts; others in rough, serviceable woolen garb, stout boots, and wide slouch hats. All carried navy revolvers and keen bowie-knives, and many in addition bore the long, heavy, small-bored Kentucky rifle, which they fired with great deliberation and unerring skill. One of the most remarkable men connected with the expedition was the express rider, W.H. Pearson. A native of Philadelphia, of small but well-knit frame, with muscles of steel, and spirit and endurance that no exertion apparently could break down, waving, chestnut hair, a fair, high forehead, a refined, intelligent, and pleasant face, the manners and bearing of a gentleman,--such was Pearson. He was destined that year to render services invaluable in character and incredible in extent. Of him the governor remarks in his final report, p. 210: "Hardy, bold, intelligent, and resolute, having a great diversity of experience, which had made him acquainted with all the relations between Indians and white men from the borders of Texas to the 49th parallel, and which enabled him to know best how to move, whether under the Southern tropics or the winter snows of the North, I suppose there has scarcely ever been any man in the service of the government who excelled Pearson as an expressman." He was still young, about thirty-five, but, as a Texan ranger, a scout, Indian fighter, and express rider, knew the frontiers from the Rio Grande to the Columbia and Missouri like an open book. The party thus starting on the protracted and perilous expedition was composed of only twenty-two persons, as follows: Governor Isaac I. Stevens; James Doty, secretary; R.H. Lansdale, Indian agent; Gustave Sohon, artist; Hazard Stevens; C.P. Higgins, packmaster; Sidney S. Ford, Jr., A.H. Robie, Joseph Lemere, Frank Genette, H. Palmer, William Simpson, John Canning, Frank Hale, Louis Oson, Louis Fourcier, C. Hughes, John Johnson, William S. De Parris, William Prudhomme, packers, the last two cooks; Joseph, the C[oe]ur d'Alene guide; and Delaware Jim, who deserves a place by himself. The party followed the Nez Perce trail, and, after a short march of eight miles, made camp on Dry Creek. Two messes were formed,--the gentlemen of the party, with the guide Joseph, Delaware Jim, Ford, Genette, and De Parris as cook, comprising the governor's mess, and the remainder of the party Higgins's mess. Continuing on the Nez Perce trail, the party in the next three days and fifty-four miles traversed a beautiful rolling prairie country of fertile soil, luxuriant bunch grass, and wild flowers, crossing the Touchet and Tucañon rivers, and ascending the Pa-ta-ha branch of the latter, and, descending the Al-pa-wha Creek, reached its confluence with Snake River at Red Wolf's ground. Here was found a village of thirteen lodges of Nez Perces, under the chiefs Red Wolf and Timothy, with a fenced field of thirty acres, well watered by irrigation from the Al-pa-wha, and containing a fine crop of corn and a promising orchard. "I observed with great pleasure that men as well as women and children were at work in this field, ploughing and taking care of their crops," observes the governor. After some bargaining, for the chiefs were keen traders and exacted a stiff toll for the service, the party, with packs and baggage, were ferried across the Snake, a notably swift and dangerous river, by the Indians in their canoes, and went into camp, while the animals crossed by swimming. By appointment Lawyer met the governor here, and with the other two chiefs took supper with him, the three devouring the lion's share of a fine salmon, which Timothy had just sold at an exorbitant price,--clearly the Nez Perces were fast learning the ways of civilization,--and completed the arrangements for sending their delegation to the Blackfoot council. Lawyer also gave much information about his people and country. Climbing out of the deep cañon of the river next morning by an easy grade up a lateral creek, the party took a general N.N.E. course across the high, rolling plains stretching away to the mountains, for five days traversing a fine fertile and diversified country, clothed with waving grass and bright flowers, well wooded with groves of pine, and abundantly watered. They passed on the second day 600 Nez Perces gathering the kamas root, and having with them 2000 horses, and crossed the Palouse River, with its broad valley extending far eastward into the heart of the mountains. Says the governor: "We have been astonished at the luxuriance of the grass and the fertility of the soil. The whole view presents to the eye a vast bed of flowers in all their varied beauty." The governor continually remarks the fertility and agricultural capabilities of the country traversed. It now forms the most productive part of the wheat belt of eastern Washington, and is all settled up by a prosperous farming community. The third day's camp was made at the kamas prairie of the Coeur d'Alenes, where were found 29 lodges and 250 Indians of that tribe, gathering and drying kamas. This esculent is about the size and shape of a large tulip bulb, and when dried and smoked for use has a dark color and sweet taste, and was highly esteemed by the Indians and mountain men. The governor had a talk with Stellam, the head chief, and a number of other chiefs, and requested them to meet him at the mission in order to learn about the treaty the Great Father desired to make with them. They promised to attend. In the evening came the Palouse chief, Slah-yot-see, with 30 braves, and complained that no goods were given him at the recent council. The governor replied:-- "Slah-yot-see, you went away before the council was ended. Koh-lat-toose remained and signed the treaty. He was recognized as the head chief of the Palouses, and to him the goods were given to be distributed among his tribe as he and the principal men should determine. I have brought no goods to give you. Go to Koh-lat-toose. He is the chief, and it is from him you must obtain your share of the presents. Had you remained until the council terminated, you would have had a voice in the distribution of the goods. Kam-i-ah-kan, your head chief, signed the treaty, and said that he should bring the Palouses into the Yakima country, where they properly belonged." The chief said but little in reply except acknowledging Kam-i-ah-kan as his head chief. The Palouses had a bad name, and were regarded as sullen, insolent, and disaffected. The last day, putting the party in camp on the Coeur d'Alene River, the governor with Doty and Sohon rode on nine miles farther to the mission, where he was received with the utmost hospitality by good Father Ravalli, and where he found Crosby, just arrived from Colville. The mission was situated on a sightly eminence in the midst of a little prairie on the right bank of the river. On this beautiful and commanding site stood a well-proportioned church, solidly built of squared timbers as smoothly hewn and closely fitted as though done by skillful white artisans, yet all the work of the Indians, under the direction of the priests. A long wooden building, plain but comfortable, afforded quarters for the fathers and two or three lay brothers and the transient guests. At the foot of the knoll, near the river, were the lodges of the Indians, constituting their principal village. At the camp of the party this evening an incident occurred of quite unusual character,--a wrestling match between Indian and white. A large number of the Coeur d'Alenes had come down with their canoes, and assisted the party in crossing the rivers, and had taken the packs by water a long distance, thus relieving the animals over a stretch of muddy trail, and at night camped near the whites. After supper they came over to camp, and, with much talk in Chinook and many signs, at length conveyed the idea of a challenge at wrestling between an immense, powerfully formed Indian, whom they brought forward as their champion, and any "skookum man" of the whites. The latter were rather taken back. None liked the looks of the big and muscular savage, but all agreed that it would never do to decline the challenge, and back down before a parcel of Indians. At last Sidney Ford stepped forward, declaring that he would try a fall with him, if he broke his back in the effort. In the struggle which ensued, it was soon apparent that the Indian was the superior in weight and strength, and Ford had to put forth all his skill and agility to prevent being forced to the ground. At last, while all the spectators, both red and white, were breathlessly watching the straining, panting wrestlers, the whites especially with great anxiety and apprehension, Ford gave a sudden and mighty heave, the huge Indian's bare legs and moccasined feet whirled in the air, and the next instant he struck the ground with a heavy and sickening thud, and lay senseless as the dead. Ford had thrown him completely over his shoulder by some skillful wrestling stroke. The Indian soon recovered, and departed with his companions, well satisfied that the white man was "hi-u skookum" (mighty strong). This rencounter led to much discussion around the camp-fire that evening as to the relative prowess of Indian and white. All agreed that the latter was far superior, not only in courage and physical strength, but even in endurance and woodland and savage arts and skill. The next day the party moved and encamped near the village, and on the following morning the principal chiefs to the number of thirty assembled in front of the governor's tent, and listened attentively as he explained to them the benefits they would gain by learning to "follow the white man's road," and referred to the treaties made with the other tribes at the recent council, at which some of them were present, and asked them to meet him in council with the Spokanes on his return. Finally he invited them to send with him a delegation to the Blackfoot council, and make peace with those fierce and feared marauders. The chiefs received the talk favorably, but declined to send the delegation, saying that only a few of their people went to buffalo, and besides they were afraid to go to the council. The Blackfeet would kill them. At noon, after this conference, the train set out in charge of Higgins, while the governor, with Doty and Crosby, remained a few hours longer. The oath of allegiance to the United States was administered by Crosby to the fathers and lay brothers, who subscribed the naturalization papers, and seemed much pleased with the idea of becoming American citizens. Towards evening they bade the hospitable missionaries farewell, and, riding rapidly eleven miles, found the train snugly encamped in a large prairie with fine grass, where the governor encamped, October 12, 1853. The next two days the party were kept in camp by a pelting summer rain. Friday, June 29, on a cool and delightful morning after the storm, the march was continued up the Coeur d'Alene River, retracing the governor's route of 1853 across the Bitter Root Mountains; the summit was passed on July 1, and, descending the St. Regis de Borgia, crossing and recrossing the stream no less than thirty-five times, the Bitter Root River was reached on the 3d, eighty-six miles distant from the mission. The Father Superior of the Catholic missions, with two companions returning from an inspection of the Pend Oreille Mission, was met the first day, and on the summit a Coeur d'Alene Indian, whom the governor had previously sent to the Bitter Root valley[7] with dispatches to Mr. Adams, special agent for the Flatheads, in regard to holding a council with them, brought the gratifying intelligence that the Indians were all ready to assemble, all full of the Blackfoot council, and that everything was quiet in the Indian country. The governor took great pains in examining the route and the topography of the country, and in determining the altitude by the barometer. The Fourth of July was spent in crossing the Bitter Root, which was at this point one hundred and fifty yards wide, with a swift, strong current, and fordable only at the lowest stage of water in fall and winter. It was now swollen from recent rains and melting snows in the mountains. All hands set to work felling trees and building rafts, with which to effect a crossing. While thus laboriously engaged, a large band of Flathead Indians, who were encamped here, took down their lodges, and ferried themselves over the swift and broad river, with all their women, children, horses, dogs, lodges, and effects, in less than an hour's time, and in a simple and ingenious manner, which put the whites quite to the blush. The buffalo-skin lodge was spread out on a smooth, flat place at the water's edge, all the blankets, robes, clothing, bundles of provisions, saddles, packs, everything in short in the way of goods and chattels were piled in a broad, circular pile upon it, and the ends and edges of the skin were stretched up and tied together on top, as one would tie up a bundle of clothes in a handkerchief. This being completed, a brave rode his horse into the river until almost swimming, holding by his teeth the end of a line; the bundle was then pushed and lifted into the river; the squaws climbed on top of it with the children and babies around them, one of them took and held the other end of the line, and the brave started his pony swimming across the stream, holding by the mane or tail with one hand, and swimming with the other, and soon reached the opposite bank in safety. It was a curious and exciting spectacle to see ten or twelve of these bundles, the size of large haycocks, surmounted by groups of squaws and pappooses, rapidly floating down the stream, while being slowly towed across, nothing visible of the ponies and braves except their heads, while the loud, labored breathing of the swimming horses and the shouts and splashings of the Indians echoed across the water. The Flatheads were accustomed to train and exercise their horses in swimming, and were very skillful in crossing streams in this manner. The buffalo-skin lodges were impervious to water for only a short time, and would become leaky and useless by a prolonged soaking. The party built three large rafts, loaded all the goods upon them, and poled them across the river with long poles. The animals were compelled to swim. The last, bearing the governor, was the largest and least manageable, and came near escaping down the river on a voyage of its own choosing. It was carried farther down than the others, and on nearing the other bank got into a swifter current, where the poles were quite useless, and was swept along at break-neck speed, flying past the rocks and trees of the bank only forty feet away. At this juncture Higgins seized the end of a pack rope and plunged headfirst into the raging current, gained the shore in a few powerful strokes, raced along it at top speed to keep the rope from being jerked out of his hands by the flying raft until he came to a tree, threw a turn of the rope around it, and checked the raft, which then swung inshore under the pressure of the current. In these few minutes the unwieldy craft was carried down two miles. But everything was gotten together and a comfortable camp pitched before night. The tired men smoked their pipes around the camp-fire after supper and recounted the adventures of the day, with great satisfaction that the river was behind them. After a late start the next morning the party moved eighteen miles up the right bank of the beautiful river, traversing tracts of open woods and prairies, alternating in pleasing variety with the dark, rugged range just surmounted, frowning on the right. Large schools of salmon or trout were seen in the clear, pellucid water, motionless over the spawning-beds, fairly covering and hiding the river's bed, in such numbers were they. The next day's march was thirty-seven miles. On the 7th, soon after leaving camp, they were met and received by three hundred chiefs and braves of the Flathead, Pend Oreille, and Koo-te-nay tribes, in the most cordial manner, with a salute of musketry, and escorted to their camp near Hell Gate River. After spending some hours with them, learning their condition, and establishing pleasant relations between them and his own party, the governor moved to the main river, a mile distant, and established his camp and council ground. In the afternoon the three head chiefs, Victor of the Flatheads, Alexander of the Pend Oreilles, and Michelle of the Koo-te-nays, accompanied by a number of other chiefs, visited Governor Stevens, and after the pipe had passed around,--the indispensable introduction to every Indian conference,--the latter spoke to them in his usual vein, proposing a treaty, referring to the great council just held with so many Indians in the Walla Walla valley, and appointing the next Monday for opening the council with them. He also spoke of his efforts to make peace with the Blackfeet, and urged them to send a delegation to the proposed council with these, their inveterate and bloody foes. This was a sore subject with the Flatheads, for the Blackfeet had but faithlessly kept their promises of amity and good conduct towards their neighbors. Many of their young braves, despite the efforts of the chiefs and elders to restrain them, had continued their predatory raids, saying, "Let us steal all the horses we can before the great white chief returns and makes peace with all the tribes, and stops horse-stealing forever," and had inflicted severe losses upon the Flatheads since the governor passed through their country nearly two years before, notwithstanding, and that was what made it all the harder to bear; the Flatheads had scrupulously heeded the governor's admonitions, and refrained from retaliation. On one occasion, when some young Pend Oreilles ran off a number of Blackfoot horses, the chiefs sent them back, at the risk of the lives of the party returning them. When the governor finished, Victor said:-- "The Blackfeet have troubled us very much. I am going to tell what has happened since you were here. Twelve men have been killed when out hunting, not on war-parties. I fear the whites and keep quiet. I cannot tell how many horses have been stolen since. Now I listen, and hear what you wish me to do. Were it not for you, I would have had my revenge ere this. They have stolen horses seven times this spring." The chiefs then returned to their camp, promising to attend the council the following Monday. The Flatheads or Salish, including the Pend Oreilles and Koo-te-nays, were among those who had been driven westward by the Blackfeet, and now occupied the pleasant valleys of the mountains. They were noted for their intelligence, honesty, and bravery, and although of medium stature and inferior in physique to the brawny Blackfeet, never hesitated to attack them if the odds were not greater than five to one. Having been supplied by the early fur traders with firearms, which enabled them to make a stand against their outnumbering foe, they had always been the firm friends of the whites, and, like the Nez Perces, often hunted with the mountain men, and entertained them in their lodges. A number of Iroquois hunters and half-breeds had joined and intermarried with them. The Bitter Root valley was the seat of the Flatheads proper. The Pend Oreilles lived lower down the river, or northward, in two bands, the upper Pend Oreilles on the Horse Plains and Jocko prairies, and the lower Pend Oreilles on Clark's Fork, below the lake of their name, and were canoe Indians, owning few horses. The Koo-te-nays lived about the Flathead River and Lake. All these, except the lower Pend Oreilles, went to buffalo, and their hunting-trips were spiced with the constant peril and excitement of frequent skirmishes with their hereditary enemies. The Jesuits, in 1843, established a mission among the lower Pend Oreilles, but in 1854 moved to the Flathead River, near the mouth of the Jocko. They also started a mission among the Flatheads in the Bitter Root valley, forty miles above Hell Gate, where they founded the beautiful village of St. Mary, amid charming scenery; but the incessant raids of the Blackfeet were slowly but surely "wiping out" these brave and interesting Indians, and the mission was abandoned in 1850 as too much exposed. The Owen brothers then started a trading-post at this point, which they named Fort Owen; and fourteen miles above it Lieutenant Mullan built his winter camp in 1853, known as Cantonment Stevens, which has been succeeded by the town of Stevensville. The term "Flathead" was a misnomer, as none of them practiced the custom of flattening the head. FOOTNOTES: [7] Now known as the Missoula Valley and River. CHAPTER XXXI THE FLATHEAD COUNCIL After a quiet and restful Sunday in both camps the Indians assembled at the appointed time, and the council was opened on Monday, July 9, at half past one P.M., by the governor, in a long speech, explaining, as at the other councils, the terms and advantages proffered by the government. Although the Indians were extremely friendly, and very desirous of "following the white man's road" and coming under the protection of the Great Father, their only apparent refuge from the fierce Blackfeet, whose incessant raids threatened them with speedy extinction, the council proved unexpectedly difficult and protracted, lasting eight days, and the treaty was only saved by Governor Stevens's persistence and astuteness in accepting an alternative proposition offered by Victor at the last moment. The chronic objection of every tribe to leaving its own country and going on a reservation in the territory of another was the stumbling-block. The governor required the three tribes, as they were really one people, being all Salish, speaking a common language, and closely intermarried and allied, and also reduced in numbers, to unite upon one reservation. He offered to set apart a tract for them either in the upper Bitter Root valley in Victor's country, or the Horse Plains and Jocko River in the Pend Oreille territory, as they might prefer, and urged them to decide and agree among themselves upon one of these locations; but neither tribe was willing to abandon its wonted region, where they were accustomed to pitch their lodges, and where their dead were buried. The following brief extracts from the proceedings give an idea of the course of the difficult and at times stormy and vexatious negotiations. When the governor finished Victor said:-- "I am very tired now, and my people. You [the governor] are the only man who has offered to help us.... I have two places, here is mine [pointing out Bitter Root valley on the map], and this is mine [pointing out Flathead River and Clark's Fork]. I will think of it, and tell you which is best. I believe you wish to assist me to help my children here so that they may have plenty to eat, and so that they may save their souls." Alexander: "You are talking to me now, my Big Father. You have told me you have to make your own laws to punish your children. I love my children. I think I could not head them off to make them go straight. I think it is with you to do so. If I take your own way, your law, my people then will be frightened. These growing people [young people] are all the same. Perhaps those who come after them may see it well before them. I do not know your laws. Perhaps, if we see a rope, if we see how it punishes, we will be frightened. When the priest talked to them, tried to teach them, they all left him. My children, maybe when the whites teach you, you may see it before you. Now this is my ground. We are poor, we Indians. The priest is settled over there [pointing across the mountains towards the north, the direction of his country]. There, where he is, I am very well satisfied. I will talk hereafter about the ground. I am done for to-day." In this speech Alexander expresses the difficulty he has to manage his unruly young people, and his fear that the white rule might prove too strict for them. [Illustration: THE FLATHEAD COUNCIL] Red Wing, a Flathead chief: "We gathered up yesterday the three peoples you see here. They think they are three nations. I thought these nations were going to talk each about its own land. Now I hear the governor: my land is all cut up in pieces. I thought we had two places. This ground is the Flatheads', that across the mountains is the Pend Oreilles'; perhaps not, perhaps we are all one. We made up another mind yesterday, to-day it is different. We will go back and have another council." The governor adjourned the council to the next day, urging them to talk and agree among themselves as to the reservation. The following day the governor called on the chiefs to speak their minds freely. Big Canoe, a Pend Oreille chief, made a long and sententious speech, in which he deprecated making any treaty, or parting with any of his country, and thought the whites and Indians could live together in the same land:-- "Talk about treaty, when did I kill you? When did you kill me? What is the reason we are talking about treaties? We are friends. We never spilt the blood of one of you. I never saw your blood. I want my country. I thought no one would ever want to talk about my country. Now you talk, you white men. Now I have heard, I wish the whites to stop coming. Perhaps you will put me in a trap if I do not listen to you, white chiefs. It is our land, both of us. If you make a farm, I would not go there and pull up your crops. I would not drive you away from it. If I were to go to your country and say, 'Give me a little piece,' I wonder would you say, 'Here, take it.' I expect that is the same way you want me to do here. This country you want to settle here, me with you.... You tell us, 'Give us your land.' I am very poor. This is all the small piece I have got. I am not going to let it go. I did not come to make trouble; therefore I would say, I am very poor.... "It is two winters since you passed here. Every year since, my horses have gone to the Blackfeet. Here this spring the Blackfeet put my daughter on foot. She packed her goods on her back. It made me feel bad. I was going on a war-party as your express passed along. Then I think of what I heard from you, my father, and take my heart back and keep quiet. If I had not listened to your express, I should have gone on war-parties over yonder. We drove one band of horses from the Blackfeet. I talked about it to my Indians. I said, 'Give the horses back, my children.' My chief took them back. You talked about it strong, my father. My chief took them back. That is the way we act. When I found my children were going on war-parties, I would tell them to stop, be quiet; tell them I expect now we will see the chief; I expect he will talk to the Blackfeet again." Governor Stevens: "I will ask you, my children, if you fully understand all that was said yesterday? I ask you now, can you all agree to live on one reservation? I ask Victor, are you willing to go on the same reservation with the Pend Oreilles and Koo-te-nays? I ask Alexander, are you willing to go on the same reservation with the Flatheads and Koo-te-nays? I ask Michelle, are you willing to go on the same reservation with the Flatheads and Pend Oreilles? What do you, Victor, Alexander, and Michelle, think? You are the head chiefs. I want you to speak." Victor: "I am willing to go on one reservation, but I do not want to go over yonder" [Pend Oreille country]. Alexander: "It is good for us all to stop in one place." Michelle: "I am with Alexander." Governor Stevens: "The Pend Oreilles and Koo-te-nays think it well to have all these tribes together. Perhaps Victor might think so by and by, if the place suits. Alexander and Michelle wish to live together, their people on one place,--they have a thousand people, the land ought to be good. Each man wants his field. The climate ought to be mild.... "I ask Victor, Alexander, and Michelle to think it over. Will they go to the valley with Victor, or to the mission with Alexander and Michelle? I do not care which. You will have your priests with you, whether you go to the mission or Fort Owen. Those who want the priest can have him. The Great Father means that every one shall do as he pleases in regard to receiving the instructions of the priests." But the council next day showed no change in the situation. Victor was unwilling to move to the mission, and Alexander to the valley. Neither would object to the other coming to his place. It being evident, after protracted discussion, that no progress would be made by continuing the council that day, and it appearing that an influence was being exerted by the priests of the mission which might be adverse to the views of the government, a messenger was dispatched directing the presence of Father Hoecken for the purpose of investigating it, the council was adjourned over to Friday, and the Indians were recommended to have a feast and a council among themselves on the morrow. Accordingly they had a grand feast on the 12th, the means for which--two beeves, coffee, sugar, flour, etc.--were furnished them, after which the day was spent in discussing the question of the reservation among themselves. But in council next day they appeared no nearer an agreement, and, after much and fruitless talk, Ambrose, a Flathead chief, said:-- "Yesterday Victor spoke to Alexander. He said: 'I am not headstrong. The whites picked out a place for us, the best place, and that is the reason I do not want to go. Two years since they passed us. Now the white man has his foot on your ground. The white man will stay with you.' Yesterday, when we had the feast, then Alexander spoke; he said, 'Now I will go over to your side. I will let them take my place, and come to your place.' But Victor did not speak, and the council broke up." Governor Stevens: "Alexander, did you agree yesterday to give up your country and join Victor?" Alexander: "Yes, yesterday I did give up. I listened and he did not give me an answer; then I said, 'I will not give up my land.'" Governor Stevens: "I speak now to the Pend Oreilles and Koo-te-nays. Do you agree to this treaty?--the treaty placing the Pend Oreilles and Koo-te-nays on this reservation? [at the mission]. I ask Victor if he declines to treat?" Victor: "Talk! I have nothing to say now." Governor Stevens: "Does Victor want to treat? Why did he not say to Alexander yesterday, 'Come to my place'? or is not Victor a chief? Is he, as one of his people has called him, an old woman? Dumb as a dog? If Victor is a chief, let him speak now." Victor: "I thought, my people, perhaps you would listen. I said, 'This [at the mission] is my country, and all over here is my country. Some of my people want to be above me. I sit quiet, and before me you give my land away. If I thought so, I would tell the whites to take the land there [the mission]. It is my country. I am listening, and my people say, "Take my country."'" Governor Stevens: "Alexander said yesterday that he would come up here. Why did you not answer and say 'Come'?" Victor: "Yesterday I did talk." Governor Stevens: "Alexander said yesterday he offered to give up his land and go to you. Alexander says you made no answer. Why did you not say, 'Yes, come to my place'?" Victor: "I did not understand it so." Governor Stevens: "Ambrose says he understood Alexander to say so. Alexander says he said so. You did not speak and say, 'Come to my place,' but you were dumb. Does Victor mean to say that he will neither let Alexander come to his place nor go to Alexander's?" Ambrose, Til-coos-tay, Red Wolf, and Bear Tracks, Flathead chiefs, took up the discussion, pouring oil on the troubled waters, and excusing Victor for not speaking in answer to Alexander at their own council. At length the governor said:-- "My children, I find that things are nearer to an agreement than when we began talking this morning. Ambrose says the people are not quite prepared, but will be ready by and by. Ambrose says, 'Be patient and listen.' I am patient, and have been patient and listened to them. Others of you have said they they were hiding their minds and did not speak; hence I reproved you and said, 'Speak out, let us have your hearts.' It seems many of the Flatheads are ready to go to the mission. If their chief says so, they will go. Victor says, 'I am ready to go, but my people will not;' but the people say they are ready to go. We want all parties to speak straight, to let us have their hearts, then we can agree. If Victor's people will go, we want Victor as a chief to say, 'I will go.'" Victor here arose and left the council. After a pause of some minutes Governor Stevens said:-- "I will ask Ambrose where is Victor?" Ambrose: "He is gone home." Governor Stevens: "Ambrose, speaking of Victor, said he wanted time. Victor is now thinking and studying over this matter. We don't wish to drive or hurry you in this business. Think over this matter to-night, and meet here to-morrow. I ask Ambrose to speak to Victor and tell him what I say. Ambrose loves his chief, let him take my words to him." He then adjourned the council to meet in the morning. But the following day word was sent by Victor to the governor that he had not yet made up his mind, and the council was postponed to Monday morning. When the council opened at eleven Monday morning, Victor said:-- "I am now going to talk. I was not content. You gave me a very small place. Then I thought, here they are giving away my land. That is my country over there at the mission, this also. Plenty of you say Victor is the chief of the Flatheads. The place you pointed out above is too small. From Lo Lo Fork above should belong to me. My stock will have room, and if the Blackfeet will let my horses alone, they will increase. I believe that you wish to help me, and that my people will do well there. We will send this word to the Great Father. Come and look at our country. When you look at Alexander's place, and say the land is good, and say, Come, Victor, I will go. If you think this above is good land, then Victor will say, Come here, Alexander. Then our children will be well content. That is the way we will make the treaty, my father." Governor Stevens: "Victor has spoken. Do Alexander and Michelle speak in the same way? I will ask Alexander if he agrees." Alexander: "Maybe we cannot all come together. Here is Michelle, I know his mind. He told me, you go this way, I won't go. Here are the lower Pend Oreilles. Maybe they are the same way. They have no horses; they have only canoes. I am very heavy, as though they tied me there." Michelle: "I am just following Alexander's mind. If he goes this way, I will not go. I have come a long way to see you; when you leave I go back." The governor again asked them if they would agree to Victor's proposition, and go to the reservation which was found best adapted to their needs after survey and examination, but both chiefs positively refused. The governor then cut the knot by accepting Victor's proposition as far as it concerned him, and giving the others the reservation at the mission:-- "My children, Victor has made his proposition. Alexander and Michelle have made theirs. We will make a treaty for them. Both tracts shall be surveyed. If the mission is the best land, Victor shall live there. If the valley is the best land, Victor shall stay here. Alexander and Michelle may stay at the mission.... "I ask Victor to come up and sign the treaty. [He came up and signed.] Now I ask Alexander and Michelle." [They also then signed.] Moses, a Flathead chief, on being called on to sign, refused. He stepped forward, and said:-- "My brother is buried here. I did not think you would take the only piece of ground I had. Here are three fellows [the head chiefs]; they say, 'Get on your horses and go.' ... Last year, when you were talking about the Blackfeet, you were joking." Governor Stevens: "How can Moses say I am not going to the Blackfoot country? I have gone all the way to the Great Father to arrange about the Blackfoot council. What more can I do? A man is coming from the Great Father to meet me. Does he not know that Mr. Burr and another man went to Fort Benton the other day?" Moses: "You have pulled all my wings off, and then let me down." Governor Stevens: "All that we have done is for your benefit. I have said that the Flatheads were brave and honest, and should be protected. Be patient. Everything will come right." Moses: "I do not know how it will be straight. A few days ago the Blackfeet stole horses at Salmon River." Governor Stevens: "Ask him if he sees the Nez Perce chief, Eagle-from-the-Light; he is going to the Blackfoot council with me." Moses: "Yes, I see him. They will get his hair. The Blackfeet are not like these people. They are all drunk." All the principal men came forward and signed the treaty. Governor Stevens then said:-- "Here are three papers which you have signed, copies of the same treaty. One goes to the President, one I place in the hands of the head chief, and one I keep myself. Everything that has been said here goes to the President. I have now a few presents for you. They are simply a gift, no part of the payments. The payments cannot be made until we hear from the President next year." The presents were then distributed. The chiefs were then requested to assemble on the morrow with regard to the Blackfoot council. Thus successfully and happily terminated this protracted council, "every man pleased and every man satisfied," says the governor. Twelve hundred Indians were present on the treaty ground. The jealousy and pride of the chiefs, Victor and Alexander, greatly increased the difficulty of coming to an agreement. The former repeatedly asserted his chieftainship over both tribes by claiming that the countries of both were his, a claim that Alexander offered to recognize if Victor would move to the Horse Plains (mission) reservation. Alexander claimed to be chief of the lower Pend Oreilles, a claim the governor summarily rejected. The influence and advice of the former Hudson Bay Company employees and half-breeds, to this and to the other treaties, was prejudicial, instigating the Indians to make unreasonable demands, and often opposing and misrepresenting the treaties themselves. Father Hoecken arrived before the end of the council, in response to the governor's summons. It did not appear that he was exerting any adverse influence. On the contrary, he highly approved the treaty, and signed it as one of the witnesses. It seems, however, as the governor reported, that the dislike of the Flatheads to the mission establishment was one cause of their unwillingness to move to the reservation in the Pend Oreille country. It is probable that the missionaries at St. Mary's had been too strict and exacting for their independent natures. Moreover, it was the fact, as the governor had cause to realize later, that the missionaries feared and dreaded the approach of the settlers, and sympathized wholly with the Indians as between the two. This treaty, like all made by Governor Stevens, was remarkably liberal in its terms to the Indians. The reservation on the Flathead River comprises a million and a quarter acres. $84,000 in annuity goods; $36,000 to improve the reservation; salaries of $500 a year for twenty years, with a house and ten acres fenced and ploughed, to the three head chiefs; schools, mills, hospitals, shops; teachers and mechanics for twenty years; the right to fish, hunt, gather roots and berries, and pasture stock on vacant land; and the provision for ultimately dividing the reservation among them in severalty,--were all embraced. It was agreed that the three tribes were to constitute one nation under Victor as head chief, to be known as the Flathead nation, in which, and on the same reservation, were to be included other friendly tribes, as the lower Pend Oreilles and Coeur d'Alenes. Besides Father Hoecken, R.H. Lansdale, W.H. Tappan, R.H. Crosby, Gustavus Sohon, and William Craig witnessed the treaty. Some 25,000 square miles were ceded. All three tribes now occupy the reservation on the Jocko (mission), together with the lower Pend Oreilles and a few Spokanes. They number 2000, showing little diminution since the treaty, and have made fair progress. Nearly all have houses with some land inclosed. Many raise small crops of wheat and have good gardens. They have 20,000 acres under fence, over ten miles of irrigation ditches, and raised last year 25,000 bushels of grain, 10,000 bushels of vegetables, and 7000 tons of hay. Their lands have not yet been allotted in severalty. The agent complains that worthless employees are frequently foisted upon the agency, "many incompetent men hold positions who take no interest in their work,"[8] etc.,--a state of things equally unfair to the Indians and disgraceful to the government. FOOTNOTES: [8] Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1899, pp. 192-194, 620. CHAPTER XXXII MARCH TO FORT BENTON.--MARSHALING THE TRIBES Before the close of the council, agents Tappan and Craig arrived with the proposed delegation of Nez Perces under Looking Glass, Spotted Eagle, Eagle-from-the-Light, and other chiefs. It was agreed that they and the Flatheads and Pend Oreilles, under their chiefs Victor and Alexander, and accompanied by agent Thomas Adams and interpreter Ben Kiser, should cross the mountains to the buffalo country, and hunt on the plains south of the Missouri, until the time came for holding the great peace council at Fort Benton, of which they would be notified. Their agents were instructed to keep the governor informed of their whereabouts by frequent expresses, and to guard against collisions with the Blackfoot war-parties, and also to communicate with the Crow Indians and induce them to attend the council. Dr. Lansdale, agent for the Flathead nation, remained, and during the summer made extensive examinations of the reservation on the Flathead River and the surrounding country. These arrangements completed, on Wednesday, July 18, the second day after the close of the council, the governor dispatched Pearson, who had just returned to the party after his rapid trip to Olympia from the Walla Walla council, with full reports of the council just held, and letters to the Indian and territorial officers in Olympia, and resumed the march to Fort Benton, crossing for six miles the broad level valley here known as the Hell Gate Ronde, and passing the deep, dark portal of that name,[9] and, six miles beyond it, encamped on the Hell Gate River. During the next five days and one hundred miles the party traversed the broad plateau of the great mountain chain over a beautiful rolling country of wide grassy valleys and gently rolling prairies, interspersed with low wooded hills and spurs, and well watered by clear, cold, rapid mountain streams. It was hard to realize that this beautiful and diversified prairie country was the top of the Rocky Mountains, the backbone of the continent. At the second day's camp the Indian hunter and guide, a Pend Oreille furnished by Alexander, brought in a fine string of mountain trout, and, not content with this, started out again, and soon returned with an elk, and after this the messes were rarely out of game,--elk, deer, antelope, and mountain trout. The trail followed up the Hell Gate and its chief tributary, the Big Blackfoot, the route of 1853, and crossed the divide by Lewis and Clark's Pass. From the summit the governor obtained a magnificent and beautiful view of the country about an hour before sunset, the main chain stretching far to the north, and the broad plains, broken by many streams and coulees, extending eastward as far as the eye could reach, like an illimitable sea. He spent the whole day, with Doty and Sohon, examining the approaches to the summit pass, and those to Cadotte's Pass, ten miles farther south, and determining altitudes and grades, and reached camp long after dark, well fatigued with the day's work. Throughout the expedition the governor was constantly examining the topographical features of the country. He would frequently ride ahead of the train, and, sitting on a log or on the ground, would write up his notes or journal until it came up. He was accustomed to start the train rather late in the morning, about eight o'clock, move at a steady, brisk walk, without stopping for noon rest or meal, and make camp early in the afternoon, and by this management plenty of time was afforded the animals to feed mornings and evenings. Twenty miles was the average day's journey, but thirty or forty miles were made with ease whenever expedient, as often happened. No better equipped or manned train ever traversed the plains and mountains. It always moved in fine order, without delays, confusion, or friction. A worn-down or sore-backed mule or horse was a rarity. At the first symptom of need of rest, a fresh animal from the loose herd relieved the distressed one. The packers worked in couples, each two packing and caring for ten pack-mules. The riding animals were picked Indian horses. The mules were of large American stock, mostly those of the exploration of 1853. Thorough discipline and the best feeling prevailed among the party. There was scarcely a quarrel during the whole nine months the expedition lasted. This judicious care of the animals was characteristic of the governor, and it is noticeable that on his arduous expeditions, though hard-worked and only grass-fed, they actually improved in condition,--a unique experience on the plains. Leaving behind the prairies, groves, and sparkling, rippling streams of the mountain plateau, the party entered upon the vast rolling plains, gray and arid, and, traveling over them one hundred and thirty miles, camping one night on the Dearborn River, one on the Sun, and three on the Teton, reached the vicinity of Fort Benton on the fifth day, and went into camp on the last-named river four miles from the fort. The governor, riding ahead, reached it a day sooner, on the 26th, and was disappointed in not finding or hearing from his co-commissioner, Superintendent Alfred Cumming. During this march the party were rarely out of sight of game. Large herds of graceful, fleet antelopes would come scouring across the plains, and circle around the slowly moving train, now abruptly halting to gaze with erect heads and distended eyes at the strange procession, and now dashing on again in full career, and presently, their curiosity satisfied, turning away and scampering out of sight. Deer and elk were constantly seen by the river banks and under the cottonwood groves. Buffalo trails crossed the country in every direction, and their skulls and bones were frequent. Thus far the party followed well-marked trails, but on entering the plains the guide directed his course by some distant butte or landmark, or by the sun, for there was no trail leading in a given course, and the buffalo trails lacing the plains in every direction were very misleading. The plains were covered with the short, fine, curly buffalo grass, very different from the luxuriant, waving bunch grass of the Columbia, but equally nutritious. Learning of Mr. Cumming's approach, the governor, accompanied by Doty and Sohon and a small party, made a three days' trip to Milk River, August 11-13, a distance of eighty miles, where the commissioners met and formally organized the commission, appointing Mr. Doty secretary, and Mr. H. Kennedy, who came with Mr. Cumming, assistant secretary, and returned together to Fort Benton. The governor was seriously concerned to learn that the treaty goods and supplies were greatly delayed. Commissioner Cumming had been specially charged with the duty of transporting them to Fort Benton; but under his dilatory management the steamboat, which carried them with himself up the Missouri, did not reach Fort Union until late in the season, and, instead of continuing up the river as far as possible, discharged her cargo and returned to St. Louis. The goods were then loaded into boats, which were now slowly proceeding up the river by cordeling, or towing by a force of men walking along the bank and pulling on a long tow-rope. This unexpected and inexcusable delay seriously imperiled the holding of the council. Governor Stevens had brought with him only sufficient supplies to carry his small party to Fort Benton, expecting to find there ample stores sent up by the government under charge of Cumming. The western Indians, who at his invitation had come so far to attend the council, could not find subsistence for a long wait; and it was necessary for them, as well as for the governor and party, to start home before winter set in and blocked the return journey. The great numbers of the Blackfeet made it difficult to keep them in hand and assemble them late in the season, for they were accustomed, and indeed were obliged, to spread over a wide territory in order to hunt buffalo, and lay in their winter robes, lodge-skins, and food. While in Washington the preceding summer Governor Stevens had urged upon the Indian Department the importance of the early arrival of the goods at Fort Benton, and on reaching Olympia in December, repeated his recommendations in writing. Moreover, he wrote a personal letter to the President urging the necessity of having a steamer start with them at the earliest moment in the spring, and push up the Missouri above Fort Union as far as possible, and especially recommended that a boat be chartered expressly for the trip. He added a prophetic caution, or warning, against relying upon the American Fur Company to transport the goods, as they could not be depended upon to make the necessary early start and vigorous push up the river, which would entail some extra expense and risk, but would surely pursue their usual methods, and in the end sacrifice the public interests to their own. Notwithstanding these wise and urgent recommendations, the whole matter was left to Cumming, who late in the spring wrote the commissioner, proposing that the council be postponed to another year. Being thereupon informed that Governor Stevens was probably already on his way with the western Indians too far to be recalled, and instructed to proceed, he contracted with the fur company to transport the goods, with the predicted result. In this and other ways he manifested a perfect willingness to play into the hands of the fur company, a willingness which, whatever the motive, affords the only rational explanation of this transaction, of his entire indifference to the success of the council, and of his opposition to making adequate provision in the way of farms and annuities for civilizing the Indians. Of course, the American Fur Company, like the Hudson Bay Company, was averse to having its trade impaired and eventually destroyed by the government's giving goods to, and civilizing, the Indians. At the governor's instance, messengers were immediately dispatched to the boats to ascertain how long before they would probably arrive, and to the different bands of Indians to advise them that they must wait longer than was expected, and to ascertain and regulate their movements, so that they might readily reach the council ground when notified, and meantime find sufficient buffalo and other game to support them. Provisions for his own party, now nearly out, were sought at the fort, but the traders were also destitute, not having yet received their annual supply from below, and could furnish nothing but a few hundred pounds of old jerked buffalo meat, exactly like worn-out boot-leather in appearance,--so black, dry, tough, and dirty was it. It seems that all the jerked meat, when first obtained, was piled up loose in one of the store-rooms, and free access to it given the cooks and Indian wives of the employees. They naturally picked out the best first, so that, after the winter's use, only the dryest and toughest pieces and scraps remained. However, two parfleches of pemmican of one hundred pounds each were found among the goods left by the exploring party two years before. This pemmican was put up by the Red River half-breeds, and consisted of jerked buffalo meat pounded fine and mixed with buffalo fat and dried berries, and then packed in large bags of rawhide called parfleches. It had become so hardened by age that it had to be chopped out of the parfleches with an axe, but it was perfectly sweet and good, and afforded a very palatable and nourishing hash. The governor now fitted out a hunting party under Hugh Robie, with a pack-train, and sent them with a party of Gros Ventre Indians to the Judith River, some eighty miles south of the fort, after buffalo. These noble game animals were found there in great numbers and very fat. The hunters, white and red, killed hundreds of them, stripping off the hides and flesh, which they brought into camp, where the squaws jerked the meat by cutting it into thin slices and strips and drying it on scaffolds in the sun, and dressed the skins for lodges. In three weeks Robie and his party returned with his pack-mules and riding animals loaded down with fat, juicy buffalo meat,--a two months' supply for the whole party. Metsic, an Indian hunter, was kept busy hunting in the vicinity of the fort, and brought in many deer and antelope, and small parties were from time to time sent to the Citadel Rock, a noted landmark twenty miles down the river, after bighorn, which were so abundant there that the hunters would load their animals in a day's hunt. The governor was desirous that his son should see and experience all the aspects of the trip, and believed in throwing a boy on his own resources, without too close supervision, as the proper way of developing his judgment and capacity; so Hazard, who was now well hardened to riding and the fatigues of the field, and sufficiently adventurous, accompanied the buffalo and big-horn hunting parties. There was no danger of starving, but the governor remarks:-- "As we had very little bread, sugar, or coffee, the bighorn of Citadel Rock were exceedingly delightful as an article of food, and are generally preferred by the mountain men to any other game except buffalo; so between buffalo, bighorn, and the smaller game we fared very well. The parties who extended our information of the country in conveying messages to the Indians, etc., invariably lived either on the dried meat they took with them, or on the game which they killed from day to day. They had no flour, no sugar, no coffee, and yet there was not a word of complaint from one of them; but we made it the subject of a good deal of merriment when we were able to reach the boats and have a sufficiency of those articles which in civilized life are deemed indispensable to comfort." Meanwhile the Indians were all well in hand, ready and anxious for the council, which nothing delayed but the unfortunate backwardness of the boats. The Blackfeet were mostly north of the Missouri, the western Indians south of it, and the governor by his expresses kept himself informed of and guided their movements. The reports from the agents with the latter were especially encouraging. The Nez Perces, 108 lodges; Flatheads and Pend Oreilles, 68 lodges; and 40 lodges of the Snakes, numbering all told 216 lodges, or over 2000 souls,--were in one camp on the Muscle Shell River, awaiting the call to the council. The whole camp of the Gros Ventres, and Low Horn's band of the Piegans of 54 lodges, were in the vicinity. The hereditary enemies were visiting and hunting together on most friendly terms, their minds all attuned to peace and friendship, and all anxious for the council. An incident now occurred well calculated to test the good faith of the Blackfeet. When making arrangements in the Bitter Root valley for the western Indians to attend the council, and they had objected that the Blackfeet would steal their horses, Governor Stevens assured them of his belief that the Blackfeet would receive them with kindness and hospitality, using this expression: "I guarantee that when you pull in your lariat in the morning, you will find a horse at the end of it." Relying on his assurance, four young Pend Oreille braves visited the governor at Fort Benton, and on his invitation turned their horses into his band, which grazed two miles above the fort. Next morning they were gone. Two young warriors of the northern Blackfeet had picked them out from over a hundred animals, and made off with them. The governor immediately put Little Dog, a prominent chief of the Bloods, to search for the trail of the raiders, and at the same time dispatched Doty with one attendant and a guide to the northern camps, judging that the thieves would seek refuge in that quarter. Little Dog returned unsuccessful, not finding a hoof-print of the missing horses in one hundred miles and thirty hours' hard riding, and was sent north to follow Doty. The latter pushed on fifty miles a day for two hundred and thirty miles to Bow River in British territory, a tributary of the Saskatchewan, where he struck a large Blackfoot camp only two hours after the arrival there of the stolen horses. He immediately called together the chiefs, and demanded the surrender of the animals. The head chief, Lame Bull, returned three of them, but stated that one of the scamps had gotten off with the fourth. He expressed great regret at the theft, and offered two of his own horses in place of the one not recovered. Doty placed the rescued animals in charge of Little Dog, who had overtaken him, and resuming the pursuit of the remaining one, rode seventy miles to Elk River, another branch of the Saskatchewan, where he found another large camp of Blackfeet, and where the chief, Bull's Head, delivered to him the last horse with expressions of regret at the misconduct of his young men, and the offer of another horse by way of amends. On the sixteenth day after the horses were taken they were returned to the Pend Oreille braves at the fort. This was the first and last instance of horse-stealing by the Blackfeet pending the council, and afforded most gratifying proof of their good faith. Thus a depredation which might have led to disastrous results was made the means of demonstrating the sincerity and strengthening the friendship of the Indians. All these Indians professed great willingness to make friends with the western tribes and the Crows, and agreed to meet them at the council and conclude a treaty. They arranged with Mr. Doty to so direct their movements as to bring them within reach of Fort Benton at the proper time. He also secured James Bird as interpreter, an intelligent half-breed, said to be the best interpreter in the country, who was then visiting Low Horn's band. On August 27 Pearson arrived with letters from Olympia, and reported that everything was quiet and favorable west of the mountains, and that many miners and settlers were going into the upper country, gold having recently been discovered on the Columbia, near Colville. "Pearson rode seventeen hundred and fifty miles by the route he took from the Bitter Root valley to Olympia, and back to Benton, in twenty-eight days, during some of which he did not travel. He was less than three days going from Fort Owen to Fort Benton, a distance, by the route he pursued, of some two hundred and sixty miles, which he traveled without a change of animals, having no food but the berries of the country, except a little fish, which he killed on Travelers' Rest Creek of Lewis and Clark on the morning of starting from Fort Owen, which served him for a single meal," as the governor says in his final report. On his trips Pearson usually drove two extra horses ahead of him, and, when the one he was riding became tired, changed his saddle to a fresh one. He could "ride anything that wore hair," and was equally expert with the lariat which he carried at the horn of his saddle. He always contrived, too, to procure fresh horses at certain points on his long trips, as at Walla Walla, Lapwai, and the Bitter Root valley, sometimes having previously left them, and sometimes by trading with the Indians. Imagine this little man of steel, insensible to cold, hunger, and fatigue, galloping like a centaur, day after day, across the vast, lonely plains, driving before him his two loose horses! The messenger dispatched to the boats returned with the report that they would probably reach the mouth of the Judith in twenty days, and Fort Benton in thirty or thirty-five, or on the 5th to the 10th of October. The governor proposed that one of the boats be loaded with the most necessary goods and forced up faster by an extra crew, in order to hasten the opening of the council, leaving the others to follow; but Commissioner Cumming refused to consent to this expedient. He was a large, portly man, pompous, and full of his own importance, and having been named first as commissioner, and charged with bringing up the goods and the disbursements for the council, now attempted to arrogate to himself practically sole and exclusive authority. He even attempted to dismiss Doty as secretary, and claimed the right to appoint all the officers for the council; and this was the more unreasonable because he had not brought with him a single efficient man, and the whole work of holding and collecting the Indians, furnishing interpreters, and in short carrying the council through successfully, had to be done, and was done, by Governor Stevens and the trained force he had provided for the purpose. But the governor firmly insisted that nothing could be done except by the act of the commission; sternly informed his colleague that he would not permit him to repudiate his own action in organizing it, appointing the secretary, etc.; submitted a series of rules regulating its proceedings, and required all official communications between them to be in writing and made a matter of record. Under this firm and decided treatment Cumming was forced to abate his pretensions and subside into his proper place; but he opposed most of the governor's suggestions, disagreed with him on all points, and exhibited a degree of arrogance, ignorance, and childish petulance hard to be believed, were they not so plainly shown by the official record. In framing the treaty the governor proposed that farms be opened for the Blackfeet on the upper waters of the Sun River, and that $50,000 a year be allowed the Indians for twenty years, the greater part to be expended in carrying on the farms, instructing the Indians, etc. This amount was authorized by their instructions, and did not seem very extravagant for teaching twelve thousand Indians the ways of civilization, and leading them to abandon their life-long hostilities and predatory raids, being only about four dollars per capita. But Cumming flatly refused to agree to more than $35,000, and objected to the farms as "affording opportunities for speculating under the guise of philanthropy." As the Blackfeet were within his superintendency, this was really a reflection upon himself and his agents not intended by the self-sufficient official. The commissioners were instructed to report generally on the Indians and the country. Cumming stigmatized the Blackfeet as utter savages, bloodthirsty and depraved, and declared that they would use goods that might be furnished them as the means of buying rum at the British trading-posts, and, therefore, that annuities of goods, etc., would only aid in demoralizing them. As to the country, he adopted, _con amore_, the Jefferson Davis theory, asserting that "it is a vast and sterile region, which could not sustain the animals required for even a limited emigration, and altogether unfitted for cultivation. Every part of this barren region must forever be closed against all modern improvements in the way of transportation, with the exception of the Missouri River." He was as unable to appreciate the philanthropic views of Governor Stevens, and his earnest desire to improve the Indians, as he was ignorant of them and of the country. The governor's views are given at length, and have been remarkably sustained by the subsequent settlement of the country. The following extracts will be found interesting, particularly his calculation that a million and a half buffalo grazed over the region:-- "It is in the main an exceedingly fine grazing country, of great salubrity of climate, much arable land of good quality, with abundant cottonwood on the streams, and many localities abound in pine of the finest quality. A portion of the country is scantily watered, but not seriously to affect its capabilities as a grazing country, or to interfere with emigration. At the base of the mountains, throughout nearly the whole length of the Blackfoot country, the soil is good, in many places exceedingly rich, and the grasses abundant and of the finest quality. At the heads of Milk and Marias rivers, and at the heads of all the southern tributaries of the south branch of the Saskatchewan, between latitudes 48° 30´ and 49°, there are abundant forests of pine, large tracts of arable land, and lakes well stocked with fish. On the Highwood alone, there are at least fifteen thousand acres of arable land. "So far from this country not being able to supply the wants of even a limited emigration, an emigration could not possibly take place which would exhaust its capabilities. "The quantities of buffalo which these plains subsist, not to take into account the vast herds of elk, deer, bighorn, antelope, and other game, will alone carry conviction that the territory inhabited by the Blackfeet is a good grazing country. "The Blackfeet live almost exclusively on the buffalo. They number above ten thousand souls. They make twenty thousand robes a year. They require nearly twenty thousand skins for their renewal of lodges annually and other purposes. All these are the skins of cows. For several months they live entirely on bulls, and many bulls are killed at all seasons of the year. Making the proper allowance for animals that die of disease, are killed by wolves, or other causes, and for the known improvidence of Indians, it is believed that one hundred and fifty thousand buffalo of three years old and upward are required each year to subsist, clothe, and house these Indians. This number must be added each year to the herds of grown animals to prevent a decrease. Estimating that three quarters of the cows bear young, and that one half of these come to maturity, eight hundred thousand buffalo of and above three years, and one million and a half buffalo of all ages must be roaming on these plains to enable the Indians to live. Yet, on a large portion of this region the grass is hardly touched from one year's end to another. "The whole of the Gros Ventres and nearly three fourths of the Piegans, Bloods, and Blackfeet winter on the Milk, Marias, and Teton, finding subsistence for their animals in the bottoms, and food from the buffalo which frequent the groves of cottonwood. "THE CHARACTER OF THE BLACKFEET. "They are called savages, yet their four tribes have lived together many years on terms of amity, making war only on the neighboring tribes. The chiefs, who promised the undersigned two years' since to use their influence to prevent their people from warring on the neighboring tribes, have been true to their word, and have in some cases incurred the displeasure of their wild young men for their persistency. These chiefs, and all the Blackfoot chiefs, have sent word to their hereditary enemies, the Flatheads, the Nez Perces, and the Crows: 'Come to the council without fear. Your persons and your horses shall be under our protection, and if a horse be taken by some of our wild young men, his place shall at once be made good.' The undersigned looks forward to no disturbance at the council, for he believes the Blackfeet will keep their word. "The Blackfeet have expressed a strong desire for farms, schools, mills, and shops. They are quick to learn, have a great curiosity to handle tools and implements, and are excellent herders of animals. The women are proverbially industrious, many of them expert in the use of the needle, and persons of both sexes seem to fall readily into the ways of the whites." FOOTNOTES: [9] Now occupied by the thriving town, Missoula. CHAPTER XXXIII THE BLACKFOOT COUNCIL By his careful preparation for two years, and masterly handling of them, Governor Stevens brought and kept these various tribes of Indians within easy distance of Fort Benton, all ready and anxious for the council, and in the most friendly and favorable state of feeling, during the whole month of August and half of September, fully six weeks. Had the goods arrived at any time during this waiting period, not less than 12,000 Indians would have attended the council, comprising 10,000 Blackfeet, 1100 Nez Perces, 700 Flatheads and Pend Oreilles, and 400 Snakes, the western Indians numbering 2200. But it now became impossible for the latter to remain longer on the Muscle Shell and Judith, for lack of game. The buffalo had disappeared. The grass was drying up. No day could yet be fixed for the council in the uncertainty of the arrival of the boats. On September 8 the Nez Perce camp of one hundred and three lodges, in charge of agent Tappan, was obliged to start southward for the Yellowstone, hoping to find buffalo. Tappan wrote that, unless the council was held within three weeks, not twelve Nez Perces would be able to attend it. Eagle-from-the-Light and other chiefs, with several lodges, joined the Flathead camp in order not to miss the council. But on September 10 agent Adams reported that the Flatheads might in twelve or fourteen days be obliged, also, to go to the Yellowstone for food. The Snake camp also moved to the same region for the same cause. In compliance with his instructions, Adams made a trip to the Yellowstone in search of the Crows, and descended it to a point below the Big Horn River, where he met Tappan with some Nez Perces on the same quest. But these Indians could not be found. It was reported that, in consequence of the measles having broken out among them and many having died, they had scattered, a part going down the river and part taking to the mountains. To prevent, if possible, the failure of the whole council undertaking, now imminent, the governor dispatched Packmaster Higgins with a few picked men to visit both camps, and notify them that October 3, or a few days later, was fixed for holding the council, and directing them to move to the vicinity of Fort Benton, and to find camps on the Shantier and Highwood creeks. Mr. Tappan was also instructed to secure, if possible, the attendance of the principal Crow chiefs. On the fourth day out Higgins met Adams and Tappan returning to Fort Benton, despairing of the council, but the former hastened back to the Flatheads with the new orders, while Tappan joined Higgins, and, with Craig, Delaware Jim, and the voyageur Legare, pushed across the country and struck the Nez Perce camp high up on the Yellowstone. Although none of the party had ever passed over this part of the country before, Delaware Jim was so thoroughly conversant with the Yellowstone country and the upper Missouri, and certain mountain heights flanking the route, that he actually guided them on an air-line, and struck the looked-for camp without making a detour of a mile on the course, and that, too, traveling fifty miles a day. As the result of this prompt and decided action, Adams reached Fort Benton October 3, and reported that Victor's whole camp would soon be on the Judith, and that Victor himself, leaving his camp there, would come with his chiefs and principal men to Fort Benton to attend the council. On the 5th Higgins and Tappan arrived, and at noon next day a large delegation of Nez Perce chiefs, under charge of Craig, also came in, but did not bring the large numbers in their camp, for fear they could not find sufficient game to feed them. Tappan was unable to learn anything of the Crows except the report already mentioned. The Snakes, too, had gone beyond reach, and could not be summoned. In the mean time the northern bands of the Blackfeet, in accordance with the programme arranged by Mr. Doty, had been moving down, and were now all on the Teton and Marias rivers. The Gros Ventres were on Milk River. Low Horn's and Little Gray Head's bands of the Piegans were on the Honkee. Alexander, the Pend Oreille chief's camp, was established on the Highwood. The buffalo were in great numbers between the Marias and Milk, and herds of them were coming within twenty miles of Fort Benton. "The arrival of the Nez Perces," says the governor, "brought all the Indians within the direct purview of the commission, and the most remote camps, those of the Flatheads and Gros Ventres, could be reached in a single day." These two camps were some seventy-five miles distant each, in different directions, and the area within which the Indians were now brought was little less than the State of Massachusetts, not counting the large Nez Perce camp on the Yellowstone. Even yet the boats had not reached the Judith, could not reach it probably before the 8th, thirty-seven days from the Muscle Shell, instead of twenty as promised. It would require twenty-five days longer to drag them up the river another hundred miles to Fort Benton. The Blackfeet and the western Indians had now been freely mingling together for several days, and it was important that their present favorable disposition should be availed of. Accordingly Governor Stevens proposed to hold the council on the mouth of the Judith, and upon his urgency and arguments it was so decided on the evening of the 5th, the day the Nez Perce chiefs arrived, and the 13th was fixed as the time. The necessary measures to assemble the Indians at that point were devolved upon the governor as usual, and also to notify the boats to stop and unload there. By the 7th all the camps were notified, the Flatheads being already on the appointed ground, and most of the chiefs conferred with the governor in person, who, during these days, held a constant levee in his camp at the fort. The northern camps, however, were unwilling to move seventy miles farther than they expected, with their large supplies of meat recently taken, and it was decided that the chiefs, with a portion of their people, should attend, leaving the main camps undisturbed. The governor relates the following incident:-- "My son Hazard, thirteen years of age, had accompanied me from Olympia to the waters of the Missouri. Like all youths of that age, he was always ready for the saddle, and had spent some days with one of my hunting parties on the Judith, where he had become well acquainted with the Gros Ventres. When we determined to change the council from Fort Benton to the mouth of the Judith, I undertook the duty of seeing the necessary messages sent to the various bands and tribes, and to bring them all to the mouth of the Judith at the proper moment. These Indians were scattered from Milk River, near Hammell's Houses, along the Marias, along the Teton, to a considerable distance south of the Missouri, the Flatheads being on the Judith, and the Pend Oreilles on Smith's Fork of the Missouri, with two bands of the Blackfeet lying somewhat intermediate, but in the vicinity of the Girdle Mountain. I succeeded in securing the services of a fit and reliable man for each one of these bands and tribes, except the Gros Ventres, camped on Milk River. There were several men, who had considerable experience among Indians and in voyageuring, who desired to go, but I had not confidence in them, and accordingly, at ten o'clock on Sunday morning, I started my little son as a messenger to the Gros Ventres. Accompanied by the interpreter, Legare, he made that Gros Ventre camp before dark, a distance of seventy-five miles, and gave his message the same evening to the chiefs, and without changing horses they were in the saddle early in the morning, and reached my camp at half past three o'clock. Thus a youth of thirteen traveled one hundred and fifty measured miles from ten o'clock of one day to half past three o'clock in the afternoon of the next. The Gros Ventres made their marches exactly as I had desired, and reached the new council ground at the mouth of the Judith the very morning which had been appointed. "I doubt whether such an express service as we were obliged to employ at Fort Benton to keep the Indians in hand was ever employed in this country with the same means. Many of our animals, which had done service all the way from the Dalles, traveled at express rates more than a thousand miles before we started on our return from Fort Benton. Many of our mules traveled from seven to eight hundred miles with packs in going to the boats for provisions and to the hunting grounds for meat; and yet, after our treaty was concluded and we were ready to move home, we were able to make very good rates with these same animals, although the season was so late as November." To realize the remarkable extent and efficiency of this express service, bear in mind Doty's trip to Bow River, three hundred miles north of Fort Benton; Tappan's and Adams's and Higgins's to the Yellowstone, two hundred miles southeast; and the expresses down the river to the boats, one hundred and fifty miles; not to speak of Pearson's trip to Olympia, one thousand miles. It was as though one in New York, without telegraphs, railroads, or mails, had to regulate by pony express the movements of bands of Indians at Boston, Portland, Montreal, Buffalo, and Washington. After spending four days in conferences with the chiefs, explaining the reasons for changing the council ground, etc., the governor broke camp on the 10th, and on the next day, Thursday, reached the point where the boats were unloading, a mile below the mouth of the Judith, selected and prepared the council ground, and received and assigned to their camps the Indians as they arrived. His colleague descended the river in a skiff, and did not arrive until the following Saturday. By Monday all the Indians had assembled, and numbered thirty-five hundred. On Tuesday Governor Stevens formally opened the council. The Indians, as usual on such occasions, "reposed on the bosom of their mother," that is, sat on the ground in semicircular rows, twenty-six principal chiefs in the first row, lesser chiefs in succeeding rows, and the rank and file in the rear. The governor administered the oath to the interpreters to translate truly, having first inquired of the Indians if they were satisfied with them and received an affirmative reply. [Illustration: THE BLACKFOOT COUNCIL] Governor Stevens said:-- "My children, my heart is glad to-day. I see Indians east of the mountains and Indians west of the mountains sitting here as friends, Bloods, Blackfeet, Piegans, Gros Ventres, and Nez Perces, Koo-te-nays, Pend Oreilles, Flatheads; and we have the Cree chief sitting down here from the north and east, and Snakes farther from the west. There is peace now between you all here present. We want peace also with absent tribes, with the Crees and Assiniboines, with the Snakes, and, yes, even with the Crows. You have all sent your message to the Crows, telling them you would meet them in friendship here. The Crows were far, and could not be present, but we expect you to promise to be friends with the Crows. "It was Low Horn who, two years since, said to me, 'Peace with the Flatheads and Nez Perces.' The Little Dog, Little Gray Head, and all the Blackfoot chiefs said, 'Peace with them; come and meet us in council,' and here they are. Here you see them face to face. I met them the same year. I told them your words. They said, 'Peace also with the Blackfeet.' And the Great Father has said, 'Peace with the Crees and Assiniboines, the Crows, and all neighboring tribes.' "I shall say nothing about peace with the white man. No white man enters a Blackfoot or a western Indian's lodge without being treated to the very best. Peace already prevails. We trust such will continue to be the case forever. We have been traveling over your whole country, both to the east and west of the mountains, in small parties, ranging away north to Bow River, and south to the Yellowstone. We have kept no guard. We have not tied up our horses. All has been safe. Therefore I say peace has been, is now, and will continue, between these Indians and the white man." The treaty was then read to them, after which the governor went over its provisions, explaining them, etc. The council lasted three days. The best feeling prevailed, all the chiefs making earnest and sincere speeches in favor of peace, contrasting the advantages of hunting in safety and trading between the tribes with the continual losses of their young braves and the steady decline in numbers from perpetual war, although some of them expressed doubts as to restraining the ambitious young warriors. Only one passing shadow was cast over the assemblage, and that but for a moment. The treaty made all the country south of the Missouri a common hunting ground for all the tribes, while the country north of the river was to be reserved to the Blackfeet for hunting purposes, although open to the western Indians for trading and visiting. To this restriction Alexander, the Pend Oreille chief, demurred. Said he:-- "A long time ago this country belonged to our ancestors, and the Blackfeet lived far north. We Indians were all well pleased when we came together here in friendship. Now you point us out a little piece of land to hunt our game in. When we were enemies I always crossed over there, and why should I not now when we are friends? Now I have two hearts about it. What is the reason? Which of these chiefs [pointing to the Blackfeet] says we are not to go there? Which is the one?" The Little Dog, a Piegan chief: "It is I, and not because we have anything against you. We are friendly, but the north Blackfeet might make a quarrel if you hunted near them. Do not put yourself in their way." On Alexander's insisting, the Little Dog said:-- "Since he speaks so much of it, we will give him liberty to come out in the north." Alexander's contention will be better understood by considering the fact that his country, on the Flathead River and Clark's Fork, lies directly opposite the region of the upper Marias, and that by going directly east across the mountains through the Marias Pass he could reach buffalo in a short trip, while the journey to the plains south of the Missouri was a much longer one. On the last day the commissioners and the chiefs and headmen of all the tribes present signed the treaty amid the greatest satisfaction and good feeling. During the next three days, October 18-20, the presents were distributed, and coats and medals were presented to the chiefs, with speeches by the commissioners, exhorting them to keep their promises to their Great Father, and control their young braves. The several tribes fraternized most amicably throughout all these proceedings, particularly the Flatheads and Gros Ventres,--who had hunted together and exchanged friendly visits for many weeks on the Muscle Shell,--the Nez Perces and Piegans, and the Bloods and Pend Oreilles. Though the Crows were not present, the Indians pledged themselves not to war upon them, nor upon any of the neighboring tribes. The officers of this council were: Isaac I. Stevens and Alfred Cumming, commissioners; James Doty, secretary; Thomas Adams and A.J. Vaughan, reporters. The interpreters were: James Bird, A. Culbertson, and M. Roche, for the Blackfeet; Benjamin Kiser, G. Sohon, for the Flatheads; William Craig, Delaware Jim, for the Nez Perces. [Illustration: STAR ROBE THE RIDER HEAVY SHIELD LAME BULL BLACKFOOT CHIEFS] The treaty was much more than a treaty of peace as far as the Blackfeet were concerned, for it gave them schools, farms, agricultural implements, etc., and an agent, and annuities of $35,000 for ten years, of which $15,000 was devoted to educating them in agriculture and to teaching the children. At the last moment the governor induced Cumming to agree to a clause empowering the President and Senate to increase the annuities $15,000 more, if the amount fixed in the treaty was deemed insufficient. It contained the usual provision prohibiting intoxicating liquor. The extensive region between the Missouri and Yellowstone was made the common hunting ground of all the tribes. All agreed to maintain peace with each other, including those tribes that were unable to be present, the Crows, Crees, Assiniboines, and Snakes. The treaty was made obligatory on the Indians from their signing it, and on the United States from its ratification, which occurred the next spring, and it was duly proclaimed by the President on April 25, 1856. The tribes actually parties to this treaty numbered, by the commissioners' calculation, Blackfeet, 11,500; Nez Perces, 2500; Flathead nation, 2000; total 16,000. Nearly all of their chiefs and principal men attended the council and signed the treaty. The peace made at this council was observed with gratifying fidelity in the main. The Blackfeet ceased their incessant and bloody raids, and met their former enemies on friendly terms upon the common hunting grounds. Within a few years, in 1862-63, large white settlements sprang up on the headwaters of the Missouri, but they were spared the horrors and sufferings of Indian warfare with so powerful a tribe largely in consequence of this treaty. The council, which Governor Stevens planned and carried out with such foresight, sagacity, and indefatigable exertions during two years, bore fruit at last in the perpetual peace he hoped for and predicted. Few treaties with Indians have been so well observed by them as this by the "bloodthirsty" Blackfeet. They took no part in the great Sioux wars, nor in the outbreak of Joseph. They were afterwards gathered together on a large reservation, including the country about the Sun River, where the governor proposed to establish their farms. The council ground was a wide, level plain covered with a noble grove of huge cottonwoods. It was on the left bank of the Missouri, nearly opposite but below the mouth of the Judith. This stream was also bordered by broad bottoms, which were covered with large sage-brush, and fairly swarming with deer. The governor's camp was pitched under the lofty cottonwoods, and lower down was the camp of the crew of men who had dragged the boats up the river. They were a hundred strong, mostly Germans, having many fine voices among them, and were fond of spending the evenings in singing. The effect of their grand choruses, pealing forth over the river and resounding among the lofty trees, was magnificent. In the governor's camp an unusually large Indian lodge--a great cone of poles covered with dressed and smoke-stained buffalo skins--was erected and used as an office tent, where the records were copied and smaller conferences held. Every night between eleven and twelve, when the work of the day was concluded, the governor would call in the gentlemen of the party, a few chiefs, and some of the interpreters, and have a real Homeric feast of buffalo ribs, flapjacks with melted sugar, and hot coffee. Whole sides of ribs would be brought in, smoking-hot from the fire, and passed around, and each guest would cut off a rib for himself with his hunting knife, and sit there holding the huge dainty, three feet long, and tearing off the juicy and delicious meat with teeth and knife, principally the former. No description can convey an idea of the hearty zest and relish and enjoyment, or the keen appetites, with which they met at these hospitable repasts, and recounted the varied adventures and experiences of their recent trips, or listened as Craig, Delaware Jim, or Ben Kiser related some thrilling tale of trapper days, or desperate fight with Indian or grizzly bear. [Illustration: TAT-TU-YE, THE FOX _Chief of the Blood Indians_] [Illustration: MEK-YA-PY, RED DYE _Piegan Warrior_] The other commissioner did not grace these reunions with his presence. Chafing at the constraint put upon him, and the secondary part which he could not help taking, despite all his pretensions, he kept his quarters on one of the boats, and relieved his mind by refusing to recommend the allowance of the governor's accounts for the extra expenses necessarily incurred by the two months' delay, the result of his own inefficiency; refused to allow Mr. Doty more than five dollars a day for his services as secretary, which pitiful stipend he took pains to call "wages;" and among other grievances complained that Governor Stevens had insinuated that he, Cumming, had shown a disposition to repudiate his own acts done in commission,--all this gravely set forth in official communications addressed to the Secretary, and made part of the record. This was too much for the governor's patience, and he replied:-- "The undersigned has made no such intimation. On the contrary, in his communications to the commission he has demonstrated that Commissioner Cumming had repudiated his own act, and used every exertion to usurp the rights and powers of the commission, and reduce the undersigned to the position of a subordinate. Fortunately for the dignity of the commission and the success of the treaty, this attempt was most successfully resisted, and Commissioner Cumming was compelled to surrender his claims. Commissioner Stevens has no grievance for which he asks redress from the Department of the Interior. He has protected his own rights here." In the joint report forwarding the treaty, prepared like all the official papers by Governor Stevens, he states the disagreements between the commissioners on nearly every point, and adds:-- "So utterly at variance have been their views that it has only been with great difficulty that a concert of action has been effected at all." The governor's last official communication to the secretary of the commission fitly expressed his indignation at the action of the department in naming Cumming first on the commission:-- "The undersigned solemnly protests against the instructions of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs placing the name of Commissioner Cumming first on the commission, and he appeals from said instructions to the President of the United States. "The undersigned was, in his opinion, entitled to be placed first, and for the following reasons:-- "1. He originated the Blackfoot council, prepared the Indians on both sides of the mountains for it, and, for all practical purposes, has been the superintendent of all these tribes since he explored the country in 1853. He has appointed special agents for the Blackfeet, distributed goods and provisions among them, and in other ways has by authority of the Interior Department had the administrative charge of these tribes. "2. He was the senior officer by date of priority of commission. "3. He was better fitted, by experience and adaptation to the duties, to take a prominent part in the negotiations, and he fearlessly refers to the official record to show that the success of the treaty is mainly due to his previous labors, his forecast in bringing the necessary force to the theatre of the principal operations, and to the vigilance, energy, and force of character which he has exhibited throughout, and that thus was redressed the wrong which otherwise would have been done to the public service, and injury to the reputation and services of the undersigned, by placing his name second on the commission." [Illustration: JAMES BIRD DELAWARE JIM COLONEL ALFRED CUMMING WILLIAM CRAIG ALEXANDER CULBERTSON COMMISSIONER CUMMING AND INTERPRETERS] With this parting shot the governor bade a heartfelt farewell to the pretentious incapable, who had so nearly wrecked the council, and added so much to his labors and perplexities. Cumming started down the river on one of the boats on the 23d. CHAPTER XXXIV CROSSING THE MOUNTAINS IN MIDWINTER.--SURPRISE OF THE C[OE]UR D'ALENES AND SPOKANES Having made a good riddance of his troublesome colleague, and seen the Indians depart their several ways with much hand-shaking and many expressions of goodwill and satisfaction, the governor and his little party packed up and started on the 24th, and reached Fort Benton the following day. Two days were spent here preparing for the long return journey across the mountains; for the animals were well worn by the hard express service of the summer, and it was necessary to lighten loads as much as possible. On October 28 the homeward start was made; the party moved over to and up the Teton, continued up that stream the 29th, and went into camp thirty-five miles from the fort. Supper was just over, and the men were gathering around the camp-fires, for the evening was frosty, when a lone horseman was discerned in the twilight slowly making his way over the plains towards the camp, and soon Pearson rode in, or rather staggered in, for his horse was utterly exhausted, and tottered as it walked. The eager men crowded around, and helped the wiry expressman from the saddle and supported him to a seat, for he was unable to stand, and his emaciated, wild, and haggard appearance bore witness to the hardships he had undergone. He delivered his dispatches, and, after being revived with food and warmth, was able to make his report, and surely one more fraught with astonishment and consternation for that little party on the lonely plains, a thousand miles from home, could not be imagined. The great tribes of the upper Columbia country, the Cuyuses, Yakimas, Walla Wallas, Umatillas, Palouses, and all the Oregon bands down to the Dalles, the very ones who had signed the treaties at the Walla Walla council and professed such friendship, had all broken out in open war. They had swept the upper country clean of whites, killing all the settlers and miners found there, and murdered agent Bolon under circumstances of peculiar atrocity. Major Haller, sent into the Yakima country with a hundred regulars and a howitzer, had been defeated and forced to retreat by Kam-i-ah-kan's warriors, with the loss of a third of his force and his cannon. The Indians west of the Cascades had also risen simultaneously, and laid waste the settlements on Puget Sound and in Oregon, showing that a widespread conspiracy prevailed. The Spokanes and Coeur d'Alenes were hostile, or soon would become hostile under the spur and taunts of the young Cuyuse and Yakima warriors sent among them to stir them up, and even some of the Nez Perces were disaffected. A thousand well-armed and brave hostile warriors under Kam-i-ah-kan, Pu-pu-mox-mox, Young Chief, and Five Crows were gathered in the Walla Walla valley, waiting to "wipe out" the party on its return; squads of young braves were visiting the Nez Perces, Spokanes, and Coeur d'Alenes, vaunting their victories, displaying fresh gory scalps, and using every effort to cajole or force them into hostility to the whites. The daring expressman's story of how he ran the gauntlet of the hostile tribes with the dispatches and information upon which depended the lives of the party heightened the impression made by his wretched appearance and doleful tidings. He left the Dalles on his return trip, fresh and well mounted, and, riding all day and night, reached Billy McKay's ranch on the Umatilla River at daylight, and stopped to get breakfast. The place was deserted. After eating he lassoed a fine powerful horse among a large band grazing near by, and after a hard struggle managed to saddle, bridle, and mount it. The steed was wild, and started off jumping stiff-legged. As Pearson rode from under the trees surrounding the house into the road, he saw a party of Indians racing down the hill into the valley, evidently on his trail, and heard their yells as they caught sight of him,--"Whup si-ah si-ah-poo! Whup si-ah!" "Kill the white man! Kill the white!"--and redoubled their speed in pursuit. His new mount proved of speed and bottom, and under whip and spur gave over his jumping for swift running. As he climbed the hill leading out of the valley on to the high plains and looked back, he again saw the red devils and heard their yells; and for mile after mile, from the top of every ridge and roll of the plains crossed by the trail, he would look back and see his pursuers, or the dust rising under the hoofs of their horses. But they could not lessen the distance between them; gradually they fell behind farther and farther, and at length were lost to sight. Pearson pushed his horse on all day as rapidly as it could stand without breaking down, and, when night fell, turned off the trail at right angles for several miles, then struck a course parallel to it, traveled all night, crossed the Walla Walla River and valley above the usual ford and crossings, and, having found a secluded depression in the plains beyond, stopped to rest and let his horse feed a couple of hours. Pushing on without further adventure, and exchanging his worn-out steed for a fresh one at Red Wolf's ground, he reached Lapwai the next day. Here he obtained a day's rest. Thus refreshed, and securing fresh horses and a young Nez Perce brave as guide, he started across the Bitter Root Mountains by the direct Nez Perce trail, the shortest but also the most rugged and elevated route, and at dark made camp high up in the mountains. That night a furious snowstorm set in. A tree fell and crushed his Indian companion. Pearson dragged his insensible body from beneath the tree, and said to himself, "Now the Nez Perces, too, will break out. They never will believe this buck's death was accidental. They will deem me his murderer, and always hunt my scalp after this." But to his great joy the young Indian came to his senses, and proved not to be seriously hurt. The storm raged three days; several feet of snow fell, too deep for horses to travel. When it ceased, Pearson sent the Indian back with the horses, and, packing his dispatches, blankets, and some dried meat on his back, continued across on snowshoes, which he had made during the storm, cutting the bows with his knife, and unraveling his lariat for the webs. The trail was hidden under the snow, but he guided his course largely by the marks of packs against the trees made by Indians who had crossed in winter. Struggling on in this manner for four days, he emerged upon the Bitter Root valley near Fort Owen, almost dead with fatigue and privation. Stopping only a few hours for rest, and procuring a good horse and equipments from the ever friendly Flatheads, he again took the saddle, and on the third day staggered into the governor's camp on the Teton. The dispatches fully corroborated Pearson's information. Among them were letters from Acting-Governor Mason, Colonel Simmons, Major Tilton, and others, warning the governor on no account to attempt to return home by the direct route across the mountains, and urging him to descend the Missouri and return by way of the Isthmus. He was assured that there were scarcely any troops in the country, that it was impossible to succor him, and equally impossible for him to get through so many hostile Indians, and that his only way of safety lay down the Missouri River. Governor Stevens's decision was instant and unwavering. It was to force his way back to his Territory by the direct route through all opposition and obstacles. He fully appreciated the perils and difficulties of the attempt, but his determination was unalterably fixed sternly to confront them all, and by a bold, decided course and rapid movements to force a passage through the hostile country and hostile savages. Doty was sent back to the fort the next morning for additional arms and ammunition. At noon the following day, October 31, leaving orders for Doty to follow with the train on his return from the fort, the governor, with Delaware Jim and Hugh Robie, his only companions, started for the Bitter Root valley, and reached Fort Owen in four and a half days, a distance of two hundred and thirty miles. Says the governor of this trip:-- "The first night we camped on Sun River, having made a distance of some twenty-nine miles from about noon to sundown. On the 1st of November we were in the saddle at early dawn, pushed towards Cadotte's Pass, between the Crown Butte and Rattlers, passed by the Bird Tail Rock, crossed the Dearborn, and went into camp four miles before reaching the divide, at a point which was the camp of Lieutenant Grover and Mr. Robie in their winter trip of 1854. This evening a snow came on about an hour before sundown, or we should have crossed the divide that night. The weather in the morning was clear and beautiful, but as we had no tent, we built up a large fire in order to dry ourselves, and got breakfast before leaving camp, and at half past eight we were on the road. There were some six or seven inches of snow on the ground, but the weather was extremely mild, and the snow was rapidly passing away. I went up the divide on the ravine north of the usual trail, and was able to find a very good route for our animals. There was little or no snow on the western slope of the divide; continuing down the Blackfoot valley five and one half miles, the snow was only an inch or two deep, and entirely passed away before we reached Lander's Fork. We halted on Lander's Fork for a few minutes to rest our animals; then, moving very rapidly through the Belly prairie and cañon, we came out on the large prairie of the Blackfoot at a little after dark, camping where I had camped with Lieutenant Donelson in 1853. The next day we were in the saddle early, and, moving over this prairie at a very rapid rate, ate breakfast at a point some eighteen miles from our morning's camp, and made our evening camp within about ten miles of the Hell Gate crossing to Fort Owen. The next day we reached Fort Owen, meeting at the crossing some Indians, by whom I was able to communicate with Dr. Lansdale. On our way to Fort Owen we met a Nez Perce delegation on their way home, and made arrangements to meet them at the crossing of Hell Gate, in order to confer about difficulties ahead. After waiting a day at Fort Owen, I moved down to and established my camp at Hell Gate, to await the arrival of Mr. Doty. Just before reaching the Dearborn River, Delaware Jim shot a deer, but on going up to it they were surprised to find a well-grown fawn lying dead beside it, killed by the same ballet as it stood beside and concealed by its mother." Many of the Flatheads came with Dr. Lansdale in response to the governor's summons to confer with him at this camp, and the conference with them and also with the Nez Perce chiefs was most satisfactory. In response to the governor's request to the latter that some of their number would accompany him, the whole delegation, fourteen in number, offered to do so, and declared their willingness to share any danger that might be encountered, and accordingly joined the party. Says the governor:-- "I was here able to gain no additional information of the condition of the Indian tribes between the Cascade Mountains and the Bitter Root, but the reports were that all were in arms except the Nez Perces, a large portion of whom were said to be disaffected, and some of them even hostile. I now purchased every good mule and horse I could get in this valley, for it was my determination to have my whole command in a position so that they could move rapidly and act promptly. The question was, What should be our route home? It was important, it seemed to me, to our success that we should be able to cross the mountains and throw ourselves into the nearest tribes without their having the slightest notice of our coming. I felt a strong assurance that, if I could bring this about, I could handle enough tribes, and conciliate the friendship of enough Indians, to be sufficiently strong to defy the rest. There would certainly be no difficulty from the snow down Clark's Fork; but it was known that the upper and lower Pend Oreille Indians were along the road, and no party could travel over it without its approach being communicated to the Indians; whereas Indian report had it that the Coeur d'Alene Pass was blocked up with snow at this season of the year, and I felt satisfied that they would not expect us on this route, and therefore I determined to move over it. It was the shorter route of the two; it was a route where I wished to make additional examinations; it was a route which enabled me to creep up, as it were, to the first Indian tribe, and then, moving rapidly, to jump upon them without their having time for preparation. I knew that Kam-i-ah-kan and Pu-pu-mox-mox had sent a body of warriors to cut off my party, and that we had to guard against falling into an ambush; but an Indian has not patience to wait many days for such a purpose, and I thought, looking to all these things, that the line of safety was to move over the Coeur d'Alene Pass." Mr. Doty arrived with the train on the 11th. At the camp on the Teton occurred the only death that befell the party during the expedition, that of H. Palmer, who died of a lingering and incurable malady, and was laid at rest on the lonely prairie by his warm-hearted and sorrowing companions. Three days more were spent after the arrival of the train in making necessary arrangements with Dr. Lansdale, who was placed in charge of the Flatheads as their agent, with Mr. Owen and the missionaries. [Illustration: CROSSING THE BITTER ROOTS IN MIDWINTER] Keeping his decision as to the route to himself, the governor allowed the report to become current that he would pursue the way by Pend Oreille Lake, and this was universally believed, because both Indians and mountain men pronounced the Coeur d'Alene impassable from snow so late in the season. Still further to throw any hostile spies or runners, who might be lurking about, off the scent, and prevent their carrying word ahead of him, the governor, on the first day's march, November 14, on reaching the forks, where the trails divided, took that by the Lake route, moved down it two miles, and went into camp. At earliest daylight the next morning the train was on the march, retraced its steps to the forks, and struck rapidly down the Coeur d'Alene trail a long distance, camping at the governor's camp ground of October 7, 8, two years before. Pushing on by forced marches, the Bitter Root River was crossed on the ice November 17, and the summit of the mountains on the 20th, where, for lack of grass, the half-famished animals had to be tied to trees all night. The snow was from three to six feet deep for a long distance, and would have proved a serious obstacle, had not a large party of Coeur d'Alene Indians crossed a fortnight before and beaten down a passable trail; but ten dead horses lying stiff and stark within a distance of eight miles showed how severely their animals had suffered in the passage. On this trip the governor adopted the plan of starting at daylight, moving rapidly for the day's march, and encamping early in the afternoon, thinking thus to give the animals the best opportunities for finding grass, now dry and scanty, but their only feed. The precision and rapidity with which the train packed up, started, and moved was astonishing. An hour before daylight the cooks were up and preparing breakfast; half an hour later the mules were driven up and the pack-saddles placed upon them, and the riding animals were also saddled; then breakfast, taking about twenty minutes; then the governor, watch in hand, would give the command to load, and in five minutes from the word every mule would be packed and the train moving out. The governor took great pride in this feat every morning, and the men entered into the spirit of it, strove to outdo themselves at every camp, and made the gain of half a minute in packing and starting the subject of talk and congratulation. The mules, by their perverse and vexatious conduct, arising from their invincible repugnance to water and cold, gave rise to many comical and diverting incidents. Dreading the icy water, they would hold back from plunging into the fords, and would seek a dryer way by going out on the skirt or points of ice which fringed the streams, only to have it give way and drop them into deeper water. They were continually getting off the narrow, beaten path in the snow, and floundering helpless in the fleecy material, and then half a dozen sturdy packers would unsling the packs, seize the unlucky mule by tail and ears, neck-rope and saddle, and haul him back on the trail by main strength. [Illustration: C[OE]UR D'ALENE MISSION] The party reached good grass the day after crossing the divide, and rested another day to allow the exhausted animals to fill up and recuperate. On the 23d a long march was made, and the party encamped twenty-six miles from the Coeur d'Alene Mission. From the appearance of everything around, the governor was satisfied that no Indian spies had yet observed his march. He deemed it impracticable to move the train to the mission in one day without breaking down the animals, yet he counted on taking the Indians there by surprise, thus giving them no opportunity to waylay his party if they were hostile, and relying upon his sudden and unexpected appearance to retrieve their wavering friendship, if they were not too far committed to hostility. At daylight the next morning, with Craig, Pearson, and the four Nez Perce chiefs, Looking Glass, Spotted Eagle, Three Feathers, and Captain John, the governor pushed on, leaving directions for the train to follow and come in next day. The evening sun was just sinking behind the mountains when the seven well-armed horsemen dashed up in front of the Coeur d'Alene village, rifles in hand and presented ready to fire, and in peremptory tones demanded of the astonished Indians, as they poured out of their lodges, "Are you friends or enemies? Do you want peace or war?" The governor's orders, impressed upon his followers, were, that at the first hostile act or word they were to fire upon the Indians, disabling as many of them as possible, and then to fall back upon and occupy the solidly built church on the knoll overlooking the village, and hold this stronghold against all attacks until the main party should arrive the next day. The Coeur d'Alenes, thus taken by surprise, in response to this formidable summons declared that they were friends and preferred peace, and gathered around with apparently friendly greetings. In fact, however, as became more apparent at the council next day, "they were much excited, on a balance for peace or war, and a chance word might turn them either way," as says the official journal. Some of their young men had joined the hostiles; and the rumor was current that the son of the chief, Stellam, had recently been slain by the whites. The chiefs and elders were inclined to be friendly, and wished to avoid war. On the way to the village the governor charged the four Nez Perce chiefs:-- "When you reach the Coeur d'Alenes, talk to them Blackfoot; tell them about our great council and treaty at Fort Benton; tell them that they can hunt buffalo without being disturbed by their hereditary enemies, the Blackfeet; tell them the lion and the lamb have laid down together; get their minds off their troubles here, and turn them to other subjects in which they take an interest." The train arrived the next day. A council was held with the Indians, and they were exhorted to continue their friendly attitude, and keep their young men from war. The emissaries of the Yakimas had left the mission only five days before the arrival of the party, having despaired of its crossing the mountains. All sorts of rumors were rife, but nothing certain except that the tribes below were in arms, blocking up the road, and that they had threatened to cut off the party, Pu-pu-mox-mox especially having made his boast that he would take Governor Stevens's scalp. It was learned, however, that four men, who had brought up the goods for the proposed Spokane council, with the unfortunate agent Bolon, were at Antoine Plante's, and that fifteen miners were also at that point, fearing to go below on account of the hostiles, and virtually blockaded by the Spokanes. Governor Stevens at once determined to proceed to the Spokane to rescue these men, and if possible to restrain the Spokanes from hostilities. He dispatched Craig with all but three of the Nez Perce chiefs to Lapwai, there to confer with Lawyer, assemble the nation, and prepare them for the governor's arrival. He was also instructed to send an express to the Spokane with information of his success, and the disposition of the Nez Perces. The chiefs retained with the party were Looking Glass, Spotted Eagle, and Three Feathers. As at Hell Gate, the governor's determination rested in his own breast, and it was currently reported and believed that the party would move directly south along the base of the mountains to the Nez Perce country, the shortest and safest route to the refuge of that friendly tribe. To move away from it and adventure sixty miles farther among the supposedly hostile, and certainly disaffected, Spokanes seemed little short of madness. In the evening some of the men, in discussing the matter, declared that if the governor started for the Spokane, they would not follow him, but would take the Nez Perce trail; but Higgins swore that no man should desert the governor if he started for Hell, and the incipient mutiny went no farther. The next day, November 27, the party marched down the Coeur d'Alene River to Wolf's Lodge, nineteen miles, and, starting at daylight the following morning and making a rapid, forced march of forty miles, reached the Spokane village, just below Antoine Plante's, before sunset. The last four miles across the prairie was made at a round trot, and within thirty minutes after first sighting the rapidly approaching column, the astonished Indians beheld thirty well-armed men gallop boldly up, range themselves in front of their lodges ready to open fire, and heard the peremptory summons to decide instantly for peace or war. Needless to say that they, too, were friendly and for peace. They were taken completely by surprise, and had no alternative but to choose the olive branch. Only three hours before they had heard that Governor Stevens had gone down the Missouri. The Indian employees and goods and the miners were safe. They had built a blockhouse, and were on terms of armed truce with the Indians rather than actual hostility. Before midnight Indian messengers were dispatched to Colville and the various camps, summoning the head chief Garry and the other chiefs, the Hudson Bay Company's factor, McDonald, and the Jesuit missionaries to meet the governor in council at Plante's. It is noteworthy that during all these troubles the Hudson Bay Company people and the Catholic missionaries were not molested by the hostile Indians. The governor now gave his party, augmented by the four rescued employees, a military organization and the name of Stevens Guards, the name being the choice of the men, and appointed as officers C.P. Higgins, captain; W.H. Pearson, first lieutenant; A.H. Robie, second lieutenant; and S.S. Ford, third lieutenant. He also appointed Doty lieutenant-colonel, aide-de-camp, and adjutant, and Tappan captain and quartermaster. The miners were also formed into a military company, and adopted the name of Spokane Invincibles, with Judge B.F. Yantis as captain. The governor ordered guards regularly mounted at night. A half-breed, who had been captured by Pu-pu-mox-mox and set free by him on condition that he would take a message to the governor to the effect that he, Pu-pu-mox-mox, intended to take the governor's scalp, came and delivered his message. CHAPTER XXXV STORMY COUNCIL WITH THE SPOKANES During the next few days the Indians were gathering for the council. Garry and a party of Coeur d'Alenes came on the 29th, and McDonald with the Colville chiefs, the missionaries, and four white miners on December 2. The council lasted three days, December 3, 4, 5, and was marked by disaffected and at times openly hostile views and expressions and uncertain purposes, on the part of the Indians, and steadfast determination to hold their friendship and restrain them from war, on the part of the governor. The Spokanes openly sympathized with the hostiles. Many of their young braves had joined them. They insisted that no white troops should enter their country, and urged the governor to make peace with the Yakimas, for the rumor was current that the troops had driven them across the Columbia and into the region claimed by the Spokanes. They objected to the whites taking up their land before they had made treaties and sold it, and were much stirred up because a number of Hudson Bay Company ex-employees at Colville had staked out claims, and filed with Judge Yantis the declaratory statements claiming them under the Donation Act. Kam-i-ah-kan's emissaries had imbued them with all kinds of falsehoods concerning the war and its causes, and the purposes of the whites, particularly of Governor Stevens, and what he did and said at the Walla Walla council. They were to be driven by soldiers from their own country, and forced to go on the Nez Perce reservation without any treaty or compensation. They were to be deported west of the Cascades, and shipped across seas to an unknown and dreadful doom. Highly colored but imaginary stories of wrong and outrage inflicted by whites upon Indians were industriously circulated, and equally mythical tales of Indian victories and exploits. Governor Stevens met their excited and hostile talk with a firm and unruffled front. He appealed to the well-known facts,--to the policy he had uniformly and consistently urged upon them and upon all the tribes since first coming to the country, the policy of peace and friendship with the whites, and of adopting the civilization of the whites, and which had been proclaimed as from the housetops, and established by treaty at the Walla Walla council, in the presence and hearing of their own head chief, Garry, and others of their number. He showed them how this policy was for their own benefit and protection, and referred to the Blackfoot council, and the peace he had there established, of which the Nez Perce chiefs present could give them full particulars. He declared he was ready to make a treaty with them on the spot, if they desired one, but in the troubled state of affairs would not himself urge it. By this firm and conciliatory treatment he at length brought them to a more reasonable state of mind, and induced them to lay aside all thoughts of war and preserve their friendship with the whites. The results of this remarkable conference are graphically stated in his own words:-- "We remained on the Spokane nine days, and I had there one of the most stormy councils for three days that ever occurred in my whole Indian experience; yet, having gone there with the most earnest desire to prevent their entering into the war, but with a firm determination to tell them plainly and candidly the truth, I succeeded both in convincing them of the facts and in gaining their entire confidence. At this council were all the chiefs and people of the Coeur d'Alenes and of the Spokanes,--the very tribes who defeated Steptoe the past season, the very tribes who have met our troops since in two pitched battles; and I feel that I can without impropriety refer to the success of my labors among these Indians, backed up simply with a little party of twenty-four men. When the council was adjourned, the Indians gave the best test of their friendship by each coming to lay before me his little wrongs, and ask redress. They came in a body, and offered me a force to help me through the hostilities of Walla Walla valley and on the banks of the Columbia, which I declined, saying that I came not among the Spokanes for their aid, but to protect them as their father." The Spokanes preserved the friendship thus gained and confirmed, and abstained from all acts of hostility for two years after this council, and until Colonel E.J. Steptoe, against their warning and protest, entered their country with a force of two hundred dragoons. Then they flew to arms, attacked, defeated, and drove him in precipitate retreat eighty miles to the bank of Snake River, where his men were only saved from massacre by the friendly Nez Perces, who ferried them across the river in their canoes, and boldly interposed between them and the victorious Spokanes. Soon after reaching the Spokane the governor was led to distrust Looking Glass from his changed demeanor and countenance, and set a faithful half-breed interpreter to keep watch of him. The spy saw him enter Garry's lodge late at night, and, stealing up to and lying prone beside it, overheard the talk between the chiefs, in which Looking Glass disclosed a plot on his part to entrap the governor and his party when they went among the Nez Perces, and compel him to enlarge their reservation to the bounds first proposed by Looking Glass at the Walla Walla council, and to exact such other payments and advantages as amounted to a swingeing ransom. Looking Glass strongly advised Garry to adopt a similar course, and both chiefs seemed bent upon using their advantages to the utmost. On receiving this alarming report the governor instantly, but secretly, dispatched a messenger to Lapwai, informing Craig of the plot, and instructing him how best to forestall and frustrate it by advising with Lawyer, and committing the other chiefs to a firm adherence to the treaty and active support of the governor. Thus forewarned, he was enabled to frustrate the designs of the treacherous chief without his suspecting that they had been discovered. The following extracts from the speeches show the excited and disaffected mood in which they entered the council. Observe in Garry's second speech his artful advice in aid of his friend Looking Glass's design to enlarge the reservation:-- Garry: "When I heard of the war, I had two hearts, and have had two hearts ever since. The bad heart was a little larger than the good. Now I am thinking that if you do not make peace with the Yakimas, war will come into this country like the waters of the sea. From the time of my first recollection, no blood has ever been on the hands of my people. Now that I am grown up, I am afraid that we may have the blood of the whites on our hands.... "I hope that you will make peace on the other side of the Columbia, and keep the soldiers from coming here. The Americans and the Yakimas are fighting. I think they are both equally guilty. If there were many Frenchmen here, my heart would be like fighting. [Meaning Canadians, ex-employees of the Hudson Bay Company.] These French people here have talked too much. I went to the Walla Walla council, and when I returned I found that all the Frenchmen had gotten their land written down on a paper. [Alluding to notifications under the Donation Act.] I ask them, Why are you in such a hurry to have writings for your lands now? Why don't you wait until a treaty is made? "Governor, these troubles are on my mind all the time, and I will not hide them. When I was at the Walla Walla council my mind was divided. When you first commenced to speak, you said the Walla Wallas, Cuyuses, and Umatillas were to move on to the Nez Perce reservation, and the Spokanes were to move there also. Then I thought you spoke bad. Then I thought, when you said that, that you would strike the Indians to the heart. After you had spoken of these nine different things, as schools, and shops, and farms, if you had then asked the chiefs to mark out a piece of land--a pretty large piece--to give you, it would not have struck the Indians so to the heart. Your thought was good. You see far. But the Indians, being dull-headed, cannot see far. Now your children have fallen. They [the Indians] have spilled their blood, because they have not sense enough to understand you. Those who killed Pu-pu-mox-mox's son in California, they were Americans. Why are those Americans alive now? Why are they not hanged? This is what the Indians think, that it will be Indians only who are hanged for murder. Now, governor, here are these young people,--my people. I do not know their minds, but if they will listen to you, I shall be very glad. When you talk to your soldiers and tell them not to cross Snake River into our country, I shall be glad." A principal chief of the lower Spokanes said: "Why is the country in difficulty again? That comes on account of the smallpox brought into the country, and is all the time on the Indians' heart. They would keep thinking the whites brought sickness into the country to kill them. That is what has hurt the hearts of the Yakimas. That is what we think has brought about this difficulty between the Indians and the whites. I think, governor, you have talked a little too hard. It is as if you had thrown away all the Indians. I heard you said at the Walla Walla council that we were children, and that our women and children and cattle should be for you, and then we thought we would never raise camp and move where you wished us to. We had in our hearts that if you tried to move us off we would die on our land." Stellam, Coeur d'Alene head chief: "We have not yet made friends. All the Indians are not yet your children. When I heard that war had commenced in the Yakima country, I did not believe they had done well to commence. I wish you would speak and dry the blood on that land now. If you would do that, then I would take you for a friend. You have many soldiers, and I would not like to have them mix among my people." Schlat-eal: "Now the Yakimas have crossed the Columbia. I would not like to have the whites cross to this side. If the whites do not cross the river, the Indians will all be pleased. We have not made friendship yet. We have not shaken hands yet. When we see that the soldiers don't cross the Columbia, we shall believe you take us for your friends. When you stop that difficulty, the fighting now going on, we shall believe you intend to adopt us for your children. Then I will believe that you have taken us for your friends, and will take you for my friend." Peter John Colville, chief: "My heart is very poor, very bad. My heart is of all nations. I never hide it. My heart is fearful. There are some who have talked bad. I am always thinking that all would be well. I wish all the whites and Indians to be friendly; but even if my people should take up arms against the Americans, I myself would not. I know we cannot stop the river from running, nor the wind from blowing, and I have heard that you whites are the same. We could not stop you. I only speak to show my heart. I am done." Sno-ho-mish, a chief of the lower Spokanes, near the Columbia: "When you went away to the Blackfoot country, and the Yakimas commenced fighting, my heart was broken. Ever since my heart is very small. Ever since I have been thinking, How will the governor speak to us? And yesterday he did speak, and said to the Indians, 'You must keep peace;' and I have been thinking what God would say if we should spill blood on our land. I never loved bad Indians, nor war; I never believed in making war against Americans. I wish they would stop all the whites and Indians from fighting. Now I will stop. I have shown my heart." Big Star, Spokane chief: "The reason that I am talking now is that all the Indians did not like what you said at the Walla Walla council. They put all the blame on you for the trouble since. The Indians say you are the cause of the war. My heart is very small towards you. My heart is the same as the others for you. Ever since I heard there was war, I was afraid for you. I am afraid you will be killed. You have not yet made a treaty, and you passed by us, and your people have commenced coming,--the miners,--and they will upset my land. This spring, when my people commenced talking about the ammunition, I said, 'My children, do not listen to my children who wish to do wrong.' I said to the Sun chief, 'What is the reason you are getting into trouble? Your father was good. Now he is killed by the Blackfeet.' And this summer when the governor passed here, I spoke to him again, and he would not listen. That is why my heart is small,--that young man would not listen. I left home and went to the Nez Perces, and there met Mr. McDonald. After crossing the Columbia River those two young fellows overtook me. I spoke to Mr. McDonald to give me good advice to help my children. He did speak, and I thought he gave me good help. I was glad. We had not yet arrived at the fort when that young man [a young Spokane] rushed on the whites and choked them. After McDonald and myself had talked to them, I thought they would listen. If I had not tried to make them do right, it would not have hurt my feelings so much. Since that, I am crying all the time." Quin-quim-moe-so, Spokane chief, living at Eells's old mission: "When I heard, governor, what you had said at the Walla Walla ground, I thought you had done well. But one thing you said was not right. You alone arranged the Indian's land. The Indians did not speak. Then you struck the Indians to the heart. You thought they were only Indians. That is why you did it. I am not a big chief, but I will not hide my mind. I will not talk low. I wish you to hear what I am saying. That is the reason, governor; it is all your fault the Indians are at war. It is your fault, because you have said that the Cuyuses and Walla Wallas will be moved to the Yakima land. They who owned the land did not speak, and yet you divided the land." Garry: "When you look at those red men, you think you have more heart, more sense, than these poor Indians. I think the difference between us and you Americans is in the clothing,--the blood and body are the same. Do you think, because your mother was white and theirs black, that you are higher or better? We are black, yet if we cut ourselves the blood will be red, and so with the whites it is the same, though their skin is white. I do not think we are poor because we belong to another nation. If you take those Indians for men, treat them so now. If you talk to the Indians to make a peace, the Indians will do the same to you. You see now the Indians are proud. On account of one of your remarks, some of your people have already fallen to the ground. The Indians are not satisfied with the land you gave them. What commenced the trouble was the murder of Pu-pu-mox-mox's son and Dr. Whitman, and _now_ they find their reservations too small. If all those Indians had marked out their own reservations, the trouble would not have happened. If you could get their reservations made a little larger, they would be pleased. If I had the business to do, I could fix it by giving them a little more land. Talking about land, I am only speaking my mind. What I was saying yesterday about not crossing the soldiers to this side of the Columbia is my business. Those Indians have gone to war, and I don't know myself how to fix it up. That is your business. Since, governor, the beginning of the world, there has been war. Why cannot you manage to keep peace? Maybe there will be no peace ever. Even if you should hang all the bad people, war would begin again, and would never stop." In these speeches can be seen the reflection of the tales spread by the Yakima emissaries. It was afterwards learned that some of the Yakimas had really crossed the Columbia to avoid an expedition into the Yakima valley, under Major Rains with a force of regulars, and Colonel J.W. Nesmith with a detachment of Oregon volunteers, which proved abortive, except in the loss of many of the horses and mules belonging to the regulars, which were run off by the hostile Yakimas. [Illustration: SPOKANE GARRY _Head Chief of the Spokanes_] After the council the Indians were so friendly and well disposed that they readily exchanged their fine, fresh horses for the jaded and tired animals of the party and the Indian goods, which had been brought up for the now deferred treaty, and even sold several rifles, which were used to arm the Spokane Invincibles. On the afternoon of the 6th, with transportation reduced to twelve days' supplies, packs to eighty pounds, the best train of the season, and the party, with the recent accessions, forty-eight strong, the governor struck out for the Nez Perce country, "in condition," he says, "that if the Nez Perces were really hostile, and I was not strong enough to fight, I could make a good run!" He moved three miles to the Spokane River, crossed it just above the falls, and encamped on the site of the present city of that name. The march thence to the Clearwater and Lapwai, a distance of one hundred and eight miles, occupied four days, and was made in the midst of a driving and continuous storm of cold rain, sleet, and snow, wetting and chilling every one to the bone. The trail was excessively muddy and slippery, and for half a day's travel the snow was ten inches deep. On the second day an express from Craig brought the cheering news that the Nez Perces were faithful, and the whole tribe ready to support the governor to the death. And on reaching camp the same day two Frenchmen or Canadians were met making their way from Walla Walla to the Spokane, who reported the valley overrun with hostile Indians, the settlers killed or driven below, and their stock swept off by the savages. Fifty miles from the Spokane they struck the same trail passed over in June on the way to the Coeur d'Alene, and pursued it for twenty miles, crossing the Palouse, where an enemy was most likely to be encountered, but no Indians were seen. The Clearwater, or Kooskooskia, was crossed just above the mouth of the Lapwai. The river was barely fordable, with a powerful current and rocky bottom, and two riding horses were swept off their feet into deep water and drowned, making no effort to swim, benumbed in the icy water, and their riders barely escaped a similar fate. Moving seven miles up the Lapwai, Craig's hospitable house, and the end of this severe march, the most comfortless and trying of the whole trip, was reached, and camp gladly made on the 11th. CHAPTER XXXVI THE FAITHFUL NEZ PERCES Although it was now in the midst of winter, and the ground was covered with snow, Lawyer had assembled two hundred and eight lodges, containing over two thousand Indians, and able to muster eight hundred warriors. An animated council was at once held. The council lodge was a hundred feet in length, built of poles, mats, and skins, and in this assembled two hundred chiefs and principal men, Lawyer presiding. An ox had been killed, and young men, who officiated for the occasion, roasted or boiled the meat at fires in the lodge, and handed it around in large pans, from which each person selected such choice pieces as suited his fancy. The scheme of Looking Glass found no adherent, indeed was not broached, and the unanimous resolve was not only to maintain their friendship to the whites and stand by their treaty, but to escort Governor Stevens with two hundred and fifty of their bravest and best-armed warriors, stark buffalo hunters and Blackfoot fighters every one, and force their way through the masses of hostile Indians gathered in the Walla Walla valley. Looking Glass, too, was among the first in his professions of friendship. Jealousy of Lawyer, and the hope of increasing his own influence among his people by obtaining great and exceptional advantages for them, were probably the causes of his unworthy plot, rather than actual enmity to the whites. Said Looking Glass: "I told the governor that the Walla Walla country was blocked up by bad Indians, and that I would go ahead and he behind, and that's my heart now. Now that he says he will go, I will get up and go with him. Now let none of you turn your face from what has been said. Your old men have spoken, and where is the man will turn his back on it?" Three Feathers: "Why don't you get up and say you are all going with Governor Stevens? We said before coming here they should go over our dead bodies before coming to him. That is our hearts now." And chief after chief spoke in similar vein. Red Wolf in his speech said: "I was on the Spokane at the council held there by the Indians last summer, when runners sent by Kam-i-ah-kan came there to get all the people to go to war." Scotum declared: "The chief Pu-pu-mox-mox sent us word, and so did the Cuyuses; they sent us word many times, but we have always turned our faces from them and kept the laws." Here was evidence that the treacherous chiefs were inciting hostilities immediately after signing the treaties. At this juncture an Indian runner was announced from the Walla Walla valley with the important news that a force of five hundred Oregon volunteers, under Colonel Kelly (late United States senator), after a severe battle of four days' duration, had defeated the hostiles, and driven them from the valley. The absence of the Palouse Indians during the forced march through their country was now explained. They were fighting the volunteers at that very time. The way being thus opened, Governor Stevens was enabled to dispense with the proffered aid of the Nez Perces; but in order to confirm their fidelity and good feeling, he invited a hundred warriors to accompany his party as a guard of honor as far as the Walla Walla valley. It was a clear, bright, frosty December morning that the mingled cavalcade of white and Indian left behind the hospitable lodges of the Nez Perces, and filed along the banks of the Lapwai and Kooskooskia. Rarely has the Clearwater reflected a more picturesque or jovial crew. Here were the gentlemen of the party, with their black felt hats and heavy cloth overcoats; rough-clad miners and packers; the mountain men, with buckskin shirts and leggings and fur caps; the long-eared pack-mules, with their bulky loads; and the blanketed young braves, with painted visage, and hair adorned with eagle feathers, mounted on sleek and spirited mustangs, and dashing hither and thither in the greatest excitement and glee. Each of the warriors had three fine, spirited horses, which he rode in turn as the fancy moved him. They used buckskin pads, or wooden saddles covered with buffalo, bear, or mountain-goat skin. The bridle was a simple line of buffalo hair tied around the lower jaw of the steed, which yielded implicit obedience to this scanty headgear. At a halt the long end of the line is flung loosely on the ground, and the horse is trained to stand without other fastening. The whole party were ferried across Snake River by the Indians in their canoes, the animals swimming. Proceeding down the left bank some distance as the trail to Walla Walla ran, it was found that the Nez Perces had wholly vacated that side of the river, and removed with their bands of horses, goods, and lodges, and especially their canoes, to the other side, in order to cut off intercourse with the hostile Indians. The demeanor of the young braves on this march was in marked contrast to the traditional gravity and stoicism of their race. They shouted, laughed, told stories, cracked jokes, and gave free vent to their native gayety and high spirits. Craig, who accompanied the party, translated these good things as they occurred, to the great amusement of the whites. Crossing a wide, flat plain, covered with tall rye grass, he related an anecdote of Lawyer, with the reminiscence of which the young braves seemed particularly tickled. When yet an obscure young warrior, Lawyer was traveling over this ground with a party of the tribe, including several of the principal chiefs. It was a cold winter day, and a biting gale swept up the river, penetrating their clothing and chilling them to the bone. The chiefs sat down in the shelter of the tall rye grass, and were indulging in a cosy smoke, when Lawyer fired the prairie far to windward, and in an instant the fiery element, in a long, crackling, blazing line, came sweeping down on the wings of the wind upon the comfort-taking chiefs, and drove them to rush helter-skelter into the river for safety, dropping robes, pipes, and everything that might impede their flight. For this audacious prank Lawyer barely escaped a public whipping. At the governor's request, the Indians undertook to guard the horses while the whites guarded the camp at night, and as the country was still infested with bands of hostiles, who had burned off nearly all the grass, and the animals were with difficulty prevented from straying far and wide in search of feed, it will be readily seen that they had chosen the more arduous task. Every evening, as the young men would linger around the camp-fires, reluctant to start out upon the cold and dreary night work, one or more of the chiefs would exhort them to their duty, bemoan the degeneracy of the present race, and relate instances of the superior bravery and fortitude of young men in former times. The young fellows were not slow to retort to these harangues with many a sarcastic gibe and jest, but finally they would go forth to spend the cold winter night upon the exposed prairie on horseback, posted around the band of animals. So faithfully did they perform this duty that not one was lost during the march. It was a gala day for the Nez Perces when the party reached the valley, and were received by the Oregon volunteers with a military parade and a salute of musketry; and when Governor Stevens dismissed them with presents and thanks and words of encouragement, they returned home the most devoted and enthusiastic auxiliaries that ever marched in behalf of the whites. On this march the Nez Perce escort captured a strange Indian on Al-pa-wha Creek, who proved to be the son of Ume-how-lish, the war chief of the Cuyuses, and who said that the chief, with one follower and a number of women, was in hiding farther up the creek, having fled from the valley the last day of the recent fight. The governor sent the young man to his father with the summons to surrender himself a prisoner. The next day Ume-how-lish delivered himself up, saying that he had done nothing bad, and was not afraid to be tried by the white man's law, and thereafter traveled along with the party to his uncertain fate with true Indian stoicism. He accompanied the governor to the Dalles, where he was turned over to the Oregon authorities. He was afterwards released by Colonel Wright. There was no evidence that he had taken part in the murder of settlers, although he had undoubtedly fought in the recent battle. The valley was reached on the 20th. Major Chinn, commanding the volunteers, and other officers rode out to meet the governor, and, on reaching the volunteer camp, the troops, four hundred in number, paraded, and fired a volley in salute as the picturesque column marched past, the fifty sturdy, travel-stained whites in advance, followed by the hundred proud and flaunting braves, curveting their horses and uttering their war-whoops. The volunteers then formed in hollow square, and the governor addressed them in a brief speech, complimenting them on their energy in pushing forward at that inclement season, and gallantry in engaging and routing a superior force of the enemy, and tendering the thanks of his party for opening the road. He seized the occasion also to dwell upon the advantages--the necessity--of a winter campaign to bring the war to a speedy end. The governor was the first to grasp this idea of a winter campaign as the most effective method of reducing hostile Indians to subjection. As will be seen hereafter, he urged this course upon General Wool and the military authorities, but only to have his views denounced and ridiculed as "impracticable;" but finally, under the stern lessons of experience, they had to be adopted. It was only by winter campaigns that General Crook succeeded in subduing the Snakes of Idaho and eastern Oregon in 1868-69. Over a hundred of the Cuyuses and Walla Wallas refused to join their kindred in the war, and remained friendly, including Steachus, Tin-tim-meet-see, and How-lish-wam-poo, and were now encamped on Mill Creek under the protection of a guard, needed unhappily not less against a few of the unruly volunteers, who had already killed some of their cattle, than against apprehended raids by the hostiles. The little flock of Indians under the ministrations of Father Chirouse of the Catholic mission also remained friendly, thanks to the good influence of the Fathers. [Illustration: UME-HOW-LISH _War Chief of the Cuyuses_] Colonel Frank Shaw was found with the volunteers, and from him and the Oregon officers the governor learned the latest news and the condition of affairs. The fight had been a severe one. The Indians resisted stoutly for four days, and only gave way at last because they mistook a large pack-train, seen descending into the valley, for reinforcements to the whites. Pu-pu-mox-mox had been captured, and slain attempting to escape. General Wool had arrived at Vancouver, but had refused to take active measures against the enemy, assuming that the Indians were not at fault, but that the war had been gotten up by white speculators. He had even disbanded two companies of Washington volunteers at Vancouver after they had been actually mustered into the United States service. And a company that had been raised under the direction of Shaw, for the express purpose of going to the assistance of the governor, was dismissed by Wool in spite of the remonstrances of its officers and of Major Rains. The first act of the governor after grasping the situation was to indite a letter to Wool announcing his safe return, and suggesting the energetic and aggressive military measures by which the outbreak could be speedily quelled. Some of the fruits of the delay in holding the Blackfoot council, caused by the mulish and incapable Cumming, were now apparent. Had it been held early in August, as it might and should have been, the governor would have gotten back early in September, in time to cope with the first outbreak, to infuse the military authorities with a little of his own sound judgment and energy, to induce harmony and concert of action between the regular and volunteer forces, possibly to remove even Wool's prejudiced and utterly wrong views, certainly in time to prevent the volunteers of his own territory from being paralyzed in action, and rendered worse than useless. But he was delayed, and in his absence bitter prejudice and divided councils ruled the hour, and the war, which should have been brought to an end in a single season by a few quick, strong blows, was suffered to drag on for years. After the reception by the volunteers the train moved up the Walla Walla to a point opposite the mission and went into camp, where it remained the next three days. The weather grew intensely cold, the glass ranging 27° below zero; nevertheless, the governor kept the officers at work gathering information concerning trails, crossings of rivers, etc., with a view to military operations, and had a conference with Major Chinn as to pushing against the Indians beyond Snake River; but it appeared that the lack of rations and transportation rendered an advance impracticable, and of course no move could be made while the severe weather continued. On the 24th the camp was moved four miles farther upstream to a more sheltered spot, with plenty of wood, and where there was a deserted house, which the governor and the officers occupied. The cold weather continued unabated for fourteen days. The men had all they could do to keep the fires going and avoid freezing, and many of the horses in the volunteer camp were frozen to death. Although the ground was covered with snow, the animals found grass enough projecting above it, or by pawing it off, to avoid starvation. Herds of cattle, abandoned by the Indians in their flight, grazed within sight of camp, and were driven in and slaughtered as needed, and great flocks of prairie-chickens roosted in the trees about camp, so there was no lack of food. On the 29th the governor dismissed the Nez Perce escort, who were to return home under Craig as soon as the cold abated, thanking them for their fidelity and services, and charging them to stay on their own side of Snake River, and shun intercourse with the hostiles. The friendly Cuyuse, Steachus, attended this conference, very desirous of joining the Nez Perces and moving into their country, and asking permission to do so. "I am really afraid of those whites, those volunteers," said he. The Nez Perce chiefs strongly supported him in his request. Said Spotted Eagle: "I am glad to hear those Indians ask to go with us. It looks as if they wished to live and do right when they talk of joining the Nez Perces." But the governor, after considering the matter for a day, denied the request, for the reason that he feared that the disaffected and hostile kindred of these friendly Cuyuses would be constantly visiting them, and would exert a bad influence upon the Nez Perces, whom he wished to keep entirely aloof from the hostiles. On the last day of the year, the cold weather continuing with unmitigated severity, the governor decided to hasten below in advance of the train, deeming his presence imperatively required within the settlements on Puget Sound, and issued general orders directing Colonel Doty to move the train to the Dalles as soon as the weather permitted, and there muster out the Stevens Guards and Spokane Invincibles, constituting the Walla Walla Battalion, appointing Craig lieutenant and aide-de-camp, and instructing him as to marching home and disbanding the Nez Perce allies, and taking measures for protecting that tribe against hostile raids or attempts, and assigning Colonel Shaw of the territorial militia to take charge of matters in the valley, organize the settlers and friendly Indians as a military force, to act as their own guards at least, and appointing Sidney S. Ford and Green McCafferty captain and lieutenant of volunteers respectively as his assistants, and finally returning thanks to the battalion "for the alacrity with which they have obeyed his orders and discharged their duty, for their constancy and manliness in the rapid movement which they made from the Spokane to this valley in bad weather and in an inclement season, a movement begun and half accomplished with the certain knowledge that a large force of hostile Indians were to be met in this valley, and no expectation that aid was near at hand and would be extended in season. "But aid was at hand, and the commander-in-chief would do injustice to his own feelings, and those of the men of his immediate command, if in the general order he did not acknowledge the services of the gallant volunteers of Oregon, who successfully met in arms in this valley the combined forces of the hostile Indians at the time he was moving from the Spokane to the Nez Perce country." On New Year's Day, 1856, Governor Stevens started for the Dalles, accompanied only by his son, Pearson, Robie, the Nez Perce chief, Captain John, and the captive Ume-how-lish, and reached that point in three days and a half. The intense cold continued unabated. Every morning the little party saddled in the darkness and started at daylight without breakfast, pushed their horses at a speed of ten miles an hour for about six hours, making about sixty miles, and made camp early in the afternoon, giving the horses several hours to graze before dark, and themselves plenty of time to gather wood, build up a rousing fire, and cook and eat a tremendous meal, breakfast, dinner, and supper in one; then early to bed, sound slumbers, and off again at daylight. All the streams were crossed on the ice until the Des Chutes River was reached. Here was found a great gorge of broken ice twenty feet deep, through the centre of which the rapid and powerful stream had torn its way, a hundred yards wide, bordered by perpendicular walls of ice. Carefully leading their horses over the broken ice masses, they reached the usual fording-place, only to find the dark, swirling river sweeping past twenty feet below them at the foot of this perpendicular and impassable icy cliff, while a similar obstacle stared at them from the other side of the river, and barred exit from the stream even should its passage be accomplished. But, nothing daunted, all set to work with stakes and knives, and at length broke down a barely passable path to the ford. Captain John now led the way across, the water coming to the saddle-skirts; a practicable passage out was found, and all felt much relieved as they again spurred on. Resting one day at the Dalles, and accompanied only by his son and a guide, the governor continued his journey by the trail down the Oregon side of the Columbia. It was a little-used track, barely passable, or indeed visible, in many places, jammed between the river and the foot of the great mountain masses and precipices which overhang that mighty and sublime gorge. Although the severe cold had abated, considerable snow had fallen, greatly increasing the dangers of the way; but he reached the lower Cascades without mishap, and crossed to the Washington side late in the evening of the second day, spending the intermediate night at Hood River, at the house of Mr. Coe. The next day he continued by land, passing in rear of Cape Horn, and reached a landing on the Columbia, six miles above Vancouver, soon after dark. Here a ship's long-boat, a stout, staunch craft, with a good sail, was obtained, with a crew of three sturdy fellows. On getting well out in the river away from land, a terrific gale came tearing downstream, struck the boat, and drove her on at great speed. The sail was quickly reefed, but the little craft careened to the gunwale; the waves broke over her; only incessant bailing kept her afloat. The dark night, the tumultuous waves, the howling gale, the open boat tearing along with the helmsman braced against the tiller, the bailer dipping the water overboard with furious haste, and the rest of the party clinging to the upper rail with clenched grasp and tense faces, can never be forgotten by one who witnessed the scene. Vancouver was reached in twenty-six minutes from starting, and all landed with a strong feeling of relief at having escaped a watery grave. The governor again endeavored to communicate with General Wool, and hastened to Portland to see him, but he had left on the steamer for San Francisco only the day before. The journey up the Cowlitz in canoe and across the muddy road to Olympia was made in three days, without special incident to vary the monotony of toil and discomfort ever attending it at that season, and on January 19, after an absence of nearly nine months, the governor reached Olympia, and found himself once more at home with his family. During the governor's absence Mrs. Stevens, with her little girls and the nurse Ellen, spent several weeks on Whitby Island, at the home of a family named Crockett, in hopes that the stronger sea air of that locality would overcome the Panama fever, from which they were still suffering. The Crocketts were hearty and kindly Kentucky farmer folks of the best type, and received the sick lady and her children with warm-hearted hospitality and kindness. Mrs. Stevens with the children used frequently to bathe in the Sound, and on one occasion, as they were in the water, a band of northern Indians was observed approaching in their great war-canoes at rapid speed. Mr. Crockett hastened to the beach in great apprehension and hurried the bathers to the house, declaring that the predatory savages would be sure to seize and carry them off, if they were given an opportunity. Under the invigorating open-air life on the island and the excellent fare, with abundance of venison and other game, the family rapidly regained health, and after their visit returned in canoes to Olympia. Mrs. Stevens afterward visited the military post at Steilacoom, and the wives of the officers there visited her in Olympia, and it was at her house that Mrs. Slaughter received news of the death of her husband, Lieutenant W.A. Slaughter, who was killed by the Indians, December 5. Several times, after the war broke out, circumstantial and apparently trustworthy reports were brought of the massacre of the governor and his party by the Indians, all of which Mrs. Stevens utterly disbelieved. She scouted even more decidedly the idea that he would return by way of the Missouri and Isthmus of Panama, which his friends were so strongly urging him to do, and declared to them that he would certainly come back by the direct route, no matter what obstacles might intervene. CHAPTER XXXVII PROSTRATION.--THE RESCUE When Governor Stevens, after his midwinter forced march across the mountains, reached Olympia, he found the whole country utterly prostrated, overwhelmed. The settlers in dismay had abandoned their farms and fled for refuge to the few small villages. They were all poor, having no reserves of money, food, or supplies, and starvation stared them in the face if prevented from planting and raising a crop. The only military post on Puget Sound, Fort Steilacoom, could muster less than a hundred soldiers, and was so far from protecting the settlers that it had called for and received the reinforcement of a company of volunteers for its own protection. The post at Vancouver was also but a handful in strength, and had also been reinforced by two companies of volunteers. But even this pitiful force was not to be used against the savage enemy; for Wool had just gone back to San Francisco after a flying visit to the Columbia River, during which he had disbanded the volunteer companies, refused to take any active measures to protect the people, and loudly proclaimed, both in official reports and through the press, that the war had been forced upon the Indians by the greed and brutality of the whites, and that the former would be peaceful if only let alone and not treated with injustice. There was a deficiency of arms, and still more of ammunition, in the country. Six weeks were required to send a letter to Washington City, and three months before an answer to the most urgent demand or entreaty could be received. It was no wonder that the pioneers were universally discouraged, and that nothing kept many of them from abandoning the country but their absolute inability to get away.[10] A brief review of the outbreak and course of the war will make clearer the situation at this juncture. Scarcely was the ink dry upon his signature to the Walla Walla treaty, when Kam-i-ah-kan, the leading and most potent spirit, and his Yakimas were hard at work inciting an outbreak against the whites. They with the Cuyuse and Walla Walla chiefs assembled the disaffected Indians, and many of the others, at a council north of Snake River in the summer, and made every effort to gain over the Spokanes, Coeur d'Alenes, and even some of the Nez Perces, who had intermarried with the Cuyuses, and not without success among the young braves. Their emissaries stirred up the tribes on the eastern shore of the Sound, too, the Nisquallies, Puyallups, and Duwhamish, who had intermarried to some extent with the Yakimas, and penetrated even to Gray's Harbor and Shoalwater Bay on the coast, and to southern Oregon. Every falsehood that Indian ingenuity could invent, or credulity swallow, was employed to fire the Indian heart. The conspiracy was in full train, but not yet ripe, when the outbreak was prematurely begun by the murder of the miners in the Yakima valley in September, by Kam-i-ah-kan's warriors, who could no longer be held back; and when agent Bolon visited the tribe to investigate the matter, he was treacherously shot in the back, seized and his throat cut, and with his horse burned to ashes, September 23. Qualchen, the son of Ou-hi and nephew of Kam-i-ah-kan, was the chief actor in this tragedy. Major Haller marched with a hundred men from the Dalles into the Yakima valley to demand the surrender of or to punish the murderers; and Lieutenant W.A. Slaughter, with a small force of forty men, moved from Steilacoom across the Nahchess Pass to the Yakima to coöperate with Haller. But the Yakimas attacked the latter October 6, and compelled him to retreat with the loss of twenty-two killed and wounded, his howitzer, and baggage. Pu-pu-mox-mox then seized and plundered old Fort Walla Walla, which had no garrison, and distributed the goods found there, including a considerable supply of Indian goods, among his followers, who danced the war-dance in front of his lodge around a fresh white scalp. These Indians, with the Cuyuses and Umatillas, then drove the settlers out of the Walla Walla valley, destroyed their houses and improvements, and killed or ran off the stock. Lieutenant Slaughter, after crossing the summit of the Cascades, being unable to learn anything of Haller, hastily but wisely fell back to the western side. Here Captain M. Maloney joined him with seventy regulars and a company of volunteers, under Captain Gilmore Hays, and again advanced across the mountains, but in turn retreated, fearing to leave the settlements on Puget Sound wholly unprotected; but his messengers were waylaid and slain by the Sound Indians, and the settlers on White or Duwhamish River, near Seattle, were massacred with unspeakable atrocity, the bodies of the women and children being thrown into the wells. These settlers had taken refuge in Seattle, but were induced to go back to their farms by the friendly professions and assurances of the very savages who fell upon and butchered them the night after their return. And settlers on the Nisqually and at other points met a similar fate. At Major Rains's request, Acting-Governor Mason called out two companies of volunteers, which were mustered into the United States service, one being used to reinforce Fort Steilacoom, and one the Vancouver post. A company was also raised at Vancouver for the express purpose of going to the assistance of Governor Stevens, in case he attempted to force his way through the hostiles. In November an engagement took place on White River, in which some loss was inflicted upon the Indians, but they soon reappeared in undiminished strength, surrounded the troops at night, and captured a number of baggage animals, and on December 5 killed Lieutenant Slaughter and two men, and wounded six others. Several more companies of volunteers were raised for home defense, and efforts were made to separate the friendly Indians from the hostiles. Acting-Governor Mason did all that was possible to meet the crisis, and he was ably seconded by Major Tilton, whom he appointed adjutant-general, and by Colonel Simmons, but the storm was too great for their efforts. Moreover, they depended upon the regular officers to conduct the war, which made Wool's action doubly paralyzing. The whole region about the Sound, with the exception of the prairies scattered about the head of it, was covered with the primeval evergreen forest and a dense and tangled undergrowth, so thick and matted, and obstructed by immense fallen giants and downfalls of every kind, that the most energetic hunter or woodsman could traverse through it only five or six miles a day. There were also numerous river-bottoms and swamps, even more impenetrable. Only seventy miles back to the eastward stretched north and south the great Cascade Range, affording innumerable safe and hidden retreats; and many trails across it, well known to the Indians, but unknown to the whites, gave access to the Yakima emissaries and reinforcements to join the hostiles on the Sound, and furnished the latter the ready means of retreat to the Yakima country when hard pressed. In the dense forests and swamps the savages lurked at the very doors of the settlements, and no man ventured out, for fear of ambush by the wily and omnipresent foe. After Haller's defeat Major G.J. Rains led an expedition from the Dalles to the Yakima valley with three hundred and fifty regulars and two companies of Washington volunteers, under Captains William Strong and Robert Newell, and was supported by four companies of Oregon volunteers, under Colonel J.W. Nesmith. He reached the Catholic mission on the Ah-tah-nam branch of the Yakima, which was found deserted, and destroyed it, and then returned to the Dalles, having accomplished nothing except the breaking down of his animals. The Yakimas, avoiding battle with so large a force, managed to run off fifty-four of his mules and horses, and immediately their young braves rode post-haste to the neighboring tribes, proclaiming victory over the troops, and proudly showing the captured animals with the United States brand on their shoulders in proof of their success. Another force of about five hundred Oregon volunteers, under Colonel James K. Kelly, marched to the Walla Walla valley and defeated the hostiles there congregated, which opened the road to Governor Stevens, as already related. But the Indians, although punished, simply fled across Snake River, and were free to continue their efforts to stir up the friendly tribes, for the volunteers, from lack of supplies and transportation, were unable to pursue them. The Oregon volunteers were not mustered into the United States service, because both they and Governor Curry were anxious to strike the Indians, and justly feared that if placed under the orders of regular officers, they would be held back or placed in garrison. In December General Wool came up from San Francisco to Vancouver, mustered out the Washington volunteers, placed the regulars at the Dalles, Vancouver, and Steilacoom strictly on the defensive, and denounced in unmeasured terms the brave Oregon volunteers, who had struck the only real blow inflicted upon the enemy. He disbanded even the company specially raised for Governor Stevens's relief, notwithstanding the remonstrances of its captain, of Major Rains, and of his own aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Richard Arnold. Thus, at the beginning of the year 1856, the Indians of the upper country held the whole region, except the point occupied in the Walla Walla valley by the Oregon volunteers; the Yakimas were more hostile, active, and triumphant than ever; the Cuyuses, Walla Wallas, and Umatillas were made more embittered and defiant by the punishment they had received; and all were free to instigate more hostility among the other tribes, which they were industriously doing. The regulars were on the defensive by Wool's orders, while the volunteers in the valley were unable to take the aggressive for lack of supplies. West of the Cascades the Indians infested and held the whole country except a few points. The whites were virtually in a state of siege, deserted and maligned by a veteran officer, whose duty it was to protect them; not knowing where to find succor, or even food, completely discouraged and dismayed. The great majority of Indians on the Sound had not yet taken to the war-path, although much disaffected. Even among the most hostile, the Nisquallies, Puyallups, and Duwhamish, it is doubtful if a majority of any tribe took active part in the outbreak; but the war faction comprised the chiefs and the vigorous young warriors, and they were constantly stimulated and encouraged, and at times largely reinforced, by their Yakima kinsmen. The hostile warriors on the Sound probably varied in numbers from two hundred and fifty to five hundred, but the swamps and forests, with their knowledge of the country, gave them every advantage. The great danger was that the other Indians, already disaffected, and many of whose restless young braves were aiding the hostiles to an extent which cannot be certainly determined, would openly join in the outbreak, and this danger was aggravated by every day's delay on the part of the whites in attacking and striking the enemy. A defensive policy was sure to throw the whole Indian population into the arms of the hostiles. An additional and imminent danger was found in the northern Indians, gangs of whom were prowling about the Sound, ever ripe for murder and plunder. The first day after his arrival Governor Stevens delivered in person and orally a special message to the legislature, then in session. He pointed out how the Donation Act and the advent of settlers had made it absolutely necessary to treat with the Indian tribes and extinguish their title to the soil. He showed how this had been accomplished by the treaties he had made, and described the care taken to deal with the Indians justly and understandingly, especially at the Walla Walla council:-- "The greatest care was taken to explain the treaties, and the objects of them, and to secure the most faithful interpreters. Three interpreters were provided for each language. The record of that council was made up by intelligent and dispassionate men, and the speeches of all there made are recorded verbatim. The dignity, humanity, and justice of the national government are there signally exhibited, and none of the actors therein need fear the criticism of an intelligent community, nor the supervision of intelligent superiors. By these treaties, had the Indians been faithful to them, the question as to whether the Indian tribes of this Territory can become civilized and Christianized would have been determined practically. The written record will show that the authorities and the people of this Territory have nothing to blush for, nothing to fear in the judgment of impartial men now living, nor the rebuke of posterity. It was a pleasant feeling that actuated me, on my mission in making these treaties, to think I was doing something to civilize and to render the condition of the Indian happier.... "The war has been plotting for two or three years,--a war entered into by these Indians without a cause; a war having not its origin in these treaties, nor in the bad conduct of the whites. It originated in the native intelligence of restless Indians, who, foreseeing destiny against them,--that the white man was moving upon them,--determined that it must be met and resisted by arms. We may sympathize with such a manly feeling, but in view of it we have high duties. "The war must be vigorously prosecuted now. Seedtime is coming, and the farmer should be at his plough in the field. In my judgment, it would be expedient forthwith to raise a force of three hundred men from the Sound to push into the Indian country, build a depot, and vigorously operate against the Indians in this quarter, and nearly the same force should be raised on the Columbia River to prosecute the war east of the Cascade Mountains. It would prevent reinforcements from either side joining the bands of the other side, and would effectually crush both. But what is more important would be the influence upon the numerous tribes not yet broken out into hostility. There is a surprising feeling of uneasiness among all the tribes who have not broken out, except alone the Nez Perces. These tribes may be led into war, if delay attends our operations. The Indians must be struck now. But if we delay, in a few months the roots and fish will abound, supplying the Indians with food; the snows will melt; and the mountain passes will allow them hiding-places. It is my opinion that if operations are deferred till summer, they must be deferred till winter again. "What effect would it have on the Sound should nothing be done until May or June? The whole industrial community would be ruined, the Sound paralyzed; the husbandman would be kept in a state of suspense by rumors of wars, and could not adhere to his pursuits; fields would not be tilled; and the Territory would starve out." While approving as a general rule the mustering into the United States service of volunteers, and disclaiming any impugning of Wool's motives, he advised against mustering them into that service, in consequence of that officer's "disbanding troops in violation of a positive understanding," and boldly declared:-- "I am ready to take the responsibility of raising them independent of that service, and it is due to the Territory and myself that the reasons for assuming it should go to the President and the department at Washington. "The spirit of prosecuting this war should be to accomplish a lasting peace,--not to make treaties, but to punish their violation. While justice and mercy should characterize the acts of our government, there should be no weakness, no imbecility. The tribes now at war must submit unconditionally to the justice, mercy, and leniency of our government. The guilty ones should suffer, and the remainder be placed on reservations under the eye of the military. By such a decisive, energetic, and firm course the difficulty may be grappled with, and peace restored. "Let not our hearts be discouraged. I have an abiding confidence in the future destiny of our Territory. Gloom must give way to sunlight. Let us never lose sight of the resources, capacities, and natural advantages of the Territory of Washington. Gather heart, then, fellow citizens. Do not now talk of leaving us in our hour of adversity, but stay till the shade of gloom is lifted, and await that destiny to be fulfilled. Let us all put hands together and rescue the Territory from its present difficulties, so that we may all feel that we have done our whole duty in the present exigency." To this manly and clear-sighted appeal the legislature made haste to respond with the alacrity and heartfelt sense of relief, and renewal of hope and courage, with which men in the extremity of danger ever turn to a natural leader, and, so far as lay in its power, gave him unlimited authority to take measures necessary to save the settlements from extinction. Forthwith Governor Stevens adopted and put in force, with all the energy of his determined and vigorous nature, the following measures:-- 1. He called upon the people by proclamation, dated January 22, to raise a thousand volunteers for six months for offensive operations against the enemy, wherever they might be ordered. He refused to enlist any troops for local or home defense or short terms, and summarily disbanded all the companies which were under arms, they having been raised for such restricted service. 2. He called upon the settlers, wherever three or four families could join together, to return to their abandoned farms, build blockhouses, and hold and cultivate the soil. 3. He required all Indians on the eastern side of the Sound to move to, and remain upon, reservations selected on islands, or on points on the western shore, under the care and oversight of agents, there to be fed and protected by the government while the war lasted. Any Indian found on the eastern side without permission of his agent was to be deemed hostile. 4. He sent Secretary Mason to Washington to lay the pressing need of funds to meet the expenses of feeding and caring for the non-hostile Indians before the government, and to enlighten it as to the war and general situation. 5. He made effective use of the friendly Indians in scouting operations against the hostiles, hunting them down in their retreats, and confirming the fidelity of the doubtful tribes. 6. He sent agents to Portland, San Francisco, and Victoria, B.C., with urgent appeals for arms, ammunition, and supplies, and published his appeal in the San Francisco papers. 7. He issued territorial scrip, or certificates of indebtedness, to defray the pay of volunteers and cost of munitions and supplies. 8. He freely resorted to impressment or seizure of supplies, teams, etc., whenever necessary. 9. He appealed to the patriotism and good feeling of the volunteers, but enforced discipline, and punished misconduct by summary and dishonorable dismissal of the guilty from the service. It is only by bearing in mind the facts that the entire white population numbered only four thousand souls, of whom the males fit to bear arms barely equaled the number of volunteers called for; that they were destitute of arms, ammunition, supplies, money, and credit; discouraged and wholly on the defensive; denied protection by the regular troops, who indeed were too few to afford it; and all hope of support and sympathy from the government, or from outside, blasted by the denunciations of Wool,--that one can really appreciate the courage and self-reliance of Governor Stevens in undertaking the task before him. The ability and self-devotion with which he successfully accomplished it, and the remarkable spirit and patriotism of the people, who sustained their leader, and loyally and patiently submitted to these stringent measures, furnish one of the brightest pages in the history of the Republic. The day after delivering his message, the second after arriving home, the governor hastened down the Sound to inspect the reservations and agents, and perfect measures to enforce the removal of the Indians from the theatre of war. He visited every point of importance on the eastern side, informed himself thoroughly of the needs and conditions at each, and returned to Olympia on the 28th. On this trip he secured the aid of Pat-ka-nim, head chief of the Snohomish, and a force of his warriors, the first Indian auxiliaries to take the field. The Indians attacked Seattle on January 26 in force, destroyed the larger part of the town, driving the whites to one corner of it, and were only repulsed in the end by the fire of the United States man-of-war Decatur, Captain G. Gansevoort. The people responded instantly to the governor's manly appeal, with true American spirit and patriotism. They made haste to enlist _en masse_ in the volunteer companies, eager to be led against the savage foe. The refugee settlers banded together in small squads, returned to the country, erected blockhouses at or near their farms, and held them with old men and boys. The merchants of San Francisco refused to be misled by the libels of Wool, and furnished supplies and munitions. Inside of three weeks eleven companies were raised, equipped, and taking the field, besides two bodies of Indian auxiliaries. A regular and efficient express service was organized throughout the Territory. An assistant quartermaster and commissary, the two usual supply departments being united, was stationed in each town and principal settlement on purpose to collect provisions, transportation, etc., as well as to provide for the troops. By these skillful measures the governor so successfully overcame the two great difficulties attending the prosecution of the war, viz., the vast extent of the region and the lack of supplies, that the volunteers never had to wait for orders, nor were they ever put to unnecessary or fruitless marches or labors; and during all their campaigns on both sides of the Cascade Mountains, and expeditions of hundreds of miles, they never suffered, nor lost a day, for lack of supplies. The military organization is given below, not only as necessary to a clear presentation of this part of Governor Stevens's life, but as a tribute to those patriotic men who so gallantly and faithfully served and saved the Territory of Washington in her hour of extreme need:-- James Tilton, adjutant-general. James Doty, William Craig, B.F. Shaw, E.C. Fitzhugh, H. R. Crosby, Jared S. Hurd, S.S. Ford, Edward Gibson, lieutenant-colonels and aides. W.W. De Lacy, captain of engineers. Rudolph M. Walker, ordnance officer. Dr. Gallio K. Willard, surgeon and medical purveyor. Drs. U.G. Warbass and Albert Eggers, assistant surgeons. W.W. Miller, quartermaster and commissary-general. James K. Hurd, assistant quartermaster and commissary-general, in charge on Columbia River. Frank Matthias, assistant quartermaster and commissary, Seattle. Warren Gove, Steilacoom. Charles E. Weed, Olympia. R.S. Robinson, Port Townsend. M.R. Hathaway, succeeded by M.B. Millard, Vancouver. A.H. Robie, Dalles and in the field. S.W. Percival was sent as agent to San Francisco. SECOND REGIMENT, RAISED FOR SIX MONTHS. Lieutenant-Colonel B.F. Shaw, commanding the right wing, consisting of Central and Southern battalions. Major J.J.H. Van Bokkelen, commanding Northern battalion. Major Gilmore Hays, succeeded by Major George Blankenship, Central battalion. Major H.J.G. Maxon, Southern battalion. Lieutenant Eustis Huger, adjutant; Lieutenants Humphrey Hill, B.F. Ruth, W.W. De Lacy, adjutants of Northern, Central, and Southern battalions respectively. Captain C.H. Armstrong, regimental quartermaster and commissary in field with right wing. R.M. Bigelow, Justin Millard, M.P. Burns, surgeons, Northern, Southern, and Central battalions respectively. MOUNTED MEN. Company. Strength. Captain. C 67 B.L. Henness D 44 {Achilles {Jephtha S. Powell I 40 Bluford Miller K 101 Francis M.P. Goff M 53 Henry M. Chase N 74 {Richards {James Williams Washington Mounted Rifles 95 H.J.G. Maxon Clark County Rangers 81 William Kelly Walla Walla Company 29 Sidney S. Ford ---- 584 INFANTRY. A 53 Edward Lander {Gilmore Hays B 52 {A.B. Rabbeson {David E. Burntrager E 21 C.W. Riley F 40 C.W. Swindal G 55 {J.J.H. Van Bokkelen {Daniel Smalley H 42 R.V. Peabody I 35 {Samuel D. Howe {George W. Beam L 91 Edward D. Warbass Train guard 47 Oliver Shead Pioneer Company 40 {Joseph White {Urban E. Hicks Nisqually Ferry Guard 9 Sergeant William Packwood ---- 485 Stevens Guards 25 C.P. Higgins Spokane Invincibles 23 B.F. Yantis INDIAN AUXILIARIES. Nez Perces, Volunteers 70 Chief Spotted Eagle Snohomish 82 Chiefs Pat-ka-nim and John Taylor Squaxon 15 Lieutenant Wesley Gosnell Chehalis 17 Sidney S. Ford Cowlitz 9 Pierre Charles ---- Total 1310 The horses used for mounted men were furnished partly by the government and partly by the volunteers. Company M was composed of ten white men and forty-three Nez Perces, Indians furnishing their own horses. Company N was first commanded by Captain Richards, and second by Captain Williams. A portion of the Pioneer Company, after Colonel Shaw's march across the Cascades, served as mounted men in the Puget Sound country. Company B was commanded first by Captain Gilmore Hays, second by Captain A.B. Rabbeson, and lastly by Captain David E. Burntrager. Company E was first commanded by Captain Riley, and second by Lieutenant Cole. Company G was first commanded by Captain Van Bokkelen, and second by Captain Smalley. Company I was first commanded by Captain Howe, and second by Captain Beam. Volunteers called out by Acting-Governor Mason:-- FIRST REGIMENT, RAISED FOR THREE MONTHS OR LESS. MOUNTED MEN. Company. Strength. Captain. A 61 William Strong B 91 Gilmore Hays E 40 Isaac Hays F 63 Benjamin L. Henness K 26 John R. Jackson Cowlitz Rangers 39 Henry A. Peers Lewis River Rangers 44 William Bratton Puget Sound Rangers 36 Charles H. Eaton ---- 408 INFANTRY. Company. Strength. Captain. C 70 George B. Goudy D 55 William H. Wallace G 22 W.A.L. McCorkle M 75 C.C. Hewett I 84 Isaac N. Ebey J 29 Alfred A. Plummer Nisqually Ferry Guard 10 Sergeant William Packwood ---- 345 Newell's Company, mounted Captain Robert Newell McKay's Company " Captain William C. McKay Captain Strong's and Hays's companies were mustered into the regular service. The mounted men furnished their own horses. FOOTNOTES: [10] Bancroft, vol. xxvi. p. 143. CHAPTER XXXVIII WAGING THE WAR ON THE SOUND The force thus speedily raised was organized into three battalions, designated the Northern, Southern, and Central, each of which elected its major, and the two latter were subsequently formed into a single command by the election of Shaw as lieutenant-colonel. The Northern battalion, under the command of Major J.J.H. Van Bokkelen, consisted of companies C, Captain Daniel Smalley; H, Captain R.V. Peabody; and I, Captain Samuel D. Howe. The Central battalion, under Major Gilmore Hays, comprised companies B, Captain A.B. Rabbeson; C, Captain B.L. Henness; E, Captain C.W. Riley; F, Captain C.W. Swindal; the Pioneer Company, Captain White; and the train guard, Captain Oliver Shead. The Southern battalion included the Washington Mounted Rifles, Major H.J.G. Maxon; Company D, Captain Achilles; J, Captain Bluford Miller; and K, Captain Francis M.P. Goff, all under the command of Major Maxon. The Southern battalion and Captain Henness's Company C were mounted, most of the volunteers furnishing their own horses. The others served as infantry. Besides these, Company A, of forty-two men, Captain Edward Lander (chief justice of the Territory), was raised at Seattle, and garrisoned that place. The plan of campaign was to guard the line of the Snohomish River with the whole available force of the Northern battalion, to move with the Central battalion at once into the heart of the enemy's country with one hundred days' supplies, to operate with the Southern battalion east of the Cascades, and to combine all the operations by a movement from the Sound to the interior, or from the interior to the Sound, according to circumstances. The most favorable and commonly used passes across the Cascades were at the head of the Snohomish and its southern branch, the Snoqualmie; about and opposite the mouth of the river were a good part of the Sound Indians; it was here that the council of Mukilteo was held, at which twenty-three hundred Indians were present, and across the Sound, nearly opposite, was collected the greatest number of non-hostiles. The occupation of the line of the Snohomish, therefore, was a move of the first strategic importance as shutting the door against the incursions of the Yakimas, and cutting off the tribes on the Sound from access to the back country and intercourse with them and other hostiles. It was determined to occupy the country permanently by roads and blockhouses, by which, together with the stockades and blockhouses which the encouraged settlers were building and holding at many points, to circumscribe the hostile resorts and coverts, and open up the trackless back country. Indian auxiliaries were to be used as the best means of preserving their doubtful fidelity, and of using their knowledge of the country to search out and hunt down the hostiles. [Illustration: THEATRE OF INDIAN WAR OF 1855-56 ON PUGET SOUND AND WEST OF CASCADE MOUNTAINS] This plan the governor early communicated to Lieutenant-Colonel Silas Casey (major-general in the Civil War), then commanding at Steilacoom, and invited and secured his coöperation therewith. So desirous was he to insure coöperation between the regular and volunteer forces that, waiving etiquette, he twice visited Casey in person; and early in February he again made the arduous journey to Vancouver, and by personal conference with Colonel George Wright, who commanded the regular troops both on the river and the Sound, sought to arrange harmonious and combined action between their respective forces, returning to Olympia by the 17th. During the war the governor spared no pains to consult with the regular officers and secure their concert of action with him, and this end he brought about quite fully with Casey, and partially with Wright, notwithstanding both officers were under the strictest injunctions from Wool not to recognize the volunteer forces in any way. The letter which Governor Stevens wrote to General Wool on reaching Walla Walla gave very fully the results of his knowledge of the country and the Indians, and his views and suggestions in regard to prosecuting the war, which, if adopted or heeded by the prejudiced commander, would have brought the contest to an end in a few months. After announcing his safe arrival, and giving a brief account of the numbers and dispositions of the Indian tribes, he describes the features of the Walla Walla, Palouse, Spokane, and Yakima countries which a military mail should know for planning the movement of troops, namely, roads, river crossings, grass, wood, depth of snow, etc., sending also a map. The governor recommended Wool to occupy the Walla Walla valley with all his available force in January, establishing a depot camp there, and a line of barges on the Columbia between the mouth of the Des Chutes and old Fort Walla Walla, to bring up supplies; in February to cross Snake River with 500 men and strike the Indians on the Palouse, where the hostiles driven out of the valley were congregated; to follow up this blow by sending a column of 300 men up the left bank of the Columbia towards the Okinakane River (Okanogan), while 200 remained to guard the line of the Snake, and keep the Indians from doubling back. The effect of these movements would be to drive these hostiles across the Columbia into the Yakima country, when the troops north of the Snake were to follow them, and all the troops south of that stream, who had been holding the river crossings and depot camps, were to unite, cross the Columbia at the mouth of the Snake, and move up the Yakima valley, and with the other column put the Indians to their last battle, for the effect of these movements would be to drive the enemy into a corner from which he could not easily escape. Moreover, and this was of the first importance, this plan would interpose the troops between the hostile and friendly tribes. Simultaneous movements against the Yakimas and north of Snake River would throw the hostiles upon the Spokanes, and might cause them to take up arms. About 800 effective troops would be required. There were already 500 mounted Oregon volunteers in the Walla Walla valley, and Wool had, or would soon have, 500 to 600 regulars available. In the last paragraph of this letter the governor stated:-- "In conclusion, it is due to frankness that I should state that I have determined to submit to the department the course taken by the military authorities in disbanding the troops raised in the Territory of Washington for my relief. No effort was made, although the facts were presented both to Major-General Wool and Major Rains, to send me assistance. The regular troops were all withdrawn into garrison, and I was left to make my way the best I could, through tribes known to be hostile. It remains to be seen whether the commissioner selected by the President to make treaties with the Indians in the interior of the continent is to be ignored, and his safety left to chance." On finding that General Wool had left so hastily for San Francisco the governor sent a copy of this memoir to Colonel Wright, with a letter, dated February 6, urging him to send at least two companies of the troops at Vancouver to the Sound, and to push his troops against the Indians east of the mountains. But instead of profiting by the valuable information and sound views given him by Governor Stevens, Wool sarcastically replied that he had neither the resources of a Territory nor the treasury of the United States at his command. Instead of making use of, or coöperating with, the Oregon volunteers already in the Walla Walla valley, he denounced them as making war upon friendly Indians, and declared that, with the additional force recently arrived at the Dalles and Vancouver, he could bring the war to a close in a few months, provided the extermination of the Indians was not determined upon, and the volunteers were withdrawn from the Walla Walla valley. He filled the greater part of a long letter with denunciations of outrages by whites upon Indians in southern Oregon, and of the Oregon volunteers and of Governor Curry. He declared that two companies he had just sent to the Sound, with three already there, making five in all, under Lieutenant-Colonel Casey, would be a sufficient force to suppress the outbreak in that region. He concluded by saying:-- "In your frankness and determination to represent me to the department, I trust you will be governed by truth, and by truth only. I disbanded no troops raised for your relief; and your communication gave me the first intelligence that any were raised for such a purpose." The bad blood and duplicity of this communication was the more inexcusable from the facts that it was on the requisition of his own officers that the Washington volunteers had been raised and mustered into the United States service, that he made no complaint whatever against them or the people of that Territory, and that his last assertion was a downright falsehood. Even after receiving the full and valuable memoir which Governor Stevens sent him, he declared in official communications: "I have been kept wholly ignorant of the state of the country, except through the regular officers of the army." On March 15 Wool made another flying visit to Vancouver, thence by steamer to Steilacoom, where he tarried but a single day, conferred with and instructed Colonel Casey, rebuked him for coöperating with the volunteers, and hurried away without deigning to notify the governor of his presence. The latter, on hearing that he had left Vancouver for the Sound, immediately dispatched Adjutant-General Tilton to Steilacoom with a letter to Wool, stating:-- "He is instructed to advise you of the plan of operations which I have adopted, the force in the field, and the condition of the country. I have to acquaint you of my desire to coöperate with you in any plans you may think proper to adopt, and I shall be pleased to hear from you in reference to the prosecution of the campaign." But Wool had left before Tilton could reach him. The first and only result of Wool's flying visit was manifested next day in a formal demand by Colonel Casey on Governor Stevens for two companies of volunteers to be mustered into the United States service, and placed under his orders. He stated in conclusion:-- "I received yesterday an accession of two companies of the 9th infantry. With this accession of force and the two companies of volunteers called for, I am of the opinion that I shall have a sufficient number of troops to protect this frontier without the aid of those now in the service of the Territory." This demand was made just after the volunteers had defeated the hostiles, as will soon be narrated. Thus, instead of the coöperation which he so earnestly sought with the regular service, he was coolly required by the commanding general to disband thirteen companies of white troops and four bodies of Indian auxiliaries, abandon his posts and blockhouses defending the settlements and in the enemy's country, leave the door of the Snohomish open for the Yakima emissaries to strike the reservations and the settlements,--in a word, give up his whole campaign at the moment when he had inflicted a severe defeat upon the enemy, and, fully prepared, was on the eve of following it up with his whole force, all posted in the very positions, and furnished with the needed supplies, which he had secured by so much labor and foresight, and to leave the defense of this extended and exposed frontier to an officer whose force would consist of only five companies of regulars and two of volunteers,--seven in all,--and whose most extended operations thus far had never gone beyond fifteen miles from his headquarters at Fort Steilacoom. This artful and impudent request of Wool--for Colonel Casey made it by his instructions--was instantly rejected by the governor with the scorn it deserved; and in a letter to Wool, dated March 20, he administered a well-deserved castigation to that ill-disposed officer:-- EXECUTIVE OFFICE, WASHINGTON TERRITORY, OLYMPIA, March 20, 1856. MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN E. WOOL, _Commanding Pacific Division_. _Sir_,--I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of the 12th of February, and to state generally in answer thereto that the events of the past four weeks, in connection with your own official course, afford satisfactory evidence that the most objectionable positions of your letter have been abandoned, and that you have finally been awakened to the true condition of the Indian war, and are seeking to make some amends for the unfortunate blunders of the past. You have probably learned how much you have been misled in your views of the operations of the Oregon volunteers, and how much unnecessary sympathy you have wasted on the infamous Pu-pu-mox-mox. For your own reputation I have felt pain at the statement made in your letter to me, for I am an authoritative witness in the case; and in the letter which submitted your own action in refusing to send me succor, I have presented briefly the facts, showing the unmitigated hostility of that chief. I assert that I can prove by incontrovertible evidence that Pu-pu-mox-mox had been hostile for months; that he exerted his influence to effect a general combination of the tribes; that he plundered Walla Walla and the settlers of the valley, distributing the spoils to his own and the neighboring tribes as war trophies; that he rejected the intercession of the friendly Nez Perces to continue peaceful; that he had sworn to take my life and cut off my party; that he and the adjoining tribes of Oregon and Washington had taken up their military position as warriors at the proper points of the Walla Walla valley,--and all this before the volunteers of Oregon moved upon him.... That some turbulent men of the Oregon volunteers have done injury to the friendly Cuyuses is unquestionable, and it is reprobated by the authorities and citizens of both Territories. It has, however, been grossly exaggerated. Had, sir, the regulars moved up to the Walla Walla valley, as I most earnestly urged both Major Rains and Colonel Wright both by letter and in person, these Indians would have been protected. The presence of a single company would have been sufficient. The responsibility, if evil follows, will attach, sir, to you, as well as to the volunteers. In your letter of the 12th of February you state: "I have recently sent to Puget Sound two companies of the 9th infantry. These, with the three companies there, will give a force of nearly or quite four hundred regulars, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Casey. This force, with several ships of war on the Sound, to which will be added in a few days the United States steamer Massachusetts, it seems to me, if rightly directed, ought to be sufficient to bring to terms two hundred Indian warriors. Captain Keyes, in his last report, says there are not quite two hundred in arms in that region." Here you have expressed a very confident opinion. You thought proper to quote Captain Keyes as to the number of Indians, but you found it did not suit your purpose to refer to the requisitions he had made upon you for six additional companies, two of which only had been sent forward; nor could you find time to refer to the fact that Colonel Casey had recommended that, after the war was over, eight companies should be permanently stationed there for the protection of the Sound. You think volunteers entirely unnecessary, although after having received from the executive information as to the condition of the country. It is now March, a month later, and you send two companies of regulars, and direct Colonel Casey to call upon me for two additional companies of volunteers. Thus you have practically acknowledged that you were wrong, and that I was right; and thus I have your testimony as against yourself in vindication of the necessity of my calling out volunteers. As regards this call for volunteers, it is presumed that Colonel Casey informed you that the whole available force of the Sound country was bearing arms, and that the great proportion of them were actively engaging the enemy; that, organized in two battalions, the Northern battalion occupied the line of the Snohomish, where they were establishing blockhouses and closing the passes of the Snoqualmie. That the Central battalion was occupying the military road over the Nahchess, in relation to which road and its military bearing your aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Arnold, will be able to give you full information; and that on both lines decisive blows had been struck; and also that it was beyond the ability of our citizens to raise an additional company of even fifty men to honor your requisition. I have a right to hold you to a full knowledge of our condition here. If you say you were misinformed, then you are not fit for your position, and should give place to a better man. If you were informed, then your measures as a military man manifest an incapacity beyond example. Therefore the call on me for two companies of volunteers is a call upon me to withdraw the troops now in the field with sixty to eighty days' provisions, after decisive blows have been struck, and when everything is ready to strike a, and perhaps _the_, decisive blow to end the war. I am, sir, too old a soldier ever to abandon a well-considered plan of campaign, or to do otherwise than to press forward with all my energies in the path marked out, promising, as it does, the speedy termination of the war; and, sir, I am too wary a man not to detect the snare that has been laid for me. You never expected, sir, that the requisition would be complied with. You knew that it was a practical impossibility; but, not having the courage to acknowledge your errors, it was resorted to in the hope that my refusing your requisition might enable you to occupy my vantage-ground, and throw me on the defensive. I hold you, sir, to the facts and necessity of the case, clearly demonstrating by your own confession the propriety of my course, and the necessity on my part of a steady adherence to it. You have referred to the atrocities committed upon the friendly Indians by the whites. I know nothing of what has occurred in southern Oregon; but I have to state that no man, to my knowledge, in the Territory of Washington advocates the extermination of the Indians. The authorities here have not only used every exertion to protect them, but their exertions have been completely successful. Did you learn, sir, in your brief visit to the Sound, that nearly four thousand Indians--friendly Indians--had been moved from the war ground on the eastern shore of the Sound and its vicinity to the adjacent islands, and have for nearly five months been living in charge of local agents? That not an Indian in the whole course of the war has been killed by the whites except in battle? That where a military commission, composed of a majority of volunteer officers, tried some months since eight Indians, only one was convicted, and that the sentence of death passed upon him has not yet been executed? It is the good conduct of our people, sir, that has so strengthened the hands of the authorities as to enable them to control these friendly Indians, and to prevent any considerable accessions to the ranks of the hostiles. I have recently heard from the Nez Perces, the Coeur d'Alenes, and the Spokanes. The former are firm in their allegiance; but the Spokanes urge me to have a military force on the great prairie between them and the hostile Indians, so these latter may not be driven to their country, and thus incite their young men to war. The letter of Garry, chief of the Spokanes, is a most earnest and plaintive call for help, so his hands may be strengthened in keeping his people to their plighted faith; and the coincidence is remarkable, that this Indian chief, a white man in education and views in life, should have asked me to do the very thing I have urged upon you; for you will remember, in my memoir I urge that the troops, in operating against the Indians, should be interposed between the friendly and hostile tribes to prevent those now friendly from joining in the war. I have, sir, studied the character of these Indians, and my views as to the influence upon the friendly Indians of the mode of carrying on the war against the hostiles are confirmed by the only educated Indian of either Oregon or Washington, and the head chief of the tribe in reference to which I made the recommendation and felt the most solicitude. It seems to me that the present condition of things imposes upon you the necessity of recognizing the services of the volunteers of the two Territories now in the field, and of your doing everything to facilitate their operations. But if you waste your exertions in the fruitless effort to induce either the authorities to withdraw their troops, to abandon their plan of campaign in order to comply with your requisition, or to meet your peculiar notions, I warn you now, sir, that I, as the governor of Washington, will cast upon you the whole responsibility of any difficulties which may arise in consequence, and that by my firm, steady, and energetic course, and by my determination to coöperate with the regular service, whatever may be the provocation to the contrary, I will vindicate the justice of my course, and maintain my reputation as a faithful public servant. I warn you, sir, that, unless your course is changed, you will have difficulties in relation to which your only salvation will be the firm and decided policy of the two Territories whose services you have ignored, whose people you have calumniated, and whose respect you have long since ceased to possess. Can you presume, sir, to be able to correct your opinions by a hasty visit to the Sound for a few days? And do you expect, after having taken my deliberate course, that I shall change my plans on a simple intimation from you, without even a conference between us? Were you desirous, sir, to harmonize the elements of strength on the Sound, you would have seen that it was your duty at least to have informed me of your presence, and to have invited me to a conference. Whilst in the country, in the fall and winter, you complained that the authorities of the two Territories did not communicate with you. Why did you not inform me of your presence in the Sound on your arrival at Steilacoom? I learned of your probable arrival by simply learning on Saturday morning by my express of your having left Vancouver, and I immediately dispatched the chief of my staff to wait upon you with a letter. But you were gone; and whether you did not know the courtesy due the civil authorities of the Territory, who had taken the proper course to place themselves in relations with you, or whether you were unwilling to meet a man whose safety you had criminally neglected, and whose general views you have been compelled to adopt, is a matter entirely immaterial to me. What, sir, would have been the effect if Governor Curry had not made the movement which you condemn, and my party with the friendly Nez Perces had been cut off? Sir, there would have been a hurricane of war between the Cascades and Bitter Root, and three thousand warriors would now be in arms. Every tribe would have joined, including the Snakes, and the spirit of hostility would have spread east of the Bitter Root to the upper Pend Oreilles. I believe, sir, I would have forced my way through the five or six hundred hostiles in the Walla Walla valley with fifty-odd white men and one hundred and fifty Nez Perces. Would you have expected it? Could the country expect it? And what was the duty of those having forces at their command? Governor Curry sent his volunteers and defeated the enemy. You disbanded the company of Washington Territory volunteers raised expressly to be sent to my relief. I have reported your refusal to send me succor to the Department of War, and have given some of the circumstances attending that refusal. The company was under the command of Captain William McKay. Before your arrival there was a pledge that it should be mustered into the regular service and sent to my assistance. Major Rains informs me that he did everything in his power to induce you to send it on. William McKay informs me that he called on you personally, and that you would do nothing. I am informed that your aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Arnold, endeavored to get you to change your determination. What was your reply? "Governor Stevens can take care of himself. Governor Stevens will go down the Missouri. Governor Stevens will get aid from General Harney. If Governor Stevens wants aid, he will send for it." These were your answers, according to the changing humor of the moment. And now, sir, in view of your assertion that you disbanded no troops raised for my relief, and that my communication gave you the first intelligence that any were raised for that purpose, I would commend the chalice to your own lips, "that I trust you will be governed" hereafter "by the truth, and the truth only." I am, sir, very respectfully, Your obedient servant, ISAAC I. STEVENS, _Governor, Washington Territory_. Unable to answer this letter, which so clearly exposed and justly rebuked his reprehensible course and conduct, Wool returned it, with a note from his aide stating that it was done by his order. In response the governor, in a final letter to Wool, remarks of this act:-- "It can only be construed as evincing a determination on your part to have no further official communication with the executive of the Territory of Washington, at the very time when, from the circumstances of the case and the nature of their respective duties, there should, and must often be, such communications. "It is a matter which is not to be decided by personal feeling, but by consideration of public duty, which alone should govern public acts. I shall therefore continue in my official capacity to communicate with the major-general commanding the Department of the Pacific whenever, in my judgment, duty and the paramount interests of the Territory shall demand such communication to be made, casting upon that officer whatever responsibility before the country and his superiors may attach to his refusal to receive such communications. My duty shall be done. Let others do their duty." The governor was always of the opinion, the result undoubtedly of what he was told by other officers, that, in disbanding the troops raised for his relief, Wool was actuated by resentment at his, the governor's, manly declaration in San Francisco, when, disgusted at Wool's self-laudation and disparagement of a greater commander, he said that "every officer knew, and history would record, that General Taylor won the battle of Buena Vista." However that may be, after the caustic letter given above, Wool's malice knew no bounds. He redoubled his accusations of making war upon friendly Indians, gathered up and sent on to the War Department in his official reports newspaper slanders against the governor, and even declared that he was crazy. He reiterated his orders to his subordinates to have nothing to do with the territorial volunteers or authorities, and finally went to the length of directing his officers to disarm the volunteers, if practicable. No attempt was ever made in that direction. Early in February Pat-ka-nim, with eighty Snohomish braves, accompanied by Colonel Simmons, pushed up the Snohomish and against the hostiles on Green River under Leschi, the Nisqually chief, and defeated them in a sharp fight, inflicting a loss of five killed and six wounded, besides two taken and executed. As fast as organized, the Northern battalion was advanced on the line of the Snohomish, where it built blockhouses and a camp known as Fort Tilton below the Snoqualmie Falls, and Fort Alden above them, and scouted the surrounding country. This battalion also established a blockhouse, with a garrison of fifteen men, at Bellingham Bay, and with blockhouses on Whitby Island and at Point Wilson, near Port Townsend, and a service of small vessels and canoes, kept watch over the lower Sound. The Central battalion, having been assembled on Yelm prairie, twenty miles east of Olympia, and constructed there Fort Stevens, moved to and built Camp Montgomery, twelve miles back of Steilacoom, February 19 to 23; the post and ferry at the emigrant crossing of the Puyallup, 25th to 29th; and the post and blockhouses, named Fort Hays, on Connell's prairie, on White River, by March 2; and later two blockhouses at the crossing of that river, named Forts Pike and Posey. Small garrisons held this line of blockhouses; roads were cut and opened through the forest; and a train of thirty ox-teams, three yoke each, bought, hired, or impressed from the settlers, hauled out a hundred days' supplies. Captain Henness's mounted rangers cheerfully dismounted, and, leaving their horses at Yelm prairie, advanced on foot. The governor visited Camp Montgomery on the 28th, pressing forward the movement. Captain Sidney S. Ford, with a force of friendly Chehalis Indians, scouted the lower Puyallup. Lieutenant-Colonel Casey advanced a detachment of regulars to the Muckleshoot prairie, eight miles below Connell's prairie, where they built a blockhouse named Fort Slaughter. The government vessels on the Sound were the war steamer Massachusetts, Captain Samuel Swartwout, which remained mostly in Seattle harbor, where she relieved the Decatur; the Coast Survey steamer Active, Captain James Alden; and the revenue cutter Jefferson Davis, a sailing vessel, Captain William C. Pease. These officers were ever ready to aid in the defense of the settlements by every means in their power. They furnished ammunition, transported volunteers and supplies, and cruised the Sound to overawe the northern Indians. On March 2 two white men were killed by Indians within a few miles of Olympia; Indians were seen and stock was driven off at other points; a band of savages under Qui-e-muth were discovered in the Nisqually bottom; and it appeared that, while the troops were pushing out, the Indians were coming in behind them to raid the settlements. Unwilling to arrest the forward movement, the governor immediately ordered Maxon's company, of the Southern battalion, over to the Sound from Vancouver, and soon after brought over the rest of the battalion. By a special war notice he also called a hundred more men from the already denuded settlements, and, with the few that were able to respond, strengthened the exposed points. On March 6 Colonel Casey's troops on Muckleshoot prairie had a sharp fight with the enemy. On the 10th Major Hays, with 110 men of his Central battalion, fought the principal and decisive battle of the war on the Sound, known as the battle of Connell's prairie. It was brought on by the Indians, who, emboldened by their previous successes, fought for five hours with a confidence and stubbornness that enabled the volunteers to inflict severe losses upon them. They were finally routed by a charge on their left flank by Captains Swindal and Rabbeson, and a simultaneous attack in front by Captains Henness and White, with a loss of twenty-five or thirty killed and many wounded. They even abandoned their war-drum in their flight. Major Hays, who handled his command with skill and judgment as well as courage, reported that they numbered at least two hundred warriors. It afterwards appeared that their numbers were much larger, and that they were aided in the fight by a hundred Yakima warriors. The fruits of Governor Stevens's thorough preparations were now manifested by incessant blows and untiring, unsparing warfare. The Indians were allowed no respite from attack, and could find no refuge, even in the densest swamps and thickets. The Central battalion sent out strong parties to beat up the country of the White, Green, Cedar, and Puyallup rivers to the base of the mountains. Major Van Bokkelen, with Captain Smalley's Company G, forty-six men, and seventy-six of Pat-ka-nim's braves, swept the forests from the Snohomish to Connell's prairie, thence up the mountain to the Nahchess Pass, thence northward along the foot of the range to his own northern line, and thence into and over the Snoqualmie passes. Captain Sidney Ford with his Chehalis Indians, and agent Wesley Gosnell with a party of friendly, or pretended friendly, Indians from the Squaxon reservation--own brothers to the hostiles these--scoured the swamps and bottoms of the Puyallup and Nisqually; Lieutenant Pierre Charles, with a force of Cowlitz and Chehalis Indians, scouted up the Cowlitz and Newarkum rivers, and captured a number of the enemy. The ladies of Olympia, under the lead of Mrs. Stevens, made blue caps with red facings, with which these red allies were equipped, to distinguish them from their hostile kindred. Another company was called out and organized among the settlers of the Cowlitz plains under Captain E.D. Warbass, which built a blockhouse on Klikitat prairie, twelve miles higher up the Cowlitz, and also kept scouting parties constantly on the move. Major Maxon and his company scouted and searched the whole length of the Nisqually valley far into the range, leaving their horses and plunging into the tangled forests on foot, and on one of their scouts killed eight and brought in fourteen captives of the enemy. Miller's and Achilles's companies joined in the work, while Goff was sent back to the river to increase his strength to a hundred, and, with another company to be raised there,--N, Captain Richards,--to rendezvous at the Dalles in readiness for operations in the upper country. The governor urged Captain Swartwout to unite with Captain Lander's company, by furnishing a detachment and boats from the Massachusetts, in routing out the Indians who infested the shores of Lake Washington; and when the naval officer declined, Captains Howe and Peabody led detachments of the Northern battalion from the Snohomish down through the unknown and trackless forest, and beat up the shores of the lake. Lander's Company A was posted on the Duwhamish River, a few miles from Seattle, where it built a blockhouse, and from which point Lieutenant Neely led a party in a canoe expedition up Black River into the lake, and fell upon a camp of the hostiles just after it had been abandoned, which was found filled with remains of cattle, stores, and goods recently plundered from Seattle and the settlers. Colonel Casey, after being reinforced by the two companies brought over from Vancouver, established a post higher up on White River, from which, and from his post on Muckleshoot prairie, parties scouted the surrounding forest. Every blockhouse with its little garrison, every armed train and express and canoe, as well as the numerous scouting parties, was constantly watching and searching for hostile Indians, and, worse than all, their own kindred, of whom Shaw declared "blankets will turn any Indian on the side of the whites," now joined in the hunt, and, stimulated by rewards offered for the heads of the hostile chiefs and warriors, showed the way to all their secret haunts and trails. The tide had, indeed, turned, after two months of this unrelenting warfare, and nearly every tribe on the Sound now freely proffered its assistance. The northern Indians, also, tendered their services, which were declined, excepting eight men, who joined the Northern battalion, and proved themselves uncommonly brave, strong, and hardy soldiers. Thus the whole tangled region, with its dense forests and almost impenetrable swamps, from the Snohomish to the Cowlitz, nearly two hundred miles, was beaten up, the Indian resorts and hiding-places searched out, and their trails discovered and explored, especially those across the mountain passes, many of which were now for the first time made known to the whites. The whole policy and plan of campaign were Governor Stevens's, and the execution almost entirely the work of his brave and patriotic volunteers. The governor had, indeed, brought about a real concert of action with Colonel Casey by his frank and considerate treatment of that officer, but the regular forces kept within a very short tether of Fort Steilacoom. It was in the midst of the rainy season that this aggressive campaign was waged. So impracticable and unwise was it deemed by the brave and excellent Major Hays that he remonstrated with the governor against exposing the volunteers to such hardships, and, finding him inexorable, resigned rather than undertake it, as also did two officers of his former company. Amid constant rains and swollen streams the volunteers thridded the dripping forests, where every shaken bough drenched the toiling soldiers with another shower-bath, following some dim trail, or oftener cutting or forcing their way through the trackless woods,--heavy packs of blankets and rations on their backs, the axe in one hand and the rifle in the other. Scarcely would they return from one scout when they would be ordered out again. To every demand the volunteers responded with the greatest alacrity, spirit, and fortitude. The mounted men without a murmur left their horses and took to the woods as foot scouts. The Southern battalion, enlisting with the expectation of campaigning on the plains of the upper country, instantly and without a murmur obeyed the order summoning them to the Sound, to the discomforts and hardships of the rains and forests and swamps. The settlers freely turned out with their teams of oxen, and the storekeepers furnished blankets, clothing, shoes, and provisions to the extent of their ability. On March 26, just as the campaign was well under way, the Yakimas and Klikitats swooped down upon the Cascades portage on the Columbia, which was left insufficiently guarded by Colonel Wright with a force of only nine regular soldiers in a blockhouse, and massacred nineteen settlers, and killed one soldier and wounded two others. Colonel Wright, who was at the Dalles preparing an expedition for the Yakima country, immediately proceeded to the Cascades with a strong force of regular troops, and the Indians disappeared. Satisfied that the friendly Indians in that vicinity were implicated in the attack, he caused ten of them, including the chief, to be summarily tried by military commission and hanged, an act which, if committed by the territorial authorities or volunteers, would have caused redoubled denunciations on the part of Wool and his parasites, but which, done by this regular officer, excited no comment. This affair at the Cascades is also of interest as being General P.H. Sheridan's début in the art of war. The massacre at the Cascades excited new alarm among the settlers about Vancouver and along the Columbia. To reassure them, and keep them from abandoning their farms, the governor called out another company of volunteers under Captain William Kelly, known as the Clark County Rangers, caused several new blockhouses to be built, and had the rangers constantly patrol the settlements. It was at this time, and largely in consequence of the Cascades massacre, that he called out Captain Warbass's company, for he deemed it essential that the settlers should not again abandon their farms. He also wrote Colonel Wright proposing a "thorough understanding between the regular and volunteer service, so their joint efforts may be applied to the protection of the settlements and the prosecution of the war," in order that no force need be wasted, and inviting his suggestions to that end. But Colonel Wright, although personally ready to coöperate like Colonel Casey, was under the strictest orders from Wool in no way to recognize the volunteers. In his reply to the governor he simply stated what he was doing, and proposing to do, without venturing any suggestions. In truth, between the governor and his volunteers, who were so efficiently protecting the settlements and attacking the common foe, on the one hand, and his irate commanding general, who had positively ordered him to ignore the territorial authorities and forces, on the other, Colonel Wright was in something of a quandary, and it must be confessed that he conducted himself with no little diplomatic skill. For two months after the fight of Connell's prairie, Governor Stevens kept his whole force thus incessantly searching the forests and hunting down the hostiles with unrelenting vigor. The Indians, thrown completely on the defensive, did not commit another depredation after the Cascades disaster on all that long line of exposed and scattered settlements. They were driven and chased from resort to resort; their most hidden camps and caches of provisions were discovered and destroyed; many were killed or captured; and by the middle of May over five hundred came in and gave themselves up, while the guilty chiefs and warriors fled across the Cascades and sought refuge among their Yakima kindred. The surrendered were placed on the reservations with the friendly Indians, except a number of suspected murderers, who were tried by military commissions; but very few were found guilty for lack of evidence, and they were also sent to join their people on the reservations. It was not the governor's policy to punish them for taking part in the war, or fights only, but he deemed it essential to the future peace of the country that the murderers of settlers and chief instigators of the outbreak should be punished, and believed that if they were allowed to escape scot free they would stir up trouble again. Thus the war west of the Cascades was ended by the complete surrender or flight of the hostiles. In June the posts and blockhouses built by the volunteers on Puyallup and White rivers, Connell's prairie, and Camp Montgomery were turned over to the regulars, and the volunteers who were not required for an expedition east of the Cascades were disbanded in July. After the suppression of hostilities on the Sound, becoming satisfied that the reservations set apart at the treaty of Medicine Creek were inadequate for the Nisquallies and Puyallups, Governor Stevens held a council with these Indians on Fox Island on August 4, and arranged with them to give them, in place of those established by the treaty, a larger reservation for the former tribe on the Nisqually River, a few miles above its mouth, embracing some excellent bottom land, and for the latter twenty-one thousand acres of the finest alluvial land at the mouth of the Puyallup River. At the same time a smaller reservation was given the Duwhamish Indians on the Muckleshoot prairie. The Puyallup reservation included thirteen donation claims taken by white settlers, but the governor had these appraised by a commission which he appointed for the purpose, and its awards, amounting to some five thousand dollars, were paid by Congress. On his recommendation the President, by executive order, promptly established the new reservations, in pursuance of the sixth article of the treaty, which empowered him to take such action. The Indians have remained in undisturbed possession of them ever since. When the Northern Pacific Railroad Company fixed its terminus at Tacoma in 1874, it cast covetous eyes upon this noble tract of land situated across the bay, right opposite the proposed city, and the author, then its attorney in Washington Territory, was instructed to examine and report upon the validity of the Indian title to it. His report satisfied the officers of the company that the right of the Indians to their reservation was indisputable. Much of the success attending Governor Stevens's prosecution of the Indian war was due to the able and energetic men he called to his aid as staff officers. He especially commended General W.W. Miller as having imparted "extraordinary efficiency to the quartermaster's and commissary department, the most difficult of all,--which, generally kept distinct, was a single department in our service,--reflecting the highest capacity and devotion to the public service upon its chief and subordinate officers." It was General Miller who collected, largely by impressment, organized, and led out into the Indian country the large ox-train which hauled out three months' supplies for the volunteers in the beginning of the campaign, without which it could not have been waged. He was distinguished by remarkable sound sense and judgment, and the governor counseled with and relied upon him more than any other. And after the Indian war General Miller was his closest friend in the Territory. The governor also took occasion to make special acknowledgment to General Tilton for his services as adjutant-general, where his military experience was of great value. It is much to be regretted that the limits of this work preclude the detailed mention of their services, which they so well merit; but the remarkable success of their departments is their best encomium. CHAPTER XXXIX THE WAR IN THE UPPER COUNTRY While the war of the Sound was thus vigorously and successfully prosecuted, operations east of the Cascades were marked by lack of vigor and purpose, and no impression was made upon the hostile tribes, except to encourage them to continue on the war-path. The Oregon volunteers, who wintered in the Walla Walla valley, crossed Snake River in March, advanced a short distance up the Palouse, then traversed the country over to the Columbia below Priest's Rapids, from which point they returned to Walla Walla, and in May moved back to the Dalles and were disbanded. Thus it will be seen how easy it would have been for the regular forces, supporting and supplementing this movement of the Oregon volunteers across Snake River, to have made the effective campaign that Governor Stevens outlined to Wool. With a little reinforcement, the volunteers could have pushed beyond Priest's Rapids up the left bank of the Columbia, driving the hostiles across the river into the Yakima country, when the main columns of regulars, entering that country from the Dalles and up the Yakima River, could have "put the hostiles to their last battle." But it was not until May that Colonel Wright marched from the Dalles into the Yakima country with five companies of regulars. He found the hostiles in strong force on the Nahchess River, one of the upper tributaries of the Yakima. Instead of fighting, he stopped to parley with them; but after a week of talking to no purpose, he sent back for reinforcements. At this juncture, the hostile Indians on the Sound having been thoroughly subdued, and those of the upper country being still in unbroken strength and confidence, Governor Stevens, on May 28, proposed to Lieutenant-Colonel Casey a joint movement of their respective forces across the Cascades:-- "I would suggest your sending three companies to the Nahchess, retaining one at or near the pass, and advancing the others into the Yakima country. "At the same time I will put my whole mounted force through the Snoqualmie Pass and down the main Yakima. The Northern battalion shall occupy posts on the line of the Snoqualmie from the falls to the eastern slope. A depot shall be established on the eastern slope; all the horsemen will then be available to strike and pursue the enemy." But Casey, strictly forbidden by Wool to recognize the volunteers, sent two companies under Major Garnett to reinforce Wright by the circuitous Cowlitz and Columbia route, declining to "send him across the Nahchess Pass, for the reason, first, I consider there would be too much delay in getting across. In the next place, I have not sufficient transportation to spare for that purpose." From Steilacoom to Wright's camp on the Nahchess was barely a hundred miles by the direct route across the pass; by the Cowlitz-Columbia route it was three hundred and fifteen miles, for a hundred and fifteen of which the troops could be transported by water, leaving two hundred to march. By these facts, and by the ease and celerity of Shaw's march a few days later over the rejected route, the validity and candor of Casey's "reason" may be judged. Such a combined movement would have given Wright ample reinforcements, and in the mounted volunteers the very arm he most needed; for infantry could never reach the Indians on those plains in summer unless the latter chose to fight. And for the second time he was given the opportunity, by availing himself of the coöperation of the volunteers, to inflict a severe punishment upon the enemy. Unhappily Wool's orders tied his hands, and Wright himself was imbued with Wool's delusion that the Indians of the upper country--the great hostile tribes that had plotted and brought on the war fresh from treacherously signing the treaties at Walla Walla, had murdered the miners and agent Bolon, and had plundered Fort Walla Walla, and laid themselves in wait to cut off Governor Stevens and his party--were innocent and peaceably disposed Indians, who had been forced to war by the aggressions of the whites. Upon Casey's rejection or evasion of the joint operation he proposed, Governor Stevens determined to push his mounted men across the mountains, and throw upon that officer the burden of protecting the settlements upon the Sound against hostile incursions. Accordingly he offered to turn over to him his posts on the Puyallup, and on Connell's and South prairies, and the colonel received and occupied them, for which he was censured and rebuked by Wool as soon as the latter was informed of it. The governor was convinced that the war could be brought to a close only by subduing the hostile tribes of the upper country; that until this was done the Sound country was liable to their raids and stirring up of fresh outbreaks among the Sound Indians; and that every day's delay in striking them was helping Kam-i-ah-kan and his emissaries in winning over the Spokanes, Coeur d'Alenes, and disaffected Nez Perces to their side. He also deemed it necessary to send supplies and Indian goods to Craig and Lawyer, and strengthen their hands in keeping the Nez Perces loyal, now left more exposed by the withdrawal of the Oregon volunteers from the Walla Walla valley. He proceeded, therefore, to carry out his plans, cherished from the beginning, of striking a blow in the upper country. On June 12 Lieutenant-Colonel Shaw marched from Camp Montgomery with one hundred and seventy-five mounted men of the Central and Southern battalions, under their respective majors, Blankenship and Maxon, comprising Captain Henness's Company C, Maxon's Washington Mounted Rifles, Company D, under Lieutenant Powell, Captain Miller's Company J, and a pack-train of twenty-seven packers and one hundred and seven pack animals, under Captain C.H. Armstrong, the regimental quartermaster and commissary. On the 20th he reached the Wenass branch of the Yakima, with the loss of only one animal, finding the road good for a mountain road. Colonel Wright was still parleying with the Yakimas, trying to patch up a peace, and not only with them, but also with Leschi, Kitsap, Stahi, Nelson, and Qui-e-muth, the hostile chiefs who had fled from the Sound country, and would vouchsafe no information or suggestion to the volunteer colonel, except the statement that the regular troops were amply sufficient for the Yakima. Shaw therefore continued his march, crossed the Columbia at old Fort Walla Walla, and reached and made camp on Mill Creek, in the valley, on the 9th of July. Having seen the necessary arrangements made, and orders given for Shaw's march, the governor hastened in person to the Dalles, arriving there June 12, where he had already assembled Captains Goff's and Richards's companies, in anticipation of operating in the upper country. He had previously, on April 27, inquired of Colonel Wright if he intended to occupy the Walla Walla valley, and if, in case it were not occupied, and the Oregon volunteers there were withdrawn, he could furnish an escort of one company to guard the train to the Nez Perce country. To this Wright replied that it was no part of his plan of campaign to occupy the Walla Walla country, "as we are assured that the Indians in that district are peacefully inclined," and that the matter of an escort was referred to General Wool, which, of course, was equivalent to refusal. The governor, on receiving this reply, at once wrote Wright:-- "My information in regard to the Indians in the Walla Walla, and on the Snake River, is that they are determined to prosecute the war. This was the declaration made by the prominent chiefs of the Cuyuses to the express of Mr. McDonald some weeks since. This is the opinion of my agent in the Nez Perce country and of the Nez Perce chiefs, and it would seem to be indicated by the recent attack by the Indians on the volunteers at the Umatilla. "I have therefore thought it my duty to communicate these views, and I will suggest that you receive with great caution any information of their peaceful intention, to the end that you may not be thrown off your guard." Thus Wright was fixed in the opinion that these Indians were peaceably disposed, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. He ignored the information and views given him by Governor Stevens, who, as Superintendent of Indian Affairs, was especially charged with the care and management of them; the information furnished by the Hudson Bay Company's officer at Colville; the opinions of the Nez Perce chiefs and agent Craig; and even a recent attack actually made upon a post of Oregon volunteers on the Umatilla. The governor now notified Wright of Shaw's march and orders to coöperate with him:-- "His orders are to coöperate with you in removing the seat of war from the base of the mountains to the interior, and for reasons affecting the close of the war on the Sound obvious to all persons. "He will then push to the Walla Walla valley, crossing the Columbia at Fort Walla Walla. "The supplies and escort for the Walla Walla will move from the Dalles on Friday morning. "The Walla Walla valley must be occupied immediately, to prevent the extension of the war into the interior. "Kam-i-ah-kan has, since your arrival on the Nahchess, made every exertion to induce the tribes thus far friendly to join in the war. He has flattered the Spokanes, where he was on the 25th of May, and has endeavored to browbeat the Nez Perces. The Spokanes have answered in the negative, and the Nez Perces will, I am satisfied, continue friendly. "I am ready, as the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, to take charge of any Indians that may be reported by yourself as having changed their condition from hostility to peace. "From all I can gather, I presume your views and my own do not differ as to the terms which should be allowed the Indians, viz., unconditional submission, and the rendering up of murderers and instigators of the war to punishment. "I will, however, respectfully put you on your guard in reference to Leschi, Nelson, Kitsap, and Qui-e-muth, from the Sound, and suggest that no arrangement be made which shall save their necks from the executioner." But the governor's wise and patriotic efforts to secure coöperation, and this fine opportunity to strike the enemy a crushing blow, were frustrated by Wright's pacific attitude and the cold shoulder he turned to Shaw. It was indeed hard to induce concert of action, especially aggressive action, between authorities who knew the Indians as hostile and murderous, and to be subdued only by defeat and punishment, and officers who regarded them as wronged, and deserving to be made peace with and protected. Thus Wool's pernicious and inexcusable views and orders paralyzed the campaign of his subordinate, who shared his delusion. The governor remained at the Dalles some two weeks, combining and expediting the movements of his two columns to the Walla Walla valley, and gaining the latest information from the Indian country, and returned to Olympia June 30. On this trip the governor summarily dismissed a quartermaster at Vancouver for dishonest conduct, and the incident was made the subject of a caricature by John Phoenix, the _nom de plume_ of that inveterate wit and joker, Lieutenant George H. Derby, who was then stationed at Vancouver.[11] It will be recollected that the governor left Captain Sidney S. Ford in the Walla Walla to organize a company for home defense of the few settlers who had returned with the Oregon volunteers. He succeeded in raising twenty-five men, but was soon succeeded by a company under Captain Henry M. Chase, composed of ten whites and forty-three Nez Perces. On the withdrawal of the volunteers, they, too, had to be disbanded, and the valley was wholly abandoned. On the 22d the two companies under Captains Goff and Williams, who succeeded Richards, mustering one hundred and seventy-five men, with a train of forty-five wagons and thirty-five pack-animals, in charge of Quartermaster Robie, marched from the Dalles, and on July 9 joined Shaw on Mill Creek, except a detachment of seventy-five men under Captain Goff, which left the train on the Umatilla to go to the assistance of Major Lupton, of the Oregon volunteers, who was in the presence of a force of the enemy in the Blue Mountains. Goff and Lupton followed the hostiles across the mountains, and on the 15th and 16th inflicted a sharp blow upon them on Burnt River. Lieutenant-Colonel Craig, with a force of seventy-five Nez Perce volunteers under Spotted Eagle, marched from Lapwai and joined Shaw's command, also on the 9th, so that the three columns, starting from points as widely divergent as Puget Sound, the Dalles, and Lapwai, all met in the valley on the same day. The Nez Perces gave assurances of the continued friendship of the tribe, and Robie proceeded with the train of Indian goods to their country under their escort alone. Thus far Shaw had encountered no enemy in his march, the Yakimas being virtually protected by Colonel Wright and his parleyings, and the Cuyuses and Walla Wallas having left the valley; but learning that the hostiles were in the Grande Ronde valley in force, he determined to strike them. Moving by night by an unused trail across the Blue Mountains, guided by the faithful Nez Perce chief, Captain John, he encountered the enemy on the third day, July 17, in the open valley. Although taken by surprise, they received him in a defiant attitude; large numbers of braves, mounted and armed, and with a white scalp borne on a pole among them, confronted him, while the squaws were fleeing across the valley to seek refuge, and, on Captain John's approaching them to parley, cried out to shoot him. Upon this, throwing off his hat, and with a shout, the tall, rawboned leader of the volunteers instantly charged at the head of his men, his long red hair and beard streaming in the wind, broke and scattered the Indians, chased them fifteen miles clear across the valley, killed forty, and captured a hundred pounds of ammunition, all their provisions, and over two hundred horses and mules, many of which bore the United States brand, and had been evidently run off from Wright's and Rains's commands. Shaw's loss was only three killed and four wounded. Having driven the hostiles beyond the Grande Ronde, and not having sufficient supplies to warrant pursuing them farther, Shaw returned to his camp in the Walla Walla. Meanwhile Robie had been threatened and ordered out of the Nez Perce country by the disaffected portion of that tribe, and had returned by forced marches to the valley, but on learning of Shaw's victory, and in answer to his message that "if they beat their drums for war, he would parade his men for battle," the recusant chiefs again made professions of friendship. Lawyer and the majority of the tribe were unwavering in their friendship, but there were a considerable number who sympathized with their Cuyuse kindred, and repented having made the treaty, among whom Looking Glass, Red Wolf, Joseph, and Eagle-from-the-Light were leaders. One of the first acts of Colonel Wright at the Dalles had been to release the Cuyuse war chief, Um-how-lish, whom the governor had captured and brought to that point, and to allow him to return to his people, accepting all his professions at par. Under this encouragement some of the friendly Cuyuses and the families of some of the hostiles had taken refuge among the Nez Perces, despite the governor's refusal to permit them to go there. The very thing he apprehended occurred, viz., the disaffected and hostile Cuyuses, visiting their kindred with, and mingling among, the Nez Perces, had stirred up considerable disaffection in this hitherto faithful tribe. Moreover, the Yakima emissaries had assured the Nez Perces that the Spokanes were about to break out against the whites, and threatened them with the same treatment accorded the whites, unless they, too, would make common cause against the encroaching race. Lawyer and Craig, therefore, were sorely troubled to hold firm the wavering friendship of the disaffected part of the tribe, and had written the most urgent messages to the governor for assistance. Hence his great anxiety to have the Walla Walla valley held in force, and to get through to the Nez Perce country a train bearing supplies and encouragement to the faithful chiefs. Shaw's victory occurred most opportunely to restrain the disaffected, and both he and Craig represented that the moral effect of it was great and salutary upon them. The governor therefore decided to proceed in person to Walla Walla, and there hold a council with the Indians, in order to confirm the friendship of the Nez Perces and restrain the doubtful and wavering from active hostility. He directed Craig and Shaw to summon the hitherto friendly Indians, the Nez Perces, Spokanes, Coeur d'Alenes, and friendly Cuyuses, to the council; and also to send messengers to the hostiles, inviting them to attend it also, under the sole condition of submission to the government, requiring them to come unarmed, and assuring them of safe conduct to, at, and from the council. He took this course in order to give the hostiles every opportunity to give up the conflict and accept peace, if their minds were ripe for it, and also to refute the infamous charges of Wool and satisfy the doubts or scruples of other regular officers, by demonstrating his earnest wish to end the war and treat the hostiles with all possible leniency. To this end, on August 3 he wrote a pressing invitation to Colonel Wright to attend the council, recommended him to establish a permanent garrison in the Walla Walla valley, and requested a conference at the Dalles on the 14th of September. The governor called out two hundred more volunteers to maintain the strength of Shaw's command, whose term of enlistment was about to expire, for he deemed it indispensable to hold the Walla Walla valley. Colonel Wright, acting on Wool's theory of wronged and innocent Indians, had suffered himself to be completely deceived by the wily Yakimas, and had given open ear to their lying tales and treacherous professions, and, without striking a blow, or seizing a single murderer, or exacting any guaranty for future good behavior,--not even a promise to observe their treaty and allow whites to come into their country,--had concluded a quasi-peace with them. This was as great a victory for their diplomacy as Haller's defeat was for their arms. It rendered Wright's campaign utterly abortive, saved them from losses and punishment, recognized as valid their objections to the treaty and the presence of white settlers, and left Kam-i-ah-kan and his followers free to continue their machinations among the doubtful tribes, which they were actively carrying on. While these wily Indians were thus beguiling Wright, they also tried their diplomacy on the authorities on the west side of the Cascades. In May Indian messengers from Ow-hi and Te-i-as--two of the most cunning and treacherous of the Yakima chiefs, the former second only to Kam-i-ah-kan, as well as foremost in bringing on the war--approached Colonel Simmons through friendly Indians, pretending a desire to make peace, and were sent to Olympia to the governor. After conversing with them, the latter was satisfied that they came only as spies and trouble-instigators, but directed them to return to the chiefs who sent them, bearing his invitation to all who wished to resume friendly relations to come with their women and children to the prairie above Snoqualmie Falls, and submit to the justice and mercy of the government; that only those guilty of murder and instigating the war would be punished, and all others would be pardoned and kindly treated, like the Indians on the reservations. At the same time he charged Colonel Fitzhugh, in connection with Colonel Simmons, with the mission of bringing about the surrender of the Indians in question in case they were acting in good faith. Three weeks later, June 20, Fitzhugh reported that his mission had turned out a perfect failure, that the governor was correct in his opinion, that the messengers only wanted to gain time and information, and added:-- "The Indians expected to make better terms with Colonel Wright, who had been entertaining them and making them presents on the other side of the mountains, and had told them that he was the 'Big Dog' in this part of the world, and had come a long distance to treat with them, and if they would only stop fighting all would be well. As things now are, they will have to be well thrashed before they will treat. From the beginning of the difficulty to the present time, the regulars, from their commander-in-chief down, have stultified themselves. They have done no fighting, and now they wish to patch up a treaty, so as to get the credit for putting an end to the war." Little did the cunning Ow-hi foresee the tragic fate that awaited him and his son, only two years later, at the hands of Colonel Wright. Thus ingloriously was the war carried on, or rather paralyzed, by the regular forces in the upper country. The only blow inflicted upon the hostiles of that region during the year was struck by Shaw in the Grande Ronde, and the effect of that was dissipated by the subsequent behavior of Wool's officers. FOOTNOTES: [11] In this cartoon two settlers in roughest costumes, slouch hats, woolen shirts, huge muddy boots with trousers tucked into them, and long, unkempt hair and beard, are represented standing in front of a log-hut in the woods, while in the distance appears a building, having over the door the sign "Quartermaster's Office," from which a man is being kicked into the street. "_First Pike._ That's pretty rough, Bill, yanking a man out of office like that, without giving him ary show or trial. "_Second Pike._ Well, the governor's generally about right, and he's dead right this time, you bet." CHAPTER XL THE FRUITLESS PEACE COUNCIL It will be remembered that Colonel Wright, hugging his delusion and shutting his eyes to obvious facts, in April expressed the opinion that the hostile Cuyuses and Walla Wallas were "peaceably disposed" when declining to occupy the valley or furnish an escort for the Nez Perce train. The governor, by bringing him to attend the council and see and judge for himself, hoped to open his eyes to the real situation, and to induce him to take a more manly and aggressive course in case the Indians persisted in the war. Accordingly, leaving Olympia August 11, Governor Stevens reached Vancouver on the 13th, and there met Colonel Wright, who informed him that he was unable to attend the council from pressure of other duties, but that he was dispatching a force of four companies of regulars under Lieutenant-Colonel Steptoe in season to be present, and that the governor could rely upon that officer for support in case of need, an assurance not made good, and which involved him in no little personal peril. As it was no longer necessary to maintain Shaw's force in the valley, since the regulars were to occupy it, the governor now revoked his call for two hundred more volunteers. Traveling together to the Dalles, the governor and Colonel Wright had repeated conferences en route, and at that point also met and conferred with Lieutenant-Colonel Steptoe, Major Lugenbeel, and Captain Jordan, with the result, as the governor supposed and reported to the Indian Bureau, of establishing "the most cordial and effective coöperation in all the measures taken to maintain the friendly relations of the tribes east of the mountains." It is evident that Governor Stevens, by his personal ascendency over men, and the manifest wisdom and necessity of his measures, actually compelled these officers, like Lieutenant-Colonel Casey, to a degree of coöperation incompatible with Wool's orders, and probably repugnant to their own prejudices. It is impossible, however, to acquit Wright and Steptoe of a lack of candor in concealing from the governor the real character of Wool's instructions, and in leading him to expect their faithful coöperation and support. For not only had Wool positively forbidden anything of the kind, but had ordered them to disarm the volunteers, if they had sufficient force to do so, and expel them from the Indian country, as appeared from Wool's orders when subsequently published by the government. He also ordered them to exclude American settlers from the entire upper country, but not to interfere with the Hudson Bay Company people, it being his intention to make the Cascade Range a scientific frontier to the settlements. It is noteworthy that the officers of the 4th infantry, who garrisoned the country at and before the outbreak of the war,--Alvord, Rains, Haller, Maloney, Slaughter, and Nugen,--agreed perfectly with the territorial authorities and the people as to the causes of the outbreak, and were always ready to coöperate with them. It was Major Alvord who first detected and reported the existence of the Indian conspiracy, and Major Rains who called for the volunteers. But the officers of the 9th infantry, like Wright and Casey, were new-comers in the country, bound by Wool's orders, and prejudiced by his infamous slanders, and undoubtedly affected by professional jealousy. They were ready to ignore the territorial authorities, and to make peace by restraining the whites instead of punishing the hostile Indian aggressors. They prolonged the war east of the mountains and kept back the settlement of the country for two years, but at last the scales were torn from their eyes by stern experience; they realized how mistaken had been their views and fruitless their policy, and found themselves obliged to adopt the views of Governor Stevens and make war in earnest. Then, under the severe blows of Wright, the hostile tribes were finally punished and subdued, and permanent peace assured. On the day after reaching Vancouver the governor held a council with a band of Klikitat Indians, at which Colonel Wright was present, and made arrangements for removing them temporarily to their original home east of the Cascades on the Klikitat River, with the view of placing them ultimately on the Yakima reservation. He informed Colonel Wright that he would receive and care for, as Superintendent of Indian Affairs, any surrendered Indians, except the Sound murderers,--Leschi, Qui-e-muth, Nelson, Sta-hi, etc.,--to whom he had already cautioned him against granting amnesty. He now made formal requisition upon Colonel Wright for the surrender of these chiefs to be tried for their crimes, and notified him that he had forbidden the Indian agents to receive them on any reservation either east or west of the Cascades. He gave full and careful instructions on all these matters to the agents on the river,--Captain J. Cain, who had general charge of the Indians on the Columbia, Mr. Field at Vancouver, Mr. Lear at the Cascades, and the agent near the Dalles,--and made the necessary arrangements to meet all exigencies. This trip affords one of many examples of the governor's untiring zeal and energy in the public service. In a single week he travels sixty miles on horseback, thirty in canoe, and forty by steamboat to Vancouver; holds a council with the Klikitats, and arranges for removing them from the settlements; instructs five Indian agents; revokes his call for volunteers; confers with Colonel Wright; demands of him the surrender of Indian murderers for punishment; travels eighty miles farther to the Dalles; and, by repeated conferences with Wright and his officers, secures their coöperation, as he has reason to believe. Moreover, he finds time to write the most clear and detailed reports to the Indian Bureau and to the Secretary of War. Leaving the Dalles on the 19th, and pushing forward in advance of Steptoe with a train of thirty wagons drawn by eighty oxen, and two hundred loose animals, attended only by Pearson, and without escort except the employees, Governor Stevens reached Shaw's camp in the valley on the 23d. On the evening of the 28th a small pack-train was captured by the Indians within a few miles of camp, the packers escaping on their horses without loss, after firing away all their ammunition. The governor was much chagrined at this, the only loss of animals or supplies suffered by his volunteers during the whole war, and in orders rebuked the parties whose negligence was responsible for the mishap, and concluded: "He desires to impress upon the troops the fact established by experience, especially in the present Indian war, that bold and repeated charges upon the enemy, even when the disparity of numbers is great, will alone lead to results. In this way only can the superiority of our race be established. In all mere defensive contests with Indians, whether behind breast-works or in the brush, an Indian is as good as a white man; few laurels can thus be won, and the result may be discreditable." Craig and Dr. Lansdale, the latter the agent for the Flatheads, just down from the Bitter Root valley, arrived on the 30th with some of the Nez Perce chiefs. The next day agent Montour and Antoine Plante came in from the Spokanes and reported that, although the tribe professed a friendly disposition, they would not attend the council. Captain D.A. Russell (later major-general commanding 1st division, 6th corps, Army of the Potomac) with three companies marched from the Yakima to the Columbia, opposite old Fort Walla Walla, and, being without means of crossing, the governor sent him a wagon boat guarded by twenty volunteers, by means of which he ferried his command over the river. On the 5th Steptoe reached the valley, and went into camp four miles below the governor's camp, his force, including Russell's, consisting of four companies. The volunteers were therefore all started for the Dalles, their term of service expiring on the 8th, except Captain Goff's company, which cheerfully consented to remain as a guard at the camp until relieved by the regulars. Lawyer and the bulk of the Nez Perces arrived on the 6th, and encamped four miles above. A train of Indian goods under Robie reached the camp the next day. On the 8th the governor received the Nez Perce chiefs and headmen to the number of three hundred, after which he held a conference with the chiefs, and entertained them at dinner. Father A. Ravalli, of the Coeur d'Alene mission, arrived in the evening, bringing important information. Reports the governor:-- "The Father reports having seen and conversed with Kam-i-ah-kan, Skloom, Ow-hi, and his son, and that they will not attend the council. The Spokanes also declined coming. He also saw Looking Glass, who was not well disposed, and said he would not come to the council. From Father Ravalli's report, it became evident to me that all the Indians in the upper country, if not openly hostile, were yet far from entertaining a disposition for friendship to be relied upon. Kam-i-ah-kan had taken advantage of the cessation of hostilities against him in the Yakima to circulate the grossest falsehoods as to the objects of the government in making treaties, against the volunteers, the miners, the settlers, and Americans in general, and he declares that no settler shall live in the country. These falsehoods are universally credited by the Indians, and thus Kam-i-ah-kan, who personally visited most of the tribes, has by his intrigues been enabled to excite to a point verging upon open hostility all the tribes in the upper country, withdrawing from their allegiance one half of the Nez Perce nation. As yet, however, the Spokanes, Coeur d'Alenes, and Colvilles have not molested the settlers or miners passing through their country." On the 9th provisions were issued to the Nez Perces. In the evening it was reported that a party of volunteers on their way to the Dalles were being attacked by the hostile Indians, and Colonel Shaw was dispatched to their assistance with all the volunteers in camp and a detachment of Nez Perces. This left the governor with only ten men, and as he expected to open the council the next day, and had a large quantity of Indian goods on the ground, he requested Steptoe to send a company of dragoons to the council ground as early as practicable. In notes to and conversation with him the governor had repeatedly requested him to camp at or near the council ground, in order "to show the Indians the strength of our people and the unity of our councils." In sending the wagon boat to Captain Russell he made a similar request. He well knew that the pacific and parleying attitude of the regular officers had imbued the Indians with the idea that the regular troops were a different people from the settlers and volunteers. He wished to disabuse the Indians, and moreover a guard would be indispensable for the protection of his camp and supplies as soon as the last of the volunteers moved away. Wright's assurances, and the cordial conferences with that officer and Steptoe, fully justified him in relying upon their support. The next morning Colonel Steptoe moved his camp farther up the valley, and on his way called at the governor's camp with a company of dragoons. The latter, supposing that, after his repeated request and the manifest necessity of the case, Steptoe would of course encamp near by, did not reiterate his request, and the regular officer continued his march and established his camp eight miles above the council ground, leaving it wholly unprotected. Fortunately Shaw, with his small force, returned in the afternoon, the rumored attack proving a false alarm, and reported having seen Stock Whitley, chief of the Des Chutes Indians, who said his people and the Cuyuses would come to the council that day. The opening of the council was postponed to the morrow. Later in the afternoon these Indians, with the Umatillas in large force, advanced mounted to within a short distance of camp, then, without any salutation or shaking hands, wheeled and moved off to the Nez Perce camp, where they partook of a feast prepared for them, after which they encamped just above their hosts. This demeanor, with the facts that they fired the prairie when coming in, and treated some members of the party with great insolence, was indicative of anything but a friendly spirit. The governor now ordered the company of volunteers to march for the Dalles the next morning, and made a requisition on Colonel Steptoe for the presence of two companies of troops on the council ground, stating that the Cuyuses had all come in, and, as the volunteers were about to leave, it was essential to have a force on the ground to control the Indians. Incredible as it may seem, Steptoe refused, giving several lame excuses, and his real reason in the following pregnant sentence: "And permit me to say that my instructions from General Wool do not authorize me to make any arrangements whatever of the kind you wish." As the governor requested no arrangements except that a regular force should camp near him to protect his council ground and show the Indians "the unity of our councils," as he bore the President's commission, and was charged by the government with the care of the Indians, this act shows to what length the malignity of Wool and the prejudices of a somewhat weak though well-meaning officer could extend. The fact was that these regular officers had idealized the Indians, accepting as true the falsehood of Kam-i-ah-kan, sympathized with the savages, and were "down" on the settlers and volunteers. The governor learned for the first time from this note that Steptoe had moved his camp so far away, for he had taken it for granted that that officer had encamped near by. Therefore he retained Goff's company of only sixty-nine men for the protection of the council, countermanding the order for it to march below in the morning. A portion of it was already one day's march on their way down, but was immediately brought back. The council was duly opened the next day, September 11, the chiefs of the Nez Perce, Cuyuse, Umatilla, John Day, and Des Chutes Indians being present. The governor expressed his sorrow at the state of hostilities,--reviewed the course of Kam-i-ah-kan, Pu-pu-mox-mox, and the hostiles in accepting their treaties, professing the utmost satisfaction with them, and then murdering whites traveling through their country and their agent, Bolon, plundering Fort Walla Walla, burning the houses of settlers, and threatening the lives of himself and party returning from the Blackfoot council. He had labored only for their good as their friend, and could they wonder that he was grieved at this state of affairs? The provisions of the treaties relating to punishments for offenses committed by Indians upon whites, or by whites upon Indians, were fully explained, and the fact stated that under the treaties they had bound themselves to deliver up the murderers. It was the law, and to that they must submit. Men were killed on both sides in battle, but that was not murder. But the Indians who killed their agent, Bolon, and others must be given up to be tried and punished by the law. He invited all Indians who desired peace to submit unconditionally to the justice and mercy of the government; the lives of all except the murderers should be safe. He spoke of the Indians of the Sound who had surrendered and been placed on reservations, fed, clothed, and protected, and treated not harshly, but with kindness. Few of the hostiles were present. Many conflicting rumors were current as to the whereabouts of Kam-i-ah-kan and other hostile chiefs. The council continued the next day. The governor said that he had given his views in regard to the war and how it could be ended, that his words were intended for all the Indians of the country, and called upon them to express their minds. The Indians manifested a reluctance to speak, each seeming to wait for another. Several chiefs expressed sorrow that war existed, and hoped a peace might be made. Peeps, a hostile Cuyuse chief, said there was no haste, as Kam-i-ah-kan was coming, and they waited for him. Wee-lap-to-leek, a hostile chief of the Tigh Indians, a band near the Dalles, said that the Indians were determined to have their country; they would bet it on a fight with the whites, and the winners should take it. He was indorsed by Camas-pello, former war chief of the Cuyuses. Eagle-from-the-Light, the prominent Nez Perce chief, complained bitterly because a Nez Perce brave had been hanged in the valley last winter by the Oregon volunteers, and asserted that the man was guiltless. He was followed by others in the same strain. The governor explained the laws of the whites in regard to spies, and that the executed Nez Perce was punished as one, and that he would speak further of the case the next day, after he had learned all the facts. He then adjourned the council, expressing the hope that Kam-i-ah-kan and Garry would be present the next day. The Indians held councils in their camps all night. So hostile were the Cuyuses, Umatillas, Walla Wallas, and others, and so much did more than half of the Nez Perces sympathize with them, that the friendly Nez Perces danced the war-dance during the whole night. The lives of the friendly chiefs were threatened, and the great bulk of the Indians seemed simply to be waiting for the coming of Kam-i-ah-kan to fall upon the governor and his party. Some of the Indians were detected attending the council with arms under their blankets, and posting themselves near the governor and other members of the party; but although no open notice was taken of them, the redoubled vigilance of the volunteer guards gave no chance for their premeditated treachery. Early the following morning the governor sent the following letter to Steptoe:-- COUNCIL GROUNDS, WALLA WALLA VALLEY, W.T., September 13, 1856. LIEUTENANT-COLONEL E.J. STEPTOE. _My dear Sir_,--The council did not adjourn yesterday till near sundown. I understand the feelings of the Indians from what was developed yesterday. The want of a military force on the ground seriously embarrassed me (I have retained for a day some fifty of Goff's company), but having called the council in good faith as the Indian superintendent, and also as the commissioner to treat with the Indian tribes by the appointment of the President, I shall go through with the duty I have undertaken. One half of the Nez Perces and all the other tribes, except a very few persons, are unmistakably hostile in feeling. The Cuyuses, the Walla Wallas, and other hostiles were so when they came in. Hence the requisition I made upon you for troops. I particularly desire you to be present to-day, if your duties will permit, and I will also state that I think a company of your troops is essential to the security of my camp. I shall, as I said, go through with this business whatever be the consequences as regards my own personal safety, but I regard it to be my duty to the public, to the Indians, and to my own character. This communication is marked confidential, but is intended as an official communication, and will go on my files as such, only I do not think it prudent that my judgment as to the aspect of affairs should, at this time, be disclosed to any other person than yourself. I have the honor to be, very respectfully, Your obedient servant, ISAAC I. STEVENS, _Governor and Superintendent_. While this letter was being dispatched the council reopened, and the governor took up the case of the Nez Perce spy, showed that he had joined Kam-i-ah-kan, taken presents from him, participated in burning settlers' houses and in stirring up hostilities, and pointed out that Kam-i-ah-kan and his people were to blame for the death of this man, for they had caused the war, and but for them he would still have been living. He had visited and been arrested in the volunteer camp in time of war, and duly tried, convicted, and executed. Finally Red Wolf, to whose band the spy belonged, admitted that he committed the offense for which he was punished, and this ended all complaint. Speaking Owl, a Nez Perce chief and the mouthpiece of Looking Glass, now spoke up and said, "Will you give us back our lands? That is what we all want to hear about; that is what troubles us. I ask plainly to have a plain answer." The governor, in his report to the Indian Bureau, comments on this demand as follows:-- "Now thus far there had not been the slightest allusion to the land of the Nez Perces in council, and this rapid change of front was most extraordinary. The case of the Nez Perce who was hanged was simply a device by means of which they hoped to get the desired concession from me by way of propitiation. When they were obliged to abandon the case, they had no alternative but to show their hand, which they did very promptly. I called upon Lawyer, the head chief, to speak. He produced his commission and a copy of the Nez Perce treaty, remarking that he knew that, if he cast away the laws, he should be brought to justice. He pointed out to them the boundaries of the country sold, and of the reservation, and spoke of other provisions of the treaty, and concluded by saying that fifty-eight great chiefs of the Nez Perces had signed the treaty made at the council of last year, when all fully understood it, and it was his determination to abide by it, and he trusted his people would do the same." Timothy and James expressed a similar determination, but Joseph, Speaking Owl, Eagle-from-the-Light, and Red Wolf denied that they understood the treaty, or ever intended to give their land away, and declared that Lawyer had sold it unfairly. It appeared almost certain that no satisfactory peace could be made with the hostiles, and that one half of the Nez Perces, through the intrigues of Kam-i-ah-kan and the Cuyuses, had become disaffected and desirous of annulling their treaty. In the afternoon a company of dragoons came with Steptoe's answer to the governor's dispatch of the morning:-- "If the Indians," he wrote, "are really meditating an outbreak, it will be difficult for me to provide for the safety of my own camp, _impossible_ to defend _both_ camps. Under these circumstances, if you are resolved to go on with your council, does it not seem more reasonable that you shall move your camp to the vicinity of mine? I send down the company of dragoons to bring you up to this place, if you desire to come. My force is so small that to be efficient against the large number of savages in the neighborhood it must be concentrated; nor can I detach any portion of it, in execution of certain instructions received from General Wool, while the Indian host remains so near to me." In view of the threatening attitude of the hostiles, and the approach of Kam-i-ah-kan, who was reported as encamped that day on the Touchet, only a few miles distant, as well as for the protection of the large quantity of Indian goods brought up for the friendly Nez Perces, and such of the hostiles as might surrender, the governor the next day moved his whole party and train to Steptoe's camp, and established a new camp and council ground within a quarter of a mile of his encampment. They were met on the march by Kam-i-ah-kan and Ow-hi, with a party of one hundred warriors under the lead of Ow-hi's son, Qualchen, who clearly meant mischief; but the coolness with which they were received, and the manifest readiness of the volunteers and dragoons for battle, checked them, and they made no disturbance save attempting to provoke a quarrel with the friendly Nez Perces in rear of the train. The Indians, having been notified in the morning of the change of council grounds, moved up to the new location the same day and the following. Kam-i-ah-kan and his followers encamped a quarter of a mile from the council ground, separated therefrom only by Mill Creek and its wooded bottom. The council continued the next two days, the 16th and 17th. The Lawyer and half the Nez Perces were determined in their adherence to their treaty and ancient friendship to the whites, and approved of all the governor said. The other half of the tribe wished the treaty done away with. The hostiles all said, "Do away with all treaties, give us back our lands, let no white man come into our country, and there will be peace; if not, then we will fight." The governor advised the Nez Perces to stand by their treaty. It was now in the hands of the President, and could only be set aside by him. To the hostiles he repeated the terms of peace alone possible: they must throw aside their guns and submit to the justice and mercy of the government; but as they were invited under safe conduct, they were safe in coming, safe in council, and safe in going. The council was then declared at an end. Many of the friendly Nez Perces departed at once to their camp, but a large number of hostiles, most of whom it was observed had arms concealed beneath their blankets, remained loitering around the council ground. Noting the vigilance and readiness of the volunteers, they made no disturbance, and by nightfall all retired to their camps. On every day except the first, known braves of the hostiles came to the council armed to the teeth, and took positions evincing designs upon the life of the governor; but picked men watched them closely, ready to strike down any assailant at the first overt act, so no attempt was made. During the night of the 16th there was great excitement among the Indians. The friendly Nez Perces were much alarmed, and brought frequent reports that the hostiles were bent upon attacking the camp, and wiping out the governor and his party. These faithful allies beat the drum all night, and kept guard around his camp. The governor called attention especially to the speech of Spotted Eagle on the last day,-- "which for feeling, courage, and truth, I have never seen surpassed in an Indian council. The Spotted Eagle is the great war chief of the Nez Perces, and the right arm of Lawyer. Both the words and manner of the Spotted Eagle showed that his object in speaking was to set himself and the friendly Indians right, and that he had no expectation of changing the hearts of those who were bent on war. His words, however, 'I will not follow you into the war,' were significant." The day after the conclusion of the council the governor made preparations for returning to the settlements. He decided to withdraw Craig temporarily from the Nez Perce country on the advice of the friendly chiefs, who feared he might be killed by Kam-i-ah-kan's warriors as a means of embroiling the Nez Perces in war against the whites. Said the Spotted Eagle:-- "If you [Craig] do not return with me, we shall go back as if our eyes were shut. I think my people will not go straight if Craig gets up from that place. But, my friend Craig, on account of the talking I have heard at this place, I am afraid for you." That afternoon Steptoe had a conference with the Indians, in which he declared: "My mission is pacific. I have come not to fight you, but to live among you. Come into my camp when you please. I trust we shall live together as friends," and he appointed the next day for a fuller conference with the chiefs. By this action Steptoe intentionally repelled the governor's wise recommendation and endeavor to "show the Indians the strength of our people and the unity of our councils." Reports the governor:-- "Indeed, the Indians looked upon the Indian superintendent and the military officer as not representing a common cause. The former in the morning parts from them, having signally failed in making any arrangement to end the war; the latter speaks to the Indians as though there was no war, and therefore no necessity of making any arrangement at all. "The Indians, sharp-sighted and constantly on the alert from the merest trifles to draw conclusions as to character and policy, saw there did not exist between the Indian Department and the military the proper coöperation." What next occurred is graphically related by the governor, in his report to Secretary of War Davis, as follows:-- I was occupied the remainder of the day and the next morning in establishing Craig's agency in the neighborhood of Steptoe's camp, and a little before noon, with some fifty friendly Nez Perces in charge of sub-agent Craig, I started with the train and Goff's company for the Dalles. The Indians did not, however, come to see Steptoe at the time appointed. They previously set fire to his grass, and, following me as I set out about eleven o'clock on my way to the Dalles, they attacked me within three miles of Steptoe's camp at about one o'clock in the afternoon. So satisfied was I that the Indians would carry into effect the determination avowed in their councils in their own camps for several nights previously to attack me, that in starting I formed my whole party, and moved in order of battle. I moved on under fire one mile to water, when, forming a corral of the wagons, and holding the adjacent hills and the brush on the stream by pickets, I made my arrangements to defend my position and fight the Indians. Our position in a low, open basin some five hundred or six hundred yards across was good, and with the aid of our corral we could defend ourselves against a vastly superior force of the enemy. The fight continued till late in the night. Two charges were made to disperse the Indians, the last led by Lieutenant-Colonel Shaw in person with twenty-four men, but whilst driving before him some one hundred and fifty Indians, an equal number pushed into his rear, and he was compelled to cut his way through them towards camp, when, drawing up his men, and aided by the teamsters and pickets, who gallantly sprang forward, he drove the Indians back when in full charge upon the corral. Just before the charge the friendly Nez Perces, fifty in number, who had been assigned to holding the ridge on the south side of the corral, were told by the enemy, "We came not to fight the Nez Perces, but the whites; go to your camp, or we wipe it out." Their camp, with their women and children, was on a stream about a mile distant, upon which I directed the Nez Perces to retire, as I did not require their assistance, and I was fearful that my men might not be able to distinguish them from the hostiles, and thus friendly Indians might be killed. Towards night I notified Lieutenant-Colonel Steptoe that I was fighting the Indians, that I should move the next morning, and expressed the opinion that a company of his troops would be of service. In his reply he stated that the Indians had burnt up his grass, and suggested that I should return to his camp, and place at his disposal my wagons, in order that he might move his whole command and his supplies to the Umatilla, or some other point, where sustenance could be found for his animals. To this arrangement I assented, and Lieutenant-Colonel Steptoe sent to my camp Lieutenant Davidson with detachments from the companies of dragoons and artillery with a mountain howitzer. They reached my camp about two o'clock in the morning, where everything was in good order, and most of the men at the corral asleep. A picket had been driven in an hour and a half before by the enemy,--that on the hill south of the corral, but the enemy was immediately dislodged, and all the points were held, and ground-pits being dug. The howitzer having been fired on the way out, it was believed nothing would be gained by waiting till morning, and the whole force immediately returned to Lieutenant-Colonel Steptoe's camp. Soon after sunrise the enemy attacked his camp, but were soon dislodged by the howitzer, and a charge by a detachment from Steptoe's command. On my arrival at the camp I urged Lieutenant-Colonel Steptoe to build a blockhouse immediately, to leave one company to defend it with all his supplies, _then_ to march below and return with an additional force and additional supplies, and by a vigorous winter campaign to whip the Indians into submission. I placed at his disposal for the building my teams and Indian employees. The blockhouse and stockade were built in a little more than two days. My Indian store-room was rebuilt at one corner of the stockade. In the action my whole force consisted of Goff's company of sixty-nine men, the teamsters, herders, and Indian employees, numbering about fifty men, and the fifty Nez Perces. Our train consisted of about five hundred animals, not one of which was captured by the enemy. We fought four hundred and fifty Indians, and had one man mortally, one dangerously, and two slightly wounded. We killed and wounded thirteen Indians. One half the Nez Perces, one hundred and twenty warriors, all of the Yakimas and Palouses, two hundred warriors, the great bulk of the Yakimas, Walla Wallas, and Umatillas were in the fight. The principal war chiefs were the son of Ow-hi and the Isle de Père chief, Quil-to-mee, the latter of whom had two horses shot under him, and who at the council showed me a letter from Colonel Wright acknowledging his valuable services in bringing about the peace of the Yakima. In his report to the Indian Bureau the governor adds: "The Indians were greatly surprised at Steptoe's sending a force to my assistance, and Kam-i-ah-kan said on learning it, 'I will let these men [referring to the regular troops] know who Kam-i-ah-kan is.'" On the 23d the combined force, accompanied by Craig and the fifty Nez Perce auxiliaries, started for the Dalles, where they arrived on October 2 without incident of moment. Thus, as the governor remarks:-- "Circumstances had brought about the coöperation between the military and the Indian service which had not previously existed, and the words of Steptoe to the hostiles and mine to the friendly Indians corresponded. I had sent messengers to the Nez Perce country directing the friendly Nez Perces to separate from the hostile Nez Perces, and to keep the latter out of their portion of the country. Steptoe sent word that good Indians he would protect, and bad Indians he would punish." In truth, a great change had come over Steptoe's views. The burning of his grass and the attack on his camp were too strong even for the orders of Wool and his own prejudices. He writes to Colonel Wright from his camp on the Umatilla, September 27:-- "In general terms I may say that in my judgment we are reduced to the necessity of waging a vigorous war, striking the Cuyuses at the Grande Ronde, and Kam-i-ah-kan wherever he may be found." The day before the attack on the governor, he wrote the same officer:-- "As it is, he [Governor Stevens] complains that I have, by not aiding him, or by not coöperating heartily with him, actually opposed him. This may be so, but I certainly have done for him all, and more than, my instructions warranted." The governor warmly commends-- "the admirable conduct of the volunteers and the Indian employees not only during the council, but in all the operations east of the Cascade Mountains.... There was not a single case of injury either to the person or the property of a friendly Indian, or of injury to the persons or property of the hostiles, during the council. The kindness and forbearance of officers and men, agents and employees, even when treated with rudeness by the hostiles, was extraordinary. The strayed cattle and horses of the Indians were restored to them. The volunteers were well supplied, and were not tempted to plunder for subsistence. I have the permission of Colonel Steptoe to refer to him and his officers as witnesses of what I have stated, and have the assurance from Lieutenant-Colonel Steptoe that he has reported it to Colonel Wright, and of Colonel Wright that he has forwarded the report to General Wool." But Wool's malignant animosity was not to be abated by the testimony of his own officers. He augmented his charges by declaring that Governor Stevens had called the council on purpose to force war upon the friendly Indians. Immediately on reaching the Dalles, Governor Stevens renewed his demand upon Colonel Wright for the delivery of the Sound murderers for trial. Writes Wright in reply:-- "You know the circumstances under which the Indians referred to were permitted to come in and remain with the friendly Yakimas. Although I have made no promises that they should not be held to account for their former acts, yet in the present unsettled state of our Indian relations I think it would be unwise to seize them and transport them for trial. I would therefore respectfully suggest that the delivery of the Indians be suspended for the present." But the governor firmly reiterated his demand, declaring:-- "If the condition of things is so unsettled in the Yakima that the seizing of these men will lead to war, the sooner the war commences the better. Nothing in my judgment will be gained by a temporizing policy." The result was that Colonel Wright gave an order on Major Garnett, who commanded the post in the Yakima, to deliver up to the governor, for trial before the courts, Leschi, Nelson, Qui-e-muth, and Stahi. But any embarrassment that might be caused to the peace on the Yakima by the execution of this order was very cleverly obviated by sending these Indians, or permitting them to go, back to the Sound country, and placing them under the protection of Colonel Casey, as will more fully appear hereafter. On the 5th Wright and Steptoe started for the Walla Walla, their force being increased one company. One of Colonel Wright's first acts on arriving there was to hold councils with the disaffected and hostile chiefs, the same who had so recently attacked the governor and the camp of his own officer, Steptoe, at which he assured them that "the bloody cloth should be washed, past differences thrown behind us, and perpetual friendship must exist between us." He gave ready ear to their complaints and demands, adopted their views in regard to the Walla Walla treaties, and actually recommended that they never be confirmed. Lieutenant-Colonel Steptoe put forth a proclamation, by order of General Wool, forbidding all white settlers to return to the country except the missionaries and Hudson Bay Company people. Wool instructs Wright under date of October 19: "Warned by what has occurred, the general trusts you will be on your guard against the whites, ... and prevent further trouble by keeping the whites out of the Indian country." A month later Steptoe, who seems to have had doubts of the good faith of the Indians, and to apprehend that they might resume active hostilities in the spring, ventured to recommend that "a good industrious colony" be permitted to settle the Walla Walla valley, but Wool promptly negatived this suggestion, declaring that "the Cascade Range formed, if not an impassable barrier, an excellent line of defense, a most valuable wall of separation between two races always at war when in contact. To permit settlers to pass the Dalles and occupy the natural reserve is to give up this advantage, throw down this wall, and advance the frontier hundreds of miles to the east, and add to the protective labors of the army." He charged Steptoe to carry out his orders strictly. Thus he joined hands with the Indian enemy to keep out American settlers from the region to which they had been especially invited by Congress by the Donation Acts, and strove to frustrate the policy of his own government of extinguishing the Indian title and settling up the country. Seldom has our history shown a more shameful betrayal of duty than this veteran officer and his subordinates making a quasi-peace by surrendering to the demands of the hostile Indians for the abrogation of the treaties they had accepted, and the exclusion of white settlers from their country, and seeking to lighten "the protective duties of the army" by abandoning the defense and protection of their own race. Governor Stevens remained at the Dalles until the 6th, settling up the business of the expedition and the Indian service, when he proceeded down the river, and, after spending some days at Vancouver and Portland in discharge of his multifarious duties, reached Olympia on the 15th. In his reports, both to the Indian Bureau and to Secretary of War Davis, Governor Stevens condemned with just severity this craven policy. On learning of Colonel Wright's pacific and sympathetic talks with the disaffected and hostile chiefs in the valley, he again protested to Secretary Davis in the following indignant strain:-- "It would seem that, to get the consent of Colonel Wright to take the ground that a treaty should not be insisted upon, it was simply necessary for the malcontents to attack the Superintendent of Indian Affairs and his party. Now, one half of the Nez Perce nation, including the head chief, Lawyer, wish the treaty to be carried out. They have suffered much from their steadfast adherence to it. Are their wishes to be disregarded? "It seems to me that we have in this Territory fallen upon evil times. I hope and trust some energetic action may be taken to stop this trifling with great public interests, and to make our flag respected by the Indians of the interior." The following, from his report of October 22 to the Indian Department, sums up the mistaken policy of the regular officers and its deplorable results, and gives his opinion of those neutrals in the war, the Hudson Bay Company and the missionaries:-- The department is aware that for many months I have been of opinion that a large portion of the Nez Perces were on the verge of hostilities, and that I deplored the mistaken course of Colonel Wright in the Yakima as tending directly to inflame the whole interior and prepare it for war. The war commenced, on our part, in the Yakima, in consequence of the attempt to arrest the murderers of Bolon, Mattice, and others, killed without provocation and under circumstances of unsurpassed atrocity. Two expeditions were made to effect this object and to punish the tribe. After the massacre of the Cascades, the third expedition, under Colonel Wright, went to the Yakima with the avowed object of pacifying the Indians, and a quasi-peace is made, and murderers are allowed to come into camp with impunity. No effort is made to strike the Indians when within reach, and they breathe nothing but war, and the result of the campaign is that, after the chiefs had refused to come into council as they had promised, and weeks are fruitlessly expended in the attempt to negotiate, certain Indians with their families come in, and the master spirits of these tribes, with the flower of the young men, go east of the Columbia to prepare for continuing the war. I state boldly and plainly to the authorities that this mode of managing affairs is disgraceful to the government, and will bring with it in the future the most bitter consequences to the character and prosperity of the people of this most remote portion of our country. The demand for the murderers should have been inflexibly insisted upon; the Indians should have been struck in battle and severely chastised. Then there would have been peace in the Yakima. There would not have been war in the interior. But feeble and procrastinating measures having been pursued, even to the extent of impressing the Indians with the belief that the regular troops were a distinct people from the Americans, and were even allies of the Indians, Kam-i-ah-kan and Looking Glass have effected that combination in the interior which I apprehended and predicted. The brilliant victory of the Grande Ronde, which caused for a time the lower Nez Perces to break from the war party, has proved unavailing. I have therefore determined to have no agent on the Spokane, believing, in view of certain influences there, to which I will briefly allude, his presence would not be beneficial. In times of peace the influence of the Catholic missionaries is good in that quarter, and their good offices are desirable till some outrage is committed, or war breaks out. But since the war has broken out, whilst they have made every exertion to protect individuals, and to prevent other tribes joining in the war, they have occupied a position which cannot be filled on earth,--a position between the hostiles and the Americans. So great has been their desire for peace that they have overlooked all right, propriety, justice, necessity, siding with the Indians, siding with the Americans, but advising the latter particularly to agree to all the demands of the former,--murderers to go free, treaties to be abrogated, whites to retire to the settlements. And the Indians, seeing that the missionaries are on their side, are fortified in the belief that they are fighting in a holy cause. I state on my official responsibility that the influence of the Catholic missionaries in the upper country has latterly been most baneful and pernicious. Again, what is the interest of the Hudson Bay Company? There are unquestionably large deposits of gold, both north and south of the 49th parallel, east of the Cascade Mountains. A road has been made connecting Fraser River with the British interior, and the Hudson Bay Company have established a post in connection therewith on the main Columbia, north of the 49th parallel. This post and Fort Colville were supplied over this road the present year. I ask again, what is the interest of the Hudson Bay Company? Most unquestionably to develop the British interior and its mines of gold, and to keep the Americans out, which will be most effectually accomplished by yielding to the demands of the Indians east of the Cascades, and making peace by an abandonment of the country. I charge no man of that company with collusion with the Indians, but I know what human nature is; it will look out sharply for its own interests, and the interest of the Hudson Bay Company is the same as the Indian conceives to be his interest in that quarter. It will be impossible for Dr. Lansdale to return to the Flathead agency this year; both the hostility of the Indians through whose country he would have to pass and the lateness of the season forbid it. I regret this, as the Flathead nation have stood firmly by the Blackfoot treaty, and take a proper view of the acts of the hostiles between the Cascades and the Bitter Root. Thus, sir, east of the main Columbia the result of the operations of the regular troops has been that I am compelled to withdraw all my agents, except that it is barely possible that Craig, when he reaches the Walla Walla valley on his return, may be able to go to the Nez Perce country. What is the remedy for this state of things? I answer, vigorous military operations,--the whipping of hostile Indians into absolute submission, the hanging of murderers on conviction, and the planting of these Indians on reserves established by Congress. Agent Craig did return to Lapwai at the request of the Lawyer. The soundness of Governor Stevens's views and the accuracy of his foresight were abundantly vindicated within two years. During the following year, 1857, the settlers were excluded, the regulars lay inactive in their posts, and the quasi-peace continued. But in 1858 the Yakimas waxed too insolent and predatory for even Wright's patience. He sent Major Garnett through their country with a large force, who summarily seized and hanged a number of the chiefs and warriors, shot seven hundred of their ponies, and these severe acts humbled the haughty savages and reduced them to good behavior at last. Colonel Wright also ordered Steptoe, with two hundred dragoons, to advance from Walla Walla across Snake River towards Spokane. The Spokanes had warned the troops not to invade their country, alleging that they were neutral, and would permit neither the Yakima braves nor the white soldiers to enter their limits. Disregarding this warning, Steptoe marched some eighty miles north of the Snake, when he was assailed by the whole force of the Spokanes and Coeur d'Alenes, badly defeated, and driven in precipitate retreat the whole distance back to Snake River, hotly pursued by the victorious Indians, and his force was only saved from massacre by the friendly Nez Perces, who ferried the fugitive troops over the river in their canoes, and boldly interposed between them and the pursuing savages. As soon as he could organize a powerful force, Colonel Wright in September, two months later, marched to the Spokane in person, encountered and defeated the Indians near the scene of Steptoe's defeat, and reduced them to submission, hanging a number of them offhand without trial, and killing many of their horses. On his return to Walla Walla he seized and executed in like manner several of the more turbulent Cuyuse and Walla Walla warriors. And this was the end of Wool's theory of peaceable and injured Indians, and the prejudiced officers, who clung to it so long and so obstinately, were at length obliged to adopt the very policy that Governor Stevens urged upon them in the beginning. The Yakima chief, Ow-hi, most active next to Kam-i-ah-kan in bringing on the war and inciting the other tribes to hostility, and cunning and treacherous in his diplomacy, boldly entered Wright's camp on the Spokane soon after the fight, and was forthwith arrested and held a prisoner by that commander. The next day Ow-hi's son, Qualchen,--the murderer of agent Bolon,--rode into camp, putting on a bold face and fully expecting to be treated with the consideration formerly shown the Yakima chiefs. Far different was his fate. Wright sternly ordered him to immediate execution, and the wretched brave was forthwith hanged by the guard, despite his frantic pleadings and protestations. His father, the chief Ow-hi, was killed a few days later while attempting to escape. But Wool and his parasites, so vociferous in denouncing the slaying of Pu-pu-mox-mox under like circumstances, raised no voice in rebuke of the merciless severity of Wright. CHAPTER XLI DISBANDING THE VOLUNTEERS On returning to Olympia the governor issued the order disbanding the entire volunteer organization, and took the necessary steps for disposing at public auction of the animals, equipments, and supplies on hand, and settling the accounts. The animals captured by Shaw in the Grande Ronde were sold at Vancouver, and brought enough to defray the entire cost of the expedition. In fact, owing to the large number taken, there were more animals actually sold at the several auctions than the whole number purchased for the volunteer service, notwithstanding the many worn out during the months of hard service. The sales of property realized some $150,000, and the articles sold generally brought more than the original cost. "I trust," remarked the governor, "that in view of the fact that our transportation has cost us nothing, that our people have let their animals go into the service from three to nine months, and have taken them back at a premium, the enemies of the Territory will be more guarded in their speech." As all the expenses of the volunteer organization had been defrayed by scrip, the sales were made for scrip, and many of the settler-volunteers were glad to purchase stock, wagons, or supplies to take home with them, instead of paper promises to pay, yet at that time the scrip was but little depreciated. An incident showing the scrupulous regard for orders and public property maintained among the volunteers is related of Captain Henness. He captured a mule at the battle of the Grande Ronde and rode it home to Olympia, a distance of some five hundred miles. Desirous of owning the animal, he bid for it when put up at the public auction, but it was struck off to another for $475; and this brave officer, who had served in the field as captain of a company for ten months, was unable to secure his own riding mule, and one, too, captured by himself. When the accounts were finally adjusted, the scrip issued amounted to-- Equipments, supplies, etc., $961,882.39 Pay-rolls of the troops 519,593.06 ------------- Total $1,481,475.45 The aggregate number of volunteers was 1896. About one thousand were in service at one time. They were about equally divided between mounted and infantry troops. Oregon furnished 215,--the companies of Miller, Goff, and Richards (afterwards Williams). As the whites capable of bearing arms in the entire Territory did not exceed 1700, it is evident that this aid from Oregon was of great value. Thirty-five stockades, forts, and blockhouses were built by the volunteers, some of them being quite large works, twenty-three by the settlers, and seven by the regular troops. Besides which, the roads and trails cut by the volunteers involved an immense amount of labor. The strict discipline, high _morale_ and good conduct of the volunteers were remarkable, and very creditable to them, and to the firm and sagacious mind that organized and commanded them. All captured property was turned over to the quartermasters, and properly accounted for. There was no case of murder, or unauthorized killing of Indians, by the volunteers. There was no plundering or serious offenses of any kind charged upon them. They obeyed their orders with alacrity and zeal, no matter how arduous or how dangerous the duty required of them. They were the best type of American settlers, brave, intelligent, patriotic, self-respecting. They went into the war in self-defense, and were determined to put it through as soon as possible. Study the maps of their marches and scouts; count the blockhouses they built, the roads and trails they opened; consider the unknown and almost impenetrable forest region the theatre of war; the rains; the hardships, the labors they underwent; and reflect how uniformly successful they were, not only in engagements, but in throwing the savage enemy wholly on the defensive, in completely putting an end to his attacks and depredations, and hunting him down so vigorously that only flight or submission could save him from death,--and one cannot but realize how necessary were their patriotic services and achievements, and how well they justified the wisdom and ability of Governor Stevens in calling them to the defense of the country, and carrying on an aggressive war. FORTS AND BLOCKHOUSES BUILT BY VOLUNTEERS. Stockade, Cowlitz Landing Blockhouse, Cowlitz Farms Blockhouse, Skookumchuck Blockhouse, Chehalis River, at Ford's Fort Miller, Tanalquot Plains Fort Stevens, Yelm Prairie Blockhouse at Lowe's, Chambers' Prairie Blockhouse, Olympia Stockade, Olympia Fort Hicks, Camp Montgomery Blockhouse, Camp Montgomery Fort White, Puyallup Crossing Fort Hays, Connell's Prairie Blockhouse, Connell's Prairie Fort White, White River Crossing Fort Posey, White River Crossing Fort McAllister, South Prairie Blockhouse, Lone Tree Point Fort Ebey, Snohomish River Fort Tilton, below Snoqualmie Falls Fort Alden, Ranger's Prairie Blockhouse, Port Townsend " Point Wilson " Bellingham Bay " on Skookumchuck " Vancouver " Fourth Prairie " Washougal River " Lewis River Fort Mason, Walla Walla Valley Fort Preston, Michel Fork of Nisqually Blockhouse, Klikitat Prairie Fort Kitsap, Port Madison Fort Lander, Duwhamish River Stockade, Seattle BY SETTLERS FOR MUTUAL PROTECTION. Blockhouse at Davis's, Claquato Stockade at Cochran's, Skookumchuck Stockade, Fort Henness, Grand Mound Prairie Stockade at Goodell's, Grand Mound Prairie Blockhouse, Tanalquot Plains Blockhouse, Nathan Eaton's, Chambers' Prairie Two blockhouses, Chambers' Prairie Blockhouse at Ruddell's, Chambers' Prairie Stockade at Bush's, Bush Prairie Blockhouse at Rutledge's, Bush Prairie Two blockhouses at Tumwater Blockhouse, Dofflemyer's Point Blockhouse, Whitby Island " Port Gamble Fort Arkansas, on Cowlitz Blockhouse, on Miami Prairie Blockhouse, Port Ludlow " Port Madison Two blockhouses, Boisfort Two blockhouses, Cascades BY REGULAR TROOPS. Fort Slaughter, Muckleshoot Prairie Fort Maloney, Puyallup River Fort Thomas, Green River Blockhouse, Black River Fort, Walla Walla Valley Fort, Yakima Valley Blockhouse, Cascades A few days after his return Governor Stevens was requested by Colonel Casey to take charge of a band of about a hundred lately hostile Sound Indians who had recently returned, or been sent back, from the Yakima. The colonel complained that he had already sent them to the reservation, but the agent had refused to receive them, and, in order to prevent any disturbance that might arise from the "strange conduct of your agent," he had again received and was feeding them. The governor, having learned that Stahi and other known murderers were with this band, and that Leschi had been recently seen near Fort Nisqually, the Hudson Bay Company post, at once replied, positively refusing to receive them until the murderers among them were arrested for trial, and formally demanded Colonel Casey's aid to that end:-- "I have therefore to request your aid in apprehending Leschi, Qui-e-muth, Kitsap, Stahi, and Nelson, and other murderers, and to keep them in custody awaiting a warrant from the nearest magistrate, which being accomplished, I will receive the remainder. "In conclusion, I have to state that I do not believe any country or any age has afforded an example of the kindness and justice which has been shown towards the Indians by the suffering inhabitants of the Sound during the recent troubles. They have, in spite of the few cases of murder which have occurred, shown themselves eminently a law-abiding, a just, and a forbearing people. They desire the murderers of Indians to be punished, but they complain, and they have a right to complain, if Indians, whose hands are steeped in the blood of the innocent, go unwhipped of justice." In response to this Colonel Casey declared that these Indians "delivered themselves up to Colonel Wright when in the Yakima country, made their peace with him, and were promised protection. Colonel Wright informed me of these facts." He declined, therefore, to assist in arresting the murderers, on the ground that it would be bad policy, if not bad faith, to do so, and added that he would refer the matter to General Wool. He also remarked: "The Indians on the Sound, there is no doubt, can, by neglect and ill-usage, be driven to desperation." The governor controverted the position assumed by Colonel Casey that protection had been promised these Indians by Colonel Wright, and renewed his demand:-- "I have the statement to me by Colonel Wright that he had made no terms with them, and had guaranteed to them no immunity from trial and punishment. This statement was made to me repeatedly by Colonel Wright, and in the presence of witnesses, one of whom is Mr. Secretary Mason. On the contrary, I have twice in writing made requisition on Colonel Wright for the delivery to me, in order that they might be brought within reach of the civil authorities, of Leschi, Qui-e-muth, Kitsap, Stahi, and Nelson,--a requisition which he has not pretended to disregard, but which he simply asked my consent to have suspended for the present in view of the circumstances under which they came in. I renew my requisition upon you, as I did upon Colonel Wright, and I inclose for your information the correspondence with Colonel Wright in relation to the subject. "Granted that it was a case of legitimate warfare, the men for whom I make requisition committed the murders in a time of profound peace, wider circumstances of unsurpassed treachery and barbarity, when their victims were entirely unsuspicious of danger, and this, too, in violation of the faith of treaties, which expressly stipulated for the giving up of men guilty of such offenses. "Nor is there any analogy between the cases of known Indians who have murdered white men and certain unknown white men who have murdered Indians. Your soldiers killed an Indian. Where are they? The citizens have killed Indians. Where are they? Two are in your own garrison in confinement awaiting trial; and the others,--proof has not yet been found, after every exertion has been made to insure a bill from a grand jury in regard to the persons suspected. "I do not understand, in view of the known humanity and energy of the Indian service on the Sound, aided as it has been by the body of the citizens, the necessity, in communications to me, of this constant reference to the ill-treatment of the Indians, for it must be borne in mind that we have managed some four thousand five hundred Indians on temporary reservations on the Sound during the war. Indians taken from the war ground, by unwearied vigilance and care, have been seen to pass from a state of uncertainty as to whether they would join the war party, to one of contentment and satisfaction, with no assistance from the military whatever." The governor also sent Colonel Casey a copy of Colonel Wright's order on Major Garnett to deliver up the murderers. This correspondence seems to raise an ugly question of veracity between the two regular officers in regard to whether protection had or had not been promised the Sound murderers, but the strenuous efforts to shield them from punishment for their crimes made by these officers is passing strange. Colonel Casey persisted in his refusal, saying: "This is a case in which the rights and usages of war are somewhat involved, and in consequence I consider myself and military superiors the proper persons to judge in the matter," and he referred it to General Wool. That officer, of course, swiftly directed him to protect Leschi, and all other Indians professing friendship, against the whites. A few days later Colonel Casey again referred to the case of the Indians, suggested that the reports which his agents and others carried to the governor should be received with great caution, and remarked:-- "The one which I had the honor to receive from you a few days since, that more than one hundred Indians had left the reservation for the purpose of joining Leschi, proves to have been, what I believed at the time, a baseless fabrication. With a sincere desire to do justice to all, I will say that it is my firm belief, after weighing I trust with due consideration all the circumstances connected with the matter, that if, in dealing with the Indians on the Sound, a spirit of justice is exercised, and those who have charge of them are actuated by an eye single to their duties and the peace of the country, there need be no further difficulty." This unwarrantable slur called forth the following pungent reply from the governor. He had made no such report as Casey attributed to him:-- LIEUTENANT-COLONEL SILAS CASEY. _Sir_,--My reasons for declining to receive the Indians at your post have been already stated, and remain in full force. When the murderers, and those accused of murder, are, in compliance with my requisition, placed by you in the hands of the civil authority, the Indians will be received. The agents have positive orders to receive none of these Indians except by my written instructions. The Indians have been or will be indicted by the grand jury of the several counties. As you have proclaimed that hostilities have ceased, they are in your military possession. In regard to your observations about the reports which my "agents and others carry to me," as well as the reiterations of former observations in reference to the exercise of a spirit of justice, and the efforts of persons in charge of Indians being "actuated by an eye single to those duties and the peace of the country," I have simply to state that the tone of them is offensive, and comes with an ill grace from the authority which has done little to that which has done much. It is not my disposition to retaliate, but the occasion makes it proper for me to state that the greatest difficulty I have had to encounter in stopping the whiskey traffic with the Indians at Steilacoom and Bellingham Bay has been the conduct of your own command. It would seem to be more appropriate that you should first control and reform the conduct of your own people, before going out of your way to instruct and rebuke another branch of the public service,--a service, too, which, both from its experience and the success which has attended its labors, is entitled to the presumption that it is as much interested in, and as much devoted to, the peace of the country as yourself, and as well qualified, to say the least, to consider dispassionately and to judge wisely of affairs at the present juncture. I have also been informed of your thanking God, in the presence of Mr. Wells, who informed you how the Muckleshoot reservation was laid off, that the iniquity of it was not upon your hands,--a remark highly presumptuous and insulting, as well from the fact that the business did not concern you, as from the fact that the reservation was laid off both in the way I arranged with the Indians at the council on Fox Island and to their entire satisfaction on the ground. Very respectfully your obedient servant, ISAAC I. STEVENS, _Governor and Supt. Indian Affairs_. N.B. I will respectfully ask you to send me a copy of my letter notifying you that one hundred Indians had left to join Leschi. It is perhaps creditable to Colonel Casey's discretion that he attempted no reply to this letter, but simply acknowledged its receipt, and admitted that, in attributing the report about Leschi to the governor, "it was an error on my part, and I cheerfully correct it." A thoroughly well-meaning man, he was evidently affected by Wool's orders and influence; and, moreover, he suffered himself to give ear to, and was consequently misled by, the clique of lawyers and politicians who had instigated the martial law trouble in order to embarrass the governor, and were now hounding him with unabated rancor. Notwithstanding Casey's scruples and Wool's orders, Leschi and other accused murderers were duly indicted, arrested, and delivered to and received by Colonel Casey for custody at Fort Steilacoom, and thereupon the governor relieved him of his unwelcome protégés by sending them to the reservation. Leschi was tried in due time, but the jury disagreed. He was convicted at a subsequent trial, and expiated his crimes on the gallows. The regular officers at Fort Steilacoom, with certain lawyers and Indian sympathizers, made desperate efforts to save him from punishment, but in vain. The well-meaning Casey was even hanged in effigy by the people, indignant at his course. Leschi's brother, Qui-e-muth, was captured near Yelm prairie, November 18, and brought to the governor's office in Olympia at midnight. The governor gave strict orders for guarding and protecting him there until morning, when he was to be taken to Steilacoom. Just before daylight, as he was sleeping on the floor, surrounded by his guards, who were also asleep, a man rushed into the room, the door being unlocked, shot Qui-e-muth in the arm with a pistol, and, as he rose to his feet, drove a bowie knife into his heart, and rushed out as suddenly as he had entered. The deed was done, the assassin vanished, the victim sank lifeless to the floor, all in an instant, ere the startled and astonished guards could raise a hand to protect their charge. The governor, who had retired to rest in his quarters in the next building, aroused by the shot and the trampling of feet, came immediately to the scene, and was horror-struck and filled with indignation at the crime, and denounced it in unmeasured terms as a disgrace to the good name of the people and of the Territory. He made every effort to identify and punish the murderer, but without avail. None of the guards could identify him, and no testimony could be found against any one. Yet it was currently whispered that vengeance for the murder of McAlister, a settler on the Nisqually and one of the earliest victims of savage treachery, had nerved the arm of his son-in-law, Joseph Bunting, to strike the blow. Nothing that occurred during the whole war excited greater indignation in the mind of the governor than this act, or caused him more regret and chagrin. He had been unremitting in his efforts to protect the Indians from lawless violence, and with such remarkable success that the volunteers were wholly free from reproach; only six cases had occurred among the exasperated settlers, and several of these he had brought to trial. And now this dastardly deed brought reproach to his very door. CHAPTER XLII MARTIAL LAW.--DIFFICULTIES OVERCOME During all the Indian outbreak and hostilities a number of Hudson Bay Company ex-employees, Scotchmen and Canadians, were living in the Indian country back of Steilacoom in safety, when every American settler was murdered, or had fled to the towns. They had Indian wives and half-breed children, and claimed to be neutral. They were in frequent communication with the hostile Indians, and were not molested by them. Captain Maxon and other officers reported that they were undoubtedly giving information, aid, and comfort to the enemy, and that their scouting expeditions were fruitless in consequence. The Indians who killed White and Northcraft in March so near Olympia were tracked straight to the houses of two of these neutrals, who acknowledged having been visited by the savages, but disclaimed any knowledge of their deeds. The volunteer officers, however, believed that they were not only sympathizers with, but active allies of, the hostiles, and were ready at the least intimation from the governor to treat them as hostiles. Colonel Casey declared that they ought not to be suffered to remain on their farms, where they could aid the enemy, if so disposed. The governor therefore ordered them to leave the Indian country and remove to Olympia, Fort Nisqually, or Steilacoom, and there remain until further orders, in order to place them where they would be unable to give information or aid to the enemy, and also for their own safety, for the indignation of the volunteers was at white heat against them. Accordingly they moved in as ordered, twelve of them. Most of them had already taken out their first naturalization papers, and filed on their claims under the Donation Acts, and were entitled to all the rights of American citizens. A few lawyers at Steilacoom, political or personal opponents of the governor, most active of whom was Frank Clark, saw here a chance to embarrass him,--in their own vernacular, "to get him down." They went to these ignorant men, exhorted them in regard to their rights as citizens, assured them that the governor had no authority to order them to abandon their claims, which Congress had bestowed upon them, and that they could return to their homes with safety, because the law and the courts would protect them in so doing. Thus persuaded, five of these misguided men, Charles Wren, Sandy Smith, John McLeod, Henry Smith, and John McField, went back to their farms. As soon as informed of their return, the governor caused them to be seized by a party of volunteers, taken to Fort Steilacoom, and turned over to Colonel Casey for safe custody, there being no jails in the Territory. Clark and his coadjutors lost no time in suing out a writ of habeas corpus. They represented matters to Colonel Casey in such a light that he notified the governor to relieve him of the prisoners. But the governor was not the man to suffer a few political tricksters to frustrate his necessary military measures. He well knew that if he surrendered in this case, he would have to abandon the practice, indispensable for carrying on the war, of impressing teams and supplies, and that his hold upon and discipline of the volunteers would be seriously impaired. On April 3 he proclaimed _martial law_ over the county of Pierce, and suspended the functions of all civil officers therein. He caused the prisoners to be taken from the custody of Colonel Casey, brought to Olympia, and incarcerated in a blockhouse. As the regular May term of the United States Court for Pierce County drew near, the mischief-makers were urgent for Judge F.A. Chenoweth, of whose district that county formed part, to hold court and enforce the writ of habeas corpus; but he, being sick, or else, as was currently believed at the time, fearing trouble and feigning sickness, requested Chief Justice Edward Lander to hold the term in his stead. Judge Lander at the time was captain of Company A, and with his company was garrisoning the post on the Duwhamish, near Seattle; but without a word of notice to his military superiors he forsook his post, hastened to Steilacoom, and opened court on May 7. The governor previously urged him to adjourn his court for one month, by which time there was every prospect that the Indians would be subdued, and the exigency necessitating the restraint of the prisoners would have passed. But Lander refused this way of avoiding a conflict, and persisted in what he doubtless deemed his duty. The governor resolutely met the issue thus raised. The court was duly opened on the appointed day, the lawyers were ready with their motions, when a detachment of volunteers under Lieutenant-Colonel Shaw marched into the court-room, arrested the chief justice on the bench and the clerk at his table, and carried them under guard to Olympia, where they were released. As soon as the detachment had departed with the prisoner judge and clerk, the clique, which had so cunningly engineered this conflict between the federal governor and the federal judge, both commissioned by the same President, made haste to hold a meeting of the "bar," vociferously to denounce the "flagrant usurpation and high-handed outrage" of the governor, and to pass a long string of condemnatory resolutions, which were signed by all the members participating in the meeting, nine in number. Immediately afterwards the same parties held a "citizens' meeting" with a few others in the same room, and gave vent to more vituperative oratory, and passed more denunciatory resolutions. The whole proceedings were then published in a circular and in the newspapers. Undoubtedly some who took part in these demonstrations were sincere in believing the governor's action to be wrong and uncalled for, but the real motives and animus of the prime movers were abundantly shown by the false, bitter, and scandalous statements and affidavits they made against him, and dispatched to the President, committees of Congress, and the Eastern press. They vehemently accused him not only of high-handed tyranny and usurpation, but of getting up the war by his Indian treaties, which he had made in obedience to the instructions of the government; of vindictively oppressing and persecuting the Indians, when he was feeding five thousand of them on the reservations, and standing like a rock to protect them from abuse; and even of drunkenness and embezzlement of public funds. These charges, from their very excess and bitterness, largely defeated themselves with the government, and with all by whom Governor Stevens was personally known; but they excited a deep prejudice against him in the minds of many, as he afterwards found in his congressional career. Wool, too, welcomed with avidity these reinforcements to his crusade, and immediately forwarded copies of the resolutions, together with anonymous articles reflecting on the governor, to the War Department. The signers of the resolutions were: W.H. Wallace, George Gibbs, Elwood Evans, C.C. Hewitt, Frank Clark, B.F. Kendall, William C. Peas, E.O. Murden, H.A. Goldsborough. Wallace and Gibbs were the principal speakers at the citizens' meeting; Thomas M. Chambers, chairman; E. Schrotter and E.M. Meeker, secretaries; S. McCaw, R. S. Moore, Hugh Patteson, William M. Kincaid, William R. Downey, committee on resolutions. Evans and Kendall came among the aides whom Governor Stevens brought to the country with the Northern exploration, and who settled in Olympia. The former became distinguished as an eloquent speaker and writer and historian of the Pacific Northwest, and, in after-years, paid the most warm, heartfelt, and appreciative eulogies to Governor Stevens's character and public services. Gibbs and Goldsborough, whom it will be remembered the governor had employed in the Indian service and treated with great kindness and consideration, were unsuccessful and disappointed men. The former nursed a grievance, in that the governor had rejected an extensive and ambitious policy of Indian treaties and Indian management which Gibbs had elaborately set forth in his report on the Indians, and which, if accepted, would probably have furnished a good position for himself. The circular contained many misstatements, and was highly colored to give a wrong impression of the actual condition of affairs. To correct this, the governor published his vindication for proclaiming and enforcing martial law in Pierce County. In this he clearly and forcibly states the facts and conditions rendering it necessary, for the success of military operations, that the suspected men be removed from the Indian country, and sums up:-- "It is simply a question as to whether the executive has the power, in carrying on the war, to take a summary course with a dangerous band of emissaries who have been the confederates of the Indians throughout, and by their exertions and sympathy can render to a great extent the military operations abortive. "It is a question as to whether the military power, or public committees of the citizens, without law, as in California, shall see that justice is done in the case. "And he solemnly appeals to the same tribunals, before which he has been arraigned in the circular, in vindication of his course, being assured that it ought to be, and will be, sustained as an imperious necessity, growing out of an almost unexampled condition of things." Judge Lander's own district included Thurston County and Olympia, and the term of his court was to be held in a few days after his release from arrest. The governor's opponents and the judge determined to call him to account for contempt of court in proclaiming martial law and arresting the judge; and a strong-room was quietly prepared by the United States marshal for his incarceration in case of sentence to imprisonment. The governor issued his proclamation declaring martial law in Thurston County on May 13, and sent two of the prisoners, Charles Wren and John McLeod, to Cape Montgomery for trial before a military commission. The others were released and permitted to go to Steilacoom, on giving their parole to remain there. Judge Lander opened his court on the 14th, and issued notice, and then a writ, summoning the governor to show cause why he should not be punished for contempt. No notice being taken of these missives, on the 15th a writ of attachment was issued to be served _instanter_, and United States Marshal George W. Corliss, with a strong posse, armed with this document, proceeded to the executive office for the purpose of arresting the governor and bringing him before the court. The governor received them, when they announced their business, with a quiet, cool dignity, which completely nonplussed them, and remarked, "Gentlemen, why don't you execute your office?" As they still hung back, and looked at each other, as though at a loss to know what to do, the clerks, aided by some gentlemen present, ejected the posse from the office, to which they offered no resistance. Major Tilton, Captain A.J. Cain, James Doty, Quincy A. Brooks, R.M. Walker, A.J. Baldwin, Lewis Ensign, Charles E. Weed, and Joseph L. Mitchell were they who expelled the posse; but it is evident that the latter made only a formal show of executing the writ. This farcical attempt had scarcely ended when a force of mounted volunteers rode rapidly into town. Judge Lander, hearing of their approach, hastily adjourned court, and took refuge in the office of Elwood Evans, the acting clerk of court, a wooden building of two rooms, situated on the east side of Main Street, between Fourth and Fifth streets. To this, a few minutes later, came Captain Bluford Miller with a file of men, and demanded admittance. Finding the door locked, he remarked, "I'll add a new letter to the alphabet: let her rip," and kicked in the door with his heavy boots. Entering, he found the judge and Evans in the rear room, and arrested them. Mr. Evans was immediately released, and Judge Lander was taken to Camp Montgomery, where he was held in honorable custody until the war on the Sound was practically over, when he was set at liberty. Immediately on the departure of the volunteers with their judicial prisoner, an attempt was made to hold a public meeting to protest against the governor's action. Evans and Kendall were the chief movers and speakers, and harangued a small crowd on Main Street, in front of the governor's dwelling and office. Mrs. Stevens, with her little girls, happened to be sitting in the front doorway as they approached, and refused to withdraw; but her presence did not deter nor mollify the speeches. Despite the would-be indignation of the promoters, the whole proceeding fell flat, for nearly every one approved the governor's course, and only a mere handful took part in the demonstration. At length, having emptied the vials of their wrath, one of the speakers moved to adjourn in order to spare the feelings of Mrs. Stevens, who had sat apparently unmoved through it all, and the assemblage dispersed. A mass meeting, one of the largest ever convened in Olympia, was held at the blockhouse on the public square, Judge B.F. Yantis presiding, and J.W. Goodell, secretary, and the course of Governor Stevens in the matter of martial law was emphatically indorsed, with but twelve dissenting votes. Memorials strongly defending his action were almost unanimously signed by the volunteers, and sent to the Oregon and Washington delegates in Congress. Both Judge Lander and Judge Chenoweth, in their reports to the Secretary of State, complaining of the governor for enforcing martial law, admit that the people indorsed his course, and that the marshals or sheriffs were powerless to resist his orders. The two prisoners, Wren and McLeod, were tried by military commission on the charge of giving aid and comfort to the enemy; but owing to lack of evidence and the end of the war, they were not convicted, and were finally set at liberty. Martial law was revoked by proclamation on May 24. Judge Lander held his court at its next regular term in July. In response to notice the governor appeared by counsel, disclaimed any intentional disrespect to the court, but justified his action in proclaiming and enforcing martial law on the ground of imperious public necessity. A fine of fifty dollars for contempt was imposed, which he paid. Anticipating a heavy fine, his friends and admirers were preparing a popular subscription to defray it, but they were not called upon. The judge's action in imposing a merely nominal fine was taken to be an acknowledgment, in accordance with the opinion of nine tenths of the community, that the governor's course, if technically illegal, was necessary and right. No action was taken against the volunteers who broke up the courts, or the citizens who turned the marshal and his posse into the street. In his communications to the government in defense of his course in proclaiming martial law, Governor Stevens advanced almost identically the same reasons and arguments that were afterwards adduced by President Lincoln to justify his suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. By a letter of the Secretary of State, dated September 12, Governor Stevens was informed that the President, while having no doubt of the purity of his motives, disapproved his action in proclaiming martial law. THE CASE OF COMPANY A. The chief punishment by which the governor maintained such excellent discipline among the volunteers was that of dishonorable dismissal from the service, which carried with it the loss of pay. This was inflexibly enforced in flagrant cases of disobedience or misconduct, and, being regarded as a disgraceful stigma, was found sufficient. The good conduct and discipline of the volunteers was doubtless promoted by the incessant activity and labor to which they were put; but they were due still more to the superior intelligence and character of the settlers who turned out _en masse_ in defense of their hearthstones, and carried on the war with such patriotic zeal. In one case, however, the governor felt constrained to dismiss a whole company, an act afterwards made the pretext for much political denunciation and censure. It will be remembered that almost the first act of the governor, in the prosecution of the war, was to disband all local and home guards, and to enlist volunteers for general defense, to serve wherever and whenever ordered. On February 1 he directed Judge Lander to disband a company he had raised in Seattle for home defense, and to enlist there a company for six months, subject to the orders of the executive, in conformity with the proclamation calling out volunteers. "Every man," wrote the governor to Lander, "who enlists, must do so with the understanding that he enlists for the general defense of the Territory, and that he must move to any point where his services, in the opinion of his commanding officer, are most needed." Under these instructions Lander disbanded his first company and raised another, Company A, which garrisoned Seattle for a time, and then built and occupied a post on the Duwhamish River, a few miles above Seattle, and rendered good service in scouting that vicinity and Lake Washington. It was this post and command that Lander abandoned in order to hold Judge Chenoweth's court, with such mortifying results to himself. On June 9 Lieutenant A.A. Denny, who succeeded to the command of Company A on Lander's abandonment of it, was ordered to detail an officer and eight men to hold the post, and to move with his company to Fort Hays, on Connell's prairie, thence to assist in cutting a road to Snoqualmie Falls. On his representation that a greater force was needed for the protection of the citizens in his vicinity than was designated, he was directed to leave twenty men at the post, and to send the remainder of his company by canoe to Steilacoom, thence to march to Camp Montgomery, where he would receive supplies. He was informed that-- "the representation of Captain Lander that forty men could be spared, the fact of parties of from three to five having traveled in safety the route from the falls of the Snoqualmie to Porter's prairie, and the reports of Mr. Yesler that but six or eight Indians are still out east of Seattle, are sufficient to warrant the leaving of the town of Seattle to the protection of the naval forces and the regulars at Fort Thomas;" and that fifteen days would probably be occupied in cutting the road. The Massachusetts lay in the harbor of Seattle, and fifteen of her men were on shore garrisoning the town. Lieutenant Denny, in a long and argumentative letter dated June 19, reiterated his opinion that it would not be safe to withdraw the company from its post. He wrote:-- "I am extremely surprised at the opinion represented as expressed by Judge Lander. During the period of his command it was often publicly stated by him that this company was expressly organized (by private understanding with the governor and commander-in-chief) for the protection of this immediate neighborhood." It is hard to reconcile this with the governor's explicit orders and letter to Judge Lander. For such failure to obey orders Lieutenant Denny was directed to turn over his command to the next officer in rank, and was relieved from duty in the volunteer service until further orders. Lieutenant D.A. Neely, the next in rank, was ordered to assume command of the company, and detail twenty men to proceed to Camp Montgomery for work on the road. But Lieutenant Neely and the whole company proved equally recusant, and signed and transmitted to the governor resolutions fully indorsing the course of Lieutenant Denny, and declaring that they considered the course of the commander-in-chief in suspending Lieutenant Denny from his command an act of injustice and an insult to the company, wholly unjustifiable and uncalled for. With great forbearance, regarding the company not as willfully disobedient, but as led astray by feeling and bad advice, the governor sent his aide, Colonel Fitzhugh, to endeavor to bring them to reason and due sense of duty, and gave him the following instructions:-- "You will show these resolutions to the company, and request the signers to either repudiate or modify them in such a manner as to relieve themselves from the position of disobedience to the orders which these resolutions condemn. "You will represent to the company that the resolution disapproving of the course of the commander-in-chief, and considering it 'an act of injustice and wholly uncalled for,' places the company in an attitude of insubordination which will necessarily preclude the possibility of their being honorably discharged from the service until they, by their own acts, occupy different ground from that of justifying disobedience to orders. "There is nothing improper or objectionable in Company A requesting the reinstatement of Lieutenant Denny, and a request to that effect would be properly considered, but by indorsing and sustaining that officer in his refusal to obey orders they participate in a state of indiscipline and insubordination which is destructive to efficiency, and injurious to the reputation of the volunteer service of Washington Territory. "In the hope that the intelligent and gallant men of Company A will see the matter in the true light, and by their act in rescinding these unmilitary and insubordinate resolutions will place themselves upon the same footing as the rest of the regiment, and so enable the commander-in-chief to report as efficient and useful the whole body of troops raised from the citizen soldiery of Washington Territory, I have the honor to be," etc. But Colonel Fitzhugh was unable to induce the company to rescind the resolutions, and reported that a false sense of shame restrained them. He was then sent back to formally disband the company, which he did July 28, and they were dishonorably discharged. The governor, however, did not allow this discharge to deprive them of full pay, but in this respect presented their claims on the same footing as the other volunteers. All were finally paid by Congress. CONTROL OF DISAFFECTED INDIANS. Governor Stevens's responsibilities and labors were vastly increased by the great number of Indians on the Sound who did not actively join in the outbreak, but who caused constant care and anxiety on the one hand to prevent their aiding their kindred who had taken the war-path, and on the other to protect them from retaliatory violence at the hands of infuriated settlers, whose nearest and dearest had been sacrificed in savage massacre, and from the destructive whiskey traffic with vicious and debased white men. Five thousand of such Indians were placed upon the insular reservations and supported, in large part, under the charge of reliable agents; while three thousand more remained on the Strait of Fuca and the western shore of the Sound in less strict custody, as they were more remote from the scene of hostilities. For a time these reservation Indians were in a very excited and disaffected state. It was impossible to prevent hostile emissaries from mingling among them, or some of the young braves from slipping away to help their brethren against the hated whites. The agents lived among them in constant and imminent danger of massacre; they carried their lives in their hands. The governor's plan of enlisting them as auxiliaries, and sending them out under white officers to hunt down the enemy, although attended at first with great risk of treachery, was the most effective means of confirming their fidelity, and when the tide turned against the enemy, all were eager in their professions of friendship and offers of services. The first of these expeditions, that of Pat-ka-nim and his Snohomish warriors under Colonel Simmons, was considered a very doubtful and dangerous experiment; but heavy rewards were offered the chief for the heads of the hostiles he might slay, and one that he sent in was said to have been that of his own brother. Well might Shaw exclaim, "Blankets will turn any Indian on the side of the whites." After this, Pat-ka-nim's allegiance was well secured. When Sidney Ford led a party of Chehalis Indians on a scout against the enemy, he lay one night pretending slumber, while he listened to a long discussion between his _friendly_ Indian followers as to the expediency of killing him and joining the hostiles. Agent Wesley Gosnell had a somewhat similar experience. What iron nerves, what devoted patriotism, thus to venture into the trackless forests at the head of these uncertain and treacherous savages! There is not the slightest doubt that a few weeks of Wool's pacific and defensive policy would have united all these disaffected Indians in the outbreak, and swept the whole country with a whirlwind of savage war. Nothing but Governor Stevens's prompt, aggressive, and masterly measures prevented the catastrophe. By many of the settlers the governor's treatment of the Indians was deemed too lenient and generous. They declared that Indians who received and concealed the visits of hostile warriors, and allowed their young men to join in the raids and fights, ought themselves to be treated as hostile, and warred down without mercy. On one occasion a worthy and intelligent clergyman pleaded long and earnestly with the governor, urging him to attack and put to the sword the Indians on the Squaxon reservation, many of whom were Nisquallies, the tribe that had taken the lead in the outbreak. But the governor disregarded all such appeals, and remained as firm in protecting the friendly or merely disaffected Indians as inflexible in requiring the punishment of the murderers who first instigated the war by the wanton massacre of inoffensive settlers. Summary measures were taken with whiskey-sellers, when caught about the reservations. The agent would arm his employees, and when necessary a few stout and trustworthy Indians, descend on the culprit, stave, smash, and destroy his poisonous stores, and drive him to instant flight. There was no fooling with legal proceedings or courts. The means were effective, if somewhat high-handed, and the only ones that could be made so. It was more difficult to prevent the Indians from obtaining liquor away from the reservations, especially about the towns, and the governor complained that the regular soldiers were among the worst offenders in this respect. In a private letter to Colonel Nesmith, who succeeded him as Superintendent of Indian Affairs, the governor says of his Indian agents:-- "I have never known a more faithful and efficient body of men than the officers and employees connected with me in the Indian service. I have never known, all things considered, a body of men at all to be compared to them in the high qualities which fit men for duty in times of emergency. They literally for months went with their lives in their hands, and moreover in the economy of the service they were vigilant and faithful. I look upon it as the duty of all officers, without waiting for instructions, to guard the treasury. I have had some difficulties to contend with in the past, growing out of political antipathies. I have from the beginning set my face sternly against all cliques, combinations, and sinister influences in the discharge of my duty." On these temporary insular reservations were collected some 5000 Indians. The Snohomish and other tribes, numbering 1700, were placed on Skagit Head, the southern point of Whitby Island, under Colonel M.T. Simmons; the Lummi, Nooksahk, and Samish, 1050, at Penn's Cove, Whitby Island, under R.C. Fay; the Duwhamish, etc., 1000, on Port Madison Bay, Dr. D.T. Maynard, H. L. Yesler, and G.A. Paige taking charge of them; the Puyallaps, and Nisquallies, 806, on Fox Island, under Sidney S. Ford; the Quaks-na-mish, 400, on Klah-shemin or Squaxon Island, under Wesley Gosnell; the Chehalis, 400, on the Chehalis River, near Judge S.S. Ford's, and under his charge; the Cowlitz, 300, near Cowlitz, under Pierre Charles. On the Columbia River, under general charge of agent J. Cain, 200 Chinooks were collected at Vancouver; 200 Klikitats on the White Salmon, under A. Townsend; and 300 Yakimas, opposite the Dalles, under A.H. Robie. The Indian Department, in response to Governor Stevens's urgent letters taken to Washington by Secretary Mason, and the latter's clear statement of the emergency, promptly remitted $27,000 to feed these Indians, and followed it with large sums for that purpose. The northern Indians, gangs of whom persisted in visiting the Sound in their great war canoes in spite of the prohibition and warnings of both American and British authorities, caused great anxiety and apprehension. The governor urged the naval officers to keep a vessel constantly cruising the lower Sound to overawe and restrain them. On February 17 he wrote Captain Gansevoort that, from information received, he was apprehensive of a descent on the settlements by fourteen war canoes of these savages, and urged that the Active be kept cruising the whole time between Port Townsend, Bellingham Bay, and Seattle, saying:-- "These northern Indians, in daring, force, and intelligence, greatly surpass the Indians of the Sound. Their war canoes, carrying seventy-five men, can be moved through stormy seas, and with great rapidity. I deem it essential to the safety of the lower portion of the Sound that a steamer should be constantly in motion there." Apparently reliable reports were brought to the governor from time to time that these desperadoes were seeking to join the hostiles. Some of them actually offered their services to fight for the whites. They were attracted to the scene of war like vultures to the carrion, and were equally ready to fight and spoil either party to the conflict, or both. In July one of these unwelcome visitors was killed in a drunken brawl by a regular soldier at Steilacoom. From their well-known vindictive character, it was certain that they would avenge the death sooner or later by some act of atrocity. The governor therefore reinforced Whitby Island with fifteen men from the line of the Snohomish, and the Massachusetts and Hancock were kept diligently cruising. When, in November, another party appeared near Steilacoom, committing depredations, and had a fight with the Indians on the reservation, in which two of their number were killed, Captain Gansevoort hastened to the scene in the Massachusetts, determined to compel them to leave the Sound. They had already started down it, but he pursued and overtook them at Port Gamble, where he found them encamped on an island. After exhausting all efforts at conciliation, offering to pardon all their depredations, and even to tow their canoes to Victoria if they would only depart from the Sound, and all friendly overtures being treated with the utmost contempt and ridicule by the Indians, Captain Gansevoort opened fire upon them from his guns, and, throwing a party ashore, attacked them on land also. Their canoes were destroyed, and they were driven back into the woods, but they fought with desperate courage and determination, and continued the contest the entire day. To a message sent by a captured squaw, inviting them to surrender with the sole condition of leaving the Sound, they returned the defiant answer that they would fight as long as there was a man left alive. But being on a small island, and all their canoes and supplies destroyed, they were forced by hunger to surrender, which they did after holding out for forty-eight hours. The party consisted of one hundred and seventeen men, besides squaws and boys, and lost twenty-seven killed and twenty-one wounded. Captain Gansevoort took the survivors in his vessel to Victoria, where he purchased canoes for them and started them northward, exacting their promises never to return to the Sound. Even this severe punishment did not deter them from seeking revenge. The following year a party of them landed on Whitby Island, murdered Colonel Isaac N. Ebey, the United States collector of customs, cut off his head, plundered his house, and departed northward with their booty and ghastly trophy. CHAPTER XLIII LEGISLATIVE CENSURE.--POPULAR VINDICATION The family remained in Olympia during this year of Indian troubles. The children attended the public school, and found kind and judicious teachers in the Rev. George F. Whitworth and his estimable wife. Mrs. Stevens, escorted by her son, frequently rode on horseback over the neighboring prairies, heedlessly running a greater peril than they knew of, for the Indians murdered two men and committed depredations quite near the town. There was not much social gayety at such an anxious time, but the little community were drawn closer together by the dangers surrounding it. When not absent on his trips, the governor usually worked in his office till long after midnight, and his assistants and clerks were kept hard at it to dispose of the multifarious orders, reports, accounts, and other details of the war and the Indian service. He kept both the War and Indian departments in Washington constantly informed of the progress of the war and the condition of affairs by frequent detailed and graphic reports, and these, with his correspondence, made a volume of four hundred pages as published with his message of 1857. His physical labors were also extreme, involving journeys to the Columbia River, the Dalles, Walla Walla, and down the Sound, aggregating over two thousand miles. And it should be borne in mind that he was not assisted by any regularly long established and tried services, but had in a measure to create the organizations, and to make use of hastily selected and inexperienced officers. He had by this time fully adopted the rough, serviceable costume of the country,--slouch hat, woolen shirt, and heavy riding-boots,--and, indeed, no other garb was practicable for one so constantly engaged on long and arduous journeys by horseback and canoe, frequently in stormy weather. [Illustration: HOMESTEAD IN OLYMPIA] In the summer and fall the governor caused his block of land No. 84, which he purchased on his first arrival, to be cleared, and the late Benjamin Harned built for him a plain, square dwelling, with a wide hall in the centre and rooms on either side, a story and a half high. A smaller building, for an office, on the northeast corner of the block, and a stable in the rear on the southwest corner were also built. The family moved into the new home in December, and found the spacious rooms, with the magnificent view of the Sound and the Coast Range, a most agreeable change from the former contracted quarters and noisy surroundings. The governor gave a house-warming, to which he invited the members of the legislature, a number of naval officers, who happened to be in the harbor, and about all the townspeople, including Elwood Evans and others who had been unmeasured in their denunciation of his course. The site of the residence had been covered with immense fir-trees, and all within reach of the dwelling had to be felled to avoid danger of their falling and crushing the house during some storm, which involved the felling of the trees over an area of ten acres. But notwithstanding all this care, one of these forest monarchs was left standing some distance in front of the office, and the following winter fell directly across it, cutting the building clear to the ground. The labor of digging out the immense stumps was very great and expensive, and when the governor, late in the winter, assured Colonel Cock and Mr. George A. Barnes that he meant to have the finest garden in town the next spring, and would send them the earliest vegetables, these old settlers laughed in confident incredulity. The governor was unable to follow up the improvement of the Taylor claim this year, but John Dunn, the hired man, and Hazard, now an active lad of fourteen, rode out there from time to time and planted and raised quite a crop of potatoes, celery, cabbages, etc., on the beaver meadow, which also afforded several tons of hay. The legislature met in December, and Governor Stevens, in a strong message, accompanied by the correspondence with the War Department and military officers, rendered a clear and graphic account of his successful prosecution of the war. In view of his herculean labors and entire self-devotion, and the outrageous abuse heaped upon him, the concluding paragraph is touching in its manly simplicity and confidence:-- "I have endeavored faithfully to do my whole duty, and have nothing to reproach myself with as regards intention. I could have wished some things had been done more wisely, and that my whole course had been guided by my present experience. I claim at your hands simply the merit of patient and long labor, and of having been animated with the fixed determination of suffering and enduring all things in your behalf. Whether in the wilderness contending with the hostile elements, managing and controlling the more hostile aborigines, or exploring the country, or at the Capitol struggling with disaffection, the subject of obloquy and abuse, I have had no end but my duty, no reward in view but my country's good. It is for you to judge how I have done my part, and for the Almighty Ruler to allot each man his desert." It was generally believed that the legislature, like the people, would gladly recognize the great services of the governor, and do all in their power to sustain him. But his political and personal enemies had been very active, and had covertly secured a number of members, some of them elected in the guise of pretended friends. From Whitby Island was chosen an able but corrupt man, J.S. Smith, commonly known as "Carving Fork Smith," from the current report that his too pressing advances towards a married woman in Oregon had been repulsed with such an implement by the insulted matron. This worthy called upon Governor Stevens at the beginning of the session and proposed some deal, with the result that the governor indignantly ordered him out of the office. Angered at this repulse, he made common cause with the governor's enemies, and eagerly sought means to attack and injure him. His general course in the prosecution of the war, and even in the martial-law difficulty, was so universally approved that it would be useless to assail him on that score, but finally they concluded to make a handle of the dismissal of Company A. Their object was to obtain some sort of legislative censure of the governor in aid of the untiring and unscrupulous efforts they were making for his removal. A resolution pronouncing the charge of insubordination against Company A to be without sufficient foundation and also a resolution condemning martial law were introduced, and by the combination of the supporters of the two, and the strenuous efforts of the governor's enemies, were passed by a bare majority. A committee was appointed to present them to him in person, in order to make the censure more emphatic and offensive. The governor received the committee with his wonted dignity and equanimity. One of the members was Colonel William Cock, whom the governor had always treated with consideration, whose son he had befriended and employed in the Indian service, and who had always professed a warm friendship for the governor, and approval of his course. But Colonel Cock had been won over by the conspirators by appeals to his vanity, and had allowed himself to be placed on the committee. When it had delivered its message, the governor, genuinely grieved at the defection of a friend, addressed Colonel Cock in a quiet and friendly manner, pointing out how he had stultified himself, repudiating his own sentiments and declarations, endeavored to strike down the man who had done so much to defend the country, and his own professed friend, and finally, against his better feelings and judgment, had allowed himself to be made a tool of as a member of the committee. Colonel Cock, realizing at last the ignoble part he was playing, was thoroughly ashamed and took his leave, expressing his regret and sorrow at his course. The remainder of the committee sneaked out, feeling small and crestfallen. But the conspirators were jubilant, making sure that this legislative censure, coming on top of General Wool's attacks, the martial-law resolutions, and the numerous secret affidavits sent on, would certainly cause the governor's removal, and went about exclaiming, "Governor Stevens is a dead lion at last." After this deliverance, the legislature passed all the measures and memorials that the governor recommended. Some of the members who voted for the resolutions of censure regretted their action like Colonel Cock, and all were soon compelled to cower and apologize before the indignation which their action excited all over the Territory. Everywhere the real people, the stalwart settlers, the men of worth and character, were denouncing this underhanded and cowardly attempt to misrepresent their sentiments, and strike down the man who had saved the Territory in her peril and defended her fair fame against the slanders of high officials, whose patriotic self-devotion and herculean labors they had witnessed, whose courage, force of character, and ability they admired, and whose leadership they were proud to follow. The people were eager to manifest their approval and support of Governor Stevens, and in response to this sentiment the Democratic convention, meeting at Cowlitz Landing, unanimously nominated him for delegate in Congress. Meantime the governor, least disturbed of all at the unjust but impotent censure, enjoyed a little respite after four years of incessant and overwhelming responsibilities and labors. He was comfortably established in his new home, and hugely enjoyed his garden and farming. He employed two excellent men about the place, Joel Risden and William Van Ogle, and fully redeemed his promise of the finest garden and earliest vegetables in Olympia. He purchased a yoke of oxen, had a cart built, and commenced clearing the Walker claim, situated half way to Tumwater. The malignant charges and attacks upon him failed to cause his removal. The governor, however, felt that he had not been properly supported at Washington. His Indian treaties were left unconfirmed, and Wool's course in excluding settlers from the upper country and vilifying the people was not rebuked. He declared with great feeling that he would never accept another appointive civil office. On January 26, 1857, at the instance of the governor, the legislature passed an act incorporating the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, with a capital of fifteen millions, which might be increased to thirty millions, and authority to build a railroad from one of the passes in the Rocky Mountains, on the border of Nebraska, westwardly across Washington by the Bitter Root valley, crossing the Coeur d'Alene Mountains, and traversing the plain of the Columbia, with two branches, one down the Columbia, the other over the Cascade Mountains to the Sound, with a line from the river to the Sound. Among the incorporators were Governor Isaac I. Stevens, Senator Ramsay, and General James Shields, of Minnesota, Judge William Strong, Colonel William Cock, Elwood Evans, A.A. Denny, and W.S. Ladd. The governor expected a rapid development of the Territory, and evidently thought that an organized company with a charter was a practical step towards starting the great railroad enterprise. Early in the year 1857 General Wool was relieved of the command of the Pacific Department by General N. G. Clarke, colonel 6th infantry, and went to New York, where he continued his malignant warfare upon the authorities, volunteers, and people of Oregon and Washington, by whose governors and legislatures he was denounced, "and whose respect he had long since ceased to possess." After his nomination the governor determined to make a canvass of the Territory, and invited Alexander S. Abernethy, who was nominated by the Whig convention, to accompany and meet him in joint discussion. The newly appointed receiver of the Land Office, just arrived from the East, Selucious Garfielde, a man of fine, showy presence and great oratorical gifts, offered to assist in the canvass by discussing national politics. A small steam-tug, the Traveler, W.H. Horton owner and captain, was chartered to take the party around the Sound. Mr. Abernethy declined the invitation, but Colonel William H. Wallace went in his stead, and the governor, accompanied by Garfielde, Wallace, his son Hazard, and a few friends, started from Olympia in May, and visited Steilacoom, Seattle, Ports Madison, Gamble, Ludlow, and Townsend, thence up Hood's Canal to Sebec, thence Whitby Island, thence Bellingham Bay, and thence returned to Olympia. At each point the governor spoke at length, defending his course, but devoting more time to pointing out the needs of the Territory and the measures necessary for its benefit, such as the confirmation of the treaties, payment of the war debt, additional roads and mail service, and especially the Northern Pacific Railroad and its relation to the trade of Asia. With much feeling he indignantly denied the personal charges against himself, denounced the traducers, and defied them to meet him face to face and repeat them. Though not a fluent speaker, he was clear, strong, earnest, and convincing, and was everywhere received with the greatest attention and respect. A plot was formed at Steilacoom to get up a row at the meeting to be held there, and under cover of it to assassinate the governor; and in consequence of the earnest entreaties of his friends there, who had discovered the plot at the last moment and were wholly unprepared for it, he made but a short stop at that point. In July he again visited Steilacoom, and held a meeting and joint discussion, but no attempt at disturbance was made, his friends being ready for it. As the little Traveler slowly churned her way into Bellingham Bay, a great war canoe, manned by the northern Indians,--those dreaded sea wolves,--went speeding across the entrance to the bay twice as fast as the Traveler could possibly go, and the little party felt rejoiced to have escaped meeting them. It was only a few weeks later that the unfortunate Colonel Ebey met his tragic fate at the hands of a crew of these savages. They were forbidden to enter the Sound, and the appearance of one of their war canoes betokened only violence and robbery. After returning to Olympia the governor spoke at meetings of the settlers there, at Tumwater, and Yelm, Chambers', and Grand Mound prairies. Then he proceeded down the Chehalis River and traveled along the coast, crossing Gray's Harbor and Shoalwater Bay, to the mouth of the Columbia, holding meetings on Miami prairie, and each of these points; thence, continuing the canvass, he went up the river, speaking at Cathlamet, Monticello, Lewis River, Vancouver, and the Cascades, and then, returning home by way of the Cowlitz, he spoke at Cowlitz Landing and Judge Ford's. In this canvass, in five weeks Governor Stevens traveled by steamer, canoe, and on horseback fourteen hundred and sixty miles, and spoke at forty meetings. His friends supported him with great enthusiasm, and one of the features of the contest was the "Stevens Hat," adopted as a badge by his more enthusiastic supporters,--a black slouch hat, the rougher and shabbier the better. The election took place July 13, and he was chosen by a vote of 986 against 549 for his opponent. During the governor's absence on the canvass occurred the untimely death of James Doty, his faithful secretary and assistant in so many difficult and dangerous Indian councils and expeditions. "I have never been connected with a more intelligent and upright man," declared the governor. He was buried on Bush prairie beside his friend, George W. Stevens. After his election as delegate Governor Stevens resigned as governor, August 11, 1857, and Lafayette McMullan, of Virginia, was appointed his successor. The governor turned over the gubernatorial office to the new appointee on his arrival, and the Indian superintendency to Colonel Nesmith, who was appointed superintendent for both Oregon and Washington, the two superintendencies having been united by the last Congress, in May. At his invitation Colonel Nesmith visited him at Olympia, and the governor took the greatest pains to impart to him all the information and assistance in regard to his new duties in his power. It was on a beautiful morning in the early fall that Governor Stevens with his family started from Olympia on the return journey to the East. He rode his noble gray charger Charlie, and his son was also mounted, while Mrs. Stevens and the three little girls rode in an easy spring wagon. The roads were dry, the weather of the finest, the country in its most beautiful garb, and all the family were in high health and spirits; and the governor, buoyant with courage, hope, and vigor, having accomplished the tremendous tasks laid upon him by the government, carried the Territory through the Indian hostilities, overcome all obstacles, and put down his enemies, now looked forward with renewed confidence to vindicating his course in Washington, and compelling a deceived and misguided Congress and administration to do justice to his people and himself. The return journey to the Cowlitz, and down that stream in canoes, and up the Columbia to Portland by steamboat was uneventful but pleasant, in strong contrast to the discomforts of the trip on entering the country three years previously. San Francisco was reached after a short voyage down the coast, where the governor was again welcomed by his old friends, and everywhere received with the attention and deference considered due his remarkable achievements in face of unprecedented obstacles. On the voyage to Panama, the steamer Golden Gate broke her shaft the second day out, and had to creep back to port with one wheel, like a bird with a broken wing, losing an entire week. The Golden Age, which took her place, came near meeting a worse disaster; for one stormy and misty afternoon, as the captain and cabin passengers were at dinner, a steerage passenger on the forward upper deck espied a rock-bound island directly in front of the steamship, upon which she was rushing at full speed, and gave the alarm. The great paddle-wheels were instantly reversed, and the vessel just managed to back off before striking. Colonel John C. Fremont, the Pathfinder, the Republican candidate for the presidency, was one of the passengers,--a slender, alert man,--as was also one of the Californian senators, John Broderick, who fell in a duel with Judge Terry soon afterwards. The passage across the Isthmus was made safely and easily all the way by rail; and the voyage from Aspinwall to New York was unmarked, save by a severe storm, with mountainous billows for three days, off Cape Hatteras. They arrived in New York in time to make a short visit in Newport, and to spend Thanksgiving at Andover with the Puritan father. CHAPTER XLIV IN CONGRESS.--VINDICATING HIS COURSE Governor Stevens lost no time in hastening to Washington, and the very next day after his arrival called upon the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in regard to the funds for, and accounts of, Superintendent Nesmith. The large numbers of Indians, chiefly in Oregon, still being restricted to reservations and partially supported by the government, necessitated heavy expenditures, some of which were made without previous authorization, and it was essential for the peace of the country that they should be approved and Nesmith sustained. Following the matter up with his accustomed energy and thoroughness, he calls upon the commissioner and Secretary of the Interior again and again; he has all the suspended accounts, estimates, and papers brought together, and, having mastered them, he sits down with the chief clerk,--"an old friend of mine," he writes Nesmith,--posts him up and satisfies him on all points, and secures his favorable report, and then convinces the commissioner and secretary. By the very next steamer the funds for Washington Territory liabilities are sent to Nesmith, and during the next few months, by unremitting and painstaking efforts, his deficiency payments are allowed, his estimates approved, and ample funds remitted. This was an extremely difficult and laborious task, for the expenditures for the Indian service in the two Territories were unexpectedly large, the department was naturally reluctant to authorize them, and the difficulties were largely increased by the rasping and peppery, if not insubordinate, letters which Nesmith, indignant at the neglect of his recommendations, addressed to the commissioner, and which the governor ingeniously neutralized by personally vouching for Colonel Nesmith, and submitting extracts of Nesmith's letters to himself evincing the superintendent's devotion to duty. The still more important duty of vindicating his Indian treaties and procuring their ratification engaged his closest attention. In one short fortnight, by his clear exposition of their wise and beneficent provisions, and by his graphic portrayal of the conditions in the Pacific Northwest, he satisfies Commissioner Mix, Secretary Thompson, and President Buchanan that the treaties ought to be confirmed, and secures their urgent recommendations to the Senate in favor of confirming them without delay. He seemed to take his former attitude of personal influence with the highest officers of the government at a bound, despite the serious charges that had been made against him. On December 2 he writes Nesmith:-- "We have had many conferences with the commissioner, and two with the President and Secretary of War, in regard to Indian affairs. I am working very hard with the department in order to have everything completely in train against the meeting of Congress. "I have been most cordially received in all quarters since my arrival, and I hope I shall be useful to our Territories." And again, on December 17:-- "Lane and myself will canvass the Indian committees. Have seen Senator Sebastian, chairman Senate committee. Pushing armed steamer for the Sound. Indian and War departments and President all concur. I have had a most attentive and courteous hearing from all these gentlemen. Years since, I learned brevity and directness in the transaction of business here, and I find no difficulty whatever in effecting a good deal in very brief interviews." His old friends in Washington--Professors Bache, Henry, and Baird, General Totten, Mr. John L. Hayes, former brother officers, and others--welcomed him back, and were glad and proud to observe that he was unchanged except in increased maturity and strength of character, and that his very presence, with his simple, earnest, and dignified demeanor, refuted the infamous slanders that had been circulated against him. General Joseph Lane, the delegate from Oregon, received him with open arms, delighted to have so able a coadjutor to fight the battles of the far-distant and neglected Northwestern Territories. General Lane was highly esteemed by all parties, and had much influence with the Democratic leaders. The governor said he was a tower of strength. A devoted friendship grew up between the two whole-souled and patriotic men. It will be remembered how inflexibly Governor Stevens insisted upon the trial and punishment of the Indian murderers who so treacherously massacred unoffending settlers, deeming the example absolutely necessary, to deter the commission of outrages by the Indians in the future. Having brought Leschi and the Sound murderers to condign punishment, in spite of the efforts of the regular officers to shield them, he now urged the Indian Department to make requisition upon the War Department for the arrest and delivery to the civil courts, for trial, of the Yakima murderers, whose atrocious slaying of their agent, Bolon, and the miners, precipitated the war, but who thus far had been virtually safeguarded by the pacific and temporizing policy of the regular officers. After a number of interviews with the Indian commissioner and the two secretaries, the demand was about to be complied with, for all agreed that the murderers ought to be punished, when the objection was raised by the military authorities on the Pacific that an attempt to seize the offenders would lead to further hostilities, and it was intimated that the Indians regarded the quasi-peace operations of Colonel Wright in 1856 as promising them immunity for the murders. The Secretary of the Interior, doubtful how far the good faith of the government might be involved, was consequently reluctant to make the necessary requisition on the War Department. The governor thereupon addressed an able letter to the commissioner, in which he pointed out that an inflexible adherence to the policy of punishing perpetrators of unprovoked murders was the only course to impress savage tribes with respect, and deter them from the commission of similar outrages; that, while such a course in this case might be attended with the renewal of hostilities on a small scale with the recalcitrant faction of the Yakimas, it would do more than all else to strengthen the hands of peaceful and friendly Indians in other tribes. He declared that he had always understood, from repeated interviews with Colonel Wright, that that officer had given no immunity to murderers. Moreover, the very manner in which the military objected showed conclusively that no such immunity was ever granted; for, if it had been granted, they would have avowed it positively as their own act, and not merely have referred to it hypothetically, as it were, and as subordinate to the question of expediency. For if the faith of the government had been pledged, questions of expediency were subordinate. He concluded:-- "I must therefore urge the requisition, unless the military will take the responsibility of saying, 'We did make a pacification on the ground of immunity to the murderers,' in which case I shall press the matter no further, except to suggest that measures be taken to prevent such pacifications hereafter." Thus ably and ingeniously the governor forced upon the military the onus of acknowledging having patched up a fictitious peace by granting immunity to murderous savages, whom it was their duty to punish. This they could not bring themselves to do; they were obliged to abandon their protégés to their fate, and the requisition was made. One cannot but think, after a careful study of all the evidence, that the Indian murderers were led to believe in the promise of immunity, if it was not explicitly promised them. At the end of December he broke away from these engrossing cares and labors for a few days, and went North for his family, having leased a commodious brick house, No. 510, on the north side of Twelfth Street, between E and F, at $200 a month; but on January 4 he is again at his post in the House. He installed Mr. James G. Swan as his secretary, set apart the upper rooms in the house as an office, and plunged with redoubled energy into the important and multifarious duties and objects he had undertaken, chief of which was the confirmation of the Indian treaties; payment of the Indian war debt; advocacy of the Northern route, separate Indian superintendency for Washington Territory, armed steamer for Puget Sound, mail route, military roads, appropriations for Indian service, and for other needs of the Territory; and pressing before the departments many private claims growing out of the Indian war. Besides all these, he published, February 1, a circular letter to emigrants, giving useful information for those wishing to move to the Territory. In this month he also wrote a strong appeal to the Indian Department, urging that the farms promised the Blackfeet by the treaty of the Blackfoot council be established without further delay, and suggesting that the commissioner confer with Alexander Culbertson, who was then visiting Washington,--an appeal which bore fruit, for the commissioner immediately sent for Mr. Culbertson, and took steps to start the farms. The governor also gave effective aid to Mr. Culbertson in collecting an account due him from the government. The appropriation of $30,000 for a wagon-road between Fort Benton and Walla Walla--made in 1855--had never been used, in consequence of the Indian hostilities, and the governor now induced the Secretary of War to authorize the commencement of the road, and to place Lieutenant Mullan in charge of it. The topographical engineers of the army were not a little put out at the governor's action in Mullan's behalf, claiming that the duty rightfully belonged to one of their corps, and that he was disregarding the rights of the engineers in bestowing it upon a line officer; but he had found Mullan one of the most zealous and efficient officers of the Exploration, and one, moreover, especially conversant with the country. His recommendation had great weight with the War Department, thus to overcome the influence of the corps and the almost invariable usage. Another incident which occurred at this time afforded further evidence of his influence. An officer of General Wool's staff, Captain T.J. Cram, in 1857 made a report to him upon the upper Columbia country, much of which was taken from Governor Stevens's exploration reports without acknowledgment. Moreover, the navigability of the great river was pronounced utterly impracticable, and the country itself stigmatized as essentially barren and worthless; and the report was made the vehicle for reiterating all Wool's exploded charges against the territorial authorities, people, and volunteers, and collecting and retailing all the stories of outrage upon Indians by whites that could be trumped up. This precious "topographical memoir" was widely published in the newspapers, and was submitted by General Wool to the War Department, with the evident design of defeating the confirmation of the treaties and the payment of the war debt. When the report arrived, the governor filed a statement in the department exposing its character; and at his instance Captain A.A. Humphreys, who had charge of all the Pacific Railroad reports, also filed a similar statement, pointing out Cram's unreliability and plagiarisms, so thoroughly discrediting the report that the department would never give it out, and it failed of its intended effect. It was a hard fight over the treaties before the Senate committee. Wool's charges, widely spread in the newspapers, had excited much prejudice against them, and they were strenuously opposed by most of the regular officers on the Pacific. But by the middle of March the governor was equally successful in convincing that committee that they ought to be confirmed, and was able to write Nesmith that the committee would report favorably, and that there was every prospect of confirmation. The Northwestern boundary, with the disputed question of the San Juan archipelago, also claimed his attention. His resolute letter of May, 1855, to Sir James Douglass, declaring that he would sustain the American right to the islands to the full force of his authority, having been submitted to both governments with Sir James's protests, had brought home to them the risk of armed collision unless the boundary question were speedily settled. Accordingly commissioners were appointed on both sides to determine and delimit the boundary as drawn by the treaty of 1846. But as the controversy turned on the construction of the treaty itself, it could not be settled by any survey, and in this, the most important part of their task, the commissioners soon became clever disputants, each advocating his own side of the question. Jefferson Davis, now a senator of great influence, writes Governor Stevens, March 18, requesting him "to call on the President and Secretary of State, and give them your views as to the importance and necessity of marking the boundary," etc. The American commissioner was Mr. Archibald Campbell, and Captain J. G. Parke, of the engineers, was the chief surveyor, both old friends of Governor Stevens. With his thorough knowledge of the islands in dispute, and of the astute, grasping, and persistent character of the Hudson Bay Company and British officials, the governor strove to stiffen the backbone of the administration, and to expedite the boundary survey. Governor Stevens's first speech in the House occurred May 12, on his bill to create additional land districts in his Territory, and was a brief one. The next day a bill came up to reimburse Governor Douglass for the supplies he had furnished in the Indian war, and the governor seized the opportunity to deliver a powerful speech in behalf of the war debt. He referred to Sir James's emphatic testimony that his, the governor's, course was the only one which could have protected the settlements, or prevented their depopulation, and vigorously defended the people and volunteers:-- "During the whole course of that war, not a friendly Indian, nor an Indian prisoner, was ever maltreated in the camp of the volunteers of Washington. For six months the people of Washington had to live in blockhouses; and yet so obedient were the people to law, so proud of their country, doing such high homage to the spirit of humanity and justice, that during all that time the life of the Indian was safe in the camp of the volunteers. Why, sir, there were nearly five thousand disaffected Indians during all this time on the reservations lying along the waters of the Sound, and not a man ever went there to do them harm. "I trust that the same measure of justice, which the committee propose to deal out to Governor Douglass, will be dealt out to the people of the Territories of Oregon and Washington. The debt in all the cases rests upon the same foundation. Our people furnished supplies and animals and shipping, and rendered their own services, on the faith of the government." On the 31st he delivered a long and exhaustive speech on the same subject, giving the history of the war, vindicating his own course, and the patriotism and conduct of the volunteers and people. On May 25 he delivered a speech of an hour upon the Pacific Railroad, the subject of all others in which he took the greatest interest and expended the greatest exertions. He took the broad national view, embracing the whole country, and advocated three routes, and then pointed out the superior advantages of the Northern route, and dwelt upon its value for gaining the trade of Asia:-- "Therefore I would not carve our way to the Pacific by a single route. It would not satisfy the country. It is not for its peace and harmony politically. It could not do the business of the country. It is not up to the exigencies of the occasion. But carve your way to the Western ocean with at least three roads. "Considering, therefore, the greater shortness of the Northern route, and its nearer connections with both Asia and Europe, it must become the great route of freight and passengers from Asia to Europe, and even of freight from Asia to the whole valley of the Mississippi." These views have become established facts for so many years that it is hard to realize how far in advance of his contemporaries Governor Stevens was in holding them. He was one of the first, if not the very first, to discern the necessity for three transcontinental railroads, and the opportunity for securing the trade of Asia offered by the Northern route. A few days later he sprang to his feet in defense of his friend Nesmith, who was bitterly assailed by M.R.H. Garnett, of Virginia, and answered him in a manner so complete and satisfactory as to defeat an amendment offered by him. On the 27th he spoke in support of an appropriation for a military survey of the upper Columbia, and in a sharp and breezy debate had the satisfaction of exposing Cram's report. Congress adjourned on June 9. The treaties were not reached, but the governor writes Nesmith that a test vote showed that the Senate was strongly in favor of them, and that they would all be confirmed next session. During the session Governor Stevens introduced nineteen bills and resolutions, and offered four amendments. He spoke nine times, making five considerable speeches, including two on the war debt, one on the Pacific Railroad, one on the survey of the Columbia, and the defense of Nesmith. The following synopsis gives the matters which claimed his attention in Congress:-- Indian war debt. Military roads. Additional land districts. Settlement of accounts of clerks of courts. Erection of public buildings. Survey of Columbia River. Geological survey. Military road, Columbia to Missouri. Increased pay for land surveys. Relief of C.H. Mason. Additional post and mail routes. Pacific Railroad. Port of entry at Vancouver. Marine hospital. Land for lunatic asylum. Port of delivery at Whatcom. Enrolling clerk for legislature. As to false reports of Wool. Bringing on Indian chiefs. Payment territorial deficiency. Extending certain acts to Washington Territory. The above summary gives but a faint idea of the amount of work and attention involved in the several matters enumerated. With characteristic thoroughness, the governor always paved the way for his measures by first obtaining the support and recommendation of the department to which each pertained, and was equally indefatigable in following them up before the committees. But nothing engrossed so much of his time and attention as the numerous claims for losses and services growing out of the Indian war, sent to him by his constituents, almost all poor men, all of which he presented and pressed with the greatest pains and assiduity. So intent had he become upon all these important measures that, as he writes Nesmith, he determined to remain in Washington during the recess of Congress, and prepare for success the next session. On July 21 Governor Stevens submitted an able and exhaustive memoir to Lewis Cass, Secretary of State, on the unjust and exorbitant exactions imposed upon Americans, who were then flocking to the newly discovered gold fields of New Caledonia,--now British Columbia,--on Fraser and Thompson rivers, having previously, on May 18 and June 29, informed him of this emigration, and the impositions placed upon it by Governor Douglass. The chief of these were, a license tax of five dollars a month for the privilege of mining, and the prohibition of all navigation and trading except by license from the Hudson Bay Company, and the requirement that all supplies must be purchased from that company. He showed that with forty thousand miners, nearly all of them American citizens, entering the gold fields, as was the estimate of the most intelligent gentlemen of the Pacific coast, the license tax would amount to $2,400,000 per annum; while the Hudson Bay Company, from the exclusive right of furnishing supplies, would reap the enormous harvest of $14,000,000 per annum. Moreover, as the bulk of these supplies could not be furnished from the present resources of that company, they would have to be drawn by it from California, Oregon, and Washington, so that in fact those States were compelled to make that company their factor for the sale of their products, and allow it all the profits from the sale of their own products to their own citizens. The governor declared that this state of things could not be submitted to by American citizens unless imposed by positive and imperative law, and that the exactions in question had been imposed without any legal authority which should be respected by the citizens or government of the United States. He held that, the British government having passed no law levying a mining tax, Governor Douglass, as governor of Vancouver Island, was not given authority by his commission or instructions to impose such tax; that he was governor of Vancouver Island only, and his political jurisdiction did not extend to the mainland, where, in fact, he had always declined to exercise authority over the Indians as governor, while he had dealt with them as chief factor of the Hudson Bay Company. That the company, a mere Indian trading company, had no authority under its charter to set up a monopoly of selling supplies to white men, whether American citizens or British subjects, such monopoly, moreover, being expressly prohibited by British law. And he concluded by asking, in behalf of the citizens of our whole Pacific coast, that the government would interpose with the British authorities for the removal of the restrictions, and would demand the repayment of all mining taxes collected, and of the value of all vessels and cargoes confiscated. In the last paragraph he takes pains to acknowledge the assistance of his friend, John L. Hays, Esq., in the investigation of the legal questions involved. The memorial was widely published in the papers, and produced an excellent effect on the Pacific coast. The Hudson Bay Company relinquished its attempt to compel the miners to purchase supplies from it exclusively, and the monthly mining tax was reduced to a moderate yearly one. The memorial was a timely and much-needed warning to the Buchanan administration to stand up against the ever greedy and bull-dog demands of the British upon the Pacific Northwest. The news of Steptoe's defeat reached Washington in June, and created a great sensation. It was looked upon as a complete vindication of Governor Stevens's views and policy in regard to the management of the Indians, and a convincing proof of the folly and failure of the Wool military peace policy. The very officers who had condemned and denounced the governor's plan of punishing and subduing the hostiles in order to preserve the fidelity and peace of the friendly and doubtful tribes, now that their weak temporizing had drawn the latter into hostilities, breathed nothing but war. Writes Colonel Nesmith with glee, natural enough considering how his request for two howitzers had been brusquely refused, and himself treated with contumely, by Wool:-- "General Clarke and the whole military are now fully answered, and they believe there _is a war_. The military now find themselves in something like your position when the Indians, in violation of all pledges, attacked your camp in the Walla Walla. I say again, 'Hands off;' they have a fair field, and I hope they will have a _free fight_!" The War Department took energetic measures in consequence of Steptoe's defeat. Colonel Wright was largely reinforced, and in September led a thousand troops into the Spokane country, defeated the Indians in two engagements, and summarily hanged sixteen of them without trial. The same month Oregon and Washington were constituted a separate military department, and the veteran general, William S. Harney, was sent out in command. This appointment was highly satisfactory to Governor Stevens, for General Harney adopted all his views in regard to the military problem, the Indians, the opening of the country to settlement, and later, as will be seen, in regard to defending our right to the San Juan archipelago. The governor writes Colonel Nesmith and Governor Curry requesting them to call on the veteran commander on his arrival, and extend to him their good will and support. General Harney's first act on reaching his new command was to throw open to settlement the whole upper country, revoking Wool's orders excluding settlers therefrom. This was a notable victory for Governor Stevens, and wiped out the last of Wool's reactionary measures. The governor spent the whole recess in Washington, except for a flying visit North in July (when, in passing through New York, he had his phrenological chart again drawn by Fowler) and a visit of three weeks in the fall to Newport and Andover. In the evening of December 2 he delivered before the American Geographical and Statistical Society, in New York, an elaborate address on the Northwest, comprising fifty-six printed pages. Mr. E.V. Smalley, the historian of the Northern Pacific Railroad, says of this address that "he presented the whole argument in behalf of the Northern route. Some of his statements were received with a great deal of skepticism, but time has shown that they were strictly and conscientiously accurate." Mr. Swan returned to the Pacific coast in the fall, and a very capable, faithful, and agreeable young man, Mr. Walter W. Johnson, succeeded him as secretary. The adjacent house on the south side was occupied by Mr. Johnson's aunts, Mrs. W.R. Johnson and Miss Donelson, most estimable, cultivated, and attractive ladies, and the two families contracted the warmest friendship for each other. Congress reassembled December 6. During the session Governor Stevens offered seven bills and five resolutions, and moved four amendments. His longest and most important speech was on the payment of the war debt, delivered February 21, 1859. He also spoke on bringing Indian chiefs to Washington, twice on the Northwest boundary, and on the military road between Fort Benton and Walla Walla. In January he had two hearings before the Senate Indian Committee. The treaties were all confirmed in the Senate on March 8 without serious opposition, for by this time their wisdom and merit were recognized on all hands. J. Ross Browne, special agent sent out by the Interior Department to investigate matters, strongly urged their confirmation. Judge G. Mott, another special agent, who had been dispatched to examine Nesmith's superintendency, did the same. Colonel Mansfield, the inspector-general of the army, after visiting the upper country and studying the conditions there, strongly recommended the treaties. And even General Clarke and Colonel Wright, nobly acknowledging their mistake in opposing them, joined in the recommendation. At last Governor Stevens's great work was vindicated by the test of experience, and approved by its former opponents. It has already been related how Jefferson Davis, as Secretary of War, summarily rejected Governor Stevens's plans for continuing the surveys on the Northern route, throwing the whole influence of the government in favor of the Southern route, and strove to discredit his report of the superior advantages of the former; and how the governor, on his expedition to the Blackfoot council, notwithstanding this rebuff, indefatigably continued his surveys, taking barometrical observations, and making careful examinations of different passes and routes, using the officers and parties of the Indian service for the purpose. Throughout all the labors and responsibilities of the Indian war he kept up the determination of important points, and the collection of data concerning the climate, snows, navigability of the great rivers, passes, etc., making use in like manner of the volunteer parties. During this fall and winter he made his final report on the Northern Pacific Railroad route, giving the results of his labors since the first report, made some three years before. This final report was published in two large quarto volumes, containing 797 pages. The first volume contains the Narrative, 225 pages; Geographical Memoir, 81 pages; Meteorology, 25 pages; Estimate, 27 pages; and, with the exception of the meteorological tables and a paper on the hydrography of Washington Territory, comprising 28 pages, was entirely the governor's own composition, and equal to about 700 ordinary printed pages. The second volume contains the botany, zoölogy, ichthyology, etc., with numerous plates. The governor expected, on returning from Fort Benton, to devote a year to the preparation of his final report, but this was interrupted by the Indian war, and then, with largely increased data, he found himself absorbed in these congressional duties and labors, which completely engrossed all his time and attention. It was a physical impossibility for any man to write out with his own hand in a few months such a report, even if it lay all composed and arranged in his mind. The way in which Governor Stevens overcame the difficulty was original, and showed his remarkable mental grasp and powers of memory. He dictated the whole report. Every morning an expert stenographer came at six, and the governor, walking up and down in the dining-room, dictated to him for one or two hours before breakfast. The reporter then took his notes, wrote them out, and had the manuscript ready for the governor's revision at the next sitting. Walter W. Johnson, Dr. J.G. Cooper, and other assistants were kept hard at work on the report, and on February 7, 1859, the governor had the satisfaction of submitting it to the Secretary of War, John B. Floyd, Jefferson Davis's successor. The report is written in a clear and graphic style. The facts presented in it fully sustained and confirmed the conclusions of the first report, and made a crushing answer to Jefferson Davis's doubts and criticisms. And Governor Stevens's views set forth therein have been fully and strikingly borne out in the subsequent development of the country. Ten thousand copies of the report were ordered to be printed by the Senate March 3, and afterwards the House ordered ten thousand extra copies March 25, and the Senate as many more May 9, 1860. Those first printed were not satisfactory to the governor in execution, paper, or binding, and he was at no little pains to have the twenty thousand extra copies ordered. Being disappointed in a certain senator whom he expected to pass the desired order in the Senate, the governor frankly applied to Jefferson Davis to secure the order, and Davis was manly and magnanimous enough to do so at once. It was characteristic of Governor Stevens, as has already been pointed out, to base all his action and objects upon the high ground of public needs and welfare, and therefore, ignoring any personal considerations, he demanded Davis's aid, on the ground that the valuable data in his final report ought to be published for the benefit of the country. The governor was inclined to attribute good motives to his opponents, or those who differed from him; was quick to see and admit their points of view; and never assailed their motives, nor descended to personal attacks. Indeed, he was inclined to think too well of men, and to expect too much of them. CHAPTER XLV SAVING SAN JUAN Six weeks after the final adjournment of Congress, Governor Stevens left New York in April, on the steamer Northerner, on the long journey to Puget Sound, via the Isthmus and San Francisco. He was accompanied by his family, except his son, who remained at school in Boston, and by his brother-in-law, Mr. Daniel L. Hazard, who was going to the Pacific coast to seek his fortune, which he found after six years' devotion to business. The journey out was a pleasant one, and they reached Vancouver on the Columbia, and repaired to the hotel of the town. General Harney immediately called, and insisted on taking the governor and family to his house, where they remained several days. The incident is significant as showing the close relations between the veteran commander and Governor Stevens, and helps explain the prompt and decisive action of the former on the San Juan controversy a few weeks later. This dispute was in the acute stage; the boundary commissioners were as busy with arguments and contentions as a whole bar of lawyers, and as far from agreement. Undoubtedly the governor, in his earnest and convincing manner, fully imbued the general with his views of the American right, and the duty of the authorities to defend it. The journey from Vancouver to Olympia was made in the manner usual in those days,--down the Columbia in river steamboat, up the Cowlitz in canoes paddled and poled by Indians, and across country in wagons to Olympia. The governor was everywhere received with demonstrations of popular confidence and goodwill. The Democratic convention unanimously renominated him as delegate to the next Congress. Colonel William H. Wallace was nominated by the Republican convention. Selucious Garfielde, having been removed from his office of receiver of the Land Office for misconduct, now vehemently opposed the governor, and came out in support of Wallace. Governor Stevens at once entered upon a systematic and thorough canvass of the Territory, inviting his competitor to accompany him, which he did. But Garfielde and Judge Chenoweth started around the Sound ahead of the candidates, hoping to capture the vote of the people for Wallace beforehand. Mr. Daniel L. Hazard accompanied the canvassing party. The governor, as was too much his habit, crowded into a short space of time a greater amount of speaking and traveling than most men could stand. Colonel Wallace broke down on the Columbia River under the strain, and had to return home, whereat the governor seemed rather pleased, not at his opponent's misfortune, but at his own superior endurance. The election took place July 11, and he was chosen by a vote of 1684 against 1094. Mr. Charles H. Mason, the secretary of the Territory and at times the acting governor, died on July 23, rather unexpectedly. He was beloved by every one, and the whole town was plunged in mourning. The governor felt his loss as that of a brother, and was very much affected. Two days later the funeral services were held in the Capitol building. Governor Stevens delivered an eloquent and heartfelt eulogy, moving all present to tears, after which a procession was formed, and almost the entire population followed the remains to the grave. He was laid at rest on Bush prairie, beside his friend, George W. Stevens. A row over a pig precipitated a crisis in the San Juan dispute. An American settler shot a Hudson Bay Company's porker found rooting in his garden, whereupon Governor Douglass promptly dispatched a steamer to the scene, bearing his son-in-law, who was a high official of the company and also of the colony, and two members of the colonial council. Landing, they loudly claimed the island as British soil, and ordered the settler to pay one hundred dollars for the slain pig, on penalty of being taken to Victoria for trial if he refused. But the settler, who had already offered to pay the reasonable value of the pig, did refuse, and boldly defied arrest, revolver in hand. The British officials retired, baffled for the time, but declaring that the settler was a trespasser on British soil, and must submit to trial by a British court for his offense. A few days after this episode General Harney, returning from a visit to Governor Douglass, stopped at San Juan, and the American settlers there invoked his protection against British aggression, relating the story of the pig. They also begged protection against the raids of the northern Indians, who had committed many depredations on Americans, while they never molested the English or Hudson Bay Company people, whom they regarded as friends. The old soldier realized the defenseless condition of the settlers. His blood was stirred at the attempted outrage. On his way back to Vancouver he stopped at Olympia and dined with Governor Stevens, and discussed with him what action the emergency required. Immediately on reaching his headquarters at Vancouver, General Harney ordered Captain George E. Pickett,--the same who, a Confederate general, led the famous charge at Gettysburg,--to proceed with his company of the 9th infantry from Bellingham Bay to San Juan Island, occupy it, and afford protection to American settlers. Pickett landed on the island July 27, and at once issued a proclamation declaring that, in compliance with the orders of the commanding general (Harney), he came to establish a military post on the island, notifying the inhabitants to call on him for protection against northern Indians, and stating that "this being United States territory, no laws other than those of the United States, nor courts except such as are held by virtue of said laws, will be recognized or allowed on this island." This was throwing down the gauntlet at the feet of the British lion with a vengeance; and Governor Douglass, a bold, haughty, and determined man, hurried three warships to the island, with positive orders to prevent the landing of any more United States troops; but Pickett took up a position on high ground, threw up intrenchments, and notified the British that he would fire upon them if they attempted to land. Governor Douglass now issued his proclamation, protesting against the "invasion," and reasserting that the island was British soil; and, armed with this document, his three naval commanders waited on Pickett, and formally demanded his withdrawal. On his refusal, they proposed a joint occupation. But the daredevil American officer was equally obdurate in rejecting this compromise, and repeated his warning to them not to land. Nothing remained for them but to report their mortifying failure to Governor Douglass. It happened that Admiral Baynes, commanding the British Pacific fleet, had just put into Esquimault Harbor, the British naval station on Vancouver Island, four miles from Victoria, with a strong naval force. Sir James, his indignation at white-heat, and fiercely determined to expel the Yankees from the coveted island, now ordered the admiral to take his whole force and drive them from it. As governor of a British colony, Sir James was authorized to give the order, and it was the admiral's duty to obey it. But Admiral Baynes took the responsibility of not obeying it. It would be ridiculous, he declared, to involve the two great nations in war over a squabble about a pig. But he reinforced the ships blockading San Juan, and renewed the orders to prevent the landing of any more American troops. Five British ships of war, carrying 167 guns and 2140 men, closely beset the southeastern end of the island, charged with the execution of these orders. Governor Stevens visited San Juan soon after Pickett landed, and on August 4 left it in the steamer Julia. Captain Jack Scranton, with dispatches from Captain Pickett to General Harney, reached Olympia the next day, and at once forwarded the dispatches by special messenger to General Harney at Vancouver. In return, Harney's orders reached Olympia on the 8th, were forwarded immediately by the Julia to Steilacoom, and in pursuance of them Colonel Casey embarked on the steamer with three companies, hastened down the Sound, silently stole through the blockading fleet in a dense fog, and effected a landing on San Juan on the 10th. The sight of the empty steamer anchored close to the shore in the gray of the morning, and the cheers of the reinforcements as they marched into Pickett's fort on the hill above, first apprised the British navy of the successful landing. Soon afterwards Admiral Baynes withdrew his ships and relinquished the blockade, leaving the American forces in undisputed possession. While the British were omnipotent on the water, they were ill prepared to sustain a contest on land, and undoubtedly the knowledge of this fact influenced Admiral Baynes, and Governor Douglass, too, after his first indignation, in their forbearing attitude. Victoria and all the points on Fraser and Thompson rivers and other places on the mainland were thronged with American miners, attracted by the recently discovered gold fields. The British were but a handful. The brave and adventurous pioneers of Washington and Oregon, the Indian war volunteers, were close at hand. The first clash of arms on San Juan would have signaled the downfall of every vestige of British authority in northwest America, except on the decks of their warships. There is no doubt that Governor Stevens and the American commander intended to press their advantage to the utmost in case of conflict. The governor of the Territory was then R.D. Gholson, a well-meaning and respectable Kentuckian, who had recently succeeded McMullan, and who reposed wholly on Governor Stevens for advice and guidance, constantly consulting him. This governor now tendered to General Harney the support of the territorial militia in case of need, sending him a return showing the number of stands of arms the Territory possessed, with the statement that there was a lack of ammunition. In response General Harney immediately dispatched a large quantity of ammunition to Fort Steilacoom and placed it at the governor's disposal. Truly the times were changed since General Wool refused ammunition to the settlers battling for their homes against the savage foe, and maligned their patriotic efforts. The directing hand of Governor Stevens is manifest in this resolute assertion of American rights. It was his determined stand, when governor, against the persistent encroachments of the British, which first put our government on its guard. He it was who instructed General Harney as to the merits of the controversy, encouraged him to take decisive action, visited San Juan and noted the conditions there at the critical time, and saw to hurrying reinforcements to Pickett. It is not too much to say that he was the master spirit whose bold and decided action repelled the foreign aggression, aroused public opinion, deterred a weak and timid administration from surrendering our rights, and saved the archipelago to the United States. Judge James G. Swan, who was acting as the governor's secretary at this time, quotes from his diary how General Harney and Governor Gholson consulted Governor Stevens, and declares that the stand he took and his influence were the great means of saving San Juan to the United States; that, without his clear and decided counsel, General Harney would hardly have felt justified in taking such vigorous action as he did; that there was a deal of doubt felt and expressed among officers of the army, and it needed the strong, outspoken action of such a man as Governor Stevens at that crisis to turn the scale. Alarmed at the risk of war, and the scarcely veiled threats of the British minister, the government hastened to send General Scott to the seat of war, big with compromise. He withdrew Captain Pickett and all the troops save one company from the island. Admiral Baynes established a post of an equal number of marines on the opposite or western end, and the joint occupation was maintained thirteen years, and until terminated by the Emperor William's award in favor of the United States. Scott then endeavored to perform a still more ungracious task, laid upon him by the administration, to wit, to remove Harney in deference to Great Britain, without arousing the indignation of the people at such a rebuke for his spirited and patriotic action; to cringe to the Lion without exciting the Eagle. He gave Harney an order to relinquish his command on the Pacific and take the Department of the West, with headquarters at St. Louis, with permission to accept or decline the order as he saw fit. But Harney was not disposed to assist in his own rebuke, or smooth the way of truckling to England, and kept his post. Hardly had Scott turned his back, when Harney ordered Pickett back to San Juan, an order in turn countermanded by the general-in-chief.[12] The people of the Pacific coast were enthusiastic over Harney, the legislatures of Oregon and Washington applauded his course by public resolutions, and the public opinion thus aroused put a needed check to the compromising spirit of the administration. Governor Stevens spent the remainder of August and part of September in Olympia. He enjoyed visiting his farms and planning their improvement, for his early and hereditary love of the soil was always strong. In September he started eastward by the Isthmus route with his family, and reached Washington the following month. FOOTNOTES: [12] Major Granville O. Haller, in an article on the San Juan affair, states that immediately on receipt of news of the action of the British he was sent with his company by Colonel Casey from Steilacoom to San Juan, ostensibly as a guard against northern Indians, but with instructions to confer with Pickett, and if he needed aid, to land and assume command. On reaching the scene of action he was closely questioned by the British officers as to the latest news from the east,--the American mail had just brought news of the battle of Solferino,--for their mails were delayed, and they were somewhat restrained by the reflection that their government might have already relinquished the archipelago, and advices of it not yet arrived. Major Haller remained on his vessel a few days, probably not wishing to precipitate a conflict by forcing a landing, but did land soon afterwards. CHAPTER XLVI THE STAND AGAINST DISUNION The Indian treaties confirmed, Governor Stevens was more determined than ever to secure the payment of the Indian war debt. This had been thoroughly examined and audited by a commission appointed by the Secretary of War, consisting of Captains Rufus Ingalls and A.J. Smith, of the army, and Mr. Lafayette Grover, the brother of Lieutenant Grover and afterwards governor of Oregon, and their report had been referred by the last Congress to the third auditor. It was a long time before he reported, and his report, when made, was a very unjust and condemnatory one, manifestly tinged with the prejudice so widely spread by Wool's slanders. The friends of the debt for some time were unable to get it before the House, and had to content themselves with enlightening individual members and the public. The governor followed up the various matters in behalf of the Pacific Northwest with his usual energy this session. He spoke on the Pacific Railroad, on steam vessels for Puget Sound, on Indian appropriations, military post on Red River, appropriations for surveys, separate Indian superintendency for Washington Territory, etc. He succeeded in obtaining an appropriation of $100,000 for the military road between Fort Benton and Walla Walla, which Lieutenant Mullan was now building, $10,000 for a military road between Steilacoom and Vancouver, $4500 for the boundary survey between Oregon and Washington, $95,500 for the Indian service, and secured a new land office and district for the southern part of the Territory. During the session he offered thirteen bills, eight resolutions, and two memorials. His chief interest and labors, however, were on the Northern Railroad route. He was indefatigable in making known its great national advantages. On April 3 he addressed an elaborate letter on the subject to the railroad convention of the Pacific coast, held at Vancouver. In this he again advocated three routes; showed the national importance of the Northern route, its advantages for securing the trade of Asia, and the danger, if that route were neglected, that the British-Canadians would build a line to the Pacific within their own borders, and thereby forestall this country in developing its Pacific ports and securing the Asiatic commerce. He declared that the explorations thus far made were simply reconnoissances; that two years would be required to complete the surveys, and probably ten years to build the road. He urged the convention to reject absolutely the compromise in the shape of a branch line from some point on the central route to the Columbia River and Puget Sound, which had been urged in Congress and elsewhere, and firmly to insist on the Northern route as a great national work. As published, this letter makes twenty-four printed pages, and Mr. Smalley, the historian of the Northern Pacific Railroad, already quoted, says of it that-- "he gave so clear and condensed an account of the Northern route, its distances and grades, as compared with the line then projected to Benicia, California, its advantageous situation in relation to the China and Japan trade, and the adaptability of the country it would traverse for continuous settlement, that the document, printed in pamphlet form, became a cyclopedia in miniature, from which facts and arguments have ever since been drawn by the friends of that route." Governor Stevens had now become the recognized authority on the Northern route, and the acknowledged leader of its advocates in Congress. He was ably supported by General Lane, and by the Minnesota senators, Rice and Ramsay, and was indefatigable in furnishing them with data and points for use in debate. At a dinner party on one occasion, Senator Gwin openly taxed the governor with writing the speech which a certain senator had just delivered in behalf of that route, and which made some stir, declaring that no one could mistake the governor's style and ideas; and the charge was well founded. During Governor Stevens's first term in Congress great efforts were made by the friends of the Central route to pass a bill granting a subsidy in lands and bonds to that route, and the bait of a branch from the vicinity of Salt Lake to the Columbia River and Puget Sound was held out to placate the adherents of the Northern route. Governor Stevens strenuously fought this scheme of a branch instead of the through Northern route. The proposed bill failed. In the next Congress the adherents of the Central and Southern routes joined forces. The extreme secessionists, on the eve of withdrawing from Congress in order to break up the Union, were ready enough to vote subsidies to the united routes, and the Union sentiment was invoked by the argument that the aid extended to the Southern route would help satisfy the South and strengthen the Union. By this combination the House, on December 20, 1860, passed a bill for a land grant and subsidy to both the Central and Southern routes. The Northern route was completely ignored. An amendment offered by Governor Stevens, granting ten sections of land per mile for a road from Red River to Puget Sound, was rejected. But when the bill came before the Senate, an amendment was offered by Senator Wilkinson, of Minnesota, and adopted, the New England senators aiding those from Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Oregon, giving a subsidy of twenty-five millions for a railroad from Lake Superior to Puget Sound, and a land grant of six alternate sections per mile on each side of the track in Minnesota, and ten alternate sections for the rest of the way. The amendment created the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, and empowered Charles D. Gilfillan, of Minnesota, Nathaniel P. Banks, of Wisconsin, and Isaac I. Stevens, of Washington Territory, to act as a board of commissioners to organize the company. The bill thus amended went back to the House for concurrence, but the session was almost at an end, and repeated efforts to take the bill from the speaker's table, to get it before the House for consideration, failed for lack of a two thirds vote. Governor Stevens rapidly overcame--lived down--the prejudice excited by the charges and reports against him, and won the respect of his fellow members. Several of them expressed to him their surprise at finding him so different a man from what they had been led to believe. Said one gentleman, "I expected to find you a loud-voiced, tobacco-chewing, drinking, swearing, violent man, and instead I find a gentleman of quiet manners, education, ability, and high aims and ideals." The governor used to regard this change of opinion, which he personally made upon members, with a good deal of satisfaction. He usually rose early, and spent the two hours before breakfast at work in his office. After breakfast and until noon, when Congress met, he would spend in visiting the departments. He kept a light carriage with one horse for this purpose, and for going to and from the Capitol, having the colored servant Bob drive it, or driving himself. He had unbounded influence in all the departments. The clear, lucid way in which he presented his cases; his brief, prompt, business-like methods; the fact that he never asked anything that he did not believe to be right, and called for by public interests, and that he would not submit to delay or neglect, but would follow up his matters until they received due attention, even to the President himself if necessary,--made him respected and somewhat feared, while his uniform courtesy and consideration for the clerks and subordinates won their goodwill. He acquired great influence with President Buchanan. His son Hazard was desirous of entering West Point, and he took the youth to call on the President and ask an appointment for him. Mr. Buchanan very naturally asked the governor why he did not give his son the appointment within his own gift as a member of Congress. The latter declared he could not do this with propriety, and pointedly requested the desired appointment, which the President seemed reluctant to make, pleading the many claims upon him for the few cadetships at his disposal. But finding the governor still firm in his request, he promised unequivocally and positively to appoint his son. The governor carefully refrained from advising or influencing the latter in the choice of a profession, telling him that he had better decide the matter for himself. An uncle, however, very strenuously urged him not to go to West Point. At last the young man besought the advice of his father, who simply said that he would not advise him to enter West Point, or adopt the army as a profession, but told him to decide according to his own judgment and inclination. Under these circumstances he concluded to give up West Point. Within a year the rebellion broke out, and he was carrying a musket in the ranks of the Union volunteers. How little can we foresee the future! The governor appointed Robert Catlin as cadet to West Point from Washington Territory. He dined at six, and spent the evening in social intercourse. Sometimes he would make the rounds of the hotels, meeting old friends and acquaintances, and frequently would work late in the night on some matter that engaged his attention. Like all rising and influential men, he was more and more sought after in behalf of all sorts of people and schemes. Mrs. Stevens relates that on one occasion, when she was reading in the rear end of the large double parlors and the governor was receiving two gentlemen in the front room, she was startled to see him suddenly spring from his chair, face his visitors with upright, soldierly bearing and head erect, exclaiming in a stern and indignant voice, "Look at me, gentlemen, and tell me what you see about me that you dare intimate such a proposition! Leave my house!" They slunk off without a word. The governor delighted in hospitality, and was never happier than when entertaining his friends. While in Washington he was visited by many of his own and Mrs. Stevens's relatives. Governor Stevens was preëminently a national man in all his ideas and sympathies. His Revolutionary ancestry, his West Point training, his participation in large national interests,--as the Mexican war, the Coast Survey, the exploration of the continent and upbuilding of the Pacific Northwest, together with the natural bent of his patriotic nature and comprehensive, far-sighted mind,--strengthened his love for and pride in the great Republic, and made sectionalism or disunion utterly abhorrent to him. Like Webster, he regarded the Union as the palladium of national liberty, life, and power, and its preservation the highest patriotic duty. There was an aggressive disunion faction, in the Southern tier of slave States, seeking to disrupt the Union by magnifying Northern encroachments against the Southern institution of negro slavery; but the great bulk of the Southern people still held fast to their ancient moorings. Governor Stevens firmly believed that to maintain unimpaired the compromises of the Constitution in regard to slavery was not only the highest statesmanship looking to the preservation of the Union, but a matter of justice and good faith to the Southern Unionists. He believed that as long as the Northern Democracy stood by the constitutional rights of the South, they would continue to hold fast to the Union, and defeat the Secessionists, and that thus, by the league of broad-minded national men both North and South, the extremists could be kept down and the Union maintained. The political issues of the day sprang up over the question of slavery in the Territories. The Republican party held that Congress had the right, and it was its duty, to prohibit slavery within them; and its more progressive leaders openly expressed the belief that the institution, if debarred from extension and confined to the existing slave States, would ultimately become extinct. The Democratic party was divided between two doctrines on the question. The majority of Northern Democrats upheld the "Squatter Sovereignty" doctrine of Stephen A. Douglas, to wit, that the people of each Territory had the right to decide for or against slavery; while the Southern Democrats and a large part of those in the North, including many of the oldest and ablest leaders and public men, held that, as the Territories had been acquired by the blood and treasure of all the States, neither Congress nor the citizens of a Territory could lawfully prohibit slavery therein as long as they remained Territories; but when they assumed Statehood, the people could prohibit or establish slavery, as they saw fit. The latter doctrine had the support of a dictum of the Supreme Court. Moreover, well-informed men knew that, as a practical matter, there was no probability that negro slavery could be extended into any of the existing Territories, for both natural conditions and the great preponderance of Northern emigration to the West were adverse to it. A few brief years would settle the question in the Territories, and remove it from national politics; and meantime, if the Southern people, the great majority of whom were Union-loving and patriotic, could be reassured that their constitutional rights as to slavery would be respected, the disunionists would become powerless, the dangerous controversies over slavery would die out, and the Union would be saved, stronger and more glorious than ever. Such were the views of Stevens and many of the ablest Democratic leaders, the same views that actuated Clay and Webster and their compatriots when they allayed the storm of an earlier strife over the same subject. No spirit of subserviency to the South actuated them, but a strong sense of justice to the weaker section, of fidelity to the Constitution, of loyalty to the Southern Unionists, and, above all, a broad-minded national patriotism. Thus it was that the men of whom Governor Stevens was a type, after striving to the utmost to safeguard the Southern constitutional rights, when sacrilegious hands assailed the nation's life, and the Southern people, frenzied with the madness of the hour, were swept into the maelstrom of the great rebellion, were foremost in defense of the country, in self-devotion and self-sacrifice for her sake. In this school of patriots are numbered two members of Lincoln's cabinet, Edwin M. Stanton, the great War Secretary, and Joseph Holt, the Attorney-General; General John A. Dix and Daniel L. Dickinson, of New York; Generals Grant, Sherman, Halleck, Sheridan; Benjamin F. Butler, of Massachusetts; John A. Logan, of Illinois; and many others, all of whom supported Breckinridge and Lane. Although deeply immersed in the important practical measures for the advancement of the Northern route and the Pacific Northwest, Governor Stevens was as earnest and decided in his political views as in everything else he undertook. He attended the Democratic National Convention, which was held in Charleston, S.C., April 23, as a delegate representing Oregon, the Territories having no representation. He ardently advocated the nomination of General Lane, his friend and co-worker in behalf of the Pacific Territories. General Lane had achieved much distinction in the Mexican war, was a man of broad, statesman-like views, sound judgment, upright, high-toned, generous, and considerate of others, and universally esteemed. He was just the man for a compromise candidate, and his chances were good for the nomination after the more prominent candidates should defeat each other. But the convention split upon the platform, the Northern delegates insisting upon the squatter sovereignty doctrine; whereupon the representatives of nine extreme Southern States seceded from the convention, which, without making any nominations, adjourned to meet at Baltimore on June 18. In the few ballots taken, General Lane received six votes; but the opportune moment for which his friend hoped never arrived, owing to the disruption of the convention. The Baltimore convention served but to emphasize the irreconcilable difference between the two doctrines and wings dividing the Democracy. Douglas's doctrine was adopted, and himself nominated, by a reduced convention; while the delegations of eight more States, withdrawing from it, met in separate convention on June 28, in the same city, and nominated John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, for President, and Joseph Lane, of Oregon, for Vice-President, on a platform declaring the other doctrine, and assuming the name of the National Democratic party. President Buchanan and the entire influence of the administration supported the latter, and, as the election showed, not only the majority of the foremost public men of the Northern Democracy, but one third of its voters. Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin were nominated by the Republican party on a platform opposing the extension of slavery in the Territories; and a convention representing the old Whigs, and many moderate men and Unionists in both sections, nominated John Bell, of Tennessee, and Edward Everett, of Massachusetts, on the bare declaration of "The Union, the Constitution, and the Enforcement of the Laws." The National Democratic party, thus launched into the struggle, was destitute of any national organization, so essential for carrying on a presidential contest. The leaders, including the nominees and members of the cabinet, after full consultation, besought Governor Stevens to accept the position of chairman of the National Executive Committee, organize it, and carry on the canvass. Ever ready to devote himself to any cause in which he was enlisted, the governor undertook the herculean task. In a single night he wrote the party address to the country,--an address covering a whole page of a large metropolitan newspaper, a feat for which General Lane years afterwards expressed unbounded admiration and astonishment, both for its ability and for the ease and rapidity with which it was dashed off. During the next four months Governor Stevens drove on the canvass with his accustomed energy and ability. Headquarters were opened in New York, contributions collected, meetings organized, and large numbers of speeches and documents circulated all over the country. On September 5 he entertained at dinner, in Washington, General Lane, Secretaries Howell Cobb and Jacob Thompson, of the cabinet, and a delegation from New York. The situation seemed by no means hopeless to the adherents of Breckinridge and Lane. The Republican vote at the last presidential election was far in the minority, even in the North; and now, with four candidates in the field, it seemed probable that there would be no popular election. In such case the choice of President would devolve upon the House of Representatives, voting by States, and the Democratic members controlled a majority of the States, and could therefore choose one of the Democratic candidates. In the event that the House failed to elect, owing either to dissensions among the Democratic members, or the abstention of enough members to break a quorum, which the Republican members could bring about, as they had the numerical majority, then the Senate had the election of Vice-President, who would act as President, and that insured the choice of General Lane, because the majority of the States were represented in the Senate by senators who supported Breckinridge and Lane.[13] The election of Lincoln in November overset all these hopes and calculations, and the drama of the great rebellion, which was to humble the arrogant fire-eaters of the South, free the land from the curse of slavery, and vindicate the Union by the sword, the last argument of kings and nations, was ushered in. At the last session of this, the 36th Congress, the bill to pay the Indian war debt was passed, notwithstanding the most strenuous and bitter opposition, led by a member from New York, General Wool's State, and inspired by him. The report of the third auditor, which greatly and very unfairly cut down the award of the Ingalls commission, was made the basis of the bill. Governor Stevens, in his speeches in Congress, severely criticised and exposed the mistakes and unfair findings of the auditor, without impugning his honesty. He was a well-meaning but narrow man, who had allowed himself to be prejudiced against the volunteers. Other advocates of the bill were less considerate towards him. On one occasion he thanked the governor with great warmth and sincerity for always treating him, and referring to him, as an honest man and well-meaning public servant, much to the governor's surprise. He also succeeded in having his Territory made a separate Indian superintendency, and his friend W.W. Miller appointed superintendent. He also increased the mail service on the Sound from weekly to semi-weekly, and secured appropriations of $59,700 for the Indian service, $61,000 for general expenses, and had Lieutenant Mullan's report on building the military road across the mountains printed. He offered five bills, six resolutions, and four amendments, and spoke on the Northern Pacific Railroad, in defense of the Coast Survey, Indian war debt, increased mail service on Puget Sound, military post on Red River, etc. During his congressional tour the governor was particularly indefatigable and successful in establishing new post-roads, and increasing mail facilities in all parts of the Territory. Years afterwards General Miller declared that the government had done nothing since his death but to cut down the mail service, and abolish the post-offices and routes he had caused to be established. The military road between Fort Benton and Walla Walla, which the governor caused to be opened, and in charge of which he had placed Lieutenant Mullan, known as the Mullan road popularly, was for a number of years the highway across the Bitter Root and Rocky Mountains, traversed by thousands of trains, and the great artery for communication with and supply of thousands of settlers and miners in Montana, until superseded by the railroads. The payment of the Indian war debt was a great triumph for Governor Stevens, and completed the vindication of his course, as the confirmation of his treaties vindicated his Indian policy. During the last seven years, what severe and unremitting labors he had undergone, what great results he had achieved, and what tremendous obstacles and opposition he had overcome! He had made the exploration of the Northern route the most complete and exhaustive of all; had demonstrated its superiority, not simply as a transcontinental line, but as a world route for the world's commerce, and had made himself the authority and exponent of that route. By his Indian service he had treated with over thirty thousand Indians, extinguished the Indian title to a hundred and fifty million acres, established peace among hereditary enemies over an area larger than New England and the Middle States, and instituted over thousands of savages a beneficent policy of instruction and civilization. By calling out volunteers and waging an aggressive war against the savage foe, when all was gloom and terror, and the settlers were not only forsaken but vilified by the military authority, whose duty it was to protect them, he saved the settlements of his Territory from extinction, and the progress of the Northwest from being set back for years. And his firm and patriotic stand against British aggression saved the San Juan group to the United States. Entering Congress vilified by high and low, with the censure of his territorial legislature and the disapproval of the President recorded against him, he had so ably demonstrated the wisdom and rightfulness of his course that he secured the ratification of his Indian treaties, the payment of the Indian war debt, the reversal of the reactionary policy of Wool, the opening of the interior to settlement, and the punishment of Indian murderers. During his brief career up to this time he disbursed over three quarters of a million dollars for the government, as follows:[14]-- As an officer of engineers, the larger part on Fort Knox $278,108.29 As Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs 386,642.66 In the Northern route exploration 114,103.56 ----------- $778,854.51 Events followed fast that winter in the great national drama. The ultra-secessionists in the cotton States had it all their own way; and the Democratic leaders throughout the South, regardless of their Northern allies, who had stood by them so bravely and against such odds, were only too ready to follow in the same treasonable path, some accepting Seward's doctrine of an irrepressible conflict between slavery and freedom, and believing that separation and an independent government were the only means by which slavery could be maintained; while others, furious at the loss of political power, like Lucifer, would rather reign in hell than serve in heaven,--would ruin where they could no longer rule. Great efforts were made by the moderate men, especially of the border States, to heal the breach; the Republican leaders, frightened at the storm, displayed a conciliatory spirit; and it seemed for a time that the differences might be compromised, the fears of the South allayed, and the Union peacefully preserved. Governor Stevens clung to this hope to the last. He thought that if a constitutional convention could be held, the breach could be healed; that the strong Union sentiment in most of the Southern States would cause them to adhere to the Union; and that the few seceding States, isolated and helpless, would soon be glad to resume their places. It is altogether probable that this view was correct, but one essential condition of such a plan was that no overt act of hostility should be committed. The secessionists, by violently seizing the national forts and property, and beginning hostilities, rendered peaceful adjustment hopeless. Governor Stevens was firm and decided in his opinion that it was the duty of the President to protect the national property and forts and enforce the laws. The following sentences culled from his correspondence show his views and feelings at this trying and momentous crisis:-- December 10. Should Carolina attack the forts, or seize the revenue, there must be collision. The government must protect its property and execute its laws. Let all men agree to a convention of all the States. When the delegates meet, I am sure it will be found easier to unite than to separate. If Union seems to be accompanied by occasional discord, separation will threaten perpetual war. If in Union there is not always harmony, in separation there will never be peace. December 17. That the President will protect the public property and execute the laws, no one can doubt. That he has troops in readiness to embark at a moment's warning to succor the forts in the event of their attack by South Carolina cannot be doubted. I do not believe that the authorities of South Carolina will make any attack of the kind, or resist the collecting of the revenue, at least until ample notice has been given. When the case arises will be the time for the President to act. That he will act decisively I do not doubt. But the great problem to be solved is to vindicate the laws without collision. The only hope of reconciliation is in avoiding collision. Never were wanted more the qualities of forbearance and moderation in connection with those of decision and of action. January 3. The blow of the secessionists in seizing the arsenal and forts at Charleston has been followed up by the seizure of the arsenal at Augusta, and of the forts on the Savannah River. There is no doubt that the secessionists here sent word South some time ago to seize all the forts on the Gulf, and most if not all are probably now in their hands. The mad, headlong, and unjustifiable course of the Southern States is tending to unite the North as one man. The firm course which the President is taking will rally around him all true, Union-loving, conservative men. When secession raised its treasonable head among his political associates, Governor Stevens denounced it, and broke with them at once and forever. He took an active part in urging President Buchanan to withdraw his confidence from the Southern members of his cabinet, and take a positive stand in defense of the government and country. He called on Mr. Buchanan repeatedly, and strongly urged this course. His recent position as chairman of the National Democratic Executive Committee added strength to the personal influence he already had, and aided much in bringing the President to the firmer attitude which distinguished the last days of his administration. The governor respected Mr. Buchanan, while he pitied his lack of firmness and moral courage. He said that for a time Mr. Buchanan presented a pitiable spectacle of indecision and lack of firmness and courage. He even feared personal violence, and had been threatened with it by some of the Southerners. During the winter Washington was filled with alarming rumors that the secessionists were plotting to seize the capital, to assassinate the President-elect, to prevent his inauguration, and there was considerable foundation for them. To guard against such dangers, Governor Stevens aided in the organization of a regiment of District of Columbia militia, and was one of the chief advisers and supporters of Colonel C.P. Stone, who raised and commanded it, assisting him in procuring arms and equipments. Colonel Stone was the General Stone who was so unjustly persecuted for the disaster at Ball's Bluff. The governor personally urged Mr. Buchanan to sustain Major Anderson in his bold move of occupying Fort Sumter, to give his entire confidence to General Scott, and approved and defended his bringing regular troops to Washington. In these matters Governor Stevens was intimately associated and acted with Holt, Stanton, Dix, and other Democrats, most of whom had been supporting Breckinridge and Lane, and who rescued Mr. Buchanan from the hands of his secessionist cabinet, and inspired him to assert the national authority. FOOTNOTES: [13] Alexander H. Stephens, _The War Between the States_, vol. ii. p. 276. [14] The accounts for this vast sum were all found correct, and were all passed by the accounting officers of the treasury, except some of the expenditures on the exploration, and it is instructive to note these items as an example of how great injustice the rigid rules, or notions of accounting officials, ofttimes inflict upon the most scrupulous and careful officers. Governor Stevens was charged with a balance of $8856.14, the largest item in which ($2626) consisted of the payment to ten regular officers on the exploration of one dollar per diem each, while engaged in topographical duty, according to an established regulation. Other items were for payments for subsistence and transportation; for compensation paid civil employees; for interest on the protested drafts, which were necessary to continue the survey, and for which Congress made appropriation; for articles and animals necessarily lost or worn out in so widespread and extended a service; and even for recompense paid certain of the party who had to abandon their clothing and effects in the mountains in a snowstorm. No compensation was ever allowed Governor Stevens for his services in conducting the exploration and preparing his final report. Although the disallowed items were referred to Captain A.A. Humphreys (General Humphreys) for examination, and he reported in favor of Governor Stevens, and recommended the allowance of nearly every item, no action was taken before the latter fell at the battle of Chantilly, the following year. Since then application has been made to Congress, resulting in one bill passing the House and another the Senate at different times, but neither passed both branches. And General Stevens, after serving his country so faithfully, and accomplishing so much in her behalf, is accounted a _debtor_ to the government. CHAPTER XLVII THE OFFER OF SWORD AND SERVICES Immediately after the inauguration of President Lincoln, Governor Stevens hastened to return to the Territory. General Miller wrote:-- "I believe that the National Democracy can easily keep possession of the Territory. As to your own prospects, they seem as good to me as ever they were. Now that you have won a national fame, you will always be looked upon as the leading man of the Northwest. Should you be thrown out of the delegateship at the next election, in two years you would be the strongest man on the coast. But you cannot be beaten even at the next election." General Lane, however, had just been defeated in Oregon by a coalition of the Republicans and Douglas Democrats, and Colonel J.W. Nesmith was chosen his successor. Breaking up the Twelfth Street establishment, and leaving Mrs. Stevens and the three girls in Newport and his son at Harvard, Governor Stevens sailed from New York on the steamer Northern Light, March 12, by the Isthmus route, and arrived in Olympia the last of April. There he denounced secession, took strong ground in favor of supporting the government, and recommended organizing and arming the territorial militia. Accordingly a company was raised in Olympia, known as the Puget Sound Rifles; he was elected captain, accepted the command without hesitation, and was duly commissioned and sworn in. This was before the news of the attack on Fort Sumter and the grand uprising of the nation had reached the Pacific slope, and the minds of many were still in doubt. The Democratic convention was held at Vancouver in May. Untiring efforts had been made by the faction opposed to Governor Stevens to defeat his renomination, and the showy and oratorical Garfielde headed the opposition. The governor's friends felt too secure in his well-earned and undiminished popularity, and the prestige of his successful career in Congress, just crowned by the payment of the war debt, and neglected the active work and support the occasion called for. Notwithstanding this, a clear majority of the delegates were elected as Stevens men; but when the convention met, the opposition were found well organized, active, and bitter; they won over a number of delegates, several of them by bribery, as was publicly charged, and rendered the governor's nomination doubtful, and only to be made at the cost of a protracted contest. Indignant at such unworthy treatment at the hands of the party he had served so faithfully and well, and disdaining such a contest at such a time, for the news of the firing on Sumter had just been received, and he had resolved to tender his service to the country, Governor Stevens at once withdrew his name as a candidate before the convention. Garfielde was then nominated, and the governor accepted the situation in the following manly and magnanimous speech:-- MR. PRESIDENT, GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION, AND FELLOW CITIZENS OF THE TERRITORY OF WASHINGTON,--I congratulate you on the harmonious termination of your labors. Notwithstanding great differences of judgment as to the admission of delegates and the fairness of the organization of this convention, you have at length, with almost entire unanimity, agreed upon a platform and a candidate. By your action I shall abide. The choice of this convention is my choice, and shall receive my cordial and unwavering support. For one, I shall not look mournfully into the past. This, the hour of agony of our country's life, is no time for recrimination and the indulgence of selfish feeling. It appeals to whatever is noble and patriotic in behalf of that country's cause. Our beloved Union is in most imminent peril. The sad spectacle of civil and fratricidal strife is being exhibited to the world, and doubt has arisen as to the capacity of man for self-government. No longer devotion to our whole country, no longer an enlarged view of the liberties and progress of mankind, shapes the policies of parties and prevails in the councils of the government, but the strife of jarring sections and an insane grasp after ascendency has precipitated upon the country a cruel, internecine war. It is the duty of the Democracy to unite for the sake of the union of these States. The sundered Democracy of the States has already come together. Let not our hitherto united Democracy now separate. I most heartily indorse the platform of the convention that secession is revolution. There is no such thing, indeed, as peaceable secession. From the beginning of this controversy, not only have I deprecated, but I have denounced secession. I have deemed it the worst possible remedy for the redress of the grievances of the South. I have considered it an aggravation ten-thousand-fold of all their wrongs. I feel that, as the representative of the most northwest Territory, I have been true and unfaltering to my constituency and my country. For during the entire winter past I have used every exertion of my nature in behalf of the union of these States and against secession. Gentlemen, it is our duty as patriots, and as true lovers of liberty, to stand by our government and our country in this its great emergency. The aggressions of the South upon the property and the forces of the general government must be sternly repelled. The government must be maintained as well against domestic as foreign foes. Let these States become the prey of revolutionary schemes, let the doctrine be admitted that one of the parties can alter or break up the compact without the consent of the others, and anarchy will reign throughout the land and all hopes of regulated liberty will come to an end. We must, I repeat, stand steadfastly by the constituted authorities in their efforts to sustain the government. Fellow citizens and fellow Democrats, I am profoundly grateful for the confidence which, during eight long years of labor, you have placed in me. I am especially grateful for the marks of confidence which I have received in this hour of uncertainty and doubt. My own views and opinions are known to you. I have nothing to explain, to retract, or to apologize for. I have sought faithfully, under all circumstances, to do my duty. I feel that at my hands the honor of the Territory has been sustained, and I can look every man in the face, knowing, as I do, that I have done no man intentional injustice. But many of his friends were so indignant at the rascally methods employed to compass his defeat that they refused to support Garfielde, and he was badly defeated in the election. The day the convention adjourned, Governor Stevens tendered his services to the government in the following letter:-- PORTLAND, OREGON, May 22, 1861. HON. SIMON CAMERON, _Secretary of War_. _Sir_,--I have the honor to offer my services in the great contest now taking place for the maintenance of the Union in whatever military position the government may see fit to employ them. For my services in the war with Mexico I will respectfully refer you to General Scott, on whose staff I served as an officer of engineers during that war. For my services in the subsequent Indian wars of the country, I will refer you to the Hon. J.W. Nesmith, one of the senators from Oregon. I need not add that, throughout this unhappy secession controversy, I have been an unwavering and steadfast Union man. I am, sir, very respectfully, Your obedient servant, ISAAC I. STEVENS. [Illustration: _Facsimile of Letter offering Services_] The same day, from Vancouver the governor wrote Senator Nesmith, requesting him to see the Secretary and-- "let him know that the offer is made from the earnest purpose and desire to do my duty in this great emergency of our country's history.... I am afraid there is to be a protracted contest. I want to see the rebellion crushed out. The policy of conciliation, to which I adhered as long as it presented the least hope, has not only been exhausted, but it has been contemptuously rejected by the South. The war ought to be prosecuted with the utmost vigor. Let us see if we have a government. Nothing can be worse than anarchy." The governor was anxious to reach Washington at the earliest possible moment in order to renew in person his tender of services, but was detained in Portland over the sailing of one steamer by a severe though brief fit of sickness. At this time he was obliged to borrow $600 of Judge Seth Catlin,--a warm personal and political friend,--for his expenses in Washington had been heavy and he had nothing laid up. He was always too much engrossed in public affairs to give due attention to his private interests, but he was always careful to meet his bills and expenses. He was able to take the next steamer down the coast, the Cortez, and on board of her he wrote General Totten as follows:-- STEAMER CORTEZ, June 19, 1861. MY DEAR GENERAL,--I am on my way to the States to offer my services in a military capacity to the government, and for the war.[15] I feel and know that I can do good service. Educated at the public expense, my country has a right to my services. This secession movement must be put down with an iron hand. Anarchy and interminable civil wars will be the inevitable, logical consequence of yielding to it. I do not propose a permanent return to the service, but simply service for the war. Whilst I shall accept any military position the government may tender me, I take it for granted proper regard will be had to my somewhat large military experience since I left the army, and my position before the public. I want, therefore, the confidence of those in authority. You can render good offices in the matter. I want the confidence of General Scott. I have ever been his discriminating friend. Last winter I sustained his entire course. I personally urged the President to give his entire confidence to General Scott. I approved and defended the bringing of regular troops to the city, the organizing, arming, and promptly officering the District militia, of which, except the late President and Secretary of War, the inspector-general, Colonel Stone, is more cognizant than any one else. I had frequent conferences with him about the District militia, and was able to be of some service to him in consequence of my relations with Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Holt. It has been most fortunate that, notwithstanding my intimate relations with most of the secession leaders, in consequence of the part I took in the presidential campaign, I never wavered for a moment in resolutely fighting secession. I was actively at work the moment it arose. I gave it no quarter. My position was well known in Congress. General Totten forwarded this letter with the following indorsement:-- "With a high order of talent, his great characteristics of promptness, boldness, and energy cannot fail to mark prominently any career that may be opened to him as a soldier, and I trust the government will at once avail itself of his high qualifications by assigning him a position that will give full play to powers so well suited to the present wants of the country." Governor Stevens also wrote Professor Bache, Colonel Stone, and others to present his merits to the new administration; for, confident in his own powers, he was most anxious to secure such a position as would enable him to render his best service to his country. He reached New York early in July, and went straight to Washington, not even stopping to visit his family in Newport. His reception there was cold and discouraging. The very active part he had taken in the recent presidential campaign, and his intimate association during it with men who were now foremost in striving to destroy the country, prejudiced many against him, and Douglas Democrats even more than Republicans. Senator Nesmith rather turned the cold shoulder, alleging that he felt bound to reserve all his influence for the benefit of men from his own State. Governor Stevens called upon the new President, and made a good and lasting impression upon him, but no response was made to his tender; and while the whole country was aroused, and troops were flocking to Washington, and the great needs of the hour were military ability and experience, it seemed as though the services of one of her best qualified and most patriotic sons would be rejected, and he be denied the opportunity of serving his country in her extremity. He offered his services to General McDowell as aide, or in any capacity, for the movement which culminated in the defeat of Bull Run, but they were declined. The only bright spot in this time of disappointment and mortification was his meeting General Scott, and regaining the esteem and confidence of his old chief. Meantime his friends and patriotic men of all parties, who were anxious that his services should not be lost to the country, were sending on recommendations in his behalf. Governor Sprague and the legislature of Rhode Island, Governor Andrew, Senator Wilson, Representatives Rice, Train, and others, of Massachusetts, Senator John P. Hale, of New Hampshire, Nesmith, of Oregon, Rice, of Minnesota, and many other members of Congress urged his appointment as brigadier-general. The "Springfield Republican" strongly set forth his qualifications, and urged the government to employ his services. As, contrary to expectations, it was not made, Governor Andrew offered him the colonelcy of a Massachusetts regiment, and Governor Sprague that of a Rhode Island regiment, both explaining that they would have made the offer before, had they not supposed he would be given the position of general. But just before these offers were received, the Secretary of War tendered him the colonelcy of the 79th Highlanders, a New York regiment, which had been badly cut up at Bull Run, and he had accepted it. A few days later a paragraph appeared in the papers to the effect that he had declined this position, and immediately Governor Andrew telegraphed, "Can you now accept regiment temporarily while we try for brigade?" and Governor Sprague telegraphed, "I hear you decline position in 79th. Will you accept my offer?" But having tendered his services to the government without qualification, Governor Stevens felt in duty bound to accept any position to which he might be assigned, and therefore was obliged to decline both offers. Before entering upon the new duty he made a hasty visit of two days to his family in Newport, where he addressed a Union meeting with General Burnside. At this time he was still reduced in health and strength from the overwork of the last year, and mortified and depressed in spirit, almost the only occasion his buoyant and self-reliant character was thus affected. To a personal friend he exclaimed, "I will show those men in Washington that I am worthy of something better than a regiment, or I will lay my bones on the battlefield." FOOTNOTES: [15] Governor Alexander S. Abernethy writes the following anecdote of Governor Stevens. Meeting him just before starting East, the governor said that he had told the Southern gentlemen, with whom he had been associated in the Democratic Executive Committee and in the convention, that, if a war should result from the action they had taken, he would be found supporting the government against them. "And," said he, "I am going to Washington at once, and shall offer the President my sword and my services as long as this war shall last." CHAPTER XLVIII THE 79TH HIGHLANDERS.--THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC For many years the Highland Guard was a crack New York city militia battalion, composed of Scots, or men of Scottish lineage. They wore the kilt as their uniform, and, for fatigue or undress, a blue jacket with red facings, and trousers of Cameronian tartan. At the breaking out of the rebellion, the battalion was raised to a full regiment by the addition of two companies and filling up the ranks, and on May 13, 1861, entered the United States service for three years as the 79th Highlanders, New York volunteers. Few regiments even in those patriotic days contained a finer, braver, or more intelligent body of men. Nearly every walk of life was represented among them except common laborers; but business men, clerks, and mechanics, with some sailors and even a few veteran British soldiers, filled the ranks. One company contained so many bookkeepers and clerks that it was known as the clerks' company. If a skilled man was wanted at headquarters for any purpose, from clerk to mule-driver, from manning a light battery to rowing a boat, the Highlanders were always called upon to furnish the detail, and their successive commanders had all they could do to prevent the regiment from being depleted by such calls. At the battle of Bull Run the Highlanders were terribly cut up, losing one hundred and ninety-eight killed, wounded, and missing, including eleven officers. The colonel, James Cameron, brother to the Secretary of War, was killed gallantly leading his regiment, which was considerably scattered after the battle. It was collected together in a few days, and moved to a camp on Meridian Hill, at the head of Tenth Street, north of Washington, named Camp Ewen. The officers and non-commissioned officers now petitioned the secretary to order the regiment home to recruit and recuperate. The secretary, visiting the camps, repeatedly expressed great regard for the regiment, and promised to do anything in his power for it. When the petition reached him, he indorsed it as follows:-- The Secretary of War believes that in consideration of the gallant services of the 79th regiment, New York volunteers, and of their losses in battle, they are entitled to the special consideration of their country; and he also orders that the regiment be sent to some one of the forts in the bay of New York to fill up the regiment by recruits, as soon as Colonel Stevens returns to the command. SIMON CAMERON, _Secretary of War_. The men were informed of the secretary's order, and notified to prepare for the homeward trip, to which they looked forward with eager anticipations and longing. But the military authorities remonstrated so strenuously against the order, on the ground of the bad effect on other troops of allowing one regiment to go home, that the secretary allowed it to be set aside, yet no notice of the revocation was given the Highlanders. As day by day went by without the much-desired homeward orders, they became more and more dissatisfied; the officers, as much in the dark as the men, could not satisfy their doubts and misgivings, and the spirit of insubordination grew daily. On August 7 Lieutenant-Colonel Samuel M. Elliott was directed from Headquarters First Division, New York State Militia, to convene the commissioned officers, after five days' notice, for the purpose of electing a colonel, and accordingly notified them to meet on the 13th at four P.M. for such purpose. Apparently the state authorities ignored the action of the War Department in appointing a new colonel, and it does not appear that the appointment of Colonel Stevens was announced to the regiment, except by his own order assuming command. On August 10 Colonel Stevens arrived at the camp, and at dress parade that evening the following order was read:-- The undersigned, in pursuance of orders from the War Department, hereby assumes command of the 79th regiment, New York State Militia. He will devote himself earnestly to the regiment, and trusts that its high reputation, gained by honorable service in the face of the enemy, will not suffer at his hands. He doubts not that zeal, fidelity, and soldierly bearing will continue to characterize every member of the regiment. ISAAC I. STEVENS, _Colonel_. The new colonel spent the next day in simply observing the officers and men and inspecting the camp, taking no active steps. On the following day, however, he summoned the major and several other officers to his tent, and demanded and exacted their resignations. On the 13th, the third day of his command, he issued an order at dress parade that the regiment should move camp on the morrow. This brought matters to a climax. The men plainly saw that they were not to go to New York, and felt that they had been trifled with and deceived. They gathered in knots like angry bees to discuss their wrongs. Many of them went into the city that night and returned late, more or less intoxicated. Whiskey was smuggled into the camp, and some of the forced-to-resign officers had a hand in this, and by the eventful morning of the 14th the regiment was ripe for mutiny. When, after an early breakfast, the order was given to strike tents, all flatly refused except two companies,--I and K,--which remained faithful and obedient during the trouble. These were the new companies recently organized, and probably were less infected with militia notions than the others. Colonel Stevens visited the refractory companies in turn, but the men, deaf to orders and expostulations, stubbornly refused obedience, and told how they had been deceived and disappointed. Lieutenant-Colonel Elliott attempted to explain his action, but without satisfying the colonel, who gave him half an hour in which to resign, on penalty of court-martial. Elliott resigned. Colonel Stevens continued going freely and fearlessly among the men, remonstrating with them and urging them not to bring disgrace upon the regiment, but in vain. When the officers attempted to strike the tents themselves, they were forcibly prevented, and several of them roughly handled. Colonel Stevens, coming to a group where some officers had just been thus repulsed, the armed and angry mutineers threatening to shoot any one who touched a tent, at once exclaimed, "Then I will take it down myself," and, disregarding threatening words and looks, laid hold of the tent to strike it. At this the men, struck with admiration at his intrepidity, exclaimed, "Dinna mind, colonel; we'll take it doon for ye this ance." At length, finding all efforts to restore obedience fruitless, Colonel Stevens felt obliged to report the mutiny, and ask for troops to suppress it. In response the camp was surrounded late in the afternoon by an overpowering force of regular infantry, artillery, and cavalry, which, in presence of the refractory regiment, ostentatiously loaded muskets, drew sabres, and charged the guns with canister and trained them on the camp. Colonel Stevens then addressed them, standing in the midst of the camp:-- "I know you have been deceived. You have been told you were to go to your homes, when no such orders had been given. But you are soldiers, and your duty is to obey. I am your colonel, and your obedience is due to me. I am a soldier of the regular army. I have spent many years on the frontier fighting the Indians. I have been surrounded by the red devils, fighting for my scalp. I have been a soldier in the war with Mexico, and bear honorable wounds received in battle, and have been in far greater danger than that surrounding me now. All the morning I have begged you to do your duty. Now I shall order you; and if you hesitate to obey instantly, my next order will be to those troops to fire upon you. Soldiers of the 79th Highlanders, fall in!" His voice rang out like a trumpet. The men, thoroughly cowed, made haste to fall into the ranks. The regiment, guarded on both flanks by the regulars, was then marched into Fourteenth Street, the colors were taken away by order of General McClellan, and thirty-five men, reported by the officer of the guard as active in the disturbance, were marched off to prison. The regiment resumed its march for the Eastern Branch, crossed that stream, and bivouacked for the night near the Maryland Insane Asylum,--a suggestive coincidence, remarks the historian of the regiment. Soon after daylight the next morning the new camp was reached, named Camp Causten, after a resident of Washington, who had shown the Highlanders many kind attentions after Bull Run, tents were pitched, and the routine of camp life established. Fourteen of the so-called ringleaders were soon afterwards released and returned to the regiment, and the remainder were sent to the Dry Tortugas on the Florida coast, where they were kept on fatigue duty until the 16th of the following February, when they were also released, and rejoined the regiment at Beaufort, S.C. Colonel Stevens commanded his regiment with a firm and severe hand. He enforced early roll-calls, hard drilling, and strict cleanliness in person and camp. There were some men so demoralized, by homesickness or otherwise, that they could not be induced to keep themselves decent, or attend to their duties, and he made the guard take them daily to the river, and strip and scrub them with soap and brooms. Under such drastic treatment they speedily recovered their tone. He promptly and severely punished every neglect of duty. He selected a number of bright, efficient young sergeants, and promoted them to be officers of the companies. He daily sent out detachments on scouting expeditions, or marches of ten or twelve miles, and had sketches and measurements made for a topographical map. By these means he varied the monotony of camp life, and infused hope and spirit into the command. He obtained furloughs for a limited number of men, those with families having the preference, and thus assisted some forty to visit their homes for fifteen days each. He was especially strict with the officers, taught them to assert their authority, and broke up the time-honored habit, the curse of militia organizations, of deferring to, and hobnobbing with, the rank and file. On the 26th the regiment broke camp, marched through Washington, the band playing the dead march, by order of the colonel, in token of their disgraced condition and loss of the colors, and went into camp on Kalorama Hill, beyond Georgetown, a mile from the Chain Bridge. Colonel Stevens named the new location Camp Hope, and in a brief address to the regiment bade them hope, and declared that together they would win back the colors and achieve a glorious career. With all his matter-of-fact judgment, he had a pronounced vein of enthusiasm and poetic feeling, and had a singular power of arousing them in others, and of appealing to the higher motives. It was Napoleon who declared that in war the moral is to the physical as three to one. At this camp Colonel Stevens dispensed entirely with camp guards, which in all the new regiments were deemed indispensable, and appealed to the sense of honor and discipline of the Highlanders to refrain from wandering from camp, and from annoying, or pilfering from, the country people. The men responded nobly to this appeal, and took great pride in scrupulously obeying these orders, and in the confidence reposed in them. The inhabitants felt safe when they saw the uniform of the Highlanders, and frequently spoke of the difference between them and other troops. The Highlanders still wore the blue jacket with red facings, but the regulation uniform as to the remainder. Later, when the jackets were worn out, they were uniformed like other troops. On the evening of the 6th of September a large force, including the Highlanders, crossed Chain Bridge to the southern side of the Potomac, and took up positions in front and extending to the left, connecting with troops from Arlington. At midnight, as the regiment was drawn up in line, Colonel Stevens addressed them as follows:-- "'Soldiers of the 79th! You have been censured, and I have been censured with you. You are now going to fight the battles of your country without your colors. I pray God you may soon have an opportunity of meeting the enemy, that you may return victorious with your colors gloriously won.' "As cheering was prohibited," says the historian, "the men listened in silence, but with a determination to do all in our power to recover our lost honors." It was an impressive scene,--the long line of silent soldiers dimly seen in the gloom of night, as they gained new courage and determination from the brief, brave, and soldierly words of their leader. The troops in front of Chain Bridge constituted a division under General W.F. Smith (Baldy Smith), of the Army of the Potomac, forming under General George B. McClellan, and Colonel Stevens was placed in charge of the First Brigade, consisting of the 2d and 3d Vermont, the 6th Maine, and his own regiment, and was intrusted with building Fort Ethan Allen, a strong and extensive earthwork on the left of the Leesburg turnpike, and of felling the woods in the vicinity. The Maine men, all expert woodsmen, armed with axes and deployed in a long line at the foot of a wooded slope, worked upwards, chopping every tree nearly through, so that it stood by only a narrow chip, until they reached the top of the slope; then at the signal of the bugle the last few quick strokes of the axe resounded against the top row of trees, which fell crashing on those below, and they on the next lower, and so on, until the whole forest crashed down together in thundering ruin. The troops were kept hard at work, thus felling forests and digging forts, and also in outpost duty, for a strong picket line to cover the front, posted nearly a mile in advance, had to be maintained. Alarms from this line were frequent, and on one occasion the enemy were reported as advancing in heavy force, and the troops were hastily gotten under arms. Every one expected to take post in the fort, but Colonel Stevens led his brigade out nearly to the picket line, deployed them on a commanding position on both sides of the road, and coolly awaited the attack. This movement, so promptly but deliberately made, visibly raised the confidence and _morale_ of the troops; and when, the alarm proving unfounded, they marched back to camp, they felt able and eager to encounter the enemy on equal ground. On the 11th, under orders from General Smith, but with strictest injunction not to bring on a general engagement under any circumstances, Colonel Stevens, with two thousand troops, made a reconnoissance in force of Lewinsville, a hamlet six miles in advance of Chain Bridge. His force comprised the Highlanders; the 3d Vermont, under Colonel Breed N. Hyde; two companies of the 2d Vermont, under Lieutenant-Colonel George J. Stannard; four companies of the 1st Chasseurs or 65th New York, under Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Shaler; five companies of the 19th Indiana, under Colonel Solomon Meredith; four guns of Griffin's battery, 5th United States artillery, Captain Charles Griffin; a detachment of fifty of the 5th regular cavalry, under Lieutenant William McLean; and one of forty volunteer cavalry, under Captain Robinson. With skirmishers in advance, and exploring the ground on both flanks to the distance of a mile, the command advanced steadily to Lewinsville, the enemy's cavalry pickets falling back without resistance, and occupied the village at ten A.M. Cavalry pickets were thrown out on all the roads; three guns and some five hundred skirmishers were posted well out to command the approaches on all sides; and the position was held for five hours, during which Lieutenant Orlando M. Poe, of the engineers (afterwards General Poe), and Mr. West, of the Coast Survey, made a topographical map and sketch of the place and vicinity. Colonel Stevens, with Captain Griffin and Lieutenant Poe, thoroughly examined the whole position of Lewinsville, of which he reported, "It has great natural advantages, is easily defensible, and should be occupied without delay." During this time small bodies of the enemy were seen observing the Union force at a safe distance, and a cavalry picket, or reconnoitring party of fifty men, was driven off by Lieutenant McLean. The accompanying sketch shows the roads and dispositions of the force to cover the reconnoissance. Colonel Meredith, with three companies of his regiment and one gun, held the road leading north to the Leesburg pike. The same road, running south of the village to Falls Church, was guarded by one company of the same regiment with one gun. Colonel Hyde, with the 3d Vermont and one gun, held the road leading westward to Vienna, and also the new road to Vienna, which fell into the Falls Church road half a mile south of the hamlet. The remaining gun, with the two companies of the 2d Vermont, was kept in reserve at the cross-roads; while the Highlanders and Chasseurs were held in reserve a third of a mile back from the village, and two companies of the former were thrown out as skirmishers to cover the left flank and rear, and connected with the Indiana skirmishers on the Falls Church road. About three in the afternoon the skirmishers were called in, and the column formed for the return march. Just as the bugle sounded "Forward!" a section of artillery, which the enemy, stealing up under cover of the woods as the Highlanders' skirmishers retired, had adroitly planted on the left rear, opened a brisk fire of shells over the head of the column as it marched back; and simultaneously a considerable force of their skirmishers from the Vienna and Falls Church roads advanced on the village and commenced firing on the withdrawing troops, but were directly repulsed, and gave no further trouble. For a few minutes there was some flurry in the column under the shell fire at a turn in the road where it was most exposed. Some of the officers and men threw themselves flat on the ground at every missile that burst or hurtled overhead, and once twenty men ranged themselves in line behind a tree barely a foot in diameter. But this confusion was over in a few minutes; the excitable ones, under the jeers and laughter of their comrades, resumed their places in the ranks, and the column was not broken or delayed. [Illustration: RECONNOISSANCE OF LEWINSVILLE, SEPTEMBER 11, 1862] Colonel Stevens posted Griffin's battery in a good position on the right, or north of the road, which opened a rapid and well-sustained fire on the enemy's guns, and in half an hour silenced them. The column continued its march meantime in admirable order, and Lieutenant McLean brought up the rear unmolested. Colonel Stevens, having thus withdrawn his column from the village and well past the annoying battery, selected other positions for the guns, a section on each side of the road, and disposed his troops to meet the enemy's attack, or to attack him if opportunity offered. The troops were in fine spirits, and obeyed every order with alacrity. But the enemy having ceased his artillery fire, and making no demonstration, showing glimpses only of cavalry and infantry at a distance, the return march was continued, and the troops reached their camps without further incident. The Union loss in this affair was two killed and thirteen wounded, besides three captured, the latter having, in their eagerness to get a shot at the enemy, ventured too far in front of the skirmish line of the 19th Indiana, to which they belonged. The enemy's force consisted of the 13th Virginia, a section of Rosser's battery of the Washington artillery, and a detachment of the 1st Virginia cavalry, all under command of Colonel J.E.B. Stuart, of the latter. Colonel Stuart made a most exaggerated and magniloquent report of the action, and was actually promoted to brigadier-general for it. The action was over, and the Union troops were calmly marching down the road, when General Baldy Smith came galloping up it in hot haste, followed by his staff and a section of Mott's battery, and manifesting considerable anxiety, for the artillery firing had been brisk and noisy while it lasted, and his orders from McClellan--the same he had impressed on Colonel Stevens--charged him not to bring on a general engagement. But perceiving the fine order and undaunted bearing of the troops, and learning how well they had all behaved, and that the enemy was keeping his distance, he resumed his wonted coolness, and heartily congratulated Colonel Stevens and his command on the well-conducted and successful reconnoissance. Half an hour later General McClellan, with a large following of staff and escort, came tearing up the road to the returning column, showing even greater excitement and anxiety. He, too, calmed down on learning that the affair was all over, congratulated General Smith, ostentatiously visited and commiserated the wounded, and returned to Washington without noticing Colonel Stevens. A few days later the colors were restored to the Highlanders by General McClellan in person, in recognition of their soldierly conduct since recrossing the Potomac, especially in the affair at Lewinsville. Colonel Stevens took great pains in disciplining and training the regiments under his command, one of which, the 6th Maine, was raised at Bucksport and vicinity, and some of whose officers he knew when building Fort Knox, and he looked forward with confidence and pride to forming and commanding in them a fine body of soldiers. They, too, were responding to and appreciating his efforts, and strong feelings of mutual esteem and devotion were fast growing up between the commander and command. Before moving from Camp Hope, President Lincoln had assured him of his appointment as brigadier-general within a week, and he was daily expecting it. He never doubted that the troops he was so carefully instructing would form his brigade when he became a general, nor did they. His surprise and chagrin, therefore, were great when the Maine and Vermont regiments were summarily taken from him to make up a brigade for General W.S. Hancock, who, a new brigadier, had just reported to Smith, and three newer and greener regiments were sent to replace them. They were the 33d and 49th New York and 47th Pennsylvania. Colonel Stevens was deeply hurt and disappointed at this action. With the unexplained delay in his promised appointment, and McClellan's significant and averted demeanor, it seemed to indicate a fixed intention on the part of the authorities to deny him promotion, and to keep him down to his colonelcy indefinitely. But he uttered no word of remonstrance or repining at this unworthy treatment, and took the new regiments in hand with unabated care and vigor. He declared to his son, in strict confidence, that, if his appointment as general was not soon made, he would relinquish the command of a brigade and devote himself to the Highlanders; that he would make them the best-disciplined and the best-drilled regiment in the army, and would so infuse them with the spirit of devotion to the country and the cause that, like Cromwell's Ironsides, nothing could resist their onset. He dwelt much at this time on Cromwell, and how he had formed and trained his invincible soldiers. Before embracing the contemplated course, however, Colonel Stevens sent his son to see the President and deliver a brief message to the effect that, although several weeks had elapsed since the assurance was given of his appointment as a general officer within a week, he had heard nothing of it, and feared that the President, under the great weight of care and responsibilities, might have forgotten it. The young man accordingly rode into the city and presented himself at the White House. His card was taken; the ante-rooms were crowded with anxious applicants and callers, and among them he waited for hours, unable to get access to the President, or secure any attention. At last he accosted a colored messenger, who from time to time entered the President's room with cards, and begged his assistance in obtaining an interview, stating that he had a message of great importance from his father, Colonel Isaac I. Stevens, who had sent him expressly to deliver it to the President. The messenger would scarcely listen, indeed, had to be almost forcibly detained, until the name struck his ear, when his whole manner changed. "Do you mean Governor Stevens?" he exclaimed. "Is Governor Stevens your father? I used to see him here often in Mr. Buchanan's time, and I am glad to do anything in the world I can for him. I'll take your name in the next time, and you shall see the President, if I can fix it." He was as good as his word, and soon ushered the youth into the inner office. Mr. Lincoln received him in a kindly and fatherly manner that at once placed him at ease, listened to the message, and said: "Tell your father that I have not forgotten my promise, nor him; that I should have had his appointment made before this, if it had not been for General McClellan; that General McClellan said Colonel Stevens had better remain in command of the Highlanders some time longer; that they were not yet reduced to proper discipline, and it would be unsafe to take away their colonel at present. But tell your father," he added, "that it shall be no longer delayed." He then took a small blank card and wrote a line upon it, directing that Colonel Stevens's appointment as brigadier-general be made out, and handed it to his visitor, bidding him take it over to the War Department and deliver it to the adjutant-general. This was soon done, and the young man, plying the spur, joyfully galloped back to camp with the gratifying news. Any military man knows perfectly well that as brigadier-general he could have as much oversight and control over a regiment in his brigade as though he remained its colonel. In fact, General Stevens retained personal and immediate command of the Highlanders, although he commanded a brigade, and long after he became a general. On the 25th General Smith advanced to Lewinsville with five thousand troops on a foraging expedition. Colonel Stevens, with the Highlanders and the 2d Vermont, led the advance, and the skirmishers of the former captured an officer of Stuart's regiment with his horse. The enemy made no resistance, and after loading ninety wagons with corn and grain, the expedition returned. CAMP ADVANCE, September 27, 1861. MY DEAR WIFE,--I appointed Hazard adjutant of the Highlanders yesterday. He has been with the regiment under fire three times, acting as my aide on two occasions, and the aide of Captain Ireland on the third. The appointment is very acceptable to the regiment. Hazard will make an excellent adjutant. It will be easy for him to learn the technical part. His general experience will make everything easy. I am looking somewhat for my brigadier's commission this week. The young man joined the regiment immediately after it crossed the Potomac, and had borne a musket in some of its skirmishes, and was appointed adjutant on the advancement of the former adjutant, David Ireland, to a captaincy in the regular army. General Stevens's appointment as brigadier was made on the 28th, and on the following day he was formally assigned to the command of the third brigade of Smith's division, consisting of the four regiments already under his charge, viz., the Highlanders, 33d and 49th New York, and 47th Pennsylvania. He retained the immediate command of the Highlanders in addition to that of the brigade. A few days afterwards Smith's division and other troops of the right wing were advanced some four miles permanently, without encountering the enemy. About noon, soon after the troops had come to a halt, General McClellan, escorted as usual by a numerous staff, appeared on the scene, and, after visiting different points, dismounted, and sat down to a lunch which his attendants spread for him. He invited General Smith and some other officers to partake of the repast, but ignored the presence of General Stevens, who was quite near. The latter may have been unduly sensitive, but he regarded the omission as an intentional slight, and remarked that he actually pitied McClellan. General Stevens named the new position occupied by his brigade, which was not far from Falls Church, the Camp of the Big Chestnut, from a huge sylvan monarch near by. A train of one hundred and forty-four wagons came over from Washington to move the tents and baggage of the command,--what a contrast to later campaign days, when four wagons only, or even less, were allowed to a brigade!--but even this number proved inadequate to bring everything at one trip. The new adjutant of the Highlanders directed the wagon-master to send some wagons back for what was left behind, but that functionary flatly refused, alleging that he was under orders to make but one trip, and then return to the city. The adjutant thereupon applied to the general for instructions in the premises, but his reception was hotter than he bargained for. "Have you a thousand men at your disposal, and suffer yourself to be set at defiance by a wagon-master? If you are not man enough to make your authority respected, you are not fit to be an officer. Go back to your regiment and attend to your duty." Smarting under this unexpected rebuke, the young officer again summoned the wagon-master and reiterated the order, and, on his second refusal to obey it, had him lashed fast to a neighboring tree. Four of his wagoners, equally contumacious, shared the same fate; and a sergeant and four soldiers of the ever ready and capable Highlanders were soon driving the teams back to the old camp, and in a few hours safely returned with the left-behind goods. The bound wagon-master and teamsters were then set free and ordered to mount their wagons and drive off instantly, an order which they obeyed with alacrity, and returned to Washington doubtless madder if not wiser men. Although at times a severe and exacting man, General Stevens always encouraged his subordinates to self-reliance, to do things, "to take the responsibility," in Jackson's phrase, and was sure to back them up if they acted in this spirit. Drilling, picketing, and tree-felling fully employed the troops, at Camp of the Big Chestnut. By McClellan's orders the woods, which covered a good part of the country, were slashed, the roads blocked, and the whole front obstructed by felled trees. The troops were ordered to get under arms and stand in line for half an hour before daylight every morning in anticipation of an attack which never came. This was an especially disagreeable and unhealthy task, for the Potomac fog shrouded the country at that hour, the autumnal mornings were damp and chilly, and the men would stand coughing all along the line. Many a poor fellow owed his death or disablement to this useless exposure. Strict orders were issued to avoid any movement which might lead to a collision with the enemy, and especially to shun everything which might bring on a general engagement. The orders frequently repeated these cautions, and seemed to be filled with a nervous apprehension of fighting. General Stevens thought this passive-defensive attitude all wrong. He took great pains to inculcate and develop a bold and enterprising spirit in his own brigade, especially charging his pickets to hold their ground in case of attack, and was delighted when a detachment of the 49th New York stood firm, and handsomely repulsed a dash of the enemy. At breakfast on October 16 General Stevens unexpectedly received orders to turn over the command of his brigade to the senior colonel, and report in person to General Thomas W. Sherman at Annapolis, Md., by daylight the next morning. By eleven o'clock A.M. he had written farewell orders to the brigade and to the Highlanders, devolved the command upon Colonel Taylor, of the 33d New York, had all his belongings packed up, and mounted his horse to ride to Washington. To avoid anything like a scene, the general was about to ride away without visiting the regiment and bidding them farewell, but Captain David Morrison, the senior officer, came and begged him to say good-by in person, saying that the regiment was formed and was most anxious to see him. He rode in front of the line, and in a few feeling words expressed his regards and hopes for them and bade them farewell. As he wheeled and rode off, a spontaneous and universal cry of "Tak' us wi' ye! Tak' us wi' ye!" burst from end to end of the line, and tears stood in many a manly eye. Stopping only two hours in Washington, during which he called at the War Department and secured the appointment of his son as captain and assistant adjutant-general of United States volunteers, and to make necessary purchases, he took the cars in the afternoon for Annapolis. As they rolled along through the pleasant rural scenery of Maryland, General Stevens threw off all traces of care and became as cheerful and light-hearted as a boy. He fell to talking about the recent experiences in the Army of the Potomac in a most interesting and instructive way, exposing and condemning the mistakes and evil effects of McClellan's passive-defensive management, and pointing out what he deemed to be the right course. Instead of obstructing the entire front with blocked roads and tracts of slashed woods, which would impede the enemy's attack indeed, but would also confine the Union troops to the strict defensive, making it impossible to manoeuvre them offensively outside the works, the front should have been kept clear and unobstructed, and the ground carefully studied and understood by subordinate commanders, with the view of throwing a heavy force upon the enemy's flank, or any weak point he might offer, in case he attacked. Instead of restraining the natural enterprise and ardor of the troops, prohibiting and deprecating all hostile contact with the enemy, as if they were no match for the rebels, thus keeping them under the cowing of Bull Run, and aggravating the awe of the enemy's prowess inspired by that defeat, they should have been continually brought face to face with the foe, scouts and reconnoissances kept afoot and boldly pushed, and parties of picked men under picked officers sent to fall upon the enemy's pickets and exposed detachments at every favorable opportunity. Such a course, he declared, would most speedily give the troops confidence and restore their _morale_, would foster and develop their natural enterprise and bravery, and would most effectively and quickly make them reliable soldiers. He had none of that distrust of volunteers often felt by regular officers, and which undoubtedly influenced McClellan, for he knew how quickly such splendid material as the brave young volunteers then flocking to the country's defense would become soldiers, if well officered and under a bold and skillful commander. He discussed, also, McClellan's character without the least trace of animosity, admitting his ability and patriotism, but lamenting his fatal lack of boldness and decision, which, he said, rendered his failure inevitable, and finally he exclaimed, with great feeling and conviction, "I am glad to leave McClellan's army. I am rejoiced to get out of that army. I tell you that army under McClellan is doomed to disaster." They reached Annapolis that evening, and were most cordially received by General Sherman, and by Colonel Daniel Leasure, of the 100th Pennsylvania, known as the "Roundheads," which was to form part of General Stevens's new brigade. His first act on reaching Annapolis was to apply by telegraph to the Secretary of War, in conjunction with General Sherman, for the Highlanders. He also personally telegraphed the President to that effect. Colonel Leasure, too, telegraphed the Secretary that his regiment was largely composed of the descendants of Scotch Covenanters and Cromwell's soldiers, and were anxious to be joined by the Highlanders. Both the President and secretary were desirous of granting the request, but it was first referred to General McClellan, and properly, as the regiment was in his army. He strenuously objected to it, protesting that he could not possibly spare one of his best veteran regiments. But Mr. Lincoln again overruled the "Young Napoleon," and ordered the Highlanders to Annapolis to rejoin their beloved commander. [Illustration: Hazard Stevens, Capt. & Asst. Adj. Gen'l.] CHAPTER XLIX THE PORT ROYAL EXPEDITION The force which General Sherman was fitting out at Annapolis was destined, in conjunction with the navy, to secure a harbor on the Southern coast to serve as a base for the blockading fleets. General Sherman was a veteran regular officer of artillery, who had greatly distinguished himself at the battle of Buena Vista, a thorough soldier, a strict disciplinarian, devoted to his profession, and moreover a man of ability, sound judgment, and true patriotism, but perhaps somewhat deficient in enterprise. He personally applied for General Stevens, for whom he entertained great esteem, as one of his brigade commanders. His force numbered some twelve thousand, all new, raw volunteers, except two regular batteries and the Highlanders, who, having fought at Bull Run, were looked up to as veterans by the other troops, and was divided into three brigades, commanded by Brigadier-Generals Egbert L. Viele the first, Isaac I. Stevens the second, and Horatio G. Wright the third. General Stevens's brigade consisted of the Highlanders, the 100th Pennsylvania or Roundheads, Colonel Daniel Leasure; the 50th Pennsylvania, Colonel B. C. Christ; and the 8th Michigan, Colonel William M. Fenton. They were all brave, patriotic, and intelligent men, the best types of American volunteers, and destined to render great and glorious service to the very end of the war, participating in many battles and engagements, and preserving their colors without a stain. The Michiganders, as they were familiarly called, were largely of New England stock, many of them farmers' boys, and had all the grit, intelligence, and enterprise of their lineage. The 50th Pennsylvania were Pennsylvania Dutch, descendants of the Germans who settled the central part of the State before the Revolution, and were slower, more heavily moulded than the others, but always steadfast and reliable. The Roundheads came from the western, more mountainous part of the Keystone State, and were of the vigorous Scotch-Irish stock, with many tall, rawboned men. The regiments were quartered in the Naval Academy buildings and grounds. On Colonel Leasure's recommendation, General Stevens took a large brick building as headquarters, but soon after moving into it an ambulance was driven up to the front door, and a soldier in an advanced stage of the smallpox, his face perfectly black and festering, was taken out of the vehicle on a stretcher and borne into the house, which, it seems, had been selected as a smallpox hospital. Needless to say that headquarters fled before this visitation. General Stevens, indignant at Leasure's carelessness in the matter, summarily ordered him out of his own spacious quarters and took them for himself, greatly to the colonel's disgust, who was heard to exclaim that there were too many Roundheads about for him to submit to such an indignity; but the incident had a good effect in showing that the new commander would stand no trifling. The Highlanders arrived on the 18th, and the next day the troops were taken off in small bay steamboats to the large ocean steamships anchored two miles out, and embarked upon them. The largest of these vessels, and second only to the Great Eastern, was the Vanderbilt, a noble side-wheel ship of three thousand tonnage, which had recently been given the government by Cornelius Vanderbilt, the old commodore, and was named after him. His favorite captain, Le Favre, a skillful navigator and accomplished gentleman, commanded her. On this fine steamer were crowded General Stevens and staff, the Highlanders, the 8th Michigan, and a hundred quartermaster's employees, all together over two thousand men. A large number of surf-boats and quantities of tents and baggage were piled in confusion on her decks, leaving scarce standing-room for the troops. The Roundheads and one battalion of the 50th embarked on the Ocean Queen, while Colonel Christ with the remainder of his regiment were loaded on the Winfield Scott. Captain and Assistant Quartermaster William Lilly here joined the command as brigade quartermaster. He had met General Stevens during the presidential campaign and won his confidence, of which he proved unworthy, and owed his appointment to the general's recommendation. General Stevens was also joined by Colonel William H. Nobles, who had seen much service on the frontier, and whom he appointed lieutenant-colonel of the Highlanders, but he was unequal to the position and soon afterwards resigned. The general appointed as his first aide-de-camp Lieutenant William T. Lusk, of the Highlanders, an educated and high-toned gentleman, who had abandoned his studies in Germany to fight for his country, and who proved a brave and excellent officer, and has since achieved distinction in his profession as a physician. The remaining members of the staff were Dr. George S. Kemble, brigade surgeon; Captain L.A. Warfield, brigade commissary; and Lieutenants Henry S. Taft and William S. Cogswell, signal officers. The transports sailed on the 20th and reached Fortress Monroe the next day. Here were awaiting them a fleet of thirty warships, under Commodore Samuel F. Dupont, and a large number of sailing vessels laden with munitions and stores. The expedition lay here at anchor for a week, completing the necessary preparations. Commodore Dupont held many conferences on his flagship, the Wabash, with General Sherman and the brigade commanders, at which the objective point was decided upon. The weather was fine, the sea smooth, and the blue road-stead, covered with the great fleet, comprising every variety of vessel,--the great, grim, black warships, with their frowning batteries; the transports, swarming with blue-clad soldiers; the deep-laden sailing ships, with their tall spars,--presented an impressive and animated scene, enlivened by the numerous launches and cutters darting from ship to ship with officers bearing dispatches or exchanging calls. One of the swiftest and nattiest of these small craft was the captain's gig of the Vanderbilt, manned by a crew of fine oarsmen from the Highlanders, which attracted much attention from the army and navy alike, was the envy of other headquarters, and was kept busy conveying General Stevens and staff over the waters blue. It was a fine, bracing autumn afternoon, October 29, when the great fleet sailed out of the Chesapeake in two parallel columns a mile apart. The giant warship Wabash led the right column, followed in single file by the war vessels, thirty in number, a black and formidable array. The left column was composed of the transport steamers, crowded with troops, each towing one of the sailing-vessels, and also contained some thirty ships. The Vanderbilt towed the Great Republic, a four-masted, full-rigged ship of four thousand tons, the largest sailing-ship then afloat. Besides a vast cargo of stores, she carried on her main and upper decks a great number of artillery horses. Thus the mighty armada steadily ploughed its way out to sea, with flags waving and bands playing, a glorious and awe-inspiring sight; while the troops, exhilarated by the novel and stirring scene and the excitement of sailing to an unknown destination, their hearts swelling with the hope and determination of soon dealing the rebel lion a mighty and perhaps fatal blow, cheered and cheered again until they could cheer no more. The third day a furious storm struck the combined fleet and scattered it far and wide. At midnight, in the height of the tempest, the great hawsers by which the Vanderbilt was towing her consort threatened to tear off her quarters under the terrific strain of the mountain billows, and had to be cut asunder with axes, and the Great Republic was abandoned to her fate in the raging storm, furious sea, and black night. When day broke no other sail was visible amid the driving and tossing billows. Later in the day General Stevens opened the sealed orders with which every ship was provided, to be opened in case of separation from the fleet, in presence of Captains Le Favre, Stevens, and Lilly, and announced that the destination and point of rendezvous was off Port Royal, one of the finest harbors on the Southern coast, situated midway between Charleston and Savannah. The Vanderbilt, the swiftest of the fleet, arrived off the entrance on November 3, among the first. The other ships came straggling in, and by the 6th were nearly all assembled and anchored just outside the bar, save four, the Governor and Peerless, that foundered in the storm, and the Osceola and Union, that were driven ashore. The loss of life, however, was small under the circumstances, being seven drowned and ninety-three captured. The 50th Pennsylvania, on the Winfield Scott, came near going to the bottom, and were only saved by incessant pumping and bailing, and throwing overboard the entire cargo. Port Royal was defended by earthworks on each side of the entrance, Fort Walker on Hilton Head, the south side, and Fort Beauregard on Bay Point, on the north. These were strong and well-constructed forts, with heavy parapets, traverses, and bomb-proofs, mounted forty-one guns of large calibre, and were garrisoned and defended by three thousand troops, under General Thomas F. Drayton, whose brother, Captain Percival Drayton, commanded the gunboat Pocahontas in Dupont's fleet. The enemy had also three small gunboats in the bay, under Commodore Tatnall, formerly an officer of the United States navy. After reconnoissance by his gunboats, Commodore Dupont decided to attack the forts with his fleet, and arranged with General Sherman that the troops were to land in small boats on the open beach during the naval bombardment and carry the works by assault, in case the navy failed to shell the enemy out. Accordingly, on the morning of November 7 the surf-boats, of which there were a large number, and all the boats belonging to the vessels, were launched, and brought up alongside or astern of the transports, and the troops of Stevens's and Wright's brigades were provided with ammunition and one day's cooked rations, and held in readiness to land and attack. While they awaited this movement in high-wrought expectation, the following order was written by General Stevens and read to them, and had a marked effect to increase their determination and ardor:-- HEADQUARTERS SECOND BRIGADE, EXPEDITIONARY CORPS, S.S. VANDERBILT, November 7, 1861. GENERAL ORDERS No. 5. The brigadier-general commanding the second brigade trustfully appeals to each man of his command this day to strike a signal blow for his country. She has been stabbed by traitorous hands, and by her most favored sons. Show by your acts that the hero age has not passed away, and that patriotism still lives. Better to fall nobly in the forlorn hope in vindication of home and nationality than to live witnesses of the triumph of a sacrilegious cause. The Lord God of battles will direct us; to Him let us humbly appeal this day to vouchsafe to us his crowning mercy; and may those of us who survive, when the evening sun goes down, ascribe to Him, and not to ourselves, the glorious victory. By order of BRIGADIER-GENERAL STEVENS. HAZARD STEVENS, _Capt. and Ass't Adj't-Gen_. At nine o'clock on the bright, clear morning, with a smooth sea, the great war fleet crossed the bar, and deliberately advanced to attack the forts in a long column of single ships, while the transports lay at anchor just outside with their decks, masts, and shrouds covered with the troops, eagerly watching the scene. Commodore Dupont in the Wabash led the long string of warships slowly up the middle of the bay, receiving and replying to the fire of both forts until two miles beyond them, then turned to the left in a wide circle and led back past Fort Walker, at a thousand yards distance, opening upon it broadside after broadside. At the same time a flanking column of five gunboats steamed up the bay nearer to Bay Point and poured its broadsides into Fort Beauregard, and, steering towards the other side, advanced against Tatnall's fleet, driving it into Skull Creek, which cuts off Hilton Head on the inside, and then, taking position near the shore and flanking the fort, opened upon it a destructive fire. Meantime the main column, led by the Wabash, was majestically and slowly passing the work, each succeeding vessel opening its batteries upon it in turn as it came within range, and maintaining a rapid fire as it drew past. The naval gun fire was terrific, rising at times to a continuous roar; dense clouds of smoke belched forth and hung about the ships, while the white puff-balls showed where the great 11 and 9-inch shells were bursting over and about the work. The enemy replied with a brisk and well-maintained fire, and many of his missiles could be traced by the great columns of water dashed up as they ricochetted across the bay beyond the vessels. After passing down the bay as far as the depth of water permitted, Dupont turned and again led the fleet in front of Fort Walker, at much closer range than before, pouring upon the devoted work a still more terrific fire. As the admiral repeated this manoeuvre for the third time, one of the light-draught gunboats, pushing closely in at six P.M., discovered that the enemy had fled, and sent a boat with a small party ashore, who pulled down the rebel flag and hoisted over it the glorious stars and stripes. What cheers then burst forth from ship to ship of the crowded transports, what joy and relief from suspense were felt by the officers who had so anxiously watched the bombardment for hours, momentarily looking for orders to land and assault the works, which were so stubbornly resisting the navy, can never be realized by those not actors in the scene. The flight of the enemy was panic. They left their flags flying, their tents standing, and all their supplies. Tatnall's mosquito fleet hastened up Skull Creek, and, with the aid of some large flatboats, ferried the fugitives across that stream. The fact that the enemy's retreat might have been cut off and his entire force captured, by sending gunboats up the inner channels separating Hilton Head and Bay Point from adjacent islands, lent wings to his flight. The opportunity was not improved. Fort Beauregard was abandoned in equal haste, although not subjected to nearly so severe a battering as Fort Walker. The navy lost only thirty-one killed and wounded; that of the enemy was sixty-six. The morning after the bombardment the Highlanders went ashore on Bay Point, and occupied Fort Beauregard and the deserted camp, and the rest of the troops were landed on Hilton Head. The beach shoals very gradually, and the men and impedimenta had to be loaded from the ocean steamers into small boats, which took them in until they grounded, a hundred yards or more from the beach, when the troops had to jump overboard and wade ashore. All the camp equipage and supplies had to be taken ashore in the arms of men detailed for the purpose, so that the landing was a very laborious and tedious process. The enemy's camp bore witness to his panic flight; clothing, bedding, half-cooked provisions, even a rebel flag over one tent and a sword inside, and in another an excellent repast, with jelly, cake, and wine, were found abandoned. General Drayton's headquarters, in a large building near Fort Walker, was abandoned in such haste that the horses in the stable were left behind, and General Drayton's own charger, a fine, handsome bay horse of medium size, but compactly built and of great spirit and endurance, was captured here and became the favorite horse of General Stevens. Back of the fort was a large field in sweet potatoes, and it presented a singular appearance after the soldiers landed and discovered it, covered with thousands of men, all digging the tubers for dear life. General Sherman facetiously remarked that General Drayton planted that potato-field on purpose to demoralize his army. Immediately after landing, General Sherman held a conference with his general officers as to undertaking an offensive movement. The enemy was evidently demoralized, and either Charleston or Savannah might fall before a sudden dash, and offered a tempting prize. But the general opinion was that a movement upon either involved too great risks, and that the first duty was to fortify and render absolutely secure the point already gained. General Stevens alone dissented from this view. He strenuously urged an aggressive movement inland to the mainland, then, turning to right or left, against one of the cities. In answer to objections, he declared that the overpowering naval force rendered Hilton Head already secure, and it could be fortified at leisure. The navy, too, could support an advance, and cover a withdrawal in case of need. The country was full of flatboats used by the planters for the transportation of cotton. Hundreds of these could be collected among the islands by the negroes, and would furnish means of transporting the troops up, or ferrying them across the inland waters, which, instead of an obstacle, could thus be made an aid to the movement. But the cautious counsel prevailed, and General Sherman reaped the reward of his lack of enterprise by being superseded a few months later, after rendering faithful service. Certainly he lost a great opportunity. With such subordinates as Generals Stevens and Wright, and the navy to assist, he might have taken Savannah, and could not have been badly damaged, even if repulsed. General Stevens had visited Savannah as an engineer officer shortly after the Mexican war, and his habit of acquiring information about every subject that interested him entitled his views to more attention. But, after all, the general, like the poet, is born, not made, and Sherman may have been wisely governed by his own limitations. As will be seen hereafter, this idea of a movement inland, and making use of flatboats, took a deep hold of General Stevens's mind. He placed his brigade in camp a mile back from the beach, and was given charge of an extensive line of works, laid out by Captain Q.A. Gilmore, the chief engineer officer. He pushed this work with his accustomed vigor, detailing daily the greater part of his force as working parties. He had a full quota of officers turn out with the men, the details verified every morning, and kept some of his staff always on the work. The troops, seeing that no shirking was tolerated, gave diligent labor, and within a month the line, over a mile in length, was completed. The Highlanders, however, continued to occupy Bay Point, and made many scouting expeditions on neighboring islands. Considerable sickness broke out among the troops on Hilton Head,--smallpox, measles, and typhoid,--and there were many deaths, so that the practice of playing the dead march at funerals was forbidden, notwithstanding which the troops were generally in fine condition and spirits. General Stevens himself had a severe attack of bilious fever, from which he but slowly recovered. The following letters give a pleasant sketch of life at Hilton Head:-- HEADQUARTERS SECOND BRIGADE, E.C., HILTON HEAD, November 28, 1861. MY DEAREST WIFE,--We are getting on in the most quiet manner possible. As I wrote you a day or two since, my brigade is almost exclusively occupied in throwing up intrenchments. It has been hard at work the last ten days, working even the last Sunday. I have to-day nearly thirteen hundred men in the trenches. We are living at my headquarters quite comfortably. For instance, to-day is considered a sort of Thanksgiving Day, being the day set apart for Thanksgiving in some of the States. I have for dinner, at half past five o'clock, roast turkey, boiled turkey, and a fine boiled ham. This ought to be pretty satisfactory. In our stores we have two dozen fine turkeys, growing in better condition every day. These turkeys we buy from the negroes. We have plenty of beef and mutton and sweet potatoes, also oysters and fish. HEADQUARTERS SECOND BRIGADE, E.C., HILTON HEAD, December 5, 1861. MY DEAR WIFE,--We are enjoying fine weather, and the health of the troops is daily improving. My brigade is still at work on the intrenchments. They have done an immense amount of work, much to the satisfaction of General Sherman. Hazard takes great interest in everything. We are living quite comfortably; have an old house with a fireplace, which answers for my office and Hazard's office and our quarters. Hazard has three and sometimes four clerks, two messengers, and, when needed, an officer to assist him. Our mess consists of the brigade quartermaster, Captain Lilly; the brigade surgeon, Dr. Kemble; my aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Lusk; Hazard, and myself. We have a most excellent cook, brought from New York, and a good dining-room servant picked up here. We have our breakfast at seven o'clock, lunch at twelve, and dinner between half past five and six. How long we shall remain here, I cannot form an idea,--probably some months. We are most wanting in books. I must also get some more military books, and now regret I left so many behind me. Hazard is in the trenches to-day. I keep a large force out, and all my staff that can be spared. [Illustration: PORT ROYAL AND SEA ISLANDS OF SOUTH CAROLINA] CHAPTER L BEAUFORT.--ACTION OF PORT ROYAL FERRY Scarcely were the works at Hilton Head completed when General Stevens was ordered, early in December, to occupy Beaufort, as an advanced post threatening the mainland, and affording protection to the negroes on the islands. This was a town of five thousand souls, delightfully situated on Port Royal Island on the banks of Beaufort River, some fifteen miles above Hilton Head. It was a place of fine mansions and houses, almost wholly exempt from the poorer class, the seat of wealth and refinement, and often styled the Newport of the South. It was the headquarters of the Sea Islands, upon which alone was grown the fine, long stapled Sea Island cotton, worth a dollar a pound during the war. With unbounded confidence in the strength of the forts at the harbor entrance, and in the prowess of their defenders, the most chivalric blood of Carolina, the people of Beaufort listened to the thunder of Dupont's guns on the eventful 7th of November, and from the steeples and roofs watched the moving masts and clouds of smoke of his fleet as he attacked the works; and when the appalling news reached them of his victory, the whole white population fled in terror, only one white person, and he a native of New England, remaining in the town. From all the islands the flight of the planters was equally hasty and complete. Negroes, live-stock, large quantities of cotton, household goods and furniture, and even wearing apparel, were all abandoned in the panic exodus. Since the bombardment, raiding parties of the enemy were venturing over with increasing boldness, burning the cotton and terrorizing the negroes. These numbered at least ten thousand, thus abandoned by their masters, and were scattered over the extensive archipelago, but chiefly upon Port Royal, Ladies', and St. Helena islands. The more intelligent house servants having gone with their owners, nearly all the negroes left on the islands were in the densest ignorance, some of them the blackest human beings ever seen, and others the most bestial in appearance, and there were even some native Africans, brought over by slavers in recent years. They were not put to hard labor, judging by Northern standards, and were set so light a daily task in the cotton-field that they would usually finish it in the forenoon, and have the rest of the day to themselves. The only food furnished them was a peck of shelled Indian corn a week apiece, which the black women had to grind into meal upon rude stones turned by hand; but this ration was eked out by fish and oysters, with which the waters abounded, by the poultry which they were allowed to keep, and also by the vegetables from their little garden patches. At Christmas they were given a liberal dole of fresh beef for a grand feast. The turkeys, of which great numbers were kept on every plantation, were deemed a kind of royal fowl, reserved for the whites like the cattle, and tabooed to the blacks, who were not allowed to raise them as they did the common barnyard fowl. But upon the flight of their masters the negroes were prompt enough to take them for their own, and used to sell them to the troops at generous prices. These ignorant and benighted creatures flocked into Beaufort on the hegira of the whites, and held high carnival in the deserted mansions, smashing doors, mirrors, and furniture, and appropriating all that took their fancy. After this loot, a common sight was a black wench dressed in silks, or white lace curtains, or a stalwart black field-hand resplendent in a complete suit of gaudy carpeting just torn from the floor. After this sack, they remained at home upon the plantations, and reveled in unwonted idleness and luxury, feasting upon the corn, cattle, and turkeys of their fugitive masters. Embarking his brigade and a section of Battery E, 3d United States artillery, under Lieutenant Dunbar R. Ransom, on steamers at Hilton Head, General Stevens on the Ocean Queen, with the 50th Pennsylvania, reached Beaufort at seven in the evening of December 11, landed, and threw out a strong picket on the main road across the island, known as the shell-road. The negroes stated that a party of rebel cavalry had visited the town that afternoon, and threatened to return at night and lay it in ashes. At midnight they came riding down the shell-road; but being fired upon by the picket, the whole party, with the exception of the "colonel" and his son, took to their heels, and never drew rein until they reached the mainland, ten miles distant, according to the report of the doughty commander. The next morning the remainder of the troops landed, and General Stevens advanced across the island on the shell-road to Port Royal Ferry on the Coosaw River, with two regiments and Ransom's guns. The rebel cavalry, falling back without resistance, crossed the ferry, taking to the farther side the ferry-boat and ropes and all other boats. The Coosaw is a large and deep tidal river, separating the island from the mainland. It is bordered by wide, impassable marshes, across which at the ferry long causeways extended on each side from the firm land to the main river. A small, square ferry-house stood at the end of each causeway, and the one on the farther side had been strengthened and converted into a blockhouse, and from it the enemy fired on the Union advance. But the first shell from the 3-inch rifled gun went crashing through the extempore blockhouse, and sent its brave defenders scampering up the long causeway. Two adventurous soldiers then swam the river and brought back a boat, in which a party crossed over, demolished the blockhouse, and returned with the ferry scow and paraphernalia. A strong picket-line was posted along the river, a good force left in support at a cross-roads some miles back on the shell-road, and the general with the remainder of the party returned to Beaufort. General Stevens at once cleared the blacks out of town, and established a camp in the suburbs for the temporary reception of refugees and vagrant negroes. He placed the troops under canvas in the outskirts, and prohibited their entering the town without a permit, and strictly forbade all plundering, or even entering the empty houses. Guards were posted over a fine public library, the pride of the town, which, however, had been thrown about in utter disorder; patrols were kept scouring the streets, and the strictest order and discipline were enforced. In order to protect the negroes and keep the enemy within his own lines, General Stevens strongly picketed the western or exposed side of Port Royal and Ladies' islands, guarding all the landing-places, and watching the Coosaw and Broad rivers for twenty-five miles. Knowing the difficulty of maintaining so long and exposed a line of outposts against an enterprising enemy, he threw him on the defensive by the boldness of his advanced line, and by a succession of well-planned and daring raids upon his pickets on the opposite shore. Thus Lieutenant Benjamin F. Porter, of the 8th Michigan, on the night of December 17 captured a picket of six men on Chisholm's Island, and on several occasions small parties were thrown across the Coosaw in boats, the enemy's pickets were driven off, and the buildings from which they fired upon the Union pickets were destroyed. So successfully was this policy carried out that the enemy made but one counter attack during the six months that General Stevens occupied the islands, viz., an attempt on the picket on Barnwell Island, February 11, 1862, and that was repulsed without loss on our side. The first and, as it turned out, only serious operation undertaken by General Sherman was the siege of Fort Pulaski at the mouth of the Savannah River. A large force of troops, under General Viele, and heavy guns and mortars were dispatched to this quarter, and Captain Q. A. Gilmore, the chief engineer officer, was given charge of the siege works. General Wright was sent down the coast with a considerable force, and in March occupied Fernandina and Jacksonville, Fla., which had been abandoned by the enemy. By the end of December the enemy erected a strong field-work on the mainland, opposite and commanding Port Royal Ferry, and repulsed the efforts of the gunboats to dislodge him. The naval authorities pronounced it impracticable to reduce the work, or to keep the river open with the light wooden gunboats which alone could operate in those waters. Negro refugees reported a large force of the enemy at Garden's Corners, only four miles from the ferry. They were endeavoring to obstruct the channel by driving piles in it. Opposite Seabrook, at a point a mile and a half above the ferry, they were throwing up a formidable-looking battery. Their increased activity and boldness, as well as their success in closing the river to the navy, indicated aggressive action; for with the river closed they could throw a force upon Port Royal Island without fear of its being cut off, could raid the plantation and negroes, and could compel the Union commander to maintain a large force on the island, or run the risk of losing a small one. Impressed with the importance of dislodging the enemy and keeping the river open, General Stevens laid before General Sherman a plan to that end, which the latter promptly approved. It was simply to throw a sufficient force across the river several miles below the ferry, advance up the left bank, beat any force that might be found covering the work, and take it in the rear. Three light-draught gunboats were to coöperate in the movement. At the same time, two gunboats entering the Coosaw from Broad River through Whale Branch and small bodies of troops from Seabrook Landing and opposite the ferry were to threaten the enemy on the upper side, and distract his attention from the real attack. It was decided to reinforce General Stevens with two regiments from Hilton Head for the movement,--the 47th and 48th New York. Nearly every plantation on these islands was supplied with large flatboats, used chiefly for the transportation of cotton. Ever since his occupation General Stevens had been quietly collecting these scows at Beaufort, with a view to using them in future operations. During the night of December 30 over one hundred of these flats, with a crew of negro oarsmen and a guard of two soldiers in each boat, were sent up Beaufort River, Brickyard Creek, and an inlet or creek which branches from the Coosaw near the northeast corner of the island and extends inland southwesterly several miles. There was an excellent landing-place two and a half miles up this creek, and only eight miles from Beaufort, with good roads between. At this landing, screened from sight of the enemy by well-wooded banks, the fleet of flatboats lay during the day. Every precaution was taken to prevent any negro from leaving the party and giving information of the movement. [Illustration: ACTION AT PORT ROYAL FERRY, JANUARY 1, 1862] Commodore Dupont furnished the desired gunboats, placing them under the command of Captain C.P.R. Rodgers. About noon on the 31st that officer reached Beaufort with the Ottawa and Pembina, followed by the Hale, and the details of the joint movement, and particularly the signals to enable the troops and ships to act in concert, were arranged between him and General Stevens. About dark the 47th and 48th New York, under Lieutenant-Colonel James L. Fraser and Colonel James H. Perry respectively, arrived on the transport steamer Boston. Two companies of the Roundheads were left to guard the town and depot of Beaufort. Another company of that regiment took post three miles out at the cross-roads. Two companies of the Highlanders and two of the Roundheads, under Captain William St. George Elliott of the former, were posted at Seabrook, with orders, when the gunboats came through Whale Branch and opened on the enemy's battery, to cross over and take it if practicable. Colonel Leasure, with the remainder of his Roundheads and one company of the Highlanders, was stationed at the ferry to observe the enemy, make a demonstration against him, and cross over if circumstances permitted. Flatboats were collected at both points in readiness for the crossing. Lieutenant Ransom, with his guns, was also posted near the ferry. Four companies of the 50th Pennsylvania were left in Beaufort with orders to embark on flats at midnight and proceed upstream to the mouth of the creek already mentioned. After dark the remainder of the brigade, viz., the 8th Michigan and six companies of the 50th Pennsylvania from Beaufort, and seven companies of the Highlanders from Seabrook and other advanced posts, from which they had been relieved by the Roundheads during the day, marched to the well-hidden landing-place on the creek, where the flats lay awaiting them. At one A.M. New Year's morning the embarkation commenced. The landing-place was narrow, and only two or three flats at a time could be loaded, which made the embarkation slow, tedious, and confused. Each boat was ordered to push off into the stream as soon as loaded, and proceed far enough down it to give plenty of room for others. But the creek became almost blocked with flats crowded with men, laden to the gunwale, and apparently floating about without aim or order. The night was dark, a pale mist rose on the water, the sickly beams of a half moon struggled through the gloom, the fires and lanterns flared at the landing, the smothered orders, oaths and calls of officers from flat to flat, striving to avoid becoming separated from their regiments, made a babel of voices, and all added to and heightened the appearance of hopeless confusion. The scene to the painter or poet was weird and picturesque in the extreme, but to a soldier most exasperating. When half the troops were afloat, and the embarkation of the remainder, proceeding steadily though slowly, was assured, General Stevens entered his barge and, rowing rapidly downstream, placed himself at the head of the flotilla. Each boat as passed was ordered to follow. Their progress, deeply laden as they were, was necessarily slow, but as they took up the movement, the dense and confused mass very soon lengthened out into an orderly column, and the perplexities and misgivings of many an officer gave place to the alacrity and confidence which aggressive action ever inspires. The first faint pencilings of dawn were streaking the eastern sky as the flotilla slowly drew out of the mouth of the creek and entered the river. The fog lay low upon the water, and completely shrouded the farther shore. Here joined Captain Rodgers with four launches, each armed with a 12-pounder boat howitzer, and the four companies of the 50th Pennsylvania, which embarked at Beaufort. Then hove in sight the gunboat Ottawa. Noiselessly the stalwart blacks strained at the muffled oars, the long ashen blades steadily rose and dipped; the blue-coated masses sat in silence, muskets in hand, straining their eyes ahead; while the flotilla, like a huge black cloud, slowly crept over the face of the broad sound, here a mile and a half wide. After an age of cramped waiting and suspense, the dim, spectral trees lining the low shore opposite comes in sight; the launches and swiftest boats now shoot rapidly ahead, the rowers straining every nerve, and the soldiers anxiously scanning the hostile shore; a score of gray forms are discerned among the trees; a straggling volley spatters harmlessly over the water, and the next instant the boats drive upon the bank, and the landing is effected. General Stevens's barge outstripped the other boats, and he leaped ashore the first man, closely followed by Captain John More and ten picked men of the Highlanders, and the enemy's pickets took to their heels. It was now found that the 8th Michigan, through some strange mistake, had remained near the mouth of the creek, notwithstanding the explicit orders, repeated, too, by General Stevens in person when passing down the creek. Orders were immediately dispatched to Colonel Fenton to proceed across and up the river and land at the Adams House, some three miles above, where there was an excellent landing-place. Colonel Perry had received orders the night before to follow the gunboats, and debark his two regiments at the same point as soon as it was in the possession of the landing party. Thither were also sent the empty flats. Skirmishers and scouts were thrown out while the troops were landing, and several negroes were picked up who proved useful as guides. With the Highlanders in the advance, preceded by two companies deployed as skirmishers, and followed by two boat howitzers under Lieutenant Irwin, of the navy, and the 50th Pennsylvania bringing up the rear, the little column pushed rapidly on, taking a course parallel to the river, and traversing woods and swampy and difficult ground, without any road for most of the way, and at eleven A.M., after a hot and fatiguing march, reached a position abreast of the Adams house. Small parties of the enemy, who fired a few shots, were observed at several points on the march, but a few shells from the howitzers and the Highlanders' skirmishers easily brushed them aside. The column now rested for two and a half hours while the remainder of the troops were debarking, for the landing-place was contracted, and the regiments on the Boston had to be put ashore in small boats. At 1.30 P.M. General Stevens formed his order of march, and moved forward for the fort, marching parallel to the river. The Highlanders, with two companies skirmishing in advance, led the way; the two naval howitzers followed; Colonel Christ's 50th Pennsylvania and Colonel Fenton's Michiganders formed the support, and the 47th and 48th New York the reserve. The column advanced in echelon, the Highlanders nearest the river, and each succeeding regiment battalion distance in rear of and to the right of the one preceding it. This formation was equally well adapted to meet an attack in front or on the right flank. The river protected the left. A broad belt of cotton-fields stretched along the river to and beyond the ferry, some three miles distant. Back of the open fields a body of woods presented an irregular front, from a mile to half a mile distant from the river. Over these fields the skirmishers advanced steadily, followed by the entire command in the order by echelon described, each regiment moving in line, or occasionally by the flank, or by column of companies, according to the ground, with the regularity of parade. The signal officer, Lieutenant Henry S. Tafft, kept with the skirmishers, signaling constantly with his colleague, Lieutenant Cogswell, on the Ottawa, thus directing her fire, and establishing perfect concert of action afloat and ashore. The shells from the gunboat tore the wood just in front of the skirmishers as they advanced. As the troops advanced in this order the scene from the gunboats was most inspiriting,--the wide strip of open country, the dark, frowning forest beyond it, the broad, silver-hued river with the black gunboats, and line after line of dark-blue infantry, tipped with steel, moving onward over the fields with the steady, rapid, irresistible flow of billows rolling across the sea. The column had advanced a mile in this order when a puff of smoke and the roar of a gun burst from the edge of the woods, followed by others in rapid succession, and a battery, well screened in the timber, opened a rapid fire of shells over and among the leading regiments. But, without pause, General Stevens continued his movement, regardless of the noisy shelling, until the third regiment, the Michiganders, was fully abreast with the battery. Then halting, he brought his three leading regiments into line, facing the woods, wheeling them to the right, and advancing the Highlanders and 50th on a line with the Michiganders, and threw out four companies of the latter upon the battery to develop the enemy's force. He left the reserve regiments as they stood when halted, being already considerably to the right and in advance of the newly formed line. The Michigan skirmishers had scarcely disappeared within the bushes which masked the battery, when a rolling volley of musketry rattled among the trees, and out they came, falling back. At the same time a large regiment of the enemy appeared from behind a point of the woods which partially screened its advance, bearing directly down upon the 50th Pennsylvania. Colonel Christ was directed to meet and not to await the attack. At the command his regiment deliberately fixed bayonets and moved forward, presenting a long and imposing line. The charging rebel regiment first ceased its shouts and yells, then fired a scattering and ineffective volley, and broke and fled to the cover of the woods so precipitantly that the 50th had scarcely time to fire a round after them. General Stevens now threw one wing of the 50th upon the flank of the enemy's position, and Colonel Perry's regiment upon the other flank. But the hostile battery ceased its fire, and the troops, on reaching its position, found the enemy gone, with every sign of a precipitate retreat. Meantime the Highlanders' skirmishers, never halting, had reached the fort, and entered it simultaneously with the force under Colonel Leasure which crossed at the ferry. A single gun, a 12-pounder, was found in the work; the others had been removed by the enemy. The troops were recalled, the wounded cared for, and the march was resumed to the ferry without further opposition. Colonel Leasure and Captain Elliott were found at the fort, and reported the complete success of the movements intrusted to them. Two gunboats--the Seneca, Captain Daniel Ammen, and Ellen, Captain Budd--entered Whale Branch as prearranged, and opened fire on the battery opposite Seabrook. Captain Elliott immediately crossed over with his party, found the battery ready for guns, but none there, and, after destroying the work, returned to Seabrook. Thence hastening to the ferry, he joined Colonel Leasure, and crossed at that point just as the skirmishers from the main column appeared. The troops bivouacked that night at the ferry, with pickets well out, and two naval howitzers, under Lieutenant J.H. Upshur, in position commanding the main road, while at short intervals the gunboats fired big 11-inch shells as far into rebeldom as heavy charges could throw them. It was afterwards reported by the refugee negroes that one of these "rotten shot," as they termed the bursting shells, fell at Garden's Corners, four miles away. During the night the ferry was completely restored. The captured gun and wagons, with the wounded, crossed early in the morning. The captured work was leveled, and at nine A.M. the troops commenced crossing, using both the ferryboat and flats. By noon the entire force of three thousand men was over. The enemy remained quiet back in the woods. The troops marched into Beaufort that afternoon in fine spirits, and with confidence in themselves heightened by the brush with the enemy and the success of the expedition. Both officers and men had shown themselves steady, prompt, and ready to march, manoeuvre, and fight, and it was not their fault if the enemy would not give them a harder tussle. Excepting the Highlanders, all were green troops, never having even seen an enemy before, except as distant witnesses of the naval bombardment of Hilton Head. The 47th and 48th New York embarked on their transport at Beaufort, and returned to Hilton Head the next morning. The enemy's forces in the action, as reported by him, comprised the 14th and four companies of the 12th South Carolina, a section of Leake's Virginia battery, and a detachment of cavalry, forty-two in number, who are commended as participating with their double-barreled shotguns and navy revolvers. Colonel James Jones, of the 14th, commanded. Besides these troops General Pemberton hurried forward from Pocotaligo a large part of a Tennessee brigade, under General Donelson, which met the retreating troops after the action was over. The Union losses consisted of three men of the 8th Michigan killed, and one officer, Major Watson, and eight men of the same regiment, three men of the 48th New York, and two of the 50th Pennsylvania, wounded,--in all, seventeen. The enemy acknowledged, in official reports, the loss of an officer and seven men killed, and an officer and twenty-three men wounded,--in all, thirty-two. General Stevens warmly commended the conduct of his troops and the services of his staff, Captain Hazard Stevens, assistant adjutant-general; Lieutenants William T. Lusk and Benjamin R. Lyons, aides; Andrew J. Holbrook, volunteer aide; Henry S. Tafft and William S. Cogswell, signal officers; and Captain Charles A. Fuller, quartermaster. This action was almost the first Union success achieved by the army since the disaster of Bull Run, and the thanks of the government were extended in general orders to General Stevens and his command for their victory, styled the battle of Port Royal Ferry. CHAPTER LI BEAUFORT.--CAMPAIGN PLANNED AGAINST CHARLESTON After the action of Port Royal Ferry, General Stevens continued to hold Beaufort and the neighboring islands for five months, without the occurrence of any military event of importance, chiefly occupied in thoroughly drilling and disciplining his troops. Lieutenant Abraham Cottrell, of the 8th Michigan, was added to the staff as aide. A battalion of the 1st Massachusetts cavalry, under Lieutenant-Colonel H.B. Sargent, was added to his command; also another section of Battery E of the 3d artillery, Captain A.P. Rockwell's Connecticut light battery, and a company of Serrell's New York engineers, under Captain Alfred F. Sears, with a pontoon bridge equipment. His attention, moreover, was largely taken up with other matters, not military, but growing out of the peculiar conditions there. He caused the public library, which has already been mentioned, with several fine private libraries added to it, to be put in order, restored to the shelves and catalogued, and thrown open for the use of the troops. Corporal Joseph Matthews, Joseph Hall, and George Lispenard, of Company E of the Highlanders, were busy at this work for several months. He intended that the library, thus preserved, should be cared for and kept in the town where it belonged, and restored to the inhabitants when they resumed their allegiance and returned to their homes. But one day the treasury agent, Colonel William H. Reynolds, presented himself, and demanded the books as captured rebel property, to be sold for the benefit of the government,--a demand which General Stevens indignantly and peremptorily rejected. A month later the agent again appeared with a formal demand from the Secretary of the Treasury for the library, indorsed by General Sherman with an order to give them up. Even then General Stevens suspended the order, and wrote a strong protest to General Sherman, setting forth the vandal character of the proposed action, and urging him to represent the matter in its true light to the government, and secure the revocation of the order. But General Sherman was unwilling to take such a responsibility, and there was no alternative but to give up the books. General Stevens disapproved the action of the government in sending such treasury agents into the field, with independent authority to gather up cotton and other property, as meddling with military operations, encroaching on the authority of military commanders, and opening the door for dishonest or over-zealous agents to plunder private property. Such work, he declared, should be done by the army through the quartermaster's department, and the captured property then turned over to the Treasury Department. Apprehensive that the numerous negroes within his lines might become vagrant and burdensome unless brought under control and made self-supporting, General Sherman issued an elaborate order, providing for teaching them the elementary branches, and inducing them to plant crops. The latter requirement General Stevens heartily approved, but he seriously doubted the propriety of the former, and wrote General Sherman, pointing out that to educate the blacks and raise hopes of freedom in their breast would make their condition doubly hard in case, on the suppression of the rebellion, they had to return to their masters, and that the order, manifestly looking to freeing the slaves, might alienate the support of the border States from the Union cause. This view now seems reactionary, but it should be borne in mind that the great mass of Union soldiers sprang to arms, not to free the slaves, but to preserve the Union. Lincoln himself guided his course by the same view of not alienating the border States, withholding his emancipation proclamation until the progress of public opinion made it expedient. Writes General Sherman in reply:-- "After all, my dear general, the government will do as it sees best in this matter. My order can be reversed at its pleasure. But, of myself, it would be doing some violence to my own views of duty to make the change you desire in the system therein indicated. But allow me to express to you my warmest thanks for the thoughtful and considerate manner in which you have done me the honor to write. Although we may differ in our views in one or two points,--both admitted to be delicate ones,--it will not permit any change of my exalted opinion of your talents and your personal character." But the generals were only wasting time in discussing the negro problem, for by the next steamer, early in March, there descended on the Department of the South, like the locusts on Egypt, a swarm of treasury agents and humanitarians, male and female, all zealously bent on educating and elevating the "freedmen," as they immediately dubbed the blacks. The irreverent young officers styled these good people the "Gideonites," and were disposed to make all manner of fun of them; but among the number were persons of the highest respectability and purest motives, and they undoubtedly accomplished some good. They met with a cold and ungracious reception from General Sherman, who declared that their coming was uncalled for and entirely premature, and incontinently packed them off to Beaufort to the care of General Stevens, thus washing his hands of them. The latter treated them with the utmost courtesy and kindness, assigned them good quarters in town, and detailed a capable and gentlemanly young officer, Lieutenant H.G. Belcher, of the 8th Michigan, to see to their comfort and needs. He not only gave them every facility and assistance in his power in their care of the blacks, but took a real interest in their mission, talked and advised with the chiefs, and exerted a decided and salutary influence in modifying some of their crude and extravagant ideas, and bringing them down to judicious and practicable measures. It is a curious fact that in several instances he had to curb the attempts of some of the more zealous, who strove to work the blacks harder than their old masters did. Always frank and outspoken in his opinions, and differing widely from many of the views of these visitors, General Stevens impressed them with his sincere and earnest sense of duty, and won their gratitude and goodwill. Hon. Edward L. Pierce, the biographer of Sumner, who was the chief agent, thus acknowledged their feelings and obligations toward General Stevens:-- "General Stevens was an officer with whom subordination was a controlling duty. The order for sending able-bodied negroes to Hilton Head to be armed imposed on him an uncongenial service, but he performed it faithfully and with dispatch, and even aided in the selection of the officers to drill them. His preconceived opinions, although he desired them humane treatment, were understood to be unfavorable to an effort at the present time to raise them to intelligent citizenship; but to the industrial and educational movement to that end he offered no opposition, but gave to it in good faith his official protection and aid, and the special agent of the Treasury Department, who was charged with its direction, never asked facilities which he denied, often more being granted than was requested. The better part of the territory to which that movement applied was under his command, and its friends will gratefully remember him for his personal courtesies and honorable coöperation." Mrs. Stevens also arrived on the same steamer to visit her husband, with her youngest daughter, Kate, a beautiful and engaging little girl of ten, and remained nearly a month. Their visit was a great solace to General Stevens, and the last time he was to see them. The Washington ladies, Mrs. Johnson and Miss Donelson, their neighbors and warm friends for four years, came with the Gideonites, actuated by benevolence. Other visitors were Mr. Caverly, whom General Stevens had met in Washington, and his beautiful young wife. He was in the last stages of consumption, and the general had him taken into his own quarters and carefully nursed and cared for until his death. Hon. John M. Forbes, of Milton, Mass., and his wife, whose son, William H. Forbes, was an officer of the 1st Massachusetts cavalry, then at Beaufort, also visited there that winter; and Hon. W.J.A. Fuller, of New York, an eminent lawyer, and brother to Captain Charles A. Fuller, was another visitor. During all this time General Stevens was chiefly engaged in training and disciplining his command. Besides company and battalion drills in the forenoon, brigade drills were had four afternoons a week, usually in some extensive cotton-field below the town, and occasionally these drills were varied by movements through timber, bridging and crossing streams, or overcoming other obstacles, the three arms being exercised to act in concert. There was no other brigade in the armies on either side that was put through such a complete and thorough course of brigade drill as General Stevens gave his command at Beaufort. Schools of instruction for officers and for non-commissioned officers were also vigorously kept up. The picketing of the widely extended and exposed points on the islands involved a line twenty-five miles in extent, and was a severe task on the troops. An entire regiment was required for this duty, and was changed every ten days. To insure the vigilance of the pickets, General Stevens organized a system of nightly inspections by members of his staff and other officers specially sent out from Beaufort, in addition to the grand rounds and inspections by their own officers. Besides the staff officers already mentioned, Lieutenant Benjamin R. Lyons, of the 50th Pennsylvania, and Lieutenant A. Cottrell, of the 8th Michigan, were detailed as aides, and Captain Charles A. Fuller took the place of Captain Lilly as quartermaster, the latter being court-martialed and cashiered. A fine mansion in the edge of town, in the midst of a luxuriant semi-tropical garden, with the negro quarters and kitchens in detached buildings, served as headquarters. On the open space on one side, brigade guard-mounting was held every morning to the martial and inspiring music of the Highlanders' band. This was one of the finest bands in the service, or, indeed, in the country. It had been long established in New York, and was maintained with indefatigable zeal and industry by Lieutenant William Robertson, the band-master. Thus well occupied with drills, dress parades, guard-mountings, picketing, and study, in that beautiful region and delightful winter climate, profusely supplied with fresh beef, poultry, and sweet potatoes, in addition to the ample regular ration, the troops greatly enjoyed their sojourn at Beaufort, while they rapidly gained soldierly discipline and efficiency. In April a detachment of two hundred and fifty of the 8th Michigan escorted Lieutenant James H. Wilson on a reconnoissance to Wilmington Island, on the Savannah River, and in a very creditable action defeated and drove an entire rebel regiment, the 13th Georgia, suffering, however, a loss of forty-two killed and wounded. The following letters from General Stevens to his wife give interesting sketches of this period:-- [Illustration: HEADQUARTERS AT BEAUFORT] BEAUFORT, S.C., February 16, 1861. MY DEAR WIFE,--I am devoting my energies to perfecting the discipline of my brigade. All the regiments are now in very respectable drill,--one in very superior drill. For five weeks I have had brigade drills, an average of four per week. In this week they will have been instructed in all the evolutions of the line. Hazard is very expert both at battalion and brigade drill, and he can drill a brigade much better than any of my colonels. Then I have a regiment doing picket duty on the island. I relieve it every ten days, so each regiment has been thoroughly instructed in picket and outpost duty. I have here the second battalion of the 1st Massachusetts cavalry, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Sargent. It is finely officered, and is a splendid body of men. I have also a Connecticut light battery of six guns. It will, however, take months to make this battery efficient. For the last three weeks I have had regimental schools for officers and non-commissioned officers. They are doing well, and both officers and non-commissioned officers take great interest in them. Hazard's health is excellent. He takes very great interest in everything, is full of life and energy, very industrious, studies carefully his tactics, regulations, etc. He is making a very superior officer indeed; is a very efficient adjutant-general. My aides, Captain Lusk and Lieutenant Cottrell, are good men. April 17.... I have endeavored to do all I could with propriety to facilitate everything which tended to the improvement of the condition of the negroes. Many of the people here, both men and women, understand pretty well the circumstances of the case, and are getting to take practical views of the subject. April 21.... Mrs. Johnson and Miss Donelson leave day after to-morrow on the Atlantic. We shall send for them and see that they are comfortably taken on the ship. Two officers of my brigade return at the same time on leave of absence, in whose special charge I will place them. The 8th Michigan regiment had a very brilliant affair last Wednesday. Whilst about two hundred and sixty of the regiment under their colonel (Fenton) were reconnoitring Wilmington Island, they were attacked by a full regiment (the Georgia 13th), eight hundred strong. After a desperate conflict of nearly two hours our men whipped them, drove them off the ground, pursued them for a mile, and then carefully and leisurely held the field for five hours. All our dead and wounded and every particle of baggage were brought off. We lost two officers and ten men killed, and thirty men wounded,--a very heavy loss, being one fifth of the entire command. On Friday and Saturday we buried the dead. The services were very affecting. The regiment returned on Saturday afternoon, and the whole brigade turned out to receive them. We had invited the ladies from the Pope plantation to come to Beaufort on Friday to attend a concert given by the Highlanders on Friday evening. Mrs. Johnson, Miss Donelson, and Miss Ward came over. They returned on Saturday evening. We had the burial of the dead, the concert, and the reception while they were here. We entertained them at the house, and they really enjoyed their visit. Indeed, Mrs. J. and Miss D. have found it rather lonely on Ladies' Island, and I thought, in view of old acquaintance' sake and their kind and excellent natures, that we ought to do something to give them a little change. May 24. We have had a sad household the last few days. Mr. Caverly has been sinking gradually since Wednesday morning, and died this morning at one o'clock. He was exceedingly patient and resigned, and very grateful for the attentions he had received here. I am very thankful I did not hesitate, in his enfeebled condition, insisting upon his coming to my house. His wife has borne herself with great fortitude and courage throughout. Lieutenant Pratt, of the Massachusetts cavalry, is going home on leave of absence, and will take charge of Mrs. Caverly. May 18. Above is a view of the steamer Planter, a dispatch boat of General Ripley in Charleston harbor, which was run off by the pilot Robert and the black crew last week. It is a very remarkable affair, and makes quite a hero of Robert. She was tied up at the wharf close to Ripley's office. Yet he slipped out of the harbor unobserved, and gave the steamer up to our blockading fleet. The Planter lay at Beaufort from Thursday morning to this morning. She was run off on Tuesday, May 13. The following to Mr. Fuller gives General Stevens's views on the proper war policy, and the severity of the contest yet to be fought. It was at this time that the government, rendered over-confident by Western successes, stopped recruiting. It will be seen how exactly he read the military situation:-- BEAUFORT, S.C., March 15, 1862. MY DEAR SIR,-- ... At this moment every effort should be made to keep our ranks full by enlistments. We are only at the beginning of the hard fights. Our men will fall in battle, and die in the hospitals. The best troops rapidly melt away in aggressive movements. We must take nothing for granted except the determination on the part of the South to make a stern and protracted resistance. The great point is to open the Mississippi down to the Gulf, and this can be done by driving our forces southward in Tennessee, and farther south into Alabama and Mississippi. This should be combined with a great movement from the Gulf. The Mississippi River in our control, everything westward will fall by vigorous, rapid, comparatively short movements. We must husband our men and resources. We, if we don't look out, will find our victorious march stayed in mid-course by the melting away of our attacking columns, not kept full in consequence of a too great dissemination of our force. At this time General Stevens wrote Professor Bache a memoir, to be laid before the President, giving his views of the military policy and operations to be undertaken. Dr. Lusk, who, as his aide, copied the letter from the rough draft, declares that he urged the very movements that were afterwards adopted, and was greatly impressed with the ability and prophetic foresight of the memoir. Unfortunately, no copy of it has been found. HEADQUARTERS SECOND BRIGADE, E.C., BEAUFORT, S.C., February 25, 1862. W.J.A. FULLER, ESQ., _My dear Sir_,--I hope not the least suggestion will be made in any quarter in relation to placing me in command of the expeditionary corps of General Sherman. I am induced to write you in relation to it, because I have learned from a reliable source that it is being spoken of in some influential quarters in Massachusetts. General Sherman has treated me with marked kindness and consideration, and I feel that I would be acting badly towards him if I did not express decidedly my views and feelings in regard to the matter. It would be, however, sheer affectation on my part to say that I did not desire a separate command. I of course most earnestly desire one, but not at the expense of a friend, or with injustice to any one. The advanced position of General Stevens's command was a constant threat to the Charleston and Savannah Railroad, justly regarded by the enemy as the vital line of communication between the two cities. The railroad crossed the many rivers which empty along this part of the coast by long pile or trestle bridges of hard Southern pine, full of pitch, and exceedingly combustible. In thirty miles it thus crossed, going north from Savannah, the Coosawhatchie, Tulifiny, Broad, Pocotaligo, Combahee, and Ashepoo rivers, with six miles of bridges in the aggregate, and at Pocotaligo, the centre of this stretch, was only eight miles distant from Port Royal Ferry and the Union lines. So important was the preservation of this railroad regarded by General Robert E. Lee, the Confederate commander, and so probable did he deem our advance in this direction, that he made his headquarters at Coosawhatchie, posted strong detachments with guns and intrenchments at the bridges, and supported them with considerable bodies of troops at central points, all under General J.C. Pemberton, with headquarters at Pocotaligo. And that officer, on succeeding Lee in command of South Carolina and Georgia in March, remained at the same place, and continued the same attitude of watchful defense. General Stevens early fixed his eye upon these bridges as affording the most feasible way of breaking up the railroad. He was eager to cross swords with Lee and confident, more than once remarking that he could beat "Bob Lee,"--that he felt himself more than a match for him. From negro refugees he learned that the enemy held them in force, but nothing sufficiently definite and reliable to be of much value. Anxious to gain exact and full information of the bridges, the enemy, and his dispositions, and of the roads and nature of the country, he offered the task to Captain Elliott, of the Highlanders, who undertook it with alacrity. During January, February, and March, this intrepid officer made trip after trip within the enemy's lines, explored the whole region, and examined every bridge between the Coosawhatchie and the Ashepoo, located the enemy's posts, ascertained their forces, intrenchments, guns, etc., and gleaned much information in regard to the roads, approaches, and country. On these scouts Captain Elliott went in uniform. He would start at night in a small canoe with a trusty negro guide, paddle noiselessly up one of the rivers until within the enemy's lines, then land and pursue his explorations on foot. By day he usually lay hid in the swamps or pine woods. The service was not only fraught with danger, but extremely arduous, involving every hardship of cold, hunger, and exposure. It was so well performed that it is doubtful if the Confederate commander himself was much better informed as to the state of things within his lines than was his opponent. No whisper of suspicion of Captain Elliott's scouts was suffered to get out; and although his long and frequent absences on special duty excited comment, all knowledge of them was confined to himself, General Stevens, and the assistant adjutant-general of the brigade. In the latter part of February General Stevens sent Captain Ralph Ely, of the 8th Michigan, with four officers and twenty-two men, in boats on a reconnoissance up the Combahee River. Captain Ely performed this duty with skill and success, was gone three days, and went entirely around some of the enemy's posts without revealing his presence to them. With the thorough knowledge of the enemy's defenses he had so carefully gained, General Stevens conceived the plan of moving suddenly by land and water upon the railroad, breaking it up irremediably by destroying every bridge for thirty miles, thus cutting the communication between the cities and threatening both, and then rapidly to countermarch the whole force to the ferry, Beaufort, or Broad River, embark on transports, and, reinforced by every available man of Sherman's command, to strike for Charleston by the inner waterways of the North Edisto, Wadmalaw, and Stono, thus completely turning the heavy harbor and sea defenses which protected the city against a front attack. He worked out the details of this movement against the railroad with great pains, knowing that he would have it to execute. He counted largely upon the flotilla of launches and flatboats, by means of which he would be enabled to throw strong forces up the rivers, and cut off and isolate every position and bridge in turn. Port Royal Ferry had demonstrated the practicability of thus moving troops by water, and had given them the idea. He had plenty of flats, great numbers of negroes trained to the oar, and there was no lack of good boatmen among the soldiers. The largest part of the attacking force was to be thrown directly on the railroad, moving simultaneously in two columns, one overland from Port Royal Ferry via Garden's Corners, the other ascending Broad and Pocotaligo rivers in flatboats, supported by naval launches and light-draught gunboats. Strong detachments were boldly to press the enemy's posts on the Coosawhatchie and Tulifiny, and be ready to join in the attack upon them later by the main force. A picked detachment was to ascend the Combahee in boats, carry the enemy's posts on that river and on the Ashepoo, and destroy the railroad bridges, and then, proceeding along the railroad, join and coöperate with the main column in destroying the bridge over the Pocotaligo, when the united force were to press southward down the railroad towards Savannah, sweeping everything clear beyond the Coosawhatchie, and leaving the railroad in smoking ruins for thirty miles. In connection with the siege of Pulaski, General Sherman desired to operate against Savannah. He complained that a combined movement in force upon that city planned by him in January was balked by the refusal of the navy to coöperate. Later, he was ordered by McClellan to abandon the design. Naturally impatient of delay, and anxious to achieve some success, he was ripe for new undertakings. As the fall of Pulaski was evidently impending, General Stevens unfolded his plan to General Sherman, and the two officers, in several long and confidential conferences, discussed it fully. General Sherman decided to adopt and carry it out as soon as the fall of Pulaski should free his whole force for the operation. Commodore Dupont also heartily entered into the plan, and was ready to give it all requisite naval support. Moreover, he proposed making a strong naval demonstration on Bull Bay, north of Charleston, in order still further to distract the enemy at the critical time. The objective point to be seized as the key to Charleston--the turning-point of the campaign--was known as Church Flats, situated on the stream extending from the Wadmalaw to the Stono River. From this point a good road led to Charleston, fourteen miles distant. The gunboats could approach within two miles of it. The movement of Sherman's entire force was to be so combined and timed that every effective man--Wright from Florida, Viele from Pulaski, Williams from Hilton Head, and Stevens's flying column fresh from their attack on the railroad, leaving ruined bridges and a beaten, disconcerted enemy behind it--was to be transported by water and thrown upon Church Flats. True, the point was fortified and garrisoned, but the navy would cover the landing, and afford support in case of repulse. A successful dash might take Charleston at a blow. Or, if a foothold only were gained, the army could force its way by the Stono, turn all the defenses on James Island and the harbor, and reduce or destroy the city from the banks of the Ashley. This movement was taking the enemy by the throat. The subsequent attacks on the sea front were taking the bull by the horns, and met the usual fate of that performance. Fort Pulaski fell April 11. With due allowance for preparation and delays, the railroad should have been destroyed and our army in possession of Church Flats by May 1. What means of defense had the enemy at this juncture? Lee had been sent to Virginia, and during the six weeks succeeding his departure Pemberton was stripped of regiment after regiment, dispatched to Richmond or to Corinth. About April 20 he withdrew all troops except the cavalry between the Ashepoo and Oketie for the defense of the two cities. "This," he reports, "will leave the line of the Charleston and Savannah Railroad with no other protection than what the cavalry companies can afford, which is altogether insufficient." At this time also he moved his headquarters from Pocotaligo to Charleston, and abandoned the defenses of Georgetown north of Charleston, removing the guns therefrom for the protection of the latter. Only four thousand men, under Colonel P.H. Colquitt, 46th Georgia, guarded the long and exposed line south of the Ashepoo clear to Savannah. Colquitt's headquarters, with his own regiment and two field batteries, were at Pocotaligo; the remainder of his force was scattered along the road. There were no obstructions yet planted in the Stono, except possibly at Church Flats, where, as late as April 29, Pemberton orders Evans, "Sink the obstructions at Church Flats immediately." The line of defenses across James Island was not commenced. The guns with which it was afterwards armed were in the exposed, advanced batteries on Cole and Battery islands, and must have been abandoned there. The returns of Pemberton's forces for May 11, 1862, give the effective force in his department:-- Georgia 9,172 South Carolina 18,514 ------ Total 27,686 The South Carolina troops were disposed as follows:-- Charleston defenses, Brigadier-General Ripley 9750 James Island to the Ashepoo, Brigadier-General Evans 4883 Ashepoo to Savannah, Colonel Colquitt 3881 General Stevens's movement on the railroad, if successful, would effectually break up Colquitt's command, and prevent succor reaching the threatened point at Charleston from the troops at and about Savannah for at least a week, most probably two weeks; for they would have to be sent around by way of Augusta, Ga., and by this route the rail was not continuous, there being a gap of over forty miles. Consequently Pemberton's available force to resist the proposed movement would be reduced to Ripley's and Evans's commands, which mustered,-- Infantry 10,477 Artillery 3,032 Cavalry 1,133 ------ Total 14,642 Counting out the garrisons of the forts and batteries about the city and harbor, and on James, Cole, and Battery islands, it is clear that Pemberton could not possibly have concentrated over six or seven thousand troops to meet Sherman's advance on the Stono. In all probability he would not have had half that number at the critical point in time; for the vigor of the attack on the railroad, sweeping southward, would surely have impressed him that Savannah was in danger, causing him perhaps to hurry part of his troops to the relief of that city via Augusta, while Dupont's demonstration on Bull Bay would have still further distracted his attention from the real point of attack until too late. Returns of the Union forces for April 30 show present for duty some 17,000, as follows:-- Brigadier-General Viele, Daufuskie, Bird and Jones islands 3077 Brigadier-General Stevens, Beaufort 3881 Brigadier-General Wright, Edisto and Otter islands 3623 Brigadier-General Q.A. Gilmore, Fort Pulaski, Tybee, and Cockspur 2139 Colonel Robert Williams, Hilton Head 2987 Fernandina and St. Augustine, Florida 1194 Fort Seward, South Carolina, 92, and department commander and staff, 16 108 ------ Total 16,988 An effective force of 10,000 could have been formed from these troops and thrown upon the Stono. Sherman was a good and resolute soldier; his troops were in fine condition, and full of pluck and confidence. With Stevens and Wright to lead them, and the navy at his back, he would almost certainly have achieved success.[16] But this promising movement was nipped in the bud by the untimely and unexpected arrival of Major-General David Hunter to supersede Sherman. Brigadier-General H.W. Benham accompanied Hunter as a kind of second in command. In fact, both officers were _enfants terribles_, whom the administration exiled to South Carolina to get rid of. Hunter had just been relieved from commanding in Missouri for an act of insubordination in issuing an emancipation proclamation in defiance of orders; and Benham, fresh from skirmishes in West Virginia, was in Washington, claiming everything in the way of credit, and loudly importuning the government for high command, when they were ordered to South Carolina. Sherman turned over the command of the department, and sailed north on the 8th of April. Three days later Pulaski fell after a day and a half's bombardment, and Benham made haste to claim the credit of the achievement due to Sherman and Gilmore. General Hunter divided his department into the Northern and Southern Districts, and gave Benham the command of the former, comprising South Carolina, Georgia, and part of Florida, and nearly all the troops. About the middle of April General Wright returned from Florida with the greater part of his brigade, and took post on Edisto Island. Hunter, a sincere, earnest, and patriotic man, was absorbed in the political and humanitarian aspects of the great struggle. He lost no time in issuing another emancipation proclamation. "Martial law and slavery," so ran this unique document, "in a free country are altogether incompatible; the persons heretofore held as slaves are therefore declared forever free." The same day he issued the following order to the commanding officers of the several posts and islands: "Sir, you will send immediately to these headquarters, under guard, all able-bodied negroes capable of bearing arms within your lines." The six hundred forlorn and frightened darkeys, who next day were loaded on a steamer at Beaufort and shipped to Hilton Head, must have been sadly puzzled over their new-found forever freedom. But Hunter soon solved all doubts by throwing them into camp with uniforms on their backs, arms in their hands, white officers to drill them, black preachers to exhort them, and a cordon of white soldiers sentineling their camp to make sure they did not run away. Thus was raised the first negro regiment. Hunter, having proclaimed them free, felt no scruples in making them fight for freedom. General Stevens, after obeying the order with a promptness altogether unexpected by General Hunter, and for which he was totally unprepared, remonstrated against it in a letter to General Benham, his immediate commander:-- "1. There is very little material for soldiers in the able-bodied men of color in this department. I have not yet been able to find a single man who would venture alone inside the enemy's lines, although I have diligently sought to find such a man. Occasionally a negro has been used to accompany white men. They have great fear of the prowess of their masters, and of white men generally. They have the strongest local and domestic attachments, which make them very reluctant to leave their homes. "2: They can be used to very great advantage in connection with and for the menial duties of the military service, and also as adjuncts of existing organizations; thus, as quartermasters' employees, doing all kinds of labor, from mechanical to the merest drudgery work. As boatmen, also, and as laborers on the defensive works, as guides and scouts, they can render most effective service, and should be employed _as adjuncts of existing organizations_. In fixed batteries they could do the heavy work, moving the guns, and carrying the shot and shell. In engineering operations they could do the heavy labor, even some of the hard lifting and carrying in managing the pontoon equipage. Thus I conceive a great use can be made of the blacks in our military operations in devolving upon them the menial duties, and as strictly subordinate to existing organizations." These were precisely the views as to raising negro troops expressed not long afterwards by the distinguished general, W.T. Sherman. The remonstrance seems to have had some effect, for General Hunter telegraphed, and afterwards wrote, General Stevens to say to the negroes that they were sent for to receive their free papers, and would have a chance to volunteer, if they wished, and that those who did not wish to remain would be sent back to their homes. In fact, the regiment was disbanded not long afterwards. Another cause of anxiety to General Stevens was the delay of the Senate in confirming his appointment as brigadier-general. The confirmation was held up by Senator Wilson, of Massachusetts, chairman of the Military Committee, in consequence of numerous anonymous letters to him and other senators, written from the Department of the South, charging that General Stevens was unsound on the slavery question. But when General Sherman reached Washington and indignantly refuted these slanders, described the able handling of his troops at Port Royal Ferry, and the fine condition to which he had brought his brigade; and Messrs. Pierce, French, and Suydam, the treasury agents, abolitionists themselves, bore willing witness to his patriotic spirit and the ungrudging assistance he had given them,--Wilson assented to the confirmation. Senators Fessenden, John P. Hale, Rice, Nesmith, and others strongly stood up for him, and on April 12 it was made without further delay. NOTE.--Admiral Dupont's fleet-captain, Charles Henry Davis, in a letter written soon after the naval victory at Port Royal, declares that the true way of attacking Charleston is "by lines of water communication from St. Helena Sound; and, if you will observe, South Edisto, North Edisto, and Stono rivers and inlets afford the means of lateral support to an army moving towards Charleston by vessels of the navy," etc. _Life of Charles Henry Davis, Rear Admiral_, p. 174. On the arrival of the new commanders, the admiral, waiving rank in order to expedite matters, consented to put himself in official communication with General Benham; but he soon had occasion to call General Hunter's attention to the tone and character of one of Benham's letters, and to withdraw the concession. In a subsequent letter to Hunter the admiral remarks: "I have, however, to take exception to the attempt of General Benham to attribute his inability to meet his own arrangements to any shortcomings on my part." _Official Dispatches of Admiral Dupont_, pp. 172-183. [Illustration: LIEUT. WM. T. LUSK, LIEUT. ABRAHAM COTTRELL, ---- ----, MAJOR GEORGE S. KEMBLE, CAPT. B.F. PORTER, CAPT. HAZARD STEVENS, GENERAL STEVENS, LIEUT. BENJ. R. LYONS GENERAL STEVENS AND STAFF] FOOTNOTES: [16] The author was General Stevens's chief of staff, and was confidentially informed and employed by him in all the details of this plan of campaign against Charleston, and of the scouts by Captain Elliott and others. Since the war he has gone over the whole matter with General Thomas W. Sherman, who expressed the utmost confidence in the proposed movement, and his lasting regret that he was deprived of the opportunity of carrying it out. CHAPTER LII JAMES ISLAND CAMPAIGN AGAINST CHARLESTON General Hunter, busy in proclaiming martial law and freedom, and in raising a black army by conscription, with which he hoped to strike a blow into the vitals of the Confederacy in the future, decided for the present simply to maintain a defensive attitude. But Benham was greedy to signalize himself. His dense egotism and self-sufficiency rendered him almost incapable of listening to any suggestions, or even information, that did not originate with himself. The movement planned by General Stevens with so much care was rejected offhand by Benham. Yet he was extremely anxious to employ the troops in some offensive operation, and gave Hunter no peace on that point. Early in May Pemberton abandoned his works at the mouth of the Stono, dismantling them and removing the guns for the purpose of arming an inner line across James Island, which he was commencing, and which ran from Fort Johnson in the harbor to Fort Pemberton on the Stono, ten miles above its mouth, and the naval gunboats entered and took possession of the lower four miles of the river. Here Benham saw his chance. Hunter at length yielded to his importunity, and consented to a demonstration in force upon Charleston by way of James Island. Benham made the plan. One division of troops, under General Stevens, embarking on transports, were to go around by sea, enter the Stono, and debark on James Island. Another division, under General Wright, who was already on Edisto Island with four thousand troops, was to make a combined land and water movement over Edisto and John's islands, crossing the intervening bays and streams, and reach James Island simultaneously with Stevens. A prompt and successful attack upon the incomplete line of intrenchments across that island would place Charleston in our power. The plan was entirely practicable, but marred from the start by Benham's unfortunate talent for blundering. When he communicated the details of the movement to General Stevens, that officer pointed out to him that he was not allowing time enough for Wright to make the movement required of him, and reach James Island simultaneously with the other division, and that he would necessarily be a week later in arriving unless his orders were changed. Benham took this friendly advice in dudgeon. The orders were not changed, and Wright was just one week behind the appointed time, as predicted. As soon as he was informed of the intended movement, General Stevens earnestly urged Benham to inaugurate it by sending him to break up the railroad, as he had so long and so well planned, or, if not with the heavy force and thoroughness approved by General Sherman, at least to permit him to throw his own brigade upon it. In a personal interview he presented his views with such clearness and force that he actually obtained a reluctant consent from Benham to make the attack, but at the last moment he peremptorily countermanded the movement. Finally, to General Stevens's last earnest request by telegraph he would only consent that a demonstration might be made by the single regiment that was to be left to garrison Beaufort, the 50th Pennsylvania, stipulating, moreover, that it was to be back the same day it started on the raid. Accordingly the 50th, under Colonel Christ, supported by a company of the Highlanders and another of the Michiganders, a detachment of eighty men of the 1st Massachusetts cavalry under Major Henry L. Higginson, and a section of Rockwell's battery, advanced on May 29 to Pocotaligo, had a brisk skirmish with the enemy, driving him from his position, with a loss of two killed, six wounded, and two captured, and returned. The Union loss was two killed and nine wounded. How different this mere demonstration from the bold and crushing onslaught planned by General Stevens! General Rufus Saxton arrived at Beaufort to take charge of affairs there on General Stevens's departure. He was one of the army officers who took part in the Northern Pacific Railroad exploration under the latter, and had been warmly recommended by him, as an able and experienced officer, for appointment as brigadier-general, a recommendation which General Saxton declares was finally the cause of his obtaining the appointment; for, taking advanced views in favor of emancipating and elevating the slaves, he was chiefly supported by the abolitionists, and was considered a representative of that element. He brought with him a provost-marshal, who, when the troops were embarking, came on the wharf with a considerable guard, and summarily took from the hostler two horses belonging to Captain Stevens, claiming that, having been captured from the enemy, they were improperly held by that officer. They were, in fact, captured animals, but had been regularly appraised by a board of survey, and the value of them paid into the quartermaster's department. The troops on the vessel witnessed this seizure with no goodwill, for they all knew the horses, and one of the soldiers made haste to acquaint the owner with what was taking place. He, finding remonstrance useless and the captor determined to hold on to his prey, quietly stepped across the wharf to the steamboat alongside, crowded with troops, all interested spectators, and directed an officer of the 8th Michigan to take his company ashore, seize the horses, and put them on board. The order had scarcely left his lips when a hundred brawny fellows, musket in hand, leaped over the ship's rail and on the wharf, rescued the animals with no gentle hand, and drove the astonished and crestfallen provost-marshal and his myrmidons off the wharf. Of course he rushed to General Saxton, big with complaint, and the latter at once sought redress of General Stevens for the forcing of his provost-guard. But the latter in most emphatic terms rebuked the high-handed act of the over-zealous provost, and fully upheld his staff officer. Embarking the other three regiments of his brigade and Rockwell's battery, reduced to four guns, on June 1 General Stevens proceeded to Hilton Head, where he was joined by the 28th Massachusetts and 46th New York in transports, and on the 2d steamed by sea around to, and entered, the Stono, which was held by several gunboats, to a point above Grimball's plantation, which was six miles above the mouth. The transports anchored two miles below this point, and opposite a hamlet on John's Island known as Legareville. A strong picket was thrown ashore on James Island for the night, it being too late to land the troops. On the 3d they were put on shore in small boats, which were insufficient in number, and made the landing slow and laborious. As soon as a few companies were ashore, General Stevens advanced with them, drove back the enemy, who were in considerable force, after a sharp action, captured three guns, which they were moving back to their inner line, and established his permanent picket line two and a half miles from the river, running diagonally across the island from Big Folly Creek to the Stono near Grimball's. The action perhaps merits a fuller account. A farm road led back from the river about two and a half miles to the bank of Big Folly Creek, where it passed along a row of negro quarters. Here, turning to the left or westward, it crossed a wide cotton-field, then traversed a strip of woods, then crossed a marsh and slough by a causeway and continued on across the island in a generally westward direction. Driving back the enemy, General Stevens occupied the negro quarters with six companies, two of the 28th Massachusetts on the right, then two of the Roundheads and two of the Highlanders on the left. Two more companies of the latter, as they came up, were posted farther to the left and front. The enemy held the woods in front, and both sides opened a brisk musketry fire across the broad intervening cotton-field. Some of their skirmishers got across the field far to the right of our position, and, under cover of the bushes which fringed the bank of the creek there, threatened the flank. To meet this danger, Captain Stevens stationed a platoon of the Roundheads a short distance to the right of the quarters, where they, too, had the cover of the bushes. Soon afterwards a column of the enemy, apparently a regiment, and which was in fact the Charleston battalion, the crack corps of the city, emerged from the woods, and advanced by the flank in column of fours, headed by a mounted officer. In this order they charged down the road across the field at the double-quick, and, notwithstanding the fire of the companies stationed at the negro quarters, which proved singularly ineffective, actually penetrated to the buildings; the 28th companies gave way, and for a moment they had the position. But the Roundheads held their ground, while the Highlanders charged them with the bayonet and drove them in confusion to the right, whence they escaped across the field to the woods. In the rush, however, they swept off and captured Captain Cline and part of his platoon, which was posted to protect the right flank. The Highlanders wounded and captured Lieutenant Henry Walker, adjutant of the battalion, in the mêlée. General Stevens immediately followed up this repulse by advancing his troops upon and through the woods, and to the other side of the marsh and causeway, forcing the enemy to abandon three pieces of artillery in his hasty retreat. The guns were hauled to camp in triumph. The enemy acknowledged a loss of seventeen wounded, one mortally, and one captured. His force consisted of the Marion Rifles, Pee Dee Rifles, Evans Guard, Sumter Guard, Beauregard Light Infantry, Charleston Riflemen, Irish Volunteers, Calhoun Guard, and Union Light Infantry, in all apparently nine companies. Yet all this array of chivalry did not save the guns they were sent to bring in. The picket line was posted along the front side of the woods, and on the edge of the marsh. The enemy's pickets held the other side of the marsh. There were several picket skirmishes during the next few days. The troops were kept well employed in landing stores, making camps, and on picket duty, awaiting the arrival of Wright's division. Benham was eager for General Stevens to make a dash upon the enemy's lines without waiting for the balance of his army, but hesitated to give the order. The latter, fearing most his commander's blundering precipitancy, in the following confidential note urged him to come to a speedy decision, representing that a day's preparation was absolutely essential:-- JAMES ISLAND, June 6, 1862. DEAR GENERAL,--I understand your wish to be to make an armed reconnoissance of the enemy's position, and if the result be favorable, to follow it up by a dash, in order to seize James Island below James River and Newton Cut. We shall probably be as well able to make it day after to-morrow (daylight) as at any other time. Should you decide to make it day after to-morrow, it is of the first consequence to make that decision without delay. It will require all day to-morrow to prepare for it. I would suggest that not more than three companies be left at Legareville; that everything else be brought over to-morrow, including the six guns of Hamilton's battery; that arrangements be made with the gunboats to open cross-fires. The system of signals will require careful arrangement. I desire that the dash be successful, and therefore I want to see every man thrown in. But I desire particularly to express my judgment that, in the present position of our troops, twenty-four hours of vigorous work is absolutely essential in the way of preparation. Very truly yours, ISAAC I. STEVENS. BRIGADIER-GENERAL BENHAM. How completely this judicious caution as to the necessity of due preparation was thrown away upon the opinionated Benham was proved ten days later, but for the present he gave up the idea of a dash. In a letter to his wife, dated June 11, General Stevens gives expression to his disgust at the incompetents set over him:-- "I am not in very good spirits to-night, for the reason that I have two commanders, Hunter and Benham, who are imbecile, vacillating, and utterly unfit to command. Why it has been my fortune to be placed in positions where I was of little account, and to be subjected to such extreme mortification and annoyance, is beyond my imagining. It may not even teach me patience. I shall, however, do the best I can. If the authorities would send some man not altogether incompetent, I should be better satisfied. Why can't Mansfield be sent here, and both Hunter and Benham relieved? As for myself, I am tabooed. No proper use is intended to be made of me, and as everybody is in the humor to speak highly of my abilities, I shall be held in part responsible for the follies of others. Benham is an ass,--a dreadful man, of no earthly use except as a nuisance and obstruction." A few days later he writes:-- "We are now attempting an enterprise for which our force is entirely inadequate. The want of a proper commander is fearful. We shall try to prevent any disaster occurring. This is all I can say at present." On the 8th Wright's division reached Legareville, and was occupied the next two days in crossing the river, and taking a position at Grimball's, a mile and a half above General Stevens's camp. Colonel Robert Williams went into camp with his 1st Massachusetts cavalry just below Wright. The 7th Connecticut, which came with the overland column, joined General Stevens's division. Wright's delay was caused by the inadequacy of the water transportation, especially boats, furnished him. It was found an exceedingly slow and laborious operation to transfer troops, guns, and horses from shore to ship, and from ship to shore, in a few small boats. There were no wharves, and the landing-places were narrow and swampy. It was only by the greatest exertions, working his command night and day, that he was able to accomplish in a week the movement which Benham expected made in a day. Yet Benham, blind to the energetic and loyal character of Wright and the strenuous exertions of his troops on this march, never forgave that officer for the delay. Utterly unaccustomed to the command and handling of troops, and swollen with new-found authority, he ever deemed his loud and peremptory "Those are my orders, sir," an equivalent to that painstaking attention to details and to means which Napoleon and Wellington and all great soldiers have found indispensable. The army now assembled numbered about twelve thousand, and was organized in two divisions and an independent brigade, as follows:-- First Division, Brigadier-General H.G. Wright. First Brigade, Colonel J.L. Chatfield. 6th Connecticut, Colonel J.L. Chatfield. 47th New York, Colonel P.C. Kane. 97th Pennsylvania, Colonel H.R. Guss. Second Brigade, Colonel Thomas Welsh. 45th Pennsylvania, Colonel Thomas Welsh. 76th Pennsylvania, Colonel J.M. Power. Battery E, 3d U.S. artillery, Captain John Hamilton. Second Division, Brigadier-General Isaac I. Stevens. First Brigade, Colonel William M. Fenton. 8th Michigan, Lieutenant-Colonel Frank Graves. 28th Massachusetts, Lieutenant-Colonel M. Moore. 7th Connecticut, Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph R. Hawley. Second Brigade, Colonel Daniel Leasure. 79th Highlanders, Lieutenant-Colonel David Morrison. 100th Pennsylvania, Major David A. Lecky. 46th New York, Colonel Rudolph Rosa. 1st Connecticut Battery, Captain A.P. Rockwell. Independent Brigade, Colonel Robert Williams. 1st Massachusetts cavalry, Lieut.-Col. H.B. Sargent. 3d R.I. heavy artillery (infantry), Major E. Metcalf. 3d New Hampshire, Colonel J.H. Jackson. 1st New York engineers, Colonel E.W. Serrell. All this time the enemy were concentrating and working like beavers on their new line of works across the island. In advance of the left of the line, at the narrowest neck of a peninsula formed by two inlets extending from Big Folly Creek, they had previously erected a strong work, known as Battery or Fort Lamar. It was a hundred yards long in front, and completely blocked the neck from shore to shore, so that it was impossible to turn or flank it. It had a wide and deep ditch, and a heavy parapet sixteen feet in height above the general level of the grounds and twenty-four feet above the bottom of the ditch, and extended back on both flanks along the inlets. It mounted eight heavy guns, viz., an 8-inch columbiad, two rifled 24-pounders, four 18-pounders, and a 15-inch mortar, and protected the whole left of their line with a flank fire. The front was well covered by abattis, except at the left angle, where a cart road ran along the left flank a hundred yards, then passing inside and to the rear.[17] In front of the fort the peninsula rapidly widened out. The ground was in old cotton-fields, open and level, except for the high ridges and deep furrows resulting from that crop. About five hundred yards in front of the fort a hedge and ditch extended across the peninsula, separating field from field; and five hundred yards farther another hedge-row and ditch separated the second field from the road already mentioned. Both sides of the neck were skirted with bushes along the banks of the inlets, a light fringe on the eastward or left, a thicker fringe, affording some cover, on the west side. The ground rose immediately behind the work, overlooking it, and was covered with a growth of pine timber, above which uprose a tall, skeleton signal tower. The peninsula was known as Secessionville Neck, from the landing-place of that name on its extremity. Half a mile to the right of Battery Lamar, on the main line, was Battery Reed, mounting two 24-pounders, and commanding the ground in front of the former with a searching cross-fire. There was also a floating battery, mounting two guns, moored in the inlet to the left rear of the fort. These works were continually shelling our pickets. The camps were beyond their range. In order to answer them General Stevens was allowed by Benham to erect a battery of three 24-pounder siege-guns on the point nearest the enemy's fort, and half a mile to the right of the negro quarters already mentioned. The battery was situated some two hundred yards from the extreme point, and on the bank of Big Folly Creek, and partially screened by the bushes there. It was well built, with heavy parapet and traverse, and the detachment of Roundheads who manned the guns soon felt quite secure. When it opened on the fort, it evidently caused some perturbation among the enemy. For some time a lively interchange of missiles was kept up. Our shells set fire to the floating battery, and the next night it was moved farther down the inlet. The Union battery could be approached on foot under cover of the bushes which lined the bank of the creek, but to reach it on horseback it was necessary to ride down the field in open view of the hostile work, and a group of horsemen was pretty sure to draw their fire. A few days after the battery was completed, General Benham, accompanied by General Stevens and quite a cavalcade of their respective staffs, rode out to inspect the picket line. As they were returning by the road towards the negro quarters, Benham expressed a wish to visit the battery, and turned his horse to ride towards it. General Stevens suggested that it would be better to approach the battery on foot under cover of the bushes, as the enemy would probably fire on so large a party in the open field. Benham repelled the suggestion with a rude exclamation, and continued to ride towards the battery. General Stevens, of course, kept his place by his side without further comment, and the staffs and orderlies followed as in duty bound. As soon as the cavalcade emerged beyond the shelter of the woods, and came in view of the fort, a puff of smoke dashed from its side, and one of those shrieking shells hurtled just overhead and struck with a splash in the creek. Benham instantly pulled up, stared around bewildered a moment, and, wheeling his horse short about, hastily rode back behind the friendly screen and shelter of the woods, followed by his staff. General Stevens, ignoring this manoeuvre, kept quietly on at a moderate trot, followed by his staff, and all soon reached the welcome battery unharmed, although several more shells were fired at them. On the 8th the 46th New York and one company of the 1st Massachusetts cavalry, under Colonel J.H. Morrow, of Hunter's staff, made a reconnoissance to the enemy's right through the woods above Grimball's, but, meeting a heavy force of skirmishers, retired without seeing the works. That same afternoon General Stevens sent Captain Stevens of his staff, accompanied by Lieutenant P.H. O'Rourke of the engineers, with a company of the 3d New Hampshire, under Captain M.T. Donohoe (afterwards General Donohoe), to reconnoitre the fort at Secessionville. The enemy's pickets were driven in, four of them captured; half the company, in skirmish order, approached the fort to within six or seven hundred yards, while the other half moved down the road to the left. Though subjected to a brisk shell-fire, and the fire of the pickets, not a man was touched. The character of the ground in front of the fort was ascertained, and the little party withdrew deliberately. On the 10th the 13th Georgia, under cover of the woods, the pickets not being sufficiently advanced, got close to Wright's camp, and opened a sudden and furious attack upon it. They were repulsed in short order, with severe loss, by Wright's troops, aided by the fire of the gunboats. [Illustration: HEADQUARTERS, JAMES ISLAND] FOOTNOTES: [17] The Confederate major, Pressley, who went over the ground just after the assault to be related in the next chapter, thus describes Fort Lamar, in _Southern Historical Society Papers_, vol. xvi.: "The work across the neck of the Secessionville peninsula was about fifty yards in length, and was a very well-constructed line of intrenchments. The ramparts were about fifteen feet from the level of the ground. There was a ditch in front about ten to fifteen feet in width. The exterior slope was so nearly perpendicular that it was impossible to get up in front without scaling-ladders. The enemy were not provided with these." CHAPTER LIII BATTLE OF JAMES ISLAND Meantime Benham was chafing at the helpless and ignominious position in which he found himself. At the head of twelve thousand fine troops, within six miles of Charleston, he was confronted by a formidable line of works, and had received positive orders from Hunter not to fight a battle. For several days he contemplated a movement towards the enemy's right, and issued some preliminary orders to that end. General Stevens thought an attempt should have been made in that direction as soon as Wright's division arrived. General Wright agreed that, if any part of the line was to be attempted, it should be the right. Both judged the left impracticable, resting as it did on the water, and covered by the advanced flanking fort at Secessionville. General Hunter returned to Hilton Head for a short visit. In his absence, in an evil hour General Benham took it into his head that he might take the Secessionville fort. Its guns were shelling our pickets, and even the commanding general himself, when he ventured within range. They could almost reach Wright's camp. He resolved upon this attempt as precipitantly, and as regardless of the difficulties, as was his wont. On the evening of the 15th be summoned his subordinate commanders on board his headquarters steamer. There assembled Generals Stevens, Wright, and Williams. Captain Percival Drayton, commanding the naval force, was also present. To them Benham announced his decision: General Stevens to assault the fort before daylight with his division, Wright and Williams to support, the navy to coöperate. This announcement, coming at nine o'clock at night, for such an attack before daylight the next morning, without any previous notice or chance for preparation, must have taken them aback. General Wright couched an emphatic protest in the diplomatic form of questions to General Stevens:-- "Have you impaired the strength of the enemy's works at Secessionville by the firing of your battery?" "Not in the least," replied General Stevens; "I have driven the enemy from his guns by my fire, and I can do it again, but as soon as the fire ceases he returns. I have not dismounted a gun, and we shall find him in the morning as strong as ever." "Do you know of any instance where volunteer troops have successfully stormed works as strong as those which defend the approach to Secessionville?" "I know of no such instance." "Have you any reason to believe that the result in the present case will be different in its character from what it has invariably been heretofore?" "I have no reason to expect a different result. It is simply a bare possibility to take the work." "There, general," said General Wright, turning to Benham, "you have my opinion." In this General Williams concurred. General Stevens states in a letter to General Hunter, written on July 8, soon after the battle:-- "I then proceeded to state with all possible emphasis my objections to this morning attack. I urged that it should be deferred to a much later period in the day; that we should first shake the _morale_ of the garrison, and endeavor to weaken its defenses by a continuous fire of the battery and of our gunboats; that in the mean time we should carefully survey the ground and prepare our troops, and make the attack when the battery and gunboats had had the desired effect. I closed by saying that under such circumstances I could do more with two thousand men than I could with three thousand men in the way he proposed. General Wright, moreover, warned General Benham that his orders were in fact orders to fight a battle. In this General Williams and myself in express terms concurred. General Benham, however, overruled all our objections, and premptorily ordered the attack to be made. "I assured him, as did the other gentlemen, that he should rely upon my promptitude and activity in obeying his orders, but I considered myself as obeying orders to which I had expressed the strongest possible objections, and I therefore determined there should not be the least want of energy or promptitude on my part." With this the conference broke up, and the officers hastened ashore to their respective commands to prepare for the arduous task of the morrow. General Stevens at once ordered his troops to be in readiness at the advanced camps, two miles from the river, at two A.M., with sixty rounds of ammunition and twenty-four hours' cooked rations. Captain Strahan's company, I, 3d Rhode Island, was detailed from Wright's division to relieve the detachment of Roundheads in the three-gun battery. Over three hundred of that regiment were out on the widely extended picket line. Ordered to assemble and join their regiment, only one hundred and thirty of the number succeeded in reaching it in time to take part in the action, and then only after it had come under fire, so scanty and inadequate was the time allowed for preparation. Two companies of the 28th Massachusetts were on fatigue duty and had to be left behind. The 7th Connecticut, moreover, had been on severe fatigue duty the three previous nights, and were much jaded. At the hour fixed, the troops were at the appointed place. Before 3.30 A.M. the column was advanced two miles farther to the outer pickets, and was arranged in the following order:-- Lieutenant Benjamin R. Lyons, aide-de-camp, with a negro guide, led the storming party, which consisted of two companies of the 8th Michigan, commanded respectively by Captains Ralph Ely and Richard N. Doyle, followed by Captain Alfred F. Sears's company, E, Serrell's New York engineers. Then followed Fenton's first brigade, comprising the 8th Michigan, Lieutenant-Colonel Frank Graves; the 7th Connecticut, Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph R. Hawley; and the 28th Massachusetts, Lieutenant-Colonel McClellan Moore. Then Rockwell's battery of four guns. Then Colonel Leasure's second brigade, consisting of the Highlanders, Lieutenant-Colonel David Morrison; the Roundheads, Major David A. Lecky; and the 46th New York, Colonel Rudolph Rosa. Captain L.M. Sargent, with his Company H, 1st Massachusetts cavalry, twenty-eight men, brought up the rear. The attacking column numbered not exceeding 2900 officers and men, as shown by the following return:-- Officers. Men. Total. General and staff 9 6 15 First brigade:-- 8th Michigan 25 509 534 7th Connecticut 25 573 598 28th Massachusetts 20 416 436 Second brigade:-- 79th Highlanders 24 460 484 100th Pennsylvania 21 230 251 46th New York 22 452 474 Rockwell's battery, four guns 4 73 77 Sears's company, E, 1st New York engineers 2 59 61 Sargent's company, H, 1st Mass. cavalry 2 28 30 --- ---- ---- Aggregate 154 2806 2960 [Illustration: BATTLE OF JAMES ISLAND, JUNE 16, 1862] General Stevens gave the most explicit orders, reiterated in person to the several commanders, that the troops were to preserve strict silence, no stop to be made after passing the enemy's pickets; to form forward into line on reaching the fields in front of the fort; regiment to follow regiment and storm the work; not to fire a shot but rely exclusively on the bayonet, the muskets to be loaded but not capped. The idea impressed upon all was simply to assault the work in column of regiments, without an instant's pause after alarming the enemy's pickets, and take it with the bayonet. Just before four A.M. the column moved forward on the road already described, and crossed the marsh by the causeway. Here a section of Rockwell's guns dropped out, and fell in again behind the second brigade. No opposition was encountered until the first house beyond our lines was reached, when the enemy's pickets fired, wounding five men of the storming party, and fled; but an officer and three men of their number were captured. The road was found blocked with felled timber, but the column without any delay advanced through the fields alongside the road until past the obstruction, and reached the open fields in front of the fort at 4.15 A.M., just as day was breaking. The storming party and the 8th Michigan filed into the field through an opening in the hedge and ditch which bordered the road, formed forward into line without a pause, and advanced steadily in excellent order over the uneven, deeply furrowed ground, soon surmounted the second ditch and hedge, and swept onward across the field next the work. The enemy were seen hastily forming on the parapet; their commander, Colonel Lamar, rushing to the gun half dressed, fired the great columbiad, heavily charged with grape, which tore a great gap through the advancing line, and they immediately opened with a storm of grape and canister from the guns, and a rapid and deadly fire of musketry along the whole front. Closing their ranks without break or pause, the gallant Michiganders pushed on, the storming party forty yards in advance, strewing the ground at every step with their dead and wounded. As they reached the ditch, Lieutenant Lyons dashed forward crying, "Come on, boys!" was the first man across the ditch, and fell half way up the parapet with a shattered arm. Many of the brave fellows who survived the murderous fire resolutely pressed on, gained the parapet, and poured their fire into the defenders behind it, who visibly gave back. Captain Reed, of the 1st South Carolina artillery, was killed at the gun he was serving by a Union captain, who was in turn immediately shot down. But the enemy rallied, the supports in the grove of pines in rear of the work poured in a deadly fire, and the brave stormers on the parapet, too few in number, soon melted away. The few survivors were forced to give back, and, throwing themselves on the ground, sheltered themselves as best they could behind the cotton ridges, from which they opened a fire on the fort with their muskets. Meantime the 7th Connecticut and 28th Massachusetts, following close upon the 8th Michigan, turned into the field, deployed in like manner, and moved forward. Unfortunately they inclined a little to the left, and after crossing the second hedge the heavy grape and canister and musketry of the fort cut them up severely, and drove them still farther to the left, where they became disordered, and entangled in the bushes and broken ground bordering the marsh on that side. Lieutenant-Colonel Hawley tried to straighten out his regiment, setting up his colors in the field, and moved it to the rear and to the right, when he was ordered by Colonel Fenton to move still farther to the right, and advance again on the fort. The 28th Massachusetts, although considerably scattered, moved forward under cover of the bushes until they encountered an inlet of the marsh and the abattis of slashed trees, when they fell back under cover. By this time Leasure's brigade was up, and, directed by General Stevens in person, advanced straight on the fort, regiment after regiment, deploying as they advanced. The Highlanders moved forward in fine order, followed by the Roundheads, taking ground a little more to the left. Crossing the second hedge, they came under the terrible fire of canister which struck the left of the Highlanders and the centre of the Roundheads, literally cutting the latter in two. The Highlanders pushed steadily forward, supported by the right wing of the Roundheads, passing the 7th Connecticut as Hawley was endeavoring to lead it to the right as directed by Fenton, struck the work at the angle on its left (our right), and, led by the gallant Morrison, plunged across the ditch, and clambered up the steep parapet; many of the defenders ran back, and again the fort seemed won. But again the musketry from the sharpshooters on the flanks and rear cut down the brave Scotsmen; a bullet grazed Morrison's temple, inflicting a serious wound, and he and the half score survivors of the brave band that so gallantly gained the parapet were forced to leap down again. But they did not return empty handed. Morrison brought out a prisoner at the muzzle of his revolver. The capture of another was even more daring. A rebel soldier sprang upon the parapet in his eagerness, and aimed his musket at one of the assailants, scrambling up the steep and lofty bank, but the Highlander, making a tremendous leap, dashed aside the weapon, seized his antagonist in his arms, and rolled with him to the bottom of the ditch, where he was forced to surrender. While the Highlanders were thus storming the work, the left wing of the Roundheads, with some of the Highlanders, cut off and driven to the left by the terrible hail which smote them, yet pushed determinedly on. They ran over or through the 7th Connecticut as that regiment was moving out into the field, as already narrated, throwing it into some confusion, and dashed themselves against the fort. But here the front was well protected by abattis, and afforded no opening. The Reed battery raked them terribly. The men fell by scores, the line lost its impetus, and the survivors threw themselves on the ground behind the cotton-ridges for shelter. The 46th New York was double-quicked the last half mile of the road, conducted across the first field and through the farther hedge, and ordered forward. Its course, like that of the 7th Connecticut and 28th Massachusetts, bore too much to the left, and like them it became entangled in the bushes on that side. Here portions of the 7th Connecticut and 28th Massachusetts, retreating, broke through the 46th, carrying back fifty men of that regiment. There they stayed, suffering considerably from grape, until the advanced regiments moved back, when they also withdrew to the hedge. While the attack was making, Rockwell planted three guns of his battery well forward and to the left in the first field, and maintained as constant a fire of shells upon the fort as the movement of our troops admitted. His fourth gun was posted on the road to guard the left rear. Captain Sears aided Rockwell's guns across the hedge and ditch and high ridges, and later cleared out the felled trees from the road in rear. General Stevens, from his position in the first field, had a clear view of every movement. Lieutenant Lyons and other wounded officers brought discouraging reports. Seeing plainly that the assailants were all driven from the parapet, and that the attacking force was completely scattered and had in a manner disappeared, he was satisfied the attack had failed. With instant decision he ordered the troops to fall back, and reform behind the hedges. Captain Stevens was sent with the order. On reaching the front of the fort not a line, or semblance of one, could be seen, except about forty men standing in the field within a hundred yards of the work. Besides the dead and wounded, the ground was covered with blue-clad men, crouching down between the ridges, many of whom were firing on the work. A heavy hail of musketry came from it, or from the pine grove and cover behind it. The guns fired only at intervals. Captain Stevens did not see a mounted officer, nor a single color, except perhaps one with the scanty line referred to, nor a single man running away. Riding to this line, he found Lieutenant-Colonel Hawley and two officers on the right of it, endeavoring to cheer on the men. The line had stopped. The men were dropping fast, some stricken down, others voluntarily for shelter in the deep furrows; two were knocked over within arm's length as he delivered the order. Hawley at once about-faced his line and moved back. Then a most remarkable sight was observed. The men of his regiment, lying between the ridges, rose to their feet, and hastened to form on either flank of the line, which rapidly grew and lengthened out as it withdrew. Then another and another and another line rose out of the ground in like manner, and in a few minutes the four regiments, which had so gallantly dashed themselves against the fort, were moving back in four well-formed lines with colors flying, and men rising from all parts of the field and running to form on their respective regiments; but, alas, how reduced and scanty were they as compared with the strong, brave regiments which so proudly entered that fatal field barely a half hour before, where six hundred brave men now lay weltering in their blood! The withdrawn regiments were halted behind the second hedge and straightened out. As soon as the troops could be seen moving back, Captain Strahan opened on the fort. Two of his guns were soon disabled, and he lost a sergeant killed, but with the remaining gun he kept up a well-directed and regular fire until the close of the battle. The gunboats Ellen and Hale, moving up Big Folly Creek, now began throwing shells at the long range of over two miles, some of which fell in the fields, greatly endangering our own men; but, guided by the signal officers, Lieutenant Henry S. Tafft on shore and Lieutenant O.H. Howard on the Ellen, the subsequent fire was more accurately directed upon the fort. The distance, however, was too great, and the shells too few, to produce much effect. According to the plan, while General Stevens's division was assaulting the fort, Wright and Williams, moving together from Grimball's, were to act as a support to the former, protecting his left and rear from an attack by the enemy from his main line. Williams's brigade comprised five companies of the 3d Rhode Island, the 3d New Hampshire, six companies of the 97th Pennsylvania, and a section of Battery E, 3d United States artillery. Wright had of his own division, of Chatfield's brigade, two companies of the 6th Connecticut and eight companies of the 47th New York; and of Walsh's brigade, six companies of the 45th Pennsylvania, three companies of Serrell's New York engineers, and besides these the other two sections of Hamilton's battery, E, and two squadrons of the 1st Massachusetts cavalry. These organizations were mere skeletons, and numbered about two thousand seven hundred effective. The remaining troops were left on picket, and to guard the camps. Wright moved soon after three A.M. to, and formed under cover of, the woods one mile in front of his camp. Hearing a few shots on his right front, he rightly judged that Stevens's column was advancing, and at once moved forward. By this time daylight was upon him. Now he was joined by General Benham, who assumed command, leaving Wright responsible for only his own skeleton division. Moving rapidly to the front, Wright soon placed his troops in position fronting the enemy's main line, and maintained substantially this position until ordered to withdraw, throwing the 47th New York to the left, and advancing a section of Hamilton's battery, which opened a sharp fire. Before reaching this position General Benham received a message from General Stevens asking immediate support, and ordered Williams to move forward and report to him. Reaching the field just as the assaulting column was falling back and reforming behind the hedges, and ordered by General Stevens to push in on his left, and do the best in concert with him that the ground would admit of, Williams threw the 3d New Hampshire forward beyond, or on our left of the marsh and inlet which covered the flank of the fort on that side, with the view of taking it in flank, and supported it with the battalion of the 3d Rhode Island. The 97th Pennsylvania he posted on the left of General Stevens's reforming regiments. The two former advanced with great bravery and steadiness, so far that they actually poured a telling fire into the flank of the fort, and the garrison was manifestly shaken. For half an hour they maintained the contest, sustaining unflinchingly a severe fire from the fort and the 4th Louisiana battalion, which hastened to reinforce it, raked by the Reed battery on the left and smitten in the rear by Boyce's field battery. The 3d Rhode Island was thrown to the left against the latter. It encountered three companies of the 24th South Carolina, drove them back, and struck the 25th and 1st South Carolina, which supported Boyce's guns, and were protected by a patch of felled timber, and maintained an unequal contest with them until ordered to withdraw. Meantime General Stevens, with the greatest possible rapidity, was advancing his regiments as fast as reorganized to the farther hedge, the one nearest the fort, where they found cover in the ditch. The sun had cleared away the morning clouds, and now shone bright and clear. It was a beautiful and inspiriting sight to see each regiment move forward across the wide field in well-dressed line with colors flying, unheeding the shell and grape which hurtled past or overhead. Rockwell dashed his guns up to the same line nearly, and in the open field maintained a rapid and steady fire on the fort, only five hundred yards distant. Strahan plied his single gun, and the occasional heavy shells from the gunboats burst over the work with a deeper roar. Sharpshooters, as well as the advanced men who still clung close up to the fort, kept the parapet tolerably clear, but the fort was no whit silenced. The grape fell in frequent showers. Notwithstanding the severe losses the men were not discouraged, but were as determined and confident as before. Stimulated by the volleys and cheers of Williams's troops, they were ready, nay eager, to be led to the assault the second time. General Stevens sent word to Benham that his whole division was in the advanced position, reformed and ready, and that he would attack again as soon as Williams's movement produced its effect. Just as he was about to give the order to advance, the firing on the left slackened and ceased, and Williams's troops were seen moving back. Benham, as hasty and ill judged in abandoning the field as he was precipitate and obstinate in ordering the assault, had ordered them to retreat. On the left were heard the rebel cheers. In front the fort redoubled its fire. Soon afterwards General Benham ordered General Stevens to withdraw his column to camp. Wright and Williams had already fallen back. The former is particular to state in his report that "the withdrawal from the field of both columns was ordered by General Benham." General Stevens withdrew his forces without loss and unopposed. Even the advanced men were all brought off. Lieutenant H.G. Belcher, of the 8th Michigan, took them the order, and, working over singly to the left, they got under cover of the bushes on that side and thus withdrew. The enemy attempted no pursuit, and by ten A.M. the entire force was back in camp. Thus ended the battle of James Island or Secessionville, the culmination of crass obstinacy and folly. Benham, who, deaf to the orders of his commander, deaf to the warnings of Wright, deaf to Stevens's earnest entreaties to be allowed to attack later in the day and after due preparation, had so rashly and obstinately forced the fight,--this very Benham shrank from the shock of battle, and ordered the retreat when victory was within his grasp. The enemy's forces upon James Island were commanded by General N.G. Evans, and numbered certainly not less than 9000 effective. Colonel T.G. Lamar commanded the fort and was severely wounded. He had two companies, B and I, of his own regiment, the 1st South Carolina artillery, the 1st South Carolina or Charleston and 9th South Carolina or Pee Dee battalions, four officers and one hundred picked men of the 22d South Carolina, and three officers and presumably the crew of the floating battery, which had been withdrawn from the fire of the three-gun battery a few days before. All these commands must have numbered at least 800, although Colonel Lamar reports that his force did not exceed 500 until reinforced. He was soon reinforced by the 4th Louisiana battalion, numbering 250, and later by the balance of the 22d South Carolina, so that he must have had at least 1500 men before the action closed. The losses in these commands amounted to 172, of which the original garrison suffered 144, an unusually heavy loss behind strong works, viz.: Charleston battalion, 42; 1st South Carolina artillery, 55; Pee Dee battalion, 29; detachment 22d South Carolina, 18; total, 144. The loss of the 1st South Carolina artillery, 55, would indicate that more than two companies were in the fort. Colonel Lamar reports that he was expecting an attack, having a detachment at each gun, and the alarm was given when the pickets were driven in; yet the assaulting column advanced so rapidly that it was within seven hundred yards when he reached the battery, and much nearer when in person he fired the 8-inch columbiad heavily charged with grape, which he says broke the leading regiment, cutting it completely in two. The other Confederate troops engaged were the 1st, 24th, and 25th South Carolina, Boyce's field battery, and Company H, 1st South Carolina artillery, which manned the Reed battery. General Evans ordered up the 47th and 51st Georgia to support his right. His force, engaged and on the field, numbered 4500 effective, besides which were plenty of other troops available on the main works. The Confederate loss all told was 204. The Union loss aggregated 685, of which Stevens's column suffered 529; Williams's brigade, 152; Wright's division, four. The 8th Michigan lost 185 out of 534, or thirty per cent.; 13 out of 22 officers who went into the fight, including every officer of the storming party, were killed or wounded. The Highlanders lost 110 out of 484, notwithstanding which they withdrew in good order, and brought off 60 of their wounded, some of their dead, and their two prisoners. These losses would have been much greater had it not been for the partial shelter afforded by the cotton-ridges, and the fire of the men behind them, which kept down that of the fort. But the loss of the garrison is unparalleled behind such works, and shows the desperate nature of the fighting. The nearest parallel to this assault afforded by the war was that on Fort Saunders at Knoxville, where the Highlanders had their revenge. They manned the exposed salient of the fort when Longstreet tried to carry it by storm, November 29, 1863. This work was not so strong either in profile or position as Fort Lamar. It was subjected to a severe shelling and fire of sharpshooters, and then three veteran brigades, fifteen regiments, rushed upon both faces of the salient angle. The Highlanders and Benjamin's Battery E, of the 2d artillery, repulsed every attack. No enemy raised his head above the parapet and lived. And in the midst of the fight, amid the noise and fury of battle, as the Highlanders plied their muskets and rolled by hand 20-pounder shells with fuses cut short and lighted into the ditch, filled with the struggling mass of men, the Highlanders grimly passed the word along the line, "Remember James Island! Remember James Island!" The Highlanders here lost four killed and five wounded. The entire loss in the fort was inconsiderable. The enemy lost 813 men, three flags, and 600 small-arms. This would seem almost incredible, were it not attested by the official reports, both Union and Confederate. Why the assault failed, it is not far to seek. The principal cause was the strength of the work, manned as it was by a resolute garrison, and the destructive fire of its heavy guns. Although the alarm was given by the outposts nearly a mile from the work, the column reached it upon the heels of the fleeing picket, and was actually within five hundred yards before the first gun could be fired. But this gun, an 8-inch columbiad charged with grape, shattered the centre of the leading regiment, cutting it completely in two. Then the canister from the big howitzer and other guns doubly decimated them, yet the brave fellows gained the parapet. Had the next two regiments, the 7th Connecticut and 28th Massachusetts, following close upon the Michiganders as ordered, joined them at this instant, the work would undoubtedly have been taken. But they were green troops, never having been under fire; the 28th, indeed, was fresh from home, and under the terrible storm of grape and canister they were beaten to the left, and entangled in the bushes and broken bank there. Although Lieutenant-Colonel Hawley lost no time in disentangling his regiment and moving it out into the field and again forward, it is significant, and well shows the difficulty of handling green troops under fire, that the Highlanders rushed past the right of the 7th Connecticut, and the Roundheads broke through or ran over its centre, and both assaulted the fort and were repulsed--nearly all who reached the parapet being killed, and the remainder forced to give back--by the time the Connecticut regiment had advanced to within a hundred yards of the work, where Hawley received the order to withdraw. Certainly the rapid advance and onset of the Michiganders, Highlanders, and Roundheads were all that men could do. Their loss was so great and the parapet so difficult that not enough men could surmount it to be able to hold it; but the chief reason for the failure was the deadly fire from the woods and cover behind the fort. The work was fairly stormed, but the stormers, too few to hold it, were destroyed by the deadly fire from its rear. These three regiments had already smelt powder, and had been well drilled and disciplined by General Stevens. The others, new and inexperienced, could not be expected to equal them, yet they evinced no lack of bravery. General Stevens says in his report:-- "I must confess that the coolness and mobility of all the troops engaged on the 16th surprised me, and I cannot but believe, had proper use been made of the artillery, guns from the navy, and our own batteries, fixed and field; had the position been gradually approached and carefully examined, and the attack made much later in the day, when our batteries had had their full effect, all of which, you will recollect, was strongly urged by me upon General Benham the evening of the conference,--the result might have been very different."[18] General Stevens commends the gallantry of his troops in strong terms, and the brave and efficient service of his staff, already mentioned, of Lieutenant Orrin M. Dearborn, of the 3d New Hampshire, aide in place of Lieutenant Cottrell, who, having been promoted captain, had command of his company, and of Lieutenant Jefferson Justice, of the Roundheads, acting division quartermaster, who served upon the field as his aide. Lieutenant Lyons, who so bravely led the stormers, died of his wound in hospital at Hilton Head soon afterwards. For his wrong-headed and disobedient conduct Benham was placed under arrest by General Hunter and sent North. His appointment as brigadier-general was revoked by the President. Later, by unwearied importunity and the pressure of influence, he managed to get himself reinstated, but never again was he trusted with the lives of brave men. FOOTNOTES: [18] See _Rebellion Records_, vol. xiv.; _History of the 79th Highlanders_, by William Todd; Major Pressley, in _Southern Historical Society Papers_, vol. xvi., Major John Johnson's _Defense of Charleston Harbor_. CHAPTER LIV RETURN TO VIRGINIA A few days after their bloody repulse from Fort Lamar the Highlanders paraded in front of General Stevens's headquarters and presented him with a beautiful sword, together with a sash, belt, and spurs, in the following feeling address. The address was inscribed upon a large sheet of parchment by one of the skillful penmen in the regiment, in characters as clear and distinct as copperplate engraving, and in the middle of the sheet was an excellent photograph of the general in uniform. The sword was the gift of the non-commissioned officers and privates exclusively, for they had refused to permit the officers to contribute a cent towards or bear any part in the testimonial, although the latter were anxious to do their share. It was common talk among the men that the officers never amounted to anything until General Stevens took them in hand; that he had saved and redeemed the regiment after they had well-nigh ruined it; and that they should not have any part in the sword, which was the tribute of the rank and file. The presentation was a great surprise to General Stevens, and was the more gratifying as showing the undiminished regard of the regiment immediately after the recent severe battle and loss:-- BRIGADIER-GENERAL ISAAC I. STEVENS. _Sir_,--A unanimous feeling of gratitude and respect pervading the non-commissioned officers and privates of the Seventy Ninth Regiment (Highland Guard) New York State Militia, and wishing to give that feeling a humble and appropriate expression, we have determined to-day to present for your acceptance this sword, feeling assured that by you it will be worthily worn, and never drawn but in defense of human rights and their political guaranties. Your recent connection with us as our colonel, our friend, and our counselor has fitted us in a peculiar manner to judge of and appreciate your virtues in each of these capacities. Coming amongst us at a critical period in our history as a regiment, when our fair fame was eclipsed, and demoralization was fast hurrying us to the vortex of anarchy, you listened to the story of our wrongs, tempered your decisions against the erring ones with the high attribute of mercy, and bade us hope. We did hope, and ere long we found ourselves recuperated and in Camp Advance. There our confidence in you was perfected, and our esteem became affection. When it was announced that your distinguished military services had brought you higher and greener laurels, we were glad and proud; but sorrow, deep and profound, pervaded our ranks when it was made known that your services were demanded in another sphere, and that we must separate. The exclamation of "Tak' us wi' ye!" which greeted you upon that day's parade was heartfelt and sincere, and your intervention in our behalf has enabled us to preserve our connection, if not as close, not the less fondly. That your valuable and beneficent life may long be spared to the service and to mankind, and that the blessing of God may rest upon you and upon your family, is the sincere prayer of the non-commissioned officers and privates of the SEVENTY-NINTH, HIGHLAND GUARD. GENERAL STEVENS'S RESPONSE. FELLOW-SOLDIERS OF THE HIGHLAND GUARD,--I have no words to express my gratitude for this unexpected and unmerited mark of your confidence and affection. We came together not only at a critical period of your own history as a regiment, but at a critical period of our beloved country's history, when its armies had been stricken down, and dismay and discouragement spread over the length and breadth of the land. It was the time for the true and the strong to come to the work, and by a firm stand in our country's cause again to cause hope and faith to spring up in the hearts of men. You recollect we moved from our camp of "Hope" on the beautiful heights in the rear of Washington to the camp of the "Advance" across the Potomac. Then I spoke to you words of encouragement, and together, in the glorious light of day, we won back our colors. We had soon become acquainted. As your colonel, I ever found you brave and true. The pathos of your address, its living expressions, touch me. When I was ordered South, and rode through your ranks to say farewell, and saw the tear glisten in every manly eye, and heard the words, "Tak' us wi' ye!" from every lip, I thought we could not part; so, on reaching Annapolis, I said to our late able and respected commander, General Sherman, "Send for the Highlanders; they want to come, and you can depend upon them." Here you have come, and here you are to-day. Have you not always done well? Who ever finds the Highlanders behind? I know not which feeling of my heart is stronger in regard to you,--my pride or my affection. Your firm step, your manly countenances, cold steel for your enemies, and the open hand and heart for your friend,--such are you, beloved comrades. In the late sad, glorious fight where were you? Laggards, or seeking the front on the double-quick to succor your friends, the 8th Michigan, led on by your gallant lieutenant-colonel there, David Morrison? You gained that front and parapet, and some of your noblest and your best there found a soldier's grave. It was indeed a sad but glorious field. Not a laggard, not a fugitive,--all the regiment in line,--all by their colors and in order of battle, but many dead and wounded men. I am profoundly affected by the circumstance that you have seized such an occasion to show your regard for me. Yes, beloved comrades, we are ready to expose and, if need be, to lay down our lives for our country. We will keep steadfastly to the work till this sad, terrible war is ended, and peace smiles again upon the land. My friends, I shall endeavor to be deserving of your magnificent testimonial of respect and affection. I accept it, not as my right, but as your free gift. I accept it most gratefully. God willing, that sword shall ever be borne by me in defense of my country's rights, and in the cause of God and humanity. The spurs, too, from my friends of the drum corps,--the boys who scour the battlefield and bring off the dead and wounded men,--I will wear in memory of your mission, and perhaps some day they may urge the fleet steed to your relief and assistance. Friends, the thistle of your native land has stung our enemies, and been an omen of hope to our friends. It has been planted here, and glorious properties has it shown in this palmetto soil. In conclusion, permit me again to express my deep gratitude for these marks of your affection and esteem. The sword was an exceedingly handsome one. The blade was richly inlaid with gold, representing a Highlander bearing the American flag, an ancient Scottish soldier, and many Scottish and patriotic devices and mottoes. The hilt represented the Goddess of Liberty; the guard was formed of the thistle, the emblem of Scotland, and was studded with a large topaz surrounded by thirteen diamonds. The hilt and scabbard were heavily gilded, and the latter terminated in a tiger's head. There was also a plain steel scabbard bronzed, a general's yellow sash, and a red-and-gold belt. The spurs were also richly gilded, the shank and rowel representing the thistle, and were the gift of the drummer-boys. JAMES ISLAND, June 26, 1862. MY DEAREST WIFE,--General Wright called down at my quarters last evening and took a look at my sword. He thought it a very splendid thing, and advises me to send it home as soon as possible. I hope those beautiful testimonials will reach you speedily and safely. I want my friends to see them. The sword is the most beautiful I ever saw. I have already sent you my reply to the address. It is thought here to be very appropriate. It was wholly unstudied, as I had not the least idea of what the address would be. Hazard has worked very hard of late. Did I write you that his conduct on the battlefield was witnessed by the rebels with great admiration? So say the rebel officers whom my officers met under a recent flag of truce. These officers say a great many shots were fired directly at him. Every one in the division knows the officer they refer to, from the description of the officer and his horse, to be Hazard. The boy did most nobly, and every one speaks in the highest terms of his conduct on the field of battle. Was not his life wonderfully preserved? My own staff is considered a very excellent one. Cottrell was not killed, but was wounded, and a prisoner in the hands of the enemy. Lyons is getting on well with his wound. Lyman Arnold is dead. I particularly interested his brigade commander, Colonel Williams, and the surgeon, in his case, and I cannot doubt that every attention was paid to him. Daniel Lyman Arnold, who has already been mentioned as a member of the Northern Pacific Railroad exploration, with his brother, General Richard Arnold, was a cousin of Mrs. Stevens. He was a private in the 3d Rhode Island, and was mortally wounded in the battle, where he had shown great bravery. General Stevens, with his son, visited the dying man soon after the battle, and did all in his power to make him comfortable. June 30. I wrote you three days ago that General Hunter had given orders to evacuate this place. It is a large operation. The cavalry were got on board yesterday and last night, and started this morning for Hilton Head. We expect the transports back to-morrow, when General Williams's division will be embarked. My own division will be embarked last. Raymond Rodgers came here to-day from the squadron at Hilton Head. He talked considerably about the 16th. He assured me that my conduct and management on that day is universally commended. Indeed, I have good reason to believe that here in this department, both with the army and navy, it has very much increased my military reputation. No one but Benham calls in question my perfect fidelity to my orders, and that the course I actually pursued alone gave, under his orders, the least promise of success. I moved with exceeding rapidity, without stopping to fire, and pushed in everything without reserve. The statement of the enemy shows how near the work came to falling into our hands. I know I could have seized that work with but little loss of life, and on that very day, had the entire management been mine. My own course with him after the battle was stern and determined. I _compelled_ him to modify his report so as to do my division full justice. I warned him that the entire responsibility of bringing on that fight was his, that I had opposed it, and that I should take no part of the responsibility. He wilted and quailed under my eye and speech. He made a second attempt to falsify the truth with me, and I made him quail again, and this was in the presence of witnesses. There has been a real comfort and satisfaction in serving under Wright, which I have not had for a long time. He has shown very sound judgment in all his arrangements since he has been in command. Williams, who commands the second division, is a very agreeable and sensible man, and is highly esteemed throughout the command. On Benham's arrest General Wright succeeded to the command as next in rank, and field-works to protect the camps were commenced, and considerable work done upon them, when General Hunter wisely decided to withdraw from James Island. General Stevens brought off the last of the troops on July 4. He was first ordered to Beaufort with his division, except the 7th Connecticut and Rockwell's battery, which were detached and landed at Hilton Head; but scarcely had they reached Beaufort when--including the 50th Pennsylvania, which rejoined the command--they were brought back to Hilton Head and debarked July 5, then reëmbarked July 9, and sent back to Beaufort; then, without leaving the transports, they were dropped four miles down the Beaufort River, and landed on Smith's plantation, where the whole division was to be encamped. In the absence of wharves, all the baggage had to be put ashore in small boats. By great exertions this was accomplished, and the tents were up before dark, when orders were received to reëmbark immediately and proceed to Hilton Head, there to take ocean steamers for Virginia. After a brief rest the harassed and wornout soldiers toiled the balance of the night, reëmbarking the camp equipage, baggage, and supplies. The troops were transferred to ocean steamers at Hilton Head on July 10 and 11, and on the 12th were borne away northward, rejoiced to leave a command marked by incompetence and disaster, and to rest after the useless toil to which they had been subjected. The point on Beaufort River where General Stevens's division landed is of especial interest as the site of the first European settlement in the United States, made by Jean Ribaut and a party of French Huguenots in 1562, just three centuries before; and the walls of a small fort, constructed by him of coquina, a very hard and durable concrete of oyster-shells, were visible on the shore of and partly in the river, which had considerably undermined them. STEAMER VANDERBILT, July 14, 1862. MY DEAR WIFE,--We left Hilton Head at eight o'clock, yesterday morning. I was utterly worn out, and was very glad to go to bed. I slept twenty hours the first twenty-four I was on board, and to-day I have been very well rested. It is supposed our destination will be McClellan's army. McClellan has unquestionably met with a very serious check. Indeed, it is nothing less than a disaster. His loss in men and material of war must have been immense. The plan of campaign of the Potomac (army) has been a monstrous folly, and disaster is its legitimate fruit. The army should never have been divided, and the route should not have been by Fortress Monroe. I doubt whether any adequate plan will be hit upon to make the most of the present condition of things. I am afraid the Confederates will by a rapid countermarch fall upon Pope with overwhelming force. I think, so far as I can gather the facts, that Pope should be largely reinforced, and that he should wage the campaign. It has also occurred to me that the wisest plan would be to withdraw McClellan from his present position, send him to the Potomac, unite him with Pope, and commence anew. But it is useless to speculate. We shall reach Fortress Monroe to-morrow, where we will receive additional orders. [Illustration: CAMP OF GENERAL STEVENS'S DIVISION AT NEWPORT NEWS] The transfer to Virginia was the very movement that General Stevens recommended to the President in a letter dated July 8, in which he wrote:-- "In the district formerly commanded by Sherman are some twenty-three regiments. Eleven of these regiments are ample for the purpose I have mentioned. This will leave a full division of twelve regiments to reinforce our columns at points where the enemy is fighting with the energy of despair, and where its timely aid may bring to our arms the crowning victory of the war. "I earnestly desire this war to be prosecuted to a signal and speedy success. This department can well afford to wait. It is not the proper base for operations. We are, moreover, much too small for an advance, and much too large for simply holding the points we now occupy. Let us simply hold these points. The crisis of the war is in Virginia. There throw your troops. There signally defeat and destroy the enemy. You strike Charleston and Savannah by striking Richmond. "Send us, therefore, and send twelve of our regiments to Virginia. Let us have the satisfaction of sharing there the dangers, the privations, and the sacrifices of our companions in arms. Let us feel that we are doing good service for our country, that we are really helping in the gravest contest of the war." After a smooth and pleasant voyage the command reached Fortress Monroe on the 16th, debarked at Newport News, and went into camp on the level plain overlooking the broad expanse of water where James River enters Hampton Roads. General Burnside had just arrived here with eight thousand troops from North Carolina, and the ninth corps was organized from the two commands, General Stevens's division forming the first and the North Carolina troops the second and third divisions under Generals Jesse L. Reno and John G. Parke respectively, General Burnside commanding the corps. General Cullum, Halleck's chief of staff, was at Fortress Monroe when General Stevens arrived there, and had a long and confidential talk with his former brother officer and old friend in regard to the military situation. It is noteworthy that the very movements he mentioned as best in his letter to his wife were precisely the ones adopted immediately afterwards, viz., the withdrawal of McClellan and reinforcement of Pope. Halleck, whose voice was then controlling in military councils in Washington, was undoubtedly led to adopt, or strengthened in his own ideas by, the views of his former classmate and rival, whose ability and sound military judgment he fully appreciated. NEWPORT NEWS, August 2, 1862. MY DEAR WIFE,--I send by this mail sketches with brief letters to each of the girls. We go on board ship to-morrow. I am now satisfied there will be marked improvement in the general management of army matters. Probably the moves now being made will take the country somewhat by surprise, but they are wise and absolutely necessary. Before this reaches you our destination will be known, but I am not at liberty to speak of it. Reno sets off about sundown this evening, Parke will be off to-morrow, and myself the next day. [Illustration: HEADQUARTERS, NEWPORT NEWS] CHAPTER LV POPE'S CAMPAIGN The military authorities having decided to throw Burnside's troops up the Rappahannock to reinforce Pope, General Stevens sailed from Newport News on August 4, debarked at Acquia Creek on the 6th, and reached Fredericksburg the same day. Here two light batteries were added to the division, E, of the 2d United States artillery, under Lieutenant S.N. Benjamin, with four 20-pounder rifled Parrotts and the 8th Massachusetts battery, a new organization recently from home, enlisted for six months only. The division was divided into three brigades, the 8th Michigan and 50th Pennsylvania, under Colonel B. C. Christ, constituting the first brigade; the Roundheads and 46th New York, under Colonel Leasure, the second; and the Highlanders and 28th Massachusetts, under Colonel Addison Farnsworth, the third. Colonel Farnsworth was appointed colonel of the Highlanders by the governor of New York, and joined his regiment at Beaufort, but was absent on leave during the James Island campaign, at the close of which he returned to it. Lieutenant H.G. Heffron was appointed aide in place of Lieutenant Lyons. Starting from Fredericksburg on the 13th, Generals Stevens's and Reno's divisions, eight thousand strong, the latter as ranking officer in command, stripped of all baggage except shelter tents, marched up the north bank of the Rappahannock, passing Bealton Station on the Alexandria and Orange Court House Railroad, crossed the river at Rappahannock Station, and joined Pope at Culpeper Court House on the 15th. General Stevens bivouacked three miles in front of that point, and on the following day was thrown forward to guard Raccoon Ford, on the Rapidan River, which he held with a strong detachment, placing his division a mile and a half back in support. Pope's bombastic orders, and his invitation to forage on the enemy, greatly increased straggling and relaxed discipline among his troops. General Stevens ordered roll-calls at every halt, and at the end of every day's march; reports of stragglers made daily, and prompt and severe punishment inflicted upon such delinquents and upon plunderers, and sternly stopped the evil in its inception. The 46th New York, a German regiment, where even the commands at drill were given in German, loaded some of its supply-wagons with lager beer on leaving Fredericksburg, leaving behind a good part of their rations, having some vague notion of living off the country. General Stevens at once had all the lager thrown into the road, and the wagons sent back for the abandoned rations. The indignation of Colonel Rosa and his officers rose to such a pitch over this summary loss of their beloved beverage that they tendered their resignations in a body, with a grandiloquent letter from the colonel. But General Stevens emphatically assured them that they must remain and do their duty as soldiers during the campaign, and took no further notice of their insubordinate and unsoldierly action. [Illustration: VIRGINIA--POTOMAC TO RAPIDAN RIVER] On the 9th, only a week before the arrival of the two divisions of the ninth corps, the severe fight of Cedar Mountain occurred between Banks's corps and Jackson. The latter, although victor on the field by force of numbers, was so badly crippled that he withdrew behind the Rapidan the second day after the battle. Pope, on receiving these reinforcements, advanced to the line of that river, and General Stevens held his extreme left, a cavalry picket only watching Germanna Ford, the next below Raccoon. The army, officially known as the Army of Virginia, consisted of the corps of McDowell, Banks, and Sigel, and numbered forty thousand effective. The ninth corps troops added eight thousand more, and heavy reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac were on their way, so that, if Pope could only hold his ground a few days, both armies would be united in his advanced Position. But Lee, safely leaving McClellan, with his great army, on the Peninsula to his inaction, swiftly gathered his army opposite Pope, and, crossing the river, advanced one wing under Jackson to strike him on the left and rear, and the other, under Longstreet, to attack him in front. Pope gained timely notice of this move by a lucky cavalry reconnoissance, and withdrew to the Rappahannock just in time to escape it. During the 17th, 18th, and 19th General Stevens kept his officers busily engaged in what he termed "looking up the country," that is, in tracing out all the roads and by-roads, and studying the topography, defensive positions, and approaches. He always attached great importance to a thorough knowledge of the ground, and seized every opportunity to gain it. Ordered, on the afternoon of the 19th, to move back his train immediately, and his troops at two in the morning, by way of Stevensburg and Barnett's Ford on the Rappahannock, General Stevens started off the train at once, and at nine in the evening drew out his division three miles on the designated road, which runs parallel to the river for a considerable distance, and halted. By this movement he placed his whole force in position to defend the ford till the last moment, and all danger of being cut off by the sudden advance of the enemy was obviated. The column resumed the march in retreat at two A.M., reached Stevensburg at daylight, where it was detained an hour by General Reno's train, that officer with his division having already fallen back, and after a march of twenty-six miles crossed the Rappahannock at Barnett's Ford, and went into bivouac at four P.M. That day the whole of Pope's army fell back and took up the line of the Rappahannock, the ninth corps on the left. At dusk on the evening of the 21st, leaving four companies of infantry and four light guns of the 8th Massachusetts battery at the ford, and two companies at another ford a few miles higher up, General Stevens marched eight miles up the river to Kelly's Ford, arriving at midnight, and a day after General Reno. The next day he recrossed the river with two brigades in support of a cavalry reconnoissance by General Buford. Deploying the third brigade,--the Highlanders and 28th Massachusetts,--he drove back a considerable force of the enemy for more than a mile in a sharp action, and, after accomplishing all that was expected or desired, withdrew to the left bank. On the 2d both divisions continued moving up the river ten miles to Rappahannock Station, two regiments from each being left to guard Kelly's Ford. Here were found the troops of McDowell and Banks. Sigel was farther up the river, and his artillery was heard thundering in the distance all day. Banks moved after him late in the afternoon. Both armies were now moving up the Rappahannock, but on opposite sides. Lee, foiled in his bold onslaught by the timely retreat of his antagonist, and finding him strongly posted behind the river, was now pushing his columns up the right bank, seeking to cross it or to outflank and turn Pope's right, and Pope was carefully following his movement to head him off. On the 23d General Stevens continued the march up the river, followed by Reno's division. Banks's troops and Sigel's train were soon overtaken, blocking up the road; the march was continually interrupted and delayed by them, and after struggling forward over the muddy and slippery roads, pelted by a heavy, drenching rainstorm, until after midnight, having marched only four miles in eighteen hours, the tired and bedraggled troops were allowed to rest, or rather halt, by the roadside until morning. During the day the troops left at the lower fords rejoined the division, having been relieved by General Reynolds's division, the first to arrive from the Army of the Potomac. On overtaking Banks's corps, General Stevens had a talk with that officer, who was quite lame from a recent fall, and looked thin and careworn. His troops had been sadly cut up at Cedar Mountain, and his regiments, with their scanty numbers, seemed reduced almost to the size of companies. All day Sigel's guns were thundering up the river as though a pitched battle were raging, but, as afterwards appeared, he was wasting ammunition on skirmishers and single horsemen beyond the stream, while his enormous and ill-regulated wagon-train was keeping back the rest of the army. The march was resumed on the 24th, and Sulphur Springs reached late in the afternoon. General Stevens, riding at the head of his column, was here met by General Sigel, who requested him to take one of his (General Stevens's) brigades and a battery, and destroy the bridge across the river at this point, which the enemy's sharpshooters were making very hot. Astonished at such a request, a virtual acknowledgment of his own and his troops' inefficiency, General Stevens nevertheless promptly set to work to comply with it, when the bridge was found to be in flames, having been fired by some of Sigel's men. On this day's march, as the division was halting for a noon rest, and the soldiers were reclining on the ground in groups, or making their cups of coffee over little fires of fence rails, a party of rebel cavalry with a section of artillery appeared on a cross-road a mile distant and near the river, and a lively shower of shells suddenly fell over and among the resting troops. At this Lieutenant Benjamin very coolly and deliberately unlimbered and sighted one of his 20-pounders; the shell flew straight to the mark, fairly striking the annoying piece, and the enemy beat a hasty retreat at this single shot. The following morning, the 25th, General Stevens continued marching up the river, and, on reaching Waterloo Bridge, was ordered to countermarch and proceed to Warrenton. Arrived here, passing McDowell's corps bivouacked along the road, the division rested some hours, then marched for Warrenton Junction, and halted at midnight at a place known as Eastern View, several miles from the Junction, to which it moved the next day, the 26th. Meantime the reinforcements were arriving from the Army of the Potomac. Reynolds's division, 6000 strong, coming by way of Acquia Creek and the Rappahannock, joined on the 23d and was attached to McDowell's corps. By the same route two divisions of the fifth corps, under General Fitz John Porter, reached Bealton on the 26th and the Junction the next day. They numbered 9000 effective, and were commanded by Generals George W. Morell and George Sykes respectively. On the 25th Generals Kearny's and Hooker's divisions of the third corps, under General Samuel P. Heintzelman, numbering 10,000 effective, were brought out on the railroad from Alexandria to the same place, Warrenton Junction. With these reinforcements, deducting losses and straggling, Pope's strength was raised to 60,000. Lee's army numbered,--Longstreet, 30,000; Jackson, 22,000; Stuart's cavalry, 3000; total, 55,000.[19] On the 22d Lee attempted a crossing near Sulphur Springs, and threw a heavy force of Jackson's troops across the river; but the storm, and the sudden rise of the stream making the fords impassable, induced him to withdraw. Thus baffled in his design of crossing at Sulphur Springs, and finding that point and Waterloo Bridge, four miles above, held in force by the Union troops, and well knowing that Pope's strength was increasing daily by reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac, Lee now determined to push Jackson completely around the right of the Union army, turning it by a circuitous but rapid march, and throw him on the railroad in its rear, its sole line of supply, and to follow up the movement with the other wing under Longstreet. Accordingly, on the 24th Jackson moved back from the river to Jefferson, his troops being relieved by Longstreet's; on the 25th marched by Amissville and Orleans to Salem; and on the 26th continued his march through Thoroughfare Gap and Gainesville to Bristoe Station, on the ill-fated line of communications, which he struck at dark, capturing some prisoners and two trains loaded with supplies. Bristoe is only eight miles north of Warrenton Junction, about which so many Union troops were grouped; and Jackson, by his bold move, had thrown himself fairly upon the back of Pope's army. Without delay he dispatched a small force that night to Manassas Junction, five miles down the railroad, and eight guns, three hundred prisoners, and an immense quantity of stores fell into his hands. Next morning, leaving Ewell to hold back the Union forces, he moved the other divisions to Manassas, where they spent the day outfitting themselves from the captured stores. [Illustration: Positions, nine P.M., August 26, 1862.] When this blow fell, Pope had his troops well in hand: McDowell and Sigel's corps grouped about Warrenton; the four divisions of Stevens, Reno, Kearny and Hooker near Warrenton Junction; while Porter at Bealton and Banks at Fayetteville were within an easy march of the Junction. Pope, having made up his mind that the enemy would fall upon his right, was loath to believe that he had gotten into his rear in heavy force, but he embarked a regiment on a train of cars and sent it down the road towards Bristoe that night to find out. This reconnoissance reported the enemy in force; but even yet Pope was not convinced, still clinging to his opinion that his right, the line from Warrenton to Gainesville, was most exposed to Lee's attack. Therefore, instead of throwing upon Bristoe, at daylight the next morning, the overwhelming force he had at hand near the Junction, he sent only Hooker's division down the railroad to brush away the supposed raiding party, moved the other three (Stevens, Reno, and Kearny) to Greenwich, and ordered McDowell and Sigel to Gainesville; the former to take command of both corps, for he was not satisfied with Sigel's dilatoriness in marching and obeying orders. [Illustration: Positions of Troops, Sunset, August 27, 1862.] Hooker encountered Ewell in front of Bristoe, and, in a sharp action in the afternoon, pushed him across Broad Run, from which, after destroying the bridge, he retreated unmolested to Manassas. As the result of Hooker's fight, Pope now knew that Jackson with his whole corps was at Bristoe that very morning, and had just marched--his rear division was even then marching--down the railroad to Manassas. He supposed that Longstreet was far to the westward, beyond supporting distance to Jackson. Confident that the great flanker was at last within his power, he issued vigorous orders for the morrow's movements, designed to throw his whole army upon him at Manassas and crush him. To this end he ordered Hooker to push down the railroad towards Manassas; Porter to hasten from Warrenton Junction to support Hooker, starting at one in the morning; Kearny to Bristoe; and Stevens and Reno directly on Manassas,--the three to move at daylight; McDowell to advance his whole force from Gainesville also on Manassas, with Sigel resting his right on the Manassas Gap Railroad, and McDowell's divisions following in echelon extended on his left, so that this great force would sweep a wide scope of country,--practically the whole region between the Manassas Gap Railroad and the Warrenton pike,--and would intercept Jackson's retreat by that thoroughfare. This plan was well plotted to overwhelm the wolf at Manassas, if the wolf would only wait there until the toils closed around him. A day, or even half a day, would suffice. But Jackson was not the man to wait anywhere long enough to give his adversary the initiative. That night and early the next morning he moved to the field of Bull Run, and took up a position admirable for defense, and from which with equal facility he could attack any force moving along the pike, or fall back westward by good roads to meet Longstreet, now rapidly approaching. It is a high, undulating country west of Bull Run upon which on June 21, 1861, and August 28, 29, and 30, 1862, were fought the battles of Bull Run, Gainesville, and second Bull Run, or, as known to the Confederates, Bull Run, Groveton, and Manassas. Long, broad ridges stretch across the country, sloping down in successive rolls of ground to wide hollows. Open fields cover two thirds of the surface of hill and dale, alternating with tracts of woods, which clothe the remaining third. These are of oak and other deciduous trees, and are tolerably open and free from underbrush. The Alexandria and Warrenton pike, running nearly west (west 15° south), bisects the field, and was the most important line of communication upon it. Crossing Bull Run by a stone bridge, the pike follows up the valley of a tributary, Young's Branch, gently and gradually ascending for two miles, and then passes over several ridges and high ground on to Gainesville, five miles farther. Young's Branch has worn a deep and narrow valley through the first ridge, a mile from the stone bridge, and to the traveler passing up the pike the abutting ends of the ridge present the appearance of quite steep and high hills. The first hill on the left, separated from the next by a hollow down which a dirt road descends, is the Henry Hill, the scene of the fiercest fighting of the first battle, where Bee and Bartow, the Southern generals, fell, and where Ricketts and his gallant battery were all but destroyed and were captured. The next hill is the Chinn House, termed in some of the reports the Bald Hill. Opposite these, and on the right or north side of the road, are Buck Hill and Rosefield or Dogan House. The tops of these hills are not peaked but flat, being simply the general level of the plateau or ridge. Another road scarcely less important crosses the field at right angles to the pike, nearly on the line of this first ridge, passing between the Henry and Chinn Hills, and Buck Hill and Rosefield. This is the Manassas and Sudley road. From Manassas Junction, six miles to the south on the Alexandria and Orange Court House Railroad, it runs in a northerly direction to and over the plateau on the south part of the field, descends by the lateral hollow to Young's Branch, where it crosses the pike, and, climbing up the end of the ridge on the north, continues in the same general direction over two miles to Sudley Ford across Bull Run. Another road from the south crosses the pike at a point two and a half miles beyond the stone bridge, known as Groveton, and marked by two houses and some outbuildings. This road, running north, descends down a hollow from the plateau on the south, crosses the pike at Groveton, passes across low or flat ground for half a mile, enters a tract of woods, and extends through them to Sudley Ford. One of the most important features of the second battle was a section of railroad grade about two miles in length, which extended from the Run near Sudley Church nearly parallel to the Groveton road for a mile and a half, traversing thickly wooded but level ground with shallow cuts and low embankments; then, curving westward away from the road and emerging from the woods into the open, it crossed a hollow on an embankment, which at one place was ten feet high, and bore away on its course to Gainesville. Standing at Rosefield, the eye of the observer sweeps westward or frontward over a broad expanse of open country, descending to the lower ground crossed by the Groveton road, and beyond it, over the rising slopes and summit of a bare, high ridge two miles and a half distant, a ridge much higher than the one on which he stands, and the dominating feature of the landscape. To the right, or northward, open fields extend nearly a mile, but to the right front is seen the extensive tract of woods in which is concealed the railroad grade, and which covers the broad flat between the two ridges. To the left or southward, across the narrow valley of Young's Branch, appear the steep Henry and Bald hills, really the verge of the plateau. They are bare of trees. But farther to the west, the left front, a tract of woods, from two to three hundred yards back from the pike, clothes the plateau. On the south side the ground slopes up sharply from the Branch and extends southward in a broad, high plateau, while on the north side of the pike the ground is much lower, extending, as already described, to the Groveton road. Bull Run bounds the field on the east and northeast, and can be readily crossed by several fords as well as by the stone bridge. Among them are Sudley Ford, over three miles above the bridge; Lock's or Red House Ford, half way between these points; Blackburn's Ford, four miles below; one a short distance above, and another alongside the bridge. It was Thursday, August 28, 1862, that the first rays of the rising sun, falling athwart the cloudless skies and warm but balmy air of a Southern summer morning, revealed an animated scene,--throngs of gray-coated, slouch-hatted men, yet with many a blue-coated one intermingled, clustering thickly along the Sudley road near the pike, some of them resting outspread upon the grass, others boiling tin cups of coffee and roasting ears of field-corn over tiny fires of fence rails; long lines of stacked muskets with bayonets glittering in the sun; guns and wagons blocking the roads, while their teams of horses and mules were drinking from the little rivulet, or munching their feed from the wagon-boxes. Travel-stained, gaunt, and unkempt were these men, but their alert bearing, and ready joke and laugh, told of unbroken strength and confidence. They were Jackson's old division, now commanded by General William B. Taliaferro. Among them was the brigade that a twelvemonth before won on yonder hill the proud sobriquet of "Stonewall." In high glee and spirits, they recounted and gloated over the incidents of the previous day, how, marching swiftly clear around the flank of the Union army, they struck the railroad in rear and almost in midst of its extended columns, capturing guns, men, and immense stores of military supplies at Manassas Junction; how, after loading themselves with all they could carry and burning the rest, they left the Junction at midnight, and after a short march were now regaling themselves with captured Yankee rations upon the scene of the first Yankee defeat. Soon the command, "Fall in," is passed along, and, resuming the arms and packs, the dusty column continues its march. One brigade, under Colonel Bradley T. Johnson, moves up the pike to Groveton, where it takes post with pickets well out towards Gainesville and the road leading southward; while the remainder of the division streams along the Sudley road nearly to Sudley Church, where, turning to the left and crossing the railroad grade, it again comes to a halt in the woods beyond it. Scarcely had these troops cleared the road when another motley column came crossing Bull Run by the pike and swinging up it at a rapid gait, and they, too, followed the others down the Sudley road and into the woods across the railroad. These were General Richard S. Ewell's division of Jackson's corps, which left the Junction at daylight, crossed Bull Run by Blackburn's Ford, marched up the left or east bank across the fields, and recrossed by the stone bridge. And still another column, General A.P. Hill's light division of the same corps, came marching up from Centreville an hour later, following Ewell up the pike and along the Sudley road, and also disappeared in the woods beyond the railroad. Thus, soon after noon, Jackson had his whole corps of 20,000 effective men united, and hidden in the woods behind the railroad with his train parked at Sudley, one brigade advanced to Groveton watching the roads west and south, and General J. E.B. Stuart with his cavalry guarding Bull Run bridge and fords and the Sudley road half way to Manassas. Now, leaving Jackson's "foot-cavalry," as his men delighted to call themselves, resting under the oaks, the narration of the movements of the Union army is continued, in order clearly to understand the bloody and fruitless battles then impending. Pope's right wing, as it may be termed, moved on the 28th as ordered; reached Manassas about noon, only to find the smoking ruins of Jackson's destructive visit; continued towards Centreville, and bivouacked for the night,--Kearny at that point, Stevens, Reno, and Hooker near Blackburn's Ford. Porter came up to Bristoe. Truly a sluggish advance, but Pope was placing his chief reliance upon his left wing, under McDowell, which he expected to sweep up from Gainesville and head off Jackson on the west and north, while he assailed him on the south with his right. The complete and ignominious fiasco which McDowell and Sigel contrived to make of this movement is one of the strangest and most discreditable episodes of this unhappy campaign. The previous day (27th) Sigel had not moved his whole corps to Gainesville as ordered, but only the head of his column, the main body of which was stretched back along the pike towards Warrenton. The divisions of Reynolds, King, and Ricketts, of McDowell's corps, in the order named, extended the column in rear of Sigel still farther. Moreover, the road was incumbered by Sigel's train of two hundred wagons, which he kept with the troops, although ordered to send them to Catlett's Station, on the Alexandria and Orange Court House Railroad, where all the trains were to assemble under guard of Banks. Although ordered to move at daylight on Manassas, resting his right on the Manassas Gap Railroad, and to be supported by McDowell's corps in echelon on his left, Sigel made a late start, and at 7.30 was halting at Gainesville, his troops building fires to cook breakfast and blocking up the road, and finally, claiming that his orders were to rest his right flank on the Alexandria and Orange Court House Railroad, sheered off to the right after passing Gainesville, keeping on the right of the Manassas Gap Railroad, upon the left of which his orders explicitly directed him to advance, and in the afternoon reached the vicinity of the Junction. From this point, after a start for Centreville and countermarch, he moved down the Sudley road to the pike, which the head of his column reached at dark. But he still held on to his train. Reynolds, although greatly impeded by Sigel's troops and wagons, forced his way past them, passed Gainesville, and moved down the pike towards Groveton, in order to gain his required position upon Sigel's left. Approaching Groveton about ten A.M., he flushed Jackson's advanced brigade,--Bradley Johnson's,--and deployed and pushed forward his leading brigade, under General George G. Meade. But Johnson drew back into the woods on the west, concealing his troops; and Reynolds supposed that the enemy was a mere scouting party, and sheered off in turn from the pike to the right in order to follow Sigel as ordered. After a laborious march across country on the left of the Manassas Gap Railroad, he came out in sight of Manassas, and thence, moving by the Sudley Road, he reached the vicinity of the pike and bivouacked near the Chinn House, still on the left of Sigel. Thus these commands spent the whole day in laboriously marching clear around the circle from a point just west of Groveton to a point on the same pike a mile east of it, marching fifteen miles to gain two! General Buford, with his cavalry, by a bold reconnoissance developed Longstreet's column at Salem on the 27th. McDowell, therefore, wisely modified the order to move his whole force on Manassas by directing his rear division under Ricketts, starting at one A.M., to move across from New Baltimore to Haymarket, thence to Thoroughfare Gap, and hold Longstreet in check. Ricketts was greatly delayed by the wagons and troops blocking the road ahead of him, but reached the vicinity of the Gap at three P.M. to find the enemy already in possession of it. But deploying in position, and opening with artillery, he maintained a resolute stand, holding him in check until dark, when he retreated to Gainesville. King, next to Reynolds in the column, was so long delayed that he was five hours later in reaching the point near Groveton, where the former caught a glimpse of Bradley Johnson's brigade. He was ordered to march down the pike to Centreville. The leading brigade under Hatch had passed this point, and the next brigade under Gibbon had just reached it, when his column was subjected to artillery fire from batteries which suddenly appeared north of the road. Deploying and advancing to drive them off, Gibbon came face to face with extended lines of infantry advancing upon him in battle order, and one of the most stubborn fights of the war took place. It was Jackson who, after lurking in his wooded lair all the afternoon, watching the heavy masses of Union troops passing down the pike, and successively sheering off near Groveton and marching away in the direction of Manassas, now pushed forward the divisions of Ewell and Taliaferro and attacked King's column. The field was a high, level, open plain, without any cover except a small patch of woods and an orchard and some farm buildings. Reports Taliaferro:-- "Here one of the most terrific conflicts that can be conceived of occurred. Our troops held the farmhouse and one edge of the orchard, while the enemy held the orchard and inclosure next the turnpike. For two hours and a half, without an instant's cessation of the most deadly discharges of musketry, roundshot, and shell, both lines stood unmoved, neither advancing and neither broken or yielding, until at last, about nine o'clock at night, the enemy slowly and sullenly fell back, and yielded the field to our victorious troops." This fierce conflict was sustained by Gibbon's brigade of four regiments, two regiments of Doubleday's brigade, and Campbell's battery, alone and without help from the remainder of King's division. General Gibbon, after an hour and a half of this terrible struggle, finding himself far outnumbered and outflanked on the left, ordered his line to fall back, which was done in good order. His pickets occupied the ground and collected the wounded. The enemy seems to have also drawn back to care for the wounded and reorganize, for Jackson's report contains this significant statement: "The next morning (29th) I found he had abandoned the ground occupied as the battlefield the evening before." It is incontestable that Gibbon's small force--six regiments and one battery--thus gloriously sustained the attack of five brigades of infantry and three batteries of artillery under Jackson's own direction. The loss was about eight hundred on each side. Ewell and Taliaferro were both severely wounded, the former losing a leg. During the battle General Reynolds rode to the field from his bivouac, and aided Gibbon in calling for support. General Ricketts reached Gainesville with his division just as the fight was over, having retreated from holding Longstreet in check. Thus at nine o'clock that night, Thursday, August 28, Ricketts and King held the pike from Gainesville to Groveton. Reynolds was in touch with King, being a short distance east of Groveton, Sigel next to him; while Pope's right wing was in the positions already stated, the ninth and Heintzelman's corps between Blackburn's Ford and Centreville, Porter east of, Banks at Bristoe. Thus Pope's army was well positioned for a determined attack upon Jackson the first thing the next morning by McDowell and Sigel, with the right coming up early to support. Such an attack should have beaten Jackson, if he accepted battle, but he could readily decline an unequal struggle by drawing back to Haymarket and uniting with Longstreet's columns. And it is clear that Pope's only chance of "bagging" or beating Jackson was lost on the 28th by the dilatory, disconnected, and purposeless marches of McDowell's wing. [Illustration: Conclusion of Gibbon's Fight. Positions, nine P.M., August 28, 1862; excepting Jackson's, which is that occupied by him during the 28th, 29th, and 30th.] But whatever advantage might have been gained from Gibbon's stanch fight was speedily thrown away by King's decision to abandon the ground, and that, too, after assuring General Ricketts, as that officer states, that he would hold on. At midnight he retreated to Manassas, and General Ricketts retreated to Bristoe. Both marched away from the enemy, and by daylight their troops, exhausted and discouraged by being marched day and night and made to shun the enemy, were strung out along the dusty roads ten miles from where they were needed, while Lee's right wing was swiftly marching to join Jackson, which nothing could now prevent. Something may be said in palliation of this retreat. The enemy held the ground in front of King, and might be expected to renew the battle in the morning. The advance of Longstreet was through the Gap and in contact with Ricketts, and only five miles distant, the afternoon before. It was to be expected that the Confederate leader would lose no time in pushing on to join Jackson, and he might move up during the night, and fall upon the two Union divisions with his whole force--thirty thousand men--at daylight. "No superior general officer was in the vicinity with the requisite knowledge and authority to order up troops," etc., says Gibbon. But why they did not retreat down the pike, where were Reynolds and Sigel close at hand, and by which King was ordered to move, is indeed incomprehensible. The chief responsibility for the series of blunders which rendered abortive the movements of the left wing clearly rests upon McDowell, its commander. His was the nerveless command that failed to make Sigel march when and whither ordered; his the sluggish movements that left his troops strung along the pike nearly to Warrenton, instead of concentrating them about Gainesville on the 27th; his the mistaken judgment that kept him from hastening in person that night to Gainesville, the key-point to his whole movement, and, worse yet, that led him to gallop off to consult with Pope the next day instead of remaining with his command, keeping his divisions in hand, and pushing them vigorously eastward along the railroad and the pike until he developed Jackson's position. But McDowell was constantly conferred with and depended upon by Pope, and had too much upon his mind the task of manoeuvring the whole army. During the day (28th) Pope was in a state of great uncertainty as to Jackson's movements, but late at night, learning of Gibbon's battle, he concluded that Jackson, while retreating up the pike, had been headed off and stopped by McDowell's troops, and his hopes revived. He issued his orders accordingly,--Kearny to move at one o'clock at night, even if he carries no more than two thousand men, and to advance up the turnpike; Hooker to march at three A.M., even if he shall have to do so with only half his men; the ninth corps, also, all up the pike; Sigel and Reynolds are to attack at earliest dawn; Porter to hasten forward to Centreville. FOOTNOTES: [19] John C. Ropes, _Army under Pope_, pp. 193-199, gives Pope 71,000; Lee, 54,268. General Longstreet, _Manassas to Appomattox_, gives Pope 54,500; Lee, 53,000. Colonel William Allen, _Army of Northern Virginia_, puts "Lee's strength at 47,000 to 55,000; say over 50,000." CHAPTER LVI THE SECOND BATTLE OF BULL RUN Early in the morning of Friday, the 28th, Jackson moved back behind the railroad grade, extended his lines, and took up his defensive position, extending from near Sudley Church along and in rear of the railroad to the high ground north of the pike, opposite to, or just north of, the battle-ground of the previous evening, curving his right to present a somewhat convex front towards the pike. Ewell's division, now under General A.R. Lawton, held the right, Hill's the left, and Jackson's, under General William E. Starke, the centre; Hill and Starke were in the woods. A battery was placed on the high ground in front of the right, and between it and the pike, and two regiments of infantry, 13th and 35th Virginia, were thrown across the pike into the woods on the south side of it. Other batteries were planted on the high "stony ridge" in rear of the main line. Secure in this position he calmly awaits events, knowing that a few hours will bring Longstreet on his right. [Illustration: SECOND BATTLE OF BULL RUN, AUGUST 29, 1862, AT NOON Except attacks on right, 4 to 5.30 P.M., as indicated] Sigel's troops are now pushing forward from the vicinity of Henry and Chinn hills. Schurz's division, with Milroy's independent brigade on its left, advances to the right across the pike, and, wheeling to the left, crosses the Sudley road and enters the woods which cover and screen Jackson's left and centre, with sharp fighting pushes back his skirmishers, seizes part of the railroad, and develops the enemy's position there. On the left of the pike Schenck's division advances, with its right on the pike and Reynolds's division on its left. Schenck's batteries take position on the ridges on each side of the pike near Groveton, and keep up a long-range cannonade with the enemy's guns on the high ridge in front; while the infantry slowly works forward, unopposed except by artillery fire, to that point. Reynolds also moves forward, swinging to the right, and driving back the two Virginia regiments, until he reaches the pike half a mile or more beyond Groveton, where Gibbon's battle began, and there finds the Union dead and wounded abandoned when King fell back the previous night. His line is formed along the road, facing north, and a short advance over the high ground will throw him on Jackson's extreme right. One of Schenck's brigades, Stahel's, is on his right; the other, McLean's, is in rear, or south of Stahel, and in the woods. It is now about ten A.M. It has taken four hours for Schurz to develop the enemy's left and centre, and for Schenck and Reynolds to advance a mile and a half over an easy country and push back a handful of skirmishers; and they have not yet located Jackson's right, although they have gained a good position from which to attack it. Their movement diverged from that of Schurz, and opened an interval in the line between Milroy and Stahel. The ground between them, indeed, was the open country on the right of the pike, commanded by their batteries, and the forward movement northward of the troops of Reynolds would soon have closed the gap. But Milroy was calling on Sigel for support, and for troops to fill the gap on his left. Schurz was also asking aid, and to meet their calls Stahel was hastily moved by the right flank across the fields towards Milroy. Reynolds was not informed of this movement, but, discovering that the troops on his right had disappeared, and supposing that the whole of Schenck's division had moved away, and observing a force of the enemy approaching his left, which was entirely in air, he immediately swung his division back, recrossed the Groveton road, and, finding McLean's brigade in the woods, took position on its left with his line refused somewhat. It was Longstreet's leading division under Hood just reaching the field that Reynolds observed, and it was probably well for him that he moved back so promptly. Now the troops of the right wing are reaching the field. First Kearny, who moves across country north of the pike with Poe's brigade pushing back the enemy's cavalry and skirmishers along Bull Run, and comes up against Jackson's extreme left, and on the right of Schurz. Then Stevens's division marches up the pike to the crossing of the Sudley road, where Sigel is receiving Schurz's and Milroy's cries for aid, and listening to the thunder of his guns shelling the batteries of the enemy, with the fervid imagination of a war correspondent. Sigel, with the consent of Reno, as he claims, immediately scatters this fine division, sending one brigade to Schurz, another to Milroy, and the third, with Benjamin's battery, E, of the 2d artillery, up the pike to Schenck. Reno's division, which next arrived, was dissipated in like manner, Nagle's brigade being sent to support Schurz, while the other with the artillery was placed in reserve on the ridge in rear of the Sudley road. Hooker's division on its arrival was also divided, Grover's brigade being sent to support Schurz; and afterwards Carr's brigade was put on the front line, relieving part of Schurz's force, and was in turn relieved by Hooker's remaining brigade, under General Nelson Taylor. It was not an uncommon thing during the war, as many an officer knows from dear-bought experience, for commanders of troops in action to beseech support, usually claiming that they were out of ammunition, or their flanks were being turned, and, when the reinforcements reached them, to put the new-comers into the front line and withdraw their own troops to the rear. This was what Sigel did with the divisions of the right wing as they reached the field. Thus these fine troops, second to none in condition, discipline, and _morale_, which, led by their own generals and thrown in mass upon the enemy, would have struck a mighty blow, were frittered away over the field, simply relieving other troops, and adding but little to the extent or strength of the battle line. Schurz, ever mightier with the pen than the sword, evinced a marvelous capacity to absorb reinforcements. And Sigel, having demonstrated his talents as a strategist and a marcher the previous day, now proved his ability on the battlefield by so scattering the seventeen thousand troops of the right wing as to deprive them of their own able and tried commanders, and reduce them to the least possible weight upon the fighting line. His division being thus scattered, General Stevens led up the pike the brigade which was to reinforce Schenck. This consisted of only a regiment and a half,--the 100th Pennsylvania and five companies of the 46th New York, the other five companies being detached to guard trains,--and Benjamin's battery of four 20-pounder rifled Parrotts. Approaching Groveton, two batteries on the right of the road, on the low ridge overlooking the hamlet, were exchanging shell-fire at long range with the enemy's batteries on the high ridge a mile in front. Save this, no enemy was visible in that vicinity. The little column was moving without skirmishers in front, for it was said that our troops held the ground beyond Groveton, the battery first, followed by the infantry in marching column of fours. The general and staff had reached the cross-road, the battery was descending the slope in the road, which here ran in quite a cut gullied out by rains and wear, when an extended line of gray-coated skirmishers emerged over the crest of the opposite ridge, two hundred yards distant, and, catching sight of the group of horsemen and the battery, quickly began firing upon them. It was impossible to turn the guns either to right or left out of the sunken road in which they were imprisoned; but Benjamin coolly led his battery thirty yards forward to where the banks were lower, the skirmishers coming nearer and their fire sharper every minute, then turned the leading team short to the left; the drivers plied the whip, the horses leaped up the steep bank, and with a sudden pull jerked the gun out of the cut. And piece after piece followed to the same point, and was extricated in like manner, and then, remounting the ridge, whirled into battery on the left of the road and opened fire. While Benjamin was thus extricating his guns, five companies of the 100th Pennsylvania dashed forward at double-quick, deploying as skirmishers across the cross-road, drove the enemy's skirmishers back behind their ridge, and held their ground until withdrawn four hours later. The two half regiments were placed in line on the reverse slope of the ridge in rear and to the left of the guns. A short distance on the left were the woods, and in the edge rested the right of McLean's brigade. It was the skirmishers of Hood's division that so nearly caught Benjamin's guns. They were pushed out to feel and locate the Union position promptly after Reynolds drew back. Longstreet's wing was fast arriving, and by noon four of his divisions were in position,--Hood across the pike, Kemper on his right, Jones still farther on their right, extending to the Manassas Gap Railroad, Evans's independent brigade in support of Hood, and Wilcox's division also supporting him on his left and rear. Two batteries of the Washington artillery took post on the high ridge with Jackson's guns and added their fire. With these additional batteries the artillery firing waxed heavier, and soon twenty hostile guns were hurling a storm of missiles upon the Union artillery at Groveton. After an hour's firing Schenck's batteries on the right of the road, Dilger and Wiedrich, went to the rear, out of ammunition, and for three long hours Benjamin was left to sustain unaided this storm of shot and shell. But Benjamin could plant his heavy, long-range shells with wonderful accuracy. He concentrated his fire on one battery, and ere long a caisson was seen to blow up on the distant ridge, and it ceased firing. Again and again he would concentrate on a battery and silence it, but only to have the others redouble their fire, and when he turned on them the first would reopen. At length two of his guns were disabled, and nearly half his men were killed or wounded. Now, at two P.M., Schenck concluded that he "was too far out," because Reynolds had refused his line on the left, and he could get no fresh artillery to continue the duel on the pike. Sigel says that he sent him an order to retire, but that Schenck anticipated it, so the discredit of the move belongs to both of them. By order of General Schenck, General Stevens drew in his skirmishers and moved back down the pike, placing Benjamin's two guns on an eminence of the Chinn Hill, and his two regiments on the right of the road in advance of the Rosefield House. Schenck and Reynolds moved back abreast to the western slope of the Chinn Hill. Thus, in this sequence of withdrawals, it will be seen that after Schenck and Reynolds had gotten in position to strike Jackson's right, although too late to do so without danger of Longstreet's advance falling upon their flank, Schenck sent off Stahel's brigade at Milroy's calls. Reynolds then moved back, because Schenck had retired and left him unsupported, as he supposed, and also because his left was threatened by Longstreet's advance; and Schenck in turn moved back because Reynolds had withdrawn, although the latter had only refused his line, which, situated in open ground with the enemy in force in his front, was the right thing for him to do. Our guns at Groveton could see along and flank the front of the Union line on the right as far as the railroad, and their thunder encouraged the troops on that wing, and deterred the enemy from aggressive movements which would subject them to an enfilade fire of artillery. The position was in truth a key-point, not only commanding the lower ground to the right, but also affording good ground upon which to receive an attack, or from which to advance, and, moreover, it covered the roads southward, by which Porter's troops, as will be seen presently, were expected to join the army. The drawing back of our guns and troops from Groveton was the signal for Jackson's lines to push forward more aggressively. Milroy was roughly handled and forced back. It was General Stevens's third brigade, under Colonel Addison Farnsworth, that was sent to support Schurz, and was posted on the front line along the railroad, next to Schimmelfennig's brigade. Part of this brigade, on Farnsworth's left, broke at the advance of the enemy, and fell back through the woods, but the Highlanders and Faugh-a-ballaghs stood firm and repulsed the attack. Soon afterwards the fugitives, having reformed, moved up in line from the rear, and began firing into the backs of the troops who had stood their ground, mistaking them for the enemy; but this was speedily stopped, and they were again placed on the line. The experience of the first brigade was equally unsatisfactory. Placed in the first line, they were left to bear the brunt of the fighting on Milroy's front, and were finally obliged to fall back by the giving way of troops on their flanks. General Pope arrived on the field about noon, and made his headquarters in rear of the Sudley road, near Buck Hill. Although he declares in his report that he refused Sigel's demands for reinforcements, it is clear beyond doubt that he neither put a stop to the wasteful scattering of his best troops, nor attempted to unite and bring them together as a disposable force of weight for offensive movements. All the afternoon he was expecting Porter's and McDowell's column to fall upon Jackson's right and rear, for he had worked himself up to the belief that Longstreet would not be up for another day, and nothing short of disastrous defeat could shake his dogged belief. On receiving news of King's and Ricketts's retreat from Gainesville and Groveton, which he did about daylight, General Pope ordered Porter to march upon Gainesville with his own corps and King's division. "I am following the enemy down the Warrenton turnpike," he adds. "Be expeditious, or we will lose much." And later he dispatched a joint order to McDowell and Porter to the same effect:-- "You will please move forward with your joint commands toward Gainesville.... Heintzelman, Sigel, and Reno are moving on the Warrenton turnpike, and must now be not far from Gainesville. I desire that as soon as communication is established between this force and your own, the whole command shall halt.... One thing must be had in view, that the troops must occupy a position from which they can reach Bull Run to-night or by daylight." Porter had already passed Manassas on his way to Centreville when he received the first order, but immediately countermarched to the Junction and towards Gainesville as ordered, with Morell's division leading, Sykes's next, then Piatt's brigade, and King following in rear. About eleven o'clock the head of the column reached Dawkins Branch, an insignificant brook four and a half miles from Gainesville, and two and a half miles south of Groveton. Here the enemy was perceived, and skirmishers were thrown across the creek, supported by Butterfield's brigade; and Porter was forming to advance on the enemy, when General McDowell joined him, and showed a dispatch from Buford as follows:-- "Headquarters Cavalry Brigade, 9.30 A.M. Seventeen regiments, one battery, and five hundred cavalry passed through Gainesville three quarters of an hour ago on the Centreville road." The presence of the enemy in front, and clouds of dust rising along the roads in his rear, corroborated this dispatch. So, too, did the noise of the artillery combat at Groveton. The two generals rode together through the woods to the right as far as the Manassas Gap Railroad, but decided that it was "impracticable" to move northward a mile and a half across country to effect a junction with the right wing. McDowell then left Porter, telling him that he would take King's division around by the Sudley road and put it in between Porter and the right wing. Except for some slight changes in position of the head of his column, Porter remained inactive the rest of the day, with his rear stretching back two and a half miles along the road. What befell King's division, under McDowell's guidance, will be seen later. Unquestionably, Longstreet was up and in position in time to resist the attack of McDowell and Porter, had they made one. And a board of three officers of great reputation and experience,--Generals Schofield, Terry, and Getty,--after a thorough examination, has declared that such an attack would have been ill advised, has applauded Porter's conduct, and pronounced the opinion that his presence there that day saved the army from disaster. Nevertheless, the fact remains that this great column of over twenty thousand troops was kept out of the ring completely. The orders given and objects to be gained were perfectly plain and simple. They were, first, to fall upon the enemy, supposed to be Jackson, and, second, to effect a junction with the right wing. McDowell and Porter did neither. Granting that an attack was ill judged, why was not a brigade brought up and deployed athwart the railroad, and a regiment pushed through the woods northward to locate and connect with the force on the pike, whose artillery was distinctly heard? Traversing only three quarters of a mile of intervening woods, such a column would have reached open fields, and come in sight of Reynolds's troops. But, more surprising still, why was no one sent up the roads which fork both from the road and railroad only half a mile back of the head of Porter's column, traverse the woods in a northerly direction, and lead to Groveton? A staff officer sent up this road would have come in sight of Reynolds's skirmishers in a ride of only a mile. Unable longer to control his impatience, General Pope began about four P.M. sending peremptory orders to attack, first to one command, then to another, as he could get hold of them, accompanying the orders with assurances that the enemy was being driven by some other command, and that Porter was about to fall, or was falling, on his flank and rear, and using him up. The first victim of this plan of beating a corps in strong position by attacking it with a brigade at a time was General Cuvier Grover's brigade, first of Hooker's division, comprising five regiments,--1st, 11th, and 16th Massachusetts, 2d New Hampshire, and 26th Pennsylvania,--which was already supporting Schurz. With muskets loaded and bayonets fixed, ordered to close on the enemy, fire one volley, and charge with the bayonet, they struck him where the railroad emerged from the woods and crossed the hollow on an embankment, broke the first line, carried the embankment, swept eighty yards beyond it and broke a second line, only to be forced back by overpowering numbers, with a loss of four hundred and eighty-six, for this gallant charge was entirely unsupported. Reports General Grover:-- "We rapidly and firmly pressed upon the embankment, and here occurred a short, sharp, and obstinate hand-to-hand conflict with bayonets and clubbed muskets. Many of the enemy were bayoneted in their tracks, others struck down with the butts of pieces, and onward pressed our line. In a few yards more it met a terrible fire from a second line, which in its turn broke. The enemy's third line now bore down upon our thinned ranks in close order, and swept back the right centre and a portion of the left. With the gallant 16th Massachusetts on our left I tried to turn his flank, but the breaking of our right and centre and the weight of the enemy's lines caused the necessity of falling back, first to the embankment and then to our first position, behind which we rallied to our colors." One is not surprised to find the following in the report of Colonel William Blaisdell, 11th Massachusetts:-- "I was greatly amazed to find that the regiment had been sent to engage a force of more than five times its numbers, strongly posted in thick woods and behind heavy embankments, and not a soldier to support it in case of disaster." Hooker's third brigade, under Colonel Joseph B. Carr, earlier in the day had relieved part of Schurz's troops, and after, as he reports, fighting two hours and expending most of his ammunition, was in turn relieved by the second brigade, under General Nelson Taylor. When Grover was driven back, Taylor's left regiment was broken by the rush of fugitives; the enemy poured through the gap, giving an enfilade and reverse fire, and taking many prisoners, among them General Taylor's aides, Lieutenants Tremain and Dwight. "Finding my line," says Taylor, "completely flanked and turned, and in danger of being entirely cut off, I gave the order to fall back, which was done in as good order as could be, situated as we were. The loss on this occasion was not as large as I had reason to apprehend, yet it was considerable." Scarce had these broken troops emerged from the woods and reformed in the open ground in rear, when General Reno led up his first brigade, under Colonel James Nagle, to a second attack on the same position from which Grover had been repulsed. This consisted of only three regiments,--48th Pennsylvania, 6th New Hampshire, and 2d Maryland. This also was a gallant and determined assault. Again the enemy was forced back from the railroad, but again his rear lines rushed forward, flanked Nagle on the left, and drove him back with a loss of five hundred and thirty-one. Kearny was holding the right with Robinson's brigade, while Poe's brigade was guarding his right flank, with his skirmishers extending to and across Bull Run, and Birney's brigade was supporting both. Now, after the crash of musketry of Reno's attack had all died away, and his troops were all out of the woods, Kearny makes his attack. Reinforcing Robinson with one of Poe's and four of Birney's regiments, and throwing forward his right, wheeling to the left until his lines are nearly athwart the railroad, he charges along it to the left, driving the enemy in great disorder. But his attacking force lacks weight; the charge comes to a stand. They are assailed by two brigades from Ewell, those of Lawton and Early, outflanked, overpowered, and are forced back to the position from which they started; many of them, however, in broken and disordered crowds, run out of the woods farther to the left, near the same place where appeared Hooker's and Reno's fugitives so recently. Eight regiments only out of Kearny's fifteen make this attack. His loss was about six hundred. Nothing but the timely counter-charge of Lawton and Early saved Hill. The rattle of musketry is still echoing in the forest, and Kearny's fugitives are pouring out upon the open, when an officer in hot haste conveys Pope's order to General Stevens to advance into the woods and attack. The only troops left him are the regiment and a half withdrawn from Groveton, only seven hundred strong. Without an instant's delay, the troops take their muskets from the stacks, double-quick across the open ground, and form line at the edge of the woods. Kearny himself rides over to the little force just forming, and, at his request, Captain Stevens stops a moment to write an order or message for him, for he has but one arm. The scanty line enters and sweeps through the woods, encounters the enemy now holding the railroad, delivers and receives for fifteen minutes, which seem hours, a heavy musketry fire, and then, with the enemy swarming past both flanks, is forced back through the woods to the open ground, where the men at once halt and reform. Both the regimental commanders and Colonel Leasure, commanding the brigade, were severely wounded, and the loss was about two hundred. General Stevens's horse was shot under him, and also that of his orderly. It was remarked that when his troops emerged out of the woods, almost the last one was a short man in a general's uniform, followed by a tall orderly bearing a saddle on his shoulder. With this attack the fighting on the right came to an end for the day. The possession of the woods along the railroad was relinquished to the enemy. A strong skirmish line held the edge of, and to the right a good part of, the timber. The troops were posted in rear in good positions for the night, the scattered commands being collected. General Stevens's brigades were gotten together after some search, and the division was posted in the woods a quarter of a mile to the right and a little to the rear of the place where Leasure's brigade formed for the attack. The following incident, which illustrates the evil effects of scattering commands, is related in the history of the 79th Highlanders by Captain William T. Lusk, one of the general's aides:-- "I was directed to find Farnsworth; was sent by Sigel to Schurz, and by Schurz to Schimmelfennig. The gallant German, when at last found, exclaimed, 'Mein Gott! de troops, dey all runned avay, and I guess your men runned avay, too!' General Stevens was indignant, and used some pretty strong language, when I carried back this report, and ordered me to find the missing regiments, and not to return until I brought them with me. I started, therefore, for the old railroad embankment. Luckily, I found Farnsworth just on the edge of the woods. He said he was waiting for orders, but had none since I left him in the morning." But the day was not to close without one more useless slaughter of brave troops. McDowell brought King's division along the Sudley road nearly to the pike, by half past four, passing without notice, at Newmarket, the old Warrenton turnpike, which here forked from the Sudley road and led to the unoccupied gap between Porter and Reynolds, to the very position where he told Porter he would put King. Pope first directed the division over to the right, where his attacks by detachments were being so disastrously repulsed, and finally, just as it reached the pike, ordered McDowell to push it up the road in pursuit of the enemy, declaring that he was in full retreat. McDowell gave the order and the encouragement. Gibbon's brigade, which had suffered so severely in the fight the previous night, was placed in support of batteries on the Rosefield ridge. The other three brigades, under Hatch (King being sick), fired by the lying promises of success, which were strengthened by the tremendous outbursts of musketry and roar of guns on the right wing, where they were told Jackson was being driven, hastened up the road with high hopes. Near Groveton, about dusk, they deployed,--Hatch's brigade on the right of the road, Doubleday on the left, Patrick in reserve,--and pushed on with great confidence. But Longstreet, who all the afternoon had held his hand, notwithstanding Lee's wish to attack, was at that very moment advancing Hood's division, supported by Evans's brigade and Wilcox's division, with Hunton's brigade of Kemper's division on Hood's right. The opposing forces encountered a short distance in front of Groveton, but the disparity in numbers was too great for the Union troops. The fight was furious but brief. Their left was outflanked and broken, and both brigades were driven back with heavy loss, including one gun. Patrick in some degree checked the enemy, who pursued considerably to the rear of Groveton. Night put a stop to the unequal struggle. This ended the fighting of the 29th. The Union arms were outnumbered and repulsed in every encounter, and lost ground on both wings. Sigel's dilatory and timid advance consumed the morning hours until, with Longstreet's arrival, the chance of attacking Jackson's right was lost. Sigel, too, may be censured for his importunate and unsoldierly demands for aid which so frittered away the weight of the right wing. But Pope on his arrival could have rectified this. Pope, and Pope alone, ordered the hasty and disconnected attacks of the afternoon, wasting the blood and impairing the _morale_ of his best troops. The four divisions of Stevens, Reno, Kearny, and Hooker numbered forty-three regiments, 17,000 effective, as fine troops as ever marched under the stars and stripes, and as well commanded. Had Pope, disregarding the clamors of Sigel and Schurz, arrayed these splendid troops in battle order on his right, and hurled them in one combined attack upon the enemy, pushing into the fight also Schurz and Milroy and twenty of the guns that were idling in the centre upon the ridge, Jackson would surely have been driven back upon Longstreet. The battle would then have raged on the heights beyond Groveton, the scene of Gibbon's fight; and here Longstreet, with the advantages of position and greatly superior numbers, might have retrieved the day, or at least stayed farther Union advance, even though Schenck and Reynolds attacked his right with their utmost vigor. In such a battle Porter might possibly have turned the scale; but his troops, only partly deployed and stretching back along the road for three miles, were not in hand for prompt aggressive movement. All that afternoon Lee was master of the situation. His army was united. Pope's was divided; over twenty thousand of his troops out of reach and beyond his control. If Lee had struck with his right wing, Schenck and Reynolds, who alone confronted it, could not long have resisted the overpowering numbers, and Pope would have been driven across Bull Run. Porter could never have prevented the disaster. He could not have thrown his troops into the fight in time, unready as they were, and especially if the ground on his right was broken, difficult, and impenetrable, as he claimed, but mistakenly. It was Longstreet's slow-paced caution that saved Pope that afternoon. On McDowell's arrival on the field Pope learned of Porter's inaction, and immediately sent him a positive order to attack, which reached him at too late an hour to be executed. Pope thereupon sent him an order to march to the battlefield. Early in the morning of the next day, the 30th, General Stevens went over to Pope's headquarters, which were a short distance in the rear, and there found assembled Pope, McDowell, Heintzelman, Reno, and other general officers. Pope was confident that the enemy had retreated during the night, and, greatly to General Stevens's astonishment, some of the others coincided in that opinion. He, however, strongly expressed the contrary view, whereupon Pope directed him to push a strong skirmish line into the woods in his front and try the enemy. Accordingly Captain John More, of the 79th Highlanders, one of the best and bravest officers in the division, with one hundred men of his regiment, skirmished into the woods and attacked the enemy with great spirit; but after half an hour's sharp firing Captain More was brought out shot through the body, and a third of his men were killed or wounded. No impression was made on the enemy. General Early, who commanded a brigade in Ewell's division, says in his report: "During the course of the morning the skirmishers from my brigade repulsed a column of the enemy which commenced to advance." The Highlanders were withdrawn, and the result of their effort immediately reported to General Pope, but it had no effect upon his opinionated mind. By his positive assertions of driving the enemy and of his having retreated, he had imbued McDowell and Heintzelman largely with his own views. Thus filled with Pope's ideas, and having little personal observation of the previous day's battle, they hastily rode along the right wing, and came back and corroborated the mistaken views of the infatuated commander. One circumstance there was which lent color to them, and that was that during the night both Jackson and Longstreet drew back to their main line those troops that, in the eagerness of combat, had pushed beyond it. Yet there was scarcely a man in all the Union army, except the army and two corps commanders, who did not bitterly realize that they had been worsted the day before, and who did not feel sure that the enemy was still in front, stronger and readier than ever to renew the battle. Ricketts's division reached the field the previous evening. In the morning two brigades were placed on the extreme right, relieving some of Kearny's troops, and the other two brigades were left in reserve near the centre. Apparently no opportunity of dividing and scattering commands was to be lost. About nine A.M. Porter arrived with his troops, except Griffin's brigade of Morell's division and Martin's battery, which by some error had retired to Centreville. The forenoon wore away without demonstration beyond considerable artillery firing. No reconnoissance in force was attempted. At length at noon Pope issued an order, the most astonishing in its fatuity ever given on a battlefield:-- HEADQUARTERS NEAR GROVETON, August 30, 1862, 12 M. SPECIAL ORDERS, NO. --. The following forces will be immediately thrown forward and in pursuit of the enemy, and press him vigorously during the whole day. Major-General McDowell is assigned to the command of the pursuit. Major-General Porter's corps will push forward on the Warrenton turnpike, followed by the divisions of Brigadier-Generals King and Reynolds. The division of Brigadier-General Ricketts will pursue the Haymarket road, followed by the corps of Major General Heintzelman. The necessary cavalry will be assigned to these columns by Major-General McDowell, to whom regular and frequent reports will be made. The general headquarters will be somewhere on the Warrenton turnpike. By command of MAJOR-GENERAL POPE, GEORGE D. RUGGLES, _Colonel and Chief of Staff_. The enemy he thus ordered pursued were at that moment, as they had been since noon the previous day, all up, posted in strong position, flushed with success, confident in themselves, well rested, and not inferior in numbers. And their skillful leader was only waiting the opportune moment to launch the mighty thunderbolt of war he so ably wielded. Such was the situation. But nothing had any effect upon the mind of the infatuated commander; the bloody repulses of the previous day, the loss of ground on both wings, the information thrust upon him by McDowell, Porter, Ricketts, and Reynolds that Longstreet's advance had passed Gainesville before nine o'clock the previous morning, over twenty-four hours before, and that his forces had confronted Porter and Reynolds all the afternoon before,--all, all was disregarded, and Pope, impervious alike to reason and to facts, without a reconnoissance save the spirited push of the hundred Highlanders, gave the fatal order fraught with disaster to his army, and the acme of his own fatuity and incompetence. But the officers charged with the execution of the order never attempted to carry it out according to its terms. With the exception perhaps of McDowell, they knew too well that it was an order impossible to execute. Ricketts, already in contact with the hostile line, reported that the enemy had no intention of retreating, and was ordered to hold his position. Porter made no effort to "push up the Warrenton turnpike, followed by the divisions of King and Reynolds." The pursuit feature of the order was ignored by all, and instead of it a strong column of attack was organized against Jackson's centre. This was composed of Porter's troops and King's division, under Porter's command, and was slowly formed behind the screen of woods in advance of the right centre of the Union lines. Stevens's division, two brigades of Ricketts's division, and Kearny held the lines on the right. In rear of Porter and King, and in rear of the centre, were placed Hooker's, Reno's, and two brigades of Ricketts's division, and all of Sigel's corps except McLean's brigade, which held the left, south of the pike, in front of the Chinn Hill. Reynolds with his small division extended the line on McLean's left. Extending from Rosefield for a long distance toward the right, on the crest of the ridge, was planted a long row of artillery,--forty guns at least,--as near together as they could be handled, while other batteries were in rear, unable to find a place in the line. A few batteries occupied positions in advance of this ridge, and exchanged incessant fire with the enemy's guns across the wide, open ground. Thus Pope bunched nearly his whole army in the centre, leaving his right weak, and his left wing a mere handful. [Illustration: SECOND BATTLE OF BULL RUN, SECOND DAY, AUGUST 30, 1862 Positions at 4 P.M., and successive positions on left] While Porter was slowly forming his column, his skirmishers pushed forward over the open ground nearly to Groveton. Reynolds, too, advanced his skirmishers on the left through the skirt of woods near Groveton, south of the pike, and discovered the enemy's skirmishers extending far to his left and rear, "evidently masking a column of the enemy formed for attack on my left flank, when our line should be sufficiently advanced." So important was this discovery deemed by Reynolds that he galloped instantly to Pope and reported it. How the information was received is graphically told by General Ruggles, Pope's chief of staff, in a letter to General Porter, which the author is permitted to use:-- "At two P.M. or thereabouts, Reynolds came dashing up, his horse covered with foam, threw himself out of the saddle, and said, 'General Pope, the enemy is turning our left.' General Pope replied, 'Oh, I guess not!' Reynolds rejoined, 'I have considered this information of sufficient importance to run the gauntlet of three rebel battalions to bring it to you in person. I had thought you would believe _me_.' Thereupon General Pope turned to General John Buford and said, 'General Buford, take your brigade of cavalry and go out and see if the enemy _is_ turning our left flank.' Reynolds then said, 'I go back to my command.'" How clearly this incident reveals the infatuated, dogged state of mind that possessed Pope! It is after four P.M. when Porter gives the order to advance. The first and third brigades of Morell's division in columns, under Butterfield, are in front, Sykes's regulars are in support. King's division, under Hatch, advances on the right of Butterfield in a column seven lines deep, with intervals of fifty yards between the lines. Sweeping through the woods, they come in sight of the railroad embankment and the wooded hill beyond it. Instantly the whole side of the hill and edges of the woods swarm with men before unseen. Says General Warren in his report: "The effect was not unlike flushing a covey of quails." A terrific musketry is poured upon the advancing column, while a storm of shell and shrapnel smite its flank with most deadly fire from the batteries on the ridge to the left front. With hearty cheers, the advancing troops desperately charge the embankment and railroad cut on the right of it, and when repulsed, charge again, and then cling to their ground and open steady musketry. All in vain. Longstreet throws two more batteries forward on the ridge, and fatally enfilades the struggling troops. "Butterfield's troops are torn to pieces," says Sykes. In half an hour all is over, the repulse is complete, and the shattered troops move sullenly back, bearing out many wounded. In that short time they have lost 700 men. General Stevens, having formed his divisions in three lines, each a brigade, moves forward through the woods on the right of Porter's column, and, without waiting for orders, attacks simultaneously with him, at once becomes furiously engaged, and suffers heavy loss, including Colonel Farnsworth, who is severely wounded. General Stevens maintains this contest until Porter's column is repulsed, when he withdraws his command to the first ridge in rear of the woods, posting his lines just behind the crest, with skirmishers holding the edge of the woods. Porter's attack, made nearly at the same point as Grover's, did not penetrate the enemy's position so deeply. With only 2500 men, the latter broke two lines and swept eighty yards beyond the embankment, while Porter with 12,000 men did not carry the embankment. But how different the conditions under which he attacked,--the enemy in stronger force, better prepared, and Longstreet's terrible artillery tearing to pieces the flank of the columns! And is not something due the _morale_ of his troops, which was almost systematically broken by the blunders and disasters of this unhappy campaign? With what confidence could King's division be expected to charge, which, after marching all day Thursday, sustained the fierce and stubborn fight near Groveton with Jackson's two divisions, then moved away at midnight, abandoning their wounded and the field they had so bravely won; then marching all the next day, with occasional halts, until at dusk they were brought upon the field, and, deceived with false hopes of success, were dashed against overpowering masses of the enemy almost on the scene of their recent battle, and only twelve hours after it, and were broken and driven back with disaster; and the third day--Saturday--were exposed to shell fire for several hours, while slowly taking place in the attacking column, knowing full well that they were about to be hurled against the very centre and strongest part of the enemy's position, from which every attack of the previous day had been met with bloody repulse,--"Where even privates realized," says Colonel Charles W. Roberts, commanding Morell's first brigade, "that they were going into the jaws of death itself"? Clearly, this was not such an attack as these troops would have made if in their normal condition, and with any hopes of success. And their able commander did not drive it home with the full weight and vigor of one who, confident of success, puts in the last man and the last effort. Sykes's division was not brought up to renew the charge upon the railroad, for Porter, seeing that success was hopeless, wisely used it to cover the falling back of Butterfield and Hatch. The enemy's reports bear abundant witness to the gallantry and severity of Porter's charge, which shook Jackson so that even he called aloud for assistance. In his report he says:-- "The Federal infantry, about four o'clock in the evening, moved from under cover in the woods and advanced in several lines, first engaging the right, but soon extending its attack to the centre and left. In a few minutes our entire line was engaged in a fierce and sanguinary struggle. As one line was repulsed, another took its place and pressed forward, as if determined, by force of numbers and fury of assault, to drive us from our positions. So impetuous and well sustained were these onsets as to induce me to send to the commanding general for reinforcements." Says Colonel Bradley T. Johnson, who commanded the second brigade of Ewell's division:-- "Before the railroad cut, the fight was most obstinate. I saw a Federal flag hold its position for half an hour within ten yards of the flag of one of the regiments in the cut, and go down six or eight times; and after the fight one hundred dead were lying within twenty yards from the cut, some of them within two feet of it. The men fought until their ammunition was exhausted, and then threw stones. Lieutenant Lewis Randolph killed one with a stone, and I saw him after the fight with his skull fractured." With Porter's repulse comes Lee's opportunity, the opening for which he has so coolly waited the better part of two days. Longstreet, anticipating the order to advance, throws forward his whole wing in one of those overwhelming attacks for which he became famous. At first there seems to be almost nothing to oppose the avalanche. Pope has just ordered Reynolds's division to the right of the pike to aid in protecting Porter's withdrawal, although more than half the army was bunched together there in the centre, and Meade's and Seymour's brigades and Ransom's battery have taken the new position. Colonel G.K. Warren, of Sykes's division, without waiting for orders, seeing Hazlett's battery, which was well advanced on the pike, uncovered by Reynolds's movement, has just hurried his little brigade of two regiments, 5th and 10th New York, over to the left of the road to support the battery, when the storm bursts upon him. Furiously assailed in front, masses of the enemy come swarming through the woods on his left and rear, and it is only by breaking to the rear that any escape capture. His loss is four hundred and thirty-one, but the few minutes he holds back the enemy saves the guns. Reynolds's remaining brigade, under Anderson, with three batteries, in the act of moving to the right as ordered, is suddenly assailed with fury and forced to turn and fight where it stands, and now bears the brunt of the onslaught. Under cover of the woods, the enemy has completely turned the flank of all the Union positions, as Reynolds had told Pope only an hour before, and now strikes them with heavy masses of infantry on both front and left. After a gallant resistance Anderson is forced back, with the loss of four guns of Kerns's battery and the caissons of Cooper's. McLean, who sees with amazement Reynolds's division move away, leaving him to hold the hill alone, at once deploys his brigade, facing westward, and receives the attack. He now changes front to the left, and in a magnificent charge drives back the flanking forces of the enemy, but has to offer his right in the movement to the deadly enfilade fire from his former front, and he, too, bravely struggling, is borne back over the Chinn Hill. Meantime the generals in the centre are making frantic efforts to hurry troops over to the left. General Zealous B. Tower, distinguished for his gallantry in the Mexican war, one of the ablest officers of the army, leads the two reserve brigades of Ricketts across the pike and up the Chinn Hill, where McLean is being overborne; but, before he can reach a good position, his men are falling by scores, he is stricken down with a severe wound,--disabled for life and his career in the field closed,--and ere long his brigades are driven back. Colonel Koltes, of Sigel's corps, leading his brigade to the same position, is killed, and his troops, too, are forced back. General Schenck, leading reinforcements to McLean, is wounded. The enemy have driven the last defenders from the Chinn Hill and plateau, and their exultant lines go sweeping on to complete the victory. But Reynolds, with Meade's and Seymour's brigades, and Milroy with his brigade, are now formed in line upon the slope of the Henry Hill, along or near the Sudley road, and throw back the charging Confederates with deadly fire, and soon Sykes's regulars, Buchanan's and Chapman's brigades, and Weed's battery reinforce the hard-pressed and struggling line, extending it farther to the left and rear. The enemy cannot break it, but his fire fast thins its ranks, and his flanking movement and deadly enfilade still continue. At last night is at hand, and the fury of his attack abates. The defenders, spent with heavy loss and the hard struggle, now fall back; but General Reno has just led his second brigade and Graham's battery up the hill, and forms his three regiments, 21st Massachusetts, 51st Pennsylvania, and 51st New York, around its crest in a thin line facing both the Chinn Hill and the woods on the left, with the guns in the intervals between the regiments. In this position he repulses after dark two attacks of Wilcox's troops, the last efforts of Longstreet's mighty onslaught. After nine o'clock, after the fighting had ceased, he quietly retires from the hill and marches to Centreville. In the centre Jackson's right followed up Porter's retreating troops sharply; but the fire of the numerous guns searching all the open ground there, and the firm attitude of our troops, kept them at bay. But when the Chinn Hill was lost, and the enemy's fire from there smote the troops of Sigel holding the centre near the pike, they were forced to fall back to the ridge, where they took up a new position behind the Sudley road. As soon as Longstreet's attack was well in progress, all the rebel guns upon the high ridge were turned upon our right, for they dared not continue firing upon the left and centre for fear of injuring their own troops now swarming onward against the Union positions, and the concentric fire of forty guns now pounded with a perfect hail of shot and shell the Union troops and batteries on that wing. The men there lay hugging the ground in rear of the guns, partially sheltered by the low ridges, while the artillery fired with its utmost rapidity upon the rebel lines of battle emerging over the distant ridge and advancing down the slope until lost to view in the woods, or beneath the smoke which now hung over the lower ground. They swept onward in splendid order, not in one or two long lines, but regiment after regiment, separately, with blood-red colors proudly borne aloft and pointed forward, like wave after wave of ocean after a storm, rolling onward with resistless majesty and power. From the great battery in our centre belched a mighty and continuous roar and volume of thunder, and dense clouds of dusky, sulphurous smoke rolled over the landscape in front; while beyond it, on the left, but apparently beneath its folds, rose the incessant clatter and crackle of musketry, with now and again the heavier, sharper noise of great volleys, telling of the dreadful struggle raging there. Surely there are no sights and sounds more terrible than those of a great battle. When this scene of pandemonium was at its height, General Stevens quietly remarked to General Ricketts, as they stood near one of our batteries watching the fight on the left front: "If we can hold the right here, the enemy must be repulsed, for General Pope has nearly all his troops over there, and can certainly repel any attack on his left." Soon after this General Reno was standing with General Stevens near the same point. The battery had ceased firing, for the enemy's infantry were no longer visible. Suddenly a tall young fellow, in a Union sergeant's uniform, came running up the slope from the woods two hundred yards in front, and cried out, "Don't fire on that regiment; it is the 26th New York. It has been in the woods, and is just coming out. Don't fire! Don't fire!" All looked, and there, at the edge of the woods, was a line of troops in blue uniforms just forming. General Reno turned to General Stevens, as if in doubt; but Captain Stevens, knowing that the enemy's skirmishers held the edge of the woods ever since ours were drawn in, impulsively called out to the battery, "Fire! They are rebels! Fire!" The guns instantly fired upon them, and as quickly they disappeared, melted, into the woods. The sergeant, too, had disappeared, when we turned to find him, having made good use of his long legs to rejoin his companions when his bold ruse failed. A little later, when the great struggle on the left was still raging, a mounted officer came galloping at high speed down to the line and delivered an order from General Pope to retreat. "General Pope orders the right wing to fall back at once. The enemy has turned the left, and if it remains half an hour longer, it will be cut off and captured." With this, back he raced, faster, if possible, than he came. Very deliberately and quietly General Stevens gave the necessary orders, cautioning his colonels against haste or flurry. One by one the guns ceased firing, and were limbered up and taken to the rear. When the last one had gone, the infantry rose to their feet, and marched back in usual marching column. Out of the woods in front the enemy were swarming like angry bees in clouds of skirmishers, and beginning to push up the slope. By the time our troops had moved two hundred yards back from the little ridge or roll of ground they had just left, the enemy came pouring over it in considerable numbers. But General Stevens had thrown his two rear regiments in line, and they opened with a well-aimed volley, which instantly cleared the ridge of the pursuers. The regiments promptly resumed the retreat, and four hundred yards farther back filed past two more of General Stevens's regiments, which in like manner stood in line ready to repel too hot a pursuit. At this moment General Kearny came from the right at the head of a small force, apparently a regiment, passing along the rear side of a point of woods which extended to near where General Stevens's line stood. Just then the enemy began firing out of this cover. Instantly Kearny fronted his scanty force into line and dashed it into the woods; but quickly a sharp volley resounded in the timber, and his men came running out, and continued to the rear, pursued by the enemy's skirmishers in equal disorder. Upon these the waiting line poured a deliberate volley, and back they went running into the woods. The troops, after administering this sharp rebuff, filed off to the rear unmolested, and moved over a prominent ridge a thousand yards back, along the crest of which was drawn up in line a part of Ricketts's division, apparently a brigade. It was now fast growing dark. General Stevens, knowing that the pike would be crowded with retreating troops, wished to cross Bull Run somewhere above the bridge, and sent for Major Elliott, of the Highlanders, who was at the first battle of Bull Run, and might know of some practicable ford. This proved to be the case; and after some little delay the division, guided by Major Elliott, crossed at Locke's or Red House Ford, and moved by a cross-road to the pike, where, finding the main road jammed full of troops and artillery flowing past in a dense column, General Stevens bivouacked till morning, when he moved to Centreville. While the division was waiting on the ridge behind Ricketts's troops, they opened with a sudden volley, as startling as unexpected, in the darkness. The enemy, pursuing, were advancing up the hill when this volley stopped them, and, falling back to the foot of the ridge, they lay there all night. Ricketts's brigade immediately moved off to the left by a farm road to a ford a short distance above the bridge, where they crossed. Soon after these troops had filed away in the darkness, General Stevens sent Lieutenant Heffron, one of his aides, to the crest which they had just left, telling him to observe, try if he could see or hear the enemy, and come back and report. After sufficient time had elapsed for Heffron to have performed the duty, he sent Captain Stevens on a similar errand, for his column was not quite ready to move; owing to delay in finding out about the ford, and there was nothing between it and the enemy. He, too, rode back to the crest, gazed into the darkness, listened intently, without catching sight or sound, and started to ride down the front of the ridge to make sure of the enemy's position, when the reflection that Heffron had probably done that very thing and had not returned caused him to turn back and rejoin his command, the rear of which was just moving off. Heffron had ridden down the slope and into the enemy's line at its foot, and was captured. At this time two brigades of Kearny's division, which, being more in rear than Ricketts's, had moved back before him, were on or in front of the ridge, only a musket-shot to the left of the enemy lying at its foot, each force ignorant of the other's presence, and remained there until ten P.M., when they retreated by the same route as Ricketts. Poe's brigade, on the extreme right, fell back, and recrossed the run by the same ford as General Stevens's division, and before it. Thus the troops of the right wing made good their retreat in perfect order and without loss, except that of some guns of Ricketts.[20] General Pope in his report, after claiming that he repulsed the enemy at all points, states that he gave the order to withdraw to Centreville after eight o'clock at night. No doubt he did give such an order at that time, but he suppresses all mention of the orders he gave to retreat and fall back long before that time, when he saw his left being turned and overpowered, and, his presumptuous confidence knocked out of him, thought more of saving part of his army than of repelling the enemy. And then it was, about six P.M., that so many troops were hurried off the field in retreat to Centreville, among them Nagle's brigade, of Reno's division, two brigades of Hooker's, King's division, and some of Sigel's troops in the centre, and the whole of the right wing; and then, too, it was that he dispatched the order to General Banks at Bristoe Station to destroy the public property and retreat to Centreville. At that time the head of Franklin's corps of the Army of the Potomac was up to the stone bridge on its march to reinforce Pope, and might have been used to maintain his battle. But that commander already had more men on the field than he was capable of using. Under the leadership of a Sheridan, a Grant, a Meade, or a Thomas, his gallant army would never have retreated from the field, and might have inflicted a deadly blow upon its antagonist. How bravely and even desperately the Union troops fought is best attested by the Confederate reports, and the nine thousand Confederate losses in killed and wounded. The Union loss, including that of the 28th, amounted to fourteen thousand. That at the end of the battle there was disorder and demoralization among some commands it were idle to deny, but it has been grossly exaggerated. NOTE.--General Pope's reports are very erroneous and misleading; the histories of the battle, following his statements, scarce less so. He and they habitually speak of corps when only brigades were engaged, and give all his dispositions and movements an aspect of forethought and order the reverse of the fact. It is only by careful study of the reports of division, brigade, and regimental commanders, and of the dispatches on the field, that the shifting struggle can be traced out. _War Records_, vol. xii., Report and Testimony in Review of Fitz-John Porter Case. FOOTNOTES: [20] The reports of Jackson and his subordinates indulge in much exaggeration as to driving the Union forces in their front, but Longstreet, with more truth, states in his book, p. 189, that "Jackson failed to pull up even on the left." CHAPTER LVII THE BATTLE OF CHANTILLY Having safely withdrawn his division from the disastrous field, crossing Bull Run by Red House Ford, General Stevens conducted it to the main turnpike, now brimful with retreating troops. It was night, too, and quite dark. Unwilling to plunge his command into the crowded throng, he halted and allowed them to sleep on their arms by the roadside, while the dense, dark tide of troops, trains, and artillery flowed past all night. After daylight he resumed the march by the pike, now clear, and halted for breakfast in the fields a mile from Centreville. The men were ravenously hungry, having long since emptied their haversacks; the supply trains were in the rear, no one knew where, so that a drink of water and a tightened belt seemed destined to be the only breakfast. But General Stevens, having observed a small herd of cattle near by belonging to some commissary, had them driven up and slaughtered; some wagons loaded with hard bread were also seized, and soon the entire command were cooking and enjoying a hearty repast of beefsteak and hard tack. General Stevens now received orders from General Pope to act as rear-guard. Reno's division (that officer being ill and off duty), a brigade of cavalry, and two batteries were added to his command for that duty, the most important and responsible in the army at this juncture. He moved out and took position on Cub Run, two and a half miles in front of Centreville, throwing out a strong skirmish line beyond the creek, and disposing his batteries and troops to resist an attack. Contrary to expectation, the enemy did not press on after his victory, although he appeared in force, advanced his skirmish line in plain view, and opened briskly with his artillery, to which ours as briskly replied. The day was wet, drizzling, and dreary, but at last wore away with nothing more serious. At night General Reynolds and his division relieved General Stevens. He criticised some of the latter's dispositions, which called out a sharp rejoinder. He declared that the enemy's skirmishers were too close, and deployed a regiment to drive them back, but his men, to his intense chagrin, hung back. Then he said the enemy might attack at any moment. But General Stevens did not share his apprehensions, and remarked to him, "I think it most probable that the enemy will move around and strike us under the ribs." After being relieved, the division moved to Centreville, and bivouacked on the heights half a mile south of the hamlet. The following morning, Monday, September 1, the officers straightened out their commands and took account of their losses; rations and ammunition were brought up and issued; and all hoped for at least one day of much needed rest. Captain Stevens, by direction of the general, counted the stacks of muskets, and found the latter to number 2012. Half of the division had fallen in battle, or on the march, since leaving Fredericksburg a fortnight before. Lieutenant S.N. Benjamin, a very brave and intelligent young officer, whom General Stevens treated with great kindness and consideration during the campaign, relates that about noon the general came to his battery,-- "and came where I was sitting. (My crutches had been broken, and I could not rise without help.) I soon saw that he felt very blue,--that he felt the defeat very keenly, and feared its effect on the men. I tried to assure him that his own command felt more devoted to him than ever, and if possible more faith in his skill than before. And this was God's truth,--_they did_, and he had earned it. "Still he felt very blue. I asked him if he would write to his wife. 'Yes; but there is no way to send a letter in. I am anxious to send word.' 'Well, general, you write, and I will send it by some Christian or Sanitary man. We have just sent letters, and I will have a man watch the turnpike until some one will take it.' "He seemed much pleased with this. I brought him the envelope, etc., and he wrote on a book, sitting on the ground. Before he had finished, the order came to move. He closed it hastily, after giving some orders, gave it to me, and went to his headquarters. The letter was given to a gentleman going to Washington with a wounded man." It was General Stevens's last letter. While the beaten and distracted Union commander was trying to straighten out his forces huddled about Centreville, uncertain whether to risk further conflict or to fall back to the defenses of Washington, Lee was moving his whole army in one column, to fall upon his enemy's line of retreat and rear. The very day after the battle he advanced Jackson's wing across Bull Run by Sudley Ford to the Little River turnpike, which runs straight to Fairfax Court House, and there intersects the Alexandria and Warrenton pike, eight miles behind Centreville. On this Monday morning Jackson was marching down the turnpike with Longstreet and his whole wing following closely in support, thus turning the Union army at Centreville, and moving to fall upon its only line of retreat; "to strike it under the ribs," as General Stevens so clearly foresaw. Pope had taken no steps to anticipate or guard against this fatal flank movement. He was groping in the dark, utterly at a loss what course to pursue, and consequently he did nothing until noon, when startling news forced him to decision and to action. [Illustration: Jackson's Flank March to turn Centreville.] Such was the situation,--the bulk of the Union forces grouped about Centreville with their distraught commander, the victorious rebel army, in one strong column, Jackson at its head, turning their flank and striking far in their rear,--when, at one P.M., two cavalrymen dashed up to General Stevens's headquarters. They bore orders to him from General Pope to march immediately across country, guided by the two troopers, to the Little River pike, and there take position and hold in check a column of the enemy reported advancing down that road. General Stevens soon had his division under arms, moved across the fields, and entered the Alexandria pike a short distance east of Centreville. Here Ferrero's brigade of Reno's division, the other brigade after its heavy loss on the 29th not being again called upon, fell in behind and followed. The scanty column moved down the road a mile and a half, then turned off to the left, and followed a farm road in a northeasterly direction between the two pikes. As General Stevens and staff were riding at the head of the column the cavalrymen told how they had been out foraging that morning to the Little River pike, and had run into a heavy column of the enemy advancing down it, and had made all haste to gallop to Pope's headquarters with the news. Thence they were at once dispatched to General Stevens with the orders already related, and directed to guide his column to the endangered road. This startling news brought him about noon by these cavalrymen was unquestionably the first intelligence that Pope received of Lee's thrust. His own orders prove this, for he not only immediately dispatched General Stevens to seize and hold the Little River pike, but detached Hooker from his division and sent him to Germantown, a point just in front of Fairfax Court House, where the two pikes meet, to take charge of some troops there and post them to resist the threatening movement, ordered McDowell-- "immediately to march rapidly back to Fairfax Court House with your whole division (corps) and assume command of the two brigades there, and occupy Germantown with your whole force, so as to cover the turnpike from this place to Alexandria. Jackson is reported advancing on Fairfax with 20,000 men,"-- and soon afterwards hurried Heintzelman's two divisions down the pike toward Fairfax. And it was while thus moving that General Kearny received General Stevens's urgent summons, and opportunely hastened to the stricken field, as will soon be related. After proceeding across country several miles in rather a winding or crooked course, the column was marching over an elevated tract of open country, which sloped down in front to a marshy hollow clothed with small growth, and partially timbered. Beyond the hollow, open fields appeared again, and beyond them dense pine woods. To the rear the high ground extended to the main turnpike, half a mile distant, down which were seen the white covers of the crowded wagons moving in retreat. At this moment the little cavalcade at the head of the column was suddenly surprised by the sight of a rebel skirmish line deployed across the fields in front and cautiously advancing toward it, and the more because the Little River pike, as the cavalrymen said, was still some distance away. The skirmishers were already across the hollow and close at hand when first seen. At the first glance General Stevens realized what that rebel skirmish line portended. It portended an attack in force upon the turnpike, the only line of retreat. Full well he knew that the movement must be arrested, or the line of retreat would be broken, the army cut in two while widely extended along the road, and a great disaster inflicted. Instantly he threw forward two companies of the Highlanders, under Captains W.T. Lusk and Robert Ives, to drive back the enemy's advance and uncover his movement. Deploying in skirmish order, they ran forward, exchanging a sharp fire with the opposing line and driving it back, crossed the hollow, surmounted a graded railroad embankment which traversed it, and pushed on after the rebel skirmishers into the farther fields. The embankment was the grade of the same Manassas Gap Railroad over which, beyond Bull Run, Jackson made his fierce fight. [Illustration: BATTLE OF CHANTILLY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1862] Captain Stevens, directing the skirmishers, had just ridden on top of the embankment, when a rebel soldier half way across the field in front, who was helping off a wounded comrade, withdrew his arm from his comrade's support, deliberately aimed at the mounted officer, and fired, and the bullet passed through his hat, inflicting a sharp rap upon his head. Twenty muskets were instantly fired at the bold rebel in return, but without effect, and coolly and deliberately he shifted his piece to his left hand, replaced his right arm around his comrade's waist, and helped him slowly off in safety. While the Highlanders were thus pushing back the enemy, General Stevens, without halting or retarding the march of his troops an instant, was forming them as fast as they came up in a column of brigades on the hither side of the fields beyond the hollow. While thus forming, a regiment of the enemy advanced in line of battle from the woods more than half way across the fields, and the Union skirmishers fell back before it. But Benjamin's guns, having just taken position on the right of the forming column, opened upon the regiment, and it immediately fell back and disappeared in the woods. Lusk's company now rejoined its regiment, but Ives's fell back to the railroad grade, and remained there during the battle. The column was formed in the edge of quite a large open tract, the farther side of which was closed by the woods. Woods also extended on the right side all along the open ground. Near the centre of the open tract, and to the left and front of the column, was a farmhouse, with outbuildings and orchard, and just beyond it a large field of tall, waving corn extended to the woods in front, and to woods on the left. The estate was known as Fruitvale, and belonged to the family of Reid, but was occupied at this time by a family named Heath. A road coming from the main turnpike in rear ran in a northerly course past the right of the forming column, extended along the right edge of the open ground, traversed the farther woods, and crossed the Little River pike at right angles. This has been known since colonial days as the Ox Road, and the eminence over which it runs, just north of the crossing, is Ox Hill, from which the Confederates have named the coming engagement the battle of Ox Hill. In Union reports and histories it is known as the battle of Chantilly, from the hamlet of that name six miles westward on the Little River pike. The column was soon formed in the following order:-- 28th Mass., 79th Highlanders, Col. David Morrison. 50th Penn., 8th Michigan, Col. Benjamin C. Christ. 100th Penn., 46th New York, Lieut.-Col. David A. Lecky. The formation was nearly completed when General Reno appeared. He had been sick and off duty the day before. The conference between him and General Stevens was brief. The latter pointed out the supposed position of the enemy, in a few strong words showed the necessity of hurling back his threatened advance, and declared his intention of attack as soon as his column was formed. General Reno seemed undecided and hesitating. He seemed not to approve the movement, but he certainly did not disapprove it in words, nor did he give any orders, nor take command in any way, and soon turned and rode back. General Stevens now dismounted, and directed his staff to dismount, and sent one of them to each of the leading regiments, with orders to go forward with it and make every exertion to force the charge home. He sent Captain Stevens to the Highlanders, and Lieutenant Dearborn, his aide, to the 28th Massachusetts. The column now advanced, Benjamin's guns firing shells into the woods in front. It descended a long, gentle slope, crossed a slight hollow, and swept steadily up the easy ascent in three firm, regular lines with the fixed bayonets glistening above them. Not a sight nor sound betrayed the presence of the enemy. There was nothing to be seen but the open field, extending two hundred yards in front and closed by the wall of woods, with an old zigzag rail fence at its edge. "There is no enemy there," exclaimed Captain Lusk to Captain Stevens, as they were marching side by side; "they have fallen back; we shall find nothing there." Even as he spoke, the enemy poured a terrific volley from behind the rail fence. Captain Stevens struck the ground with great force and suddenness, shot in the arm and hip, and as he struggled to his feet saw the even battle line of the Highlanders pressing firmly and steadily on. A few minutes later General Stevens came up on foot, stopped a moment to ask his son if he was badly hurt, and to order a soldier to help him off the field, and, unheeding his remonstrances, moved on after the first line. The enemy was smiting the column with a terrible and deadly musketry. The men were falling fast. General Stevens now ordered Captain Lusk to hasten to the 50th Pennsylvania, which was hesitating at entering the cornfield, and to push them forward, for, as the column advanced, the left struck and extended into this cornfield. The troops, under the withering hail of bullets, were now wavering and almost at a standstill. Five color-bearers of the Highlanders had fallen in succession, and the colors again fell to the ground. At this crisis General Stevens pushed to the front, seized the falling colors from the hands of the wounded bearer, unheeding his cry, "For God's sake, don't take the colors, general; they'll shoot you if you do!" and calling aloud upon his old regiment, "Highlanders, my Highlanders, follow your general!" rushed forward with the uplifted flag. The regiment responded nobly. They rushed forward, reached the edge of the woods, hurled themselves with fury upon the fence and the rebel line behind it, and the enemy broke and fled in disorder. The 28th Massachusetts joined gallantly in the charge, and the other brigades as gallantly supported the first. At this moment a sudden and severe thunderstorm, with a furious gale, burst over the field and the rain fell in torrents, while the flash of lightning and peals of thunder seemed to rebuke man's bloody, fratricidal strife. General Stevens fell dead in the moment of victory. A bullet entered at the temple and pierced his brain. He still firmly grasped the flagstaff, and the colors lay fallen upon his head and shoulders. His noble, brave, and ardent spirit, freed at last from the petty jealousies of earth, had flown to its Creator. CHAPTER LVIII THE BATTLE OF CHANTILLY The enemy's troops thus struck and hurled back were Ewell's division of Jackson's corps. Hays's and Trimble's brigades were behind the fence, and were supported by Early's and Lawton's brigades in the woods in their rear. This was the centre division in Jackson's column. The leading one, under Starke, had already crossed the Ox Road, and the rear division, under A.P. Hill, was closed up on Ewell's. Jackson, judging from the fury of the attack and the numbers of his men running in disorder out of the woods that he was assailed by a heavy force, and fearing for his artillery, which had taken position on Ox Hill, on the north side of the pike, when Ewell's division advanced into the woods on the south side, at once moved his batteries half a mile back up the pike to a long ridge, and planted them in position to rally his troops upon in case of need, while at the same time he hurried Hill's infantry division forward to maintain the battle. That officer advanced the brigades of Branch and Brockenbrough (Field's), and successively threw into the fight those of Gregg, Pander, Thomas, and Archer, all of which, except the last, became heavily engaged and suffered severely. General Stevens's division withstood the attack of these fresh troops stoutly. It had driven back everything in its immediate front, but the contest now raged over the cornfield on the left. It was impossible for its scanty numbers long to resist the pressure of Hill's brigades, successively rushing into the conflict. But aid was at hand. At the moment of ordering the fatal charge, General Stevens sent Lieutenant H.G. Belcher, of the 8th Michigan, back to the main turnpike with instructions to ask support, and to go from commander to commander until he secured it. Belcher applied to several generals, who declined to go without orders, until finally he met General Kearny. Scarcely had he made known his mission to him, and its urgency was startlingly emphasized by the rapid and fierce musketry of the battle, when Kearny exclaimed, "By God, I will support Stevens anywhere!" and at once broke the head of his column off the pike, and struck across the fields to the sound of the battle. It was Birney's brigade that Kearny so promptly brought to the rescue. They arrived just in time. The 4th Maine, Colonel Elijah Walker, formed line in rear of the cornfield, considerably to the left of the farmhouse, and opened on the enemy swarming in the farther edge of the field. The remaining regiments as they came up, the 101st New York, 3d Maine, 4th New York, and 1st New York, extended the line to the right as far as the house, or the right border of the cornfield, and, as General Birney reports, "held the enemy and sustained unflinchingly the most murderous fire from a superior force." From this position they made a gallant advance well into the cornfield, driving back the enemy to the woods, and then withdrew to their former ground. Captain George E. Randolph planted his battery of four guns immediately in rear of the line, and fired over it into the farther side of the cornfield and into the woods. The 18th New York and 57th Pennsylvania were put in later, and helped sustain the contest. General Stevens's troops maintained their unequal battle until after Birney's line opened. Jackson reports, "So severe was the fire in front and flank of Branch's brigade as to produce in it some disorder and falling back," and other Confederate officers mention the severe flank fire, showing conclusively that both Stevens's and Birney's smote this brigade, one in flank, the other in front, under which double fire it was broken and driven back. "This engagement is regarded by this brigade as one of our severest," says its commander in his report. After holding their ground for an hour in the unequal contest, and expending all their ammunition, General Stevens's troops fell back to the Reid house from the position they had so gallantly won. The enemy did not advance into the open ground on the right of the cornfield, and Birney's fight was continued over it until night ended the contest. Ferrero's brigade, of only three regiments, reached the field immediately after Stevens's division, and was ordered by General Reno to cover his right. The 51st New York, the leading regiment, moved forward into the woods some distance on the right of Stevens's column until it encountered the line of Starke's division, became somewhat engaged, and retired with a loss of thirteen. The next regiment, the 21st Massachusetts, was not to escape so easily. Thrown forward on the left of the 51st New York, and disconnected from it, it advanced for a long distance in the woods, somewhat disordered by fallen trees, struck the enemy's line, and unexpectedly received a deadly volley, and nearly one hundred brave fellows, dead and wounded, lay prostrate at the blow. The gallant regiment returned the fire as well as it could, but in the drenching rain many guns became unserviceable, and it fell back from the woods, the enemy not pursuing. The third regiment, the 51st Pennsylvania, entered the woods on the right of the 51st New York, but were not engaged. Meantime Starke withdrew his whole division from the woods back to the Little River pike, and moved to the rear. Whether his line, struck by an unaccountable panic, fell into disorder, or whether Jackson drew back the troops for the support of Hill, all of whose brigades were then going into the fight, is uncertain, but probably the latter. Early moved to the left and covered the front vacated by Starke, but with a contracted line, while Trimble's and Lawton's brigades were content to hold their ground in the woods considerably to the rear of the fence from which Hays and Trimble had been so roughly driven. Longstreet deployed Toombs's and Anderson's brigades of his leading division (Jones's), and advanced them into the woods in support of Jackson's troops, but they were not called upon, as night soon closed the contest. "As I rode up and met General Jackson," says Longstreet in his "Manassas to Appomattox," "I remarked upon the number of his men going to the rear. "'General, your men don't appear to work well to-day?' "'No,' he replied, 'but I hope it will prove a victory in the morning.'" As the stricken 21st Massachusetts emerged from the woods, near where General Stevens formed his column, it was met by General Kearny, who was searching for troops to cover the right flank of Birney's line. "In fierce haste," says General C.F. Walcott, the historian of the regiment, in a paper on this battle before the Massachusetts Military Historical Society, "he ordered the regiment to move on the run to take post on Birney's right, the position of whose line was indicated only by the flashes of their muskets. Luckily two of our companies, which had been detached in the woods to cover our flanks, had escaped the ambuscade into which the others had fallen, and now joined us with serviceable guns, and the regiment, about two hundred strong, moved across the open ground towards the cornfield and the front of Birney's right, deploying a thin skirmish line to cover our right and front as we advanced. "As our skirmishers came up to the rail fence of the cornfield they were fired on by Thomas's skirmishers, whose brigade, with two of Pender's regiments, was in the cornfield, and coming from the woods well on Birney's right. Crossing the line of the fence we soon halted in the corn, under a dropping fire from the enemy. General Kearny was following us up closely, and as we came to a halt fiercely tried to force us forward, saying that we were firing on our own men, and that there were no rebels near us. We had the proof in two prisoners--an officer and private of a Georgia regiment--brought in by our skirmishers, besides the warning cries of 'Surrender,' coming both from our right and front; but, unfortunately, Kearny's judgment seemed unable to appreciate the existence of the peril which his military instinct had caused him to guard against. Lieutenant Walcott, of the brigade staff, took our prisoners to him, saying, 'General, if you don't believe there are rebels in the corn, here are two prisoners from the 49th Georgia, just taken in our front.' Crying out fiercely, '---- ---- you and your prisoners!' the general, entirely alone, apparently in ungovernable rage at our disregard of his peremptory orders to advance, forced his horse through the deep, sticky mud of the cornfield past the left of the regiment, passing within a few feet of where I was standing. I watched him moving in the murky twilight through the corn, and, when less than twenty yards away, saw his horse suddenly rear and turn, and half a dozen muskets flash around him: so died the intrepid soldier, General Philip Kearny! "Diverted by our movement from their design upon Birney's brigade, the enemy surged up against our front and right flank, took what fire we could give them at a few paces distance (which they returned with interest), and in the dark, ignorant of our weakness, allowed us to withdraw from their front without pursuit, and in a few minutes also drew back themselves from the cornfield to the woods behind it. Except a few scattering shots on Birney's front, which soon ceased, the battle of Chantilly was now over." Supposing from the non-return of General Kearny that he had fallen or been captured, General Birney assumed command of his division, and after the battle was over relieved his hard-fought troops with General Poe's brigade. Robinson's brigade was posted during the battle on the high ground near the main turnpike, and was not engaged. The Union troops held the ground upon which they fought until half past two in the morning, brought off their wounded, and then retreated to Fairfax Court House after the last of the troops from Centreville had passed. Only sixteen Union regiments, viz., six of Stevens's division, three of Ferrero's brigade, and seven of Birney's brigade, with six guns, Benjamin's two 20-pounder rifles, and Randolph's four 12-pounders, fought this battle against Jackson's whole corps of seventy regiments, of which at least forty-eight were in the fight. The Union force numbered 5500 effective, the Confederate at least twice as many. In this brief and fierce battle the losses on each side were from 800 to 1000. The following statement is made up from Confederate official reports and, on the Union side, from regimental histories, for there are no official reports of Union losses, except four in Poe's brigade, and from estimates based on all available data, but undoubtedly falls short of the actual losses. How exactly General Stevens grasped the military situation when he caught sight of the rebel skirmish line, and instantly decided to stay Jackson's impending advance by an attack that would throw even him on the defensive, is clearly shown by the Confederate leader's objective, and the dispositions he had made of his troops to accomplish it. Jackson had moved down the pike from Chantilly slowly and carefully, to give time for Longstreet to close up in support. His troops were well in hand, the infantry of one division, and probably of all three, marching in two columns, one on each side of the road, and the artillery on the road between them. Already he had thrown this solid column, prepared for battle rather than for the march, athwart the Ox Road, which led straight across to the coveted line of retreat. Already his skirmishers, supported by a regiment, had pushed southward half a mile, and were advancing across country to the other pike, and in another half mile--in ten minutes more--would come in plain sight of the wagons moving back upon it. His whole corps was in position,--Ewell's division (under Lawton) in the centre, Starke on the left, Hill on the right. It lay wholly in Jackson's will and power, advancing but little over a mile, to hurl this mighty mass, seventy regiments strong, upon Pope's only road and his retreating troops and trains. Who that knows Jackson's career can doubt his will and power to seize the golden opportunity? At the very instant of launching the thunderbolt, Jackson learns that the enemy is advancing upon him, his skirmishers are driven in, his centre division is hurled headlong from its position, the fugitives pour out of the woods, he hurries his artillery to the rear, is forced to throw the whole of his right division into the fight, brigade after brigade, and to withdraw his left division for his last reserve. The possibility of striking his enemy is gone. He can only say, "I hope it will prove a victory to-morrow." And the troops that General Stevens led to this desperate and victorious charge were the same who, but ten weeks since, suffered the slaughter on James Island, and had just lost half of their number in the bloody encounters on the plains of Bull Run. Can more be said for the gallantry and devotion of the soldiers, or the hold upon them of their heroic leader? Had General Stevens remained on the defensive and given time--and time counted by minutes--for Jackson to advance, disaster were inevitable. How long could his scanty force of nine regiments, outflanked and overborne, have resisted the avalanche? True, Kearny was on the pike, and perhaps others would have joined in the defense, but where was the army or corps commander to put them in, and order and control battle against Jackson's onslaught, backed by Longstreet? Pope was at Centreville; Sumner, with his second corps, north of it; Sigel's, McDowell's, Franklin's troops scattered from Fairfax to Alexandria and Washington; Banks retreating down Braddock road,--all scattered and out of reach. The closest study of the situation strengthens the conviction that General Stevens that day saved the army and the country from an appalling disaster. General McDowell, hurrying to Fairfax Court House as directed by General Pope, met Patrick's brigade near that point and posted it behind Difficult Run, just in front of Germantown,[21] where it was supported by Ricketts's division. General Stuart, who with his cavalry preceded Jackson's column down the pike, after passing the Ox Road some two miles found his advance arrested by these troops, and, after some skirmishing, moved off northward toward Flint Hill in a fruitless effort to flank the Union line. Patrick's brigade lost twenty wounded. Neither force took any part in the battle of Chantilly. UNION LOSSES. Stevens's division: Staff 2 First brigade: {100th Pennsylvania 36 Colonel Daniel Leasure {46th New York 50[A] Second brigade: {79th Highlanders 40 Colonel David Morrison {28th Massachusetts 99 Third brigade: {8th Michigan (7 killed) 50[A] Colonel B.C. Christ {50th Pennsylvania (7 killed) 50[A] --- 327 Reno's division: Ferrero's brigade 21st Massachusetts 130 51st New York 13 51st Pennsylvania (none) --- 143 Kearny's division: Staff 1 Birney's brigade 3d Maine 50 4th Maine 64 40th New York 163 1st New York 40[A] 38th New York 25[A] 101st New York 40[A] 57th Pennsylvania 25[A] Poe's brigade: Pickets 4 --- Total: 16 regiments 412 --- 882 [A] Estimated. No report in war records or histories. CONFEDERATE LOSSES. Jackson's corps: Stark's division 20 regiments 71[B] Ewell's division: Lawton's brigade 6 regiments 12 Early's brigade 7 regiments 32 Trimble's brigade 5 regiments 21 Hays's brigade 5 regiments 135 -- --- 43 200 Hill's division: Branch's brigade 5 regiments 108 Pender's brigade 4 regiments 58 Gregg's brigade 5 regiments 104 Archer's brigade 5 regiments (not engaged) Field's (or Brockenbrough's) 4 regiments (no report) 75[B] Thomas's brigade 4 regiments (loss not reported) 75[B] -- --- 27 420 Longstreet's corps: Jones's division 1 Total: 70 regiments--48 in action 692 [B] Estimated. General Hill reports his loss as 306. It is impossible to reconcile these small losses with the Confederate reports of the severity of the fighting. NOTE.--The Confederate reports of the battle of Chantilly, or Ox Hill, show with tolerable clearness their troops engaged, and the positions and parts taken by them. Early's report definitely locates Hays's and Trimble's brigades "in line of battle on the right of Jackson's division, and occupying positions in the edge of a field beyond a piece of woods through which the Ox Road here runs." This is unmistakably the very position from which General Stevens's charge drove the enemy. The loss in Hays's brigade (135) was greater than that of any other. Early acknowledges that Hays's brigade "fell back in confusion, passing through these regiments (second line), followed by the enemy;" that the commander of Trimble's brigade was killed, and one or two regiments of it were thrown into some confusion. There are no reports from any officer of Jackson's (Starke's) division, except the bare mention by one brigade commander that they met the enemy at Ox Hill, September 1, and repulsed him; none from Hays's, Trimble's, or Lawton's brigades of Ewell's division; and none from Field's (Brockenbrough's) brigade of Hill's division. General Longstreet, in his book _Manassas to Appomattox_, pp. 193-195, says of this battle: "Two of Hill's brigades were thrown out to find the enemy, and were soon met by his advance in search of Jackson, which made a furious attack, driving back the Confederate brigades in some disorder. Stevens, appreciating the crisis as momentous, thought it necessary to follow the opportunity by aggressive battle in order to hold Jackson away from the Warrenton turnpike. Kearny, always ready to second any courageous move, joined in the daring battle. At the critical moment the rain and thunder storm burst with great violence upon the combatants, the high wind beating the storm in the faces of the Confederates. So firm was the unexpected battle that part of Jackson's line yielded to the onslaught. At one moment his artillery seemed in danger.... As I rode up and met General Jackson, I remarked upon the number of his men going to the rear:-- "'General, your men don't appear to work well to-day.' "'No,' he replied, 'but I hope it will prove a victory in the morning.' "As both Federal division commanders fell, the accounts fail to do justice to their fight. Stevens, in his short career, gave evidence of courage, judgment, skill, and genius not far below his illustrious antagonist." Immediately after the close of the Civil War, in June, 1865, the author visited the battlefield of Chantilly. The ground and its incidents agreed precisely with his recollections. The remains of the fence at the edge of the woods from which General Stevens hurled the enemy were plainly visible, many of the rails as well as the trees showing marks of bullets. From a point near the corner of the cornfield, extending nearly perpendicularly into the woods for fifty yards, and facing to the left, were the vestiges of a hastily thrown up breastwork, or cover, of earth, rails, logs, and branches, which the Union troops had scraped together after driving back the enemy in order to meet the attack of Hill's troops on their left. In May, 1883, the author, accompanied by the late General Charles F. Walcott, again visited the field, and by the hospitality of Lieutenant John N. Ballard, the present owner of the estate, himself a Confederate soldier, spent the night at the Reid house. Mr. Ballard exhibited a plan of the estate, made in 1858, accompanying a former deed, which comprised almost exactly the battlefield, and kindly permitted a tracing of it to be made. The distance between the fence where General Stevens fell and the Little River pike was found by pacing to be about four hundred yards. By this data a fairly accurate map of the battlefield was obtained. Mr. Charles Stewart, a very intelligent gentleman, whose house is on the Little River pike half a mile west of the field, who was at home at the time of the battle and an eye-witness of the movements of the Confederate troops, and who went over the field the third day after the engagement, pointed out to the visitors the localities of interest in connection with the fight near his house, and graphically narrated how Jackson hurried his artillery to the rear at the opening of the battle, and threw it into position half a mile back on a bare, commanding ridge near the Stewart house. This account was fully corroborated by Mr. Ballard. A full and interesting account of this visit, and also an account of the battle, by General Walcott, is given in volume ii., Military Historical Society of Massachusetts. The author has been aided in preparing his account of the battle by written statements from Colonel David Morrison, Captain William T. Lusk, and Captain Robert Armour, of the 79th Highlanders; Lieutenant Samuel N. Benjamin and Captain George E. Randolph, who commanded the two batteries engaged; Colonel Elijah Walker, of the 4th Maine, and Colonel Moses B. Lakeman, of the 3d Maine; and by personal interviews with these officers and many others, including Lieutenant H.G. Belcher, who participated in the engagement. _War Records_, series 1, vol. xii., "History of 79th Highlanders," by William Todd; _The One Hundredth Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, Roundheads_; James C. Stevenson, _Michigan in the War_, _Maine in the War_; Bates's _History of Pennsylvania Volunteers_. The only reports of the battle of Chantilly by Union officers who took part in it are those of General Birney and Captain Randolph, and they are very brief. There are actually no reports from any officers of General Stevens's or General Reno's division, owing to the death of the commanders--Reno fell at South Mountain a few days later--and the rapid changes in, and movements of, the troops in the Maryland campaign, which immediately followed. FOOTNOTES: [21] Statement of Colonel Charles McClure, of Patrick's staff. CHAPTER LIX FINAL SCENE After the successful charge Colonel Morrison sent an officer to report that General Stevens had fallen, and that the enemy had been driven back. General Reno, to whom the report was made, returned orders to bury General Stevens on the field, and to fall back. The Highlanders reverently and tenderly bore away the body of their beloved commander and placed it in an ambulance, from which one of their number, although wounded, willingly alighted to give room. The remains were taken to Washington to the house of his dear friend, John L. Hayes, and thence to Newport, R.I. General Reno's apparently unfeeling order excited great indignation among the Highlanders. At the very moment of his heroic death General Stevens was being considered by the President and his advisers as commander of the armies in Virginia. Mr. Hayes was assured of the fact by a member of the cabinet, and it was currently stated in the press. Certain it is that ignoble personal rivalries and jealousies could not have kept him down much longer. He was appointed and confirmed a major-general, to rank from July 4, 1862. He was only forty-four years, five months, and seven days of age when he fell. The stern old Puritan Abolitionist, his aged father, died August 22, only ten days previous. He frequently declared that he should never see Isaac again, that he knew his spirit too well, that he would surely be killed in battle, and it was thought that brooding over this idea hastened his own death. General Stevens was buried in the Island Cemetery in Newport. The obsequies were attended by Governor Sprague, of Rhode Island, and Governor Andrew, of Massachusetts, Professor Bache and officers of the Coast Survey, the mayor and council of Newport and other dignitaries, and a large military escort. The city of Newport erected beside his grave a massive granite obelisk, bearing the following simple and appropriate inscription, composed by his brother-in-law, the Rev. Charles T. Brooks: IN MEMORY OF MAJOR-GENERAL ISAAC INGALLS STEVENS, BORN IN ANDOVER, MASS., MARCH 25, 1818, WHO GAVE TO THE SERVICE OF HIS COUNTRY A QUICK AND COMPREHENSIVE MIND, A WARM AND GENEROUS HEART, A FIRM WILL AND A STRONG ARM, AND WHO FELL WHILE RALLYING HIS COMMAND WITH THE FLAG OF THE REPUBLIC IN HIS DYING GRASP, AT THE BATTLE OF CHANTILLY, VA., SEPTEMBER 1, 1862. THIS MONUMENT IS ERECTED AS A TOKEN OF ADMIRING GRATITUDE BY THE CITY OF NEWPORT. When the Highlanders were mustered out of service, the flag under whose folds General Stevens fell was sent to his widow, with the following letter from the brave Colonel Morrison:-- NEW YORK, September 22, 1864. Mrs. ISAAC I. STEVENS. _Dear Madam_,--I have the honor to transmit to you the colors of the 79th Highlanders, the same that were in the hand of your late lamented husband when he received his wound. Since I knew that you wished to have them in your possession I have watched them with a jealous eye through many stormy fields. Although but a rag, many a brave man would have sacrificed his life rather than anything dishonorable should happen them. From Chantilly to Blue Springs, wherever they were unfurled, victory has perched upon them, and when, torn and tattered, we exchanged them for a new set, I have carried them about with me, and I assure you it gives me great pleasure in sending them to you, so that you may preserve them as an heirloom in your family. Serving immediately under General Stevens, no one had a better opportunity of knowing him than myself. Well may you feel proud of him! His nobleness of heart, his firm devotion to his country, his untiring energy, his unflinching bravery, have endeared him to all those who have served under him. His memory is engraven on the hearts of every one of his Highlanders, and the few of us that are left often speak of the many acts of kindness bestowed on us by "Our General." I am, madam, your obedient servant, D. MORRISON, _Late Colonel 79th Highlanders_. The legislature of Rhode Island passed resolutions upon the death of General Stevens, and offered to provide a fit resting-place for his ashes. The city of Newport, the officers of the Coast Survey, and many other public bodies paid fitting tribute by resolutions. "When the intelligence of his death reached Washington Territory, the grief of all classes was sincere and profound. Nothing could any one recall that was base or dishonorable, but much that was lofty and manly in the dead hero. The legislature passed resolutions in his honor, and ordered crape to be worn."[22] For many years the successive governors and legislatures regularly paid tribute to his memory. He fell--that glowing eye In sudden night was quenched; But still the flag he lifted high, And onward bore to victory, In his dead hand was clenched. He sank--but o'er his head The drooping ensign fell, As if its folds it fondly spread Above the forehead, pale and dead, Of him who loved it well. He sleeps--unlock that clasp! The hero's work is done! Another hand that staff shall grasp, And, if need be, till life's last gasp, Like him shall bear it on. He rests--the true and brave! And where his relics lie, In holier beauty long shall wave, Fit canopy for freeman's grave, God's starry flag on high. He lives--his deeds inspire New strength for duty's strife: Now myriads burn with nobler fire Onward to press--to mount up higher And win the eternal life.[23] FOOTNOTES: [22] H.H. Bancroft's _History of Washington_. [23] Anonymous, from _Boston Commonwealth_. GENERAL STEVENS'S DESCENDANTS. 1. HAZARD, born in Newport, R.I., June 9, 1842. 2. JULIA VIRGINIA, born in Newport, June 27, 1844, died in Bucksport, Me., December 7, 1845. 3. SUSAN, born in Bucksport, November 20, 1846; married Richard Isaac Eskridge, United States Army, in Portland, Oregon, October 27, 1870. 4. GERTRUDE MAUDE, born in Bucksport, April 29, 1850. 5. KATE, born in Washington, D.C., November 17, 1852; married Edward Wingard Bingham, in Boston, Mass., February 18, 1886. GRANDCHILDREN, CHILDREN OF RICHARD ISAAC ESKRIDGE AND SUSAN STEVENS ESKRIDGE. 1. MAUD, born at Fort Vancouver, Washington Territory, August 21, 1871; married Edward Pennington Pearson, United States Army, at Fort Reno, Oklahoma Territory, April 16, 1898. 2. RICHARD STEVENS, born at Yuma Depot, Arizona Territory, October 24, 1872. 3. HAZARD STEVENS, born at Yuma Depot, February 24, 1874; died at Fort D.A. Russell, Wyoming Territory, October 12, 1874. 4. VIRGINIA, born at Fort D.A. Russell, March 2, 1875. 5. OLIVER STEVENS, born in Boston, Mass., October 12, 1876. 6. MARY PEYTON, born at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, March 28, 1878; married Charles McKinley Saltzman, United States Army, in Boston, May 9, 1899. [Illustration: THE MONUMENT] APPENDIX Following are the marginal notes on the MAP of the Indian Nations and Tribes of the Territory of Washington, and of the Territory of Nebraska west of the mouth of the Yellowstone. Sent to the Hon. George W. Manypenny, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, with letter of this date. ISAAC I. STEVENS, _Governor and Supt. Indian Affairs_. OLYMPIA, WASHINGTON TERRITORY, April 30, 1857. _Tabular Statement of the Indians East of the Cascade Mountains, etc._ ------------------+-----------+-------+-----------------+----------------- NAME AND DATE OF |NAMES OF |POPULA-|RESERVATIONS. |TEMPORARY TREATIES. |TRIBES. |TION. | |ENCAMPMENTS. ------------------+-----------+-------+----------------+------------------ Treaty with the |Pisquouse. | 600 |Simcoe and the |About 1500 Yakima Nation |Yakimas. | 700 |adjoining | of these concluded at |Pshawm | |country and | tribes are Walla Walla, | wappam. | 500 |forks of the | encamped in June, 1855. | | |We-nat-scha-pan,| the vicinity | | |or Pisquouse | of Simcoe | | |River. | River. |Bands on | | |Opposite the | Columbia.| 1000 | | Dalles, Oregon. |Klikitats. | 500 | |White Salmon | | | | River. |Palouses. | 600 | | | |-------| | | | 3900 | | | |-------| | | | | | Walla Walla |Nez Perces.| 3300 |On the Snake | treaty, | | | and Clearwater | concluded June, | | | Rivers. | 1855. | | | | | | | | Treaty with the |Flatheads. | 500 |Flathead River. | Flathead Nation |Upper Pend | | | concluded | Oreilles.| 700 | | June, 1855. |Kootenays. | 500 | | | |-------| | | | 1700 | | | |-------| | | | | | Tribes with whom |Coeur | 450 | | no treaties | d'Alenes.| | | have been |Lower Pend | | | made. | Oreilles.| 450 | | |Colvilles. | 500 | | |Okinakanes.| 600 | | |Spokanes. | 1100 | | | |-------| | | | 3100 | | ------------------+-----------+-------+----------------+---------------- Total number of Indians east of the Cascade Mountains 12,000 Treaties have been made with 8,900 Number with whom treaties have not been made 3,100 Largest number held on temporary reservations 3,000 Written on upper central margin in Governor Stevens's handwriting:-- Total number of Indians west of the Cascade Mountains 9,712 Total number of Indians east of the Cascade Mountains 12,000 Total number of Indians, Territory of Washington 21,712 Treaties have been made with 17,497 Treaties remain to be made with 4,215 _Tabular Statement of the Indians West of the Cascade Mountains, showing Tribes, Population, Parties to the several Treaties, Reservations provided for in the Treaties, and Temporary Encampments._ ------------------+---------------+-------+------------------+---------------- NAME AND DATE OF |NAMES OF |POPULA-|RESERVATIONS. |TEMPORARY TREATIES. |TRIBES. |TION. | |ENCAMPMENTS. ------------------+---------------+-------+------------------+---------------- | | | | Treaty of Medicine|Quaks-na-mish, | } |Klah-che-min |Klah-che-min Creek, December |Nisqually, | }1200 | Island, | Island. 26, 1854. |Puy-all-up. | } |Near mouth of | } | | | Nisqually River. | } Fox Island. | | |Near mouth of | } | | | Puy-all-up River.| } | | | | Treaty of |Duwamish, | } |Noo-soh-te-um, |Dunginess Point. Point Elliott, |Suquamish, | } | near Port | Fort Kitsap. January 22, 1855.|and allied | } 942 | Madison, and | | tribes. | } | at Muckleshoot. | | | | | |Sno-qual-moo, | } |Te-wilt-sch-da, |Skagit Head, on |Sno-ho-mish, | } | north side | Whitby Island. |and allied | }1700 | Sno-ho-mish | | tribes. | } | River. | | | | | |Skagits and | } |S.E. end Perry | | allied | }1300 | (or Fidalgo) | | tribes. | } | Island. | | | | | |Lummi, | } |Chah-choo-sa |Penn's Cove, on |Nook-Sahk, | }1050 | Island, at mouth | Whitby Island. |Sa-mish. | } | of Lummi River. | | |-------| | | | 4992 | | | |-------| | | | | | Treaty of |Clallams, | 926 | } Head of Hood's | Point-No-Point, |Skokomish, | 290 | } Canal. | January 25, 1855.|Chem-a-kum. | 100 | } | | |-------| | | | 1316 | | | |-------| | | | | | Treaty of |Ma-kahs. | 596 |Cape Flattery. | Neah Bay, | | | | January 31, 1855.| | | | | | | | | | |Reservation to be | Treaty of Olympia.|Quinaiult, | } | selected by the | |Kwilleyute. | } 493 | President. | | | |Quinaiult River | | | | and land set | | | | apart. | | | | | Tribes with whom |Lower | | | treaties have not| Chehalis. | 217 | | been made. |Upper | | |S.S. Ford's on | Chehalis. | 216 | | the Chehalis | | | | River. | | | | |Cowlitz and | | |Near Cowlitz | Tia-tin-a-pan.| 240 | | Landing. |Lower | | |Removed to | Chinooks. | 112 | | White Salmon. |Upper | | |Vancouver and | Chinooks. | 330 | | Cascades. | |-------| | | | 1115 | | ------------------+---------------+-------+------------------+--------------- Total number of Indians west of Cascade Mountains 9712 Number with whom treaties have been made 8597 Number with whom treaties have yet to be made 1115 Largest number held on temporary reservations 5686 All have been assisted during the war. The parties to the treaties of Neah Bay and Olympia, the Lower Chehalis and Lower Chinooks, have required but little assistance at the hands of the Department. NOTES OF THE INDIANS OF THE TERRITORY OF NEBRASKA BETWEEN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS AND MOUTH OF THE YELLOWSTONE. The Blackfoot Nation are in four tribes, viz., Piegans, Bloods, Blackfeet, Gros Ventres, and number 11,500 souls. The map shows the hunting-grounds, secured exclusively to the Blackfeet in the treaty, at the mouth of the Judith, concluded October 17, 1855; the hunting-ground common to the Blackfeet and Western Indians, the Blackfeet and Assiniboines; the western and southern boundaries of the Assiniboine country; and the western boundary of the Crow country. The Western Indians, Flatheads, Pend Oreilles, and a portion of the Kootenays, generally make two hunts a year east of the Rocky Mountains, and they depend for their lodges, parfleches, apechinos, and much of their meat upon these hunts. They get some of their supplies by trade with the Blackfeet. The Indians of the western tribes, as the Spokanes and Coeur d'Alenes, "go to buffalo," but not in as large numbers or with as much regularity as the preceding. The Nez Perces generally have a large camp--over one hundred lodges--either on the common hunting-grounds or in the Crow country. Their hunters always pass one winter, and sometimes two winters, in succession, east of the mountains before they return to their own country. CENSUS OF THE BLACKFOOT NATION. Tribes. Number of Lodges. Population. Piegans. 340 3,150 Bloods. 290 2,690 Blackfeet. 290 2,690 Gros Ventres. 360 2,970 ---- ------ 1280 11,500 INDEX A Company, dismissed for disobedience, ii. 250-253, 263. Abaco Island, Bahamas, i. 101, 102. Abernethy, Alexander S., ii. 265, 317. Academic Board, West Point, awards first place to Cadet Stevens, i. 59. Acajete, i. 140. Acapulco, i. 436. Achilles, Captain, ii. 169-171, 187. Acquia Creek, ii. 425, 430. Active, Coast Survey steamer, ii. 185. Adams, Fort, at Newport, i. 60, 61. Adams, John Quincy, i. 44, 73. Adams, Lieutenant, i. 113. Adams, Mount, i. 394. Adams, Thomas, i. 306; ii. 75, 92, 107, 108, 114. Agnew, i. 444. Ah-tah-nam, branch of Yakima River, ii. 22, 160. Alabama volunteers, i. 114. Albany, Me., i. 35, 86. Alden, Fort, ii. 184, 234. Alden, James, Captain, ii. 185. Alexander, Barton S., General, i. 28. Alexander, head chief of Pend Oreilles, ii. 77; at Flathead council, 82-89, 113, 114. Alexandria and Orange Court House Railroad, ii. 425. Alexandria and Warrenton turnpike, ii. 433, 435. Allen, Robert, General, i. 28. Allen, William, Colonel, ii. 481. Almonte, Mexican general, i. 203. Al-pa-wha Creek, ii. 70, 147. Alvarado, Mexico, i. 119. Alvarez, Mexican general, i. 168, 203. Alvord, Benjamin, General, ii. 25, 26, 207. Amasoque, i. 141, 153. Ambrose, Flathead chief, ii. 85-87. Amelia, Lake, i. 304. American Fur Co., i. 287, 298, 302, 347; ii. 96, 97. American Geographical and Statistical Society of New York, address before, by Governor Stevens, ii. 284. Amissville, Va., ii. 431. Amman, Daniel, Captain, ii. 364. Ampudia, Mexican general, i. 126. Anderson, George T., Colonel, ii. 490. Anderson, J. Patten, i. 414; ii. 15. Anderson, Peter, i. 462. Anderson, Robert, Colonel, ii. 469. Andover, Mass., i. 1, 2, 19, 35, 86, 227, 274; ii. 270. Andover, Me., i. 5, 6. Andrew, John A., Governor, offers regiment to Governor Stevens, ii. 319, 320, 499. Andrews, Colonel, i. 220. Annapolis, ii. 340-342. Anti-Slavery Society, Isaac Stevens bequeaths it $500, i. 10. Appleton, D., & Co., i. 300. Archer, J.J. General, ii. 487. Armour, Robert, Captain, ii. 497. Armstrong, C.H., Captain, ii. 168, 197. Armstrong, Captain, killed at Molino del Rey, i. 206. Army, reorganization of, efforts to promote, i. 240, 259-263. Army of Virginia, ii. 427. Arnold, Daniel Lyman, i. 307, 370; death of, ii. 420. Arnold, Lewis G., Lieutenant, i. 60, 77. Arnold, Richard, Lieutenant, detailed on exploration, i. 307, 370, 379, 380, 382; takes charge of wagon-road, 409, 422; ii. 27, 28. Ashepoo River ii. 374, 379-381. Ashley River, ii. 380. Aspinwall, description of, i. 433, 434; ii. 270. Assiniboine Indians, meeting and talk with, i. 342-345, 347; ii. 115. Atchison, Camp, on Milk River, i. 354. Athsio, Mexican village, i. 148. Augusta, Ga., ii. 381. Ayotla, village in valley of Mexico, i. 164, 166, 168, 224. Ayres, Captain, killed, i. 206. Azotea, parapeted roof, i. 181. Bache, Alexander Dallas; Professor, i. 241, 242, 245-247, 250, 253, 254, 276-279, 281; remarks on Major Stevens, 284, 367; ii. 273, 319; letter to, giving views on military operation, 375, 499. Bacon, John D., room-mate, i. 40, 58. Bad Lands, i. 350. Bahama Banks, i. 102. Bahama Islands, i. 101, 102. Bailey, P., i. 468. Bainbridge, Captain, i. 137. Baird, Spencer F., Professor, i. 276, 295, 299; ii. 273. Baker, Lieutenant, i. 221. Balch, Lafayette, i. 412, 468. Bald Hillock Creek, i. 330. Bald Hill, ii. 435. Baldwin, A.J., ii. 248. Ball-in-the-Nose, Gros Ventre chief, i. 356. Ballard, John N., Lieutenant, ii. 496, 497. Baltimore, i. 250. Baltimore Democratic Convention, ii. 304, 305. Bangor, Me., i. 95. Banks, Nathaniel P., ii. 299, 426-429, 432, 475, 494. Barker, Stephen, i. 35. Barnes, Dr., i. 219. Barnes, Ellis, i. 468. Barnes, George A., i. 415; ii. 15, 224. Barnett's Ford, ii. 427, 428. Barnwell Island, ii. 357. Barry, William F., General, i. 28. Bartlett, W.H.C., Professor, gives characteristics of General Stevens, i. 41. Bartow, General, ii. 435. Battery Island, ii. 381, 382. Bay Point, ii. 345, 347. Bayly, George, i. 260. Baynes, Admiral, ii. 291, 292. Bealton, Va., ii. 426, 432. Beam, George W., Captain, ii. 169, 170. Bear Tracks, Flathead chief, ii. 86. Bear's Coat, Gros Ventre chief, i. 356. Bear's Paw Mountains, i. 359-361. Beaufort, S.C., ii. 353; occupied by General Stevens, 355. Beaufort River, ii. 355, 358. Beauregard, P.G.T., i. 28, 60, 111, 114, 122, 130, 165, 166, 169, 171; sketch of, 216. Beauregard, Fort, ii. 345. Beauregard Light Infantry, ii. 392. Beaver Creek, i. 376. Beaver Lodge Creek, i. 330. Bee, General, ii. 435. Belcher, H.G., Lieutenant, ii. 370, 411, 488, 497. Belen, gate to Mexico, i. 207, 210. Belfast, Me., i. 68. Belland, i. 306, 312. Bell, John, ii. 305. Bell's Lake, i. 322. Bellingham Bay, i. 412; ii. 184, 267. Belt Mountains, i. 361. Benham, Henry W., Captain, i. 28, 283, 284; General, ii. 383, 384, 386, 387, 392; General Stevens's opinion of, 393, 394, 397, 399, 400, 409-411; sent North in arrest, i. 415, 420, 421. Benjamin, Lieutenant, wounded, i. 211. Benjamin, Samuel N., Lieutenant, ii. 413, 425, 430, 449, 451, 478, 479, 483, 484, 492, 497. Benny Haven's restaurant, adjacent to West Point, i. 50. Benton, Fort, i. 348; description of, 362, 375; ii. 94, 95, 120. Berry Islands, Bahamas, i. 102. Bevard, Professor, French teacher at West Point, i. 34, 39. Biddle, Henry J., rival classmate, i. 25, 31, 32, 35-37, 46. Big Blackfoot River, i. 385; ii. 93. Big Canoe, Pend Oreille chief, ii. 83, 84. Big Chestnut, Camp of the, ii. 336-338. Big Folly Creek, ii. 390, 391. Big Horn River, ii. 108. Big Muddy River, i. 352. Big Star, Spokane chief, speech, ii. 138, 139. Big Top, Gros Ventre chief, i. 356. Bigelow, D.R., i. 415; ii. 168. Biles, James, i. 415. Bird, James, ii. 101, 114. Bird Island, ii. 382. Bird Tail Rock, i. 376; ii. 124. Birney, David B., General, ii. 457, 488, 492, 497. Bishop, David H., marries Susan B. Stevens, i. 68; announces her death, 77. Bissel, Lieutenant, i. 113. Bissel, of Illinois, i. 260. Bitter Root Mountains, i. 380-382; ii. 75, 127. Bitter Root River, i. 379, 382, 386; ii. 75, 127. Bitter Root valley, i. 352, 364-382, 385. Blackburn's Ford, ii. 437, 439. Blackfeet, description of, i. 348, 351, 352, 368, 370; talk with, 373, 374; ii. 99; Governor Stevens's opinion of, 105, 106; council and treaty, 112-119, 275. Blackfoot council, i. 431; ii. 27, 58, 89, 112-119. Blackfoot River, i. 377, 379. Blackfoot trail, i. 376. Black River, ii. 188. Blaisdell, William, Colonel, ii. 456. Blanchet, Father, i. 412, 443. Blankenship, George, Major, ii. 168, 170, 197. Blue Mountains, i. 402, 403; ii. 31. Blood Indians, i. 348, 351, 352; ii. 114, 505. Blunt, Simon F., Captain, i. 269. Bois de Sioux River, i. 322-325. Bolon, A.J., i. 416; ii. 26, 61, 67; murdered by Indians, 121, 157. Bonneville, Colonel, i. 405. Borup, Dr., i. 313. Boston, i. 1, 78, 82, 94-96. Boston, steamship, ii. 359, 362. Boston Post, i. 271-273. Boulieau, Henry, i. 306, 312, 325, 329, 330, 341. Boulieau, Paul, i. 306, 314, 325, 329, 330. Boutineau, Pierre, i. 306, 310, 325, 329, 341. Bowman, wagonmaster, i. 122-124. Bow River, ii. 100. Box Elder Creek, i. 360. Boyce's field battery, ii. 409. Braddock Road, ii. 494. Bradford, Edward, i. 28. Bragg, Braxton, i. 28. Branch, L.O.B., General, ii. 487-489, 495, 496. Brannon, John M., General, i. 28. Bratton, William, Captain, ii. 170. Breckinridge, John C. ii. 304. Breckinridge, town, i. 320. Brickyard Creek, ii. 358. Brent, Captain, i. 438. Bridges, i. 7. Bristoe Station, ii. 431, 433, 439. Broad River, ii. 356, 374, 378. Broad Run, ii. 438. Broadwell, i. 382. Brockenbrough, J.M., Colonel, ii. 487, 495, 496. Broderick, John, ii. 270. Brooke, Lloyd, i. 403; ii. 32. Brooklyn, visits navy yard, i. 36. Brooks, Charles M., i. 94. Brooks, Charles T., Rev., i. 67; solemnizes marriage, i. 77; poem on death of Julia, 92; ii. 499. Brooks, Lieutenant, i. 112. Brooks, Quincy A., i. 415; ii. 248. Brown, i. 398. Brown, B.F., i. 415. Browne, J. Ross, ii. 25, 28. Buchanan, James, President, ii. 272, 300, 305, 312. Buchanan, Robert C., Lieutenant-Colonel, ii. 470. Buck Hill, ii. 435. Bucksport, Me., i. 84, 87-100; returns to, 233, 249, 265. Budd, Captain, ii. 364. Buena Vista, village of, valley of Mexico, i. 164. Buffalo, countless herds of, i. 328, 329; ii. 105. Buffalo chips, i. 331. Buford, John, General, ii. 428, 440, 454, 465. Bull Bay, ii. 379. Bull Run, ii. 434, 437. Bull's Head, Blackfoot chief, ii. 101. Bumford, i. 403; ii. 32. Bunker Hill, battle, i. 4, 5. Bunting, Joseph, ii. 241. Burke, Captain, killed, i. 184. Burns, M.P., Dr., ii. 168. Burnside, Ambrose E., General, ii. 320, 423, 424. Burr, F.H., i. 306, 339, 340, 345. Burntrager, David E., Captain, ii. 169, 170. Burt, Representative, i. 257, 261. Burwell, Lieutenant, killed, i. 206. Bush prairie, i. 412. Bush, W.O., i. 412. Butler, Benjamin F., ii. 303. Butler, Colonel, killed, i. 182. Butler, General, i. 107. Butler, J.H., classmate, i. 31, 36. Butte de Morale, i. 337. Butte Micheau, i. 327. Butterfield, Daniel, General, ii. 454, 466, 468. Byzantium, i. 139. Cadotte's Pass, i. 365, 378; ii. 93, 124. Cadwallader, General, i. 150, 172, 173, 179, 205. Cain, J., Captain, i. 445; ii. 27, 208, 248, 257. Calhoun Guard, ii. 392. California, i. 233, 248, 252. Callender, Franklin D., i. 40, 41, 58, 116, 171, 172; wounded, 176, 209. Cambridge, Mass., i. 98. Cameron, James, Colonel, killed at Bull Run, ii. 321. Cameron, Simon, Secretary of War, Governor Stevens tenders sword and services to, ii. 316, 322. Camospelo, Cuyuse chief, ii. 46, 214. Campaigns of the Rio Grande and of Mexico, i. 255, 256, 267, 268. Campbell, Archibald, ii. 277. Campbell, Colonel, i. 125. Campbell, Fort, i. 348, 363. Campbell, L.M., marries Elizabeth B. Stevens, i. 82, 87; announces death of wife, 97. Campbell's battery, ii. 442. Canby, E.R.S., General, classmate, i. 27, 132. Cañete, actress, i. 224. Canning, John, ii. 70. Cape Fear River, i. 277. Capron, Captain, killed, i. 184. Carcowan, Chehalis chief, ii. 7. Caribbean Sea, i. 433. Carpenter, Stephen D., i. 40, 41, 58. Carigan, Sapper, burial of, remarks, i. 136. Carr, Joseph B., Colonel, ii. 448, 456. Carusi, Jamaica negro innkeeper, i. 434, 435. Casa Mata, fort at Molino del Rey, i. 205. Cascade Range, i. 288, 394-396; snow, 408, 409; ii. 159. Cascades of the Columbia, 405; massacre, ii. 190. Casey, Silas, Lieutenant-Colonel, i. 208; ii. 172, 176, 185, 186, 188; Governor Stevens proposes joint movement across Cascades, declined, 195; seeks to protect Indian murderers, correspondence with Governor Stevens, 236-240, 243, 244, 292. Cass, Lewis, i. 236; Secretary of State, Governor Stevens submits memoir to, against British exactions, ii. 281-283. Castine, Me., visits, i. 85. Castoff, Miss, boards with, in Newport, i. 60. Cathlamet, i. 411. Catholic missionaries, not disturbed by hostiles, ii. 132, 255; Governor Stevens's opinion of, as neutrals, 228, 229. Catlett's Station, ii. 439. Catlin, Robert, ii. 301. Catlin, Seth, i. 411; ii. 317. Causten, Camp, ii. 325. Caverly, Mr. and Mrs., ii. 371, 374. Caversham, England, whence came John Stevens in 1638, i. 2. Cavilaer, i. 325. Cedar Mountain, battle of, ii. 426. Cedar River, ii. 187. Celeste, danced as usual, i. 36. Centralia, i. 412. Centreville, ii. 439, 445, 474, 477-480. Cerro Gordo, i. 122, 123; battle of, 124-128. Cha-chu-sa Island, i. 466, 468. Chagres River, i. 335. Chain Bridge, ii. 327. Chalco, Lake, i. 163, 165; village, 167. Chambers, Andrew J., i. 412. Chambers, David J., i. 412. Chambers prairie, i. 412. Chambers, Thomas M., ii. 246. Champagne, Baptiste, i. 369, 375. Chancellorsville, battle of, i. 83. Chantilly, battle of, ii. 482-497. Chapman, William, Lieutenant-Colonel, ii. 470. Chapultepec, i. 163, 204, 205; battle of, 207-210. Charles, Pierre, ii. 169, 187, 257. Charleston, campaign planned against, ii. 378-382; James Island campaign against, 387-394; battalion, 381, 411, 412; riflemen, 392. Charleston, Democratic Convention at, ii. 304. Charlie, Governor Stevens's gray charger, i. 440; ii. 269. Chase, Henry M., ii. 169, 200. Chasseurs, or 65th New York, ii. 329. Chatfield, J.A., Colonel, ii. 395. Chehalis Indians, i. 334; ii. 1-9, 187, 257; council, ii. 1-9; river, i. 412; ii. 1, 2, 10, 257; town, i. 441. Chemakane Mission, valley, i. 398, 399. Chenoweth, F.A., Judge, ii. 244, 249, 289. Chicago, i. 302. Childs, Colonel, i. 214, 219, 221, 226. Chim-a-kum Indians, i. 469-473. Chimalpa, i. 168. Chinn Hill and House, ii. 435, 470. Chinn, Major, ii. 147, 150. Chinook Indians, ii. 1-9, 23, 257. Chinook jargon, i. 453; ii. 5. Chippewa Indians, i. 334; river, 321. Chirouse, Father, i. 403; ii. 37, 148. Chisholm's Island, ii. 356. Chow-its-hoots, Indian chief, i. 463, 466-468. Christian Mirror, newspaper, i. 84. Christ, B.C., Colonel, ii. 341, 343, 364, 388, 425, 484. Christy's Minstrels, i. 433, 435. Church, A.E., Professor, describes traits of General Stevens, i. 41. Church Flats, ii. 379-381. Churubusco, battle of, i. 180-186, 196-199; brought on by Lieutenant Stevens, 187, 188. Cincinnati, i. 162. Citadel Hill or Rock, i. 361; ii. 98. Clallam or Sklallam Indians, i. 469. Clark County Rangers, ii. 169, 190. Clark, Frank, stirs up trouble leading to martial law, i. 242-245. Clark, George T., Major, i. 16, 430. Clark, in charge of Fort Benton, i. 361. Clark, Owen, servant, i. 100, 101; deserts, 108. Clark, sergeant of sappers, i. 136. Clarke, Colonel, i. 157, 182, 205, 206. Clarke, Nathan G., Colonel, relieves General Wool, ii. 266; recommends treaties, 285. Clark's Fork, ii. 79. Clay, Henry, i. 75, 248; view of, 252. Clay-Pipe-Stem-Carrier, Gros Ventre chief, i. 356. Clendenin, J.V., i. 414. Cline, Captain, ii. 391. Cloudy Robe, Gros Ventre chief, i. 356. Coast Survey, accepts charge of office, i. 241; views of, 243, 244; reforms, 245-248, 250, 254; officers present silver service, 284. Cobb, Howell, ii. 306. Cochichewick, stream in Andover, i. 1; meadows, 5, 8; woolen mills, 16, 47. Cock, Henry D., i. 455-461. Cock, William, Colonel, i. 415; ii. 262-264. Cockspur Island, ii. 382. Coe, ii. 153. Coeur d'Alene Indians, i. 386-388, 390; ii. 16-23; present conditions, 64-72; wrestling match, 73, 74, 121, 127, 129, 130, 230, 231. Coeur d'Alene Lake, i. 391. Coeur d'Alene Mission, i. 389-391; ii. 72, 73, 129. Coeur d'Alene Mountains, i. 387. Coeur d'Alene Pass, i. 382, 387; ii. 127. Coeur d'Alene prairie, i. 391. Coeur d'Alene River, i. 391, 392; ii. 72, 75, 131. Cogswell, William S., Lieutenant, ii. 343, 363, 366. Cold Springs, i. 315. Cole Island, ii. 381. Cole, Lieutenant, ii. 170. Collins, S.M., i. 468. Colquitt, P.H., Colonel, ii. 380. Columbia River, i. 394, 405, 411, 438; ii. 153, 157, 269. Columbus, tomb of, visited, i. 433. Colville, i. 297, 393, 394, 396, 397. Colville Indians, ii. 22. Colville valley settlements, i. 399. Combahee River, ii. 376, 378, 379. Commencement Bay, i. 459, 462. Conception, Fort, at Vera Cruz, i. 110. Confidence, ship of John Stevens, i. 2. Connecticut volunteers, 6th, i. 395. See 7th Connecticut, Rockwell's battery. Connell's prairie, ii. 155; battle of, 186. Conrad, Charles M., Secretary of War, rebukes political action, answered, i. 274, 275. Constitution, Fort, at Portsmouth, N.H., i. 83. Contreras, i. 169, 170; battle of, 171-179, 181, 192-195. Cooper, J.G., Dr., i. 296, 307; ii. 3. Cooper's battery, ii. 469. Coosaw River, ii. 355, 360, 361. Coosawhatchie River, ii. 376, 379. Corinth, ii. 380. Corliss, George W., ii. 247. Cortez, i. 161. Cortez, steamship, ii. 317. Coster, Corporal, i. 312. Coteau de Missouri, i. 338-340, 345. Cottrell, Abraham, Lieutenant, ii. 367, 372, 420. Coues, Samuel Elliott, i. 83, 257. Cowlitz Indians, ii. 1-9, 187, 257, 269. Cowlitz Landing, i. 411, 439; ii. 28. Cowlitz River, i. 405, 411, 412; canoeing up, 438; 439; ii. 28, 154, 187, 257. Coxie, Patrick, ii. 33. Coyoacan, i. 180, 181, 202. Cram, A.J., Captain, ii. 276, 277. Crane, Colonel, i. 83. Craig, Captain, i. 173. Craig, William, ii. 18, 33, 62, 67, 91, 92, 108, 109, 115, 117, 129, 130, 145-150, 168, 201, 203, 209, 220, 223, 230. Crees, ii. 215. Crockett, ii. 154. Cromwell, Oliver, lecture on, i. 76; view of, 230-232; ii. 333. Crook, George, General, ii. 148. Crosby, Clanrick, i. 415. Crosby, R.H., ii. 27, 32, 67, 72, 168. Crow Wing River, i. 316. Crown Butte, i. 376; ii. 124. Crows, i. 347, 361, 362; ii. 108, 109, 115. Cuapa, hacienda of, i. 169. Cub Run, ii. 477. Culbertson, Alexander, i, 302, 307, 347, 348, 359, 368, 370; ii. 114, 275, 276. Cullum, G.W., General, i. 61, 260, 274, 275; ii. 424. Culpeper Court House, ii. 426. Cumming, Alfred, ii. 66, 94-96; arrogates authority, rebuked, 102, 103; stigmatizes country and Indians, 103, 104, 114, 117-119, 149. Cummings, Asa, uncle, i. 12, 84, 85. Cummings genealogy, Isaac^1, John^2, Abraham^3, Joseph^4, Thomas^5, Asa^6, Hannah (mother)^7, i. 12. Cummings, Hannah, wife of Isaac, Stevens (mother), i. 7-9; death, 15. Cummings, John, uncle, warm welcome to, i. 86. Cunningham, Michael, servant, i. 160. Curry, Governor, ii. 284. Cushman, Joseph, i. 415. Cushman, Orrington, i. 415, 445, 455; ii. 3-5. Cuyuses, ii. 16, 20, 21; at Walla Walla council, 36-64, 121, 144, 148, 150; take war path, 157, 158, 212; attack Governor Stevens, 221-223; turbulent warriors hanged by Colonel Wright, 231. Cypress Mountain, i. 359, 368. Dale, Eben, i. 99. Dalles, i. 400, 405; ii. 28, 30, 151, 153, 197, 199, 206, 208, 257. Dana, N.T.J., General, i. 28. Danpher, Matthew, ii. 32. Daufuskie Island, ii. 382. Davidson, Lieutenant, ii. 222. Davies, Professor, i. 44. Davis, Camp, i. 308, 310. Davis, Jefferson, i. 261, 281, 285; reports to, 287, 288, 422; order from, to stop survey, 423; disparages northern route, 427-430; answer to, 431; fault-finding, apologizes, 430; Governor Stevens reports to, ii. 209, 221-223, 227, 277, 287. Davis, Jefferson, revenue cutter, ii. 185. Davis, Robert, i. 468. Dawkins Branch, ii. 454. Dead Colt Hillock line, i. 321. Dearborn, Orrin M., Lieutenant, ii. 415, 484. Dearborn River, i. 376; ii. 94, 124. Decatur, U.S. man of war, ii. 107, 185. Deficiency in funds, i. 366, 367, 423. De Hart, Lieutenant, i. 112. Delacour, Father, i. 325. De Lacy, W.W., ii. 168. Delaware Jim, ii. 69, 70, 108, 115, 117, 124. De Lein, Dr., i. 218. Democratic party, i. 260, 280; nominates Governor Stevens for delegate in Congress, ii. 265; unanimously renominates him, 289; doctrines, 302. Democratic convention at Vancouver, Governor Stevens withdraws, his speech, i. 314-316. Denig, Mr., i. 345. Denny, i. 412. Denny, A.A., ii. 251-253, 265. De Parris, William S., ii. 70. Derby, George H., Lieutenant, ii. 200. Des Chutes River, ii. 30, 152. Detroit, i. 302. Dialectic Society, i. 38, 48, 49, 55, 57. Dickinson, Daniel L., ii. 303. Difficult Run, ii. 494. Dilger, Hubert, Captain, ii. 451. Dimick, i. 179. Discover, Gros Ventre chief, i. 356. Dix, John A., ii. 303, 312. Dobbins, W., i. 415. Dogan house, ii. 435. Dominguez, chief of robbers, i. 149. Donaldson, J.L., General, i. 27. Donation Act, i. 413; ii. 26, 162. Donelson, A.J., Lieutenant, detailed on exploration, i. 291, 297, 302, 307, 345, 350, 351, 364, 368, 370, 371, 378, 379, 382, 384, 400, 404, 406, 431. Donelson, General, ii. 366. Donelson, Miss., ii. 284, 371, 373, 374. Donohoe, Michael T., Captain, ii. 398. Doty, James, i. 306, 308, 331, 371, 375, 422, 452, 458; ii. 26, 31, 47, 68, 70, 93, 95; recovers stolen horses, 100, 101, 114, 124, 126, 132, 151, 168, 248; death of, 268. Doubleday, Abner W., General, i. 27. Douglass, James, Sir, i. 418, 477; ii. 13, 14, 277, 290-293. Douglass, Stephen A., i. 260; ii. 302. Downey, William R., ii. 246. Doyle, Richard N., ii. 402. Drayton, Percival, Captain, ii. 346, 399. Drayton, Thomas F., General, ii. 346, 349. Drum, i. 210; killed, 211. Dry Creek, ii. 70. Dry Tortugas, ii. 325. Du Berry, Beekman, Lieutenant, detailed on exploration, i. 291, 298, 306, 308, 314; leaves exploration, 217. Duncan, Colonel, i. 106, 120, 140, 141, 167, 181, 206, 212, 223. Duncan, Johnson K., Lieutenant, detailed on exploration, i. 293, 296, 307, 394. Duncan, of Haverhill, i. 243. Dunn, John, ii. 262. Dunnells, i. 77. Dupont, Samuel F., Commodore, ii. 343; capture of Port Royal, 346-348, 358, 379, 382. Duwhamish Indians, i. 463-469; ii. 161-192, 256. Duwhamish River. See White River. Dwight, Lieutenant, ii. 457. Dyer, Alexander B., i. 27. Eagle-from-the-Light, Nez Perce chief, speech at Walla Walla council, ii. 48-50; presents his medicine bear-skin to Governor Stevens, 58; signs treaty, 63, 92, 107, 202, 214. Eagle, Gros Ventre chief, i. 355, 356. Earl, Lieutenant-Colonel, i. 114. Early, Jubal A., i. 27; ii. 457, 458, 462, 487, 490, 495, 496. Eastern View, ii. 430. Eaton, Charles H., ii. 170. Eaton, Nathan, i. 412. Ebey, Isaac N., ii. 170; murdered by northern Indians, 259. Edisto Island, ii. 382, 383. Eggers, Albert, ii. 168. Eighth infantry, i. 172. Eighth Massachusetts battery, ii. 425. Eighth Michigan volunteers, ii. 341-343, 359-366, 372, 374, 389; battle of James Island, 402-415, 425; battle of Chantilly, 484, 495. Elbow Lake, i. 322. Eldredge, Edward, i. 412. Eells, C., missionary among Spokanes, i. 398; ii. 22. Eleventh infantry, i. 170. Elk River, ii. 100. Ellen, gunboat, ii. 364, 408. Ellen, nurse, i. 433. Elliott, Point, treaty of, i. 462-469. Elliott, Samuel M., Lieutenant-Colonel, ii. 322, 324. Elliott, William St. George, Major, ii. 359, 364, 377, 474. El Pinal, i. 138, 140, 153. El Soldado, Mexican village, i. 137. Ely, Ralph, Captain, ii. 377, 378. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, lectures, i. 81. Emigrants, circular letter to, ii. 274. Encerro, Santa Anna's hacienda, i. 126, 129. En-cha-rae-nae Creek, i. 401. En-chush-chesh-she-luxum, Lake, i. 401. Endicott, William, i. 16. Engineer company, advocates, i. 93; enlists first man, private Lothrop, 94, 118, 119, 139, 140, 164, 167, 171. English cemetery, City of Mexico, i. 210. Ensign, Lewis, ii. 248. Ensign, Shirley, i. 415. Ernst, Lieutenant, i. 112. Eskridge, Richard I., Colonel, U.S.A., married Susan Stevens; their children, Maud, Richard Stevens, Hazard Stevens, Virginia, Oliver, Mary Peyton, ii. 502. Esquimault Harbor, ii. 291. Ethan Allen, Fort, ii. 328. Eustis, Henry L., General, i. 27. Evans Guards, ii. 392. Evans, Elwood, i. 306, 328, 375; ii. 245, 246, 248, 261, 266. Evans, John, Dr., i. 287, 296, 302, 307, 351, 364. Evans, N.G., General, ii. 381, 411, 412, 450, 460. Evelyn, Mr., i. 306. Everett, Edward, ii. 302. Everett, T.S., i. 106, 308, 311. Ewell, Richard S., General, i. 27, 183; ii. 431, 433, 438, 441, 442, 446, 457, 487. Ewen, Camp, ii. 322. Fairhaven, Mass., takes charge of battery, i. 76, 80. Falls Church, ii. 330. Farnsworth, Addison, Colonel, ii. 425, 452, 459, 466. Faugh-a-ballagh, "Clear the way," designation of 28th Massachusetts, ii. 452. Fay, R.C., ii. 256. Fayetteville, Va., ii. 432. Fenton, William, Colonel, ii. 341, 361, 395, 402, 403. Fernandina, Fla., ii. 357, 382. Ferrero, Edward, General, ii. 489. Fessenden, W.P., Senator, ii. 386. Field, Charles W., General, brigade, ii. 487, 495, 496. Field, H., ii. 208. Fifteenth infantry, i. 173. Fiftieth Pennsylvania volunteers, ii. 341, 359-366, 388, 389, 421, 425; battle of Chantilly, 484, 485, 495. First artillery, i. 114, 156, 180, 181, 184, 210, 211. Fitzhugh, E.C., ii. 158, 205, 253. Fitzwater, killed, i. 169. Five Crows, Cuyuse chief, ii. 51, 52, 61, 121. Flathead Indians, i. 348; talk with, 381, 382, 384; ii. 16, 22, 23; manner of ferrying across rivers, 77, 79, 80; council and treaty, 80-91; present condition, 91, 92, 99, 107, 114, 115, 125. Flathead Lake, i. 382. Flathead River, ii. 80, 90. Flathead trail, i. 376. Flattery, Cape, i. 473, 474, 477. Flette, John, ii. 33. Flint Hill, Va., ii. 494. Floyd, John B., Secretary of War, ii. 287. Folsom, Captain, i. 425, 437. Forbes, John M., ii. 371. Forbes, William H., ii 371. Ford, Sidney S., Judge, i. 412, 441-443; ii. 168, 257. Ford, Sidney S., Jr., ii. 1, 3, 68, 70, 73, 132, 151, 169, 185, 187, 200, 255, 256. Forts, stockades, and blockhouses built: thirty-five by volunteers, ii. 234; twenty-three by settlers, 235; seven by regulars, 235. Forty-sixth New York, ii. 390; battle of James Island, 402-415, 425, 426, 449, 450, 484, 495. Foster, John G., General, i. 112, 119, 131, 172, 178; wounded, 205, 224; letter from, 227, 250; on Coast Survey, 275, 277, 409. Foster, Susan, i. 15. Fourcier, Louis, ii. 70. Fourteen Years' Bill, carried, i. 257-259. Fourth infantry, i. 114, 164. Fowler, E.S., i. 454, 468. Fowler, Professor, phrenologist, i. 60, 265. Fowler, William H., Lieutenant, i. 83. Fox Island, council at, ii. 192; reservation, 256. Franklin Academy, i. 15. Franklin, William B., General, corps, ii. 476, 494. Fraser River, ii. 293. Fraser, James L., Colonel, ii. 359. Fredericksburg, ii. 425. Fremont, John C., ii. 270. French, Mr., ii. 385. French, William H., General, i. 27; remarks on General Stevens's reconnoissance of the Peñon, i. 186. Frontera, Mexican general, killed, i. 173. Fruitvale farm, battlefield of Chantilly, ii. 483. Fry, Dorothy, wife of Captain James, i. 3. Fuca, Strait of, i. 473, 477. Fuller, Charles A., Captain, ii. 366, 372. Fuller, of Maine, i. 260. Fuller, W.J.A., ii. 371, 375, 376. Gaines, Major, i. 165. Gainesville, Va., ii. 431, 433, 439-441. Galena, i. 303. Gallicer, first mate bark Prompt, i. 99. Gansevoort, G., Captain, ii. 167; punishes northern Indians, 258, 259. Garden's Corners, ii. 357, 365. Gardiner, J.W.T., Captain, detailed on exploration, i. 293, 298, 306. Gardner, Major, i. 164. Gardner, Port, i. 468. Garfielde, Selucious, ii. 265, 280, 314, 316. Garland, Colonel, i. 139, 140, 142, 169, 205, 206, 211. Garnett, Major, ii. 195, 225, 230. Garnett, M.R.H., ii. 280. Garrison, Mayor of San Francisco, i. 425. Garry. See Spokane Garry. Gazzoli, Père, i. 388. Genette, Frank, ii. 70. George's Island, Boston Harbor, i. 57. Georgia, Gulf of, ii. 13. Georgia volunteers, 13th, ii. 372, 374, 398; 47th and 51st, i. 412. Germanna Ford, ii. 427. Germantown, ii. 481. Getty, George W., General, i. 28; ii. 454. Gholson, R.D., Governor, ii. 293, 294. Gibbon, John, General, ii. 63, 441, 442, 459. Gibbs, George, i. 307, 394, 416, 445, 453-457; ii. 3, 5, 245, 246. Gibson, A.A., Lieutenant, i. 277. Gibson, Edward, ii. 158. Giddings, Edward, i. 456. Gideonites, ii. 369, 370. Giles, Henry, lecturer, i. 93. Gilfillan, Charles D., ii. 299. Gilmer, Jeremy F., classmate, i. 27, 58, 77, 226, 235. Gilmore, Q.A., General, ii. 350, 357, 382. Goff, Francis M.P., ii. 169, 171, 187, 197, 200, 201, 210, 214, 222. Golden Age, steamship, i. 436; ii. 269. Golden Gate, steamship, ii. 269. Goldsborough, H.A., i. 415, 445, 453; ii. 245, 246. Goliah, chief, i. 463, 466. Goodell, J.W., ii. 249. Goodell, W.B., i. 412. Goose's Neck, i. 376. Gosnell, Wesley, ii. 169, 187, 255, 257. Goudy, George B., ii. 170. Gove, Warren, ii. 168. Governor, the, steamship, ii. 345. Gracie, Archibald, Lieutenant, ii. 29, 33, 66. Grafton, i. 37. Graham, Lieutenant, wounded, i. 183. Graham, Major, i. 112, 170. Graham, William M., i. 302, 307. Graham, William M., Captain, ii. 470. Grainger, Robert S., General, i. 28. Grand Mound prairie, i. 412. Grande Ronde, battle at, ii. 201, 202. Grant, U.S., General, ii. 303. Graves, Frank, Lieutenant-Colonel, ii. 395, 402. Gray, i. 341. Gray's Harbor, ii. 1. Great Britain, ii. 12, 13. Great Northern Railroad, i. 320, 380, 395. Great Pond, North Andover, i. 5, 8; ducking in, 47. Great Republic, ship, ii. 344, 345. Great Salt Lake, i. 422. Green River, ii. 184, 187. Greene, Charles G., i. 273. Greene, William B., i. 37, 58. Greenwich, ii. 433. Gregg, Maxcy, General, ii. 487, 495, 496. Griffin, Charles, Captain, ii. 329-331, 463. Grimball's plantation, ii. 390. Grinnell, Joseph & Co., i. 420. Gros Ventres, i. 347, 348, 355; council with, 356-358, 362; ii. 99, 109, 114. Grover, Cuvier, Lieutenant, detailed on exploration, i. 293, 298, 306, 308, 312, 314, 319-321, 345, 351, 355, 359, 364, 370, 372; winter trip, Fort Benton to Olympia, 422; ii. 448, 455, 456. Grover, Lafayette, ii. 296. Groveton, ii. 436, 438, 440, 441, 449, 450, 452. Guadalupe, Fort, in Puebla, i. 144. Guadalupe, Mexico, i. 163, 214. Gulf Stream, i. 100. Guthrie, Camp, i. 327, 328. Guy, i. 329, 338. Gwin, William, Senator, i. 269, 437; ii. 298. Hahd-skus, treaty of, on Point-no-Point, i. 469-473. Halbert, i. 38. Hale, C.H., i. 415. Hale, Frank, ii. 70. Hale, gunboat, ii. 408. Hale, John P., Senator, ii. 320, 386. Hal-hal-tlos-sot. See Lawyer. Hall, Fort, i. 422. Hall, Joseph, ii. 367. Hall, J.H., i. 468. Halleck, Henry W., General, classmate, rival, i. 26, 27, 31, 35-37, 58, 71, 72, 75, 80; letter to, 420; letter from, 420, 425; ii. 303, 424. Haller, Granville O., Major, ii. 28, 29, 121, 157, 158, 207, 294. Hamilton, John, Captain, ii. 395, 409. Hamilton, Schuyler, General, i. 28. Hamlin, i. 243. Hammell, Augustus, i. 368, 369. Hammond, Dr., i. 436. Hampshire, England, i. 1. Hampton Roads, ii. 423. Hancock, United States warship, ii. 258. Hancock, W.S., General, ii. 333. Hardcastle, Lieutenant, i. 113. Hardee, William J., i. 28, 260. Harned, Benjamin, ii. 261. Harney, William S., Colonel, i. 125, 126, 153, 167; General Harney placed in command in Oregon and Washington, ii. 283, 284, 288; orders Captain Pickett to San Juan, 290; reinforces him, 291-295. Haro, Canal de, ii. 13. Harris, Major, i. 83. Haskin, Joseph P., Lieutenant, i. 114, 116, 132, 173. Hassard, Nicholas, i. 63. Hastings, L.B., i. 412. Hatch, Rufus, General, ii. 441, 460, 466, 468. Hathaway, M.R., ii. 168, 200. Hatteras, Cape, storm off, ii. 270. Havana, i. 433. Haverhill, Mass., i. 1, 35. Hawk, Isaac, i. 415. Hawley, Joseph R., Lieutenant-Colonel, ii. 395, 402, 405, 407, 414. Hayes, John L., i. 83, 257; ii. 273, 282, 498. Hayes, William, General, i. 28. Hays, Fort, i. 185, 234. Hays, Gilmore, i. 414; ii. 158, 168-171, 186; resigns, 189. Hays, Harry T., General, ii. 487, 490, 495, 496. Hays, Isaac, ii. 170. Haymarket, Va., ii. 440. Hazard, Benjamin, i. 63-65, 70, 71; death, 77. Hazard, Daniel L., i. 303; ii. 288, 289. Hazard, Emily L., i. 65, 94. Hazard, Harriet (_née_ Lyman), i. 65, 91. Hazard, Harriet L., i. 67. Hazard, Margaret L., i. 63, 64, 67, 79, 81, 87, 96. Hazard, Mary W., i. 65, 94, 95, 276. Hazard, Mrs., i. 232. Hazard, Nancy, i. 87, 91, 95, 96, 268, 269. Hazard, Thomas G., i. 91, 266, 267. Hazen, Nathan W., i. 19, 20, 22, 48, 71. Hazlett, Charles E., Captain, ii. 469. Head, J.C., i. 415. Heath family, ii. 483. Hebert, Paul O., i. 58. Heffron, H.G., Lieutenant, ii. 425, 474, 475. Heintzelman, Samuel P., General, ii. 430, 462, 463, 481. Hell Gate, i. 379; ii. 93, 125. Hell Gate River, ii. 93. Hell Gate Ronde, i. 379; ii. 92. Henness, B.L., Captain, ii. 169, 170, 186, 197. Henry Hill, ii. 435, 470. Henry, Joseph, Professor, i. 276; ii. 273. Henry, Lake, i. 315. Herrera, Mexican peace commissioner, i. 203. Hewett, C.C., Captain, ii. 170, 245. Hicks, Urban E., i. 412. Higgins, C.P., i. 306, 422, 444; ii. 31, 48, 68, 70, 77, 108, 109, 131, 132, 169. Higginson, Henry L., Major, ii. 389. Hilgard, H.E., Professor, i. 277. Hill, A.P., General, ii. 438, 446, 458, 487, 493, 495, 496. Hill, D.H., i. 27. Hill, Humphrey, ii. 168. Hillsborough, N.C., i. 274. Hilton Head, ii. 345, 350-352, 382. Hitchcock, C.M., Dr., i. 436, 463. Hitchcock, E.A., Colonel, i. 150, 257. Hodges, Henry C., Lieutenant, detailed on exploration, i. 307. Hodgdon, Stephen, i. 412. Hoecken, Father, ii. 85, 90. Hoffman, Lieutenant, killed, i. 184. Holbrook, Andrew J., Lieutenant, ii. 366. Holt, Abiel, i. 13. Holt, Joseph, ii. 303, 312, 318. Hood, John B., General, ii. 448, 450, 460. Hood River, ii. 153. Hooker, Joseph, General, i. 27, 83; ii. 430, 432-434, 439, 445, 448, 460, 464, 481. Hope, Camp, ii. 325. Horn, Cape, i. 300; ii. 153. Horse Butte, i. 327. Horse Plains, ii. 79. Horton, W.H., ii. 266. Hough, F.O., i. 462. Howard, O.H., Lieutenant, ii. 408. Howard, O.O., General, ii. 63. Howe, A.W., General, i. 28. Howe, Samuel D., Captain, ii. 169, 171, 188. How-lish-wam-poo, Cuyuse chief, ii. 148. Hoyt, O.S., i. 307. Huger, Eustis, ii. 168. Hughes, C., ii. 70. Hudson Bay Company, i. 281, 285, 297; Governor Stevens reports on claims, 297; ii. 13; people not molested by hostile Indians, 132, 225; Governor Stevens's opinion of, as neutrals, 229; ex-employees ordered to settlements, imprisoned, tried, 242-249; claim San Juan, 289; exactions of, 281, 282. Huet, Charles, i. 389. Humber, i. 37. Humphreys, A.A., Captain, i. 241, 244, 246; ii. 277, 309. Hunt, E.B., Lieutenant, i. 277. Hunt, H.J., General, classmate, i. 27, 60, 77, 106; General Stevens's sense of justice, 188, 210, 212; army reforms, 240, 259; letter to, 260; Jefferson Davis and Governor Stevens, 427, 428. Hunter, David, General, ii. 383-386, 393, 399, 420, 421. Huntington family, i. 412. Hunton, Eppa, General, ii. 460. Hurd, James K., ii. 168. Hurd, Jared S., i. 415; ii. 168. Hurd, M., i. 415. Hydah Indians, i. 452. Hyde, Breed N., Colonel, ii. 329. Indian Affairs, Commissioner of, reports to, ii. 91, 227-230, 271-273. Indian councils and treaties: She-nah-nam, i. 456-462; Point Elliott, 463-468; Point-no-Point, 469-473; Neah Bay, 473-477; Chehalis, Quinaiult, ii. 1-9; Walla Walla, 34-65; Flathead, 81-91; Blackfoot, 107-119; Spokane, 133-140; Nez Perce, 143, 144; Fox Island, 192; Klikitat, 208; second Walla Walla, 210-220; treaties confirmed, 285. Indian policy, Governor Stevens's, i. 448-450, 454, 455. Indian tribes. See map, ii. 16; Appendix, 503-505, and following:-- East of Rocky Mountains, Assiniboines, in four bands of Blackfeet, Bloods, Piegans, and Gros Ventres; Chippewas, Crees, Crows, Sioux, Winnebagoes. Tribes of Rocky Mountains, Flatheads, Pend Oreilles, Kootenays. Tribes of Upper Columbia, Nez Perces, Cuyuses, Umatillas, Walla Wallas, Coeur d'Alenes, Spokanes, Yakimas, Palouses, Klikitats, Snakes. Tribes of Puget Sound, Nisquallies, Puyallups, Duwhamish, Snohomish, Clallams, Chimakums, Skokomish, Makahs. Tribes of Coast, Quinaiults, Quillehutes, Chehalis, Chinooks, Cowlitz. Northern Indians, Hydahs. Indian war, causes of, ii. 25, 26, 163. Indian war debt, ii. 296; paid by Congress, 306-308. Indiana, 19th regiment volunteers, ii. 329, 330. Ingalls, Mary, wife of Joseph, i. 3. Ingalls, Rufus, Captain, ii. 296. Ingraham, Sampson, i. 269. Ip-se-male-e-con or Spotted Eagle, Nez Perce chief, i. 58. See Spotted Eagle. Ireland, David, Captain, ii. 335. Irish volunteers, ii. 392. Irons, Lieutenant, killed, i. 184. Irvin, Colonel, i. 224. Irwin, Lieutenant, ii. 362. Istacalco, i. 207. Ives, Robert, Captain, ii. 482, 483. Iztaccihuatl, mountain in Mexico, i. 159. Jack, i. 393. Jackson Club, i. 269. Jackson, Fort, near Savannah, i. 230. Jackson, J.H., Colonel, ii. 395. Jackson, John R., i. 411, 440; ii. 170. Jackson, Thomas J., General, ii. 426, 427, 431, 434, 438, 441, 446, 452, 462, 468, 471, 475, 479, 480; battle of Chantilly, 487-496. Jacksonville, Fla., ii. 357. Jacques River, i. 330. Jalapa, i. 123, 126, 129, 130; description of, 132, 133. James Island, ii. 380-388; campaign, 390-399; battle of, 399-415. James, Nez Perce chief, ii. 63, 217. James or Jacques River, i. 277, 320, 330, 331. James River, Va., ii. 423. Jameson, Mr., i. 201. Jamestown, i. 320. Janney, Mrs., i. 226, 264, 265. Jefferson, Va., ii. 431. Jekelfaluzy, A., i. 306, 317. Jennings, i. 38, 48. Jessie, Lake, i. 328, 329. Jesuit missionaries, ii. 21, 22. Juan el Diablo, Don, i. 225. Judith River, ii. 98; Blackfoot council at mouth of, 110-116. Julia, steamer, ii. 292. Justice, Jefferson, Lieutenant, ii. 415. Jocko River, i. 381, 384, 385; ii. 79. John, Captain, Nez Perce chief, ii. 129, 152, 201. John Day's River, ii. 30. John Taylor, Snohomish chief, ii. 169. Johnson Bradley, T., General, ii. 438, 440, 468. Johnson, Bushrod, i. 27. Johnson, Edward, i. 27. Johnson, Fort, ii. 387. Johnson, John, ii. 70. Johnson, Mr., i. 36. Johnson, T. Preston, Lieutenant, killed, i. 172, 184. Johnson, Walter W., ii. 284. Johnson, W.R., Mrs., ii. 284, 371, 373, 374. Jones, camp at West Point, i. 36. Jones, David R., General, ii. 450, 490. Jones, Gabriel, i. 412. Jones Island, ii. 382. Jones, James, Colonel, ii. 365. Jordan, Captain, ii. 206. Jordan, Lieutenant, i. 112. Joseph, Coeur d'Alene guide, ii. 67. Joseph, Nez Perce chief, ii. 58, 63, 202, 217 Kalorama Hill, near Georgetown, D.C., ii. 325. Kam-i-ah-kan, head chief of Yakimas, ii. 27, 38; at Walla Walla council, 40; speech, 48, 51-53; signs treaty, 55-57; chief instigator to war, 61, 64, 121, 157, 211, 218, 223. Kane, P.C., Colonel, ii. 395. Kearny, Philip, General, i. 155, 170, 183; ii. 430, 434, 439, 445, 448, 457, 458, 462, 464, 473, 475; at battle of Chantilly, 488; death, 490, 491. Kelley, Mrs., i. 257. Kelly, James K., Colonel, ii. 144, 160. Kelly, William, Captain, ii. 169, 190. Kemble, George S., Dr., ii. 343. Kemper, James L., General, ii. 450, 460. Kendall, B.F., i. 306, 311, 312, 317, 325, 332; 375; ii. 245, 246, 248. Kendrick, Captain, i. 113, 259. Kendrick, David, i. 412. Kennedy, H., ii. 95. Kerns's battery, ii. 469. Kincaid, William M., ii. 246. King, Rufus, General, ii. 439, 441-443, 453, 454, 459, 460, 463, 464. Kip, Lawrence, ii. 29, 33, 60, 61. Kirby, Major, i. 224. Kirkham, Ralph W., General, i. 28. Kiser, Benjamin, ii. 92, 115, 117. Kitchelus, Lake, i. 408. Kittson, i. 325. Klady, Samuel, i. 462. Klah-she-min or Squaxon Island, i. 458. Klikitat Prairie, ii. 187. Klikitat River, i. 208. Klikitats, i. 452; ii. 22, 190, 208, 257. Knox, Fort, opposite Bucksport, Me., buys land for, i. 84; constructs, 85-100, 265; resumes charge of, 283; relinquishes, 283; ii. 309. Knox, Mr., buys house, i. 272. Knoxville, Tenn., i. 35; ii. 413. Koh-lat-toose, Palouse chief, ii. 72. Koltes, John A., Colonel, ii. 470. Koos-koos-kin, or Clearwater River, ii. 18, 141, 145. Kootenay Indians, ii. 17, 22, 77, 79, 80. Kossuth, Louis, i. 269. La Frambois, i. 306, 329, 338. La Hoya, Mexico, i. 137, 156. La Vega, Mexican general, i. 129. Las Vegas, Mexican village, i. 137, 138, 207. Lakeman, Moses B., Colonel, ii. 497. Lamar, Fort or Battery, ii. 396; assault on, 400-416. Lamar, T.G., Colonel, ii. 403, 411, 412. Ladies' Island, ii. 354. Ladd, Alexander, i. 83. Ladd, W.S., ii. 266. Lambert, John, i. 306. Lambert River, i. 318. Lancaster, Columbia, i. 411; elected delegate in Congress, 418, 432; ii. 15. Lander, Edward, Judge, i. 414; ii. 169, 171, 188; arrested and taken off bench, 244; holds court in Olympia, issues writs, again arrested, held prisoner to end of war, 247, 248; fines Governor Stevens $50, 249, 251-253. Lander, Frederick W., i. 295, 298, 299, 306, 308, 314, 319, 321, 325, 326, 330-332, 338, 345, 350, 355, 359, 365, 368-370, 372, 380, 381, 383, 384; ordered to examine Nahchess Pass; fails, 405, 406. Lander's Fork, ii. 125. Lake George, N.Y., i. 3, 4. Lame Bull, Blackfoot chief, ii. 100. Lane, Joseph, General, i. 221, 300, 432; ii. 273, 298; nominated for vice-president, 304; his chances, 306, 313. Lansdale, R.H., Dr., i. 385; ii. 26, 33, 68, 70, 92, 125, 127, 209. Lansing, Arthur B., Lieutenant, i. 60. Lapwai, ii. 18, 142, 145. Lathrop, i. 100, 264. Lawrence, Mass., i. 1. Lawton, A.R., General, ii. 446, 457, 458, 487, 495, 496. Lawton, Robert R., Colonel, i. 106. Lawyer, Hal-hal-tlos-sot, head chief of Nez Perces, ii. 18; at Walla Walla council, 35-64; moves lodge in Governor Stevens's camp, 47; speech, 51, 54; advises Governor Stevens, 56-58, 71, 146, 202, 210, 217, 218. Le Bombard, Alexis, guide, i. 337, 338. Le Favre, Captain, ii. 343. Leake's Virginia battery, ii. 365. Lear, Mr., ii. 208. Leasure, Daniel, Colonel, ii. 340-342, 359, 364, 395, 402, 406, 425, 458. Lecky, David A., Major, ii. 395, 402, 484. Lee, John E., i. 233, 269. Lee, Robert E., General, i. 109, 111, 114, 117, 121, 122, 130, 139, 141, 142, 144, 149; reconnoitres the Peñon, 164-166, 169, 170; at Contreras, 171, 172, 174, 175, 179, 180; important services, 185; sketch of, 194 216, 250, 255; ii. 376, 377, 380, 427, 431, 460, 479. Legareville, ii. 390, 393, 394. Lemere, Joseph, ii. 70. Leschi, i. 461; ii. 184, 208, 225, 236, 238; hanged, 240. Lewinsville, Va., reconnoissance, ii. 329-332. Lewis and Clark, i. 348, 378, 379. Lewis and Clark's Pass, ii. 93. Lewis, Mr., i. 307. Lewis, Père, i. 397. Lewis River, i. 411. Lighthouse Board, i. 271. Lightning Lake, i. 316, 318. Lilly, William, Captain, ii. 343, 372. Lincoln, Abraham, President, nominated, ii. 305; elected, 306; Governor Stevens calls upon, 319, 332, 334, 340. Lincoln, Lieutenant, i. 114. Lindner, Sergeant, i. 322, 330. Lispenard, George, ii. 367. Little Dog, Blackfoot chief, i. 368; ii. 100, 114. Little Muddy River, i. 351. Little River turnpike, ii. 479, 481, 497. Little Soldier, Gros Ventre chief, i. 355. Little White Calf, Gros Ventre chief, i. 356. Lobos Island, Mexico, i. 105, 106. Lock's Ford, ii. 437, 475. Logan, John A., General, ii. 304. Logan, Private, remarks on death of, i. 276. Long Island Sound, i. 78. Longstreet, James, i. 27; ii. 413, 427, 431, 434, 440, 448, 450-452, 454, 460, 462, 466; his attack, ii. 469-471, 475, 479, 490, 496. Looking Glass, war chief of Nez Perces, ii. 54-58, 92, 129, 130; treachery discovered, 133, 143, 144, 202. Loring, George B., i. 16. L'Orme, De, Governor, Red River hunters, i. 340, 341. Louisburg, i. 3. Louisiana volunteers, 4th, ii. 409, 411. Lovell, Mansfield, i. 28. Low, J.M., i. 412. Lowell, Mass., i. 68. Low Horn, Piegan chief, i. 374; ii. 99. Lugenbeel, Major, ii. 206. Lummi Indians, ii. 256. Lummi River, i. 468. Lupton, Major, ii. 200, 201. Lusk, William T., ii. 343, 368, 459, 482, 483, 485, 497. Lyman, Daniel, Colonel, i. 65. Lyman, Harriet, i. 65. Lymans, i. 77. Lyon, Nathaniel, General, i. 28. Lyons, Benjamin R., Lieutenant, ii. 366, 372, 402, 405, 406; death of, 415. Maryland volunteers, 2d, ii. 457. Macfeely, Robert, Lieutenant, i. 307, 370, 393. Madison, Port, i. 468; ii. 256. Maginn, i. 389. Magruder, John B., Captain, i. 114, 171, 172, 176, 211. Maine, i. 3, 5. Maine volunteers, i. 209; 6th regiment, ii. 332; 3d and 4th, 488, 495. Maison du Chien, i. 338. Makah Indians, treaty with, i. 473-477. Major Tompkins's steamer, i. 413, 462. Malinche, mountain in Mexico, i. 159. Maloney, Maurice, Captain, ii. 158, 207. Manassas Gap Railroad, ii. 434. Manassas Junction, ii. 431, 434, 435, 439. Mansfield Joseph, K.F., Colonel, i. 230, 237, 255; ii. 285. Man-who-goes-on-Horseback, Gros Ventre chief, i. 356. Maple River, i. 326. Marble Ridge Farm, stratagem against Indians, i. 7. Marcy, Camp, i. 319. Marcy, William L., Secretary of State, i. 285; ii. 250. Marias Pass, i. 380, 381, 384. Marias River, i. 361, 362, 369, 370. Marion Rifles, ii. 392. Marsh, Edwin, i. 415. Martial law, ii. 240-250, 263. Martin, Augustus P., Captain ii. 463. Mason, Charles H., i, 414, 456, 461, 462, 464; ii. 123, 158, 159, 165, 257, 258; death of, 289. Mason, James L., i. 60-64, 66, 67, 77, 81, 105, 106, 108, 111, 113, 114, 117, 119, 122, 130, 138, 144; reconnoitres the Peñon, 164-167, 169-171, 182, 201; wounded, 205, 216; sketch of, 217, 232, 255, 274, 425. Mason, Jeremiah, i. 71. Massachusetts, U.S. war-ship, ii. 185, 252, 258. Massachusetts volunteers, 1st cavalry, ii. 367, 389; 28th regiment, 390; 1st, 11th, and 16th, 455, 456; 21st, 470, 489-491, 495. Matthews, Joseph, ii. 367. Matthias, Frank, ii. 168. Maxon, H.J.G., Major, ii. 168, 171, 186, 187, 197, 242. Maynard, D.S., Dr., i. 412, 465, 466; ii. 256. Maynard, Mr., i. 45. McAlister, James, i. 412, 462. McAlister, John W., i. 462. McBane, i. 403. McCafferty, Green, ii. 3, 151. McCaw, S., ii. 246. McClary, Fort, at Portland, Me., i. 83. McClellan, George B., General, i. 111, 130, 141, 142, 166, 171, 172, 180; asks aid, 238, 260, 263, 264; Governor Stevens applies for, 288; letter to, 289, 293, 295-297, 299, 307, 394; his exploration of Cascade passes, 394-400, 404, 406; ordered to run line to Snoqualmie Pass, 406; his failure, 407-409; disparages settlers, 410; commended by Secretary Jefferson Davis, 429; ii. 325, 328, 332; keeps back General Stevens's appointment as brigadier-general, 334, 336; General Stevens condemns McClellan's management, and foretells disaster, 339, 340, 427. McClelland, Camp, i. 326. McClelland, Robert, Secretary of the Interior, i. 286. McClure, Charles, Colonel, ii. 494. McCorkle, W.A.L., Captain, ii. 170. McCown, John P., i. 28. McDonald, in charge of Fort Colville, i. 393, 394, 397, 398; ii. 133. McDonough or Caamano Island, i. 409. McDowell, Irvin C., General, i. 28; ii. 319, 427, 430, 432-434, 439, 440, 444, 453-455, 459, 462-464, 481, 494. McFarland, Aunt, i. 68. McField, John, ii. 243. McKay, William C., ii. 32, 170. McKensie, Captain, i. 113, 208, 213. McKensie, Patrick, ii. 33. McKenzie, Fort, i. 370. McKinstry, Justus, General, i. 28. McLaws, Lafayette, i. 28. McLean, Nathaniel C., General, ii. 447, 448, 465, 469, 470. McLean, William, Lieutenant, ii. 329, 331. McLeod, John, ii. 243, 247, 249. McMullin, Fayette, Governor, ii. 268. McWillie Senator, i. 257. Meade, George G., General, ii. 440, 469, 470. Meeker, E.M., ii. 246. Meiggs, Montgomery C., General, i. 27, 258. Menetrey, Father, ii. 89. Menoc, i. 306, 311, 312, 329. Meredith, Solomon, Colonel, ii. 329. Merrill, Captain, killed, i. 206. Merrimac River, Mass. i. 1. Merton, W.B., lectures in Bucksport, i. 93. Metcalf, E., Major, ii. 395. Metsic, Indian hunter, i. 98. Mexicalcingo, town in valley of Mexico, i. 165, 166. Mexican Congress, i. 151. Mexican Gulf, i. 102; norther in, 104. Mexican war justified, i. 232, 273; work on 250, 255, 256; Ripley's History, 254. Mexico, i. 91. Mexico, City of, defenses of, i. 154, 163; capture, 213-215; condition of, 222. Micheau, Butte, i. 327. Michelle, head chief of Koo-te-nays, ii. 77; at Flathead council, 84, 88. Michigan. See 8th regiment volunteers. Miles, General, ii. 63. Milk Creek, scene of Walla Walla council, ii. 31, 218. Milk River, i. 353-355, 361, 362. Millard, Justin, ii. 168. Millard, M.B., ii. 168. Miller, Bluford, Captain, ii. 169, 171, 187, 197; arrests Judge Lander, 248. Miller, General, i. 45. Miller, W.W., General, ii. 168, 193; appointed Superintendent of Indian Affairs, 307, 313. Milroy, Robert H., General, ii. 446, 447, 451, 452, 470. Minot, i. 320. Minter, J.F., i. 307, 398-400, 406. Minton, John R., i. 116. Missionaries, Catholic, not disturbed by hostiles, ii. 132, 225; Governor Stevens's opinion of, as neutrals, 228, 229. Mississippi River, i. 288, 302, 303, 308-310, 353. Missoula, town, river, valley, i. 379; ii. 93. Missouri, Coteau du, i. 338-340, 345. Missouri River, i. 297, 302, 345, 362. Mitchell, Joseph L., ii. 248. Mix, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, ii. 271-275. Mixcoac, i. 201, 202. Moffett, Joseph F., i. 306, 322. Molinard, Professor at West Point, i. 32. Molino del Rey, battle of, i. 204-207. Monroe, Fortress, i. 60; ii. 343, 423, 424. Monroe, guide, i. 385. Monroe, Victor, i. 414. Monterey, Mexico, i. 107. Montezumas, i. 207, 222. Montgomery, Camp, ii. 185, 197, 234. Monticello, i. 438. Montour, Indian agent, ii. 210. Mooar, George, cousin, i. 11. Moore, McClellan, Lieutenant-Colonel, ii. 395, 402. Moore, R.S., ii. 246. Mora, i. 203. Morale, Butte de, i. 337. More, John, Captain, ii. 361, 462. Morell, George W. General, ii. 430, 453, 466. Morgan, Colonel, i. 173, 220. Morrison, David, Colonel, ii. 338, 395, 402, 406, 484, 497, 498; transmits colors to Mrs. Stevens, 499, 500. Morrow, J.H., Colonel, ii. 398. Moses, Flathead chief, ii. 88, 89. Moses, Simpson P., i. 414. Mott, G., ii. 285. Mouse River, i. 320, 338, 339, 341, 345, 351. Mowry, Sylvester, Lieutenant, detailed on exploration, i. 307. Muckleshoot Prairie, ii. 186, 192. Mukilteo, i. 462. Mullan, John, Lieutenant, detailed on exploration, i. 293, 297, 302, 364, 380-382, 384; remarkable trips, 422; ii. 275, 296. Mullan Pass, i. 380. Mullan road, Fort Benton to Walla Walla, i. 431; ii. 276, 285, 296, 307, 308. Murden, E.O., ii. 245. Murphy, Daniel, i. 84, 88, 96, 98. Muscle Shell River, i. 364, 381; ii. 99. Nagle, James, Colonel, ii. 448, 457. Nahchess Pass, i. 395, 446; ii. 158, 187, 195, 197. Nahchess River, i. 395, 405, 406. Narkarty, Chinook chief, ii. 6. National Bridge, Mexico, i. 120, 121. National Democratic Party, Governor Stevens chairman of executive committee, ii. 305, 306. National Palace, occupied by General Scott, i. 213. Naylor, Captain, i. 222. Neah Bay, i. 473, 477. Neely, D.A., Lieutenant, ii. 188, 252. Nelson, Duwhamish chief, ii. 208, 225. Nesmith, James W., Colonel, ii. 140, 160, 256, 267, 271, 272, 279, 288; elected senator, 313, 317-320, 386. Newarkum, ii. 28, 187. New Baltimore, ii. 440. New Bedford, Mass., i. 76, 79, 82, 83, 98. Newell, Robert, ii. 160, 170. New Hampshire volunteers, 3d regiment, ii. 395-409; 2d regiment, 455; 6th regiment, 457. Newmarket, ii. 459. New Mexico, i. 233, 252. New Orleans, i. 104. Newport, R.I., stay at, i. 60, 79, 82, 83, 87, 226, 232, 250, 265, 274; arrives at, 427; ii. 320; monument erected to General Stevens by, 499, 502. Newport News, Va., i. 423, 425. Newton Cut, ii. 392. Newton, John, General, i. 27. New York city, i. 36, 78, 427; ii. 270, 319. New York volunteers, i. 112, 156, 209. See 79th Highlanders, 65th, ii. 329, 330; 33d and 49th, 333, 336; 47th and 48th at action, Port Royal Ferry, 358-366; Serrell's engineers, 367, 395; 46th, 390, 393; 47th, 393-409; 5th and 10th, 469; 1st, 4th, 18th, 101st, 488, 495; 51st, 470, 489, 495. Ninth infantry, i. 173, 176-179. Nez Perce Indians, i. 385, 390; ii. 16-21; at Walla Walla council, 34-64; sign treaty, 62, 63; present condition, 65, 99-107, 109, 114, 115, 121, 125, 141; council with, 143, 144; furnish escort, 145, 147, 150; at peace council, 210-220; aid in fighting hostiles, 221-223; save Steptoe's defeated force, 230. Nez Perce reservation, ii. 62. Ninth corps, ii. 423, 424, 427, 445. Nisqually, Fort, Hudson Bay Company's, i. 412. Nisqually Indians, i. 456-462; ii. 12, 161; new reservation given, 192, 256. Nisqually plains, i. 412. Nisqually River, i. 412, 456; ii. 186, 187. Noble, Mr., ii. 32. Nobles, William H., ii. 341, 343. Nooksahk, ii. 256. Nopalucan, i. 140, 153. North Andover, i. 1, 2, 47, 53, 60, 81. North Yarmouth, Me., i. 85. North Edisto River, ii. 378. Northern Indians, i. 452; ii. 12, 154, 161, 188, 257-259, 289, 294. Northern Light, steamship, ii. 313. Northern Pacific Railroad, i. 381, 395; Governor Stevens's speeches on, ii. 279; letter to Vancouver Railroad convention, 297-299; company incorporated, 265. Northern Pacific Railroad Route Exploration, i. 285-380; preparing reports in Olympia, 421, 422; address on, in San Francisco, 426, 427; makes first report, 427, 428; final report, 431; ii. 286-309. Northerner, steamship, ii. 288. Noyes, A.M., sapper, i. 130, 136. Oak Point, i. 411. Ocean Queen, steamship, ii. 343, 355. Offut, Levi and James, i. 415. Ogden, Michael, i. 401. Ohio regiment, i. 224. Oho de Agua, i. 139, 153, 156. Oketie, ii. 380. Okinakane or Okanogan River, i. 394. Old Horse, Gros Ventre chief, i. 356. Olney, Nathan, ii. 33. Olympia, i. 400, 405-412, 414, 415; appearance of, 441, 442; ii. 154, 259, 261, 313. Ord, E.O.C., classmate, i. 26. Oregon volunteers, ii. 140; defeat hostiles in Walla Walla, 144, 147, 160; operations, 194. Orizaba, peak of, i. 132. Orleans, Va., ii. 431. O'Rourke, P.H., Lieutenant, ii. 398. Osgood, Gayton P., appoints to West Point, i. 22, 273. Osgood, Isaac, i. 88, 295, 306, 311, 318, 328, 332, 341, 365, 375, 384, 385, 392, 427. Oson, Louis, ii. 70. Osoyoos, Lake, i. 394. Ostrander, N., Dr., i. 411. Ottawa, gunboat, ii. 358, 361. Otter Island, ii. 382. Owen, Fort, i. 370, 379, 380; ii. 80, 124, 125. Owen, John, ii. 127. Ow-hi, Yakima chief, ii. 40, 51, 52; signs treaty, 64, 204; death of, 205, 218, 231. Ox Hill, Va., ii. 484, 487. Ox Road, ii. 483, 487. Packwood, William, i. 412; ii. 169, 170. Palmer, H., ii. 70; death of, 126. Palmer, Joel, ii. 12, 27, 29, 66. Palmetto regiment, i. 182, 209, 211. Palouse Indians, ii. 22, 39, 121. Palouse River, i. 401, 402; ii. 71, 141. Pambrun, A.D., i. 402; ii. 33. Panama, city, i. 435, 436. Panama fever, i. 436. Panama, Isthmus of, i. 427, 431, 433-436; ii. 270. Pandosy, Father, ii. 37. Panther Hill, i. 354. Paredes, Mexican general, i. 203. Parke, John G., General, ii. 277, 424. Parker, John G., i. 415. Paso de Obejas, i. 120. Pataha Creek, ii. 70. Patterson, General, i. 126, 221. Pat-kanim, Snohomish chief, i. 462-465; ii. 156, 169, 184, 187, 254. Patrick, Marsena R., General, ii. 460, 494. Pay, brevet, i. 237. Peabody, A.P., i. 93. Peabody, R.V., Captain, ii. 169, 171, 188. Peabody, Sarah, wife of Lieutenant James Stevens, i. 3. Pearson, Edward Pennington, Colonel U.S.A., ii. 502. Pearson, W.H., express rider, ii. 66, 69, 70, 92, 101, 102; runs gauntlet of hostile tribes with news of outbreak, 120-123, 129, 132, 152, 209. Pease, William C., Captain, ii. 185, 245. Pedregal, lava rock, i. 170, 192. Pee Dee battalion, ii. 411-412. Pee Dee Rifles, ii. 392. Peeps, Cuyuse chief, ii. 214. Peerless, steamer, ii. 345. Peers, Henry A., Captain, ii. 170. Pemberton, John C., i. 28; ii. 365, 376, 380-382, 387. Pembina, i. 298, 335. Pembina carts, train, i. 313, 314. Pembina, gunboat, ii. 358. Peña y Peña, Mexican statesman, i. 219. Pend Oreille Indians, i. 386, 390; ii. 22-77, 79, 80, 92, 99, 109, 114. Pend Oreille, Lake, i. 370, 401; ii. 17. Pender, W.D., General, ii. 487, 495, 496. Penn's Cove, ii. 256. Pennsylvania volunteers, i. 112, 209; 47th, ii. 333. See 50th, 100th or Roundheads; 45th, 50th, 76th, 97th, 100th, 395-409; 26th, 455; 48th, 457; 51st, 470, 489, 495; 57th, 488, 495. Penobscot River, Me., i. 84, 88. Peñon, i. 163-165; Lieutenant Stevens's close reconnoissance of, 166, 167, 190. Percival, S.W., i. 415; ii. 169. Perote, Mexico, i. 138, 153. Perry, James H., Colonel, ii. 358, 361, 364. Perry, Matthew C., Commodore, i. 257. Perry, Oliver Hazard, Commodore, i. 62. Peter, Captain Lee's man, murdered, i. 222. Peter, John Colville, Spokane chief, speech, ii. 138. Peters, John A., lectures in Bucksport, i. 93. Pettygrove, F.W., i. 412. Phelps, John W., General i. 28. Philadelphia, trip to, i. 53. Phillips Academy, enters, i. 19. Phillips, Wendell, lectures in North Andover, i. 10. Piatt, A. Sanders, General, ii. 453. Pickett, George E. Captain, occupies San Juan Island, ii. 290-295. Piedad, church, village, causeway, Mexico, i. 164, 207. Piegan Indians, i. 348, 351; talk with, 373, 374; ii. 99, 109, 114. Piegan's Tear, i. 376. Pierce, Edward L., ii. 370, 385. Pierce, Franklin, General, i. 156; arrives at Puebla, 162, 172, 174; at Churubusco, 181, 182, 202; advocates election of, 272-274; elected President, 280, 281; invites correspondence, 432. Pierre's Hole, fight at, ii. 18. Pike, Fort, ii. 185, 234. Pike Lake, i. 314. Pilkington, James, ii. 2. Pillow, Gideon, General, i. 125, 150, 153, 157, 164, 167; battle of Contreras, 171, 174, 175, 178, 179, 201, 202; of Chapultepec, 207-210, 224. Pioneer Company, ii. 169. Pisquouse or Wenatche River, i. 395. Pitman, Captain, i. 161, 201, 268. Plano del Rio, Mexico, i. 121. Plante Antoine, i. 385, 392, 393; ii. 131, 210. Planter, rebel dispatch boat, ii. 374. Plebe, member of youngest class, West Point, i. 48. Plumb, W.W., i. 412. Plummer, Alfred A., Captain, ii. 170. Pocotaligo, ii. 365, 376, 379, 389. Pocotaligo River, ii. 376, 378. Poe, Orlando M., Lieutenant, ii. 329; General, 448, 457, 475, 492. Poinsett, Camp, at West Point, i. 46. Point-no-Point, treaty of, i. 469-473. Pond, Judge, i. 88. Poor, Ann, second wife to Isaac Stevens, i. 9, 15. Pope, John, General, i. 28; ii. 427, 428, 431-433, 439, 445, 453, 455, 459-465, 469, 473, 475, 476, 479-481, 494. Poplar River, i. 352. Popocatepetl, mountain in Mexico, i. 159. Porcupine River, i. 353. Porter, Benjamin F., ii. 356. Porter, Fitz John, General, ii. 430, 432, 434, 439, 445, 453-455, 461, 462-468. Port Labadie, Mo. i. 53. Portland, Me., takes charge of works at, i. 83, 84, 95. Portland, Ore., i. 438; ii. 153, 269. Port Royal, ii. 345. Port Royal Ferry, ii. 355, 357; action of, 358-366. Port Royal Island, ii. 353. Portsmouth, frigate, launch, i. 84. Portsmouth, N.H., takes charge of works, i. 83, 86; speaks for General Pierce, 274. Port Townsend, i. 412. Posey, Fort, ii. 185, 234. Potter, R.B., schooner, i. 454. Powell, Jephtha S., Captain, ii. 169, 170, 197. Power, J.M., Colonel, ii. 395. Prairie of the Knobs, or Blackfoot prairie, i. 378. Pratt, Lieutenant, ii. 374. Preble, Fort, at Portland, Me., builds barracks at, i. 84, 87. Prescott, General, capture of, i. 62. Pressley, Major, ii. 396. Prompt, bark, sailing to Mexico, i. 99. Providence, R.I., i. 65, 81. Prudhomme, William, ii. 70. Puebla, occupied, i. 143-162, 214, 224. Puget Sound, i. 280, 288; tour of, i. 416, 417; description of country, ii. 159, 160. Puget Sound Agricultural Company, i. 411. Puget Sound Rifles, Governor Stevens commissioned captain of, ii. 313. Pulaski, Fort, i. 230; ii. 357, 379, 380, 383. Pullen, W.H., i. 462. Pu-pu-mox-mox, head chief of Walla Wallas, i. 403, 404; ii. 21, 36, 37; sarcastic speech at council, 45, 46; signs treaty, 53, 55-63, 121, 130; threats to take Governor Stevens's scalp, 132; treachery of, 144; death of, 148, 158. Putnam, at Bunker Hill, i. 5. Putnam, Simon, schoolmaster, Franklin Academy, i. 16. Puyallup Indians, i. 456-462; ii. 161, 187, 192. Puyallup River, i. 456; ii. 185, 256. Quaitso Indians, ii. 1-9. Quaks-na-mish Indians, ii. 256. Qualchen, Yakima chief, murders Agent Bolon, ii. 157, 218, 223; hanged by Colonel Wright, 231. Queretaro, i. 214. Qui-e-muth, i. 461; ii. 186, 208, 225; killing of, 240, 241. Quijano, Mexican commissioner, i. 202. Quillehute Indians, ii. 8. Quil-to-mee, Yakima chief, ii. 222. Quinaiult Indians, ii. 1-9. Quin-quim-moe-so, Spokane chief, speech, ii. 139. Quitman, John A., General, i. 119, 136, 137, 141, 153, 157; advances from Puebla, 164, 167, 168, 202; Chapultepec, 207-213, 220. Rabbeson, A.B., i. 412; ii. 169, 171, 187. Rabbit River, i. 322. Raccoon Ford, ii. 426. Rainier, i. 438. Rains, G.J., Major, i. 405; ii. 28, 29, 140, 158; expedition to Yakima valley, 160, 207. Ramsay, Senator, ii. 266, 298. Randolph, George E., Captain, ii. 488, 492, 497. Randolph, Julia, i. 67. Randolph, Kidder, i. 88. Randolph, Lewis, Lieutenant, ii. 468. Randolph, Lucy, i. 83. Ransom, Dunbar R., Lieutenant, ii. 355, 359, 469. Ransom, Trueman B., Colonel, i. 173, 176. Rapidan River, ii. 426, 427. Rappahannock River, ii. 425, 427, 428, 430. Rappahannock station, ii. 427. Rattlers, i. 376; ii. 124. Ravalli, Père, i. 389; ii. 22, 72, 210. Raymond, N., ii. 33. Red House Ford, ii. 437, 474. Red River, i. 320. Red River hunters from Pembina, i. 333-337. Red River hunters from Selkirk settlements, i. 339-341. Red River traders, i. 325, 326. Red Wolf, Nez Perce chief, ii. 58, 63, 70, 144, 202, 216, 217. Red Wolf's ground, ii. 70. Red Wolf, Flathead chief, ii. 82, 86. Reed, Captain, ii. 404. Reed, Battery, ii. 396, 406, 409. Regan, a sapper, i. 136. Reid family, ii. 483. Remenyi, A. i. 306, 317. Reno, Jesse L., General, i. 172; ii. 424, 425, 427, 428, 433, 434, 439, 448, 457, 462, 464, 470, 472, 477, 484, 489, 497, 498. Republic, The, newspaper, i. 272. Republican party, doctrine, ii. 302. Revolution, i. 62. Reynolds, Captain, i. 209. Reynolds, John F., General, ii. 430, 439, 440, 442, 445, 447, 448, 451, 452, 455, 463, 465, 466, 469, 470, 478. Reynolds, William H., ii. 367. Rhode Island, battle of, i. 62; legislature, ii. 319; resolutions on death of General Stevens, 500. Rhode Island volunteers, 3d H.A., ii. 395, 409. Rhoeder, Henry, i. 413. Ribaut, Jean, ii. 422. Ricard, Father, i. 412, 443; his warning, ii. 29. Rice, Alexander H., ii. 320. Rice, Henry M., Senator, ii. 298, 321, 386. Richards, Captain, ii. 169, 170, 187, 197, 200. Richmond, ii. 380. Ricketts, James B., General, classmate, i. 26; ii. 435, 439, 442, 443, 463, 464, 472, 474. Rifles, i. 210. Riley, Colonel, i. 125, 137, 157; battle of Contreras, 172-174, 179, 181. Riley, C.W., Captain, ii. 169, 171. Rio del Plano, Mexico, i. 123, 124. Rio Frio, Mexico, i. 138, 155, 164, 224. Ripley, Roswell S., Major, History of Mexican war, i. 254, 255; General, ii. 381. Risden, Joel, ii. 265. River of the Lakes, i. 341, 345. Roberts, Charles W., ii. 467. Robertson, William, ii. 372. Robie, A.H., ii. 68, 70, 98, 124, 132, 152, 168, 200, 202, 210, 257. Robinson, Captain, ii. 329. Robinson, John C., General, ii. 457, 492. Robinson, R.S., ii. 168. Rochambeau, i. 62. Roche, M., ii. 114. Rockwell, Alfred P., Captain, ii. 367, 389, 395, 406, 410, 421. Rocky Mountains, i. 364; proclamation on crossing the summit, 377, 378; a broad plateau, ii. 93. Rodgers, C.P.R., Captain, ii. 358, 360, 420. Ropes, John C., ii. 437. Rosa, Rudolph, Colonel, ii. 395, 402, 426. Rosario Strait, ii. 13. Rose Island, recommends fortifying, i. 69. Rosecrans, William S., General, i. 27. Rosefield, ii. 435. Rotten Belly, Crow chief, i. 368, 369. Rotten Belly Rocks, i. 369. Roulet, i. 325. Roundheads, or 100th Penn. volunteers, ii. 341, 343, 359-366, 391; battle of James Island, 402-415, 425, 449, 450; battle of Chantilly, 484, 495. Ruddell, Stephen D., i. 412. Ruggles, George D., Colonel, ii. 463, 465. Ruff, Charles F., General, i. 27. Rum River, i. 309. Rummell, Corporal, i. 329, 338, 345. Running Fisher, Gros Ventre chief, i. 356, 359, 361. Rush, Richard C., i. 277. Rusk of Texas, i. 260. Russell, David A., Captain, ii. 210. Ruth, B.F., ii. 168. Rutledge, William, i. 412. Sacrificio, island, Mexico, i. 109. Sahaptin. See Nez Perce Indians. Salem, Mass., i. 35. Salem, Va., ii. 431, 440. Salisbury, i. 1. Salish or Selish, race of Indians, ii. 23, 79. Saltillo, Mexico, i. 107. Saltzman, Charles McKinley, U.S.A., ii. 502. St. Anthony, i. 308. St. Augustine, Florida, ii. 382. St. Helena Island, ii. 354. St. Louis, i. 297, 302. St. Mary, village, ii. 80. St. Paul, i. 298, 303, 304, 346. St. Regis de Borgia River, ii. 75. Samish Indians, ii. 256. San Angel, i. 169, 179-181, 202. San Antonio, i. 138, 169, 170, 174, 180, 182. San Augustin, i. 168-171, 174, 185, 202. San Cosme, causeway, garita (gate), i. 164, 210, 211; Lieutenant Stevens wounded, 218, 219. San Francisco, i. 422; visits, 425, 436; ii. 269. San Geronimo, i. 173, 174. San Juan de Ulloa, castle at Vera Cruz, i. 110. San Juan Island controversy begins, ii. 12, 277, 285; threatens war, 290-295. San Juan River, i. 120. San Luis Potosi, i. 108. San Miguel, hacienda, i. 141. San Martin, i. 162, 224. Sanders, Captain, i. 106, 112. Santa Anna, i. 108, 126; renounces authority, his career, 145, 146, 173, 179, 202, 203, 214, 219. Santa Annaced, hacienda, i. 139. Sante Fé, i. 119. Santiago, Fort at Vera Cruz, i. 110. Sargent, Horace Binney, Lieutenant-Colonel, ii. 367, 395. Sargent, L.M., Captain, ii. 402. Saskatchewan River, ii. 100. Satsop, ii. 1-9. Saugus, Mass., i. 82. Sauk or Osakis River, i. 308-310, 315. Sauk Rapids, i. 309. Saunders bottom, i. 441. Saunders, Daniel, i. 16. Saunders, Fort, at Knoxville, ii. 413. Saunders, S.S., i. 412. Savage, New England Genealogies, i. 1. Savannah, Ga., ordered to, i. 229, 230, 233; ii. 379, 381, 382. Savannah River, ii. 357. Saviour, drawing of, i. 44. Saxton, Rufus, Lieutenant, detailed on survey, i. 293, 296, 297, 307, 369-371; ii. 389, 390. Scalp dance, view and description, i. 59, 60. Scammell, Fort, at Portsmouth, N.H., i. 83. Scammon, S. Parker, General, i. 28. Scattering Creek, i. 380. Schenck, Robert C., General, ii. 446, 447, 451, 452, 470. Schimmelfennig, General, ii. 452, 459. Schlat-lal, Spokane chief, speech, ii. 138. Schofield, John M., General, ii. 454. Schrotter, E., ii. 246. Schurz, Carl, General, ii. 446-449, 452. Schuyler, Fort, i. 238, 239. Scott, Martin, Colonel, i. 111; killed, 206. Scott, Winfield, General, i. 105, 108, 109, 118, 127, 128; arrives at Puebla, 144, 156; estimate of, 162; advances from Puebla, 164, 168, 170; battle of Contreras, 174; able, confident bearing, 175, 179, 180, 194; addresses troops, 184, 202-204; Chapultepec, 207, 213, 214, 219, 221, 250; takes offense, 255, 256, 272-275; compromises San Juan trouble, 194, 295, 319. Scotum, Nez Perce chief, ii. 144. Scranton, John H., Captain, i. 413, 468; ii. 292. Scull Creek, ii. 347. Seabrook, ii. 357-359, 364. Sea Islands of South Carolina, ii. 353. Sears, Alfred F., Captain, ii. 367, 402, 406. Seattle, i. 412; proper railroad terminus, 417; Indians attack, ii. 166, 167. Seattle, Chief, ii. 463-468. Sebastian, Senator, ii. 272. Secessionville, ii. 396. Second artillery, i. 112, 113, 182. Second infantry, ii. 173, 181. Second Vermont, ii. 329. Se-cule-eel-qua Creek, i. 400. Sedgewick, John, General, i. 28. Seely, F.W., i. 444. Seneca, gunboat, ii. 364. Serrell, E.W., Colonel, ii. 395. Serrell's engineer regiment, ii. 367, 395. Settlers, American pioneers, character of, i. 410, 413, 414; murdered by Indians, ii. 158. Seventh Connecticut, ii. 394; battle of James Island, 403-415, 421. Seventy-Ninth Highlanders, New York volunteers, ii. 320; character of the men, 321; heavy losses at Bull Run, mutiny, 322-327, 329, 330; colors returned 332, 335, 336; scene when General Stevens bade farewell, 338, 340, 342, 343, 348; action at Port Royal Ferry, 358-366, 388, 389, 391; battle of James Island, 402-415; present sword to General Stevens 416-419, 425, 428, 452, 459; battle of Chantilly, 482, 485, 495. Seward, Fort, ii. 382. Seymour, Truman, General, ii 469, 470. Shackleford, Lieutenant, i. 112. Shaler, Alexander, Lieutenant-Colonel, ii. 329. Shaw, B.F., Colonel, i. 415, 453; ii. 1, 3, 5, 148, 151, 168, 171; marches across Cascades to Walla Walla, i. 197; battle of Grande Ronde 201-203, 211, 212, 221; arrests Judge Lander, 244. Shazer, George i. 462. Shead, Oliver, Captain, ii. 169, 171. She-nah-nam or Medicine Creek, i. 456. Shepard, George, lectures in Bucksport, i. 93. Sherburne, Miss, marriage to Lieutenant Whipple, i. 84. Sheridan, P.H., General, ii. 190, 303. Sherman, Thomas W., General, i. 28; ii. 338, 340, 341, 346, 349, 350, 357, 358, 368, 369, 376, 383. Sherman, William T., General, i. 28; ii. 303, 385. Sheyenne River, i. 315, 327, 332. Shields, James, General, i. 125, 129, 154, 166, 181, 182, 220, 221; senator, 248, 258; gratifying letter from, 268, 271; ii. 266. Shoalwater Bay, i. 411. Shoshone or Snake Indians, i. 346. Shroder, Mrs., i. 67. Sibley, i. 166, 178, 176. Sigel, Franz, General, ii. 427-429, 432-434, 439, 440, 442, 445-449, 465, 494. Simcoe River, branch of Yakima, ii. 63. Simmons, M.T., Colonel, i. 415, 445, 453, 464; ii. 1, 3, 4, 123, 159, 184, 204, 256. Simpson, George, Sir, Governor Hudson Bay Company, i. 291, 296. Simpson, William, i. 306, 308, 384; ii. 70. Sioux Indians, i. 333. Sitting Squaw, Gros Ventre chief, i. 356, 359. Sixth infantry, i. 182. Skagit Head, ii. 256. Skloom, Yakima chief, ii. 40, 55, 64. Sko-ko-mish Indians, i. 469-473. Sko-ko-mish River, i. 473. Skookumchuck Creek, i. 412, 441; ii. 10, 11, 28. Slah-yot-see, Palouse chief, ii. 72. Slaughter, W.A., Lieutenant, i. 456, 462; ii. 154, 158; killed by Indians, 159, 207. Slaughter, Fort, i. 185, 235. Slawntehus or Chimakane Creek and valley, i. 399. Small, Robert, ii. 374. Smalley, Daniel, Captain, ii. 169-171, 187. Smalley, E.V., ii. 284, 297. Smith, Alexander (Sandy), ii. 243. Smith, Andrew J., General, i. 28; ii. 296. Smith, C.F., Lieutenant-Colonel, i. 120, 169. Smith, E.W., Captain, i. 113. Smith, Frederick A., Captain, i. 235. Smith, General, i. 156; battle of Contreras, 172-175, 179, 202; Chapultepec, 208-210. Smith, Gustavus W., i. 28, 94, 112, 130, 144; sketch of, 217, 260, 262, 264. Smith, Henry, ii. 243. Smith, Henry L., i. 58, 64, 71, 72, 264. Smith, J.A., lectures in Bucksport, i. 93. Smith, John L., Major, i. 117, 119, 121-123, 149, 150, 155, 166, 169-171, 185, 220, 221, 283. Smith, J.S., ii. 263. Smith, Larkin, i. 181. Smith, William F., General, ii. 328, 329, 332, 335. Smith's plantation, ii. 421. Snake Indians, ii. 29, 99, 107, 115, 148. Snake River, i. 402; ii. 71. Snelling, Fort, i. 304. Snohomish, Spokane chief, speech, ii. 138. Snohomish Indians, i. 463-468; ii. 156, 169, 256. Snohomish River, i. 407, 409; ii. 171, 172, 184, 187. Snoqualmie Pass, i. 394, 396, 406; ii. 187. Snoqualmie River, ii. 172. Snow, in mountains, i. 408; question solved, 422. Sohon Gustave, ii. 68, 70, 93, 95, 115. Southampton, England, i. 2. South Carolina volunteers, i. 209; 12th and 14th regiments, ii. 365; 1st, 24th, and 25th regiments, 409; 1st artillery, 1st, 9th, and 22d regiments, 411. Spalding, H.H., ii. 17-19. Speaking Owl, ii. 218, 217. Spokane, Garry, i. 391-393, 399, 400, 422; ii. 39, 133, 135; speeches, 136, 139, 140. Spokane House, i. 391, 392, 399. Spokane Indians, i. 390-392, 399; ii. 16-22; present condition, 64, 121, 131; council with, 133-140; defeat Steptoe, 230; defeated by Wright, 231. Spokane Invincibles, ii. 132, 141, 151, 169. Spokane River, i. 399; ii. 141. Spotted Eagle, Nez Perce chief, ii. 40, 41, 58, 68, 92, 129, 130, 150, 151, 169, 201, 219, 220. Sprague, William, Governor, offers regiment to Governor Stevens, ii. 319, 320, 499. Springfield, Mass., i. 78. Springfield Republican, ii. 320. Square Hill, i. 361. Squaxon Indians, i. 456; ii. 187, 257. Squaxon Island or Klah-she-min, i. 456; ii. 257. Stacy, John A.C., i. 61. Stahel, General, ii. 447. Stahi, Nisqually chief, ii. 208, 225. Stanberry, Captain, i. 83. Stanley, J.M., i. 296, 306, 308, 359, 368, 370, 373, 375, 378, 385, 392, 397, 403, 405. Stanley, Lake, i. 318. Stannard, George J., Lieutenant-Colonel, ii. 329. Stanton, Edwin M., ii. 303, 312. Stanton, of Tennessee, i. 260. Starke, William E., General, ii. 446, 487, 489, 490, 495, 496. Steachus, Cuyuse chief, ii. 50, 53, 57, 148, 150. Stebbins, second mate bark Prompt, i. 99. Steele, Richard, Lieutenant, i. 123, 124. Steilacoom, Fort, i. 296, 297, 412; ii. 156, 159, 267. Stellam, head chief Coeur d'Alenes, ii. 129; speech, 137, 138. Stephens, Alexander H., ii. 306. Steptoe, E.J., battery, i. 141. Steptoe, E.J. Colonel, defeat by Spokanes, ii. 185, 206; at peace council, 210-221; Indians attack his camp, 222; marches back to Dalles, 223, 225, 226; defeated by Spokanes, 230, 283. Stevensburg, ii. 427, 428. Stevens Cantonment, ii. 80. Stevens Guards, ii. 132, 151, 169. Stevens hat, ii. 268. Stevens, Abiel, captured by Indians, i. 3. Stevens, Asa, Captain, died in Lake George campaign, i. 3. Stevens, Benjamin, Jr., i. 2. Stevens, Charles A., cousin, i. 33, 98, 99. Stevens, Dolly, i. 4. Stevens, Eliza, aunt, death of, i. 45. Stevens, Eliza, cousin, i. 91. Stevens, Elizabeth Barker, sister, i. 11; letters to, 35, 45; visits Belfast, 51, 67, 68; goes to Nashville, 73; marries L.M. Campbell, 82-87; death, 97. Stevens, Ephraim, recompensed for loss by Indians, i. 3. Stevens, Fort, ii. 185, 235. Stevens, George Watson, i. 265, 266, 269, 295; breaking mules, 304-306, 319; scenes at Fort Benton, 365, 366, 441; death of, ii. 10, 11. Stevens, Gertrude Maude, i. 249; lost on Isthmus, 436; Panama fever, 437; ii. 502. Stevens, Hannah, i. 4. Stevens, Hannah Peabody, sister, i. 11, 22, 29, 30, 35, 51, 56, 66, 67; death, 73. Stevens, Hazard, i. 81, 82, 456-462; ii. 27, 56, 70, 98, 99, 110, 152, 153, 193, 260, 262, 266, 300, 313; calls on President Lincoln, 334; appointed adjutant, 79th Highlanders, 335, 337; appointed captain and assistant adjutant-general, 338, 352, 366, 383, 389-391, 398; at battle of James Island, 407, 419, 420, 458, 472, 474, 478, 482-485, 502. Stevens, Henry H., cousin, i. 47, 77, 98. Stevens, Isaac, father, i. 4; settles in Maine, crippled by falling tree, 6; marries Hannah Cummings, i. 7; settles in Andover, 8; characteristics, 9, 10; children, 11; wife's ancestry, 12; letters to, 31, 39, 40, 44, 46, 52-56; visits West Point at son's graduation, 59; letters, 69, 74, 78-81, 85, 89, 92, 117, 228, 249; ii. 270; death of, 498, 499. Stevens, Isaac Ingalls. See Table of Contents; descendants, ii. 502. Stevens, James, captain in Louisburg expedition, i. 3. Stevens, James, Lieutenant, died in Lake George campaign, i. 3. Stevens, James, Revolutionary soldier, diary of siege of Boston, i. 5, 6. Stevens, James, settles in Maine, i. 5, 6. Stevens, Jeremy, i. 4. Stevens, John, died in Louisburg expedition, i. 5. Stevens, John, founder of Andover, i. 1, 2. Stevens, Jonathan, grandfather, fights at Bunker Hill, i. 4; characteristics, 5, 8, 15. Stevens, Jonathan, settles in Maine, i. 5, 6. Stevens, Joseph, deacon, i. 3. Stevens, Julia Virginia, daughter, born, i. 87; died, Mr. Brooks's tribute, 92; ii. 502. Stevens, Kate, daughter, born, i. 277; lost on Isthmus, 436; ii. 371, 502. Stevens, Margaret L. (_née_ Hazard), wife, i. 63, 64, 67, 79, 81, 87; letters to, 97-99; voyage to Mexico, 109-115; Vera Cruz, 115-117; battle of Cerro Gordo, i. 127, 128; Jalapa, description of, 132-135; Puebla, description of, 158-162; account of campaign in valley, including Churubusco, 189-202; arrives at New Orleans, 225; Washington, 226; views and ideals, 251-254, 265-267; canoeing up Cowlitz, 439, 440; impressions of Olympia, 442-444; visits Whitby Island, ii. 154, 155, 187, 248, 249, 260, 313, 371; letters to, 373, 374, 479, 500. Stevens, Mary Jane, sister, i. 11, 35, 51, 67, 68, 81, 82, 85-87; death, 162. Stevens, Moses, uncle, i. 4, 51. Stevens, Nathan, councillor, first male child born in Andover, i. 2. Stevens, Nathaniel, uncle, i. 4, 16, 81, 92. Stevens, Oliver, brother, i. 11, 46, 47, 51, 54-56, 67, 73, 74, 77, 81, 82, 85, 87, 92, 97, 229, 230, 236, 242, 243. Stevens, Oliver, uncle, i. 4. Stevens, Primus, faithful servant to Benjamin, Jr., i. 2. Stevens, Sarah, i. 4. Stevens, Sarah Ann, sister, i. 11, 22, 35, 51, 67, 81, 85; death, 86. Stevens, Susan, daughter, i. 95, 257; ii. 502. Stevens, Susan Bragg, sister, i. 11; letters to, 34, 35, 45; attending school, Andover, 51; goes to Missouri, 52, 67; marries David H. Bishop, 68; death, 77. Stevens, Susanna (_née_ Bragg), wife of Jonathan, grandmother, i. 4, 13; death, 68. Stevens, William, uncle, i. 4; suggests West Point, 22; letter to, emotions on entering West Point, 24, 29, 33, 35-39, 58, 66, 69, 81. Stevens, William O., cousin, i. 91. Stevensville, ii. 80. Stewart, Charles, ii. 497. Stock, Whitley, Des Chutes chief, ii. 212. Stone, C.P., General, ii. 312, 319. Stono River, ii. 378, 387, 390. Strahan, Captain, ii. 401, 408, 410. Strobel, Max, i. 306, 326. Strong, William, Judge, i. 411; ii. 160, 170. Stuart, A.B., ii. 10. Stuart, J.E.B., General, ii. 331, 431, 438, 494. Suckley, George, Dr., i. 296, 306, 308, 312, 314, 315, 317-319, 345, 375, 382, 422. Sudley Church, ii. 438. Sudley Ford, ii. 435. Sullivan, Bridget, nurse, i. 269. Sulphur Springs, ii. 429, 431. Sumner, Edwin V., General, i. 122; ii. 494. Sumter Guards, ii. 392. Sun River, i. 375, 376; ii. 94, 124. Suydam, Mr., ii. 385. Swan, James G., account of Chehalis council, ii. 1-9, 25; Governor Stevens's secretary, 275, 284, 294. Swan, John M., i. 415. Swan, Mr., i. 458. Swartwout, Captain, i. 113, 206. Swartwout, Samuel, Captain, ii. 185, 187. Sweet Grass Hill, i. 360. Swindal, C.W., Captain, ii. 169, 171, 186. Sykes, George, General, i. 27; ii. 430, 453, 466, 468, 470. Sylvester, Edmund, i. 414. Tacoma, i. 459. Tacubaya, village near City of Mexico, i. 164; occupied, 200, 202, 210, 219. Tafft, Henry S., Lieutenant, ii. 343, 363, 366, 408. Talcott, General, i. 257. Taliaferro, William B., General, ii. 437, 441, 442. Talisman, paper, edits, i. 57, 58. Talome River, Mexico, i. 120. Tampico, Mexico, i. 105, 106, 108. Taplin, Charles, i. 302. Tappan, William H., i. 416; ii. 1, 3, 67, 91, 92, 107-109, 132. Tatnall, Commodore, ii. 346. Taylor, Battery, i. 164, 180, 181. Taylor claim, ii. 262. Taylor, Colonel, ii. 338. Taylor, Nelson, General, ii. 448, 456, 457. Taylor, William, ii. 14, 15. Taylor, Zachary, General, i. 91, 107, 108; view of, 236, 244. Tepe Ahualco, Mexico, i. 139. Terry, Alfred H., General, ii. 454. Teton River, i. 362, 368, 375; ii. 94, 120. Texas, i. 91; bill, 252. Texcuco, lake in valley of Mexico, i. 164. Texmaluca, village in valley of Mexico, i. 169. Thayer, Colonel, i. 57, 237. Third artillery, Battery E., ii. 395. Third infantry, i. 156, 176, 181. Third Vermont, ii. 329, 330. Thom, George, General, classmate, i. 27. Thomas, Edward L., General, ii. 487, 495, 496. Thomas, George H., General, i. 28. Thompson, Jacob, Secretary of Interior, ii. 272, 274, 306. Thompson, R.R., ii. 32, 33. Thompson River, ii. 293. Thornton, Captain, i. 164; killed, 169. Thoroughfare Gap, ii. 431, 440. Three Bears, Blackfoot chief, i. 368. Three Buttes or Sweet Grass Hills, i. 360. Three Feathers, Nez Perce chief, ii. 129, 130, 144. Til-coos-tay, Flathead chief, ii. 86. Tilden, Bryant P., i. 58, 72, 132. Tilton, Fort, i. 184. Tilton, James, Major, i. 445; ii. 123, 159, 168, 176, 193, 248. Timothy, Nez Perce chief, ii. 39, 57, 63, 70, 217. Tinkham, Abiel W., assistant at Fort Knox, i. 88, 233, 268, 295, 298, 306, 308, 314, 319, 321, 322, 326, 330-334, 341, 342, 370, 381, 383-385; ordered to examine Snoqualmie Pass, 406; his successful trip, 408, 422, 427. Tin-tin-meet-see, ii. 148. Tlascala, i. 144. Tleyuk, Chehalis chief, ii. 7, 8. Tlinkits, northern Indians, i. 452. Todd, John B.S., General, i. 28. Tolmie, William Frazer, Dr., i. 412. Toombs, R., General, ii. 494. Totten, Joseph G., General, i. 60-62, 89-91, 94, 98, 105, 109, 114, 119, 226, 227, 235, 237, 239, 256; letter to, resigning, 282; reply, 283; ii. 273, 317, 318. Touchet River, i. 402; ii. 218. Tower, Zealous B., General, i. 28; draws character of General Stevens, 43, 58, 105, 108, 111, 119, 121, 122, 130, 139, 142, 144, 166, 167, 169, 170, 179, 185; sketch of, 217, 237; ii. 470. Townsend, A., ii. 257. Townsend, E.D., General, his advice, i. 26, 28. Townsend, Port, i. 473, 477. Train, Charles R., ii. 320. Train guard, ii. 169. Trapier, Lieutenant, i. 105. Traveler, steam tug, ii. 266. Traveler's Rest Creek, i. 379. Tremain, Lieutenant, ii. 457. Trimble, Isaac R., General, ii. 487, 495, 496. Tripler, Dr. i. 124. Trist, Nicholas, i. 200, 208. Tulalip Reservation, i. 468. Tulancingo, i. 168. Tulifiny River, ii. 376. Tumwater, i. 441. Twelfth infantry, i. 173, 179. Twenty-eighth Massachusetts, ii. 390, 391; battle of James Island, 402-415, 425, 428, 452, 484, 485, 495. Twiggs, General, i. 12; battle of Cerro Gordo, 125, 126; reaches Puebla, 144, 155; advances, 162, 164; battle of Contreras, 170-172, 175-182, 202; Chapultepec, 208-210. Twiggs, Major, i. 209. Tybee Island, ii. 382. Tyerall, E.R., i. 462. Umatilla Indians, ii. 16, 21; at Walla Walla council, 36-64, 121, 158, 212. Umatilla River, ii. 30. Umatilla treaty, ii. 63. Ume-how-lish, war chief of Cuyuses, captured, ii. 147, 152, 262. Union, Fort, i. 295, 297, 320, 345, 346; description of, 347, 351. Union, preservation of, ii. 301, 302. Union, steamship, ii. 345. Union Light Infantry, ii. 392. Updyke, Isabella, i. 88. Upshur, J.H., Lieutenant, ii. 365. Utah Bill, i. 252. Valencia, Mexican general, i. 179, 203. Van Bokkelen, J.J.H., ii. 168-171, 187. Vancouver, fort and town on Columbia River, i. 297, 394, 400, 405, 406, 411; ii. 12, 153, 156, 159, 206, 208, 288. Vancouver Island, i. 417, 418; ii. 13. Vanderbilt, Cornelius, ii. 343. Vanderbilt, steamship, ii. 342, 344, 345. Van Dorn, Earl, i. 27. Van Ogle, William, ii. 265. Van Vliet, Stewart, General, i. 27. Vaughan, A.J., ii. 114. Venta Nueva, i. 224. Vera Cruz, Mexico, i. 106-108, 110; siege of, 111-115; leaves, 119-221. Vermont, 2d and 3d volunteers, ii. 329-331. Vernon, i. 63. Victor, Flathead chief, i. 383-385; ii. 77-80; at Flathead council, i. 80-92. Victoria, B.C., i. 417, 418, 477; ii. 292. Viele, Egbert L., General, ii. 341, 357, 382. Vienna, ii. 330. Vigara, Mexico, i. 119. Villamil, Mexican commissioner, i. 202. Vireyes, i. 139. Virginia, Army of, ii. 427. Virginia, 13th regiment, ii. 331; 1st cavalry, 332; 13th and 35th, 446, 447. Vogdes, Israel, General, i. 25, 27. Voltigeurs, i. 208. Wabash, Commodore Dupont's flagship, ii. 344. Wadmalaw River, ii. 378. Walcott, Charles F., General, ii. 490, 496, 497. Walcott, Lieutenant, ii. 491. Walker, Elijah, Colonel, ii. 488, 497. Walker, E., missionary among Spokanes, i. 398; ii. 22. Walker, Fort, ii. 345. Walker, Henry, ii. 392. Walker, R.M., i. 315; ii. 168, 248. Walker Donation Claim purchased, i. 421; ii. 265. Walla Walla, old fort, i. 296, 297, 402, 403; plundered by Indians, ii. 158. Walla Walla River and valley, i. 393, 400, 403; ii. 31, 147, 149, 209. Walla Walla Indians, ii. 16, 21; at Walla Walla council, 35-64, 121, 157, 158. Walla Walla council, ii. 27, 31-65. Wallace, William H., ii. 170, 245, 266, 289. Wallamet Indians, ii. 23. Wanton, Gideon, Governor, i. 65. Wanton, John G., i. 65. Wanton, Mary, "Charming Polly," i. 65. Warbass, Edward D., ii. 169, 187. Warbass, N.G., Dr., i. 439; ii. 168. Ward, Ira, i. 415. Warfield, L.A., Captain, ii. 343. Warren, Dr., treats rupture, i. 18. Warren, G.K., Colonel, ii. 466, 469. Warrenton, ii. 430, 432. Warrenton Junction, ii. 430-432. Washington, Camp, near Vera Cruz, i. 115. Washington, Camp, south of Spokane River, 399, 400. Washington, George, General, i. 62. Washington, George, i. 412. Washington, Territory of, formed, i. 280; appointed governor of, 282; sparse settlements in, 411-414; Governor Stevens's messages to legislature, 418, 419, 445, 447; ii. 162-164, 262; resolution that governor visit Washington, i. 424; of censure, ii. 263-264. Washington Artillery, ii. 450. Washington City, visits, i. 75, 89, 226, 237; life in, 242-292, 302; spends summer of 1854 at, 427-434; ii. 271, 295, 319. Washington Lake, ii. 188. Washington Mounted Rifles, ii. 169, 197. Washington territorial library, purchased, i. 300. Washington volunteers, called out by Governor Mason, disbanded by Wool, ii. 149, 158, 160, 168-171, 189; mustered out on Sound, 192; all disbanded, character and services, 232-235. Waterloo Bridge, ii. 430. Watson, Colonel, i. 221. Watson, Major, ii. 366. Webster, Daniel, i. 75, 248, 249. Weed, Stephen H., Captain, ii. 470. Weed, Charles E., ii. 168, 248. Wee-lap-to-leek, chief of Tigh Indians, ii. 214. Wellman, Captain, bark Prompt, i. 99, 108. Welsh, Thomas, Colonel, ii. 395. Wenass River, ii. 197. Wenatche River, i. 395; ii. 64. West, Mr., ii. 329. West Point, i. 22, 83; course at, 24-59; revisits, 78. Whig party, i. 260. Whipple, A.W., General, i. 27, 83, 84. Whitby Island, ii. 154, 184, 258. White, sapper, death of, i. 346. White, William, Captain, ii. 169, 171, 187. White Antelope, Gros Ventre squaw, ii. 355. White Bear, Gros Ventre chief, i. 356. White Bear Lake, i. 312, 318. White Eagle, Gros Ventre chief, i. 355. White Earth River, i. 345. White Man's Horse, Blackfoot chief, i. 352. White River or Duwhamish, ii. 159, 187, 188. White Salmon River, ii. 257. White Tail Deer, Gros Ventre chief, i. 356. White Wood Lakes, i. 338. Whitman, Marcus, missionary among Cuyuses, i. 403; ii. 21. Whitney, L., Major, i. 114. Whitworth, George F., Rev., i. 415; ii. 260. Wiedrich, Captain, ii. 451. Wilbur, agent of Yakimas, ii. 64. Wilcox, C.M., General, ii. 450, 460, 471. Wild Rice River, i. 324. Wilkie, Governor, Red River hunters, i. 334, 335. Wilkinson, Morton S., Senator, ii. 299. Willard, G.K., Dr., i. 415; ii. 168. William I., Emperor of Germany, awards San Juan Archipelago to United States, ii. 294. Williams, Hezekiah, i. 229. Williams, James, Captain, ii. 169, 170, 200. Williams, Robert, General, ii. 382, 394, 395, 399, 400; at battle of James Island, 408-411. Williams, Seth, General, i. 27. Wilmington Island, ii. 372. Wilmington, N.C., i. 272, 277. Wilson, Henry, Senator, ii. 319, 385. Wilson, James H., Lieutenant, ii. 372. Wilson Point, ii. 184. Winders, Captain, i. 211. Winfield Scott, steamship, ii. 313. Winnebago Indians, i. 309. Winthrop, Theodore, ii. 64. Wi-ti-my-hoy-she, Palouse Indian chief, i. 402. Wolf's Lodge prairie, i. 390; ii. 131. Wolf Talker, Gros Ventre chief, i. 356. Wolf that Climbs, Blackfoot chief, i. 368. Woodbury, Charles Levi, i. 274. Woodbury, D.P., General, i. 27, 226. Woodward, H.R., i. 415. Wool, John E., General, rebuked, i. 437; ii. 33, 148, 149, 153, 156, 160, 161; memoir sent to, 173, 174; reply, 175, 176; demand to disband volunteers, 177; Governor Stevens's caustic reply, 177-184, 196, 207, 224; orders settlers kept out of upper country, 225, 226; relieved by General Clark, 266, 276. Worth, William S., General, i. 105-107, 115, 119, 120, 126, 129, 130, 138, 139, 141; occupies Puebla, 143; advance from Puebla, 164, 167-169, 171, 174, 175, 180; at Churubusco, 181, 202; battle of Molino del Rey, 205, 206; battle of Chapultepec, 208, 213. Wren Charles, ii. 243, 247, 249. Wright, George, Major, i. 205; Colonel, ii. 64, 147, 173, 190, 191; abortive campaign against Yakima, 194-199; Governor Stevens's letter to, 199, 202, 203; quasi-peace with Yakimas, 204; puts Ow-hi and Quelchen to death, 205-208; gives order to give up Indian murderers, its evasion, 224, 225; punishes the Yakimas and Spokanes, 230, 231, 274, 283; recommends treaties, 285. Wright, H.G., General, i. 27; ii. 341, 357, 380, 382, 383, 387, 388, 394, 395, 399, 400, 408-411, 421. Wyncoop, Colonel, i. 156. Xochimilco, lake in valley of Mexico, i. 163, 165. Xochimilco, village, i. 168, 171. Yale College, solves problem from, i. 20. Yantis, Benjamin F., Judge, ii. 132, 169, 249. Yellowstone, i. 337, 345, 347; ii. 107, 108. Yelm prairie, ii. 185. Yakima Indians, ii. 16, 22; at Walla Walla council, 40-64; present condition, 64, 121, 140; begin war, 157; defeat Major Haller, 158, 160, 186; massacre at Cascades, 190, 197, 221-223, 257, 273, 274. Yakima River, ii. 63, 197. Yakima treaty, ii. 63, 64. Yakima valley, i. 394. Yesler, H.L., i. 412; ii. 251, 256. Young's Branch, ii. 435. Young Chief, head chief of Cuyuses at Walla Walla council, ii. 38, 42, 44, 51; assents to treaty, 53, 61, 121. Zacatecas, Mexico, i. 151. The Riverside Press _Electrotyped and printed by H.O. Houghton & Co._ _Cambridge, Mass, U.S.A._ * * * * * Transcriber's note: Some compound words (e.g., 'wagon-master') appeared both with and without a hyphen. They are given as printed. Where a word is hyphenated on a line break, the hyphen is retained if the preponderance of other appearances indicate it was intended. Index entries tend not to hyphenate words that are unhyphenated in the text. All variants were retained. Illlustrations cannot be reproduced here, but the approximate position of each is indicated as: [Illustration: <caption>]. Footnotes are repositioned at the end of each chapter. They have been re-numbered consecutively. The word 'coöperate' is consistently printed with the diaeresis on the second syllable's opening 'o'. On p. 181, the word fell on a line break, and was hyphenated without the diaeresis. The 'ö' has been restored for consistency. The total for the second table on p. 381 appears incorrectly as 16,988. The figures, as printed, add to 17,009. On p. 401, the word 'premptorily', apparently an error for 'peremptorily' appears in a quoted passage, and is merely noted here. Neither of the versions of 'Quinault' in the table on p. 504 agrees with the modern spelling. To be consistent, the second instance was changed to agree with the first, 'Quinaiult'. Index There were several errors discovered in the index, which refers to both volumes. On occasion, the volume numbers 'i' or 'ii' are missing or incorrect. These errata are included in the table below. While these errors are corrected, no systematic attempt was made to check all entries. The entry for 'Daufuskie Island' was misprinted as 'Danfuskie', and attributed to the wrong page (p. 282 rather than p. 382). It should have followed the entry for 'Danpher', just below it. Minor punctuation lapses were silently corrected. The following minor issues, most likely printer's errors, are noted, and were corrected. p. 85 Governor Stevens[;/:] Corrected. p. 94 vicin[i]ty Added. p. 95 luxur[i]ant Added. p. 181 co[-o]/ö]perate Corrected. p. 268 meeting[s] Added. p. 318 well known in Congress.["] Removed. p. 349 stren[u]ously Removed. p. 368 Serr[i/e]ll's Corrected. p. 371 discipl[in]ing Added. p. 381 Brigad[i]er-General Ripley Added. p. 401 premptorily _sic._ p. 432 Junct[i]on Added. p. 450 b[r]ack Removed. p. 504 Quin[ia/ai]ult Transposed. p. 507 Anderson, George T., Colonel, i[i]. 490. Added. p. 510 river, [i.] 412; Added. p. 512 Da[n/u]fuskie Corrected and repositioned. p. 513 Flattery, Cape, [i.] 473, 474, 477. Added. p. 514 Gosnell, Wesley, ii. 169, 187, 255, 2[2/5]7 Corrected. p. 516 James River, Va., [ii.] 423. Added. p. 525 Seventy-Ninth Highlanders, New York volunteers, [i]i. 320, Added. action at Port Royal Ferry, 3[6/5]8-366 Corrected. p. 526 Stevens, Eliza, cousin, [i]. 91. Added. Stevens, George Watson, [i.] 265, 266, 269, 295; Added. p. 528 Townsend, E.D., General, his advice, [i.] 26, 28. Added. p. 529 Virginia, 13th regiment, ii. 3[2/3]1; Corrected. 1st cavalry, [3]32; Added. Washington, Camp, south of Spokane River, [i.] 399, 400. Added. Wellman, Captain, bark Prompt, [i.] 99, 108. Added. p. 530 Xochimilco, village, [i.] 168, 171. Added. 
43589	----	generously made available by the Google Books Library Project (http://books.google.com) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 43589-h.htm or 43589-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43589/43589-h/43589-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43589/43589-h.zip) Project Gutenberg has the other volume of this work. Volume II: see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43590 Images of the original pages are available through the Google Books Library Project. See http://books.google.com/books?id=oRdNv3xaMmMC Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). A carat character is used to denote superscription. A single character following the carat is superscripted (example: y^e). Multiple superscripted characters are enclosed by curly brackets (example: Coun^{clr}). The 'oe' ligature appears only in the words 'Coeur d'Alene', and is rendered as 'C[oe]ur.' Words printed using "small capitals" are shifted to all upper-case. Please consult the note at the end of this text for details of corrections made. [Illustration: Isaac Stevens] THE LIFE OF ISAAC INGALLS STEVENS By His Son HAZARD STEVENS With Maps and Illustrations In Two Volumes VOL. I [Illustration] Boston and New York Houghton, Mifflin and Company The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1900 Copyright, 1900, by Hazard Stevens All Rights Reserved THIS RECORD OF A NOBLE AND PATRIOTIC LIFE IS DEDICATED TO THE YOUNG MEN OF AMERICA PREFACE For many years I have felt impelled to write this Life, not only in justice to General Stevens's memory, but also as an act of duty to the young men of the country, that the example of his noble and patriotic career might not be lost to posterity. An only son, closely associated from boyhood with him, his chief of staff in the Civil War, and always the recipient of his counsel and confidence, the opportunities thus given me to know his sentiments and characteristics, and to witness so many of his actions, plainly augment the duty of making his record more widely known. In these pages, setting aside, as far as possible, the bias of filial respect and affection, I seek to simply narrate the actual facts of his life. Since beginning this work in 1877, I have been greatly assisted by data furnished by many of General Stevens's contemporaries, former brother officers, and associates in the public service, many of whom have now passed on. I render my grateful thanks to them for such aid, and for their words of appreciation of General Stevens and encouragement to his biographer, and especially to Generals Zealous B. Tower, Henry J. Hunt, Benjamin Alvord, Edward D. Townsend, Rufus Ingalls, A.A. Humphreys, E.O. C. Ord, Thomas W. Sherman, Joseph E. Johnston, G.T. Beauregard, William H. French, Truman Seymour, Orlando M. Poe, Silas Casey, John G. Barnard, M.C. Meiggs, Joseph Hooker, George W. Cullum, David Morrison, George E. Randolph; Colonels Samuel N. Benjamin, Granville O. Haller, Henry C. Hodges, John Hamilton, H.G. Heffron, Elijah Walker, Moses B. Lakeman; Major Theodore J. Eckerson, Major George T. Clark; Captains William T. Lusk, Robert Armour, C.H. Armstrong; Professors W.H. C. Bartlett, A.E. Church, H.S. Kendrick, H.E. Hilgard, Spencer F. Baird; General Joseph Lane, Senator James W. Nesmith; General Joel Palmer, Nathan W. Hazen, Esq., Alexander S. Abernethy, C.P. Higgins; Judge James G. Swan, Arthur A. Denny; Hon. Elwood Evans, General James Tilton. My thanks are also due, for facilities for examining and copying records in their departments, to the Hon. J.Q. Smith, former Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and Hon. A.C. Towner, Acting Commissioner; to General H. C. Corbin, Adjutant-General; General John M. Wilson, Chief of Engineers; Hon. John Hay, Secretary of State; Professor Henry L. Pritchett, Superintendent of the Coast Survey; Lieutenant Paul Brodie, formerly adjutant 79th Highlanders, for copying hundreds of pages of documents in the Indian Office; Mr. R.F. Thompson, of the same office, for assistance rendered; Professor F.G. Young, of Eugene, Oregon, for a copy of Colonel Lawrence Kip's account of the Walla Walla Council, republished by him. SOURCES OF INFORMATION Savage's New England Genealogies. Abiel Abbott's History of Andover. Miss Sarah Loring Bailey's Historical Sketches of Andover. Church and town records of Andover. Massachusetts Colonial Records. Family records and correspondence. History of the Mexican War, by General C.M. Wilcox. Campaigns of the Rio Grande and of Mexico, by Major Isaac I. Stevens. General Stevens's diary and letters (unpublished). His reports in the Engineer Bureau of the Army (unpublished). Reports of the Coast Survey, Professor A.D. Bache, for 1850 to 1853. Boston Post newspaper, files for 1852. Pacific Railroad Routes Explorations, vols. i. and xii., two parts. General Stevens's reports to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, with journals of Indian councils and proceedings in 1854-55 (unpublished). Reports of December 22, 1855, and January 29, 1856, in House Document 48, 1st session, 34th Congress. Reports of August 28, December 5, 1856, council at Fox Island; October 22, 1856, second council at Walla Walla; April 30, 1857, with map and census of Indian tribes (unpublished). Reports to Jefferson Davis, Secretary of War, August 15, December 21, 1854; February 19, March 9 and 21, May 23 (two letters), June 8, July 7 and 24, August 14, October 22, November 21 (three letters), 1856. See documents of 34th and 35th Congresses. Reports and correspondence of General Wool, Colonel George Wright, and Lieutenant-Colonel Silas Casey, in said documents. Governor Stevens's messages to legislature of Washington Territory, February 28, December 5, 1854; January 20, December, 1856, the latter accompanied by reports to the Secretary of War and correspondence with military officers during the Indian war. See, also, above documents and messages for proceedings relative to martial law. Governor Stevens's speeches in 35th and 36th Congresses, in Congressional Globe. General Joseph Lane's speech in 35th Congress, May 13, 1858, on the Indian war. Three Years' Residence in Washington Territory, by James G. Swan. The Walla Walla Council, by Colonel Lawrence Kip. Account of Colonel Wright's campaign against the Spokanes, by Colonel Lawrence Kip. Report of J. Ross Browne, Special Agent, etc., on the Indian war, House Document 58, 1st session, 35th Congress. History of the Pacific States, by H.H. Bancroft, vols. xxiv.-xxvi. Archives State Department. Records War Department. Circular Letter to Emigrants, The Northwest, Letter to the Vancouver Railroad Convention, by Governor Stevens, published in pamphlet. The War between the States, by A.H. Stephens. War Records, vol. v., for Army of the Potomac in 1861; vol. vi., for Port Royal Expedition; vol. xiv., for James Island campaign; vol. xii., in three parts, for Pope's campaign. Military Historical Society of Massachusetts, vol. ii, entitled The Virginia Campaign of 1862 under General Pope. History of the 79th Highlanders, by William Todd. History of the 21st Massachusetts, by General Charles F. Walcott. Biographical Register of West Point Graduates, by General George W. Cullum. Defence of Charleston Harbor, by Major John Johnson. Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. xvi. Official dispatches of Admiral Dupont. Life of Charles Henry Davis, Rear Admiral. Letters and statements from gentlemen named in the Preface. * * * * * The author, having sought his information from original sources as far as possible, deems it unnecessary to mention the great number of histories, regimental histories, and biographies that he has perused, as they throw little light on the subject, and much of that misleading. CONTENTS CHAPTER I ANCESTRY.--BIRTHPLACE Isaac Ingalls Stevens, seventh in descent from John Stevens, 1, one of founders of Andover, Mass., 1640--Deacon Joseph, 2--Captain James, 3, captor of Louisburg; deputy to General Court--Lieutenant James, 4, raised company for French and Indian war; died in service--Jonathan, 5, Revolutionary soldier, Bunker Hill; other service; characteristics--His brother James's diary of siege of Boston--Isaac, 6, crippled by falling tree; marries Hannah Cummings,--her ancestry; hires Bridges farm; untiring industry and thrift; death of wife; second marriage; characteristics; children 1 CHAPTER II BIRTH.--BOYHOOD Born, Marble Ridge farmhouse, North Andover, Mass., March 25, 1818--Delicate child--Heroic treatment--Incidents showing character--Devotion to mother--Her death irreparable loss--Early schooling--Over-study--Evil effects--Insists on leaving school--Works in factory a year--Strict treatment-- No indulgence--Injudicious urging--Fever--Rupture from over-exertion--Seeks Dr. Warren--Old Put's school, Franklin Academy--Rigorous daily life of farmer's boy--Phillips Academy--Appearance on entering--Earns board and lodgings with Nathan W. Hazen, Esq.--Takes first rank in studies--Power of concentration--Habits of study--Proficiency in mathematics-- Protests against bigotry--Overcomes extreme diffidence-- Appointed to West Point 13 CHAPTER III WEST POINT Patriotic emotions on entering West Point--Determines to be head of his class--Better prepared rivals, Biddle, Halleck, and Butler--Distinguished classmates--Extra French lessons-- Letters describe life and studies--Father and uncle William disappointed at standing at first examination--Abominates smoking and chewing--Early rising--Halleck and Biddle compare notes--"Little Stevens is driving ahead like the Devil"--Gains first place--Spends 4th of July in New York--Southern contempt for Yankee farmers--Determined to resent it--Dialectic Society--Second year encampment--Military ball--Contrasts his situation with that on entering--Characteristics drawn by Professors Bartlett and Church--Extra drawing lessons, great gains--Admires General Miller's "I'll try, sir"--Generous rivalry--Eleven good friends--Visit home 24 CHAPTER IV WEST POINT.--LAST TWO YEARS Appointed assistant professor of mathematics--Leading part in Dialectic Society--Efforts at speaking--Reflections on studies and authors--Long walks--Forbidden sweets-- Horsemanship--Skating over thin ice--Saves companion from freezing--Letters to father and sisters--Susan goes to Missouri--Again head, third year--Patriotic indignation at British aggression--Advises sending Oliver to college--Letters to Hannah and Oliver--Avows abolition principles--Founds "Talisman"--His own anonymous critic--His intimate friends-- Graduates first in every branch--Parents attend graduation exercises 48 CHAPTER V NEWPORT Ordered to Newport, R.I.--Phrenological chart--Lieutenants Mason, Beauregard, Hunt--Ascendency over employees--Newport society--Mr. Stevens welcomed--Personal appearance--Meets his future wife--Benjamin Hazard--Horseback rides--Family mansion--Charming Polly Wanton--Colonel Daniel Lyman--German class--Marriage of Susan to David H. Bishop--Death of grandmother--Urges additional fortifications--Proposes to study law--Friendly letter from Halleck--Takes part of Tilden; of H.L. Smith--Death of Hannah--Delivers address before Newport Lyceum--Lecture on Oliver Cromwell--Visits Washington--Fairhaven battery--Death of Susan--Death of Benjamin Hazard--Marriage, September 8, 1841 60 CHAPTER VI CHARGE OF WORKS: NEW BEDFORD, PORTSMOUTH, PORTLAND, BUCKSPORT Wedding journey to West Point--Returns to Newport--Charge of works at New Bedford--Moves to Fairhaven--Halleck asks aid for engineer corps--Journal--Thanksgiving in Andover--Hazard born, June 9--Fugitive slave harbored in Andover--Elizabeth marries L.M. Campbell in Tennessee--Moves his family to Portsmouth, N.H.--Charge of works there and Portland, Me.--Pleasant society--Examines old forts at Castine--Fort Knox, on Penobscot, buys land for--Youthful appearance-- Backwoods uncle, warm welcome--Overwork--Severe illness-- Julia Virginia born, June 27, 1844--Visits Andover--Elizabeth and Mr. Campbell--Moves to Bucksport tavern--Goes to housekeeping--New friends--Assistants, Richard Kidder Randolph, Isaac Osgood, A.W. Tinkham--Penobscot River--Barge--Pushes on works--Fine ox-teams--Judge of men--Severe sickness in winter--Visits Washington--Obtains large appropriations-- Confidential inquiry if he desires promotion--Characteristic reply--Delighted in dispensing hospitality--Daughter Julia Virginia died, December 7, 1845--Beautiful tribute by Mr. Brooks--Organizes course of lectures--Salmon weir--Advocates engineer company--Enlists first soldier--Views on raising standard of rank and file--Ordered to Mexican war--Speeds to Boston by sleigh 78 CHAPTER VII VOYAGE TO MEXICO Placed in charge of pontoon and engineer train--Delays in embarking--Visits from relatives--Death of Elizabeth--Letters to wife--Sails on barque Prompt, January 19, 1847--Diary of voyage--Seasickness--Warm weather--Passes Bahamas, Great Abaco, Hole in the Wall, Berry Island, Black Chief--Steward commits suicide--The weather in the Gulf--Arrives at the Brazos--Meets officers--Great confusion--Sails to Tampico, beautiful, picturesque region--Landing at Vera Cruz, March 9 and 10 96 CHAPTER VIII VERA CRUZ.--CERRO GORDO Vera Cruz--Defenses--American army invests city--Lieutenant Stevens's zeal in reconnoitring--Hands torn and poisoned-- Horse bolts to enemy's lines--Throws himself from saddle-- Looks out route for covered way--Put in charge with large working parties--Volunteers--Independent ways--Diary of siege--Capture of city--Damage by artillery fire--"Moonlight magnificence and sunlight squalidity"--Secures fine horse-- Appointed adjutant of engineer corps--Diary of march to Cerro Gordo--National Bridge--Rancheros--Reconnoissances of Cerro Gordo--Disabled by rupture--Compelled to remain in camp--Description of battle--Letter to wife 110 CHAPTER IX JALAPA.--PUEBLA Prisoners released on parole--March for Jalapa--Encerro, Santa Anna's country seat--Reaches Jalapa, Eden of Mexico--Prepares memoir on conducting war against guerrillas--Letters to wife--Feeling address at burial of Sapper Carigan--March from Jalapa to Puebla--Beautiful country--Soldado--Pass of La Hora--Las Vegas--Perote, its plain and castle--Leaves Perote with Colonel Clarke's brigade--San Antonio--Tepe Ahualeo with General Worth and Garland's brigade--Hacienda of Virayes-- Byzantium--Ojo de Agua--Hacienda Santa Annaced--Nopalucan--El Pinal--Acajete--Amasoque--Column of lancers threaten attack-- Sheer off at fire of Duncan's battery in two bodies-- Lieutenants Stevens and McClellan pursue one for five miles--Puebla occupied--Health improved--Reports for duty-- Reconnoitres road to Tlascala--Examines position in city-- Generals Scott and Twiggs arrive--Santa Anna renounces power--His career and character--Attends church--Bull fight-- Army recruiting strength--Drilling--Awaiting reinforcements-- Engineers making maps--Collecting information--Wealthy Mexican offers to act as spy--Dominguez, robber chief, with some of his band, employed as spies and couriers--Submits memoir on system of espionage and employing robbers--Rumors-- Guerrillas invest El Pinal--Colonel Harney marches to disperse them--Arrival of volunteers--Review--Sorry appearance--Good material--Heavy defenses and eighteen thousand troops at City of Mexico--Character of Mexican governing class--Letters to wife--Description of Puebla--Climate--People--Confidence of the troops--Character of General Scott--Arrival of General Pierce 129 CHAPTER X ADVANCE TO MEXICO, EL PE�ON, CONTRERAS, CHURUBUSCO Advance to valley of Mexico--Description of defenses--General Scott and staff with Twiggs's division reach Ayotla--Daring reconnoissances of El Peñon by Lieutenant Stevens--March around Lakes Chalco and Xochimilco--Occupy San Augustin-- Reconnoissances of enemy's positions--San Antonio road strongly fortified--Pedregal--Intrenched camp at Contreras-- Battle of Contreras--Lieutenant Stevens urges decisive movement adopted by Twiggs--"Attack the enemy's left; you cut him off from reinforcements and hurl him into the gorges of the mountains"--Stormy night--Discouragement--Scene at Scott's headquarters--Second day's battle--Reconnoitring from church steeple at Coyoacan--Enemy in full retreat on San Antonio road--Instant advance by Twiggs, led by Lieutenant Stevens, who comes up against fortified convent and brings on battle of Churubusco--Description of battle--Terrible scenes of battlefield banished sleep--Letter to wife--Tacubaya occupied-- Armistice 163 CHAPTER XI MOLINO DEL REY.--CHAPULTEPEC.--CAPTURE OF CITY OF MEXICO.--RETURN TO UNITED STATES General Scott and staff enter Tacubaya--Take quarters in Bishop's Palace--Commissioners to negotiate peace--Mexican treachery--Armistice terminated--Battle of Molino del Rey--Useless attacks--Severe losses--Battle of Chapultepec--Castle stormed--Quitman advances on Tacubaya causeway--Worth on San Cosme causeway--Lieutenant Stevens, with Worth, wounded--Enemy retreat in night--American troops occupy city--Lieutenant Stevens's remarks on the movements--His character sketches of Lee, Beauregard, Tower, Smith, McClellan, Foster, Mason--Removed to city--quartered in the Palace--Severe wound--Ups and downs--Mounts crutches--Journeys in ambulance with Lieutenant Foster to Puebla--Arrives at New Orleans 202 CHAPTER XII HEROES HOME FROM THE WAR Proceeds to Washington--Flattering reception--Gives full accounts to Colonel Totten--Joyful reunion with family in Newport--Shoots mad dog--Ordered to Savannah--Letter to brother--Character of Cromwell--Makes garden--Justice of Mexican war--Savannah orders countermanded--Resumes works at Bucksport--Purchases house, garden, poultry--Characteristic reply to inquiry as to willingness to be sent to Pacific coast--Brevetted captain and major--Efforts to secure justice for brother officers--Opinion of General Taylor--Brevet pay--McClellan asks assistance for engineer company-- Lieutenant Stevens's views--Advocates reorganization of the army 226 CHAPTER XIII COAST SURVEY Professor A.D. Bache tenders charge of Coast Survey office-- Accepts conditionally--Retains charge of works--Assumes new duties--Estimate of General Taylor--Magnitude of Coast Survey Office--Organizes the force--Reforms the office-- Meets "men of Mexico"--General Shields--Approves compromise measures--Puritan father condemns Webster-- Visits Bucksport--Daughter Gertrude Maude born--Wound breaks out afresh--Contemplates leaving Coast Survey--Moves family to Newport--Pays $400 on house--Generous in money matters--Spends summer in Washington--Letters to his wife-- Ideals of woman, marriage, duty, ambition--Admiration for Henry Clay, the master spirit--Compromise measures passed--Fine health--Carries appropriation--Truth and directness superior to low cunning--Office improving, duties more pleasant daily--Publishes Campaigns of Rio Grande and of Mexico--General Scott takes offense 241 CHAPTER XIV LIFE IN WASHINGTON Moves family to Washington--Pleasant society--Takes hold Fourteen Years' Bill--Reorganization of army--Urges brother officers to do "their duty to their profession"--Army man, not a corps man--Moves to Mrs. Janney's, on 8th Street--Takes family to Newport for summer, 1851--Another phrenological chart--Rents house on 3d Street and goes to housekeeping--George Watson Stevens--Letters to wife--Responds to toast of Army and Navy at banquet to Kossuth--Advocates coast defenses, and writes articles--Appointed member of Lighthouse Board--Sells Bucksport house--Advocates election of General Franklin Pierce as President--Articles in "Boston Post"--Speeches in Andover, Newport, and Portsmouth--Taken to task by Secretary of War Conrad--Pungent reply--Leader among young officers--Numerous calls--Friendship with Professor Bache--Continued improvement of Coast Survey Office 257 CHAPTER XV GOVERNOR, WASHINGTON TERRITORY.--EXPLORATION, NORTHERN ROUTE Washington Territory organized--Exploration of routes to Pacific determined on--Appointed governor--Letter of resignation from army--Colonel Totten's reply--Silver service presented by friends on the Coast Survey--Obtains charge of exploration of Northern route--Takes high ground--Impresses his views on the administration--Applies for Captain McClellan--Letter to him--Sends Lieutenant Donelson to Montreal to procure maps and data from Hudson Bay Company--Prepares his own instructions--Magnitude of task--Organizes the expedition-- Gives McClellan charge of construction of the military road, Steilacoom to Walla Walla--Declares independence of Hudson Bay Company--Busy scenes in 3d Street house--Sends officers to San Francisco, St. Louis, and St. Paul to hasten preparation-- Selects territorial library--Exploration fully reported in vols. i. and xii., Pacific Railroad Reports 280 CHAPTER XVI THE PARTY.--THE START Leaves Washington--Expedites matters in St. Louis--Dispatches party up Missouri--Up Mississippi to St. Paul--Rouses party in camp before breakfast--Breaking mules--Incessant rains--Roster of the party--General plan--March to Sauk River--Winnebago Indians--Canadian voyageurs--Pierre Boutineau--Camp regulations--Assimilated rank--All to stand guard--Pembina train--Pushing on detached parties--March to Pike lake--Swollen streams, bogs--Crossing Sauk and Crow rivers--Lightning Lake--Fish and game--Relieves Lieutenant Du Barry--Discharges inefficient men--White Bear Lake--Parties reassemble at Pike Lake 302 CHAPTER XVII PIKE LAKE TO FORT UNION General course W. 10° N.--Lieutenant Grover surveys separate route--Country within forty miles examined by side trips--Route passes near Breckinridge, Jamestown, Minot, and Great Northern Railroad nearly to Rocky Mountains--Crosses Chippewa River--Camp regulations--Bois de Sioux--Description of country--Red River hunters--Sheyenne River--Lander's adventure--False alarm of Indians--Myriads of buffalo--The hunt--Lake Jessie--Buffalo threaten camp; stop train--Horse and mules go off with buffalo--Governor Stevens disabled-- Lander returns--Inveterate horse-killer--James River--Anxiety at non-return of Tinkham--Guns fired--Parties sent back to find him--Sioux reported approaching--Train arranged for defense--Red River hunters--Tinkham returns safe--Governor Wilkie and Red River hunters--Customs--Hunts--Government--Air tainted by slaughtered buffalo--Maison du Chien--Coteau de Missouri--Mouse River--More Red River hunters--Exchange visits--Express dispatched to Fort Union--Assiniboine Indians--Council--Distribution of presents--Arrives at Fort Union 320 CHAPTER XVIII FORT UNION TO FORT BENTON Description of Fort Union--Alexander Culbertson--The Blackfeet--Making peace--Surveys by side parties--Bugbear stories--Moving westward--Blackfoot war party--Big Muddy-- Missouri bottom--Every one ordered to walk part way daily-- Milk River--Field order--Abundant game--Gros Ventres--Feast and council--Feud with Blackfeet--Peace made between them-- Trading horses--Cypress Mountain--Stories of Indian fights--Bear's Paw Mountains--Party sent to view them--Box Elder Creek--The Three Buttes, favorite resort of Blackfeet-- Crosses Marias and Teton rivers--Scene of bloody Indian conflict--Fort Benton--Fort Campbell 347 CHAPTER XIX WIDESPREAD EXPLORING PARTIES Gathering information--Lieutenant Grover to Bitter Root valley--Lieutenant Mullan to Muscle Shell River--Lieutenant Donelson to examine Cadotte's Pass--Mr. Lander to Marias Pass--George W. Stevens describes outfitting war parties--Funds fall short--Governor Stevens takes responsibility of incurring deficiency--Starts to visit main Blackfoot camp--Chiefs join the party--Culbertson's defense of Fort McKenzie--Death of Rotten Belly--Reaches Marias River--Express brings report from Lieutenant Saxton that mountains are impassable for wagons-- Returns to Fort Benton--Lander ordered back--Want of harmony in his party--Stanley proceeds to Piegan camp--Lieutenants Saxton and Grover meet on summit of Rocky Mountains--Tinkham returns from Three Buttes and Marias River--Outfitting with pack animals--Lieutenant Saxton, with Culbertson and twenty-eight men, descends Missouri in keelboat--Doty stationed at Fort Benton--Lander's insubordination curbed--Stanley returns with thirty chiefs--Talk with Blackfeet--Their dress--Peace advocated--Chief Low Horn--His good faith 364 CHAPTER XX EXPLORING THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS Lieutenants Saxton and Grover start down the Missouri--March up the Teton via Sun and Dearborn rivers to Cadotte's Pass-- Description of country; game--Governor Stevens proclaims inauguration of civil government on summit of Rocky Mountains-- Descending western slope--Big Blackfoot and Hell Gate rivers-- Overtakes main party--Fine condition of animals--Bitter Root valley and river--Fort Owen--Lieutenant Arnold here with train and provisions--Nine passes examined--Lander's erratic course-- Council with Flatheads--Chief Victor--Lieutenant Mullan stationed at winter post in Bitter Root valley--Lieutenant Donelson with main party sent via Clark's Fork and Pend Oreille Lake--Dr. Suckley descends rivers in canoe--Tinkham to explore Marias Pass--Proceed to Fort Benton--Cross mountains to Walla Walla--Governor Stevens moves down the Bitter Root--Meets the Nez Perces--Crosses the C[oe]ur d'Alene Mountains--C[oe]ur d'Alene Mission--Indians--Lake--Falls--Spokane Indians--Spokane Garry, head chief--Forced ride to Colville--Meeting with McClellan--His explorations--Dilatoriness--Reports against country and passes 375 CHAPTER XXI UPPER COLUMBIA TO PUGET SOUND McDonald's Indian tales--Chemakan Mission--Settlements in Colville valley--Visits Spokane House--Garry's Lodge--Arrival of main party at Camp Washington--March to Walla Walla--Pelouse River-- Crosses Snake River--Rides to old Fort Walla Walla--Visits Walla Walla valley--Pu-pu-mox-mox--Lander ordered to survey Nahchess Pass--Descends Columbia to Dallas, to Vancouver--Colonel Bonneville--Ascends Cowlitz River in canoe--Four days in drenching rains--Lander balks--Tinkham ordered to cross Snoqualmie Pass--Officers reach Olympia--Captain McClellan ordered to run line to Snoqualmie Pass--His failure--Tinkham succeeds--McClellan aggrieved--Governor Stevens's opinion of pioneers--McClellan's 396 CHAPTER XXII ORGANIZING CIVIL GOVERNMENT.--THE INDIAN SERVICE Wild country--Scanty population--Character of settlers--Serious problems--Governor Stevens arrives at Olympia--Issues proclamation--Organizes Indian service--Appoints agents--Visits all parts of Sound--Meets Governor Douglass at Victoria, B.C.--Reports on Hudson Bay Company's claims--First message-- Halleck exposes Southern political schemes--Purchases homestead--Preparing exploration reports--Secretary Davis stops further surveys--Drafts protested 411 CHAPTER XXIII RETURN TO WASHINGTON.--REPORT OF EXPLORATION Warm welcome in San Francisco--Lectures on Northern route-- Advocates three routes--Via Isthmus to New York--Joyful family reunion in Newport--Proceeds to Washington--Complete report of exploration--Deficiency provided for--General Hunt relates incident--Secretary Davis disparages Northern route--General Stevens's rejoinder--His final report--Severe labors--Sickness-- Doing the work of the delegate--Appointed commissioner to treat with Blackfeet and other tribes--Unimpaired influence 425 CHAPTER XXIV CROSSING THE ISTHMUS Steamer from New York--Riotous scenes--Stops at Havana-- Aspinwall--Forlorn place--Cars to the summit--Carusi's pavilion--Scene at night--Proceeds on mule-back--Tropic rainstorms--Crossing the Chagres River--Lost children-- Panama--Embarks on Golden Age--Touches at Acapulco--Panama fever--Reaches San Francisco--Welcomed by friends--Delayed by sickness--Rebuke to General Wool--Steamer up the coast-- Into Columbia--Lands at Vancouver--Canoe trip up Cowlitz River--Muddy roads to Olympia--Disappointing appearance-- Second message 433 CHAPTER XXV INDIAN POLICY.--TREATIES ON PUGET SOUND Beneficent Indian policy--Intention to write account of his Indian service frustrated by early death--Indians of Puget Sound, helpless, ready to treat--Organizes treaty force--Decides on policy and terms--Sends agents to assemble Indians--Great pains to make them fully understand and to consult with them--Council and treaty of She-nah-nam or Medicine Creek; of Point Elliott or Mukilteo; of Point-no-Point; of Neah Bay--Speeches--Visits Victoria, and calls on Governor Douglass to restrain Northern Indians--Napoleonic campaign--What was accomplished--Present condition of the Indians 448 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE General Isaac I. Stevens, at the age of 43, from a photograph _Frontispiece_. Grave of John Stevens _to face page_ 2 Birthplace of General Stevens, Andover, Mass 14 Infant Jesus. Crayon drawing at West Point 44 Old Wanton Mansion in Newport 66 General Stevens at the age of 23, from a miniature by Staigg 74 Margaret Lyman Stevens, from a miniature by Staigg 76 Low Horn, Piegan Chief 374 Charles H. Mason, Secretary of the Territory, from a photograph 414 MAPS AND PLANS Route, Vera Cruz to Mexico 118 Battle of Cerro Gordo 124 The Valley of Mexico 162 Battlefields in the Valley of Mexico--Contreras, Churubusco, Chapultepec, Molino del Rey, Mexico 172 THE LIFE OF ISAAC INGALLS STEVENS CHAPTER I ANCESTRY.--BIRTHPLACE About 1640 a mere handful of English colonists went out from Boston, and made the first settlement in the town of Andover, Essex County, Massachusetts. They laid out their homes on the Cochichewick, a stream which flows out of the Great Pond in North Andover, and falls into the Merrimac River on the south side a few miles below Lawrence. The infant settlement was known as Cochichewick until 1646, when it was incorporated as a town under its present name, after the Andover in Hampshire, England, the birthplace of some of the settlers. Among the first who thus planted their hearthstones in the wilderness was John Stevens. His name stands fifth in an old list in the town records containing "the names of all the householders in order as they came to town." The mists of the past still allow a few glimpses of this sturdy Puritan settler. He was admitted a freeman of the colony, June 2, 1641 (Old Style). He was appointed by the General Court, May 15, 1654, one of a committee of three to settle the boundary between the towns of Haverhill and Salisbury, a duty satisfactorily performed. He was sergeant in the military company of the town, a post then equivalent to captain or commander. According to Savage, N.E. Genealogies, vol. i., p. 186, John Stevens lived at Caversham, County Oxford, England, and came to America in the Confidence from Southampton in 1638. Large, substantial head and foot stones of slate, sculptured and lettered in the quaint fashion of his day, still mark the resting-place of John Stevens, after the storms of now two and a third centuries, in the oldest graveyard of Cochichewick, situated opposite the Kittredge mansion, and about half a mile north of the old parish meeting-house in North Andover. He died April 11, 1662, in the fifty-seventh year of his age, and was therefore thirty-five years old when he founded his future home. John Stevens was evidently a man of note and substance, the worthy progenitor of a prolific family, which has filled Andover with his descendants, and put forth from time to time strong, flourishing branches into all quarters of the country. It may indeed be safely said that there is scarcely a State in the Union which does not contain descendants of this sturdy Puritan. His son Nathan, the first male child born in Andover, lies buried near him under a broad freestone slab with an inscription to "Coun^{clr} Nathan Stevens, who deceased February y^e 19, 1717, in y^e 75 year of his age." The memorials of many others of his descendants stand thickly scattered through the quaint old burial-ground. Not the least interesting of these relics is a stone "In memory of Primus, who was a faithful servant of Mr. Benjamin Stevens, Jr., who died July 25, 1792, aged 72 years, 5 months, and 16 days." A vigorous, long-lived race sprang from the loins of this first settler John, a hardy, thrifty race of plain New England farmers, honest and straightforward, with plenty of solid, shrewd good sense, bearing manfully the toils and hardships of colonial days, and contributing its quota of ministers and deacons to the church, and officers and soldiers to the wars with the Indians and the French. In 1679 a grant of land was made to Ephraim Stevens, son of the first settler, in recompense of his losses by the Indians. In 1689 Lieutenant John Stevens, another son, perished in the expedition against Louisburg. In 1698 Abiel Stevens, a grandson, was captured by the Indians, but made his escape. In 1755 Captain Asa Stevens and Ensign James Stevens died in the Lake George campaign. Upon the state muster-rolls appear the names of twelve Stevenses of Andover as soldiers in the Revolution. [Illustration: GRAVE OF JOHN STEVENS] The subject of this work, Isaac Ingalls Stevens, was the seventh in direct descent from John Stevens, the founder of Andover,--1 John Stevens, 2 Joseph, 3 James, 4 James, 5 Jonathan, 6 Isaac, 7 Isaac Ingalls Stevens. Joseph was the fourth son of the first settler John. He was deacon in the church. He married Mary Ingalls May 20, 1679, and died February 25, 1743, aged 88. James was the second son of Joseph, married Dorothy Fry, March, 1712, and died May 25, 1769, aged 84. He participated in the military affairs and contests with the Indians and French of his times, commanded a company at the capture of Louisburg, and for his services was granted a tract of land in Maine. He was a deputy to the General Court. His gravestone bears the title of captain. Captain James's eldest son was also named James. He was born in 1720, and married Sarah Peabody in 1745. This James was an energetic, promising young man, with a young wife and two boys, when in 1754 a recruiting party with colors, drum, and fife went about Andover beating up recruits for the French and Indian war then raging. The young men all hung back. "Make me a captain," said James Stevens, "and I will raise a company for the war." This remark led to his receiving the commission of ensign. He raised a company of the young men of Andover, and marched away at their head to the shores of Lake George, in New York, where, November 28, 1755, he died of camp fever, with the rank of lieutenant. His eldest son, Jonathan, inherited a due share of his father's spirit, for we find him hastening to Bunker Hill, and fighting manfully in the battle. He served on other occasions during the Revolutionary war, and after a successful dash upon the enemy writes the following interesting letter to his sister:-- LOVING SISTER,--These will inform you that I am very well at present, and have been so ever since I came from home, and I hope you and all my friends enjoy the same state of health. We have been up to Ticonderoga and took almost four hundred prisoners of the British Army, and relieved one hundred of our men that were prisoners there. Our army have come from Ticonderoga down as far as Pawlet, about sixty miles, and expect to march to Stillwater very soon. So no more at present. I remain, Your Loving Brother, JONATHAN STEVENS. PAWLET, October ye 1st, 1777. Jonathan married Susannah Bragg, December 15, 1773, and raised thirteen children,--Jonathan, Susannah, James, Dolly, Jeremy, Hannah, Isaac, Nathaniel, Dolly, Moses, Sarah, Oliver, and William. He united the business of a currier and tanner to his ancestral pursuit of farming, and achieved the modest independence he so well merited. The house that he occupied for many years stood on the old road that passed along the western border of the Cochichewick meadows, that were long since flooded and converted into a lake, the extension of the Great Pond, for the water supply of the woolen mills of his son Nathaniel, and the cellar is still visible on the west side of the road, some three hundred yards from its junction with the road from the village of North Andover to the mills. He afterwards built one of those large, square, substantial mansions, once common in New England, on the crest of the high ground east of the village, and commanding noble views of the hamlet, the Great Pond, and the Cochichewick valley and the mills. This house was unfortunately destroyed by fire in 1876. Jonathan Stevens purchased, for sixpence an acre, a large tract of land in Maine, which he divided into three farms, and bestowed upon his sons Jonathan, James, and Isaac. They settled, and named the place Andover, after their native town, and the descendants of the two former still reside there. Jonathan Stevens was a tall, large man of fresh, ruddy complexion and fine appearance. He was fond of relating the incidents of the battle of Bunker Hill, and used to recount the tale to his children and grandchildren every Fourth of July,--how Putnam went along the line and commanded them not to fire until they could see the whites of the Redcoats' eyes; and how Abbot, the strongest man in town, bore a wounded comrade off the field on his back. On the anniversary of the battle he invariably invited his comrades in the fight to his house, and entertained them with New England rum and hearty, old-fashioned hospitality, while the veterans fought the battle o'er again. He sat among the veterans of the battle at Webster's magnificent oration in dedication of the Bunker Hill monument. On his eighty-fourth birthday he worked with his men in the hay field, keeping up with the best all day, and suffered no ill effect from the unwonted exertion. He died April 13, 1834, at the age of eighty-seven. In 1799 he gave the tract of land upon which was erected Franklin Academy, on the hill north of the meeting-house. Jonathan's brother James, Captain James's other son, also served in the Revolutionary war, and left a diary of the siege of Boston, recently discovered in the garret of an old mansion in Andover, which opens like an epic:-- "April ye 19, 1775. This morning about seven o'clock we had a larum that the Regulars were gone to Concord. We gathered to the meeting house, and then started for Concord. We went through Tewksbury into Billerica. We stopped at Pollard's, and ate some biscuits and cheese on the common. We started and went on to Bedford, and we heard that the Regulars had gone back to Boston. So we went through Bedford. As we went into Lexington we went to the meeting house, and there we came to the destruction of the Regulars. They killed eight of our men, and shot a cannon ball through the meeting house. We went along through Lexington, and we saw several Regulars dead on the road, and some of our men, and three or four houses were burnt, and some horses and hogs were killed. They plundered in every house they could get into. They stove in windows and broke in tops of desks. We met the men a coming back very fast," etc. Jonathan's fourth son was Isaac, born in 1785. On reaching manhood he went before the mast on a voyage to China, and brought back, as a gift to his mother, a beautiful china tea-set. After his return from sea he went to Andover, Maine, to settle upon the lands bestowed by his father upon himself and brothers, Jonathan and James. With characteristic energy, Isaac Stevens set to work clearing his land, and reducing rebellious nature to orderly submission. While thus at work in the woods one day, a heavy tree fell upon and crushed him to the earth; his left leg was terribly mangled, the bones broken in two places, and he received other serious injuries. The doctors insisted that the leg must be taken off in order to save his life, but Isaac Stevens with inflexible resolution refused to allow the amputation, and after a long, painful illness finally recovered. The limb, however, in the process of healing, became materially shorter and permanently stiffened, so that he was unable to bend the knee joint, and during the remainder of his life the wound broke out afresh periodically, and caused him great suffering. As soon as he was sufficiently recovered to bear the journey, he returned to his native Andover, where, under his mother's careful nursing, he slowly recovered from the terrible injuries he had received. It was at this time that he formed an attachment with Hannah Cummings, the daughter of a sterling farmer family like his own, and who united to a warm and affectionate heart, noble and elevated sentiments, strong good sense, and untiring industry. Their marriage followed soon after, on the 29th of September, 1814. He now relinquished the project of settling in Maine, and hired an old farmhouse with some twenty acres of land of Mr. Bridges. This house, one of the oldest in Andover, is situated at the end of Marble Ridge, a short distance south of the Great Pond, and at the point where the road from the village to Haverhill, after crossing the Essex Railroad, forks, the left branch leading on to Haverhill, while the other turns short to the right and conducts to Marble Ridge Station. The solid timbers and stockaded sides of the rear part of this old house--for the front is a later structure--were the mute witnesses of a stratagem in early Indian troubles as novel as it proved successful. The stout-hearted farmer settler was alone, with his wife and little ones about him, one night, when he discovered a large party of savages stealthily approaching, and spreading out so as to encompass his house. Hastily barricading the doors, he seized his trumpet, which he bore as trumpeter of the military company of the settlement, stole unperceived out of the house, caught and mounted his horse, and, making a circuit through the fields, gained the high road between the Indians and the village. Then, putting spurs to his steed, and pealing blast upon blast from his trumpet, he charged furiously down upon the Indians, now in the very act of assailing his domicile, who, thinking no doubt that the whole force of the country-side was upon them, incontinently fled into the forest. Judged by the standard of these days, the young couple had an unpromising future. They were very poor, the husband a cripple, and they held as tenants a few barren acres from which to extract a livelihood. But Isaac Stevens now toiled early and late with untiring energy; he saved at every point, and turned everything to account with true Yankee thrift. He built a malt-house, and after laboring on the farm from earliest dawn until dark, would work at preparing the malt until late in the evening. His farm embraced a large meadow lying on both sides of the Cochichewick, just below where it issued from the Great Pond, but now flooded by the milldams still lower down, where he cut vast quantities of meadow hay, with which he filled his barns and fed a goodly number of horned stock during the long, rigorous winters, realizing thereby a handsome profit in the spring. His young wife joined her efforts to his, and frequently cut and made clothing for the neighbors around, in addition to the unceasing and arduous labors of a farmer's wife. Such thrift and industry could not fail of success. The Bridges house and land were purchased, largely on mortgage at first; then the wet meadow was added; then a goodly tract of generous land was bought of the father, Jonathan Stevens, and other fields and tracts were added from time to time. During the thirteen years following their marriage, the first scanty holding grew to a farm of one hundred and fifty acres of their own, and free from debt. Seven children, too, came to bless their union and increase their cares. Then the devoted wife and mother died, November 3, 1827, leaving this helpless little flock, the oldest of whom was but twelve and the youngest two years of age. Henceforth life was a heavy and unceasing labor to Isaac Stevens. The little farm grew no larger, and all his efforts were now required to maintain his family and keep free from debt. Two years afterwards he married Ann Poor, of North Andover, impelled by his situation and circumstances, with so many helpless children about him and the household economy of the farm unprovided for. The second wife failed to restore the happiness of home. She had no children, and died in 1866, four years after her husband. Isaac Stevens was a man of deeply marked and noble characteristics. His fortitude was severely tested by the misfortune which left him a lifelong cripple. His cool courage and inflexible resolution are best illustrated by his manner of dealing with a dangerous bull he once owned. This animal grew daily more and more savage, until every one stood in fear of it except the owner, who, as often happens in such cases, persisted in thinking it quite harmless. At length, however, the bull one day chased a neighbor, who had imprudently ventured to cross the field in which it pastured, and overtaking him just as he reached the fence, tossed him high in air, so that falling fortunately on the farther side of the inclosure, he escaped with no more serious injuries than some severe bruises and a broken nose. The bull, furious at the escape of his prey, was bellowing and pawing the ground. "The bull must be shot!" cried the man who helped off the injured neighbor. But Isaac Stevens at once armed himself with a stout cudgel, coolly hobbled into the field, disregarding all remonstrances and entreaties, fixed his eye upon the enraged beast, backed him into a narrow corner where he could not escape, and thrashed him over the head with the club with such terrible severity that he was completely subdued, and ever after remained perfectly gentle and submissive. Always strictly observing the Sabbath, he held liberal views of religion and attended the Unitarian Church. He kept himself informed of the current events of the day, taking the New York "Tribune" and Garrison's "Liberator," and manifesting the greatest interest in education, temperance, anti-slavery, and every cause that would make mankind better or happier. "How he denied himself all comforts almost, and _quietly_ sent money to free the slave and for the temperance cause! He was a strong pillar of the foundation principles of right and justice that it would be well for young men of this day to study," said one who knew him well. He was, above all, a man of perfect integrity and truth, and of a strict sense of justice. There was not a fibre of guile or indirection in his moral nature. He held strong and ardent convictions, noble and lofty ideals of duty and philanthropy, and an intense hatred and scorn of wrong or oppression in any form. He strongly opposed and denounced the use of liquors and tobacco, and became early in life a vehement and outspoken abolitionist of slavery, at a period when the advocacy of such doctrines demanded unusual moral courage as well as stern conviction of right. At his decease, years afterwards, he bequeathed five hundred dollars to the Anti-Slavery Society, requiring only that Wendell Phillips should deliver a lecture in the parish church of North Andover. The untiring industry which, with his frugality and good management, enabled him to achieve comparative independence so early in life, was not the course of a drudge and miser, but of an ardent, resolute spirit spurning poverty, debt, and dependence. All through life he manifested an unconquerable aversion to debt. He loved a fast horse, and the old mare which he kept until she died, over twenty-seven years old, was, in her prime, the fastest in the town. After reading a newspaper or book, he was in the habit of giving it to a neighbor, telling him to hand it to another after perusing it. He took great pains with his orchards, and planted apple-trees along the stone walls bordering his fields. He also planted the noble elms now overhanging the old farmhouse, and the long lines of this graceful tree now bordering the road from the house to the crest of the hill overlooking the village and the road over Marble Ridge, and the numerous clumps and rows in his fields wherever a sightly eminence seemed to require such an adornment. His children were:-- HANNAH PEABODY, born September 24, 1815, died November 24, 1840. SUSAN BRAGG, born February 14, 1817, died April 8, 1841. ISAAC INGALLS, born March 25, 1818, died September 1, 1862. ELIZABETH BARKER, born July 14, 1819, died December 10, 1846. SARAH ANN, born January 13, 1822, died February 8, 1844. MARY JANE, born August 5, 1823, died June 22, 1847. OLIVER, born June 22, 1825. The following account of the ancestry of Hannah Cummings is given by her nephew, Dr. George Mooar, D.D., of Oakland, California, who has collected much information concerning the Cummings genealogy:-- "Hannah, wife of Isaac Stevens, was the third child of Deacon Asa and Hannah (Peabody) Cummings, born October 23, 1785, married September 29, 1814, and died November 3, 1827. "The line from her father to the first American ancestor runs thus: Asa (6), Thomas (5), Joseph (4), Abraham (3), John (2), Isaac (1). "Deacon Asa was born in Andover, Massachusetts, but removed in 1798 to Albany, Maine, a pioneer settler there, a trusted, intelligent, and capable citizen, who in 1803 represented his district in the General Court. "Captain Thomas (5) was born in Topsfield and died September 3, 1765. He married Anna Kittell, the widow of Asa Johnson, of Andover. "Captain Joseph (4), of Topsfield, was quite a character. The biographer of Dr. Manasseh Cutler says that he found among the papers of that eminent person a notice of Captain Cummings in which he is spoken of as a remarkable man, well versed in the politics of the day, and he adds: 'From the interest Dr. Cutler felt in him, he must have been a stanch patriot and Federalist.' In a notice which appears in the 'Salem Gazette' we are told that when nearly a hundred he would readily mount his horse from the ground. He died in his one hundred and second year. "Abraham (3) was a resident of Woburn and of Dunstable. "John (2) was quite a large proprietor in Boxford, Massachusetts, and later was one of the first fourteen proprietors of the town of Dunstable. "Isaac (1) appears on a list of the 'Commoners of Ipswich in 1641, but appears to have arrived in America three years before. No exact knowledge of his previous residence in Great Britain has been obtained. The prevailing tradition gives him a Scottish descent.' "An elder brother of Hannah Cummings was Dr. Asa Cummings, D.D., of Portland, Maine, eminent for classical learning and piety, and editor of the 'Christian Mirror' for many years." CHAPTER II BIRTH.--BOYHOOD ISAAC INGALLS STEVENS first saw the light at the old Marble Ridge farmhouse, on the 25th of March, 1818. He was a delicate infant, and it was impossible for his mother, with her other little ones and the engrossing labors of the farmhouse, to bestow upon him the care his condition required. His grandmother, one day visiting the farm, was shocked to see him still in his cradle, though three years old, and, remarking that unless he was taught soon he never would walk, insisted upon taking him home with her, where, under her gentle and experienced hands, he quickly learned to run about. After returning home his father used to plunge him, fresh from bed, into a hogshead of cold water every morning. Such heroic treatment would be sure to kill or cure, and perhaps no better proof could be given of the native vigor of his constitution than the fact that he lived, and became strong, active, and hardy. Even as a child he was active, daring, and adventurous. He used to climb the lofty elms in front of his grandfather's house, and cling like a squirrel to the topmost branches, laughing and chattering defiance to his grandmother's commands and entreaties to come down. One afternoon Abiel Holt, the hired man on the farm, went a-fishing for pickerel, and took Isaac, who was then a very little urchin just able to run about cleverly. After catching a fine string of fish, they came to the old causeway which crossed the water where now stands the dam under the Essex Railroad, but which was then submerged several feet deep in the water for some distance. A rude footway had been contrived here by driving down forked stakes at suitable intervals along the causeway, and placing loose poles in the crotches from stake to stake, forming one row for the feet and another a little higher for the hands. The contrivance was rickety and unsafe to the last degree; the poles swayed and bent at every step, and it required great care and the use of both feet and hands to avoid a ducking. It was now time to drive up the cows, which were pasturing beyond the water; so Holt, bidding the child remain there, crossed over after them, taking with him the string of fish, which he hung up on one of the stakes on the farther side, for he wanted the pleasure of taking his spoils home in triumph, and feared, if he left them with Isaac, the latter would take them and run home while he was away. On returning he was struck with consternation to find no trace of either the child or the fish. He carefully scrutinized the water without result, and at length slowly returned to the farmhouse, filled with misgivings, and was not a little relieved to find both his charge and his fish safe at home. The child had worked his way across the water by the poles, although, standing on the lower row, he could hardly reach the upper one with extended arms, and had returned, holding the string of fish in his teeth, in the same way. His father ever after was particularly fond of relating this anecdote in proof of the daring and adventurous spirit so early manifested. [Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF GENERAL STEVENS, ANDOVER, MASS. _From Historical Sketches of Andover, by Sarah Loring Bailey_] He was a sensitive, earnest child, not demonstrative, but having great affection and tenderness, which he lavished upon his mother. Her early death was his first and greatest misfortune. When he was only seven years old, his father, who always drove furiously, in driving with his wife in his wagon rapidly around a corner, overset the vehicle. They were thrown out violently upon the ground, and the unfortunate mother struck upon her head. From this shock she never really recovered, and died two years after the unhappy accident. During this period Isaac attached himself closely to his mother, and acquired no slight influence over her. The early death of this tender and devoted wife and mother well-nigh destroyed the happiness of her family. Isaac ever cherished her memory with the tenderest veneration. He thought that from her were inherited great part of his talents, and that had she lived he would have been spared the injudicious forcing of his mind in his childhood, to which he always declared he owed a real mental injury. After the mother's death, a housekeeper was employed to provide for the helpless little flock, and attend to the household duties; and two years later the father married his second wife, Ann Poor. Isaac was sent to school before his fifth year, where from the first he displayed great power of memory, close application, and devotion to study. His teachers were astonished to find that he did not stop at the end of the day's lesson, but habitually learned far beyond it, often reciting page after page. It was said that there was no need of telling Isaac how much to study; it was enough to show him where to begin, and he would learn more than the teacher cared to hear. His first teacher, Miss Susan Foster, said with astonishment one day, after hearing his lesson in arithmetic, "There is no use for me to teach him arithmetic; he is already far beyond me in that." After his tenth year he attended Franklin Academy, in North Andover,--Old Put's school, as it was usually and more familiarly styled,--kept by Mr. Simon Putnam, who attained great repute as a teacher. This was situated on the hill north of the meeting-house, on land given for the purpose by grandfather Jonathan. Here he studied the usual English branches. Among his schoolmates were William Endicott, Jr., the well-known philanthropist, Hon. Daniel Saunders, the late George B. Loring, and Major George T. Clark. It appears that wrestling was a favorite sport with the active and hardy boys at this school. His father, proud and ambitious on his account, kept him constantly at school, and urged on to still greater efforts this earnest, ardent nature, intense in everything he undertook. The evil effects of such mistaken treatment soon made themselves felt. His mind became wearied and dull from overtasking. The teacher advised rest. The boy, then but ten years old, begged his father to take him out of school and let him work on the farm, telling him that he could no longer study; that he could not learn his lessons. But the father refused, not realizing the son's condition, and bade him go back to school and study what he could. Isaac then went to his uncle Nathaniel, who owned the Cochichewick woolen mills, situated two miles below the farm, and obtained his permission to work in the factory for a year. He prevailed upon his grandmother to let him lodge at her house in order to be nearer the factory; and having thus decided upon his course, went home and informed his father of the arrangements he had made, who, astonished at the judgment and resolution of the boy, acquiesced. So Isaac went to work in the factory, lodging at his grandfather's, rising long before daylight that he might eat a hurried breakfast, walk a mile to the factory, and begin the day's work at five o'clock in the morning, and toiling ten to twelve hours a day. He entered the weavers' room, where he soon learned to manage a loom. The best weavers were women, it seems, and able to run two looms apiece. Isaac at once determined to excel the most capable; and before he left the factory, succeeded in reaching the goal of his ambition, and managed four looms unassisted. After a year of this unremitting labor, he left the mills. As he was returning home with the scanty sum he had earned in his pocket, taking it to his father, he passed a shop where some tempting hot gingerbread was displayed for sale, and felt an intense longing to buy a penny-worth; but reflecting that his earnings belonged to his father, and it would be wrong for him to spend any of them, he overcame the desire and went home. But when he handed the money to his father, and asked for a cent to buy the gingerbread with, he felt stung to the quick by the latter's refusal. In truth, the father's hard struggle with poverty and adverse circumstances had narrowed his noble nature. Too much had life become to him nothing but hard work, self-sacrifice, and a severe sense of duty. He did not appreciate the sensitive nature of a child, and its needs of sympathy, recreation, and occasional indulgence. Directly across the road from the house was a small pool called the frog-pond. Isaac selected a corner of this pond for his garden, filled it up with stones, and covered them with rich earth brought from a distance in his little cart with great pains and labor. He eagerly seized every moment that could be spared from school and his unceasing round of morning and evening chores to devote to this darling project. At last the garden was prepared, and planted with his own favorite seeds. But his father, fearing that it might distract and take up too much time from his studies and duties about the farm, rudely uprooted his tenderly cared-for plants, and put in potatoes instead. On another occasion his father's injudicious urging nearly proved fatal. Isaac was helping in the hay-field, and was working with such ardor and had accomplished so much that his father was actually astonished. Instead of restraining, he praised him without stint. Under this stimulus the ambitious boy redoubled his exertions until he was prostrated by a sunstroke, resulting in a raging fever, from which he barely escaped with life after a severe sickness. On another occasion, when twelve years old, he was working in the hay-field, pitching hay upon the cart; he was badly ruptured, and had to be carried to the house. As soon as he was able to travel he went alone to Boston, and sought out Dr. Warren, a noted surgeon, and laid his case before him. Dr. Warren was so much struck with the lad's courage and intelligence that he refused to accept any fee. "If you do exactly what I tell you, you will get well," he said, "and I know you will do so from looking in your face." The surgeon had a truss made, and prescribed treatment, but all the remainder of his life Isaac was obliged to wear the truss, although he outgrew the injury in a measure until it broke out afresh in Mexico from over-exertion. Measured by modern conditions, it was a severe and laborious home life in which the farmer's boy grew up, but it was a wholesome one, and well adapted to bring out all his powers. Morning and evening, throughout the year, he had his round of duties, feeding and milking the cows, feeding the pigs, cutting and bringing in wood, etc. During the winter he rose long before daylight to attend to these chores and shovel snow from the paths, then after a hasty breakfast trudged away to school, and on returning again resumed the round of unending farm work. In summer there was no school for three or four months, and then he worked on the farm, hoeing corn, making hay, driving oxen, and performing all the hard and varied labors of a New England farmer's son. But the New England farmers of that day were the owners of the soil. They knew no superiors. The Revolutionary struggle, as recent to them as the great Rebellion is to us, was fresh and vivid in their minds, and stimulated noble ideas of liberty and national independence. The standard of personal honesty, manhood, and morals, bequeathed from their Puritan ancestry, was high. Such was the moral atmosphere of Isaac Stevens's household, heightened by his own earnest, philanthropic, and elevated sentiments. All his children were intellectual and high-minded, and nothing can be more touching than the constant ambition and striving of his five daughters for education and self-improvement. All became teachers, but died young, victims of consumption. Nor was the life of the youth nothing but a round of hard work and privation. If he worked hard and studied hard, he enjoyed play with equal zest, and shared the rougher sports of those days with his cousins and other boys of his age. They were more pugnacious and rougher than nowadays. Wrestling was a common sport, and boyish fights and scuffles were usual. At the age of fifteen he entered Phillips Academy in Andover. Nathan W. Hazen, Esq., a well-known and respected lawyer of the town, furnished him board and lodgings, in return for which he took care of the garden, and did the chores about the place. One of his schoolmates, describing his first appearance at the academy, said: "The door opened, and there quietly entered an insignificant, small boy, carrying in his arms a load of books nearly as large as himself. But the impression of insignificance vanished as soon as one regarded his large head, earnest face, and firm, searching, and fearless dark hazel eye." He remained at the academy over a year. As usual, he took the front rank from the beginning. His reputation as a scholar, especially in mathematics, extended beyond the school. Besides his studies he took sole care of Mr. Hazen's garden, a half acre in extent, groomed the horse, milked the cow, and fed them, cut and brought in the wood, and did many other jobs about the house, performing an amount of labor, as Mr. Hazen declared, sufficient to dismay many a hired man. He studied early in the morning and late at night. His power of concentrating his mind upon any subject was extraordinary. His industry was untiring. The impress this boy of fifteen made upon those with whom he came in contact during his stay at this place is really remarkable. Mr. Hazen, who proved a considerate friend and adviser to the struggling youth, relates that every evening Isaac would bring his chair close to the office table, at which the former was accustomed to read or write, in order to avail himself of the light, and would work out mathematical problems on his slate. He would remain quietly with his hand to his head in deep thought for a little time, when suddenly he would shower a perfect rainstorm of figures upon his slate without hesitation, or erasure, oftentimes completely filling it. Generally the correct result was reached; but when the solution was not found the first time, he would rapidly wipe off every figure and begin again as before. His mind always sought out and mastered the bottom principle. It was remarked that, whenever he had once solved a problem, he could unhesitatingly solve all others of the same character. On one occasion a mathematician of some note, who had just published a new arithmetic, brought his work to the academy, and tested the acquirements of the scholars by giving them his new problems to solve. When Isaac was called to the blackboard, he astonished the author and the teacher alike by the ease and rapidity with which he solved every example. They plied him again and again with the most difficult problems, but he mastered them in every instance. "Well, sir," exclaimed the author, somewhat piqued, "I think you could make the key to this book." Isaac took the book, and in three days returned it with every example worked out. A very difficult problem was sent from Yale College to the academy. While the teachers and scholars were puzzling over it, Isaac sat in thought for half an hour with his hand to his head, then rapidly worked out the problem on his slate and presented the solution. Young as he was, it seems that he had thought enough on religious subjects to become a decided Universalist and Unitarian. A religious revival took place while he was at the academy, and many of the scholars were brought within its influence. Among others, one of the teachers became "converted," and sought all means to promote a similar experience among his pupils. In order to remove the stumbling-blocks of doubt and ignorance, he offered to answer any questions they might propound on religious topics. The first question Isaac put, "Can a sincere Universalist be saved?" was met by a decided and uncompromising "No." But the youth plied the unfortunate zealot with such queries that he was forced to confess his inability to answer them, and to withdraw his offer. Once, when he wanted the whole class to attend one of the revival meetings, he put it to them that all who were willing to dispense with the afternoon session and attend the meeting should rise. All promptly stood up except Isaac, who resolutely kept his seat. "Every one in favor except Stevens," exclaimed the teacher with some bitterness, realizing the protest against his own bigotry. In truth, the youth's sense of right had been shocked by the doctrines he heard advanced; he was strongly opposed to such revival meetings, and his earnest nature would not bend in a matter of principle. At one of these meetings his two sisters, Hannah and Susan, yielded to the exhortations and influences of the occasion, and took their seats on the converts' or mourners' bench, as it was called. Perceiving this, Isaac immediately marched up to the front, and made them both leave the church with him, no slight proof of his influence over them, older than himself. In fact, while they felt great pride in his talents, his sisters had come still more to respect and lean upon his sound judgment and firm will. He lavished upon them all the great tenderness and affection of his strong and earnest nature. During his boyhood he was affected with excessive diffidence, or bashfulness. With characteristic resolution and good sense, he set himself to overcome this weakness. He made it a point always to address any one whose presence inspired this awkward feeling, but, he said, it was years before he overcame it. After a year and four months of this severe application, Isaac completed his course at Phillips Academy. He wished to study law with Mr. Hazen, but that gentleman discouraged the idea. At this juncture his uncle, William Stevens, suggested West Point, and wrote to Mr. Gayton P. Osgood, the member of Congress for the North Essex District, in which Andover was situated, inquiring if there was an appointment in his gift, and suggesting Isaac's name. Mr. Osgood replied that there was no vacancy. But uncle William was not satisfied; he wrote to William C. Phillips, the member representing the South Essex District, by whom he was informed that no cadet had been appointed from Mr. Osgood's district. Accordingly he formally made application in behalf of his nephew. A lawyer by profession, and cashier of the Andover bank, he was a man of some influence. Mr. Hazen and other friends joined their recommendations. Mr. Phillips exerted a favorable influence, and although there were other candidates with more influential backing, Mr. Osgood bestowed upon Isaac the desired appointment. Both uncle William and Mr. Hazen declared that the recommendations had little weight, and that Mr. Osgood selected him on account of his reputation for ability and scholarship. CHAPTER III WEST POINT The following letter to his uncle William, written immediately after his arrival at West Point, vividly portrays the mingled emotions that stirred the heart of the raw but ambitious country youth on reaching the goal of his boyish hopes,--his ardent patriotism, awakened by the historic scenes about him; his ambition and determination to be first in his class, "by unflinching resolution, indomitable perseverance, fixing his whole soul upon the object he wishes to attain with concentrated and undivided attention;" his gratitude to his uncle and friends for his appointment, and his affectionate regard for his family. It is also significant of his self-reliant character that he expresses no fears in regard to the impending examination for admission, but remarks, with well-grounded confidence, that "there can be no difficulty in sustaining myself with honor and respectability." WEST POINT, June 13, 1835. DEAR UNCLE,--I now enjoy the long-anticipated happiness of addressing you from West Point. And perhaps you may ask, does it meet my expectations? I am not prepared to answer this question fully at present, but will say that I like my situation, although subject to very strict regulations, and fully believe there can be no difficulty in obeying every regulation and sustaining myself with honor and respectability. And be assured that I always shall consider myself greatly indebted to you for your kind exertions in my behalf, and it shall be my determination to demean myself in such a manner as to convince you and all my friends that their exertions have not been thrown away. Here I am surrounded by young men from every State in the Union, who are eagerly endeavoring to arrive at distinction, many of whom have determined, and, what is better still, will make every exertion to carry their resolve into effect, to be first in their class. Every one must buckle on his armor for the conflict: let him be girded with unflinching resolution, indomitable perseverance, decision and firmness of mind, singleness of purpose, integrity of heart, let him fix his _whole_ soul upon the object he wishes to attain with concentrated and undivided attention, and he will undoubtedly, with scarcely the possibility of a doubt, obtain the post of honor. The first class graduated yesterday. The whole number attached to this class was 54, which is the greatest number that ever graduated at any one time from this institution. There were splendid fireworks last evening, which lasted until nine o'clock. All the cadets were permitted to partake of the sport. It is said that the cadets who leave here are so affected that they even shed tears. Is it to be wondered at? Is there a spot in the whole United States which is associated with so many hallowed and pleasing recollections of the patriotism, of the struggles, and of the victories of our Revolutionary fathers? We are as it were in the cradle of liberty, in the stronghold of freedom, and may we be scions worthy of the tears and of the blood of our Revolutionary sires: may I not disgrace my country, my State, and that character of proud disdain and patriotic valor which inspired the heroes of Andover on the morn of Bunker's fight; and above all may I cherish that love of freedom and sympathy for the sufferings of mankind which characterized the life of Washington, of Kosciusko, and the other worthies of the Revolution; and in fine may I cherish a heart full of gratitude for those kind friends who by their exertions have assisted me to procure my present situation. I shall be examined Monday, and the encampment will be pitched on Tuesday. We shall have no uniforms until the 4th of July, at which time the new cadets mount guard. As soon as I have entered upon the active duties of the station, I shall again write to Andover. Give my love to father, mother, brother and sisters, to your own family, and all inquiring friends, remembering me especially to grandmother. I remain your grateful nephew, ISAAC I. STEVENS. WM. STEVENS, ESQ. He entered the academy resolved to place himself at the head of his class, not in presumptuous or ignorant self-confidence, but fully recognizing the arduous struggle before him. A boy of seventeen, with scanty advantages of education, but inured to hard work and hard study, he did not hesitate to contest the palm with youths older and far better prepared than himself, of whom two at least had received a collegiate education, and had publicly avowed their determination to attain the first place. These were Henry W. Halleck, of New York, distinguished as major-general, and at one time commanding the army in the war of the Rebellion, and Henry J. Biddle, of Philadelphia, both of whom were older in years, of assured social position and wealthy connections, accomplished French scholars, and well up in mathematics; and one may fancy the derision with which they regarded the rivalry of the undersized farmer's boy from Andover. "One evening," says General E.D. Townsend, late adjutant-general of the army, "a classmate of mine, who was very fond of mathematics, General Israel Vogdes, came to my room, and told me there was a 'Plebe' just entered from my State, who was a fine mathematician already, and would stand 'head of his class in math.' This interested me, and I went around to offer to assist my fellow-statesman in entering on his career. This was previous to his first encampment. I found Mr. Stevens a modest, straightforward young man, who, in reply to my offer of any assistance I could give him, informed me he wanted to stand head of his class,--that he was not afraid of mathematics, but knew nothing whatever of French. I at once suggested to him to do what was sometimes but not often done, to apply for permission to take lessons during the encampment of one of the professors, for which a small compensation would be allowed to be deducted from Mr. Stevens's pay. He caught at this idea, and subsequently carried it out. The result was he stood fourteenth in French in the first January examination, and first in mathematics. This did not satisfy him, as I found on congratulating him on what I deemed a most creditable standing. The next June examination, by his untiring application, he stood head both in mathematics and French. There were some four young men in his class who were ripe scholars when they entered West Point, and who were by no means wanting in studious habits. "The following year, drawing was added to the course. Mr. Stevens came to me for more advice, saying he had not the slightest notion of drawing. I suggested to him, first, great care in his outlines to get them accurate, and then, if he found on trial that he had no talent for shading, that by using a very fine-pointed crayon, and making with patience and care light, smooth marks, he might succeed in producing a well-finished and pretty picture. He came to me shortly after to say that he had improved upon my hint, for he first filled in the outline with a fine pencil, and then traced over this with a coarse one the prominent lines of the picture. Well, he stood head in drawing, and this although at least one of his competitors was quite expert with his pencil before he entered the academy. As might be expected from the beginning, Mr. Stevens graduated at the head of his class in every branch throughout the course." Among his classmates, who afterwards rose to be generals in the army, will be recognized Henry W. Halleck; Henry J. Hunt, the distinguished chief of artillery of the Army of the Potomac; George Thom; Edward O.C. Ord; Edward R. S. Canby, who commanded the army against Mobile in 1865, and was massacred by the Modocs in 1873, when in command of the Department of the Columbia; and James B. Ricketts; and in the Confederate army, Jeremy F. Gilmer. Among those in the three classes above him, distinguished as generals in the army, were Montgomery C. Meiggs, quartermaster-general during the war, Daniel P. Woodbury, James Lowry Donaldson, Thomas W. Sherman, Henry H. Lockwood, John W. Phelps, Robert Allen, of the class of '36. Henry W. Benham, Alexander B. Dyer, S. Parker Scammon, Israel Vogdes, Edward D. Townsend, William H. French, John Sedgwick, the soldierly and steadfast commander of the Sixth Corps, beloved of his troops, Joseph Hooker, John B.S. Todd, of the class of '37; and on the Confederate side, Braxton Bragg, Jubal A. Early, Edmond Bradford, and John C. Pemberton. William F. Barry, Irvin C. McDowell, Robert S. Granger, Justus McKinstry, Charles F. Ruff, and Andrew J. Smith, of the class of '38, and P.G. T. Beauregard, the distinguished Confederate leader, as also William J. Hardee, Edward Johnson, and Alexander W. Reynolds. In the class of '40 were the distinguished W.T. Sherman, George H. Thomas, George W. Getty, Stewart Van Vleit, and William Hays; and on the Southern side, John P. McCawn, Richard S. Ewell, and Bushrod R. Johnson. In the class of '41 were Zealous B. Tower, Horatio G. Wright, Amiel W. Whipple, Albion W. Howe, Nathaniel Lyon, John M. Brannon, and Schuyler Hamilton. In the class of '42 were Henry L. Eustis, John Newton, William S. Rosecrans, Barton S. Alexander, John Pope, Seth Williams, Abner Doubleday, Napoleon J.T. Dana, Ralph W. Kirkham, and George Sykes; among the Confederates, James Longstreet, D.H. Hill, Gustavus W. Smith, Mansfield Lovell, Lafayette McLaws, and Earl Van Dorn. Now fairly entered upon the life and duties of a cadet, his intense and ardent nature found full occupation. His ambition was aroused. Hard study agreed with him. The days sped rapidly and pleasantly away. He fell into companionship with the most talented and high-spirited young men. Nor, time and attention all absorbed by severe application, did he sink into a mere bookworm. Every morning before breakfast, rain or shine, he walked around the post for exercise, a distance of two miles. He shared, too, in the escapades natural to a free and spirited youth, and did not always come off scot-free from these scrapes, for his name stands forty-third on the conduct roll for the first year. "I have never been homesick for a single minute since I have been here," he writes his sisters Hannah and Elizabeth, September 8, 1835; "I never passed three months more pleasantly in my life, and since I commenced my studies time never seemed more fleeting. We are obliged to stand guard once a week, drill every day, have a dress parade, with roll calls, etc. We study ten and a half hours a day, two and a half of which are spent in the recitation room. I have recited four lessons in algebra and three in French, and I think I can get my maximum unless sick, or otherwise disabled, that is, miss no questions in any of my studies the coming year. I can get both of my lessons in half an hour, and I shall have much leisure time. If I had some Greek books I think I could pass my time to better advantage. "I like the military life very much. There is as fine a set of fellows here as ever breathed the air. We study hard, eat hearty, sleep sound, and play little. In camp every one was wide awake for a scrape, or for any kind of fun. But in barracks we are as sober and steady as Quakers. We go to the section room with long and solemn faces. I assure you we know that by study and severe application alone we can keep our places. I admire the spirit which pervades the whole class. The common remark is, 'I intend to bone it with all my might.' _To bone it_ means _to study hard_. Every one seems determined to rise, or keep his present standing at any rate. We are divided in four sections in mathematics, and seven in French, arranged in alphabetical order. Consequently I stand in the last section in each. A transfer will be made in the course of the week, those who do best being put in the higher sections, and those who do worst into the lower sections. I hope to rise in both. That I may do so, I intend to get my lessons in the best possible manner. It shall be my aim not only to understand my lessons, but to convince my instructors that I understand them. To do this I must accustom myself to collect my ideas readily, to be free from embarrassment and trepidation, and always to be perfectly calm and self-possessed." TO HANNAH. November 28. I am doing pretty well. My health is strong and vigorous. I am not only contented with my situation, but like it very much indeed. We are kept tremendously strict, I assure you. I was visiting last Wednesday evening, and they arrested me for it, and did not release me until this evening, and in addition to that they obliged me to perform an extra tour of Sunday guard duty, which is very tough, I assure you, this cold weather. Uncle William, it seems, was disappointed at his early standing in the class, and wrote him rather a reproachful letter of exhortation and advice, winding up with the wish that he should stand first in mathematics by the end of the year. In reply he explains that his first rating was low because his name came near the end of the alphabet. WEST POINT, December 5, 1835. DEAR UNCLE,--Your letter was received yesterday, and read with much pleasure. I feel gratified that I still retain your confidence, and that you expect me to sustain an honorable stand. It is also rather flattering than otherwise to know that you feel disappointed because I have nothing more than a respectable standing in my class, for it shows that your estimate of my abilities is as high as, perhaps higher than, it should be. I assure you that your wish shall be gratified not only within the close of the first year, but within the first six months, if it is within my power. Should my stand be no higher than at present, you must not feel disappointed. For such a stand is not only "_very respectable_," but very high in a class like ours. I beg of you, however, to think no more of the communication, because my stand even then was much higher than 19. The sections since then have been rearranged, and I have risen very much. You must also recollect that at first I was within seven of the foot both in M. and F. In two weeks I rose 25 men in M. and 80 in F. I then remained in the second section in mathematics till the middle of November, when I was transferred to the first section. There are only two in our class who have got the maximum at every recitation both in M. and F. since the commencement of our studies; these are cadet Biddle from Penn. and a fellow from Mass., whose birthplace, I believe, is Andover. I am now at the head of my section in French. My present standing in M. _is_ as _high_ as the _highest_, and it is considered so by every member of my class. There are four of us in M. who have done equally well, that is, we have each of us got the maximum, done all the extras, and demonstrate equally as well. Their names are H.J. Biddle, of Penn., I. Butler, of Va., H. W. Halleck, of N.Y., and ----, of Mass. I have often thought of the advice you gave me, and I hope I have profited by it. I have spent two hours in studying other authors, and in learning to demonstrate eloquently and with perspicuity, to every hour devoted to the text-book. In French I have risen more than any other man in the class. My stand at first was 67th, now it is 22d. When I came, I had scarcely looked into a French book for five years, and could not pronounce a single syllable. And, believe me, it is not egotism which prompts me to say this, but it is in order to put to rest all your apprehensions on my account. I also wish to assure you that I associate with none whom I ought not to respect. WEST POINT, December 20, 1835. DEAR FATHER,--You have probably received a communication from the War Department giving my stand for the month of November, which I hope will give you better satisfaction than the last return. I think my general standing in January will be still better. I shall be examined one fortnight from to-morrow, and I intend to do my best. My standing will greatly depend upon it. At the examination, each one has a demonstration to perform, besides some 20 or 30 questions to answer. If my demonstration is good, and the answers to all my questions are correct, my stand will remain in mathematics at least as good as it was in November, which, I presume, is fourth. In French I think I shall rise considerably, because my mark is as good as any one's, and I think I have gained the good-will of my teacher. Very much depends upon this. We can always secure their esteem by being attentive and respectful, and, last though not least, by paying considerable attention to our personal appearance. Lieutenant Church, my professor in mathematics, and Mr. Molinard, my professor in French, are both very fine men and accomplished teachers. The latter is a Frenchman. I am acquainted with many Westerners, who generally are very fine fellows. They are generally very generous and open-hearted, and it is very easy to get acquainted with them. There have been two duels fought between cadets since I have been here, though no ill consequences followed. In each case the combatants were Westerners. If they had been found out, they, together with the seconds, would have been dismissed. Our State does the best of any in the fourth class. There are three in the first section in mathematics, and two in the first section in French. Penn. has two in each. Henry J. Biddle, of Penn., will probably be head in mathematics in January. His name comes before those who have an equal mark with him; he is a splendid mathematician, and has graduated at a college, and was undoubtedly better prepared than any other member of the class. He will also be head in French. We have a splendid collection of Philosophical, Mathematical, and Historical works in our library. There is no difficulty in getting books, and I intend to avail myself of its many advantages. There is a universal history of modern times, consisting of 42 volumes. I am now reading Rollin's Ancient History. Our evenings are very busy. We study from half past five till ten. It is noticeable in his letters that he finds the regular course of studies very easy, owing undoubtedly not less to the remarkable native powers of his mind than to his habits of study and faculty of intense application. Yet, as in boyhood, not content with the prescribed curriculum, and spurred on by his ambition to achieve the headship of his class, he takes extra French lessons, spends "two hours in studying other authors, and in learning to demonstrate eloquently and with perspicuity, to every hour devoted to the text-book," and reads Rollin's Ancient History. Such indomitable resolution and energy combined with great ability could not fail. In six months he had gained a high place in the first section, and had become the competitor with three others for the leadership. He writes uncle William, who has congratulated him on his standing, and now thinks it best to caution him against studying too hard:-- WEST POINT, February 1, 1836. DEAR UNCLE,--It was very gratifying to learn that my standing was so satisfactory to my friends. Since it has been attained by no extra exertion, it is incumbent on me to _deserve_ to sustain it for the future by strict and unwearied attention to all my academic studies. Your caution respecting hard study shall be observed, for the very good reason that it is impossible to do otherwise. The regulations in this respect are very good, and are such as to secure to each one the privilege of studying as much as is necessary, while it restrains all from over-exertion. We retire at ten and rise at six. Of the remaining sixteen, four hours are devoted to recreation, meals, etc., and twelve to study. Of these twelve hours, two and one half are spent in the section room. The intercourse between the cadets is so free and uninterrupted that it is impossible to study except during study hours. Surely twelve hours' study per day ought to injure no one of a sound constitution. Our class will have a society next fall. Every class, except the fourth, has one or more societies, which meet every Saturday evening. We have some very fine speakers in the corps, and many take great pains to improve themselves. You wish to know our uniforms, rations, etc. Our uniform is gray. Our pantaloons are made as usual, except a stripe of black velvet on each leg. Cousin Charles can describe our coats, which are the same both winter and summer. In summer we wear white pants made of Russia drilling. Remember me to all inquiring friends, especially to grandmother and your own family. Your nephew, ISAAC I. STEVENS. N.B. Tell our folks to write soon. To his sister Susan:-- WEST POINT, February 23, 1836. DEAR SISTER,--Be assured that advice from _you_, and advice from _all those_ whom I _know_ to be my _friends_, will afford me the greatest pleasure, and will always be received with the most respectful attention. The disgusting habits of chewing, smoking, etc., I abominate, and therefore shall never indulge in them. As for drinks, either distilled or fermented, I do not use them, because in the first place they cannot be obtained, and, in the second place, I have no desire for them. The fact of the case is, that in barracks there are no temptations offered us but what every one who has any mind could easily resist. In camp it is not the case; then many temptations are offered us, to which we are in great danger of yielding, since we have much leisure. When a person has his whole time employed, there is little danger of falling into bad habits. Last fall, when I commenced the Algebra, I had very little to do, and came very near contracting some very bad habits, as sleeping in the morning, etc., which at first required some little difficulty in breaking; but now I do not think of such a thing, not even Sunday mornings, and I often rise at four or five o'clock. This is owing to having hard lessons to get. You mention that you are studying Latin and like it very much. I have but one caution to give you on this subject, which is, get your grammar perfectly. Everything depends upon this. You can never make a good Latin scholar unless you know everything about the grammar. Since you are studying French, I intend next encampment to write you a letter in French, which you must answer, and we will correct each other. We use Levisac's Grammar, and at every lesson get about half a page of exercises, and are obliged to get them so that we can write any sentence our Prof. gives us upon the blackboard without referring to the books. We are now writing sentences upon the pronomial verbs. We get for our translation eight pages in Charles XII. per day. Our teacher, Mr. Bevard (the author of the French Lessons), is a very good linguist, and the most thorough teacher I ever was under. He is very particular about our pronunciation, and corrects us very frequently. I think by June I shall be able to pronounce French pretty well and read it fluently, and shall endeavor to rise considerably. You must write whenever you can find it convenient, and your letters shall always be punctually answered. I observe that you pay the postage. I wish that you would allow me to pay it, as I think I am better able to do it than you. Remember me to all inquiring friends. Your brother, ISAAC I. STEVENS. Miss S.B. STEVENS. His letters show the maturity of the mind and judgment of the youth of seventeen, and exhibit a slight formality and precision that indicates that he was taking pains in the composition. His correspondence must have taken no little time. His great, warm heart went out towards all his relations, and he was frequently writing to his uncle William, and his cousins in Andover and Salem, Mass., in Albany, Maine, and in Nashville, Tenn. He wrote constantly to his father and sisters, keenly alive to their welfare and happiness. The latter were beginning to scatter widely from the paternal roof-tree. Hannah, the eldest, was at Haverhill, earning her livelihood. Susan was attending the female seminary at the South Parish (Andover); Mary was at Methuen, at Mr. Stephen Barker's; and only Sarah and Elizabeth remained at home. Deeply sympathizing with them, he comforts them, urges them to treat their stepmother with respect, and touchingly alludes to their father's unfortunate condition, his growing infirmities, and his sincere affection for and devotion to his children. The first academic year rolled rapidly away. One day, as the examination drew near, Halleck and Biddle were comparing notes as to the prospects. "That little Stevens," said the former, "is driving ahead like the devil, and he is sure to be first in mathematics. I don't think he can beat me in French, at any rate." "And I am sure," rejoined Biddle, "that he cannot touch me in drawing next year. One thing I have made up my mind to,--if he gains the head of the class over me, I shall resign." This dialogue was overheard, and repeated to "little Stevens," who related it in after years with some amusement. He had pursued his object with unflagging zeal, energy, and determination during the year, but, reflecting how heavily he was handicapped in the race by men like Biddle, Butler, and Halleck, so much older and farther advanced in their studies at the beginning, he might well feel anxious. He entered the examination room, as he describes it, cool and collected, with nerves high-strung yet under perfect control, and fully determined to come out ahead. He was not disappointed. He rose to the first place,--a place, once achieved, which no competitor was to wrest from him. CAMP JONES, July 6, 1836. DEAR UNCLE,--I received your letter by Mr. Johnson, and although short it was very acceptable.... We had a fine time on the Fourth of July, an oration, dinner, etc. I had a great desire to spend the Fourth at New York city. I applied and obtained a leave of two days, commencing on Sunday noon and ending on Tuesday; had a very fine time,--went to the Navy Yard, Brooklyn, got introduced to about half a dozen midshipmen, etc. The military were out, as well as several societies. In the evening I went to the theatre, where Celeste danced _as usual_. Since we have been in camp we have had a very easy time, nothing to do but go on guard two or three times per week, attend roll calls and dress parades. Next week we will be drilled three times per day as well as recite in infantry tactics, and attend the dancing-school. I have come to the determination to study French this encampment: shall commence next week. I cannot reasonably expect to keep my present standing in that branch unless I exert myself. I can translate quite readily, but I write quite indifferently, and can speak it but very little, whereas there are three immediately below me who can read, write, and speak the language very well. Why the Board placed me above them is more than I can conceive. Two of them have told me they _would rise me_, and I have told them they _should not do it_. If they _do_ rise me, I shall not complain; and if they do not, so much the better. As to mathematics, I have no cause for fear,--both Biddle and Halleck admit I ought to stand head, and my professor had no doubts about who should be placed there. As soon as we reënter barracks, we commence drawing. Success in this branch depends as much (and perhaps even more) upon persevering application as on a natural taste. I intend to do my very best, otherwise I shall fall very much in general merit, even should I keep my standing in other branches. Biddle will stand head, or near the head, in D., as he now draws very well. If he was third in D. and I was twelfth, he would rise me in general merit. Our merit rolls will be published in about two weeks. I am entitled to five, and shall send one home. In this roll the standing of every cadet, the class to which he belongs, and the number of his demerits are published. Mass. stands better in my class than any other State. Greene and Grafton, both from Boston, stand ninth and tenth. But there was one from Salem found deficient in French, although he passed well in M. I think he is a smart fellow, and will stand high next year. His name is Humber. He had been a sailor for six years, and French came very hard to him by reason of the very limited knowledge he had of language. I suppose that the farmers must have begun haying in good earnest. I should much prefer working on a farm for two or three months to the life I now lead. It is now thirteen months since I have done any work to which I have hitherto been accustomed, and I shall probably _soon get my hand out_. Many of the cadets, chiefly those who come from the slavery States, have a great contempt for our Yankee farmers, and even pretend to compare them with their slaves. They have the greatest contempt for all those who gain a subsistence by the sweat of their brows. For my own part I shall always respect every man who is honest and industrious, and more particularly those who live in the manner that has been ordained by God himself; and whenever any man, in conversation with me or in my hearing, compares that class, of which I am proud to be one, with slaves, I shall always consider it as an insult offered to myself, and shall act accordingly. Remember me to all inquiring friends. Write when convenient. Your nephew, ISAAC I. STEVENS. WM. STEVENS, Esq. CAMP JONES, WEST POINT, August 16, 1836. DEAR UNCLE,--You probably have seen most of my letters that I have written home this encampment; you will see that I have taken things fair and easy, and have had quite a pleasant time. I can always get a permission to walk into the country whenever I ask for it, so that, between attending my military duties, dancing, rambling about in the country, and reading novels, I could not do otherwise than pass my time pleasantly. I cut rather a sorry figure dancing, as might be expected, but there is a chance for improvement, which I intend to make the best of. There is a standing society in the corps called the Dialectic Society. Ten or fifteen persons are selected from each class except the fourth class, so that it consists of forty or fifty members. The society is continued by selecting the above number from every new class after it has been here one year. I intend to get elected into it, if possible. They have a fine collection of books to the amount of several hundred volumes. There are also many fine speakers in it, and many of them take great pains to improve themselves, even to the neglect of their studies. This is unquestionably bad policy. It is losing a dollar for the sake of saving a sixpence; but there is no kind of difficulty in paying proper attention to our studies, and improving ourselves in writing and speaking: by writing, I of course mean composing. If you will examine our merit rolls, you will see that Jennings and Halbert, of the second class, are among the deficients. These men were decidedly the best writers in the class, and the former was the orator on the Fourth of July. As it is always better to _act_ than to _talk_, so they have missed it in neglecting their studies in order to become good speakers. As I stand head in French, you may possibly suppose I can speak the language. Such is not the case; but one thing _is_ certain, I am determined to be able to speak it one year from this time. But how I shall do it is another thing. I can write it some, but it will require great pains to be able to write it correctly and speak it fluently. Neither time nor patience shall be wanting on my part in order to accomplish both the above objects. As soon as we commence studying, I intend to have a talk with Mr. Bevard, the head teacher in French, and a most estimable man, about it, and do as he directs me. In return for this I shall expect a good long letter, telling me all the news and giving me good advice. Remember me to all inquiring friends, to Aunt Eliza, and cousins Eliza, William, Susan, and George. I remain your nephew, ISAAC I. STEVENS. WM. STEVENS, Esq. WEST POINT, September 1, 1836. DEAR FATHER,--In my letters you often have me write about my leave next year. I look forward to this with a great deal of pleasure. As you may well suppose, I want to see my friends very much. How long a leave had I better get? I can have ten weeks if I choose, or a shorter time. I am now a corporal, and shall probably be made a sergeant next June. If I get a leave of ten weeks, I cannot keep my office. But if I retain it, my leave will not exceed four or five weeks; but to make up for this I could get as long a leave the year after; whereas, if I resigned my office and took the ten weeks' leave, I could get no leave the next encampment. The office now is not worth much, but it is very well to have it when I am in the first class, for then I shall be made a lieutenant, if my conduct is good. What had I best do? If I continue to be head in mathematics, there is a chance of my being made an assistant professor in M. next year. Two of the cadet professors will then graduate, and their places will have to be filled. I do not think, however, it is best to place any dependence upon it. If there was an even chance of my being made such, I would not hesitate about resigning my office, if you should think it best to obtain a leave of ten weeks. Your son, ISAAC I. STEVENS. Mr. ISAAC STEVENS. WEST POINT, September 2, 1836. DEAR FATHER,--Yesterday we commenced our studies. We entered the barracks the 30th of August. The ball on the 29th was a most splendid one, and the hall was very full. We made use of the mess-hall, which was decorated in fine style. Our band was present, and their performances served to increase their reputation. The ball was continued until after three o'clock, but I did not remain after half past one. It was estimated that nearly six hundred visitors were present. As this is the only thing of the kind we have during the year, the corps take unusual pains to have everything done in the best manner, and great care was taken that the whole should present quite a military appearance. Many of the lamps were encircled by brightly burnished bayonets, which served as reflectors. Directly in front of the hall was a battery of cannon, in rear of which sentinels were stationed to keep off those who had no right to be present. I enjoyed myself very much, and took part in several cotillions. We marched into barracks the day after the ball, and were allowed a day or two to arrange things. My situation is much different now from what it was one year since. Now I have attained a situation which then I scarcely hoped for. Now I am surrounded with my classmates and friends, when one year since I had no friends; for we were strangers to each other, and consequently displayed that cold civility, and uttered those unmeaning compliments, which distinguish the intercourse of strangers. One year since I was unknown to the officers of the institution; now I trust I have secured the confidence and esteem of those with whom I have come in contact. Then I was a _poor plebe_, who had not passed his January examination; now I no longer bear that title, but possess the privileges and the name of an _old cadet_. The fourth class is a very large one, upwards of a hundred. Next June I do not believe upwards of sixty will be left, and it is doubtful whether upwards of forty-five graduate, so many are found deficient and discharged. My room-mates are the same as last year, with the exception of Mr. Bacon. I think we shall always room together, at least I hope so. Both Carpenter and Callender are hard students and steady fellows. The former is a very smart man. The latter you will find, by reference to some of my old letters, roomed with me before January, resigned, and was reappointed this year. I do not expect to stand first next January, but think my standing will not be below second. Drawing will come hard to me, and I shall stand quite low the first three or four months. No efforts of my own shall be wanting to secure a good standing in this branch. We spend six hours per week in the drawing academy, but I intend to practice twelve hours per week in my own room. Your son, ISAAC A. STEVENS. Mr. ISAAC STEVENS. From early boyhood General Stevens made a strong impression upon every one he met. Undersized, and at first glance insignificant in appearance, his intense individuality and intellect were always deeply felt. At once he commanded the respect of the professors at the academy; and their recollections of him, and of his characteristics, were still vivid after the lapse of forty years, and the continual passing of an army of youth before their eyes. Said Professor W.H.C. Bartlett, July 16, 1877, who was professor of natural and experimental philosophy:-- "General Stevens was a small, undersized, young man when he entered West Point, very modest in demeanor. He had the habit of speaking carefully and distinctly, and of clearly and precisely expressing the exact idea he wished to convey. His mind was comprehensive, given to generalizations; he had the faculty of generalizing, of always thinking out first principles. In solving a mathematical problem, he would apply the principles which governed the class of problems, and not simply seek a solution of the single one before him. He was very early regarded by the faculty as a man of great talent and promise, sure to take a high stand in his class and in the world. He was popular with his class, but his popularity arose more from their opinion of his abilities than from social qualities. The professors soon felt that whatever he said was worthy of attention. I recollect that he took an active part in the Dialectic Society, and recollect his moving the books and busying himself in the room. Biddle was his competitor for the headship of the class, and after he left there was practically no one to contest the honors with him. "Halleck's was an entirely different mind from Stevens's,--less comprehensive, less devoted to original research, to principles. Halleck was strong in history, in precedents. "I recollect Stevens's answer when a witness before a court of inquiry,--how he knew that a party had done so and so,--if he had said so. 'No,' replied he, 'he did not say so, but what he said and his manner combined convinced me of the fact; and the manner is a great part of any conversation.' When he graduated, he stood not only at the head of his class, but among the highest that ever graduated from the academy." Professor A.E. Church (of mathematics) writes July 27, 1877:-- "My recollection of your father as a cadet at West Point is very vivid. I remember him as an earnest, industrious student, strictly attentive to every duty. He possessed mathematical talents of the highest order, standing in this branch, as in every other, at the head of his class, notwithstanding rival classmates of great abilities. A distinguishing trait which he possessed in a remarkable degree, and, from what I know of his after life, continued ever prominent, was an unhesitating readiness to apply and carry on strictly and systematically every principle he had learned, never failing to come to the right result. "While others were pondering over the intricacies of a mathematical proposition, often in vain seeking some shorter way or more curious result, he seemed at once to grasp the most practicable rule, and straight onward to pursue it to an end which admitted of no doubt. "Though admirably adapted for a military commander and great engineer, had he selected the profession of the law he would have been prominent among the most distinguished lawyers of the age. His early death was a serious loss to the army and country, and with his many friends was sincerely mourned by myself." The grasp and thoroughness of his mind, his power of generalization, of seeking and mastering first principles, which Mr. Hazen remarked in the boy, impressed the West Point professors, too, as the prominent mental characteristic of the youth. Says General Zealous B. Tower:-- "I roomed with Cadet Stevens for four months in one of the small rooms in the south barracks. Stephen D. Carpenter was the other occupant of that limited living and bed room. Each cadet was provided with a small mattress, to be spread upon the floor when needed, and when unoccupied to be rolled up in its canvas, well strapped, and put into a corner of the room. Later, iron bedsteads were introduced, but the mattresses were never unrolled and spread until the hour for retiring. A cadet inspector visited the rooms half an hour after reveille; the Officer of the day also inspected them, and the company officers also went the rounds. Tattoo at 9.30 P.M. was the signal for retiring, and taps at ten P.M. for putting out all lights, when one of the officers again inspected each 'stoup,' or floor, of the barracks. "Stevens's duties as assistant professor of mathematics occupied an hour and a half each day, taking that portion of time from his study hours; but it did not interfere with his studies, for he possessed quick intelligence, and great concentration of his mental powers. This faculty was very pronounced, and would have given him distinction in any profession that he might have undertaken, and the more so that it was allied to industrious habits and an enthusiastic nature. He never plodded over his lessons, but often finished them in half the time allotted to their acquisition. Stevens was a pleasant room-mate, being very genial, kind, and considerate to others. He never failed in his friendships, or in anything that appeared a duty to his fellows. He was popular among those of his associates who valued sterling, manly qualities, and among the most prominent members of his corps. He spoke rapidly when a matter of interest engaged his attention, for he thought rapidly. Though, rather short in stature, his large head and very expressive, intelligent eyes made him noticeable and attractive in conversation, engaging the marked attention of his auditors. His enthusiasm and strong convictions gave an energy to his manner of discussing favorite topics that lent the charm of eloquence to his speech." WEST POINT, March 11, 1836. DEAR FATHER,--Last week we commenced Calculus. This is considered the most difficult branch of mathematics. Our text-book is a compilation from the most distinguished French mathematicians by Professor Davies. We have about ten pages per lesson, and will be about five weeks going through it. We next study surveying, which ends our course in mathematics. Since the examination I have attended the drawing academy every day, the regular attendance being every other day. Were I two files higher in this branch, it would put me head in general merit. I am now drawing our Saviour, represented as a child. I have been at work on it for about four weeks. It will probably take me eight weeks more to finish it. It is very slow work, I assure you, but as our standing depends entirely upon the excellence and not upon the number of pieces, I consider the time is not lost, provided what I do is done well. It seems there is a very great excitement in Congress respecting the slavery question. It must afford pleasure to every friend of free discussion to learn that the South did not succeed in the resolutions censuring Mr. Adams. At the same time, I think he is unnecessarily agitating this dangerous question, and that his zeal will tend to awaken only feelings and desires which should never be cherished. Is not the dissolution of the Union a subject of fearful foreboding? Ought then the sages of our land like Mr. Adams at this time to agitate a question which in the opinion of the South infringes upon their rights, and which, inflexible as we know them to be in their maintenance, will cause them to look upon a secession from the Union as the only means of preserving them? The South are sensible of the evils of slavery. They deplore the existence of this curse, entailed upon them against their consent by the arbitrary decrees of England, and I believe that (if left to themselves) they will adopt some measures to rid themselves of it. Your son, ISAAC I. STEVENS. [Illustration: INFANT JESUS _Crayon drawing at West Point_] WEST POINT, March 5, 1836. DEAR SISTER,--I received your letter this morning informing me of aunt Eliza's death. She was certainly the finest woman I ever knew, and the remembrance of her engaging qualities will long be cherished. Uncle William is very much to be pitied. Have you any school in view now for next summer? You also appear to be very much interested in Latin. I detested Latin when I first commenced to study it, but I soon brought myself to like it. So it is with drawing. I take more pleasure in drawing than in anything else. I like it full as well as reading novels. In my last you will recollect that I wrote of the piece I was then drawing. I have now got it most half done. I was all last week (two hours per day) drawing one eye, a part of another one, and one curl of hair. You can see by this that I draw very slowly, much slower than any one in my class. The time spent in the drawing academy seems shorter than any other part of the day, and I have not yet felt any impatience at my slowness in drawing since I have commenced my last piece, a sure sign that I like it very much. Your brother, ISAAC I. STEVENS. Miss SUSAN B. STEVENS. DEAR SISTER ELIZABETH,--You spoke of Mr. Maynard thinking I ought to be content with my present standing, and ought not to expect to stand higher. Be that as it may, one thing _is_ certain, that I will _never_ cease to try for number one till I have got it again, and were I convinced that it was almost an impossibility, I would still _try_. I like the reply of General Miller to his superior officer in the last war, when, being directed to attack and carry a battery of cannon on an almost inaccessible eminence, the silencing of which was indispensable, made this answer only, 'I will try,' and with the most determined courage carried it in an almost incredibly short space of time. I don't like _backing out_; it is contemptible. I shall, however, be contented with whatever standing is given me, and since I have been here I have always endeavored to prepare myself for any contingency. This is absolutely necessary. It is the only way to guard against envy, jealousy, and all those mean and degrading passions to which the human heart is prone. Harry Biddle and myself are now the only members of our class who are contending for head, yet I don't believe there are two men in the class on better terms. He is one of the finest young men I ever knew; and although he was very much disappointed last June, he never uttered a word showing he harbored the least ill-will against me. When the result of the June examination was known, he came and congratulated me, but told me he meant to rise me. In January it appeared he had redeemed his word, and so I went and congratulated him, and balanced the account. This is the only way to get along, for if we allow those passions I have mentioned to obtain the least ascendency over us, it will render us disagreeable and unhappy. There are eleven of us in four rooms, which are contiguous to each other, who are all good friends, and we enjoy ourselves as much as any other eleven men in the corps. At the end of the second academic year he again stood head of his class, and had the pleasure of announcing his success to his father. He stood seventeen on the conduct roll, having eleven demerits. WEST POINT, June 18, 1836. DEAR FATHER,--I received a letter from Oliver a few days since. He says he is "going a-gunning" on his birthday, and wishes me to be at home to keep him company. I wish this could be the case, but under present circumstances I shall not come home until the last of July, and my leave will last but four weeks only. I did not know this till about a week ago, and I have deferred writing to be able to give you my standing. The examination was closed yesterday. My standing is first in mathematics, first in French, and fourth in drawing, which puts me head in general merit. Mr. Biddle is second in M., third in F., and first in D. I presume you will be satisfied with this. You recollect that Mr. Biddle rose me in French last January, and I suppose that rising him again this June will make it all right again. I had very good luck indeed, and my recitation in mathematics was much better than at any previous examination. We march into camp on Tuesday. It is to be called Camp Poinsett, as a compliment to the Secretary of War. In July he returned home, after an absence of two years, to spend the brief leave of a month. He had foregone one the previous year, partly on the score of economy, at his father's suggestion, and it was with a heart full of joy and glad anticipations that he hastened to visit the loved ones at home, and the dear and familiar scenes of his childhood. Isaac must have keenly enjoyed this visit. His sisters were proud of him, and overjoyed at his return. He had surpassed the most sanguine hopes of his friends, and on every hand met with a warm welcome. His success at the academy, his cadet uniform, and his erect, soldierly bearing invested him in the eyes of the community with the new-found respect and importance accorded to rising and promising young manhood. His cousin Henry, writing after his return to the Point, says: "If you look as dignified as you did when you were here, I do not wonder that you are beyond suspicion. I should like very much to see one hundred cadets playing at football. Do you run as erect as you walk?" West Point drill and discipline, however, had not abated his adventurous spirit, or love of the sports natural to his age. Sailing on the Great Pond with a number of companions, and the wind having died out, for pastime he climbed to the top of the mast, which suddenly broke and let him fall headlong into the lake. On another occasion he was poling a boat with his little brother up the Cochichewick towards the "Hatch," as the point where the stream flowed out of the Great Pond was called, when the oar stuck fast in the tenacious mud of the bottom, and, grasping it too firmly, Isaac lost his foothold, and was dragged over the stern into the mingled mud and water, to the sad defilement of his speckless white cadet trousers. Exasperated at this ridiculous accident, he swore lustily, calling upon Oliver in no gentle tones to bring back the boat. CHAPTER IV WEST POINT.--LAST TWO YEARS Returning to the Point after this brief respite, the young cadet resumed his studies with his accustomed vigor. He was appointed assistant professor of mathematics, a position of additional labor as well as honor, which he retained to the end of his course. Moreover, he took an active part in the Dialectic Society, which as a "plebe" he looked forward to joining. In a letter to Mr. Hazen he recounts his early efforts in debate:-- "You are probably aware that we have a debating society here, of which I have the honor to be a member. Last evening (we hold our meetings on Saturday evenings) we had an animated debate on the expediency of studying the _dead languages_. It was the only tolerable one we have had this fall. Some pretty good speeches were made. One was particularly fine. Mr. Jennings, the person to whom I allude, in my opinion was made for an orator. He is undoubtedly a man of a large mind, and expresses himself admirably. His delivery is very good, and his diction is choice and effective. Declamation is one of the regular exercises; and as my turn came round, I had the pleasure of unburdening myself of a short piece, and of being most woefully used up by the critical, who are regularly appointed for such performance. This is not very encouraging, to be sure. I must, however, acquit myself better next time. "You are probably aware of the great defects in our course of study. It is not calculated generally to strengthen and improve the mind as much as a four years' course of study should. Some of the faculties are developed in a high degree, whilst others are almost entirely neglected; its effect is--if the expression can be used--to cast the mind in a rough, strong mould, without embellishing or polishing it. Its effect is also (perhaps no more than any other regular course of study) to confine our attention to particular pursuits, and make us neglect all that general information which is essential to a man of liberal education, and in fact absolutely indispensable for any one who engages in the actual pursuits of life. Don't you believe it is of greater advantage to a person to have a good idea of political economy, or a knowledge of the elementary principles of composition, than to be able to solve some abstruse problem in mathematics? "I almost wish I could content myself with standing about fifth in my class. I could then spend three or four hours a day in reading and getting valuable information, and could improve myself in composition. I might also cultivate a taste for the higher branches of literature, my taste for all which at present, except novels, is about at the zero point. As it is, I am obliged to work hard to get an hour a day to devote to reading; and as I consider history and solid works of that nature most valuable, I have been able to read but one novel within the last three months. I have been reading some of the speeches in 'British Eloquence' of late; also in the 'Eloquence of the United States.' Do you think the characters of Pitt, Fox, and Burke, as described by the author in the former work, are correct? My former ideas of Chatham were somewhat different. The author makes him out a more selfish man than I supposed him to be. A few days since I picked up a volume of Phillips's Speeches, and read most of them. Is not his speech in the case of Blake v. Wilkins admirable? What do you think of them generally? It seems to me there is more of the pomp of words than real, effective oratory in them. He has too much pathos in some of his speeches. A little of it, and sometimes much of it, produces a very good effect; but where it is nothing but a pathetic appeal to the feelings, the effect is destroyed, at least with people of sense." This letter shows that the youth was beginning to think for himself, and to weigh things according to his own ideas. The arduous course of study he was pursuing did not wholly engross his attention. He soon became the leading member of the Dialectic, active in getting up lectures and other literary exercises. Nor was he simply a bookworm. "The eleven of us, in contiguous rooms, who are all good friends, and enjoy ourselves as much as any other eleven men in the class," derived some of their enjoyment from breaking the rigid rules of the institution, and in hairbreadth escapes from detection. They used to run over to Benny's without leave. They would bring pies and other edibles into barracks buttoned up under their coats, and, after the post was wrapped in slumber, would indulge in these forbidden sweets. His companions ofttimes complained that Stevens would learn his lessons in a minute, and then come about, making a racket, and disturbing them in their studies. He used to take long walks and excursions about the neighboring country. Naturally active and fearless, he became a fine horseman, and always appeared to best advantage when mounted, where his erect figure and soldierly bearing gave him the effect of higher stature than when on foot. In winter the cadets were in the habit of skating on the river. Isaac, light, active, and fearless, and exceedingly adventurous, delighted to skim full speed over the thinnest ice he could find, which bent and crackled under his skates. His companions kept remonstrating with and forewarning him of a catastrophe, which in his case never occurred. One extremely cold day, however, one of his associates broke through the ice and fell into the river. They rescued him with some difficulty, and bore him dripping wet to the barracks in all haste, but the unlucky youth was nearly frozen when they carried him into his room. His mates at once set to work making a hot fire, and bringing blankets, etc. But Isaac now took the lead, as the commanding spirit always does in a real emergency. He caused them to put out the fire, throw open all the windows, and to vigorously rub the insensible youth with snow brought from the outside until his circulation was restored, and the frost taken out of his benumbed extremities, when he suffered them to rebuild the fire and renew the warm comforts, both solid and liquid. His uncle Moses, a distinguished teacher, settled in Nashville, Tenn., visited West Point this fall; and his father writes, "Your uncle Moses speaks of your acquirements in rather extravagant terms." During the winter his father's health was poor, and he suffered much from his injured leg. Oliver alone remained at home. Hannah was in Haverhill, attending school, and supporting herself by her needle; Sarah was in Lowell, working in a factory; Elizabeth was at Belfast, Maine, visiting an aunt, and attending school; Mary was at Methuen; and Susan was attending school at the South Parish. The latter, a girl of warm heart and lively sensibilities, had not been satisfied with the sober Unitarianism of her family, and had become attached to the "Orthodox," or ancient Puritan faith, a sincere and somewhat enthusiastic convert. The letters of these motherless girls, thus scattered about, reveal a touching picture of their earnest desire and efforts for study and self-improvement, their tender affection for their father, and their endeavor to treat their stepmother with respect and affection. It was to their brother Isaac that they resorted for comfort and guidance. They confided to his warm and sympathetic heart all their troubles, aspirations, and plans, and constantly sought his advice. The noble old man at the farm, too, had come to rely upon the manly character and sound judgment of the youth of nineteen at West Point. He writes of the difficulty of making both ends meet, of his earnest desire to give more schooling to his three younger daughters, and of preserving intact for his children the little property he had accumulated so laboriously. He asks Isaac to write and advise Susan, who he thinks lacks stability, and Hannah. He entreats his son to come home every summer vacation. WEST POINT, December 17, 1836. DEAR FATHER,--It was with much concern I heard of your lameness, and I am very much afraid it will prove more serious than you seem to be aware of. You ought not to think yourself obliged to work, when it is of manifest injury to you. You are now getting to be along in years, and you have done hard work enough. You ought now to think of making yourself comfortable. I _do_ hope you will be careful about exposing yourself, and will endeavor to enjoy the little property which you have accumulated with so much toil. Your children, you may be assured, had much rather that it should all be consumed in making your declining years pleasant and happy, than receive a single cent of it themselves. I think you will do wrong to feel the least anxiety about leaving property to your children. You have evinced the greatest affection for us, and the utmost disinterestedness in consulting the welfare of your children, and it is our duty to make every return in our power. Believe me, we will endeavor to exert our utmost in order to secure the happiness of the remaining period of your life, and we ask of you, as a favor, no longer to undergo the toil and exposure to which you have hitherto been accustomed. I wish I could have been at home Thanksgiving time. Three successive Thanksgivings have seen my absence from home, and it is very probable that three more will pass away without allowing me the opportunity of spending them at home. As it is, I hope I shall be enabled to pass two or three weeks at home next summer, but it is very uncertain. The superintendent has come to the conclusion no longer to permit the members of the first class to be absent on leave during the encampment, and it will be very difficult to obtain a leave unless the application is _backed_ by very urgent reasons. At last Susan decided to go to Missouri, encouraged by the favorable reports of relatives who had moved thither, and hoping to find a more promising field as a teacher. In May, 1838, her father accompanied her to Port Labadie, situated on the Missouri River, some miles above St. Louis. Here she found kind friends, and met with tolerable success in her chosen vocation. At the June examination of 1838 Isaac again stood at the head of his class. On the conduct roll he was number twenty-three, with twenty demerits. He spent part of the summer leave at home. Returning to the Point, he made a pedestrian trip to Philadelphia with a classmate, in the course of which they were thoroughly drenched in a rainstorm. The following letter exhibits his patriotic indignation at the British aggressions on the Maine frontier, a precursor of the spirit with which he resisted and defeated similar aggressions on the extreme northwest in after years:-- WEST POINT, August 21, 1838. DEAR FATHER,--You must have seen from the papers that the executive of the State of Maine is making preparations to carry into effect the resolutions of its legislature, and that the commissioners will be supported in the running of the boundary line by the whole military force of the State. Kent has pursued a course alike honorable to himself and the State which he represents. If the national government shows itself so regardless of the honor and interests of a State as has been evinced by the cold indifference with which negotiations for the last fifty years have been carried on, it becomes the solemn duty of the sovereignty thus trampled upon to rise and maintain its own rights. This fawning subserviency to expediency in a matter of principle I despise. So does every honorable man; better die in a just cause than live by an abandonment of it. I have sufficient confidence in the virtue and patriotism of the people of Maine to believe that they will triumphantly sustain their executive in his energetic and honorable measures. Should there be actual resistance and the difficulty resolve itself into an open conflict, the government _dare_ not withhold its prompt assistance. The whole Senate, without a single dissentient voice, have borne witness to the fallacy and gross injustice of the claim made by the British crown upon the lands in question. Was this meant to vanish into thin air? The 4th regiment of artillery are now in New York city. Why not send them to the east? They are certainly wanted on the boundary. He had frequently remonstrated with his father for treating Oliver with too exacting strictness, and he now urged him to send the boy to college as soon as he became old enough. In reply the father declares:-- "As to Oliver's going to college, it is out of the question. A great many boys are ruined by going to college that would have made useful men if they had been put to some trade, or compelled to be industrious. By the most rigid economy I can adopt, the income of the farm will not pay my expenses. I am willing to rise early, work late, live on simple fare, but dunning letters I detest; rather live on two meals a day. I would advise every young man, who means to be punctual, and honest, to keep out of debt." Oliver, however, in due time entered Bowdoin College, Maine, with the consent and aid of his father; graduated well, and became a successful lawyer in Boston, where he has held the position of district attorney for nearly thirty years. He urges Oliver to cultivate a taste for solid reading, and assures him that a taste for any subject can be acquired when the determination is fixed upon it. "Let me advise you to get Plutarch's Lives, and read them. Plutarch, you know, is a celebrated Roman author. His Lives of the distinguished men of Greece and Rome has justly immortalized his name, and it will live as long as the men whose actions he has related are admired. The style is simple and unaffected. He has seized upon the principal events in the life of each; relates to us many, anecdotes of their efforts, of their disappointments and failures; then he describes in bold and feeling language that untiring industry, that patient and ceaseless thought, which overcame every difficulty. Read the lives of Cicero and Demosthenes, Nicias and Phocion. When you next write, tell me what you think of them. Another work I want you to read; it is Sparks's 'American Biography.' We should certainly be intimately acquainted with the deeds and characters of our own great men. Have you ever read any volumes of the 'Spectator'? There are, I think, ten volumes of them, consisting of essays of four or five pages each upon all subjects. The style is flowing and graceful, exceedingly interesting; a vein of wit and sprightliness pervades them all. "For myself, things have gone smoothly on since I was at home. My daily duties are all sources of pleasure. This renders me satisfied with myself and with all around me. I am never afflicted with low spirits, or with feelings of discontent,--all this for the simple reason that all my time is interestingly employed. "Have you finished harvesting? Did you gather many walnuts? We have a large number of chestnut-trees at West Point. I have gathered quite an abundance of them." TO HIS FATHER. November 17. DEAR FATHER,--I have just come from the meeting of our society. Our proceedings are quite good; and there is an evident improvement every evening. It is indeed much better to employ Saturday evening in listening to, and participating in, a debate on some interesting subject than staying in one's room reading novels, or perhaps doing nothing. We had quite an animated discussion the other evening on the justice of lynch law. We got very warm; indeed, the debate came very near merging into the discussion of abolition. This, you are aware, is a very tender subject, and, for our society, a very improper one. For my own part I got very much excited, and my free avowal of abolition principles did not tend to allay the feeling which existed among the members. You can well suppose that I am looking forward to graduating with much interest. My entering this institution I consider my first important step in life. I have succeeded better than I have ever had any right to anticipate. I have endeavored to make it my rule never to relinquish any undertaking, but always to _try_ till success crowned my efforts. I have thus got along pretty well. I have not the slightest doubt that I shall succeed well enough as long as my efforts are carried on in a proper spirit, which is never to rely too confidently on success, and to bear every disappointment with a good grace. I feel much anxiety to see Oliver improve. These long winter evenings should not be trifled away. Oliver might study, read to the family, or otherwise improve his time, till half past nine o'clock. If he should be disposed to read any longer, let him have a good warm fire, and his reading will not be thrown away. You are, I know, a great admirer of Franklin. He used to study until twelve at night when obliged to work hard all day. How could Oliver and the girls, if any are at home, pass the time better than reading or studying till perhaps ten in the evening? TO HANNAH. January 27, 1839. DEAR SISTER,--It may be said that Scott and Addison are elegant writers. Johnson, that intellectual giant, said that whoever wished to become a perfect writer must give up his days and nights to Addison. The style of Addison is peculiarly easy and harmonious, the very music of composition; and although not so deep and original a thinker as many whose styles are less attractive, his works will always be admired for their sound views on moral and religious subjects. Scott, you know, has been called the _magician_, and excelled all his contemporaries in the ease, rapidity, and finish of his performances. The last volume of his "Waverley" was written in one week, and his novels were ushered into the reading community with so rapid a succession as astonished every one. Some think that Scott excelled as a poet, and, wonderful as he was as a writer of romance, he was still more successful in verse. Some of his poetry and a few of his novels are well worth reading. His "Lady of the Lake" and "Ivanhoe" are much admired. The "Tales of my Landlord" and "Guy Mannering" also are very fine. There is a little volume of poetry, called "The Book of Pleasures," which I intend to read, the first opportunity. It contains The Pleasures of Memory, of Hope, and of the Imagination, all three beautiful poems. You had better read them, if they are to be obtained. Our examinations are finished, and we are again under full sail for the next, and, for myself, last examination. The result of the present is, head in three branches and second in the fourth. The last five months I spend at West Point should be employed to better advantage than any other five months before. I have marked out for myself a pretty severe course of study, by which I shall endeavor to abide. When I graduate, it will be a satisfaction to look back upon my four years' course, and feel a consciousness that I have improved my opportunities. After graduating, where I shall be stationed is uncertain. But I shall endeavor to get ordered to Boston under Colonel Thayer. There are extensive fortifications now erecting in Boston harbor on George's Island. It would be a capital chance to be employed upon them, particularly when the superintendent of the works is so distinguished a man as Colonel Thayer. There are reasons, which you can well imagine, why I wish to be near home. He must have been an omnivorous and rapid reader to have mastered Franklin, Plutarch, Addison, Scott, Rollin's Ancient History, besides poetry, speeches, and novels; one wonders where he could have found the time, but he was ever working at high pressure. In addition to the hard work necessary to retain the headship of the class, and to discharge the duties of assistant professor, he took the most active and leading part in the Dialectic, and delivered the valedictory address at the graduation of the class. He also founded "The Talisman," a journal for the practice and improvement of the cadets in composition. In the introductory address, which he wrote as editor, he presents his views of the need for, and objects of, the paper in glowing language, concluding:-- "We have thus announced our intention of establishing a paper. Its character will be readily understood from the preceding exposition of our views. We shall hoist the white flag, emblematic of our motives and intentions. On it shall be inscribed in golden letters _The Talisman_. This flag will we defend with our life's blood; and when expiring nature is about to give up her last hold upon us, we will wave it aloft in triumph and die beneath its shadow." In a letter to his uncle William he gives an amusing account of anonymously criticising his own effusions:-- "Several of us have amused ourselves in writing a paper, which we have called 'The Talisman,' and having it read at the meetings of the Dialectic. Our motto is, The Human Intellect the Universal Talisman. The best of the joke is, no one can divine who are concerned in it. Indeed, once I wrote a most famous blowing up of one of my own performances, and was extremely amused to have several of my friends console me; in fact, one told me he would not give a fig for these criticisms, to which I assented, asking him if he had any idea who were the editors of the paper, to which he replied in the negative. When we graduate next June, we wish to have an address delivered before the society by some able man. Do you think we could get Governor Everett?" As already stated, Cadet Stevens was put forward by his classmates to deliver this address himself. He contributed to "The Talisman" a series of articles, written in a simple, direct, and forcible style, and marked by an earnest tone and elevated sentiments, among which were "Agency of Steam in Mechanical Operations;" "In Jury Trials, ought the Twelve Jurors to be required to be Unanimous?" "Has Man a Conscience?" "The Importance of a Good Style of Writing to an Officer of the Army;" "History;" "The Proper Study of Mankind is Man." His most intimate friends at the Point were Henry L. Smith, Jeremy F. Gilmer, Zealous B. Tower, Henry W. Halleck, Stephen D. Carpenter, Bryant P. Tilden, William B. Greene, Franklin D. Callender, John D. Bacon, Paul O. Hebert. Among these high-spirited and intellectual young men he was an acknowledged leader; and even after leaving the academy, they were continually calling on him for advice in their own affairs, and for aid in efforts to benefit the service, to secure increased rank and pay, etc. Thus the last term sped rapidly away. At the examination he was first, as usual. He stood thirty on the conduct roll, having sixteen demerits. It will be observed that in "conduct" during the course he stood but little above the average. Evidently, with his spirited and vigorous nature, he did not mind infringing the rules at times. When the Academic Board reviewed the standing of the members of the class to award to each his proper grade, it was found that Cadet Stevens stood at the head, not only generally, but in every one of the studies. Moreover, his standing, as compared with all who had ever graduated from the institution, was among the first. This remarkable achievement, together with his strong personality, deeply impressed the officers of the academy. They were proud of their pupil, they felt that he reflected honor upon the institution, and they vied with each other in encomiums and attentions which they deemed his due. He invited his father and stepmother to attend the graduation exercises, and they came. When they arrived they were astonished to see the honors heaped upon their son, and the high estimation in which he was held. They, too, were overwhelmed with attentions on his account. Prominent seats were found for them, and the professors came up to pay their respects to the parents of the first graduate, and to congratulate them upon his remarkable talents and promise. CHAPTER V NEWPORT Crowned with these well-earned honors, and promoted to be second lieutenant of engineers, July 1, 1839, he accompanied his parents home, expecting to enjoy a long and delightful vacation; but his anticipations were speedily cut short by orders to proceed to Newport, R.I., to take part in the building of Fort Adams, so that he was permitted to spend only the Fourth of July in Andover. Phrenology was in vogue then, and the young man, on his way through Boston, had his head examined by a professor of the new science, who, much to his amusement, pronounced him a poet. He reached his station early in July, and took quarters with Miss Castoff, who kept a boarding-house on the corner of Spring and Ann streets. Lieutenant James L. Mason, also of the engineer corps, boarded at the same place. The two young men became warm friends and companions. Daily they rode over to the fort together in the morning, and returned in the afternoon. Lieutenant P.G. T. Beauregard, afterwards the well-known Confederate general, was also on duty there as an engineer officer, and remained several months after Stevens's arrival. Fort Adams was garrisoned by a detachment of the 2d artillery, officered by Lieutenants Lewis G. Arnold, Arthur B. Lansing, and Henry J. Hunt. Fort Adams, commenced twenty years previously, and now nearly completed under the able superintendence of General Joseph G. Totten, was the largest defensive work in the country, Fortress Monroe only excepted, and, as General Cullum declares in his biographical sketch of General Totten, "the first in its combination of the principles and details of the art of fortification." It must have afforded a most gratifying field for the energies of the ardent and accomplished young officer, fresh from the military academy, and eager to test his acquirements and abilities in real work. The redoubt, the inner and separate stronghold in rear of the main work, was mostly built under his superintendence, 1839-42. Entering upon this duty with his accustomed zeal, his sound judgment in laying out the work for the workmen, and energy and diligence in pushing it, soon attracted attention. He took control with the self-reliance and habit of command of a natural leader. He was strict and exacting with the employees, but at the same time just and considerate, and took a real interest in them. He soon won their respect and goodwill. Even the man who groomed his horse, John A.C. Stacy, long years afterwards, when he had himself become a wealthy contractor, spoke of Lieutenant Stevens with the greatest admiration. His unconscious success in this direction nearly led to a breach with Mason. The latter became cold and distant in manner, and openly avoided him. Stevens demanded an explanation, whereupon Mason burst forth indignantly with the charge, "You are destroying all my influence with the men on the work. When you appear, they hang upon every word you utter, and cannot do enough for you, while they scarcely notice me, although I am the senior, and have been longer on the work." But Mason was soon satisfied by his friend's remonstrances, and his own good sense, that Stevens was not to blame for that result. Mason was a man of remarkable talents, brilliant in conversation, and fascinating in social intercourse. Newport at this time contained many old families, among which the traditions of colonial grandeur, when the port was the largest and most flourishing city in the colonies, mingled with the fresher recollections of the Revolution, the British occupation, the battle of Rhode Island, the romantic capture of General Prescott, the English commander, the brilliant though brief sojourn of the French allies under Rochambeau, and the visit of Washington. The town was celebrated for beautiful and charming girls. It was the resort in summer of the cultivated, wealthy, and fashionable from other parts of the country, especially from the South. The Hazards, Lymans, Randolphs, Vernons, Lawtons, Hunters, Kings, Turners, Gardiners, Fowlers, Gibbs, Tottens, Perrys, and others, all more or less related, afforded a cultivated and high-toned, yet simple and cordial society, free from the ostentation of wealth and the absurd pride of caste. The army and naval officers stationed there, and the families of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, the hero of Lake Erie, of General Totten, and of others who had served their country, added a patriotic and military element. Into this charming society the young officer entered with keen enjoyment, and his modest demeanor and sensible conversation, not less than his reputation for ability and scholarship, soon made him welcome. One of these Newport belles thus described him:-- "The first time I saw Mr. Stevens was in church. He sat in the pew behind ours. He was very young, of small, alight figure, had a very large head, with fine carriage,--a noble head, thick, bushy, black hair, and dark complexion. He was considered very homely, but he had a large, dark hazel eye, which looked one through and through, and compelled one's attention." Notwithstanding that "he was considered very homely," young Stevens took an active part in the social life and festivities of the town, calling upon the old families, escorting with other young men bevies of young ladies on delightful long walks to the beach, along the cliffs, the Blue Rocks, Tammany Hill, and other resorts, and attending the numerous parties. It was at one of these rather informal, but enjoyable gatherings that he first met the young girl who was soon to become his wife. Mason had warned him to "beware of Margaret Hazard," as the two young men were setting out to attend a tea party at the Vernons' hospitable mansion, two miles out of town. The young lady was a daughter of Benjamin Hazard, for years recognized as the ablest lawyer and statesman in the State, who had represented the town in the state legislature for thirty-one years without a break, having been elected sixty-two times in succession. Although very young, she possessed many attractions of person and character, had many admirers, and was one of the acknowledged belles. Notwithstanding the friendly or jocose warning, Mr. Stevens was duly presented to Miss Hazard, and had the pleasure of escorting her home, and improved the opportunity by inviting her to ride on horseback the following afternoon. Miss Margaret lacked a suitable habit, it seems; but an old cloak skillfully adapted served for the long sweeping skirt then in vogue, a cousin furnished his new beaver for a riding-hat, and another admirer contributed a handsome silver-mounted riding-whip, so that when the cavalier presented himself on his gray charger with a groom leading the "Indian Queen," the young lady was ready. The "Indian Queen" was the name of a noted saddle-horse from the stable of Nicholas Hassard, who for many years kept the livery stable on Spring, or Back Street, corner of Touro. When asked if the "Indian Queen" was a safe horse for the young lady, Mr. Hassard replied, "Miss Margaret Hazard can ride any horse in my stable." This ride led to others, and it was not long before the two rode over the beaches together nearly every pleasant afternoon. Mr. Stevens would come with the horses about five o'clock, and the usual ride was over the three beaches and around by the green End road; and a more romantic, beautiful, and pleasant course it would be hard to find. A fearless horseman, he was fond of horses and of riding. He owned and delighted to ride a fiery gray, which ofttimes taxed all his strength, skill, and daring to master, and which occasionally ran away despite all efforts. Once the steed, with the bit in his teeth, dashed headlong for the stable. "Stevens is done for!" exclaimed Mason; "the stable door is too low to ride under, and his brains will be knocked out." But the rider threw himself along the side and neck of the furious animal just in time to avoid this danger. Mason's warning was indeed in vain. Writes his intimate friend, H.L. Smith, as early as April:-- "Not in love, Stevens; why, your description fired me. By heavens! it is a glorious thing to see a girl with a large soul. Would there were more such. 'Dark blue eyes;' 'Rides fearlessly;' 'Loves Channing, Carlyle, Milton;' 'A sweet smile,' etc." He became a frequent caller upon, and intimate in the family of, Benjamin Hazard. The latter was slowly sinking under the lingering disease, consumption, which carried him off in 1841. The gifted and sympathetic young man would have long talks and discussions with the intellectual, learned, and experienced senior, and would read to him from his favorite authors, Swift and Shakespeare. "I think our young lieutenant is very handsome," remarked Mr. Hazard, doubtless alluding to his fine head and sound, bright mind, and perhaps quietly rebuking the disparaging term "homely." It was not long before he became an acknowledged suitor for the hand of Miss Margaret, and they were betrothed in the summer of 1840. The mansion occupied by this family, situated on Broad Street, on the southern corner of Stone Street, and near the state house, is one of the oldest in Newport, the timbers of which, according to tradition, were cut and hewn in the woods between the harbor and the beach. By a curious coincidence it has descended in the female line for three generations. Before and during the Revolution it was the home of John G. Wanton, a wealthy colonial merchant and the son of the colonial governor, Gideon Wanton. It was a favorite resort of the brilliant French officers who landed in Newport to aid the struggling patriots, one of whom cut with a diamond upon a small, old-fashioned window-pane in the great parlor, "Charming Polly Wanton, Oct. 17, 1780." But an American officer, Colonel Daniel Lyman, afterwards chief justice of Rhode Island and president of the Society of the Cincinnati in Rhode Island, married "Charming Polly" away from her French admirers. Mary Wanton was an only daughter, and inherited the old mansion, where she reared a family of thirteen children, and dispensed the gracious hospitality to which she was accustomed. One of her daughters, Harriet Lyman, married Benjamin Hazard, and upon the removal of Colonel Lyman and his family to Providence, succeeded to the old Newport homestead, which thus for generations was the scene of family happiness, worth, refinement, and hospitality. It is now owned and occupied by two of Benjamin Hazard's daughters, Misses Emily Lyman and Mary Wanton Hazard, who maintain the traditions of the old mansion with charming grace. Now time speeds away rapidly and pleasantly with the young officer. He has long talks and discussions with Mason, noted for his brilliant mind and conversation. His official duties are congenial. He heartily enjoys the social pleasures in which he takes part, and moreover he lays out a stiff course of study for the winter. He writes uncle William, October 31, 1839:-- "My brother officer, Lieutenant Mason, is quite familiar with politics. He is a Nullifier. I am a loco-foco Abolitionist. Though we agree on many points, yet we have at times quite warm though very friendly debates upon these points upon which we differ. I shall be glad to spend most of the winter in study, and I think of giving about half my time to my profession and its kindred branches of physics and mathematics, and of the remaining portion a moiety to politics and the political history of our country (which will necessitate the careful reading and study of the Federalist and Madison papers, and other documents illustrative of the peculiar glories of our institutions), and the remainder to general reading." TO HANNAH. My situation at Newport continues to please me as much as ever. We are still pretty busy throughout the day, but are able to secure considerable time for reading and study. I have been reading Byron's Poems of late. Although his verse is far inferior (in my opinion) to Shakespeare and Milton, still it has many and peculiar merits. Many of his productions are overflowing with lofty and correct ideas. No sycophantic awe, or respect for place and title, restrains his caustic and withering pen. He soars upon his own pinions, and looks down upon them all. [Illustration: OLD WANTON MANSION IN NEWPORT] Thus his time was well occupied, yet he was also an indefatigable correspondent, writing frequently to his West Point classmates and friends, now beginning to scatter, and to his father, sisters, brother, and cousins, but especially to his sisters, whose welfare and happiness he had so much at heart. He is constantly sending them books and papers, and advising them in regard to their studies and plans. Susan was still in Missouri, doing well as a teacher. During the fall Hannah was teaching school, or in Boston earning her livelihood in a store. Elizabeth and Sarah were at school, and only Mary and Oliver remained at home. The father, working too hard, had serious trouble with his injured leg, and was unwell. But it was a joyous reunion when the elder brother came home at Thanksgiving, and the scattered family were all assembled, except Susan, in the great roomy kitchen in the old farmhouse, around the well-filled board, loaded with the roast turkey and cranberry sauce, snowy biscuits, mince, pumpkin, and apple pies, cake, preserves, and all the good things of that generous and kindly season. Returning to Newport, Lieutenant Stevens made one of a class for the study of German, although one may suspect that the language was not the only attraction. Charles T. Brooks, the gifted poet, preacher, and writer, and who has since translated so many poems and works from the German, was then settled over the Unitarian Church in Newport, and a few years previously had married Harriet Lyman Hazard, an elder sister of Margaret. An accomplished and enthusiastic German scholar, Mr. Brooks organized the class, and acted as their instructor. Mrs. Brooks, Mrs. Shroder, Miss Margaret L. Hazard, Miss Julia Randolph, Stevens, and Mason met regularly once a week at Mr. Brooks's house on Barney Street. An incident is related showing the facility with which Mr. Stevens acquired any subject which he undertook. Mr. Brooks one day asked him a difficult question in grammar, which he answered promptly. Another question was put with the same result. The teacher then plied him with question upon question, all of which he answered without hesitation. "Why," exclaimed Mr. Brooks, "you seem to know the whole grammar." "Oh, yes," replied Stevens, "I've run it over." A long and affectionate letter from Susan informed him of her marriage to David H. Bishop, a man of fine character, and engaged in the profession of an educator, on December 26, 1839. Mr. Stevens at once wrote to his new relative welcoming him in his hearty and warm-hearted manner, and a friendly correspondence ensued between them, which developed into a long and well-maintained political discussion, for Mr. Bishop was a Whig, while Stevens was an uncompromising Democrat, of Free-soil convictions,--"loco-foco Abolitionist," as he defines himself. In April the fostering and indulgent grandmother, the widow of the Revolutionary soldier, Jonathan, died at an advanced age, attended during her last illness by Sarah. Mary, early in the year, visited aunt McFarland in Belfast, Maine. Elizabeth was in Lowell, and later also went to aunt McFarland, and only Sarah and Oliver remained at home this year. His father's letters reveal how much he was coming to lean upon the self-reliant young man, and to feel the need of his support and affection. "I was glad to hear you say in your last letter that in matters relating to yourself you should be guided by your own judgment," he writes. In every letter he urges him to come home, if only for a short visit. DEAR SON,--In your letter to Oliver you mention not coming home until Thanksgiving. I hope it will be convenient for you to come home and spend a few days in the summer. Your visit in March was very short, but short as it was, it was better than none. I learn from you that you are far from being satisfied with your present attainments. Why should young men talk of having finished their education when in fact they have only commenced it, considering how much more they might learn if they would only press forward! May all you learn be sound and durable; one rotten piece of timber may wreck a ship. Do not study too hard. My days of anticipating worldly happiness are over (not so fast), I do anticipate seeing my children useful and happy. Your father, ISAAC STEVENS. Lieutenant Stevens was promoted first lieutenant, corps of engineers, July 1, 1840. His active and thoroughgoing mind, looking beyond the duties assigned him, saw the necessity of other works to complete the defenses at Newport. He wrote urgent letters to the Engineer Department in Washington, representing the need of a thorough survey of the harbor and the surrounding ground, and especially of the fortifying of Rose Island, which, situated in mid-channel between Rhode Island and Conanicut, and three miles north of, or inside Fort Adams, would supplement and support that work, and render the main entrance of Narragansett Bay impregnable to a hostile fleet. He was ambitious to plan and carry out the fortification of this point, but his recommendations were disregarded, and he was informed that his views, though sound, were premature. Of late years the importance of fortifying Rose Island has been recognized, and the government has erected a powerful battery there. During the spring and summer his long-cherished idea of becoming a lawyer took more definite shape in his mind, as will be seen from the following letter to his uncle William, August 5, 1840:-- MY DEAR UNCLE,--You recollect that when last in Andover I was revolving in my mind the expediency of studying law, with a view of making it my permanent profession. Entering the West Point Academy with no idea of remaining in the army, my present occupation cannot be regarded as one that I have voluntarily and after mature reflection selected, but as one which circumstances and good luck have forced upon me. Therefore, in balancing the advantages and disadvantages of the army and the law in order to a decision of the question, Which shall I select as my occupation? I think I have nothing to do with certain objections that many would advance, that it would be changing my business,--it would betray a want of fixedness of purpose,--it would be an act of inconsistency. To be sure, some of the studies at West Point throw no light upon the law, but most of them contribute, and contribute in an eminent degree, to induce the habits and call out the faculties essential to the able lawyer. Something more is wanted,--as a knowledge of the classics, of ethics, of history. Three years' rigorous, systematic devotion of my leisure moments to these pursuits would more than place me on a level with the graduates of our colleges; by economy enough of my pay could be laid up to defray my expenses, should I then resign and go through a three years' study of the law. As the thing, therefore, can be accomplished, as the law for many reasons would suit me better than the army, as I have no false notions of delicacy on the ground of consistency, etc., I have at length concluded to give up the army for the law. As soon as I decided, I began to act. On that very day, about three weeks since, I commenced Latin and a course of reading in History. Greek I shall commence next November. As I do not wish justly to render myself liable to the charge of hastiness or obstinacy, I have determined to consult my friends. If they can adduce reasons against my course, I should be very much obliged if they would let me know them. The thought that one's course is approved by his friends is consolatory,--it serves to strengthen his confidence in his own judgment. It removes many cross currents that would impede his course. _You_ it was that first suggested my application to enter the military academy. Though the military academy was not intended to make lawyers, yet in my case I hope it may be an example that "the longest way round is the shortest way home." I have been very fortunate in making the acquaintance of Mr. Benjamin Hazard, whom (by report) you must know. He has the reputation of being the first lawyer in the State, and is unquestionably _au fait_ with his profession. He has been so kind as to give me a great deal of information both with regard to law and lawyers in this country, and the best method of studying law. Mr. Hazard lent me some time since Warner's Law Studies. I read it through twice very carefully, but much of what he said I thought totally inapplicable to the profession in this country, much that was contradictory, and some opinions I was confident were wrong. I wish you would write me soon and give me your opinion of my course, which is to remain in the army till the 1st of August, 1843, then to resign and enter some office in Boston or Newport for three years. From all I can learn, I think that Jeremiah Mason, of Boston, would be the man for me. Whether he takes students I know not. Webster, Mr. Hazard tells me, contends that Mason is the first lawyer in the country,--superior to himself. Remember me to your own family, and my friends generally. Your nephew, I.I. STEVENS. He also wrote on this subject to his father, Mr. Hazen, and H.L. Smith. All whom he consulted discouraged the project except his classmate, Smith. Mr. Hazen judiciously advises:-- "It seems to me to be premature to determine quite so much at this time. It occurs to me that you might enter upon a course of legal reading, which would be useful to you in any station, uniting it with attention to military duties, which would consist with promotion in the army, and leave a little to the future to determine between the professions." Although his increasing military duties, with his marriage and the Mexican war, compelled him to defer carrying out this plan, it was never definitely given up. The career open to him in the army did not satisfy his ambition, and at last in 1852 he resigned, seeking a wider field. Meantime he was keeping up his correspondence with his classmates and friends. Halleck writes:-- UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY, WEST POINT, February 9, 1840. DEAR STEVENS,--It is now Sunday morning, and I know not that I can better employ the time that will elapse before old Jasper commences his oppression, than by writing an answer to your very kind letter of last Sabbath. I am happy to renew with you our old friendly intercourse. We have passed together four long years in mutual goodwill and then parted, I believe, as warm friends, and why should we now float away from each other towards the great ocean of eternity without ever exchanging a friendly hail? My old associates are still dear to me, and my lone heart sometimes softens when I think of the past spent in their society. Indeed, I have here become so disgusted with humbugs, toadeaters, and punsters, that my heart gladdens at the receipt of a letter from an old friend whom I know to be a reality and no sham. We have been co-workers in at least one thing, the Dialectic, and I believe that to us as much or more than to any others, the society owes its present prosperity. Sincerely yours, H.W. HALLECK. Tilden, having become involved in a controversy with the authorities at the Point, comes to Newport to consult with Stevens, who takes up his case, advises him what to do, and writes Halleck, Smith, and others in his behalf. "My visit to Newport," writes Tilden, "was of essential service to me, and has served to strengthen the good resolutions suggested by yourself and example." H.L. Smith, too, feeling aggrieved at the action of a court-martial reflecting upon his evidence as a witness, has recourse to his friend Stevens, who responds in such manner as to call forth Smith's grateful and somewhat enthusiastic thanks:-- "I refer in part to your reply to Colonel Totten at table. Be assured I _did_ anticipate your reply to my request. But, Stevens, there are not many who would have taken the part of a friend as you did with Colonel Totten. I shall never forget it as an act of friendship, never cease to admire it as an act of generous independence." Oliver visits him in September, and in his next letter speaks of "our fine rides on horseback." Elizabeth has decided to go to Nashville, Tenn., to visit her uncle Moses, principal of an academy there, in hopes of finding employment as a teacher; and the father calls upon his son in Newport for pecuniary assistance, and informs him that Hannah has come home seriously ill. The next letter from his father contained the sad intelligence that Hannah was sinking fast, and urged him to come home immediately. He spent the last few days of life with the dying girl, doing all in his power to comfort her. She died in November, 1840. On his journey back to Newport, Mr. Stevens stopped in Boston to hear a lecture by John Quincy Adams, an account of which he gives his father:-- "His subject was the four stages of man in his progress from the savage to the civilized state,--first, as a hunter; second, as a shepherd; third, as a tiller of the soil; fourth, as a member of a community in which all trades, occupations, arts, and professions were confined to their appropriate spheres, each receiving the protection and encouragement of all. His delivery was very energetic, though uncouth. His fancy was exuberant, and his speculations were not entirely, it seemed to me, supported by the truth of history. "I wrote to Susan, as you desired, and gave her a detailed account of Hannah's illness, with such other matters as I thought would be interesting. Since I have been back to Newport, I have been reading Blackstone pretty diligently. Thus far, I am much pleased with him." "It was a sad Thanksgiving at the homestead this year," Oliver writes, "so different from the year before, when all were at home except Susan, and death had not yet broken the family circle." Now all the children, except Sarah and Oliver, were scattered far and wide,--Susan at Union, Mo., Elizabeth at Nashville, Tenn., Mary in Belfast, Maine, and Isaac in Newport. The father was again disabled with his leg, and unable to attend the Thanksgiving sermon. Oliver concludes his pathetic letter with a wish to go to West Point. NEWPORT, December 15, 1840. DEAR BROTHER OLIVER,--I have been very busily engaged since your letter came to hand in preparing an address to be delivered before the Newport Lyceum. As it was the introductory one, I felt very desirous that it should be no discredit to myself, and that all proper expectations should be fully realized. This is my apology for not immediately answering your letter. As the address has been delivered, I will now write you briefly respecting the subject-matter of the latter part of your communication.... There is nothing new here. I am passing my time very pleasantly. We have a debating club in successful operation, consisting of about sixty members,--clergymen, lawyers, physicians, tradesmen, etc., etc. We have a talk this evening on the French Revolution. I don't know whether I shall say anything or not. Write as soon as you can find it convenient. Remember me to father, mother, and Sarah, and friends in general. I hope father will take every care of his health. Is it vacation with John Loring now? One of his classmates, young Dunn, is at home in Newport. Your brother, ISAAC I. STEVENS. Mr. O. STEVENS. NEWPORT, R.I., January 17, 1840. MY DEAR FATHER,--As soon as I get to Washington I shall put Oliver's application on file in the Department of War, and will obtain an interview with Mr. Cushing to secure his interposition, of which I think we may entertain some expectation, as no one has yet applied for the vacancy in his district. One of my classmates, Lieutenant Halleck, who is on duty at Washington, was kind enough to ascertain and inform me of all cadets and applicants from Massachusetts, with their districts, and in his list I perceive the 3d District is put down vacant without any applications. I have never seen our representative, for which reason some might deem it advisable to procure a letter of introduction; but after some consideration I have concluded to take none, but to introduce myself. It is better, if successful, than the other mode; to be sure, the risk is greater,--I will run it, however. If I make a good impression on Mr. Cushing under the circumstances of a vacancy and no application, it may go far towards getting his assistance. I will try it at all events. [Illustration: ISAAC INGALLS STEVENS _From Miniature by Staigg, 1841_] I shall leave on Wednesday and be absent three weeks. The Armisted case comes up before the Supreme Court next Friday, and will probably be in progress the ensuing week; this will enable me to hear Mr. John Quincy Adams, of which I am very desirous. Mr. Clay's resolution respecting the repeal of the Sub-Treasury will soon be called up, and will probably cause that whole subject again to be discussed. Should it call out the able men of the Senate while I am in Washington, I could not desire a better opportunity to compare them. I will write you on my arrival, and afterwards from time to time. You must take good care of your health, and take things easily. I know of no one that has a better right. We have nothing new in Newport. My health is perfect both in body and mind; in other words, I have never had better health in either respect. Give my love to all friends and the family. Your son, ISAAC I. STEVENS. Writes Halleck, January 15, 1841:-- I hope to soon meet you here, and enter into a friendly interchange of thoughts and feelings without the formality of paper and ink. I am anxious to give you a hearty shake by the hand and welcome you to Washington. If you are left to your leisure hours, you will undoubtedly have much enjoyment both in society and in Congress. You must not anticipate too much pleasure in the crowded parties of the metropolis. To me they are perfect bores. Let me know when you are to come on, and if not immediately I will write you a long letter. Read this if you can. Yours in the true bonds of friendship, H. WAGER HALLECK. Although unable to procure the cadet appointment for Oliver, he greatly enjoyed his first visit to the capital, especially the debates in the Senate, where he listened to both Clay and Webster. The former impressed him as more a leader of men and controller of measures than the latter. One would think that with his official duties, and all the studies and pursuits he was carrying on, every minute of his time must have been taken up; yet he organized a course of lectures for the winter, and himself delivered an address on Oliver Cromwell, whose character and achievements he greatly admired. In this lecture he presented with great force and clearness a new and original conception of the great Puritan, depicting him as a true patriot and a religious, God-fearing man, obliged by the circumstances of the times to seize the helm of state in order to save his country from despotism or anarchy. This was much the view afterwards so ably set forth by Carlyle. This lecture excited no little attention at the time; and when Carlyle's Cromwell appeared, not long afterwards, it was said that the lecture would seem to have been taken from that work, had it not been delivered before that was published. He afterwards delivered this lecture in Andover and other places. In the spring of 1841 he was placed in charge of Fairhaven Battery in New Bedford, Mass., in addition to his duties in Newport. This required frequent trips to the former place, which he usually made by stage, but several times he traversed the intervening country on foot. On one of these trips, in an economical mood he refrained from dinner in order to save the cost of the meal. Soon afterwards a lean and friendless dog attached himself to him, and followed his footsteps so persistently, and looked so piteous and hungry, that the young man's sensibilities were touched, and he stopped at a farmhouse and purchased a good dinner for the half-starved animal, which, as he laughingly declared, cost all he had saved by his self-denial. [Illustration: MARGARET LYMAN STEVENS _From Miniature by Staigg, 1841_] A letter from Mr. Bishop conveyed the afflicting and unlooked-for intelligence of the death of Susan, April 8, 1841, from pulmonary disease, after a brief illness. Thus unexpectedly passed away another loved sister, and one whose sunny, affectionate disposition, fine mind, and high principles had especially endeared her. Benjamin Hazard died March 10, 1841. During his lingering illness he derived much comfort and pleasure from the society and attentions of the talented and sympathetic young man. He gladly sanctioned his betrothal with his daughter Margaret, and willingly intrusted the future of his beloved child to one whom he both loved and respected, and in whose character and ability he had the fullest confidence. The marriage was solemnized by Mr. Brooks, September 8, 1841, in the great parlor of the old mansion, the same apartment which witnessed the wedding of "Charming Polly" and her Revolutionary hero, and of their daughter Harriet and Benjamin Hazard, the parents of the present bride. It was a quiet and simple ceremony, so soon after the death of Mr. Hazard, but the ample room was well filled with beautiful young girls, the sisters and cousins of the bride, officers in full uniform, the companions of the groom, and old friends of the family. Hither came from Andover the groom's brother Oliver, and cousin Henry H. Stevens, his West Point friend, Lieutenant Jeremy F. Gilmer, from Washington, Lieutenants James L. Mason, Henry J. Hunt, and Lewis G. Arnold, from Newport, and a goodly number of Lymans and Dunnells from Providence, uncles, aunts, and cousins of the bride. CHAPTER VI CHARGE OF WORKS: NEW BEDFORD, PORTSMOUTH, PORTLAND, BUCKSPORT The wedding journey was to New York by Long Island Sound, and thence up the Hudson to West Point, where they spent several days, and were received with flattering attentions by his old friends. With great pride and pleasure Mr. Stevens presented them to his lovely bride, and revisited with her the romantic scenes of the Point, endeared by so many pleasant associations. They returned by way of Springfield and Boston. NEW BEDFORD, September 24, 1841. MY DEAR FATHER,--I was very glad to see Oliver and my cousin Henry at Newport on the occasion of my marriage, and, though your presence would have afforded me much pleasure, yet, as I well knew that it was a busy season with you, and that something very unusual only could induce you to leave home, I was not much disappointed at your not coming. You will certainly see us as early as next Thanksgiving. We had a most pleasant trip, were favored with unusually fine weather, and were disappointed in no one of our anticipations. Margaret had never visited West Point before, and had always lived in a country the scenery of which is very tame compared with the alpine grandeur of the Highlands. I had said a great deal to her about West Point, and I feared that her expectations were raised high above the reality. I was, however, agreeably surprised by her assertion that her ideas had scarcely approached the truth. The day after our arrival at West Point she insisted upon climbing to the Crow's Nest, which you recollect is two miles from West Point, and commands the plain about twelve or fourteen hundred feet. Finding that my dissuasion had little effect, I took her up one of the roughest ways,--in many places we had to ascend almost perpendicular rocks. In one hour and a half we were on the very topmost height of the mountain. We came back by a rough, winding, long road, and got to the hotel four hours after leaving it. I call that a pretty good feat for a lady. From Hudson to Springfield the road was completed except about two miles near Chester Factories. It passes through a most wild and picturesque country, follows the valley of one of the rivers that empties into the Connecticut for some thirty miles, crossing it frequently and constantly changing direction, and is constructed in a truly magnificent style. We got back to Newport just seven days after leaving it. There I found orders had been awaiting me two days to repair to New Bedford, to take charge of all the repairs of the old fort. You can judge of the urgency of the orders from my going to New Bedford the next day, and leaving Margaret at Newport, where she has been ever since. We arrived at Newport about four o'clock on Thursday. I left the next day at two o'clock, made an inspection of the fort on Saturday forenoon, issued a hand-bill the same day for mechanics and laborers, and on Monday morning had a gang of about twenty men at work. I never was in New Bedford before, and knew not a single man in the place. Monday morning I fell in with a real full-blooded Yankee, whom I engaged as overseer, and immediately sent around the country for stone-cutters and masons. I went on Monday into a ledge of granite rock, and have already thrown out about two hundred tons of stone, and got about a hundred feet cut. The people in New Bedford are disposed to criticise my plans, but they will find out I know what I am about, and that they had better save their sneers for some other object. After I had been at work three days, I dismissed three men for idleness, which had a very good effect. My plan is to be rather familiar with every man, but at the same time to make every one feel that he must do his duty. To-morrow I am going to Newport after Margaret. I have been so busy that I have had no time to miss her. In fact, this is the very first moment since I have been in New Bedford that I have been able to write home. Now my business has got into a regular course, and will require but little time to attend to it. Whether I shall spend the winter in Newport, or New Bedford, I don't know. I have at present only orders to get in readiness platforms for nine guns. Your son, ISAAC I. STEVENS. Mr. ISAAC STEVENS. The young couple boarded in Fairhaven, a suburb of New Bedford, for several months, and then removed to the town. They entered with lively interest into the society of the place, at that time the abode of many wealthy and somewhat aristocratic families. Mr. Stevens had already made the favorable acquaintance of the first people before bringing his wife there; her family and personal attractions were known, and they were cordially received. Mrs. Hazard made them a short visit during the winter. Halleck asks his assistance in starting an engineering journal for the corps. I know too well your zeal for the profession to doubt for a moment that the measure will receive your countenance, and the support of your able pen. If we succeed in the undertaking, I am quite sure that it will be of much advantage to us individually, and will contribute greatly to the reputation of the corps. If the delights of married life have not entirely driven away the recollection of old bachelor friends, I hope you will again favor me with one of your old-fashioned letters. I have heard too much of the attractions of your bride to scold you for so long neglecting me. From all accounts, my dear Stevens, I must pronounce you a most fortunate and happy man, and I shall embrace the first opportunity to make the acquaintance of your lady, and most heartily welcome her into our corps. Yours most truly, H. WAGER HALLECK. The young couple spent Thanksgiving in Andover. The stern but true-hearted father, deeply mourning the untimely loss of his two elder daughters, was gladdened by the presence of five children,--Sarah, Isaac, Oliver, Mary, and the new daughter, Margaret. The latter was greatly admired, and was received with warm affection and kindness by them, and by uncles William and Nathaniel and their families. She was highly interested and pleased with the Thanksgiving festivities, a new experience to her; for the Quakers and Come-outers of Rhode Island, many of whom left Massachusetts to escape the tyranny of the "Lord Brethren," never made much of that holiday, but kept Christmas instead. After a delightful visit of a week, they returned to New Bedford and the pleasures of domestic life, and for the young husband what he always enjoyed,--hard work. This seriously encroached upon his proposed course of study and reading, yet with Mason he would run up to Providence to hear Ralph Waldo Emerson's lectures. On June 9, 1842, their first child, a boy, was born in the old Newport mansion, and named Hazard, after his maternal grandfather. NEWPORT, June 9, 1842. MY DEAR FATHER,--I came here last Friday with the intention of returning to New Bedford on Monday, but I was seized with a very violent bilious attack that kept me in the house for a day or two. The physician that was called prescribed calomel, and I was fool enough to take it, the consequence of which is that instead of being perfectly well to-day, as I should otherwise have been, I have a pain in my bones, and not half the elasticity that generally attends my recovery. However, calomel or no calomel, I don't regret my illness, for it has been the cause of my being in Newport at a most interesting moment. Early this morning Margaret was safely delivered of a fine, healthy boy, after an uncommonly short and easy labor. She was fortunate in the attendance of a most judicious, skillful, and experienced physician, a younger brother of her father, who has been in an extensive practice for more than forty years. Now, father, you may fairly say that you have a right to your gray hairs. Gray hairs and grandfathers always go together. The little fellow has been squalling most unmercifully this morning, and seems to take it for granted that no one's convenience is to be consulted but his own. If he will but show the same energy in the development of his other faculties, we may expect great things of him. Your son, ISAAC I. STEVENS. During the greater part of this year Oliver pursues his studies at Phillips Academy in South Andover; Sarah is teaching an unruly school in Saugus, Mass., where she punishes a refractory boy, maintains order, and overcomes the unreasonable anger of the boy's parents in a way that proves her gifted with much firmness, decision, and good sense. Only Mary remains at home. She writes: "We had a fugitive slave to spend the night with us. He was as black a person as I ever saw." So it appears that the old Abolitionist is doing his part towards the "underground railroad," as harboring and forwarding fugitive slaves was termed. Elizabeth, in Tennessee, became engaged in the spring to Mr. L.M. Campbell, a promising young lawyer, and they were married September 9. After the birth of the child, Mr. Stevens and his wife went to keeping house in New Bedford. Sarah visited them in the winter, and on her return home in March, 1843, they accompanied her as far as Boston, where they remained a week while Mr. Stevens attended to some engineering duties on one of the islands in the harbor. In April he was again in Boston, while his young wife was visiting her mother in Newport for election day in May, when the state government was to be inaugurated. Lieutenant Stevens received orders to assume charge of the fortifications at Portsmouth, N.H., to which those at Portland, Maine, were added soon afterwards. These consisted of Forts Constitution and Scammell at the former, and Forts Preble and McClary at the latter place. Breaking up housekeeping at New Bedford in 1843, and leaving his wife and boy in Newport, and the little stock of furniture and belongings stored in the old mansion temporarily, Lieutenant Stevens proceeded to Portsmouth and took charge of the works. Having in his ever prompt and energetic manner set everything under way, he returned to Newport, and brought his little family to the new station. They boarded for a short time, then he leased a spacious house, using a portion of it as an office. They speedily found themselves among warm friends and pleasant surroundings. Lieutenant Tom Breese, of the navy, a generous, whole-souled gentleman, who had married Lucy Randolph, a cousin of Mrs. Stevens, was stationed at the navy yard, and made them more than welcome. Lieutenant A.W. Whipple, of the engineers, a fellow student at West Point, was conducting a survey of the harbor. He became a major-general, commanded the third division, third corps, Army of the Potomac, and was mortally wounded at the battle of Chancellorsville. There were also Colonel Crane, Captain Stanberry, and Lieutenants William H. Fowler and Joseph Hooker, of the army, and Major Harris, of the marines. Hooker afterwards rose to be major-general, and commanded the Army of the Potomac at Chancellorsville. Portsmouth, like Newport, had its old families and cultivated and agreeable society, which cordially received the young engineer officer and his wife. Among the first to call upon Mrs. Stevens were Mrs. John L. Hayes and Mrs. Samuel Elliott Coues, two beautiful young women, the daughters of Mr. Alexander Ladd, and a warm friendship grew up between the families, which continued after all three moved to Washington in after years. In Portland, only a few miles distant, resided Rev. Asa Cummings, Mr. Stevens's maternal uncle, the editor of the "Christian Mirror," and his house was always open to the young couple like a second home. During the winter Mrs. Stevens's sister Mary visited them. There was much social visiting and many entertainments; they attended the marriage of Lieutenant Whipple and Miss Sherburne. They were on board the frigate Portsmouth when she was launched at the navy yard. Mr. Stevens found his hands full, with the two sets of works intrusted to him, and was obliged to spend no little time in traveling between them. At Fort Preble he planned and built the barracks, conceded to be among the best arranged in the country. Having to cross the harbor frequently in his visits to the fort, he had built at Newport one of the catboats for which that town was famous, and had it brought to Portland. He also brought on from New Bedford a faithful retainer, named Daniel Murphy, and put him in charge of the boat. In addition to these onerous and responsible duties, he was placed in sole charge of the fortification of the narrows of the Penobscot River, where it was decided to build a regular, bastioned, casemated work for forty guns on the right bank of the river, opposite Bucksport, to be named Fort Knox. Mr. Stevens visited Bucksport in July, 1843, on this new duty. The first thing to be done was to purchase the site for the fort, and for this purpose he sought the owners of the land and made arrangements with them. One of these, an old farmer, not deeming it possible that the government could be represented in so important a matter by so young, boyish-looking, and unassuming a man, refused to talk with him, and soon afterwards, meeting an acquaintance, complained to him about that young fellow, a mere boy, talking to him as to buying his farm for the government, etc. To his astonishment, his friend assured him that he had made a great mistake, that the young man was Lieutenant Stevens, of the engineer corps, who had entire charge of building the fort, and advised him to lose no time in seeking the young officer and explaining his mistake, which he made haste to do. This incident shows how youthful Mr. Stevens appeared at that time, although twenty-five years old, a husband and a father. He was always quiet and unobtrusive in manner, without a trace of self-assertion or pretentiousness; and the marked impression he made upon all with whom he came in contact was due to real superiority of mind and spirit, and not to any adventitious advantages of stature or manner. He also, in July, visited Castine, and inspected and reported upon the old works there, which had been fortified and held by the British during the war of 1812. His sisters were again widely scattered from their father's house. During the summer Sarah was staying with uncle Asa Cummings, and, being attacked by a severe cough, Mary came there to wait upon her, and also to attend school. Their brother Isaac constantly visited them, and supplied them with books and comforts. He also freely aided Oliver with funds. He was at North Yarmouth fitting for college, and helping himself by teaching school. With all these calls upon him, Mr. Stevens was obliged to ask his father to repay-- "as much, not exceeding one hundred dollars, as you can conveniently raise. My expenses in the way of traveling have been very heavy this year. Three journeys to Bangor already, and two more in contemplation, besides quite a number between Portland and Portsmouth. With this I send you the 'National Anti-Slavery Standard,' the organ of the American Anti-Slavery Society. I have just commenced taking the paper. I like its spirit and views much." In this letter he speaks of spending four days in Portland, and finding Sarah improved and Mary well; gives a long account of the condition and medical treatment of the former, and suggests means for her recovery and plans for Mary's education. These sisters were very dear to him, and he was very solicitous for their welfare. But Sarah rapidly grew worse with quick consumption, and died February 8, 1844, only twenty-two years old. After her death, Mary returned home. One day at Portsmouth, as Mr. Stevens was at work in his office and his young wife was at the window, her attention was attracted by a unique vehicle coming down the street, followed by a tail of small boys in high glee. This was a rude sleigh fashioned out of poles, and drawn by a rough-looking nag, whose coat was innocent of currycomb and brush. Seated on a box in the bottom of the sleigh, and driving the horse with entire unconcern at the attention he was attracting, was a large, tall man, with light hair and fair, florid complexion, clad in homespun garb, the very type of an independent backwoods farmer. Stopping at the door, he inquired for _Leftenant_ Stevens, who ran down, and was surprised and pleased to find in the rustic caller one of his mother's brothers, John Cummings, from Albany, on his way to Andover. How uncle John received a warm welcome, how he was brought in and given a hearty supper, while his team was sent around to the nearest stable, and how he was loaded with viands and supplies enough to last the remainder of his journey when he resumed it, may be imagined. Such an opportunity to dispense hospitality to one of his relatives was a source of unalloyed pleasure to the young officer. The laying out and starting the fort at Bucksport engrossed most of his attention in the spring of 1844. The care of important works at three different places necessitated incessant traveling, besides which he had to visit Boston periodically to obtain and bring down the public funds required. With all these duties and cares he was more than fully occupied, and was obliged to lay aside, for the present at least, his projected law studies. He also sent abroad and purchased a number of French works on fortifications and military history. He became deeply interested in the forts under his charge, and was indefatigable in urging upon the Engineer Bureau in Washington improvements and measures which his active mind was quick to observe. Indeed, in his zeal he overworked himself, and was prostrated with severe sickness in consequence. "You work too hard," writes his sister Mary; "you will not live five years unless you take business easier." During the summer he was able to give Oliver employment on Fort Preble, and writes his father that "Oliver has acquitted himself with credit; had to manage a gang of twenty-five men." Mrs. Stevens spent part of the summer at her mother's house in Newport, where, on June 27, their second child was born, a daughter, named Julia Virginia. Early in August Mr. Stevens went to Newport to escort his little family to Bucksport. They spent several days in Andover, accompanied by Mrs. Stevens's sister Nancy, where they met Elizabeth and her husband, just arrived from Tennessee on a visit. Mary was at home, and there was a pleasant family reunion. After this agreeable little visit they went to Boston and took the steamboat for Bucksport, Miss Nancy Hazard returning to Newport. In the fall Elizabeth and Mr. Campbell returned to Tennessee, after a round of visits to her relatives in Massachusetts and Maine. Mary accompanied them. Arriving at Bucksport the last of August, they found quarters at an old-fashioned country tavern, the only hotel in the place, where they had comfortable though rustic accommodations. The principal people, with the cordial hospitality characteristic of Maine, welcomed them to the town. At first many, like the old farmer, were disposed to sneer at the young stripling, but the energetic, thorough-going, and effective way in which he organized and drove on the works, his decided, self-reliant character, sound, sensible conversation, and simple, direct manners, soon won their approval and admiration, and he became a great favorite, and much respected and looked up to as well as liked. After a short sojourn at the tavern, he leased a large, roomy house of Judge Pond, half of which he set apart as an office, and made his residence in the other half. Kidder Randolph, a cousin of Mrs. Stevens, was employed as chief clerk, and with his wife, _née_ Isabella Updike, came on from Newport. He also employed in the office Mr. Isaac Osgood, a fellow-townsman from Andover, and on the works, as assistant, Mr. Abiel W. Tinkham. The Penobscot at this point is some half a mile wide, with a strong tidal current. For crossing the river he provided a four-oared barge, over which Daniel Murphy was installed as coxswain. Every morning the young engineer officer would cross the river to supervise the works, and return to the town late in the afternoon or in the evening. A large force was set to work. Soon deep excavations, great banks of earth, and vast piles of granite and other materials attested the vigor with which the construction was pushed. He visited many quarries far and near, and examined and tested the granite. As this material was landed in great, heavy blocks and masses on the river-bank, and had to be hauled thence to the works up a considerable ascent, he bought many oxen for the purpose, scouring the country for the largest and finest to be had. In these teams he took great pride, and especially enjoyed taking friends and visitors to see them. He was also quite proud of his ability to select good workmen from their appearance. A well-shaped head, with a full, high forehead, he used to say, denoted a good man, reliable, intelligent, and industrious. The lonely old man in Andover writes a pathetic letter to Isaac in December, urging him to make him a visit. Of his seven children, not one was at home at Thanksgiving. Three daughters had died; the remaining two were far distant in Tennessee; Isaac was in Bucksport, and Oliver in North Yarmouth. With deep feeling the aged and lonely father writes: "My children,--you may well suppose I thought of them." Mr. Stevens again had a severe sickness in the winter, the result probably of overwork, although he used to say that the cold winter climate of Maine did not agree with him, that it rendered his faculties torpid or benumbed. In February, however, he visited Washington, and was present at Polk's inauguration as President. He embraced this opportunity to urge upon Colonel Totten, chief of engineers, the need of increased appropriations for the works under his charge, and with such success that the other engineer officers complained that Stevens had left no funds for their works. During 1845 Mr. Stevens was vigorously pushing the building of Fort Knox, as well as attending to the works at Portland and Portsmouth. In May he received a confidential letter from Colonel Totten, asking if he desired transfer to and promotion in one of the new regiments about to be raised, which, with his characteristic reply, is given:-- [CONFIDENTIAL.] ENGINEER DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON, 28th May, 1845. LIEUTENANT ISAAC I. STEVENS, _Corps of Engineers_, _Bucksport, Maine_: _Sir_,--In case of an increase of the military establishment at the next session of Congress, I shall probably be called upon to know if any officers of engineers desire a transfer to the new forces, with promotion. Would you desire such a transfer? What is the lowest grade that you would be willing to accept? And in what arm of the service? Very respectfully, your obt. svt., JOSEPH G. TOTTEN, _Col. and Ch. Eng._ I have already been spoken to on this subject by one high in authority. BUCKSPORT, MAINE, June 24, 1845. COLONEL JOSEPH G. TOTTEN, _Chief Engineer_, _Washington_: _Sir_,--In answer to the confidential circular of the Department of the 28th ultimo, asking if I should desire a transfer with promotion to the new forces, in case of an increase of the military establishment at the next session of Congress, I beg to say generally and comprehensively that I hold myself in readiness to discharge to the best of my ability the duties of any position which shall enlarge my sphere of action and of usefulness, and with which, in the judgment of those intrusted with the administration of public affairs, I may be deemed worthy to be invested; promotion or no promotion, in my own corps or in any other corps or department of the public service, and whether the field of duty be in Oregon, California, or at the North Pole. I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, ISAAC I. STEVENS, _Lieut. of Eng'rs._ This reply evinces a certain impatience, or disapproval, at the idea of consulting the personal wishes and preferences of an officer as to his assignment to duty. Mr. Stevens always held high ideals of public duty,--many would deem them quixotic and overstrained. He ever deemed it the duty of appointing officers to select the ablest and best-fitted man for any post or service that could be found, and that it was the duty of every public officer to serve with complete self-abnegation and patriotic zeal. His whole career proved the sincerity of his convictions on this point. In consequence of the hostile attitude assumed by Mexico upon the admission of Texas into the Union against her protests, Colonel Totten, on June 8, writes the following confidential order:-- "In all the forts under your charge (including the narrows of the Penobscot) you should, as soon as it can be done advantageously, place all your batteries in a state of perfect readiness for guns, leaving nothing to be done but the mounting of the guns when they shall arrive. It is of infinite importance, should any exigency arise, that the preparation of the country shall not be found deficient in any manner depending on the Engineer Department." General Taylor with a small force was thrown into Texas to protect the newly acquired State, and the increasing probabilities of war with Mexico were eagerly discussed by the ambitious young army officers. In September Mr. Stevens accompanied Colonel Totten on a tour of inspection of all the works under his charge, and entertained him and Mrs. Totten for several days at his house in Bucksport. Mr. Stevens was never so well pleased as when dispensing hospitality in his own house. He was continually bringing friends home to dinner, often on short notice, and always liked to have some of his relatives visiting him. His wife's sister Nancy spent the summer with them. Brother Oliver, uncle William's daughter Eliza and son William, Mrs. Hazard and her son Thomas, and sister, Miss Eliza B. Lyman, and uncle Nathaniel, also visited them, and, after much urging, his father, from Andover, was induced to make a brief visit. He employed Oliver again this summer on Fort Preble. Always ready and glad to serve any relative or friend, he saw to the purchasing and shipping of several cargoes of hay for uncle Nathaniel, declining to accept any recompense for his services. On December 7 the little girl, Julia Virginia, died of water on the brain, after a brief illness. She was a beautiful, gentle child, and a great pet of her father, who delighted to place her on his office table when he was at work, oftentimes to the sad disarrangement of his plans and drawings, and her death was a severe affliction. The following beautiful lines were written by Mr. Brooks, in condolence upon the sad loss:-- "Well with the child?" Ah, yes, 't is well With that bright creature evermore, Gone up, 'mid seraph bands to dwell With God on yonder starry shore. "Well with the child?" Ah, yes, 't is well, Though marble-cold that lily brow, And though no sage nor seer can tell Where soars the mind that beamed there now. "Well with the child?" Ah, yes, 't is well, Though still in death that speaking eye; A shadow o'er the spirit fell-- 'T is past--a star is in the sky! "Well with the child?" Ah, yes, 't is well With her, that sweet and guileless one; Toll not for her the gloomy knell, Though gilds her grave the morning sun. "Well with the child?" Ah, yes, 't is well, And well with us who mourn, if we, By penitence made pure, might dwell, Sweet child of God! with Him and thee. During the winter Mr. Stevens organized a course of lectures for the Bucksport Lyceum, delivering one lecture himself, and writing to lecturers in different parts of the country, engaging their services, and inviting them to his house. Among the lecturers and subjects were: John A. Peters, on "The Profession of Politics;" William B. Merton, on "American Literature;" J.A. Smith, on "The Present State of English Poetry;" Henry Giles, George Shepard, and others, whose subjects are not known. He also became interested in organizing a Unitarian Church in Bucksport, and corresponded with Dr. A.P. Peabody in regard to a pastor, etc., but it was found impracticable to do this. Mr. Stevens was never a sportsman or fisherman; indeed, he kept himself so immersed in work as never to have time for field sports, yet he was especially fond of the noble salmon which were taken in the Penobscot, and delighted to send fine, handsome specimens of this noble fish to his father, Mrs. Hazard, and other friends. He had a fish-weir built below the fort, in which many fish were taken at times. Convinced of the desirability of organizing a body of engineer troops as part of the army, for several years Mr. Stevens kept writing urgent memorials and letters to the Engineer or War Department in advocacy of the plan. In those days the rank and file were nearly all foreigners, and far inferior in character to the regular soldiers of the present day. For the engineer troops he advocated enlisting American young men of intelligence, good character and physique, putting them under a thorough course of instruction, with strict discipline, in order "to raise them to the highest state of discipline and efficiency, a fair representation of what an American army might and should be, so that every man in the company can, if he chooses to study and do his duty, become a good clerk, overseer, or practical engineer." Moreover, in case of war, or an increase of the army, some of the best qualified and most deserving men might be given commissions. He was deeply impressed with and admired Cromwell's policy of raising his "ironsides" among men of good family and substance, discarding "serving-men and tapsters," and was full of the idea of making the American army as honorable for the common soldier as for the officer. The soundness of these views is now becoming recognized, and within the last few years steps have been taken to raise the standard of regular soldiers by enlisting only the better class of men, and giving them more instruction, advantages, and opportunities, even to appointing officers from the ranks. At length the War Department decided to allow the raising of an engineer company, and Lieutenant Stevens issued circulars calling for men, and personally enlisted the first soldier in the new corps, private Lathrop. The company formed part of Scott's army in Mexico, where it rendered distinguished service under Captain G.W. Smith and Lieutenant George B. McClellan, the former of whom became a Confederate major-general, and the latter was the well-known commander of the Army of the Potomac. In July, 1846, Mr. Stevens was in Boston loading a vessel with material for Fort Knox. During this summer Mrs. Stevens's eldest sister, Miss Emily L. Hazard, with her little nephew, Charlie Brooks, made them a visit, and two other sisters, Mary and Nancy, spent the summer and fall with them. The Mexican war was now in full progress with Taylor's campaign on the Rio Grande, and Lieutenant Stevens, ambitious for active service, but unwilling to urge his personal wishes, writes the chief of engineers that sedentary employment is prejudicial to his health,--needs exercise in the open air,--would respond with alacrity to any call made upon him for service in Mexico, adding that he makes no personal application, but simply states facts, etc. At last, on December 25, he received his orders, and in two hours was speeding by sleigh over snow-drifted roads to Bangor, reaching Portland the next day, and Boston the 28th. Miss Nancy Hazard went, under his escort, as far as Boston, returning home. Miss Mary remained in Bucksport to spend the winter with her sister, who needed her society and care, for on November 20, the second daughter, Sue, was born. CHAPTER VII VOYAGE TO MEXICO BOSTON, MASS., December 29, 1846. MY DEAREST WIFE,--We reached Boston yesterday at half past twelve, after a very pleasant journey from Bangor. The weather was unusually mild, and we experienced very little fatigue. Nancy took the afternoon cars for Providence. This afternoon the steamer Perry runs to Newport and will take her home. I shall not sail probably till Saturday. I have determined to take out a complete equipment, even to a servant. I am causing inquiries to be made this morning, and in case I find no one to my mind, I shall send for Daniel Murphy. Daniel would be so devoted to me. If I were sick he would take care of me. Daniel, too, would feel with me perfectly secure from all harm. The quartermaster will furnish me here with a camp equipage. I shall provide myself with a saddle, india-rubber leggings, and everything complete, so that not for a single instant shall I be delayed on reaching my destination. Immediately on my landing I wish to be ready for service. I may take out a horse. I wish some of my good friends would present me one. I should want a horse worth three hundred dollars. I have sent for Oliver to spend the day with me to-morrow. I thought it best not to send for father. It will be hard for him to part with me, and he had better stay at home. Since leaving you my mind has dwelt much upon my little family. I know you will look on the bright side. In all candor, I consider my life as safe in Mexico as in Maine. I hope to get a sound constitution, and to come back to you, my dear Margaret, in due season, sound in body and none the worse for wear. You have a treasure in your own mother and brothers and sisters. Mary is with you. I feel grateful to her for giving up so promptly her own wishes to stay with you. I hope you will have a pleasant winter. Keep up your spirits, and have faith in the future and in the God of the future. I go to Mexico without a single foreboding. I have faith, almost implicit faith, that I shall come back. Have faith with me. So long as I remain in Boston you shall hear from me every day. Love to Mary and the chicks. Affectionately yours, ISAAC. BOSTON, MASS., December 30, 1846. MY DEAR MARGARET,--Oliver has come down to pass the day with me. We are hard at work preparing inventories and getting everything ready. We have a fine vessel, and I look forward to a pleasant passage. Oliver brought me the sad intelligence of the death of Elizabeth on the 10th of December. Campbell wrote further a most feeling and excellent letter. Elizabeth suffered but little, and everything was done for her that could be suggested by the forethought of the most devoted of husbands. Her child was very well. Mary, we expect, will return in the spring. I shall try and send you a little note every day. Write me at Brazos Santiago, and write often, commencing now. Write once a week, adding something to your letters each day. Remember me to all. Affectionately, ISAAC. Lieutenant Stevens's orders were to take charge of the pontoon and engineer trains, then being loaded on shipboard in Boston, and accompany the same to the headquarters of General Scott in Mexico, touching first at Brazos Santiago, Texas. Notwithstanding the urgency of his orders, various delays occurred, and it was not until the 19th of January that the vessel sailed. During this period of waiting he had a visit from his father, and one from Oliver, also. His cousins Charles and Henry also came down from Andover to bid him good-by. He spent a day in New Bedford, calling upon his friends there. Daniel Murphy, having fallen sick, had to be sent home. BOSTON, MASS., January 13, 1847. MY DEAREST WIFE,--I wrote you a brief note yesterday, stating that I should not probably sail for some days. Having nothing to do here, yet obliged to remain to be in readiness to obey any new orders, I shall endeavor to spend my time in some rational manner. There are military matters to be looked into and old friends to visit. I hope I shall hear from you, before I leave Boston, and very much in full. I wish once more to look into the little details of your daily life, before I commit myself to the broad bosom of the great waters. January 14. Yesterday I passed a portion of the day in Cambridge; found Mrs. Breese and family all well. The children had grown much since I last saw them. Mrs. Breese seemed very resigned, but she has evidently been a great mourner. She was the same hospitable, noble-hearted woman as of old. She expects to get to Newport about May; will go to housekeeping in their old house. I saw the forty-eight Viennese dancers last evening. It was splendid. They are young girls from four years to sixteen, all handsome and perfectly trained. Everybody goes to see them. Last evening there was a great turn-out of the beauty and fashion of Boston. You shall hear from me again before I leave. There is no probability of my sailing before Saturday. Love to Hazard and the babe. Remembrances, and Yours affectionately, ISAAC. BOSTON, MASS., January 15, 1847. MY DEAREST WIFE,--There is now every prospect of my getting off to-morrow. I may not reach the Brazos till the middle of February. Colonel Totten left on the 12th for Mexico, and I shall without doubt serve under his immediate direction. Eighteen officers of engineers are either in Mexico, or on their way thither. I trust I shall get a few lines from you to-morrow before I sail, as otherwise a month must pass before any tidings reach me. Do not fall to write quite often to me at the Brazos. I shall not object, you know, to find a dozen letters, more or less. To-day I dined at Mr. Eben Dale's, a nephew of aunt Cummings. Cousin Charles Stevens dined there also. He designs going this evening to see the Viennese dancers. I wish you could see them. Everybody is charmed. Whole families go, children and all, and to-morrow there is to be an afternoon exhibition for the particular benefit of the children. I will write you again before I sail. Affectionately yours, ISAAC STEVENS. BOSTON, MASS., January 19, 1847. MY DEAREST WIFE,--It is now ten o'clock in the morning, and I shall in an hour take my departure for Mexico. We have a fine vessel--good officers and crew--and it is a charming day. I hoped to have heard from you before I left, but no letter has reached me. God bless you and the little ones. Yours affectionately, ISAAC. MY DEAREST WIFE,--It is now January 27, and the eighth day of our being at sea. I wrote you a brief note on the day I sailed, Tuesday, January 19. We left the wharf at three P.M., with a strong westerly wind, which drove our bark through the water at the rate of eight knots per hour. The weather was very cold, but with my cloak around me, I remained on deck several hours. Soon Boston and its suburbs vanished in the distance, and we were fairly embarked on our journey's way. As I think it will interest you, I will jot down the occurrences of each day since our departure. And first of all, my ocean home is in a beautifully modeled and fast-sailing bark of about two hundred tons, called the Prompt. There are twelve souls on board: Captain Wellman, first officer Gallicer, second officer Stebbins, six men before the mast, one man acting as cook and steward, my servant, a nice Irish lad, Owen Clarke, nineteen years of age, and your humble servant. The officers of the bark are a fine set of fellows, and the crew perfectly cheerful and attentive to their duty. Tuesday evening I was not much troubled with sea-sickness, and I enjoyed a good night's rest; but Wednesday, January 20, was a hard day, nothing but sea-sickness. In pursuance of the advice of Captain Wellman, I remained on deck as much of the time as possible. The weather was somewhat cold, but the wind moderate. We drifted along the greater portion of the day, not faster than two or three knots an hour. After suffering from sea-sickness till noon, I went to my berth. There is an inexpressible lassitude accompanying sea-sickness, that is worse than anything else. It requires an effort to make the least exertion. Thursday, January 21. This day we had snow all the time. I remained on deck twelve hours, and towards evening felt vigorous and well. The weather begins to grow milder. I begin to relish food and to enjoy sea fare. Our steward has been sick ever since we left port, and we are in consequence obliged to do the best we can without a cook. It is now evening, the breeze freshens, the bark dances along merrily, and there are signs of a gale of wind. I remained up till eight o'clock, and then retired for the night. As I awoke from time to time, I could observe from the working of our vessel that it went hard on deck. I took things quietly and remained in my berth, and about sunrise of Friday, January 22, I went on deck. The scene was wild and exciting. The ocean tossed in wild confusion, and our brave bark riding the crests of the waves like a sea-bird. The gale had been a severe one, and the captain told me that at one time he expected he should be obliged to lay to under bare poles. We pursued our way before the wind, making nine and ten knots per hour. Saturday, January 23. The sea has become much smoother and the weather milder. Yesterday we were in the midst of the Gulf Stream, and to-day we have passed it. Sunday, January 24, was a beautiful day. The weather mild and lazy. I was on deck all day,--part of the time reading, and part dozing and sleeping. It is comfortable on deck without a coat. We are getting rapidly into southern latitudes. Monday, Tuesday, January 25, 26. Head wind and slow progress. Monday we saw several sail. The weather exceedingly mild and soft. I never enjoyed existence more than on these two days,--that is, mere existence. I dreamed away many hours, and built and pulled down air castles. The thought of home was uppermost. What a change in outward things in six days. In Bucksport you wrap your cloaks and comforters around you; at sea we pull off our coats. My health is perfect; everything like sea-sickness has left me. Wednesday, January 27. This is likewise a mild, soft, somewhat damp day. We make exceedingly slow progress; the wind is dead ahead. I fear we shall be a month reaching the Brazos. Shall I hear from you there, and how many letters will await me? I trust I shall be with you again in the course of the summer. I dwell much on my probable duties in Mexico. In case the contest should be of short duration, I shall certainly return in the course of the year. I fear that you will take things hard in my absence. When I reach the Brazos, I may be able to speak with some certainty of my duties in Mexico. Thursday, January 28. Last evening we had a rough night. This morning the sea is very rough, and our bark is pitching about in all directions. I am fortunate in having no return of sea-sickness. My boy, Owen, is not so fortunate. I observed his head over the bulwarks a few moments since in no equivocal position. He is a nice, willing lad. I picked him up in Boston, the very day we sailed. He is now in the steward's hands learning to cook. On reaching the Brazos, he will be quite accomplished in the culinary art. Friday, January 29. To-day we are making fine progress, about nine miles per hour; shall reach the Abaco Island, one of the Bahamas, on Saturday (to-morrow night) at this rate. The weather is charming. I have most of the day read in my military works, sitting on the deck of the vessel. The weather is, indeed, rather warm. Saturday, January 30. Last night there was a change of wind, and to-day we are making little or no progress. The sea somewhat rough. We shall not reach the Abaco this evening. Sunday, January 31. Last evening the wind died away, and to-day we have not moved one mile per hour. The sun has been warm; I have worn nothing about my neck to-day. Several of the men are barefoot, and all of us are in our shirt-sleeves. We are in about latitude 27°, and some one hundred miles from the Bahamas. This calm weather is very tedious, but we must be patient; we have now been out twelve days. Monday, February 1. This has been an exquisite day. Soon after dinner our eyes were rejoiced with the sight of land, the first since leaving Boston, thirteen days since. Our bark glides along with scarcely any perceptible motion. Towards night we approached the Great Abaco, and about seven saw the revolving light and the Hole in the Wall, caused, according to the jolly sons of Neptune, by the Devil's chasing a porpoise through the rock-bound shore of the Great Abaco. The hole is, indeed, a small arched opening through the rocks, admitting the passage of a small boat. Friday, February 2. Another splendid day. Early in the morning we made the Berry Islands, inhabited by some fifty or sixty blacks under a black chief. We saw one of their boats returning from turtle-fishing. About seven we commenced crossing the Bahama Banks in soundings, nearly all the way of one hundred miles, from twelve to twenty-four feet. We had a clean run, and went into deep water about seven o'clock, running the one hundred miles in about twelve hours. The evening was surpassingly lovely. I remained on deck till ten, looking at the stars and thinking of home. Wednesday, February 3. This day has fairly brought us into the Mexican Gulf. In ten days, I trust, we shall reach the Brazos. To-day I have been overhauling my clothes. My boy Owen has mended some rents in my garments. He says he can wash like "fun." The captain teases him a good deal about the bright Irish lass he left in Ann Street. Owen wants me, when I reach Mexico, not only to buy a mule for his use, but a little cart for the things; quite an idea. To-day we are in latitude 24° 13'. The weather very warm. I have found the heat quite oppressive. Thursday, February 4. Nothing of consequence has occurred to-day. We are moving on quickly with prosperous though gentle winds. Friday, February 5. Everything has moved on lazily to-day. We have seen several vessels. Saturday, February 6. Same as yesterday. A vessel is in sight, apparently bound to the north. It is now nearly three o'clock, and we have been out eighteen days. I shall seal up and send this letter by the vessel, if she prove to be bound north, and I trust it will find you well. We are now about five hundred and sixty miles from the Brazos. Shall I hear from you there? Love to the children, to Mary; remembrances to Mr. Osgood, Kidder, Mr. and Mrs. Tinkham. The vessel did not send her boat, and no opportunity was offered to send this letter. We passed directly under her stern. She was a brig of two hundred tons, and bound to New York. This letter must remain on my hands till I reach the Brazos. Sunday, February 7. A most melancholy event occurred on board today. As I was lying in my berth, about a quarter before twelve o'clock, Captain Wellman came into the cabin, somewhat agitated, and said to me, "Our steward is not to be found." All hands were on deck in a moment, and a thorough search was made in all parts of the ship. The steward was not to be found anywhere. The appearance of the galley was conclusive as to his having thrown himself overboard. He was seen at half past eleven, and yet little or no preparation had been made for dinner. He had been observed to be moody and absent-minded in the course of the morning. We could assign no cause for the act. He had been treated well, and his duties were light. My servant had assisted him throughout the passage. His sudden disappearance whilst four men were on deck, in good smooth weather, caused us all to feel melancholy. We ate very little dinner. Our thoughts were sad, and we passed much of our time through the remainder of the day in recalling every little incident of the voyage having any connection with the unfortunate steward. The only thing which gave any light was certain expressions he had made use of, showing a melancholy and restless spirit. We found out, moreover, that he was suffering very severely from the bad disorder, contracted some two months since in Liverpool. This may have been the cause of his making way with himself. Monday, February 8. We none of us passed a quiet night, in consequence of the distressing event of yesterday. One of the crew has been put into the galley, and things go on in the accustomed manner. This evening the effects of the steward were disposed of to the crew at auction; and so he has gone to his account, and our bark is pursuing her destined course. Our vessel has gone on very quietly the last two days. Tuesday, February 9. We still have quiet times, and are gradually approaching the Brazos. With tolerable good luck we shall arrive there in two or three days. It is now evening and seven o'clock. There is every appearance of a norther. The captain has been somewhat anxiously pacing the deck for the last hour. It is now eight o'clock, and I will turn in for the night. Wednesday, February 10. A severe norther came up about nine last evening, and is now sweeping over the Gulf. Our bark works admirably. Occasionally she ships a sea. But her deck for the most part is dry. The weather is very cold, and I have kept my berth nearly all day. Thursday, February 11. The norther did not commence to abate till noon to-day. It is now six P.M. The water is comparatively smooth. I have been somewhat unwell for two or three days, but hope to become well with smoother weather. Friday, February 12. We had a quiet night, and this morning we have scarcely a breath of wind. Our estimated distance from the Brazos is about sixty miles. We shall not arrive till to-morrow. I fear I shall not hear from you. There is some, yes, great doubt, whether letters to the army are forwarded by mail beyond New Orleans, in which event all your letters to me will remain in the New Orleans office; nor can they be forwarded till I can send for them by some ship going there. Saturday, February 13. It is now about two P.M., and we are in direct view of the Brazos, which is some six miles distant. We are beating up against a head wind, and there is considerable doubt as to whether we shall make our anchorage to-night. The wind has gradually subsided, and it is now nearly a calm. Unless a fresh breeze should spring up, we shall require another day. This is our twenty-fifth day. Sunday, February 14, five P.M. I have just reached the Brazos, and find General Worth, Colonel Totten, Lieutenants Mason and Tower, and many other officers here. An opportunity offers to send this letter. I will write again in a few days. I shall remain at the Brazos a few days longer. Remember me to Kidder and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Tinkham, Mr. Osgood, and love of course to the children and Mary. Affectionately yours, ISAAC. BRAZOS SANTIAGO, February 21, 1847. MY DEAREST MARGARET,--It is now Sunday, one week since I landed. Your letter and Mary's have reached me, and I have had the inexpressible pleasure of hearing from home. How happy it made me to hear from you all! My little children are doing well, your health is good, and you are passing a quiet and comfortable winter. It is the greatest joy to me to learn all this. I knew you would find Mr. Osgood a great addition to our little circle, and with Mary as your companion, who has always sympathized with you entirely, I did not anticipate a very tiresome winter. Since reaching here I have had little or nothing to do. It was fortunate I reached the Brazos as early as I did. I saw and had some conversation with Colonel Totten. On Monday, the day after my arrival, General Scott and a portion of his staff departed for Tampico. There were left behind four officers of engineers, of General Scott's staff, with directions to follow by the first opportunity. These officers are Lieutenants Mason, Trapier, Tower, and myself. Mason is in fine health, full of animation and conversation, and very popular with his brother officers. Tower is the same as ever, a man of great native power, but entirely unobtrusive. Trapier is an officer you have never seen, a man of fine address and considerable ability. We all like him very much indeed. The general left in excellent spirits. On taking leave of the engineer officers he made some very complimentary remarks in reference to the importance of our duties, and his expectations in regard to us. He will remain in Tampico a few days and then proceed to the Island of Lobos, where a large expedition is to concentrate to land and attack Vera Cruz. It is expected that a force of fourteen thousand men will effect a landing. General Worth is in command of three thousand regulars at this point, most of whom have embarked. General Worth and staff are still here. He is somewhat delicate in health, but full of life and energy. He is thought to be our great man to handle troops on a battlefield. I have seen a good deal of my old friend Hunt the last few days. He is attached to Colonel Duncan's battery, and is now in my room talking with Mason. He is a man I esteem very much, and he is as worthy of it as ever. Colonel Duncan has just come in. He is a noble fellow, not in the least elated by the enviable position he occupied in the army and before the whole country. He is a man of extraordinary energy of character, great decision, and great sagacity. His name and his battery are a terror to the Mexicans, and he is emphatically thus far the great man of the young officers. He is modest, amiable, mild, as he is far-sighted, decisive, indomitable. He is what his friends knew him to be years ago. Mason and himself are great friends. Captain Saunders of the engineers is here on General Worth's staff, and will probably be brevetted for distinguished services at Monterey. I shall probably sail on Wednesday next for Tampico, and thence to the island of Lobos. Lobos is about sixty miles south of Tampico, and affords an ample protection against northers. At Tampico I shall probably find General Scott and staff. There I hope to meet Tilden, Carpenter, and other old friends. Everything is in the greatest confusion here; a thousand laborers and teamsters are employed to manage teams, take care of animals and stores, and load and discharge lighters. Ever since my arrival, there has been the greatest hurry in embarking troops. There is great want of system. Most of the men here in government employ are not business men. Some of the quartermasters are inefficient. There are some good men. The best business man in the quartermaster's employ is Lawton, of Newport, brother-in-law of the Turners (Colonel Robert R. Lawton). He is harbor master, and in receipt of one hundred and fifty dollars per month. Everybody speaks of him in the highest terms. He is energetic, intelligent, and perfectly temperate. He looks in admirable condition. He has applied for, and will probably receive, a captain's commission in one of the new regiments. I have seen and conversed with him here. He is full of hope, life, and energy. General Butler has just arrived from Monterey, on his return to the States, and in consequence of his wound not healing. General Taylor occupies a position in advance of Saltillo, with eighteen field-pieces, a small body of regular infantry, and some six thousand volunteers. My dearest girl, I know nothing certain of ulterior operations. We have great abundance of supplies and some seven thousand choice regular troops. We cannot expect the same conduct from the volunteers as from the regulars, but we hope they will gain laurels. I shall endeavor to do my duty in whatever circumstances I may be placed. I trust I shall have full strength to do my full duty. I know this will accord with all the wishes of your own heart. I know you would rather never see me than that I should return to your arms with infamy on my brow. This latter would be terrible. The former can be borne. As regards our dear children, I wish Hazard to go to school this summer, and I am glad he continues to be so promising. Of all things, I wish him to be obedient. Not the obedience of fear, but of love and confidence. Our little Susan I know must be a bright, merry child. Would that I could witness daily her youth, growth, and development! Preserve a tranquil spirit; let hope at all times animate and strengthen you. Have courage, have faith; we shall come together again, all the better for the trials of separation. I shall write a note to Mary to accompany this. The mail leaves to-morrow for New Orleans. Write often, and continue to direct your letters to Brazos Santiago. Remember me to all my Bucksport friends, to Kidder and his wife, Osgood, Mr. and Mrs. Tinkham. Of course all the love in the world for Hazard and Sue. Affectionately yours, ISAAC. TAMPICO, Wednesday Evening, March 10, 1847. MY DEAREST WIFE,--We left the Brazos this evening week, and shall leave this place to-morrow morning. Our passage of only two hundred and fifty miles thus occupied us seven days. We are somewhat apprehensive that we shall not reach Vera Cruz till General Scott shall have effected a landing. Mason, Tower, and three other officers are with me. Our ship now lies three miles outside the bar. Our passage up the river Tampico to this place (six miles above the bar) was a fairy scene. Beautiful views met our eyes, and the picturesque country about this place perfectly enchanted us. The atmosphere is delightful. We see few but Mexicans about us. Every one looks friendly. News has just reached Tampico that General Taylor has had a hard-fought battle with Santa Anna. All the accounts came through Mexican channels. Santa Anna claims a victory. He states that Taylor is shut up in Monterey. But he admits that he himself has not advanced. We infer and believe that Santa Anna has been defeated, and will soon return to San Luis Potosi. I feel sanguine that a decisive success on the part of General Scott may terminate the war. I hope so. There is a chance to send this letter in the morning. I of course write in haste. You shall hear from me again on my arrival at Vera Cruz. Affectionately yours, ISAAC. The landing took place on Tuesday and Wednesday last (March 9 and 10), and the investment was completed on Thursday. The heavy ordnance is still on board ship. The debarkation is said to have been a most splendid affair. The first division landed in two hours. General Worth was the first man to jump on shore. The city will undoubtedly fall in a few days. No opposition whatever was made by the Mexicans to the landing. There was a little skirmishing during the investment. At the Brazos I lost my servant Owen. He found he could get much better wages than I had agreed to give him, and in consequence thereof he deserted me on the day I left, and I had not time to recover him. I shall find some difficulty in procuring a good servant here. I was very thankful that you wrote father and Mary. I wish you to keep up some little correspondence with them during my absence. They will always be glad to hear from you. My father has had his full share of sorrow, and has suffered as much as most men I know. I have never had so true and so disinterested a friend as he. He is absorbed in his children, and, though he expresses little, he feels much. His daughters have left him one by one, and but one is left. I feel very sad when I think of him. I trust that Mary will be spared to him for many years. We hope to get on shore to-morrow, but as a strong norther has been blowing since last evening, and is not yet entirely abated, it is possible we may not land till Tuesday. I shall keep this letter open till the last moment. The mail is forwarded by vessels sailing to New Orleans, and is not very regular. Thursday morning, March 18. We reached the anchorage off the island of Sacrificios on Sunday, and did not get on shore till last evening (Wednesday). We found the headquarters of General Scott some half a mile from the place of landing. On our way thither we met Colonel Totten and Captain Lee going out of camp on a reconnoissance. The camp occupies a circuit of some eight or ten miles. We find every one in high spirits. The fact is considered unquestioned that General Taylor has utterly defeated Santa Anna and driven him across the desert. I meet many friends in camp. Sunday, March 21. I have now been on shore four days. We are busily employed on the works preparatory to opening our fire on the place. Everything is going on finely. My duties interest me much. The climate is very fine. The colonel and his officers form one mess, and we have a pleasant time. Don't believe the many idle reports in regard to losses. Thus far we have lost only one man. The army is in fine spirits. Love to every one of my friends, my dear children, and you, my dear Margaret. I long to embrace you. I shall write again by next mail. Your affectionate ISAAC. CHAPTER VIII VERA CRUZ.--CERRO GORDO Vera Cruz, an old Spanish walled town on the Gulf of Mexico, with a population of 12,000, was situated on a sandy plain, which, extending back from the town, was broken by many sand-hills and ridges, and covered in great part with dense chapparal. On the land side a strong line of masonry works encircled the city from Fort Conception on the beach above, or north of, to Fort Santiago below it; while on the sea side the castle of San Juan de Ulloa, seated on an island a thousand yards in advance of the town, commanded all approaches with 128 heavy guns, and made the sea front doubly secure. The American army landed unopposed on March 9, 1847, on the beach a few miles south of the town; during the next four days extended lines of investment completely around the doomed city on the land side, and, having with great labor and some interruption from northers landed the heavy siege-guns, mortars, and material for the bombardment, commenced the batteries on the 18th, the second day after the young engineer officers reached the scene of action. They were at once set to work reconnoitring the ground and the enemy's works by day, and laying out the batteries and superintending the working parties by night. Lieutenant Stevens threw himself into this work with even more than his accustomed zeal. On one of his daring reconnoissances the horse he rode--a powerful and headstrong animal loaned him by his friend, Lieutenant Tower--took the bit in his teeth and bolted directly for the enemy's lines. Finding it impossible to stop or control the frantic steed, Lieutenant Stevens, throwing his whole strength on one rein, managed to make him swerve towards the base of a sand-hill, where he threw himself from the saddle, escaping injury on the soft ground, while the runaway continued his course to the very walls of the city. The batteries were placed midway between the lines of investment and the city, and about 900 yards from the walls. Lieutenant Stevens was indefatigable in searching out the best routes for the boyaux, or covered ways, to enable the troops to pass to and from the batteries without loss from the enemy's fire. The broken sand-hills and dense chapparal rendered this a difficult and laborious task; and in forcing his way through these thorny and almost impenetrable thickets his hands were so badly torn, and perhaps poisoned, that for several days he was obliged to have them bandaged with poultices of prickly pear. The route which he thus looked out was adopted, and the construction of the covered way was placed under his charge, with large working parties, for several nights, until completed. His experiences are best told in his own words. The independence, almost insubordination, of the new volunteers is simply the common experience with citizen soldiery fresh from home, but which they soon outgrow under good officers in a few months' campaigning. Friday, March 18. At two A.M. Lieutenants Mason, Stevens, and Tower entered the trenches and relieved Captain Lee and Lieutenants Beauregard and McClellan. No workers or guards present, save twelve sappers, till four o'clock. Lieutenant Mason at Battery 2. Lieutenant Stevens at Battery 1. Lieutenant Tower in communication leading to cemetery. Colonel Scott in command of the working party. A company of the 8th infantry, under command of Lieutenants Jordan and Pitcher, in Battery 1. About seven o'clock Lieutenant Foster relieved Lieutenant Tower, who returned to camp to supervise construction of powder magazines. At half past twelve Lieutenant Stevens ordered to examine the infantry communication, reconnoitred on the previous day, in order to commence the trenches at night with a working party. At two P.M. Captain Sanders on the naval battery. Lieutenants Stevens and Smith on the right were on duty. The naval battery laid out during the day by Captain Lee. Lieutenant Smith took particular charge of Batteries 3 and 4, and the remainder of the communication to Battery 1, with a fatigue party under Major Graham; Lieutenant Stevens, of the boyau of communication from camp to batteries with a fatigue party of 400 volunteers, New Yorkers and Pennsylvanians. Did not report at beach till nine P.M. Arrived on the ground at ten P.M. Two hours occupied in laying out the boyau with a cord and getting the whole force at work. Whilst Lieutenant Stevens was absent in discharge of his duties of supervision at the batteries and trenches under the particular charge of Lieutenant Smith, the volunteers abandoned their work and returned to camp, excepting a small force of fifty men on the left of the large sand-hill, in rear of which the communication passed. Saturday, March 19. About dark a large force of 400 men reported at the old cemetery as a fatigue party in the boyau under the charge of Lieutenant Stevens,--four companies of regulars, Brooks and Shackleford, 2d artillery; Lieutenant Ernst, 6th infantry; Lieutenant Rodgers, 2d dragoons,--the whole under the command of Captain De Hart,--and four companies of volunteers, Pennsylvanians. The regulars employed on communication from Battery 1 to Battery 2, on parapet to the right of Battery 2, and on the trench from the upper end of the valley to the first hollow of the natural trench leading through the long ridge in rear of the batteries, the volunteers on the remaining part of the boyaux. The regulars made their trench practicable. The volunteers could not be made to work with the most strenuous exertions on the part of the officers. Some were drunk and all sleepy. They complained of being tired and hungry. Some delay occurred throughout the works in consequence of a musketry fire from the trenches. Lieutenant Mason in charge of a working party at the batteries. Monday, March 22. The boyaux of communication made practicable and safe to-day, although not sufficiently commodious; a fatigue party of 200 men reporting to Lieutenant Stevens, and commencing work at five A.M.; two companies regulars of 2d artillery, Captain McKensie and Lieutenant Hardcastle, Captain Kendrick; and two of marines, Lieutenant Adams. This party worked with extraordinary vigor till three o'clock, all the men in the trenches all the time, the officers giving their whole energy to supervising the men; Captain McKensie, in command of the working party, exhibiting great energy and efficiency. The day was quite warm, and an immense amount of work done. Lieutenant Mason at the batteries with fatigue party under the command of Captain Swartwout. Tuesday, March 23. A fatigue party of 200 men reported to Lieutenant Stevens, and commenced work in the boyaux at 9-1/2 A.M., working with great vigor till dark, all the men constantly at work, and made the boyaux very safe and commodious,--two companies regulars, Captain E.W. Smith and Lieutenant Bissel, 5th infantry, two companies marines. NOTE. More work is done by day than by night under fire. The working parties by day did at least double the work per man of the working parties by night. A severe sand-storm blowing all day and night. Lieutenant Stevens reported the completion of the boyaux to the chief engineer at 8-1/2 P.M., and, after an hour's rest, at his request returned to the trenches and assisted Lieutenant Mason till relieved at four o'clock in the morning. Thursday, March 25. Lieutenants Mason and Stevens relieved the engineer officers on the right at four A.M. Great exertions were made at Battery No. 4, which opened its fire at eight A.M. The fatigue party in the trenches, Alabama volunteers, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Earle, remarkably fearless and efficient. One sapper and two volunteers placed at each embrasure to repair it after every discharge. By their courage and exertions, the fire of the battery was not obstructed during the day. Lieutenant Mason made three reconnoissances of the enemy's works, accompanied twice by Lieutenant Stevens. Two companies of the 1st artillery served the guns, Captain Magruder and Lieutenant Haskin; Major L. Whitney in command of the force serving the batteries. At eleven A.M. Captain Lee commenced establishing a new mortar battery on the left of No. 1. Saturday, March 27. A severe norther raging yesterday made great ravages in the works that were repaired to-day. Lieutenants Mason and Stevens in the trenches at four A.M. A new mortar battery commenced yesterday nearly finished to-day, under the particular direction of Lieutenant Stevens, with a working party of one company of the 4th infantry under the command of Lieutenant Lincoln. Sunday, March 28. A partial survey of the trenches made by Lieutenants Beauregard, Stevens, and Tower. CAMP WASHINGTON (three miles from VERA CRUZ), March 27, 1847. MY DEAREST MARGARET,--I have now the unspeakable satisfaction of telling you that both the city and the castle have capitulated after a bombardment of rather less than four days, and from the ninth day of opening the trenches, and with a loss on our side of less than forty in killed and wounded. I will tell you what your poor subaltern of a husband has had to do in this matter. On Thursday, March 18, I made a reconnoissance with Mason to determine the position of a road for wagons, and of a covered communication for infantry. On Friday morning, March 19, I left camp at two in the morning, and was kept hard at work till four the next morning in constructing a battery and opening the communications thereto. During the course of this operation the enemy hurled at us some two hundred round-shot and shells. None came very near me. I had to encourage the men at their work, and had no time to attend to my fears. VERA CRUZ, April 3. MY DEAREST WIFE,--It is now Saturday, and we have been in possession of the city one week. Great destruction was spread throughout the city by our shells. In the portion next to our batteries a shell entered every house, and almost each room of every house, in consequence of which many inoffensive people were killed. Vera Cruz is a miserable, dirty place; the streets are full of filth, and there are great numbers of poor people. Many families still keep their doors closed, though scarcely an outrage has been committed in the city. The people, though miserably poor, are very courteous and mild in their general deportment. Ever since our entrance into the city, the poor have been fed each day from our government stores, and every exertion is made to protect the whole city in its rights. General Worth is governor of the city. The weather is rather warm, and we find mosquitoes, fleas, etc., troublesome. The city, though sorry in its sunlight aspect, is remarkably picturesque by moonlight. The style of architecture is of the Moorish character, abounding in domes and highly wrought work. I have several times wandered through the deserted streets of the city by night, filled with admiration of the gorgeous and Oriental aspect of the scene. It surpasses anything I ever saw. My health is very fine. VERA CRUZ, April 10. MY DEAREST WIFE,--We are now preparing to march into the interior, and shall probably leave in a day or two. One half of the army are already on their way. We hope to enter the City of Mexico, and to contemplate the wonders of the capital, in one month. In the reduction of the city we have had fortune on our side. The grossest supineness prevailed in the Mexican ranks, though at times they awoke from their slumbers and poured into our midst well-directed fires of artillery. Our loss is very little. John R. Minton, a most gallant soldier, was killed on the first day of opening our fires. He was universally esteemed, and I had made his acquaintance on the first day of landing. He died for his country, before his country's gratitude for gallant services at Monterey had been communicated in the shape of a brevet. The burden of the day came with great weight on the officers of engineers. It is the universal sentiment of the army that they did their duty. We see it in the individual deportment of every officer with whom we are associated on duty. We had exciting times. Friends whom I had not seen since I left West Point, I shook for the first time warmly by the hand under the heavy fire of the enemy's batteries. I met Haskin and Callender in such a conjuncture. There was not the least shrinking from duty, but each one stood up manfully to his task and did his whole duty; we all worked hard. The engineers failed in no part of their duty, and the consequence was that the loss of human life was comparatively trifling. I never worked so hard in my life. It was our first experience in the field, and I think we have fulfilled the expectations of the general and of our immediate chief (Colonel Totten). I have already written you in relation to the city. We all long to leave so much moonlight magnificence and sunlight squalidity, and breathe the pure mountain air of Jalapa and Perote. Our troops are yet comparatively healthy. The sickly season will not come upon us for a month. Up in the mountains it is the most salubrious and delightful climate of the New World. Our troops conduct themselves with remarkable propriety. Very few cases have occurred of excesses of any kind, and all such are punished with extreme severity. Mason is in fine health, and is doing, as was to be expected, good service. All our officers are superior men, and we stand by each other like a band of brothers. I have secured a beautiful animal in the way of a horse, docile as a kitten and very intelligent. He has a beautiful eye and head, and will follow me wherever I go. I intend to bring him home with me. I have also a very good servant. He is an old soldier. I have just returned from a ride to our old camp. There is a fine hard beach all the way, which reminds me of the beach at Newport. My little horse is very fleet, and carried me over the beach in very rapid style. How would Hazard be delighted to see him stretch out! You must tell my little Hazard about my horse. When I come home he shall ride him every day. They would soon be fast friends, I doubt not. Have I told you that we are living in the government palace? At first we took our meals at the public house, but so much dirt and filth was to be met with everywhere that we formed a mess, and live in our own rooms. Our mess is now reduced to four, Major Smith, Captain Lee, Mason, and myself. There is a fine vegetable market close by, where we can provide ourselves; and as for meats, we have a barrel of hams. This morning I went to the market and observed quite a variety of tropical fruits; tomatoes, sweet potatoes, pineapples, plantains, lettuce, the Mexican squash, are in great abundance. VERA CRUZ, April 11. MY DEAR FATHER,--We are now in the midst of our arrangements to march into the interior, two divisions of the army (Twiggs and Patterson) having already marched. The greatest difficulty is on account of transportation. Vera Cruz is still healthy, and there is no natural reason why it should not be as salubrious as New Orleans. Its filth and nastiness is almost beyond belief, and is the efficient cause of its great sickliness in summer. Our authorities are now making every exertion to cleanse the city. Our troops behave well. Some few excesses have been committed, and these are punished with exemplary severity. General Scott has instituted military commissions to try a large class of offenses that, in an enemy's country, cannot be reached under the articles of war, and martial law has been proclaimed as a supplemental code. Yesterday a negro was hanged outside the city walls for committing rape upon a Mexican woman. We hope that peace will be established in the course of the summer. At all events, General Scott will find no difficulty in entering the City of Mexico. Our own troops, regulars and volunteers, are in a high state of discipline, and pant for an opportunity to signalize themselves. The Mexican troops have been demoralized by many successive defeats, and cannot, man to man, cope with our own. They are decidedly inferior, both in the men and the organization. In such cases numbers are of little account. All experience shows that resolution, courage, and enterprise, qualities possessed by our troops in an eminent degree, will overcome any tumultuous rabble. I verily believe that our little army of twelve thousand men is able to defeat any body of Mexicans, however large. You know the papers have been full of the complaints of the sappers and miners, or engineer soldiers. These men I am on duty with every day. They are the pride of the whole army, confessedly the best soldiers in the army. I never saw so superior a company of soldiers, Americans all, young men, having character, zeal, and intelligence, proud of their duties and of their position, perfectly subordinate, and cheerful in their obedience. I personally know almost every man of the sappers and miners. During the investment and siege of Vera Cruz they exhibited an extraordinary gallantry, and were all placed in the position of non-commissioned officers. Each man had direction of a working party, and in the execution of that duty they retained their arms and gave directions to the men. [Illustration: ROUTE, VERA CRUZ TO MEXICO] Lieutenant Stevens took great interest in the engineer company, so largely the result of his recommendations and exertions. His diary of the march inland commences the next day. March 29. The army made its entrance into the city this day at ten o'clock, and the general headquarters were established in the main plaza. General Worth was appointed governor of the city. The engineer company, although it had preëminently distinguished itself for gallantry and general conduct throughout the whole operation of the investment and siege, had no place assigned to it in the ceremonies of either the surrender or the entrance. Colonel Totten sailed on the Princeton to the States as bearer of dispatches, and with the view of resuming his position at the head of the department, leaving Major John L. Smith in command. Lieutenant Stevens was this day directed to assume the duties of adjutant, and a sapper was detailed to assist him. March 30. Lieutenants Stevens, Tower, and Foster, with a detachment of twelve sappers, commenced the survey of the defenses of the city and castle. Lieutenant Mason was temporarily assigned to duty with General Quitman on an expedition to Alvarado. Monday, April 12. The engineers left Vera Cruz with the general staff at five P.M., and reached Vigara, three miles distant, where they encamped for the night. Here a little stream flows into the sea, over which is an arched bridge of masonry, somewhat out of repair. I found myself exceedingly exhausted in consequence of my exertions before leaving the city in getting wagons for the baggage and train of the engineer company, and in attending to turning in the baggage of the engineer staff. Tuesday, April 13. We started early, and found the road as far as Santa Fé exceedingly sandy and difficult for carriages. Santa Fé is situated in the midst of a prairie affording tolerable pasture for cattle, and has the honor of municipal regulation in the shape of an alcalde. There are some twenty little houses of trelliswork at this place. At the river San Juan, six miles from Santa Fé and twelve from Vigara, over which is thrown a fine bridge of masonry with a long causeway at its western extremity, we halted and dined. Before leaving, Worth's advance, consisting of Duncan's battery and Lieutenant-Colonel C.F. Smith's light companies, reached the San Juan, where they encamped for the night. Resuming our march at three P.M., we pushed forward over at times a somewhat rough and hilly road, and at other points easy and practicable, till we reached our camping ground for the night, the Talome River, having a one-arch bridge. Wednesday, April 14. Resuming our march early in the morning, we reached the National Bridge at about ten A.M., distant eight miles from our encampment, after making a halt of an hour at Paso de Obejas (distant two and one half miles from Talome), where we met a wagon train. There is a considerable village at this river. On leaving the village, the road winds its way to the top of a very high hill, where there is an inspiring view of the surrounding country. Whilst the general was halting at the village, I rode to the top of the hill to take a view. At some distance to the south I could see a small band of rancheros watching the movements of our party. The National Bridge is a model of the kind, possessing much architectural beauty, and impressing the mind of the beholder that an iron and a lofty race had done this work in the solitudes of the mountain pass. The scenery is of the most picturesque and imposing character. The road, previous to reaching the bridge, winds round a bold tongue of land, on the edge and apex of which a little fort had been built. From the first view of the pass, the road descends the side of a steep hill, constructed originally with great care, due attention having been paid to both curves and grades. On passing the bridge, on the left is a bold promontory, and the little fort and the open village at the other extremity of the bridge. On the right and downward side the river flows through a deep ravine, on either side of which perpendicular columns of rock rise hundreds of feet. The current gently flowed over a rocky bed, and was at points fordable. A thunderstorm in this mountain pass, the swollen stream rushing impetuously to the sea, must be terrific. After halting two hours at the National Bridge, we pushed on to the Plano del Rio, the advance of the army. This was a difficult march of thirteen miles, with no water on the road for our horses. At some four miles from the bridge we reached a causeway, built with care, and which, leading over a little depression at its foot, is conducted almost to the top of a hill on the other side. On our way we met parties from camp searching the country for beef. We reached the Plano del Rio at about five o'clock, and after remaining about an hour with Major Smith and Captain Lee, I accompanied Lieutenant Tower on a reconnoissance. We proceeded on the Jalapa road some three miles and a half, until we came in view of Battery 4 on the left of the road. Then, returning a short distance, we proceeded some distance on a path leading from the road till we came in view of the same battery, and one farther to the left, No. 3. From an examination of a sketch of Lieutenant Tower, exhibiting the results of all the reconnoissances since the arrival of General Twiggs, there could be little doubt that the proper mode of attack was to the right, so as to turn the enemy's works and compel them to lay down their arms. The reconnoissances were not, however, complete, and the general, after informing himself of the position as far as it had been ascertained, determined that the reconnoissances should be extended. I found a bath in the river most delightful and refreshing after the severe labors of the day. Thursday, April 15. The reconnoissances of the whole position were continued to-day; Captain Lee, with Mason, Beauregard, and myself, escorted by Major Sumner on the right, Tower on the front. On reaching the point of the road before coming in view of Battery 4, I was informed by Bowman, a wagon-master of Twiggs's division, that on the other side of the river there was a practicable trail leading to the river some eight miles above the bridge, and where would probably be found a practicable ford. After accompanying Captain Lee in his reconnoissance to a high hill about seven hundred yards from the Cerro Gordo, the key of the enemy's position, and getting a full view of it and of the ravines, valleys, etc., to the right, I returned home with a guide, and reported the statement of Bowman to Major Smith. He was then starting with an escort to examine the enemy's works from the left bank of the river, with the view of establishing enfilading batteries against them. I also accompanied him; and after he had made his examinations, I requested permission to continue farther up, with a portion of the escort, till I could get a better view of the enemy's rear. A body of four hundred cavalry having been observed only about four miles up the river bank, Major Smith felt constrained to refuse my request. On returning from the reconnoissance I explained very fully my general views in reference to the proper mode of conducting the reconnoissances of the position, and that though thus far particular points had been carefully examined, and the engineer officers had been very industrious, yet the reconnoissances had been undertaken on too limited a scale, and did not cover the whole of the position. The dragoons are admirable for extensive reconnoissances, yet no attempt has been made to determine the practicability and even the existence of certain routes, on both the right and left, which are said to obtain; that branching from the Jalapa road, a little this side of the National Bridge, joined it again a short distance before reaching Jalapa. Either of these routes, pursued by Worth's column, would have effectually turned the position of the Cerro Gordo. Moreover, the reconnoissance on the right bank of the river had not been extended so as to get a view of the rear of the Cerro Gordo; and from the circumstance that four hundred lancers were on the right river bank, and in position about four miles above the bridge, the inference was almost conclusive that there was a practicable ford leading to the position in rear of the Cerro Gordo, and which the lancers were thrown out to cover. It was also suggested that a spirited reconnoissance in that direction would settle two essential questions, essential to properly combining the plan of attack,--1, Whether there was not a practicable ford, by means of which the enemy could escape, and at which point a column of attack might be directed against him; 2, Whether the main body, or a considerable portion thereof, might not be _en masse_ in rear of the position of the Cerro Gordo hill, and thus not be cut off by the flank movement to the right, unless extended to a wider circuit than was intended. This reconnoissance was pressed earnestly as essential, to get correct information in regard to the intentions and position of the enemy. Friday, April 16. The reconnoissance I had recommended was ordered by General Scott on the requisition of Major Smith, and fifty dragoons, under the command of Lieutenant Steele, were placed at my disposal. With Bowman as guide, we started about half past eight o'clock, and, after crossing both branches of the river and ascending to the ranch on the hill, we struck into a broad trail, perfectly practicable for horses and field artillery, and after pursuing our way some two and three quarter miles, came to a trail nearly at right angles, and which Bowman represented as six miles distant. Leaving the escort here with Steele, Bowman, and a beef contractor, we continued in a direct course nearly a mile to some ranches, where we took a man and boy to get information. On our return we proceeded with the whole escort on the perpendicular trail to another ranch, about half a mile distant, and finally to the river supposed by Bowman to be the main stream. We found it simply a tributary to the stream flowing under the first bridge, and the descent to the ravine through which it flowed was scarcely practicable for a mounted horseman. Leaving a small escort at the ravine, the main body returning to the ranch, with Bowman I pushed forward up the other side of the ravine, and proceeded about half a mile, and nearly to the foot of a spur that led obliquely to the main branch and in a direction a little beyond the Cerro Gordo. After examining the routes and the configuration of the country, I became satisfied that the reconnoissance could not be pushed farther in this direction to any practicable result, but that the best course would be to cross the spur at a depression and extend the reconnoissance down the other side to the river. On my return to the ranch, whilst proceeding at an easy pace, I found that an old rupture which had been cured fifteen years had broken out, and before I reached the ranch I began to suffer the most excruciating pain. The further continuance of the reconnoissance was abandoned, and I returned to camp, a distance of four miles, suffering very great pain. First Dr. Brown attended me, and I was soon relieved of pain by applying cold water. Dr. Tripler applied a very fine truss, and in the course of the evening I felt perfectly comfortable. [Illustration: BATTLE OF CERRO GORDO] Saturday, April 17. This day I remained in camp, able to move about only a little and with great care. In the movement of General Twiggs to his position in order of battle, he was discovered, and a spirited combat ensued, which resulted in dislodging the enemy from a hill seven hundred yards from the Cerro Gordo, and upon which a battery of one 24-pounder and two 26-pounder howitzers was put in position during the night. Sunday, April 18. As determined on yesterday, the position of the enemy was attacked to-day and, after a most brilliant conflict, the Cerro Gordo was stormed by the brigade of Colonel Harney, the enemy's line of retreat on the Jalapa cut off by Shields's brigade of volunteers and Riley's brigade of regulars. A large portion of the enemy made their escape on the Jalapa road, and across the river at the ford before alluded to. Pillow made an attack in front, but failed in consequence of its being made prematurely, with great precipitation, without order in the assaulting columns, and before the supporting columns were in position, and at the wrong point, viz., in a ravine swept by the fire of two batteries, and with serious impediments in the way of abattis and felled trees. This attack, both as to time and as to direction, was earnestly remonstrated against by the engineer officer directing the attack, by the personal staff of the general, and by Colonel Campbell, second in command. Had the attack been made on the enemy's extreme right, the true point of attack, and which was supposed to be the point determined upon by the general until he announced a different intention on arriving on the ground, it would have succeeded. It was fortunate the attack failed. It kept the garrisons of the batteries in their places and increased the number of prisoners. Shields behaved most gallantly in his advance to the Jalapa road, and was severely--supposed at the time mortally--wounded by a grapeshot that passed through his body. His advance captured Santa Anna's carriage. Worth's division was not engaged, acting simply as a reserve. The storming of the Cerro Gordo was one of the most brilliant things on record. Whilst it was in progress, four thousand of the enemy were put in motion to turn their flanks, but the Cerro Gordo falling into our hands before they became engaged, they took ignominiously to flight. So certain was Harney that such would be the effect, when two thousand troops were reported to him as threatening each flank, he simply gave the order to extend to the right and left, and kept pushing up, and after a sharp conflict drove the enemy from the breastworks and down the hill. The retreat of the enemy was a perfect rout. A portion in small bodies retreated on the Jalapa road. Many troops fled to the chapparal, making their escape through almost impracticable paths. Santa Anna himself made his escape with a few attendants across the river and at the ford, whose existence was not verified till after the battle in consequence of the serious injury that occurred to me, preventing my extending the reconnoissance as I contemplated. Ampudia with a few officers retreated on the Jalapa road, and very nearly fell into our hands. Twiggs's division was pushed forward hotly in pursuit, and encamped at Encerro, fourteen miles distant, the night of the battle, and reached Jalapa the next day. He was closely followed by the volunteer division, General Patterson assuming command of the whole. Worth returned to camp with the general and his staff. I was on my back a portion of the day, and was just able to drag about camp. CAMP NEAR CERRO GORDO, Sunday, April 15, 1847, 5 P.M. MY DEAREST WIFE,--I have glorious news to tell you. This day we had a hard-fought battle at this place, the first great mountain pass on the highway from Vera Cruz to Mexico. The result is a most decisive victory, resulting in the capture of six thousand Mexicans, and the loss on our part of about three hundred killed and wounded. General Twiggs is now in hot pursuit of Santa Anna, who was present in command, and his remnant of five or six thousand men. He will, we trust, enter Jalapa to-night, fifteen miles distant. His division of somewhat less than three thousand men did the hard work, and will of course have the highest award of praise. As for your poor husband, his was the part to stay in camp. Two days since I conducted a reconnoissance on the left of the enemy's line over very difficult ground, with fifty dragoons to support me. I rode hard through the morning, and about three in the afternoon an old rupture in the groin, which troubled me when a boy from ten to fourteen years of age, broke out again after a perfect cure of fifteen years. So excruciating was the pain that it required the greatest exertion to get to camp, four miles distant, on my horse. Fortunately one of the best physicians in the army, Dr. Tripler, was able to attend upon me, and most fortunate of all he had a solitary truss of the best workmanship, which just fitted me. Dr. Tripler has prescribed the utmost quietude, has forbidden all excitement, and especially all riding on horseback. I had already received the appointment of adjutant of engineers, and my staff duties I can still attend to. All my friends express great sympathy for my misfortune. General Scott expressed himself in terms that won my heart. He remarked, "You engineers are too daring. You require to be held back. My young friend, I almost cried when I heard of your mishap." I have made a great many friends since I joined the army. It may be well that I have received this check. Ever since I joined the army, I have been too impetuous, too headstrong. I have made great physical exertion. Now I am obliged to rein in the power of muscles, in which I do not excell, and have equal opportunities to develop the mental as before I became incapacitated. I shall have charge of the train of the engineers, which is carried in quite a number of wagons, and shall therefore be always able to ride in a wagon. My horse is one of the finest animals in the army, and is a most fast, easy, and beautiful walker, and he will therefore be no impediment to my riding on horseback. All my friends of the engineers did well. Captain Lee has won golden opinions. Mason is rising rapidly in the esteem of all. He is one of the most disinterested as well as one of the most talented men in the army. If I have a perfectly devoted friend in the whole army, it is Mason. He makes no professions; he is always true to himself and his views of right, but I have his friendship and he has mine. My old chum Tower did splendidly. He is a man of great powers of mind and determined energy of character. He will probably be brevetted for his services at this place and at Vera Cruz. To-morrow the whole army resumes its onward march. In one day we shall enter Jalapa. General Scott is winning golden opinions. He is prodigiously popular with the volunteers, and the whole army has confidence in him. During the whole continuance of the battle to-day he was much exposed. The movement which resulted in the great victory of to-day was to the right and rear of the enemy, and the success of it hinged on the taking of a little work on the top of an almost inaccessible hill. The famous Colonel Harney of the dragoons led the forlorn hope in the attack of this position, and was closely followed by the 3d and 7th infantry. Up rushed our troops, amidst the most deafening cheers from the whole line. Steadily advanced the stars and stripes to the very Mexican standard floating from the Mexican work. For one moment in the most difficult point our flag disappeared; again it rose, and was immediately planted in triumph on the top of the hill. In four weeks we shall most certainly be in the City of Mexico, unless previously the Mexicans make overtures of peace. My dear wife, do not feel anxious for me. I have the means, and shall take care of my health. My hopes of distinction have in a measure vanished, but still I have the satisfaction that I can be highly useful. My general health is very good. Remember me to Mary and my dear children, to Judge Peabody, and all my friends. Your affectionate husband, ISAAC. CHAPTER IX JALAPA.--PUEBLA Monday, April 19. This was a lazy day in camp, the general and his staff being occupied with the charge of the prisoners, and preparing the proper dispatches. It was determined to release all the prisoners and officers on parole. Thus 2700 men (and 200 having escaped the previous day whilst coming into camp, and before they had reached the charge of General Worth) were sent, with rations to subsist them on their way home, to and beyond Jalapa. La Vega, one of the prisoners, announced his intention not to accept his parole, but to go to the United States. The surgeons, moreover, were most actively engaged in caring for the wounded. The wounds of the men generally were slight, and all the disabled were cheerful and in high spirits. The wounds of the Mexicans were bad, and many of their dead were shot in the head. General Shields, to the surprise of all, still survived, was in excellent spirits, and did not doubt that he would get well. At half past one the general-in-chief and his staff, with an escort of dragoons, started for Jalapa, and passed the night at Encerro, the residence of Santa Anna. Worth, who marched from the Plano del Rio in the morning, reached Jalapa the same night. On the road I saw several dead, disfigured with horrible wounds. I was obliged to ride in a wagon, the surgeon having forbidden my riding on horseback. The country seat of Santa Anna is delightfully situated in the midst of a rolling country, abounding in herds of cattle, and all the fruits of both tropics. His house is of two stories, the first being appropriated to kitchens, store-rooms, etc., and the second to the family. Several rooms were well furnished, and were garnished with paintings on historical subjects, for the most part Mexican and Spanish. We saw several of his wooden legs. Tuesday, April 20. The general and staff reached Jalapa about eleven A.M., after a most beautiful ride of eight miles. Along the road were to be observed the Mexican troops in little groups of two or three, accompanied by their women, of whom there were many at their camp at the Cerro Gordo. I ventured to try my horse, and found for the time being less inconvenience than in the wagon. The appearance of the country, rolling and green, was very inviting. As we approached the city, the rear of Worth's wagons was in the road, the men and mules almost entirely exhausted by the long march of yesterday. Major Smith, in consequence of injuries resulting from riding on horseback, was obliged to ride, and accompanied Major Sumner (wounded in the conflict of the 17th inst.) in the carriage of Santa Anna. On reaching the city I had the pleasure of meeting Captain Lee, Lieutenant Beauregard, and Lieutenants Smith and McClellan of the engineer company, who were in the advance with Twiggs. Quarters were assigned Major Smith and myself in the governor's house, the headquarters of General Scott. The same afternoon General Worth was pushed forward in the advance, Captain Lee, Lieutenants Mason and Tower, and the engineer company accompanying him. It was reported that La Hoya and Perote had been abandoned, and that a body of three or four thousand lancers was on the route to Puebla. Wednesday, April 21. I was busily engaged to-day in organizing the train of the engineer company, the mules having proved very poor on the route from Plano del Rio, and many of the animals being entirely unserviceable. On requisition from the senior engineer, the general directed that a train of eight wagons should be furnished by the quartermaster at Vera Cruz to bring up the engineer train that remained, and as many of the engineer implements as practicable. Lieutenant Foster, in the afternoon, with the engineer train that had come up from the Plano del Rio, started to join his company at Perote. Sapper Noyes went to Vera Cruz in the train of Friday morning to point out to the quartermaster the articles that were needed. Thursday to Saturday, April 22-24. Nothing especial occurred on these days. I have been principally engaged whilst at my leisure in going about the town, observing the people and their customs. Sunday, April 25. This day I attended high mass in the cathedral. The church was decorated considerably, though with little taste. There were several figures of the Virgin Mary. The people seemed attentive to the various ceremonies, and were scrupulous in observing the prescribed forms. Not many of the higher classes were present. Some few elegant and well-dressed ladies were to be seen. Monday to Thursday, April 26-29. During these days I have been collecting facts in relation to the battle of Cerro Gordo, with the view of making a general map and digesting a connected military narrative. In consequence of all the officers, except Lieutenant Beauregard and myself, having gone to Perote, there were no means of making an accurate survey of the positions, or of getting sketches of the various reconnoissances, to form a general plan. The only sketch forwarded from Perote was one by Lieutenant Tower. I have met during these days several old friends, particularly Tilden and Haskin. Canby I have seen much of. April 30. This day I was busily occupied in preparing a memoir on the proper mode of conducting the war, in case Mexico shall pursue the guerrilla system, and obstinately refuse to listen to terms of accommodation. I find great difficulty in procuring information as to routes, etc. The weather in Jalapa is delightful. For the past four days copious showers towards evening have exercised the most healthful and invigorating influence upon the troops here. Since the arrival of headquarters on Tuesday, April 20, there has been a remarkable equableness of temperature. Jalapa is the very Eden of Mexico, and its picturesque situation in the very bosom of the mountains is nowhere surpassed. Such is the perfect amenity and smiling aspect of nature at this favored spot, that all the seasons of the year meet together. All the days of the year are both seedtime and harvest. The place is singularly beautiful in its perennial bloom, and in the flowers and gardens of its people. They seem to be a happy, easy race, and many of the people are of refinement and intelligence. There are indications in the suburbs of Jalapa of more populousness and wealth than now obtain, as in the wells of masonry to be seen, fifty feet and more in depth, etc. The snowy peak of Orizaba, fifteen thousand feet above the sea, is to be seen far above the clouds, which at times hang over its base. JALAPA, Thursday, April 22, 1847. MY DEAREST WIFE,--We entered this beautiful city, fragrant with flowers and shrubbery, at eleven o'clock Tuesday morning. Jalapa and the surrounding country is the Eden of Mexico. For many miles the country is in the highest state of cultivation. There is a perennial bloom. At this very moment all the fruits and every species of vegetation are to be seen in all their stages. On the same tree are seen blossoms and fruit. In the same field we observe grain and corn just springing from the seed, and we see it ready for the sickle. The market abounds in oranges, bananas, peppers, lettuce, cabbages, cauliflower, onions, lemons, peas (green), beans, tomatoes, etc. The refinement and cultivation of the people are to be seen in their taste for flowers. At all points the most beautiful flowers strike your eye. All the houses of the lower classes, as well as of the higher, have gardens of flowers in rear. As you pass through the street you every moment get glimpses of fountains and shrubbery. Jalapa is more than Capua of old. It is Capua with all its beauty and serenity, but without its _abandon_. The people are refined, courteous, intelligent, and upright. Here we shall remain for some ten days or a fortnight, to organize the campaign, and prepare for the march to Mexico. Jalapa will be the great base of operations. We left the Plano del Rio on Monday. I rode on a wagon, and reached Encerro, the hacienda of Santa Anna, a distance of fourteen miles, the same evening. The general and his staff passed the night here. It is beautifully situated on a commanding hill, with ample outbuildings, an artificial pond for bathing, etc., and a paved road branching from the main Jalapa road. The hacienda of two stories was elegantly furnished on the second floor, the first floor being appropriated to kitchens, store-rooms, etc. We saw several of Santa Anna's wooden legs. General Scott gave us in the evening a nice supper with wine. I rode on Tuesday from Encerro to Jalapa on my horse, and found it about as comfortable as a wagon. The distance was about eight miles. The morning was beautiful and the scenery enchanting. On reaching the city we found some seven or eight thousand of our troops under arms. For the first time since Cortez the hostile feet of a foreign race trod its pavements. The most perfect tranquillity prevailed. The people are well treated, receive good prices for all they wish to sell, and do not feel the weight of a foreign yoke. Last evening we received intelligence that General Taylor entered the city of San Luis Potosi on the 13th of this month. Well done, indomitable old hero! It is somewhat doubtful whether I shall go on with the army. The surgeon advises me to remain here for the present. With care he thinks I may rely on a permanent cure. Care, however, is required. JALAPA, May 1, 1847. MY DEAREST WIFE,--I am glad to be able to assure you that my health is improving. It is not yet safe for me to ride my horse, and I think that my ride from Encerro, the country seat of Santa Anna, to Jalapa put me back some days. I can walk without any inconvenience by being careful as to my gait, and avoiding all sudden steps. I am not in the least incapacitated for office duty, and am, excepting my injury, in very vigorous health. It is hard, I assure you, in this beautiful region to be detained from enjoying my fine horse. As it is, he stands in the stable doing nothing. On Monday, May 3, I shall move on with General Patterson's advance, in charge of the engineer train, to join the engineer corps with Worth. The brilliant conflict of Cerro Gordo came upon the Mexicans like a thunderbolt, and is the most decisive blow of the war. The road is free to the City of Mexico, and I have no doubt General Scott will be there in six weeks. It is said the Mexicans will resort to the guerrilla mode of warfare. It will be found worse than useless. It will be found of assistance to our arms. General Scott will enforce the strictest discipline, and the people of the country will remain undisturbed in their houses. A fair price will be paid for everything that is consumed. The war will be made to bear with a heavy hand upon all connected with the government, and upon the property of all disaffected persons. Don't feel alarmed about the observation in the papers in reference to the terrible and atrocious character of guerrilla warfare. No one here feels the least alarm. Twelve resolute men can disperse a hundred rancheros. As guerrilla troops our volunteers are infinitely superior to the Mexicans. The Mexicans as guerrilla troops are poor. They are generally very inferior troops. They are best behind breastworks, yet our men find no difficulty in storming them. You may be sure that this city is a most charming place. We do not find the upper classes disposed to associate with us. Jalapa is said to be one of the most exclusive places in Mexico, the society being broken up into cliques, and families living among themselves as in New Bedford. The upper classes are indeed said to be very hostile to us. We are now about building a battery to overawe the city, where a ten-inch mortar will be mounted. The terrible destruction at Vera Cruz from our shells has been spread over all Mexico, and with all the exaggeration of the Spanish character. All the cities have the greatest fear of our shells. The last few days I have been busily occupied in preparing a narrative of the brilliant conflict of the Cerro Gordo, illustrated with a sketch, and for the Engineer Department at Washington, and also in writing a memoir on the best mode of opposing the guerrilla warfare. The latter I have done chiefly for my own instruction. It is possible, if I can finish it to my mind, I may have it published. I have some thoughts of sending it to General Scott at once. The general, however, is a very great talker and writer himself, and I doubt whether he could find time to read the memoir. Sunday, May 2. The train does not go till to-morrow, so I can tell you something of the occurrences of this day. Sunday is the great market day of Jalapa, and this morning I saw the greatest profusion of vegetables, watermelons in abundance, the finest oranges, bananas, plantains, cauliflower, cabbage, lettuce, celery, beans, peas, squashes, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, green corn, rare-ripe onions, tomatoes. The onions are the finest I ever saw. They are far superior to our own. Many well-dressed ladies were to be seen in the market with their servants. I went to the cathedral, but remained only a short time. I consulted to-day Dr. Wright, the hospital surgeon of Jalapa, in reference to my difficulty, and he speaks in the most encouraging manner. He says there is no objection to my riding a portion of the distance on horseback, and that with care there is not the least danger in advancing with the army. May 3. In the expectation that the march would take place to-morrow, I was busily engaged preparing for my departure. The sappers remaining in this place made all their arrangements, and the engineer train of eight wagons was put in perfect order, a wagon master and two extra men having been provided for. General Patterson's advance brigade, that would serve as our escort, was the brigade of Quitman. In the evening, about eight o'clock, an express came up from Vera Cruz. May 4. I rose early, having decided to start at half past six o'clock. Some delays occurred, and when in readiness to start, at half past seven, I was informed that the order to march had been countermanded. Consequently everything was put back in its place. About eleven A.M. Carigan, a sick sapper, died at the hospital. He had been sick almost from the first day he came into the country. His case was not considered incurable at Vera Cruz, but the journey to Jalapa, riding in a wagon over a rough road, proved too much for his strength. He was buried in the afternoon in a convent churchyard, his remains having been accompanied by myself and five sappers. When his body was lowered into its final resting-place, I made a few remarks on the peculiar circumstances of his case, dwelling upon the fact that his short service had not been in vain, and that he had served his country, and as much died for his country as though he had fallen at Vera Cruz or at Cerro Gordo. Sergeant Clark and A.M. Noyes, on my calling on them, made a few very appropriate remarks in reference to his case, and bore cheerful testimony to his excellent character and the esteem in which he was held by his associates. Regan, a sapper who had enlisted with him, and who had known him for a long time, was a most sincere mourner. He seemed to reproach himself as the cause of Carigan's death, in consequence of his own example having been the cause of Carigan's enlistment. I stated to Regan that he had no cause to reproach himself, and that in writing to Carigan's friends he could dwell upon the circumstances of Carigan's having received every attention, and finally having been buried in one of the most beautiful regions of the earth, and in ground consecrated by the religious solemnities of his faith. May 5. There are reports that Santa Anna intends cutting off the large train coming from Vera Cruz in a few days, in consequence of which Captain Bainbridge with a battalion of infantry proceeded downward yesterday, to be followed by Colonel Riley and a portion of his brigade to-morrow, the whole to take a position at the National Bridge. I now hold myself in readiness to move forward at any moment. But in the present aspect of affairs, three regiments of volunteers returning home, much sickness amongst the troops, and no certainty as to the arrival of new levies, it is not certain that it will be possible to move beyond Puebla. May 7. Left Jalapa this morning at 7.30 in charge of the second section of the engineer train, to join the advance of General Worth, and under the escort of General Quitman's brigade, to whom I reported on my arrival at his encampment. He did not get under way till towards noon, and, after marching two hours through a cultivated and beautiful country, we reached the village of El Soldado, about eight miles from Jalapa. After halting an hour at this place the command pursued its march through a most picturesque and beautiful country, presenting at the different points a varied view of the valley, dotted all over with villages, and with fields of corn and barley, and parties of laborers by the roadside peacefully pursuing the cultivation of the soil. At La Hoya, defended with some care at a pass between two high hills, with a succession of barriers in the road, two arranged with a single embrasure for guns, was to be seen the apple-tree in blossom, and also the pine-tree. We halted at Las Vegas for the night, the road hither ascending all the way, and the character of the trees rapidly changing to the fir, the black birch, and the mountain oak. Las Vegas is a somewhat straggling village of perhaps about two thousand people, situated in a depression or valley in the hills, which to the northeast expand into a most fertile and agreeable plain, highly cultivated along the west side. Most inviting fields of barley and corn had remained untouched, though the horses of our troops had subsisted on the former. Jalapa to El Soldado, seven miles; to La Hoya, three miles (large); to tank on left, nine miles; to Las Vegas, three miles; Jalapa to Las Vegas, twenty-two miles. May 8. Left Las Vegas about eight A.M. and reached Perote about twelve P.M., a distance of ten miles, or about. This route for the first three miles is quite rough and uneven. At the end of the third mile is a very long and difficult descent, at the foot of which is a beautiful stream of ice-cold water, flowing directly from the Coffre de Perote. Here the whole command were refreshed. After ascending a considerable hill we again, after a gentle descent, gained a little village at another, quite sluggish stream about a mile from the Rio Frio. A slight ascent brought us to the extended plain of Perote, ten or twelve miles in width and extending generally in a westerly direction as far as El Pinal. Perote, with its castle in the middle of the plain and towards its eastern extremity, was almost depopulated, and presented a very uninviting appearance. General Worth had collected here large stores of forage and flour, much rice, and some sugar and coffee. On reporting to General Worth, and stating my object (to join Captain Lee), I was directed to attach myself to Colonel Clarke's brigade, the last battalion of which was to march at seven A.M. on the 9th. I found Mason quite sick, and doubtful as to his ability to move on. Though somewhat fatigued with my day's march, I suffered no inconvenience from my rupture, though the entire distance from Jalapa was made on horseback. May 9. I left Perote this morning with Colonel Clarke at seven A.M., and arrived at San Antonio, a distance of seven miles, about eleven. A slight halt was made three miles from Perote. At one o'clock, after resting the mules, I proceeded with the train to Tepe Ahualco, which I reached after a distance of nine miles. Here I found the engineer company, and Captain Lee and Lieutenant Tower of the engineers. Captain Lee, unfortunately, was suffering from chills and fever. May 10. The brigade of Colonel Garland, with General Worth and staff, left Tepe Ahualco (a very mean village, with bad water) at eight o'clock, and after a march of ten miles through the plain reached the hacienda of Vireyes, where we encamped for the night. This hacienda, like most of the haciendas of the country, was a good substantial building on the four sides of a square, and arranged with reference to the defense of the interior space. The peons lived in mean habitations of mud and trellis-work, not equal to the dwellings of swine in New England. May 11. The march commenced at seven A.M., and after two halts,--one of about half an hour at Byzantium, distant eight miles, a village having its cathedral, one or two stores with pulque for sale, and pretty good houses for the peons; one of about two hours at Ojo de Agua, distant ten miles, a village not so considerable as the former, but noted for its clear water gushing in quite a large stream from the roadside,--we reached the hacienda Santa Annaced as a violent windstorm came on. Large stacks of barley straw in front of the hacienda afforded sustenance for many domestic animals. As we approached the village of Byzantium, a gently ascending and somewhat considerable hill on the left, cultivated to its very top with the maguey plant, and the green grass of the flowing stream at the base relieved the dryness of the plain, and afforded a most pleasing prospect. The road on the 10th and 11th was level; and for the most part good. Distance this day, about twelve miles. May 12. The march commenced at six A.M., the rear brigade of Colonel Clarke joining the advance brigade of Colonel Garland in its first movement, its encampment having been only two miles in rear. After proceeding some miles we entered Nopalucan, a considerable town of three churches, several fondas, and some substantial houses. The padre furnished the general and his officers an entertainment of spirits and cakes. The best people had shut up their houses and left the place. Before approaching Nopalucan, the road for some two miles passes through a highly cultivated tract of country, with some dozen haciendas on the right and left. An elevation on entering this tract affords a very charming prospect. After remaining two hours at Nopalucan the division moved forward, over in some portions a rough road, and encamped for the night one league this side of the Pass of El Pinal. May 13. At Nopalucan information was given that Santa Anna, with some fifteen hundred or two thousand lancers, had passed through that place on the 10th for Puebla, and at the camp of the 12th and 13th there were rumors that he had prepared mines in the road at El Pinal. In consequence the engineer company, Duncan's battery, and some other troops moved early to examine the pass. A false alarm during the night left many of the troops much harassed. El Pinal is no pass whatever, and the mines, of which rumor was so big, were little excavations commenced under the road in two places, but abandoned. El Pinal derives its name from the pine-trees, which are found to the very top of the mountains. At this point the road commences a rapid descent, and soon brings us to Acajete, a smaller place than Nopalucan, yet having its church and its fonda. Here the alcalde provided a collation for the general and his officers. After halting an hour and a half, we moved forward, and reached Amasoque about two o'clock. This is a village having a large public square and three fine churches. It is larger than Nopalucan, and must contain nearly four thousand inhabitants. It was determined to remain at Amasoque one entire day to enable General Quitman's command to come up, and accordingly General Worth's division was in expectation of a day's rest, but about nine o'clock. May 14, word was brought that five thousand lancers were marching down upon us. A reconnoissance by Captain Lee reduced the numbers to less than two thousand, and the movement seemed to look to the cutting of our communication with Quitman's column. It was so illy concerted that seventy shots from Duncan's battery and a few from Steptoe's turned the enemy from their apparent purpose, and caused them to turn to their left and make good their retreat. A column of about six hundred, however, continued their course, veering a little to the left to keep out of the reach of Quitman, who, on hearing our guns, hastened the march of his troops, and effected a junction with Worth with great celerity. This column was followed by myself, Lieutenant McClellan, and three dragoons as far as the hacienda San Miguel, some five miles from Amasoque. On the way thither we crossed a very deep arroyo, along a very good though very steep mule-path. At the hacienda, having ascertained from the people and from their trail that the column had continued their eccentric course, we returned in a somewhat different direction, and having crossed an arroyo by an almost impracticable path, and fallen on and nearly captured a Mexican officer and his servant, we came to where the arroyos met, and were obliged to retrace our steps. We reached headquarters about three o'clock. I was exceedingly exhausted by my exertions. Lieutenant McClellan was very gallant and prompt in pursuing the Mexican, and lost him in consequence of the chapparal. A pony that was led by the servant was given to the men. NOTE. The occurrences of this day show two things: 1st. Troops should be quartered or encamped in reference to the attack of an enemy, and the site should always be determined by officers of engineers. 2d. On the arrival of troops at the place of encampment, an examination should be made to determine the principal circumstances in reference to the roads and the general features of the topography of the country, so that, in case of an attack or demonstration, we should have the necessary information to strike a vigorous blow at the enemy, and push him into a precipitate retreat. At Amasoque nothing was known in the morning in reference to the roads of the village itself leading to the direction where the enemy was known to be, until the reconnoissance was made after the presence of the enemy was reported. Still less was anything known in regard to the existence of the arroyos, which cut up the surface of the plain, and rendered it entirely impracticable for cavalry and artillery to operate, till the crossings (used by the people of the country and known by their troops) were carefully ascertained. During the whole march from Tepe Ahualco, these things had been entirely _neglected_. Captain Lee and Lieutenant Tower made a reconnoissance of the country towards Puebla, and discovered that the main body of the enemy had retrograded to a village some eight miles from and off the main road to Puebla. Colonel Garland's brigade was pushed forward about two miles and bivouacked for the night. The troops were ordered to march, first at nine P.M., then at three A.M., and finally at five A.M., in order to concentrate near Puebla in the course of the morning. In consequence of these continual changes, the troops were exceedingly and needlessly harassed. May 15. The army moved at five A.M., and at a village three miles from Amasoque, commissioners were found in waiting to treat for the occupation of the city. The assurances of the general were satisfactory to them. They were simply a recognition that Puebla should be no exception to the general course our army has pursued in this country as regards the inviolability of the rights, persons, religion, and authority of the city, so far as not incompatible with its military occupation. The troops in the course of the day were all got into quarters, although it was accomplished in a very undignified manner, the general, at the head of his staff, personally superintending the breaking open of the doors of the barracks whenever they were not opened by the keys in season to satisfy his impatient spirit. May 16-22. The army continued in the peaceful occupation of Puebla, and nothing occurred to disturb the general tranquillity except two or three cases of broils, occasioned by the imprudence of our own people, and one report of the march of Santa Anna to attack the city. Some changes were made in the distribution of troops, much attention paid to the rumors of the streets, and no general system of measures adopted in relation to the defenses of the city, or to the dispositions to be made in case of the attack of an enemy. The people were decidedly hostile to Santa Anna, and our respect for their rights was making a decided change in our favor. On the 20th and 21st the city was rife with rumors of the approach of General Taylor to San Luis Potosi, and at length it was said that General Taylor had been taken prisoner and hanged. Information came on the 21st that General Scott was still at Jalapa, and would not leave till the 23d. May 23, 24. Affairs continue tranquil. Information has come that General Twiggs left Jalapa Saturday, May 22, and was followed by General Scott on Sunday. My own health is improving very rapidly, and on the 24th I reported to Captain Lee my readiness for duty. May 25. Engaged on a reconnoissance of the road to Tlascala. There are two roads, one for carriages and one for mules, which continue separate the whole distance to Tlascala. This reconnoissance occupied seven hours, and was supported by twelve sappers. May 26. Accompanied Captain Lee and Lieutenants Mason and Tower in an examination of the hill and the adjacent parts of the city, to determine a position for our troops in case of the attack of the enemy. The occupation of the hill, the Cuartel San José, and some buildings on the right and left, fulfilled the conditions quite well. It commanded the city, and the approaches to it in the direction of the hill afforded room for stores, wagons, and animals. This examination was suggested to General Worth by Captain Lee on the first occupation of the city, but was deferred in consequence of press of business, and was ordered to-day in consequence of a report that a strong force of the enemy was marching upon the city from Mexico. May 27. A fatigue party with some sappers, and all under the direction of Lieutenant Smith, were employed to-day in repairing the parapet of Fort Guadalupe, on the summit of the hill. The engineer officers were engaged generally in examining roads entering the city, and plotting the same. May 28. General Scott and staff arrived to-day. Engineers employed as yesterday. May 29. General Twiggs arrived with his division to-day at three P.M., and at one o'clock the long roll beat in consequence of a report of the approach of the enemy, twenty thousand strong. This proved to be unfounded. May 30, 31. The only occurrence of interest is Santa Anna's solemn renunciation of power, and return to private life. He declares in his manifest that he has labored with a single eye to the good of his country, and can review with satisfaction and without reproach his whole public career. I cannot but entertain the opinion that Santa Anna's renouncing all authority is in consequence of a fixed determination on his part to be "Aut Cæsar aut nihil." It may be the deliberate act of a great statesman and patriot, more firmly to maintain the authority necessary to save his country. He may act from the conviction that his country, seeing that he would not continue in authority in this crisis unless he were cordially supported by all parties, would with one voice recall him to public life and invest him with full powers. So far as I am able to judge, Santa Anna's career, since his return to Mexico, has been most glorious and remarkable. Without resources, and in the midst of internal discord, he has organized two large armies, and made one of the most extraordinary marches in all history. He has been defeated, but throughout has shown an admirable constancy, and exhibited high military qualities. In strategic operations he has shown marked ability. At Buena Vista he came within an ace of utterly defeating General Taylor, and had he succeeded (and the probabilities were in his favor), he would have been able to excite to the highest pitch of enthusiasm the whole nation. A large army might have been raised, and our advance into the interior effectually checked. On the field of battle he has not proved equal to us. But it is probably due to the nature of his troops, who in the shock of the conflict are inferior to us, three or four to one. At Angostura, and at the Cerro Gordo, he exhibited courage and an indefatigable spirit. He did not leave the height of the Cerro Gordo till the very moment of its falling into our hands, and he was obliged to make his escape on one of the wheel mules of his carriage. Nor were his spirits depressed by this overwhelming defeat. He immediately rallied his troops at Orizaba, a strategic position in reference to the whole route of Jalapa from Vera Cruz to Puebla. Here he was able to threaten our lines of communication, and, without moving a step, he compelled us to protect our trains with large escorts as they came up from Vera Cruz to Jalapa. When nearly a whole brigade (Riley's) was sent down to protect the large train supposed to be the last of five hundred wagons, and it became evident that nothing more would be gained in this direction, he anticipated our advance, and threw himself between us and the City of Mexico. He has now renounced all authority. We must wait until his real object in taking this great step shall have become developed. June 3. We have rumors to-day that a reinforcement of 3000 men has landed at Antigua, and is on the march to Jalapa. It has been determined to break up Jalapa, place the sick in hospital in Perote, and bring up the whole disposable force to Puebla. At Perote and Jalapa are 800 sick and 1700 men in garrison. Leaving a garrison of 400 men in Perote, the remaining 1300 men, with 900 recruits, will increase the troops now at Puebla, 6000 effectives including officers (there are 700 sick), to 8200; of the 900 recruits, at least 200 will be left behind sick. So that 8000 men will be the extent of our force. We shall probably remain in Puebla till about the 1st of July, and then advance to the city with our whole force. I write this evening to my wife by a train going down to-morrow. It is doubtful whether the letter will reach the States. This is Corpus Christi Day. I attended church in the morning, and was anything but pleased with the idle ceremonies of the occasion. The Catholicism of this country is a great corruption of that of the United States. It is chiefly a religion of observances, and of the most burdensome and elaborate kind. Excepting human sacrifices, it is on a par with the religion of the Aztecs. A bull-fight having been advertised, I attended it with many other officers, but the performance was a very tame one. The bulls were barbarously butchered after having been lassoed and thrown down. Every one returned home disgusted. June 4. The news from Mexico to-day is less favorable to peace. The congress, it is said, has refused to accept the resignation of Santa Anna, and the latter has left Mexico to take command of the troops. The landing of Cadwallader with three thousand troops has been confirmed. Half a million of money is also on its way. Everything bears a favorable aspect now. The arrival of funds is of great consequence, in order that no necessity may arise to live by forced contributions. We ought to apply to the support of the war the revenues that formerly went to the central government, but in our dealings with individuals scrupulously to pay for every supply and service. To-day I was employed on the journal of last month. The officers were generally employed on the drawings. June 6. A mail arrived to-day with cheering news from the States. The government was exerting its energies to increase both columns of invasion, and, from the success which had already attended the recruiting service, there was little doubt that in the course of the season there would be thirty thousand troops in the field. Six regiments of volunteers for the war were also to be called out. June 7-21. The army has continued recruiting its strength and awaiting reinforcements. Daily drills in companies, battalions, brigades, and divisions have tended to give tone and efficiency to the command, though a counteracting influence has been found in the troops not being paid. Great discontent exists in consequence of this. Many of the troops are quartered in damp basements, and all live on fresh provisions, prolific causes of disease. The sickness has been as high as twenty-five per cent. of the whole number present, and even at this time is not much below this. In some regiments the company officers do not attend to their men, and particularly to their food. The use of the chili, or Mexican pepper, supplies the place of salt, and contributes essentially to the health of the troops. There have been occasional rumors of rising in the city, to be assisted by guerrillas. A small force is with the governor at Athsio, and all the roads are infested to some extent by this description of troops. There have been several attempts to induce our men to desert, and now a German is being tried for the offense, and will probably be put to death. The engineers have been employed in drawing a map of the city and its environs, completing the drawings of the siege of Vera Cruz, and collecting information in relation to the roads and localities in the valley of Mexico. The general-in-chief reached Puebla on the 28th, and on the following day all the engineer officers and the engineer company were relieved from duty with particular divisions, and placed under the direction of the senior engineer at general headquarters. General Twiggs arrived with his division on the 29th of June. Information was derived from Americans, residents of the City of Mexico, who joined the army as it penetrated into the country, and from Mexicans (robbers and contrabandists), etc. In consequence of these inquiries, Captain Lee was enabled to prepare a map of all the routes from Puebla to the City of Mexico and in its valley, and exhibiting generally the topography of the country, its hills, rivers, marshes, etc. Much information was also obtained in reference to the fixed means of defense of the enemy,--particularly the position and character of field-works and batteries, and the character of the obstructions from cuts in the causeways of approach to the city, and from inundations from the lakes. In the investigation of this matter, one circumstance transpired affording convincing proof that no difficulty would be found to bribe men of rank and influence. A merchant of Puebla, of some wealth, extensive connection, and large practical knowledge of localities in all parts of Mexico, for the sum of five thousand dollars proposed going to the City of Mexico and procuring accurate information in reference to the roads and localities in the valley of Mexico, the fixed means of defense of the enemy, the force, composition, distribution, and _morale_ of the troops, the state of public feeling in the city, etc. He professed a sufficient acquaintance with military matters to furnish the information with entire fullness and accuracy. Nor did he ask the least compensation for his services till the information furnished should be pronounced perfectly satisfactory. This proposition was finally declined by General Scott. It having been ascertained that Dominguez, the chief of the robbers from Vera Cruz to Mexico and a resident of Puebla, was willing to enter into the American service with at least a portion of the robbers, Major Smith proposed to the general-in-chief that they should be received, and employed as spies, guides, and couriers. This suggestion met with his approbation, and the inspector-general, Colonel Hitchcock, was associated with Major Smith in arranging a proper organization. Thus far the robbers have proved useful as spies and couriers. General Cadwallader is known to be on his way from Perote, and will probably reach Puebla with his command to-day or to-morrow. It is to be feared that the large number of sick will render it necessary to leave a garrison in Puebla, reducing, if the advance to Mexico obtain within ten days, the efficient fighting force to six thousand men. June 22-24. Information reached General Scott on the evening of the 23d that General Cadwallader was at Perote, and that he would leave next day and reach Puebla on Monday, the 29th. He met with serious resistance between Jalapa and Perote, particularly at the Pass of La Hoya. The 24th was St. John's Day, and was celebrated generally throughout the city. Some patriotic feeling was exhibited in the military dresses and flags of the boys. The engineer company obtained authority to change their quarters to the convent San Antonio. The subject of an engineer drill was under discussion by Lieutenants Mason, Stevens, and G.W. Smith, and it was decided that the manual of the miner should be translated. On the 24th I submitted to Major Smith a brief memoir on a system of espionage, and involving the employment of the robbers of the country. June 25-28. During these days information has reached headquarters of the landing of General Pillow at Vera Cruz, and of his order to General Cadwallader to await his arrival in Perote. The whole command, probably amounting to five thousand men, will arrive as early as the 5th of July. Rumors for several days have been rife in Puebla of negotiations for a treaty of peace being commenced. Several messengers are known to have arrived from Mexico, and the Mexican president has been notified by General Scott that a commissioner with powers to treat has arrived from the United States. I see no indication of the least disposition to treat on the part of the Mexican nation, and nothing can stay the advance of our army to the valley of Mexico. Even then, in consequence of the rainy season and the smallness of our force, we shall restrict ourselves to the narrowest limits; but a small portion of the heart of the country will feel our presence, and the spirit of the people will not be subdued. They will flatter themselves with the hope of soon driving from their capital and their soil the _infamous invader_. New armies will be raised, and we again in the fall obliged to take the field. North to Zacatecas let our arms extend! July 1. The Mexican congress, agreeably to the proclamation of the president, assembled on the 28th of June, but, wanting five of a quorum, adjourned to the 5th of July, the special subject of their consideration being the appointing of commissioners to treat of peace. Pillow reached Perote yesterday (probably), and will probably be in Puebla on the 7th or 8th inst. It is also supposed that Pierce has arrived in Vera Cruz with additional troops. It is a doubtful matter whether the Mexican congress will take a decided course in initiating negotiations, or whether the commissioners whom they appoint will agree upon the terms. I have every confidence that General Scott, whilst showing every disposition to respond to any desire for peace which the Mexican nation may express, and exerting his whole strength to accomplish that great object, will not permit it to be made a pretext to gain time, and a cover to the complete organization of the enemy's force. The enemy may treat at this time. They stickle on points of honor, and will have the greatest repugnance to the occupation of their capital. They see our force daily increasing. They have felt our prowess at the Cerro Gordo. They know we desire peace. Our terms are not hard. If we advance and enter the City of Mexico, their government will be in a measure dissolved, and the favorable moment for negotiations have gone. All these considerations must incline the candid and intelligent portion of the nation to arrange all matters in dispute before we advance from Puebla. Yet the Castilian obstinacy and pride may overrule all these considerations, and determine them to try the issue of a protracted contest. It is possible they may consider our terms, if agreed to, as the step fatal and inevitable towards the final occupation of the whole country, and, considering the present conflict as one for national independence, they may conclude to fight as long as a man remains to bear arms. For one, I cannot but consider the issue doubtful, and am inclined to the belief that nothing will come from the present movement, and that we shall advance to and enter the City of Mexico. July 4. The anniversary of our national independence has dawned upon the Americans in Puebla most auspiciously. News came last evening that General Pierce, with two thousand men, left Vera Cruz on June 28, and that in a week he would be followed by six thousand more troops. If this be true, we shall be able to launch a column of fifteen thousand men against the capital. It must fall into our hands with but little resistance. The rainy season should be devoted to the disciplining and reorganization of the whole army, new levies and old troops. Thus in October, based in the valley of Mexico, we shall be in condition to move in any direction, and doubtless, northward, our columns will march as far as Zacatecas, unless previously peace be agreed upon. A war fever has broken out afresh in the capital, and energetic measures are being taken to add to their means of defense. Church bells are being cast into cannon, and field-works and fortifications put in good condition. The engineer staff called on the general officers in the morning and dined together afterwards. We passed a pleasant day. July 6. A courier came in this morning with information that El Pinal was occupied by a guerrilla force of one thousand men, and that the train had been at Ojo de Agua two days, resting from the fatigues of the march from Perote. The roads were bad, and many of the teams had given out. Colonel Harney, with a force of seven hundred men and a relief train of forty wagons, started at eight o'clock, July 7, to disperse the assemblage at El Pinal, and meet the exposed train at Nopalucan. The troops still continue sick. About noon the arrival of General Pillow at Amasoque was announced; about five o'clock the dragoons arrived, bringing with them the long-expected mail. July 8. The troops reached Puebla about noon to-day, and as they passed General Scott in review, they made a sorry appearance. In some respects composed of good material, they have come in all haste to the seat of war without a single day's drill, and after a march of one hundred and sixty-one miles it is not surprising they were much worn down. The day in the city was by all devoted to reading letters and papers. I had the extreme felicity of getting five letters from my dear wife, announcing her comfortable settlement for the season in Newport. In a distant land, the pleasure of receiving intelligence from our dear friends at home is above and beyond all other pleasures. My latest dates were to the 31st of May. July 9. A general order of to-day assigned Pillow to the command of the third regular division, composed of Cadwallader's and Pierce's brigades, General Quitman continuing in command of the volunteer division till it shall become practicable to join his proper regular division with General Taylor. General Shields was assigned to the command of the volunteer brigade now in Puebla. We learned to-day that there was a movement to the north against Santa Anna in which eight states joined. The prospect of peace is very small. July 10. News from Mexico more unfavorable to peace. Congress wants eleven of a quorum. There are now eighteen thousand troops in the valley of Mexico, provided with arms and sixty pieces of cannon. Four thousand troops from San Luis Potosi are said to be daily expected. All the causeways are armed with cannon, protected by field-works with wet ditches. Important advantages will result from deferring the advance to Mexico till the close of the rainy season. Time will be gained to put the new levies in shape, instructing both officers and men in their duty, and making them more reliable before an enemy. The large number of sick will be much reduced, and sickness will be prevented by the march in dry weather. Reinforcements will come up. The disposition of the Mexicans for peace will be thoroughly tested, and ulterior operations after conquering the city and valley can be arranged. The war can be vigorously pushed in the dry season, with ample supplies of transportation. The new levies are utterly unreliable, and the main dependence is in the old troops, scarcely six thousand effective men. Not the least doubt is felt at our ability at this time to enter the capital, and it is not to be disguised that every day's delay increases the strength of the enemy's force and affords the means to perfect his works. I believe, however, that our own strength will increase in a greater ratio. The dry season will give important advantages in our own counter-works, greater in proportion than in those possessed by the enemy. Our victory will also be more decisive, and will have greater results. July 11, 12. The city has assumed its usual quietude, and it is to be hoped that effective measures will be at once taken to put the new levies in some state of efficiency. This morning (12th) a squadron of dragoons under the command of Captain Kearny set forth for Mexico with a flag in reference to an exchange of prisoners. A general order has just been published announcing an early and vigorous movement, directing reviews of the several divisions, and the utmost attention to tactical instruction, etc. It is understood the movement will commence on Tuesday, July 20. July 18. It has been ascertained that Pierce will not reach Puebla until about the first of August (he left Vera Cruz July 15 or 16), and consequently the advance movement has been deferred. I trust it will be deferred till the rainy season is over, and that in the mean time a train will go down and bring up additional supplies. The flag which went out on the 12th returned on the 14th. Captain Kearny went as far as Rio Frio, and made the distance, about forty miles, in ten hours. The flag is understood to have had reference to an exchange of prisoners. No answer has yet been returned. The review of the troops has been going on. General Twiggs has unquestionably the best division in the service. In conformity with instructions from the general-in-chief, Major Smith made a report on the 13th in reference to the garrison and munitions to be left in Puebla on the advance of the army to Mexico, and the position to be occupied by the garrison. On the 15th authority was given by the general to enlarge the engineer train. July 25. It is now considered hopeless to negotiate with the Mexican government until another blow is struck, and accordingly it has been intimated from headquarters that the advance division shall move as soon as the brigade of Pierce shall be within one day's march. As it is almost certain that Pierce has taken the Orizaba road, he cannot reach Puebla much before Thursday of next week, August 4, so that the advance cannot be made till about Wednesday, August 3. During the past week the conversations of the streets in reference to the probabilities of peace or war have been constantly fluctuating from one extreme to the other. Taking counsel of their desires, people have eagerly caught at straws to convince themselves that peace was certain. At no time, judging from actual facts, has there been much probability that the difficulties between the two governments would be adjusted at this stage of the business. The governing class of Mexico are easily elated; are characterized by remarkable tenacity of purpose and indomitable pride, which is not disposed to submit to humiliation; and they have at their head a fit representative in all respects, a man of extensive capacity both for peace and war, and who possesses in an eminent degree genius for command. In consequence of the long and necessary delay at Puebla, the enemy have been able to organize quite a formidable force in the City of Mexico, and to strengthen their position by batteries and artificial obstacles, till now, with the spirit of hopefulness so indigenous to the Spanish character, they believe themselves in condition successfully to oppose us. August 1. Last evening a courier brought notes from General Pierce and Colonel Wyncoop of the 29th ult. The former was at La Hoya with two thousand men, and no enemy on the road. General Smith, July 28, with the 1st artillery, 3d infantry, rifle regiment of New York volunteers, and one squadron of dragoons, went down to meet him, and at the last accounts was at Ojo de Agua. It is exceedingly difficult to push couriers through to Vera Cruz. They are sure to be searched, and shot if papers are found on them. Dispatches are made very short, on thin, small pieces of paper, and concealed in the garments of the couriers. It is believed that the enemy have relays of horses along the road from Vera Cruz to Mexico, and that intelligence is transmitted at the rate of six miles an hour. Every important transaction in Puebla is known at headquarters in the City of Mexico in ten to twelve hours. With our limited number of troops, it is impracticable to organize the line from Puebla to Vera Cruz so that our couriers could travel in safety with the same rapidity. Besides considerable garrisons in both Perote and Jalapa, there would have to be a strong force at Orizaba, and garrisons with stockade defenses on both the Orizaba and national roads every day's journey, say fifteen to twenty miles apart. I say it is impracticable so to organize our rear and have left a force adequate to the reduction of the City of Mexico. In my judgment it would be our true military policy immediately thus to organize our rear, and remain in Puebla till a well-disciplined army could be collected from the States. On Thursday, July 29, a court of inquiry asked for by Colonel Riley commenced its sittings, Pillow, Quitman, and Colonel Clarke, members. That gallant veteran and most excellent officer, Colonel Riley, has demanded an inquiry into his operations at the Cerro Gordo, on the ground that the services of his brigade have not received justice at the hands of General Twiggs and the commander-in-chief in their official reports. Riley was a daring and successful officer of the last war, and has been in more battles and combats than any other officer in the army. Though advanced in years, he is intrepid, decided, and of sound judgment. I doubt not the court of inquiry will make a report that will soothe the injured feelings of the gallant and good old man. PUEBLA, MEXICO, July 8, 1847. MY DEAREST WIFE,--I feel and know that here I can do some service for my country. So long as my services shall be needed here, I would not feel at liberty to ask to go home. I fear that peace cannot be brought about till some great blow is struck, and another signal victory won. Such is the wretched misgovernment of this people, and so discordant are their public counsels, so corrupt and selfish their public men, that I sometimes fear that the strong arm of military power alone can pacificate the nation. No nation on the face of the earth is a stronger exemplification of the strong governing the weak. Wherever our army has gone, the people have been benefited. You can hardly realize how conciliatory has been the deportment of our people throughout. All along the road from Vera Cruz to Puebla, beautiful fields of corn and grain were left untouched, when our horses were suffering for food. Any aggression on the property of the people is promptly punished and redressed. The Mexican army ravage their own people, and leave a sad wreck behind them. We pay for everything, and protect the people in their rights. I believe the entrance of our army will give a fresh impulse to this people. They are now but half civilized, taking the whole population together. An impulse will be given to the arts of peace, and the nation will be wiser and better for our coming among them. You may be sure that I take great satisfaction in your writing frequently to father. It will be a great comfort to him. I wish you so far as you can to occupy my place as regards my own relatives. Besides my father, Oliver, and Mary, I think many of them are much attached to me, and that they have a very high regard for you. I fear their expectations are much too high as to my prospects here. I aspire to no higher distinction than to do my entire duty. Our military establishment is so wretchedly organized that it is difficult for a man of acknowledged merit to rise. In organizing the ten new regiments very few promotions were made from the existing organizations, in consequence of which some of the ablest military men in our army see placed above them men totally devoid of capacity or zeal for the public service. One of the colonels of the new regiments is a dismissed cadet from West Point, and since I graduated. One of the majors of the volunteer regiments is a dismissed cadet of my own class, a very stupid and ignorant fellow. The men of capacity and of merit have this satisfaction: in difficult straits their counsels are sought and followed. The advice of lieutenants, even, is taken when that of general officers is disregarded. Sunday, July 18. It is ten days since I wrote the above, nor is there much prospect that what has been written, and what I am writing now, will reach you for months. It is a great pleasure to write, and I know that whatever I write you will be glad to read. Pierce will not arrive in Puebla with his brigade before the 1st of August, nor can we advance to Mexico till after his arrival. We shall be detained here at least three weeks, a length of time invaluable to get well our sick and put in good shape our new levies. You can hardly realize either the scenery or the climate of this place. To the west are the two snowy mountains of Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl, their crests far above the clouds, to the north, Malinche, hoar with occasional frosts, and in every other direction gentle elevations, the whole inclosing one of the most beautiful and fertile valleys in the world. Though in the nineteenth degree of latitude and in midsummer, the climate corresponds with Newport in the month of April. This is due to the snowy mountains, our high elevation above the sea (at least 7500 feet), and the daily rains. Every afternoon regularly, we have a copious shower, and frequently a deluge of rain. I find four blankets and my woolen drawers necessary to keep me warm. We need as much bedclothing as in Bucksport in midwinter. I wear thick clothes all the time, and sometimes an overcoat. The gentlemen of Puebla are accustomed to wear their cloaks habitually. For one I could not dispense with flannel underclothes. Yet we never have frosts, and all the fruits and vegetables come to maturity at all seasons of the year. It is a very trying climate. The extreme rarity of the atmosphere is trying to all of us. It checks the insensible perspiration, and we have to be careful to keep well. At the present time my health is perfect. I was never better in my life, and this is the result of an abstemiousness in both eating and drinking which I have practiced ever since my arrival. We have an engineer mess of five officers. For breakfast and supper we scarcely ever have anything but dry toasted bread without butter and hard-boiled eggs. For dinner, meats plainly but thoroughly cooked, and a variety of vegetables without fruit or pastry. Fruit is considered unhealthy. In one of your letters you inquire if my servant is not in my way. You must recollect that our servants do our washing as well as take care of our horses and attend upon us. My servant's part is to wait upon table and clean the dishes. He has to take care of my room, make up my bed, mend my clothes, see that they are washed and in good condition, and take care of my horse. He is expected to spend much time in cleaning my horse, and he has to ride him every day for exercise when I have no occasion to use him myself. My servant's name is Michael Cunningham, a native of New York, and a very good-hearted and attentive fellow. Michael's only fault is that occasionally he indulges in an extra glass. This I hope to correct. My old soldier in Vera Cruz I was obliged to discharge for drunkenness. Michael I found in Puebla. He was a soldier whose term of enlistment had expired. I like this kind of life very much. But you need not fear that I shall look back to it with regret, when I find myself in the midst of my little family and by my own fireside. Wherever we are, it is wise to be content. It makes one's duties pleasanter, and our lives more profitable. You may inquire how I spend my time. We breakfast at eight, dine at two, and sup at seven. I generally rise in season for breakfast, and go to bed about twelve at night. After breakfast I take a walk and call on my friends. From ten to five o'clock I pass in my room in attending to my official duties, which are now entirely sedentary, and consist in preparing returns, reports, making drawings, etc., or in studying my profession as found in the books which I brought out with me, and which are a perfect treasure. Five to nine is spent in visiting, talking, receiving visits, etc. Nine to twelve I pass generally in reading. Thus my time is well filled, and I am being in some degree useful and preparing myself for future usefulness. Mason spends his time very much in the same way. I am studying daily the Spanish language, and hope before leaving this country to be able to speak it. Captain Pitman, of Providence, now senior captain of the 9th infantry, I see frequently. He came up with Cadwallader, and is spoken of highly by those who have had opportunities to witness his deportment as an officer. I have no doubt he will do good service, though unfortunately his company is small, some thirty odd effective men. He is determined to learn his profession, and will soon get his company in good condition. Sunday, August 1. My dear wife, since I have been an observer in this country, I have been more and more convinced that the hero age has not yet gone. This country, so highly favored by nature, a land emphatically of sun and flowers, so abject in the slavishness and brutality of its people, needs a hero spirit for its regeneration. Cortez and his devoted band did a great work, a work fit for heroes and prophets. His iron will and great soul planted Castilian civilization and enterprise in the midst of a contracted and superstitious people; and cities of fine proportions, magnificent works of art, cathedrals to the worship of the Most High, gardens in the arid plain and the dense chapparal and the wild forest field soon greeted the eyes of men in attestation of his genius. But with the decline of Castilian grandeur, Mexico ceased to be governed by a race of heroes, and her governors and her priests have degenerated into mere cumberers of the earth, having zeal only for their own aggrandizement. Is not here a work for a Moses or an Alfred? Is he not needed? And must he not arise? With the times must come the man. But enough of this. We are still in Puebla, our army eleven thousand strong, daily improving in health, discipline, and efficiency, General Pierce some five days behind with that eagerly looked-for mail that is to bring us tidings from our homes, and all eyes turned to Mexico, ready for either alternative of peace or war. We all hope that this vexed question may be settled here on terms honorable to both countries. But if this is not to be, no man fears the ultimate result. Every private in the ranks has a solid and well-grounded conviction that our flag is never destined to retire, that no effort of the enemy can pull it down. If we move onward, no mortal arm can prevent the valley of Mexico from falling into our hands. General Scott is a remarkable man. I will acknowledge that I was under wrong impressions as to his character. Of a strong and comprehensive mind, he has extraordinary tenacity of purpose, great self-reliance, and a power of labor equaled by few men. He is emphatically the leader of our army, and has its confidence. None of our general officers are to be compared with him. He has his weak points, which I will not mention now. No man in this army doubts his fitness to command. August 7. Since writing the above General Pierce has arrived with a mail from the States, bringing to me the melancholy tidings that my sister Mary was in Cincinnati in the last stages of consumption, unable to proceed farther on her way home. Oliver went on to bring her home, and wrote me the very day of his arrival. I wrote you yesterday by a courier employed at great expense to go down to Vera Cruz, but it is very uncertain whether he will get through. All the letters that have been sent to the States for months have been by couriers, who carry 80 to 100 letters, each a very small package, at two dollars per letter, and for the sake of the gain run the gauntlet of the guerrillas and robbers that infest the road. About one half get through. I trust that letter will reach you, as it would, I think, serve to remove much doubt in reference to the movement of our army upon the City of Mexico. Twiggs's division commenced its movement to-day. To-morrow General Scott and staff will leave Puebla, and reach Twiggs the same evening at San Martin. Every one is in fine spirits, and no doubt is felt as to the result. This letter I must now bring to a close, and get ready for the march. I shall not be able to add to it till we enter the City of Mexico, and go again into quarters. At that time not far distant, I trust not more than fourteen days, I trust I shall be able to inform you of a glorious victory and of my own personal safety. I for one have not the least presentiment of coming personal danger. I simply fear that my strength may not hold out to the last. But with prudence I have little apprehension as to my strength proving inadequate for my share of duty. I must now, with all hope and confidence in the future, bid you good-night and my sweet babes, commending you all to the care of that great Being who does not permit a sparrow to fall to the ground without his knowledge. [Illustration: THE VALLEY OF MEXICO] CHAPTER X ADVANCE TO MEXICO, EL PE�ON, CONTRERAS, CHURUBUSCO The City of Mexico is situated in the centre of an irregular basin some thirty-five miles from north to south and twenty-five miles from east to west, and is separated from the great plain of Puebla by the eastern branch of the great Cordillera of Anahuac, interposing an elevation of nineteen hundred feet at the Pass of the Rio Frio. It was known from information collected by the engineers that the city was entirely surrounded either by an inundation or by marshy ground, and was approached by eight causeways, flanked with wet ditches, and provided with numerous cuts; that the whole city was protected by a double and in some quarters by a triple line of defensive works, well armed with cannon, and defended by an army of some thirty thousand men. The direct approach along the great national road was defended by the strong position of the Peñon, seven miles from the city. Chapultepec stood boldly out on the southwest, and on the north there were said to be formidable works at Guadalupe. After entering the valley along the national road, there were three general modes of approaching the city,--the direct along the national road, around Lake Tezcuco on the north, Chalco and Xochimilco on the south. All the information collected pointed to the south and west as the proper quarter from whence to attack the city; the south presented an extended front with four of the eight causeways of entrance nearly parallel to each other, and was necessarily weak. On the west the suburb of San Cosme, a single street lined with houses on either side, extended well into the country, and afforded a vulnerable point. Chapultepec, not deemed a very formidable obstacle, required to be swept away to be free to select the point of attack. Hence Tacubaya, a strong village overawing Chapultepec, became the key point of the whole operation. In the particular operation against the southern front, the occupancy of the church and village of Piedad was of the last importance, in view of all the southern gates, communicating directly with all the villages in rear from Tacubaya to San Augustine, and by a good cross road controlling the three causeways of San Antonio, Nino Perdido, and Piedad. Before ultimately deciding upon the strategic line, General Scott determined to enter the valley at the head of the column, and whilst the rear was closing up, to employ spies and push forward reconnoissances to get accurate information of all the material facts bearing on the plan of operations. Accordingly, on the 7th of August the division of Twiggs, with the engineer company at its head, led the advance, followed on successive days by Quitman, Worth, and Pillow. General Scott and staff joined the advance on the 8th. On the 11th Twiggs reached Ayotla, fifteen miles from Mexico, Quitman Buena Vista, Worth Rio Frio, Pillow Tesmaluca, respectively 3-1/2 miles, 11-1/2 miles, and 20-1/2 miles in rear. On the 12th a reconnoissance of the Peñon was made by Captains Lee and Mason and Lieutenant Stevens, the escort consisting of a squadron of the dragoons, Captain Thornton, a section of Taylor's battery, and the 4th artillery,--the whole under the command of Major Gardner. The Peñon was found to be an extensive and commanding position, entirely surrounded by water,--Lake Tezcuco stretching miles to the north. The base of the hill, four hundred feet high, was surrounded by a continuous parallel armed with batteries, and the defenses rose in amphitheatre to the top, which was crowned by a small work. The only causeway of approach was swept by two lines of works, and the defenses of the whole position were formidable. A road branching off from the main road, two miles from the Peñon, and leading to Mexicalcingo, was pursued some two miles, and found to be exceedingly good. The Indians in the neighborhood reported that the road was equally good throughout its whole extent, but that the bridge at Mexicalcingo was broken down. An amusing incident occurred in the progress of this reconnoissance. Three officers--Major Gaines, of the Kentucky volunteers, Captain Mason and Lieutenant Stevens, of the engineers--approached the causeway some three quarters of a mile in advance of the escort, and advanced towards a group of Mexican officers, some eight or ten in number, who were flourishing their lances and curveting their horses as if to frighten the American officers away. The latter, well mounted, continued their course in a deliberate walk; and when they arrived within about three hundred yards, the valiant Mexicans discharged their pistols, and, finding no effect had been produced upon the American officers, who still continued to advance, they immediately took to flight along the causeway. In the afternoon Captain Lee and Lieutenant Beauregard reconnoitred the road on the northern shore of Lake Chalco, as far as the causeway between Lakes Chalco and Xochimilco. The causeway was knee-deep in water. The object of the reconnoissance (to get boats) was not effected. During the progress of the reconnoissance of the Peñon the Mexican troops, in expectation of an attack, were brought out from the city in large numbers. Major Smith and Lieutenant Tower, from a hill one thousand feet high, in advance of Ayotla, observed the passage of troops from the city to the Peñon during the progress of this reconnoissance. On the 3d a minute reconnoissance of the ground between the lakes was made by the engineers, supported by Shields's brigade, who at nine o'clock left camp to block up the Peñon. Captain Mason, supported by Sibley's dragoons and the rifles, and accompanied by Lieutenants Beauregard and McClellan, examined the position of Mexicalcingo, seven miles from the Peñon, pursuing the road that was partially examined yesterday. This bold movement, almost under the guns of the Peñon, and extremely hazardous in presence of an enterprising enemy, was accomplished in the most successful manner. After arriving at Mexicalcingo the party was joined by Captain Lee and Lieutenant Tower, who, with a squadron of dragoons, had taken the route of the lakes to examine the roads. Mexicalcingo was found to be a strong position, defended by seven batteries, and entirely surrounded by water and marshy ground. The Peñon was minutely examined by Lieutenant Stevens, who entered the inundation at several points, and succeeded in examining the whole position, excepting a very inconsiderable portion on the western slope. He entered the lake, and for a whole mile the water did not rise above the fetlocks of his horse. South of the causeway the water was carefully examined to determine the best crossing-place. Two were found where water was not over two feet in depth, and the bottom very hard. The positions of the several batteries and the paths of approach were discovered. The position was even more formidable than it seemed yesterday. Over thirty guns were in position. New batteries were being erected, and stockades on the hill. The whole inundation was swept by powerful batteries. Lieutenant Stevens was engaged seven hours in this reconnoissance, most of the time within twelve hundred yards of the enemy's guns. We all returned late, much fatigued with our day's work. The general expressed much gratification at the information furnished by the several reconnoissances. The general has not yet entirely decided upon his course. He listens to everything, weighs everything, and, when he sees his way clear, will act with promptitude. Pillow arrived to-day, and immediately proceeded to Chalco. August 14. Little was done to-day in the way of reconnoissances. Captain Mason and Lieutenant Beauregard were assigned to duty with the division of General Worth, and joined him at Chalco. Lieutenant Tower commenced a reconnoissance of the lakes, to determine the practicability of transport by water to Mexicalcingo, but did not succeed in getting into the canal of Chalco. In the afternoon Colonel Duncan arrived at general headquarters with the information that the road south of the lakes was practicable. (He had explored ten miles of the road with a column.) Accordingly, the plan of the general to attack Mexicalcingo in front, sending Worth's division around to attack in rear, was abandoned, and it was determined to move the whole army around the lakes. August 15. Headquarters left Ayotla at eleven, and proceeded to Chalco, Worth pushing from Chalco the same evening, and Quitman entering Chalco. Captain Lee and Lieutenant Tower were assigned to the brigade of Harney for temporary duty with the advance. The engineer company also joined the advance of Worth. August 16. All the divisions in motion this morning. The road around the lakes was narrow and rough, in many cases passing through a narrow defile on the very edge of the lake, on one side abrupt acclivities, and on the other a quagmire, into which the least false step would plunge one several feet deep. Headquarters, before reaching the camping-ground of Worth of the previous night, had to pass Quitman's and Pillow's train. On arriving at Chimalpa, headquarters remained some hours for authentic intelligence from Twiggs, it having been reported that in marching out from Ayotla, early in the morning, he had encountered a large force of the enemy under Alvarez. On learning that Taylor's battery, in firing seven rounds, dispersed the large body of enemy's lancers which made a demonstration against Twiggs at the point where the route left the national road to wind round Chalco, headquarters moved forward to Tulancingo, where we passed the night. This village is remarkable for its large and ancient olive groves. The olive-trees on either side of the road, stretching out their arms, form an arch above like the elms of New England. August 17. Headquarters reached Xochimilco this day with Pillow's and Quitman's divisions, Worth advancing as far as San Augustin, and Twiggs reaching Pillow's camping-ground of last evening. The road to-day was extremely difficult, and required some working to fill up cuts, and remove stones and other obstructions placed in the road. The march was very laborious in consequence of the continual halts. Early on the morning of the 18th General Scott reached San Augustin, called the engineers, observed, "To-day the enemy may feel us, to-morrow we must feel him," and ordered reconnoissances to determine the best mode of reaching the position of Tacubaya. There were two roads,--the direct by San Antonio, which was already ascertained to be occupied in strength by the enemy, and one to the west passing through Contreras and San Angel, known, however, for a portion of the distance to be simply a mule-path. Major Smith directed in person the examination of the San Antonio route, assisted by Captain Mason, Lieutenants Stevens and Tower, and Captain Lee that to the west, assisted by Lieutenant Beauregard. The instructions of the general as to reconnoissances had been already anticipated by General Worth as regards the Contreras route, who had pushed his division forward, and dispatched Captain Mason, escorted by Thornton's dragoons, to reconnoitre the enemy's position at San Antonio. Whilst in the discharge of this duty two shots from a battery of the enemy were fired, killing Captain Thornton outright and severely wounding Fitzwater, an interpreter. General Worth immediately placed his division in the occupancy of the Hacienda Cuapa, thus affording the most ample protection to the escorts of the engineers. Major Smith now ordered Captain Mason and Lieutenant Tower to examine the enemy's right, and Lieutenant Stevens his left. Captain Mason first went to the steeple of a church near by to determine the best mode of conducting his reconnoissance, and then with Colonel C.F. Smith's light battalion he passed over a field of pedregal to our left, till he got a full view of the rear of the enemy. He traced paths leading to Mexicalcingo, interrogated the peons, and came to the conclusion that the whole position might be turned and the enemy made to abandon it, by crossing an infantry force on the line he had just pursued, and falling upon the enemy at daylight with the bayonet. Lieutenant Stevens was twice recalled whilst pushing his reconnoissance, first, by order of Colonel Garland in consequence of an apprehended attack from the enemy, and second, by direction of Major Smith, the senior engineer. This officer did not deem it necessary to do anything further, observing to General Worth that he had examined the whole vicinity from the top of the hacienda, and had also interrogated the residents, and was satisfied that the ground was firm on our right, and afforded a route to turn the enemy's position. Lieutenant Stevens expressed doubts as to this, and was permitted to go on with his examination. He persevered until night, and found that the ground was marshy, intersected with canals, and that operations in this direction were not practicable. In the mean time Captain Lee, with Kearny's dragoons and Graham's 11th infantry, reconnoitred the route by Contreras. At about a mile and a half it became a mule-path, requiring to be worked to be practicable for artillery, and on ascending a hill a mile and a half farther on, a large intrenched camp opened to view at a mile's distance, occupied in strength by the enemy, and completely closing the Contreras route, which for the intervening distance passed through a bed of pedregal, a lava rock of honeycomb projection. After passing the intrenched camp, the road was known to be good. At the hill the party had a successful skirmish with the enemy's pickets, and then returned to San Augustin. In the afternoon General Scott examined in person the San Antonio front, and at his quarters that evening, after hearing the reports of the engineers, he decided to mask San Antonio, and force the intrenched camp at Contreras. Captain Mason alone of the engineers advocated the forcing of San Antonio. On the 19th Twiggs's division, on coming up from Xochimilco, was pushed forward to the support of General Pillow, already on his way to furnish parties to work the road. The engineer company, with its tools on the backs of mules, was ordered back from Worth early that morning and assigned to Captain Lee, who, assisted by Lieutenants Beauregard and Tower, located the road and superintended the working parties. Major Smith, assisted by Lieutenant Stevens, designated the positions to be occupied by the trains and the division of Quitman at San Augustin, now become the general depot and key of operations. Captain Mason continued on duty with Worth in front of San Antonio. General Twiggs passed the division of Pillow just as the tools of his working parties were being packed away, they being no longer able to work the way in consequence of having come within range of the enemy's batteries; and the engineers, now joined by Major Smith and Lieutenant Stevens from San Augustin, advanced to and entered the pedregal to examine the enemy's position. As observed yesterday by Captain Lee, he was found to be in a strong intrenched camp on the opposite side of a deep ravine, which, with the almost impracticable bed of pedregal that intervened, completely separated the two armies. All the efforts of the engineers, who advanced close to the enemy's pickets, Lieutenant McClellan having his horse shot under him, could discover no other route than the mule-path, completely commanded by the long guns of the intrenched camp. This path wound through the rocks, and afforded at points some little cover for men and guns. The pickets of the enemy were in large force and well pushed forward. In the mean time a heavy cannonade, shells and round-shot, opened from the camp. At this juncture, with the rifles thrown forward as skirmishers, the howitzer battery of Callender and the field battery of Magruder were brought forward to a position indicated by Captain Lee to drive in the pickets and make a bold demonstration, to cover the true and very different movement, indicated by Lieutenant Stevens on returning from the advanced position gained by the engineers under cover of the rifles to communicate Captain Lee's request for the batteries, and before the order to move forward the batteries had been given. This officer (Lieutenant Stevens) observed to Twiggs, the senior officer in front, "The true point of attack is the enemy's left. Attack his left, you cut him off from his reserves and hurl him into the gorges of the mountains." Major Smith expressed similar opinions. Riley was now sent against the enemy's left, and the whole brigade of Smith to cover the demonstration in front. Callender brought his battery into action with extraordinary promptness and efficiency, and pushed it rapidly forward. The heavier guns of Magruder could not be so easily handled, and great delay occurred in getting them into battery; a position was found partially sheltering them, and they were brought into action. Callender was soon severely, and T. Preston Johnston of Magruder's battery mortally wounded. Lieutenant McClellan, who assisted to carry Callender to the rear, now took command of his battery, Lieutenant Reno being at the time detached with the rockets. Lieutenant Foster also, at Captain Magruder's request, took charge of one of his pieces, and when Johnston fell, carried him to the rear. Both these officers distinguished themselves by their exertions in pushing forward the two batteries as well as in serving them. [Illustration: BATTLEFIELDS IN THE VALLEY OF MEXICO _Contreras, Churubusco, Molino del Rey, Chapultepec, Capture of City_] Riley was still struggling through the pedregal, Lieutenant Tower guiding his brigade, and Cadwallader was sent in the same direction. Smith's brigade, closely followed by Pierce, now came to the front, and entered a cornfield to the left, three companies of the 3d infantry, Captain Craig, being detailed as a guard to the batteries, and Lieutenant Haskin with twenty men to make good Magruder's losses. The fire from the camp--shot, shells, and small-arms--on the front was terrible, and the enemy's pickets advanced in force, threatening the batteries. The leading regiment of Pierce, the 9th infantry, Colonel Ransom, conducted by Lieutenant Stevens, now gallantly dashed forward through the fire that swept the path, crossed a cleared cornfield in direct view of the enemy's battery, pressed from cover to cover, driving clouds of the enemy's skirmishers before them, crossed the rapid stream that ran in the ravine, and gained the opposite bank, within three or four hundred yards of the camp. This important position it maintained till dark, forming with the 12th infantry, the detachments of Craig and Haskin, and scattered bodies of the rifles, the sole force in front; the 15th infantry, Colonel Morgan, having been sent in the trail of Cadwallader immediately on the arrival of the general-in-chief on the ground, and Smith with his brigade following at a later period. Riley on emerging from the pedregal came upon the village of San Geronimo, through which he swept, and continued to advance in the direction of a ravine that was found to extend to the rear of the camp. In this isolated position he had two successful encounters with the enemy's lancers, killing their general, Frontera, and awaited only the coming up of reinforcements to order the assault. But Cadwallader, not put in motion till Riley was well on his way, had barely time to reach the village and hold it against the reserves of the enemy, estimated at ten thousand men, foot and horse, which now came up from the city under Santa Anna in person. The village, the key to the position, was to be maintained at all hazards. Cadwallader presented a bold front and kept the enemy in check. The arrival of Morgan an hour later, and of Smith towards night, made the position impregnable against an infantry attack. About sunset Riley returned to the village, and Smith, now senior in command, resolved to attack the reserves, but, dark coming on before his dispositions were made, an attack upon the intrenched camp was resorted to as an alternative. A dark and stormy night now closed in upon the scene, and the soldiers in their dreary bivouac were placed in readiness for the morrow's work. All thus far had gone on well. Worth in front of San Antonio maintained the front and rear. Smith in the village of San Geronimo held the key of the offensive movement to the enemy's left; his rear, thanks to the pedregal and Pierce, still held in front of the intrenched camp, being safe against attack. The general-in-chief returned at nightfall to San Augustin. Many bodies of stragglers were to be seen on the field. Even the two commanders of divisions, Pillow and Twiggs, failed in reaching the village, where their commands were in position, and within reach of an overwhelming force. As the fire of our batteries died away and they were withdrawn, cheer on cheer rose from the enemy's extended line. Rain coming on, many bodies of stragglers not being able to find their commands, the principal force hemmed up in a little village within reach of the enemy's heavy batteries and within striking distance of his large force, for the first time a feeling of despondency seized upon the minds of our men. Happily, General Smith, the officer in command at the village, was equal to the emergency, and extricated our force from its perilous situation. He determined upon a night attack, and sent Captain Lee to San Augustin to confer with the general-in-chief in reference to supporting it by a diversion in front. In consequence of the lateness of the hour, the general deemed it impracticable to get any portion of Worth's command upon the ground in season, but gave full powers to Captain Lee to collect all the stragglers in front to operate as a diversion to the main attack projected by General Smith. In the course of this interview General Pillow and General Twiggs came in, stating that, in consequence of the darkness and having no guide, they had found it impracticable to reach the village, and were obliged to retrace their steps; Pillow adding that they fell upon one of the enemy's pickets while thus groping their way, or came so near as plainly to hear their voices. Twiggs, a heavy man advanced in years, fell into one of the hollows of which the formation was full, and injured himself considerably. I was present during almost the entire interview, having entered the room shortly after the arrival of Captain Lee, and everything I witnessed increased, if it were possible, my confidence in General Scott. Himself on the ground till dark came on, he had grasped the whole field of operations, and had determined to adhere to his original plan. He listened with perfect composure and complacency to Captain Lee's statement of the field, occasionally introducing a pertinent question, and with the utmost patience weighed the various suggestions of the officers, and particularly General Smith's plan of a night attack. Neither General Pillow nor General Twiggs made any suggestions as to what should be done. Captain Lee, having been in all parts of the field, and having full information on almost every point, was, as it were, the only person whom it was necessary to listen to. The general listened with equal patience to what I had observed on the front attack. In the very commencement, and before the batteries had been ordered forward, I stated with much emphasis to General Twiggs that the attack should be against the enemy's left. "Attack his left, you cut him off from his reserves and hurl him into the gorges of the mountains." I, however, conducted the batteries forward, and with the assistance of Lieutenants McClellan and Foster, placed them in position. After reconnoitring towards the right in the attempt to find a better path for our guns and troops, and without success, I returned to the batteries, which in the mean time had been considerably advanced, and were exposed to a tremendous fire of grape. The howitzer battery was being served with great effect, and had almost cleared the ground in front of the ravine of the enemy. But very great delay occurred in bringing forward Magruder's battery and opening its fire. Everything seemed to go wrong with him. The enemy's grape, within point-blank range, in a measure disabled the howitzer battery, wounding many of the gunners and finally disabling Callender, who was wounded in both legs, and at this moment some little delay occurred in getting a supply of spherical case-shot. The supporting party was reduced to some eight rifles, and the enemy's skirmishers advanced. General Smith's brigade came up, and entered the cornfield to the left of the battery. At my request, two or three companies of the 3d infantry advanced to the front and right to protect the batteries. Soon the 9th infantry came up, with general orders to support the batteries, and were conducted by me over a cut and open cornfield, under a shower of the enemy's grape, to the cover of a ledge, from which, passing from cover to cover, driving the enemy's skirmishers before them, they reached the ravine, and crossing which they sheltered themselves on the opposite bluff on the edge of a cornfield. Colonel Ransom showed great gallantry and force in the management of his command, and to show the promptness of his command in following him, this anecdote is related. Only some eight or ten men were seen lagging behind, and these an officer of the regiment was cursing most lustily to urge them forward. Just as the regiment had reached its position I met General Twiggs, and we both ascended to a little ridge, where we had a full view of the enemy's intrenched camp. Soon a shower of grape came in our direction. General Twiggs remained in his exposed position without moving a muscle, till I suggested the propriety of his stepping down to a little depression which afforded cover. He informed me that Riley had been moving against the enemy's right for more than an hour. I remarked, "I will go and find him, and bring you back word of where he is," to which General Twiggs assented, and I immediately started in search of Riley. I was, however, much exhausted by my previous exertions, and the ground was of the difficult and almost impracticable honeycomb lava rock, and I was obliged to abandon the attempt, and returned to the advanced position of the 9th infantry. On an elevated ridge just on the edge of the ravine, and partly sheltered by a cedar-tree, I had a distinct view of the whole position. I observed the encounter of the lancers with our own troops (which I afterwards ascertained to be Riley's command), and after an interval the enemy's reserves advancing in great force. They continued to advance in two lines of lancers and infantry, with clouds of skirmishers in front, and halted, their right nearly opposite the village of San Geronimo. Whilst these reserves were advancing, there was an evident slackening, and at length a total cessation, of our return fire in front to the almost continual fire of grape and escopettes of the enemy. This led me to suppose that a change had taken place in our dispositions, involving great exposure perhaps to the 9th, and I returned for information. On my return I met many bodies of stragglers, who could afford no information as to the state of the field, heard the triumphal shouts from the Mexican lines, and finally fell upon General Pillow and General Twiggs. General Pillow was in much perplexity, was intent upon finding the village of San Geronimo, and wished me to conduct the 9th to that place. Not having been to the village, and dark coming on, I confessed my inability to conduct the regiment as he desired, and after considerable hesitation he directed me to bring back the regiment to the position of Magruder's battery. I accordingly went in the direction of the ravine, my chief guide being the discharge of the enemy's guns from the position of the reserve; but that failing, and the night becoming quite dark, I lost my way and wandered about, until finally I heard voices approaching in my direction, which I soon discovered to be from our own troops. Calling out to them, I was answered by Lieutenant Foster, of my own corps, who informed me that he was retiring with a party of about thirty rifles and 9th infantry men, having just been driven out from a small building, higher up and on the same stream with the position of the 9th infantry, by a large force of the enemy. At this time I was so exhausted that I could walk only with great difficulty, and was obliged to abandon going in quest of the 9th, and returned with Foster, who gave me the support of his arm till we reached Sibley's troop of dragoons, near the foot of the hill from which General Scott had overlooked the field. As we wended our way along the rain fell, small bodies of troops were to be seen from time to time, and everything had the appearance of a broken and dispirited army. It, was perhaps the only desponding moment our troops had seen since the opening of the campaign. After resting about half an hour, I returned with Sibley, and reported what I had observed as above. During the whole of this memorable evening, not only was General Scott perfectly composed and assured, but, in his intercourse with those present, neglected none of the courtesies due to guests. All those who came in tired and wet from the field he made sit down at his table and break their fast. About twelve o'clock General Twiggs and Captain Lee set out on their way back to the field, Pillow remaining in town to sleep; and on arriving on the ground of the front attack Twiggs, entirely exhausted by his exertions, sought a little rest, and Lee collected the 9th and 12th, with some sappers and rifles, to make a diversion in front. This note-book is not the place for a detailed account of the brilliant conflict planned by General Smith. Suffice it to say that, in consequence of the darkness and constant rain of the night, the attack projected to be made at three was not actually made till daylight. It was eminently successful, and without doubt was the most brilliant affair of the war. The principal charge was made by Riley on their reverse and rear, led by Tower, and supported by Smith's and Cadwallader's brigades, respectively commanded by Dimick and Cadwallader, Ransom in front making a diversion with the troops that had been collected in that quarter. The position was carried with little loss on our part, and the whole force of the enemy either killed, wounded, taken prisoners, or driven solitary fugitives from the field. General Valencia made his escape with the lancers in an eccentric direction, and was afterwards heard of at Toluca. Our troops pushed on in pursuit and soon entered the town of San Angel, through which Santa Anna had passed that very morning with his reserves of fifteen thousand men. After a short halt at San Angel, Pillow in command ordered the column to move on Coyoacan, where an unimportant skirmish took place. Here General Scott joined the column, and ordered a halt to reconnoitre and bring up the captured guns. Captain Lee went towards San Antonio with a dragoon escort to communicate with Worth, and I to the steeple of the church to use my glass. Turning it on the San Antonio road, I observed the enemy in full retreat, the whole road from San Antonio for more than a mile towards the city being filled with troops, pack-mules, and wagons. On reporting this to General Scott, he ordered Twiggs to advance to cut off their retreat, and assigned me to duty as the senior engineer officer of his division. CHURUBUSCO. On the head of the column reaching the fork of a road, whither a party of one hundred lancers had been driven by the mounted rifles, it was halted and a very rapid reconnoissance made of the roads in advance. Lieutenant McClellan taking the left-hand road and I the right, they were found to lead respectively to, and directly in front of, a church, which was observed to be occupied in strength. McClellan observed one gun, and a prisoner taken on the ground reported there were two guns. The engineer company was advanced in front of the building to support and continue the reconnoissance. Whilst on this duty it became engaged with the enemy, and the 1st artillery was ordered up in support. Thus the action, on the part of Twiggs's division, commenced. It having been entered on, it was determined to make a bold and quick matter of it. Taylor's battery was ordered up, and took a position in the open space in front of the church. It was expected it would drive the enemy from the roof,[1] and enable the division--Smith in front, Riley on the left, and perhaps a regiment along the direct road--to carry the work by a _coup de main_. This course, recommended by myself to Twiggs, was taken. Some delay, however, occurred before Riley got in position and opened his fire. Meantime Taylor, serving his battery with extraordinary coolness and energy, was met by a terrific return from the enemy, who poured upon him an unceasing deluge of grape, his whole battery consisting of eight guns, one a 16-pounder. Taylor breasted it manfully for an hour and a half, when, two of his officers wounded and many of his men and horses killed and disabled, he was compelled most reluctantly to retire. Soon after this Riley got in position and opened a sharp fire, producing an immediate and evident abatement in the enemy's fire. The 1st artillery had been in position from the commencement of the attack, and was now followed by the 3d infantry. The work attacked in front and rear by our infantry, all retreat cut off by Shields and Pierce occupying the causeway in rear, Worth in possession of the _tête-de-pont_, Duncan opening two guns on one of the long faces of the work, and Larkin Smith directing a 4-pounder against the convent, the white flag was hung out at the very moment the 2d and 3d infantry from the rear and front carried the work at the point of the bayonet. Immediately the flag of the 3d infantry was planted on the roof of the building; and over one thousand prisoners, including three general officers, surrendered to Twiggs. The battle of Contreras and the subsequent advance upon San Angel and Coyoacan led to the evacuation of San Antonio. Whilst this was in progress, Clarke's brigade, conducted by Captain Mason, of the engineers, made a flank movement to the left, and cut the enemy's retreating column of three thousand in two, dispersing the rear portion and preventing its reaching the main body and entering into the subsequent fight. Worth, with both brigades, now pushed forward with great energy upon the heels of the other portion, till the column was arrested by a fire of grape from a strong bastioned field-work of fourteen feet relief and wet ditches in front, covering the passage of a canal, and somewhat in rear of the work attacked by Twiggs, and which, like the latter work, had not been noticed in the previous reconnoissances. Both brigades were formed in the cornfields on the right; the charge was ordered, Clarke in advance; and after a desperate but short conflict the work was carried at the point of the bayonet, the 6th infantry and 2d artillery particularly distinguishing themselves. In the mean time Shields, in command of Shields's and Pierce's brigades, conducted by Captain Lee, the Palmetto regiment in advance, pursued a route to the left, and finally came in contact with the enemy near the hacienda on the great San Antonio causeway, a mile from the _tête-de-pont_. The enemy were in great force lining the causeway, and the lancers advancing towards the canal. The Palmettoes advanced most gallantly, led by their gallant colonel, Butler; but some hesitancy was manifested by the other commands, who retired under cover of the hacienda or crowded behind the Palmettoes. Notwithstanding the utmost exertions of the officers, a pause took place at good escopette range, and a considerable loss was experienced. The Palmettoes lost their colonel, shot dead, their lieutenant-colonel, wounded, four successive color-bearers, shot down, and nearly half their rank and file killed and wounded. Finally the movement was commenced, the enemy was charged through, and the causeway was filled with fugitives to the city. The dragoons, who thus far had continued inactive, now took the causeway in pursuit, and the most gallant feat of the war was enacted. Captain Kearny, in advance with a squadron, pursued the fugitives to the very garita, where he charged directly up to a battery under a fire of grape, dismounted, calling upon his men to follow him, and entered the gorge of the work to take it by assault. Looking around, he found himself alone, the few men immediately following him having been shot down, and the remainder having retired in obedience to the return call from the rear, which for Kearny's safety had just at this moment been inauspiciously sounded. Surrounded by a crowd of fugitives, who pressed too closely upon him to use their weapons, he retreated, making a passage with his sword, mounted a jaded Mexican horse, and commenced to retire. Finding that the sorry speed of the brute would long time expose him to the enemy's grape, he dismounted and sought a better steed. Scarcely was he mounted when his arm was carried away by a grape; but he succeeded in making good his retreat. His first lieutenant, Ewell, had two horses shot under him, and his second lieutenant, Graham, was wounded in the hand. This was the terrible and decisive conflict of the war, and was a case of a combined movement of all the divisions. The enemy's intrenched works were carried at the point of the bayonet. Surrounded on all sides, the strong defensive building attacked by Twiggs was obliged to surrender; the reserves, vigorously pushed, fled from the field; and the army, which in the morning was estimated to be 27,000 strong, scarcely presented in the evening a sorry array of 4000. We could have entered the city the same day had we chosen. But our troops had made extraordinary exertions, our casualties were great, and the general determined to operate against the city after deliberately weighing its capacity for defense. After this disastrous defeat of the enemy General Scott rode through his lines, addressing with terseness, brevity, and feeling the troops as he passed them, who received him with great enthusiasm, and exhibiting all that moderation and equanimity which has eminently characterized his course throughout this campaign. Towards night he returned to his quarters at San Augustin. All the divisions suffered in nearly equal proportion, the casualties amounting to 1066, of which about one fourth were killed or permanently disabled. The 1st artillery suffered most severely in officers, losing in all the battles five gallant officers, Captains Capron and Burke, Lieutenants Irons, Johnson, and Hoffman. It is probable the same and perhaps more decisive results could have been effected, and with far less loss, had Twiggs and Worth stopped in mid-career, and an hour been taken to reconnoitre the enemy's position. Pillow and Shields with Garland's brigade and Duncan's battery demonstrating in front, Twiggs's whole division with Taylor and the howitzer battery on the enemy's right, Clarke's brigade on their left, both making considerable detours, Clarke as a demonstration, Twiggs the great attack, the causeway might have been gained; Taylor's battery sent thundering on the enemy's rear, with Harney's horse and Riley's brigade cutting off all hope of succor, the enemy's works and the reserves inclosed by our troops must have immediately surrendered. Then, the prisoners and their works left in charge of Pillow, all the other divisions united could have been pushed forward in support of Riley, and the city could have been stormed with little or no loss. This is expecting impossibilities. We knew nothing of the enemy's works, but we saw them in full retreat, we pushed forward to cut off their retreat, and, coming upon the enemy's intrenched position, we became engaged in the very act of reconnoitring it. The result was most glorious to our arms, and will, we trust, conclude the war. Major Smith, the chief engineer, was present during the battle of Churubusco, and was distinguished for gallantry. He is suffering with the same disability as myself. We were both exceedingly fatigued with our exertions, and were glad to get a night's rest at our quarters at San Augustin. Shortly after our return Captain Lee and Lieutenant Tower came in. Captain Lee had made the most extraordinary exertions, having been on foot for two days and a night without a moment's rest. It was almost the only instance in this war I have seen him fatigued. His services were of the most important character, not second to those of any individual in this army. Lieutenant Tower, in his night reconnoissance and subsequent services in leading Riley's brigade against Valencia's intrenched camp, exhibited great resolution and high military qualities. It seemed to be conceded by the whole army that the engineers in these important operations had done their duty, and that every individual officer had shown a readiness to participate in the perils incident to their service. In truth, the whole army, officers and men, were gallant, and in several instances exhibited all the terrible energy of the Anglo-Saxon race. The night attack by Smith, and the storming of the works at Churubusco by Worth and Twiggs, are unsurpassed in war. The former was a rare combination of science and force, the latter an instance of desperate valor. I slept little that night. The picture was mingled sunshine and clouds. The mangled forms of Capron, Burke, Johnston, and others whom I personally knew and respected, I could not keep from my mind. The experience of war is saddening. The terrible scenes of the battlefield cannot be effaced from the memory. We realize the observation of Franklin, "I scarcely ever knew a good war or a bad peace." Lieutenant Stevens gained great reputation, both at headquarters and in the army generally, by the part he took in these brilliant operations. His reconnoissance of El Peñon was considered one of the most daring and complete of the war, and, as he modestly remarks, "General Scott was very much pleased with my reconnoissance, and I got more credit for it than I deserved." General William H. French (commander of the third corps, Army of the Potomac, in 1863) writes of this reconnoissance, in which he participated as one of the covering party: "It brought Lieutenant Stevens conspicuously before the army. That night the reports of the different officers of engineers were made to the general-in-chief in person; that of Lieutenant Stevens was so full and clear, it in a great measure decided General Scott to take the route around Lake Chalco, and attack the City of Mexico in reverse. From this time the general-in-chief recognized his ability and talents." His exertions at El Peñon overtasked his strength, however, and in consequence he was obliged to ride for three days in an ambulance on the march around Lake Chalco as far as Rochimilco. In the movement on the intrenched camp at Contreras, Lieutenant Stevens, advancing with the skirmishers to reconnoitre the position, saw at once that the decisive movement would be to turn the enemy's left, and seize the road between the camp and the city, thus isolating the former and cutting it off from reinforcements. Hastening to General Twiggs, he urged this movement upon that officer in his earnest and forcible manner, saying, "The true point of attack is the enemy's left. Attack his left, you cut him off from his reserves, and hurl him into the gorges of the mountains." The movement was at once decided upon. Riley's brigade was directed to the right (enemy's left) over the pedregal, followed by Cadwallader, and later by Shields and Smith; San Geronimo was seized, and the dashing victory of Contreras was the result. Lieutenant Stevens was the first to see and urge this decisive movement, and his advice was immediately adopted by the veteran Twiggs. The terrific conflict of Churubusco, which followed hard on Contreras, was brought on, or perhaps it may be said precipitated, by Lieutenant Stevens. From the church steeple in Coyoacan he discovered the enemy in full retreat down the San Antonio causeway, and on his report to that effect, General Scott at once ordered Twiggs forward, and Lieutenant Stevens to accompany him as his senior engineer officer. Leading the division with the engineer company, he discovered the fortified church, or convent, barring the road; the company became engaged, and, the action having thus commenced, General Twiggs adopted almost implicitly the suggestions of the ardent young officer, and gave free rein to his efforts "to make a bold and quick matter of it." Lieutenant Stevens personally led and placed in position Taylor's battery, the 1st artillery (infantry), and other troops, greatly exposing himself during the action. The position, however, proved much stronger than was expected, a strong earthwork and breastwork being screened and partially concealed by tall, waving corn, which covered the fields in front, and cost the bloody and protracted fight before it fell. Lieutenant Stevens did not altogether escape criticism for putting the battery where it was so badly cut up; indeed, seems to have reproached himself; but his superiors, the veteran Twiggs and Scott, found no fault, knowing full well that great boldness and exertion are the price of great achievements in war. General H.J. Hunt relates that, after entering the city, a party of wounded officers were talking over matters, and Lieutenant Stevens reproached himself for having too severely criticised Magruder at Contreras, and remarked: "The very next day at Churubusco I did worse myself, acting on my judgment and eyesight, which deceived me, for I had not a knowledge of all the facts bearing on the situation. It was therefore my fault that Taylor's battery was knocked to pieces." "Here, again," remarks General Hunt, "is his characteristic frankness and honesty, and _sense of justice_ to others, breaking out, and carrying him further than was necessary, and into doing injustice to himself." ARCHBISHOP'S PALACE, 3-1/2 MILES FROM THE MAIN PLAZA OF THE CITY OF MEXICO, Sunday, August 22, 1847. MY DEAREST WIFE,--The great battle of Mexico has been fought, and our arms have achieved a glorious triumph. Commissions are now sitting to treat of an armistice that will terminate, as we all trust, in a permanent and honorable peace to both countries. Mexico is again without an army, and the gates of the capital are open to us. Terrible was the conflict, severe our loss, particularly in efficient and gallant officers; the whole army was engaged, and the whole public force of Mexico struck down, large numbers of prisoners and a great amount of material of war falling into our hands. My heart is filled with gratitude to the Most High that I had the strength to do my duty with the other officers of my corps, and that, although much exposed in three different reconnoissances and two hard-fought battles, I have escaped without a wound, and without any abatement of my health and strength. I cannot feel exultation. We have lost many brave officers and men, some my personal friends; streams of blood have in reality flowed over the battlefield. The hearts of the whole Mexican nation are thrilling with anguish and dismay. Such is war, so glittering and imposing on parade and in anticipation, so terrible in reality. Puebla is about seventy-five miles from Mexico. On referring to the map, you will find that the direct road passes between lakes Tezcuco on the north, Chalco and Xochimilco on the south. At the Venta de Chalco, about twenty miles from Mexico, the road turns off to pass southward of the lakes. El Peñon, about eight miles from Mexico, is a high hill entirely surrounded with water, along the edge of which the great direct road to Mexico passes, consisting of a causeway for about a mile and a half approaching it, and also of a causeway the whole distance after leaving it, till we reach the City of Mexico. General Twiggs with his splendid division was in the advance, followed on successive days by Quitman, Worth, and Pillow. In five days Twiggs was pushed up to Ayotla, fifteen or sixteen miles from Mexico, General Scott continuing with him in the advance, and the other divisions five, fifteen, and twenty-five miles in rear. As they came up (it required two days), they were held in reserve at the head of Lake Chalco, whilst the proper reconnoissances and examinations were made to determine the general plan of attack. The first day, a reconnoissance was made of the Peñon, supported by a squadron of dragoons, a regiment of infantry, and two pieces of artillery. The Peñon was found to be fortified and occupied in force. Captain Mason, of the engineers (my friend Mason), Major Gaines, of the Kentucky volunteers (taken prisoner just before the great battle of Buena Vista, and who made his escape only one or two days before the march of the army from Puebla), and myself rode some distance in the advance, and observed near the causeway some eight or ten Mexican officers. We were at least three quarters of a mile from the rest of our force. We advanced upon them, they curveting their horses and advancing upon us. When within about three hundred yards they discharged their pistols, but we continuing our advance, they all turned their horses and returned full speed across the causeway, carrying with them a troop of lancers. The whole affair was very amusing and afforded much sport. It did not diminish our contempt of Mexican prowess. The second day a splendid reconnoissance was made of the whole country between the lakes, including the Peñon and Mexicalcingo at the head of Lake Xochimilco. The particular reconnoissance of the Peñon was intrusted to me. On my little horse, one of the most enduring, spirited, and beautiful animals in the service, with two dragoons, I went half way round the Peñon, and was for seven hours within almost point-blank range of its guns, examining the different batteries, determining the various approaches, and particularly the character of the inundation. Frequently I was in the water up to the belly of my horse. General Scott was very much pleased with my reconnoissance, and I got more credit for it than I deserved. The same day Mason made an admirable reconnoissance of Mexicalcingo. Our spies had given information that the road around Chalco was impracticable for our trains, and in consequence thereof the general almost made up his mind to force Mexicalcingo, and at that point and westward, fight the great battle of the war. He, however, determined to wait one day for additional information. Worth, who had now come up, was sent to Chalco, and a column under the orders of Colonel Duncan reconnoitred the road around the lakes. Our spies were found to have given wrong information, and the road, though bad, was found to be practicable. That same evening General Scott, with the whole field before him, determined to move around Chalco, and ordered the movement to commence on the morrow. The prompt advance of Twiggs to Ayotla, the brigade of dragoons of the famous Colonel Harney two miles farther in advance, and the brilliant reconnoissances of the two succeeding days impressed the enemy with the belief that the Peñon was to be attacked, and they lost no time in filling the place with troops, and putting in position formidable batteries of nearly forty guns. In the movement around the lakes Worth was in the advance, followed by Pillow, Quitman, and Twiggs. The road was exceedingly bad and narrow, in many places a perfect defile, obstructed by cuts, stones from the hills in some cases formed into walls, and requiring great patience, energy, and perseverance for the passage of the trains. The third day Worth reached San Augustin, General Scott and staff resting at Xochimilco with the divisions of Pillow, Quitman, and Twiggs respectively some five and ten miles in rear; no obstruction of moment occurring either in front or rear, unless we except a demonstration of a large force of lancers on the movement of General Twiggs's division from Ayotla, a demonstration brought speedily to a close by the opening of Taylor's battery. Early the next morning, Wednesday, August 18, Scott joined Worth; developed his general plan of attack, and ordered the engineers immediately to make vigorous reconnoissances of the position and force of the enemy. He remarked, "To-day the enemy may feel us, to-morrow we must feel him." Accordingly two reconnoissances were made,--one, of the position of San Antonio, three miles from San Augustin, on the great southern road to Mexico, conducted by Major Smith; the other, of the road to San Angel, turning the position of San Antonio, and bringing us to the next great and adjacent causeway to the west. This latter reconnoissance was conducted by Captain Lee. The first reconnoissance was supported by the whole of Worth's division. Captain Mason had charge of one party, I had charge of the other. Whilst the whole party of engineer officers with a portion of the escort were examining the position of San Antonio within twelve hundred yards of its guns, and in the causeway itself, the enemy discharged his battery of two large brass 16-pounders, blowing to pieces the body of the gallant Captain Thornton, commanding the escort, and severely wounding an interpreter. The second reconnoitring party (that of Captain Lee) were brought into pretty close contact with a body of the enemy, whom they completely dispersed without any loss. Thus, the enemy felt us the first day. Pillow and Quitman had now come up to San Augustin (ten miles from Mexico), and Twiggs to Xochimilco, four miles in rear. It was determined to move the main body on San Angel, Worth remaining in front of San Antonio, and by a vigorous combined movement forcing this position and advancing upon Tacubaya. Accordingly, on Thursday Pillow and Twiggs were pushed forward over a most difficult road, requiring much labor to make it practicable for field-guns, and in full view of a large force of the enemy, who, divining our intentions from the reconnoissance of Wednesday, had intrenched himself in a strong position, barring our passage. As our troops approached, they were brought gallantly into action. Callender's howitzer battery was advanced to a very exposed position for the temporary purpose of driving in a picket, was not withdrawn in time, and, exposed to a formidable battery of twelve guns, was entirely cut up, its gallant commander receiving severe wounds in both legs. Magruder's battery of 12-pounders was in like manner advanced and cut up. These batteries were supported by Smith's brigade on the left, and the 9th infantry on the right. The 9th infantry I led across an open field, exposed to the enemy's grape, without the loss of a man. They advanced to a strong position in a ravine, which they maintained till dark. Riley's brigade and the greater portion of Pillow's division were pushed forward against the enemy's right to cut him off from his reserves, and by a vigorous charge take him in flank and hurl him into the gorges of the mountains. The whole field of approach was a perfect honeycomb of lava projections, entirely impracticable for horse and difficult for foot. Nothing was known of the ground. All the troops advanced with difficulty. That intrepid veteran, Riley, with his gallant brigade, pushed forward and encountered the enemy's lancers in large force, repulsing them in successive charges. He organized his brigade to charge the battery, but felt it his duty to await orders and support. Smith, somewhat late in the day withdrawn from the right, reached a village on the left of the enemy's position, to which Riley had withdrawn, and was reinforced by the greater portion of Shields's and a portion of Pierce's brigade. An attack under the direction of Smith was organized, but could not be executed in consequence of the gathering shadows of the night. At this moment, all offensive operations on our side having ceased and no impression made on the enemy's line, their reserves coming up in great force and bringing with them additional guns, cheer on cheer rose from their whole line, whilst on our part there was much gloom and despondency. Our commands were much scattered, our batteries had become disabled, and every one was overcome with the fatigues of the day. During the latter part of the day I was reconnoitring in the advanced position of the 9th infantry, and, not knowing the progress of the day in other parts of the field, returned to the rear for orders. I found General Pillow, who seemed somewhat perplexed with the posture of affairs, and gave me no orders till dark was coming on. I endeavored to find my way back, but could not succeed. I was so entirely exhausted that it was with the greatest difficulty that I could drag one foot after the other. Finally I fell upon a small party of rifles and 9th infantry, led by Lieutenant Foster, of the engineers, who were making good their retreat from a house somewhat higher up on the same stream with the position of the 9th infantry, and from which they had been expelled by a whole regiment of the enemy. On hailing the party, Foster recognized my voice, and I concluded to return with him, but so entirely worn down that I required his support. We made our way with great difficulty, occasionally meeting little parties of soldiers seeking their commands. It had already commenced raining. On passing near the place where I left my horse, I could not find him, and was obliged to pursue my way on foot. At length we reached some dragoons near the foot of a hill, where General Scott had placed himself to observe the field, and there learned that he had left half an hour before for San Augustin, three miles distant. I inquired for my horse, but could not find him. Foster kindly lent me his, and after waiting some half an hour I set out on my return to San Augustin in company with Captain Sibley's troop of dragoons. On my way back my feelings were not desponding, but I was sad. The 9th infantry, called the New England regiment, who had gallantly followed my lead, and had occupied for hours an exposed position, I had not succeeded in bringing back to the place indicated by the general. I felt deeply my physical inability to support long-continued exertion. It seemed to me that I had abandoned a body of men who were relying on me. The regiment had acted nobly, and none more so than Pitman, acting as major. He was cool and intrepid throughout. On my way home the rain poured in torrents much of the time. I overtook my intrepid friend Callender, whom some men of his company were carrying home on a litter. He seemed to be comfortable, and is now rapidly recovering from his wound. On reaching my quarters, getting some supper, and changing my clothes, I went to see General Scott. He was surrounded by his personal staff, and was attentively listening to Captain Lee's account of the state of the field. Soon after, General Pillow and General Twiggs entered the room. Twiggs is a gray-haired veteran of sixty, large in person, of rather blunt address, and of little advantages of education, but possessing in an eminent degree decision of character, great sagacity as to men and events, and an aptitude for labor. He has the most splendid division in the service, the fruit in great measure of his own unwearied exertions. Captain Lee is an officer of engineers to whom I have before alluded, and one of my mess-mates. He is one of the most extraordinary men in the service. In the very prime of manhood, of remarkable presence and address, perhaps the most manly and striking officer in the service, of great grace of manner and great personal beauty, he has established an enduring reputation. His power of enduring fatigue is extraordinary, and his strength of judgment and perfect balance are conspicuous. For counsel, General Scott relies more upon him than any other man in the service. I never shall forget that evening,--Captain Lee in calm, even, well-weighed words, giving a full view of the state of our force, suggesting the various methods of reëstablishing affairs, and proffering his own services and exertions to carry out the views of the general; Scott, composed, complacent, weighing every word he said, finding fault with no one's blunders, and taking in all cases the best view of things, indulging in no apprehensions, and exhibiting entire confidence in the ultimate event. At length General Twiggs and Captain Lee returned to the battlefield with full powers to retrieve affairs as their best judgment should dictate. It had been proposed by General Smith, one of Twiggs's brigadiers, to make a night attack upon the enemy's position, defended by twelve guns and five thousand of their best troops. Captain Lee's principal object in seeing the general was to procure his sanction. It was not denied. On returning to the field, all arrangements were made to carry it into execution. My dear wife, I am spinning out a long letter, and I must be more brief. This night attack, in consequence of rain and the difficult nature of the ground, was not carried into execution till dawn of day. It was organized by General Smith. The reconnoissance of the route was made in the night by my friend Tower, of the engineers. The principal column of attack consisted of Riley's brigade led by Tower. Two other columns were pushed in the same general direction, one of which was commanded by our friend Major Dimick. In front a column was formed of the scattered commands, mostly new levies. Riley's column pursued its way over slippery and uneven ground, crossing two deep ravines, halting from time to time to keep the command together. Finally it reached the brow of a hill in rear of the enemy's position, and was formed in two columns, just as the coming day disclosed them to the enemy. Immediately the charge was ordered, and the gallant brigade made its terrible charge, ably supported by the other columns. The contest was brief but decisive. In fifteen minutes one thousand dead and wounded of the enemy lay on the field, nearly a thousand more were taken prisoners, and the remainder were flying in all directions. Every one speaks in the most exalted terms of the conduct of Tower. Some say he led the brigade and did the whole work. As for myself, broken down the evening before, greatly in need of rest, I complied with the advice of Major Smith and Captain Lee and remained in town, giving directions to my servant to be called at three, in order that I might return to the field to be in season for the fight. My servant did not wake me till five. One delay after another occurred, and I was finally detained by General Scott to conduct to the field a brigade of General Worth's command. We started and had got half way out, when information came of the brilliant success of the night attack, and the brigade was ordered back. I continued my way, and finally came across Tower very quietly eating his breakfast in company with Lieutenant Beauregard of our corps, who was also conspicuous in the same attack. I rode on, passed over the battlefield, reached the advance, and exchanged greetings with my friends of the 9th regiment, who had felt as anxious for me as I had for them. They informed me that they had withdrawn to a safe place about nine in the evening, and were engaged in the night attack. My friends of the 1st artillery, Major Dimick, Captains Capron, Burke, etc., I also shook warmly by the hand, and finally rode up to General Twiggs. I congratulated him on the brilliant victory achieved by his command. "General Smith deserves the whole credit, but it was my division," was his reply. The order was soon given to advance upon the San Antonio road, General Twiggs in advance, the object being to cause the enemy to evacuate it and open the way for the advance of Worth. I accompanied the advance. We soon reached the village of Coyoacan, from which a picket of about two hundred lancers was expelled. There we halted till General Scott rode up. He proposed to wait half an hour to reconnoitre, determine the position of the enemy, and the proper mode of attack. General Worth had previously received orders not to attack the enemy till he heard the fire on the other line. Calling for the engineer officers, Captain Lee was directed, after examining a prisoner, to communicate with General Worth at San Antonio, and I went to the steeple of the church to use my glass. I turned it upon the San Antonio road, and observed the enemy in full retreat, the causeway for more than a mile being filled with troops, pack-mules, and baggage-wagons. I immediately reported the fact to General Scott, who ordered Twiggs to advance, and directed me to accompany his division. Twiggs pushed on, and I went forward with the officers of the engineer company to reconnoitre. We came to a fork of a road. I took to the right, Lieutenant McClellan to the left. Mine passed directly in front of a strong building (a church), occupied in force by the enemy; his led directly to the building. At a little distance before me I saw the enemy in retreat, and we took one prisoner, who informed us that the place was defended by two guns. My dear wife, perhaps I had not better at this time go into the details of the most terrible fight of the war, which now commenced. General Twiggs has said publicly that by my reconnoissance and efforts it was brought on, as regards his division. We all felt the strongest determination to fight the enemy, and put him to a perfect rout. At all events, it so happened that I was extremely active in pushing forward columns of attack, etc. Our friend Major Dimick's regiment I directed to its position. So with Taylor's battery. General Twiggs, in almost every case, agreed to my suggestions. By my efforts and those of the junior engineer officers, the troops were brought under fire and the battle commenced. The veteran division of Twiggs, already engaged in two hard-fought battles, the desultory and galling conflict of the day before and the brilliant victory of the morning, exposed to the rains of the night, and the whole without the least rest from the wearisome march around Lake Chalco, came gallantly into action against the enemy, intrenched in a position of remarkable strength,--a bastioned field-work of high relief, wet ditches, armed with eight guns, some of large calibre, and protected by a church converted into a defensive building of great strength. Taylor, whom you knew in Newport, came into action in most gallant style, and opened his fire upon the enemy, driving him from the roof of the building. But so destructive was the return fire of the enemy behind his earthen breastworks that in a short time his battery was cut up, and he was obliged to withdraw, losing many men and horses, and two of his officers were wounded. Lieutenant Martin, formerly stationed in Newport, lost his arm. Riley opened his fire with great spirit and effect against the left; Smith's brigade, headed by our gallant engineer company, against the right. Worth, hearing our fire, hastened up his command, and attacked a strong bastioned field-work on the great San Antonio causeway, and a little in rear of the work attacked by Twiggs. The 6th infantry and Duncan's battery were conducted directly up the causeway. A terrible fire of grape temporarily checked the advance of the 6th, and compelled Duncan to put his battery under cover. An attack was directed, headed by the 2d artillery, to turn the left of the position. The whole command of Worth was rushed to the attack, not in the most orderly manner, and the greatest gallantry was displayed by both officers and men. A continued blaze of fire proceeded from the extended line of the enemy, resting on the two field-works, and was returned with great spirit by both Twiggs and Worth. The roar of battle did not for a moment cease, and at times the stoutest hearts would quail. In the mean time the brigades of Shields and Pierce, conducted by the intrepid Captain Lee, were directed around the enemy's right to get into his rear and cut off his retreat. The enemy appeared in such great force that it was with the greatest difficulty that the command could be brought to the attack. The gallant Colonel Butler, leading most nobly the Palmetto regiment, was shot dead, and Lieutenant-Colonel Dickinson was wounded. After exceeding effort they were made to charge the enemy, the causeway was gained, and his retreat cut off. In this action both Shields and Pierce were conspicuous for their gallantry, and the latter was wounded. Previous to the attack of Worth, the work attacked by Twiggs had been nearly silenced by the destructive fire of his two gallant brigades, the gunners were shot down, and the guns were served only at intervals. Still the church held out, and the line in rear was not touched. Worth, after one repulse and at heavy loss, took by assault the work on the causeway, the guns of which, together with two from Duncan's battery, were opened upon the work attacked by Twiggs. Shields and Pierce had now cut the causeway. Seeing no hope of escape, the white flag was hung out, and immediately the division of Twiggs occupied the work, taking over one thousand prisoners, of whom three were general officers. The panic was now universal. Our troops pushed forward on the great causeway, the dragoons in hot pursuit, sabring the enemy in their path. They fled in all directions. The gallant Captain Kearny charged up almost to the very walls of the city, receiving a severe wound in the arm, which rendered its amputation necessary. This is a meagre account of this terrible fight, more protracted and severe than anything seen at the Resaca, at Monterey, or the Cerro Gordo. Our loss is great, some forty officers in killed and wounded, and over seven hundred rank and file; nearly half the officers of the 1st artillery were killed or wounded. Major Dimick commanded the regiment in three battles and escaped without a wound. As I have before said, I was on duty with the division of Twiggs. This veteran was greatly exposed during the whole contest, and was conspicuous for his coolness and judgment. General Scott himself was wounded. The chief engineer, Major Smith, was also conspicuous for gallantry and good conduct. Our gallant engineer company nobly sustained its reputation as the first company in the service. At the close of the action General Scott rode over the whole field, speaking words of encouragement to the wounded, and addressing the several regiments as he passed them. On all sides he was received with the greatest enthusiasm. His words were the eloquence of the heart, and told with great effect. General Scott and staff returned to San Augustin, some five miles from the battlefield, to pass the night. We were all greatly in need of rest. To our great satisfaction, on comparing notes it was found that not a single engineer officer had been touched, and only three soldiers of the company wounded. Notwithstanding the great fatigues of the day, I slept little that night. The battlefield was before me with its scenes of terror and of blood. The gallant officers who fell haunted me. The loss of human life was appalling. I reflected that with less precipitation the works could have been carried with much less loss. I was precipitate like the rest, and felt in a measure culpable. The next morning, after issuing the proper orders for the movements of the troops,--orders given verbally from his horse to his aides, and with admirable precision,--General Scott proceeded to the village of Coyoacan, and there met a white flag from the city. We then learned that consternation sat on that devoted place, and that her army of twenty-six thousand to thirty-two thousand men had become reduced to four thousand indifferent troops. The result of the white flag was the appointment of commissioners to treat of an armistice. This morning (Monday) the articles were duly signed, and there is now every prospect that the war has come to a close. The armistice is made by authority of the supreme government, and its avowed object is to negotiate a treaty of peace. This armistice provides generally that the two parties shall remain as they are. Hostilities are to cease within a circuit of twenty-eight leagues of the city, the guerrillas are to be withdrawn from the national road, and our communications are to be free with Vera Cruz. Monday evening. I have sad news to-day. The first day of the armistice the Mexicans have commenced trifling with us. The armistice provided that our army should draw supplies from the city, and in consequence we commenced drawing specie in exchange for drafts. The Mexicans denied this construction of the article, and in consequence, at three o'clock, General Scott gave notice of the termination of the armistice (the articles guarantee forty-eight hours' notice). The Mexicans dare not again invoke the power of our arms, and will yield the point. But it looks bad. Tuesday, August 24. The commissioners have met again to-day, and the articles have been modified to meet General Scott's views. Thursday, August 26. Yesterday Santa Anna issued a proclamation referring to his great exertions to defend his country, and to the circumstances of the present crisis, and stating his conviction that an honorable peace would promote the best interests of his country. Accordingly to-day commissioners to negotiate a treaty of peace were appointed on his part, who are to meet our commissioner, Mr. Trist, to-morrow. Friday, August 27. This has been a white day for me. The archbishop's palace is a very good place for the general and his personal staff. It has a splendid view from its top. But since our arrival it has been crowded with the general staff and with a company of dragoons. The courtyard was filled with horses, and the whole place was becoming filthy in the extreme. The chief engineer, Major Smith, and myself occupied a small, dirty room, which we used for a sleeping-room, an eating-room, and an office. Accordingly we determined to seek other quarters. After much inquiry, I fell to-day upon a splendid suite of apartments belonging to a judge in the City of Mexico, which I have secured, and am now occupying with Major Smith. We have a large parlor, dining-room, two large sleeping-rooms, a spacious kitchen, stable, and flower garden. As throughout all Mexico, our apartments extend to the rear, looking upon an open court, with one apartment only on the street. The house is of one story, and each window extends to the floor and opens upon the court. We feel quite comfortable in our new home. The corresponding suite of apartments on the opposite side of the court is occupied by the judge's clerks and law students. We have been much indebted in securing these apartments to the good offices of Mr. Jameson, a Scotch merchant of wealth in the City of Mexico, who resides in Tacubaya. He is our next-door neighbor, and will make a most pleasant acquaintance. Just opposite us, he is now building a most elegant mansion in the midst of a garden laid out in the English style. Last evening Mason and myself took a walk to the top of an eminence in rear of the palace, where we had a most beautiful view of the City of Mexico and its neighboring lakes. We both thought of Newport, and of the thousand delightful recollections that cluster around it. Mason is in fine health, and has greatly distinguished himself in the recent operations. We both hope to see Newport before the close of the year. Saturday, August 28. To-day I have for once felt entirely recovered from the fatigues of the recent operations in the valley, and have twice mounted my horse, and to-morrow I think of going to the village of Mixcoac, some two and a half miles from this place, where Pillow's division is quartered. Captain Pitman is there with the 9th infantry. The colonel of this regiment, Ransom, is a very fine officer. I saw General Pierce to-day. He was not recovered from the effects of a fall from his horse on the battle-ground of the 19th instant, but was able to be about. He was not wounded, as I have before written. He is making a fine impression upon the whole service. The casualties are much higher than any one anticipated,--over one thousand killed and wounded (about 1060). General Pierce's command suffered to the extent of about 160; General Cadwallader's, about 100; General Shields's, 200; General Worth's, 336; General Twiggs's, 260. FOOTNOTES: [1] The flat roof on the convent and most of the buildings in Mexico afforded strong positions for defense, being surrounded by parapets, known as azoteas, formed by carrying the walls some four feet above the roofs. The convent azotea was lined with infantry. CHAPTER XI MOLINO DEL REY.--CHAPULTEPEC.--CAPTURE OF CITY OF MEXICO.--RETURN TO UNITED STATES. The diary continues as follows:-- Saturday, August 21. General Scott and staff left San Augustin at eight o'clock; on his way to Coyoacan, he gave orders that Worth should move on Tacubaya, Pillow on Mixcoac, and Twiggs on San Angel; and at Coyoacan, he was met by commissioners from the city asking for a suspension of arms. It was granted as preliminary to an armistice to be concluded for the express purpose of negotiating a peace, and commissioners were to meet and adjust the terms of the armistice. The general proceeded with his staff, and took up quarters in the bishop's palace, on the slope ascending westward from Tacubaya, and about a mile and a half from Chapultepec. This palace is a favorite resort of Santa Anna, and affords an extended view of the whole valley of Mexico. Sunday, August 22. Generals Quitman, Smith, and Pierce, American commissioners, met the Mexican commissioners, Villamil and Quijano, to adjust the terms of the armistice. After sitting through the night of the 22d and 23d, the instrument was perfected, and signed by General Scott and President Santa Anna. It provided generally that the belligerents should remain as they were; that hostilities should cease within a circuit of thirty leagues; that reinforcements to the American army should stop at Puebla; that there should be no interruption to supplies coming to the army from the city; and that the American army should remain without the city. This armistice during the two or three subsequent days occasioned considerable discussion. The army generally felt a strong desire to enter the city as conquerors, and the foreigners of the city, somewhat numerous, fostered this feeling. It was generally agreed, however, by the most intelligent and reflecting, that General Scott had pursued a wise course. Our object was not to make a conquest, but to adjust the questions in dispute by a definite treaty of peace. We ought, therefore, to do nothing needlessly to humiliate them. Moreover, our entering the city would disperse the government, and there would be danger that the country would become the prey of factions, and that no party would have sufficient power to enter into treaty with. Such were the views of our commissioner, Mr. Trist. August 23-September 1. During these thirteen days Commissioners Herrera and Mora, on the part of the Mexican government, have met Mr. Trist several times to negotiate the treaty. Thus far nothing has transpired to afford reasonable apprehension that hostilities will again be resumed. The appointment of the principal men of the peace party, Santa Anna's opponents, strengthens this belief. His own proclamation announcing the armistice strongly advocates peace. It is believed that, were Santa Anna firmly seated in power, the whole thing could be arranged in thirty days. Unfortunately, he depends almost entirely upon his army. At this very moment clouds are overshadowing the heavens in all directions: Almonte and Valencia have formed a coalition to the west; Paredes has returned from exile, and is now said to be in the neighborhood of Puebla; Alvarez is somewhere to the north; and a fourth faction is making head towards the south. The Mexicans are great sticklers for forms, and, since the conclusion of the armistice, they have sent back our trains several times in consequence of some little ceremony having been omitted. The first train that entered the city was stoned by the populace, and there was some little difficulty experienced in getting the train out in safety. An apology was immediately made for the affront. But it was made the ground for suggesting that, for the safety of our people, the wagons should be loaded outside, and that our people should not enter the city. At this very moment there is no communication between the city and the residents of the villages occupied by our army. I believe that with patience and firmness on our part, and the being content with the cession of New Mexico and New California, paying therefor an ample indemnity in money, we shall get peace. We may consider the relinquishment of the Mexican claims to the territory east of the Rio Grande as the indemnity for the expenses of the war. September 6, 7. All our hopes have been doomed to disappointment. General Scott, in consequence of the violation of the third and seventh articles of the armistice on the part of the Mexicans, terminated the armistice to-day at twelve o'clock, and the ball is to be reopened. God grant that a similar sacrifice may not be required of us as at Churubusco! MOLINO DEL REY.[2] September 8. At daybreak an attack was made on the enemy's position at the foundry, and after a most terrific engagement of two hours the position was carried, but with a loss of six hundred killed and wounded in Worth's division alone. In addition to his command, Cadwallader's brigade was engaged. The enemy was in a position of immense strength, their left resting on Chapultepec and the foundry, their right on a ravine, a continuous breastwork covering their front. The attack was opened by two 24-pounders on the walls of the foundry, upon which an assaulting column of five hundred men picked from Worth's division, organized in companies of one hundred men and commanded by Major Wright, deployed and advanced upon the enemy's line. The right, led by Lieutenant Foster with ten sappers and ten pioneers carrying crowbars and axes, moved on the foundry; the left, led by Captain Mason, on the enemy's battery of four guns. The enemy were driven from their lines, but immediately retook them, every officer of the assaulting column being killed or wounded save two. Captain Mason had a flesh wound in the thigh; Lieutenant Foster one in the leg, breaking the bone. The right of the assaulting column having maintained its position under cover of the foundry, the reserves of Garland and Clarke were promptly brought up, and after a desperate conflict the enemy was driven to the rear of Chapultepec, and the whole position fell into our hands. Drum's battery of two 6-pounders supported Garland on the right, and with two rounds of canister drove the enemy from his battery. It was then pushed forward three hundred yards beyond support, opening its fire and driving the enemy before it, but was finally recalled. Duncan on the left supported Clarke's brigade, and drove the enemy, who was advancing, back to and out of the right of his lines. The dragoons under Major Sumner turned the right flank, causing a large body of lancers to retire under cover of a village to the left. I reconnoitred the ground to our left, and estimated the lancers to be from one to two thousand. The attack had simply for its object the destruction of the foundry (which did not exist; at least, no boring apparatus or furnaces could be found), and the position was finally abandoned. The battle was entirely without results; two or three additional victories of the same kind would annihilate our army. It has filled all hearts with sadness. Colonel Scott, Captain Merrill, Captain Ayres, Captain Armstrong, and others have fallen. Among those most lamented is the gallant Colonel Graham, who fell gallantly leading the 11th regiment to the charge. Lieutenant Burwell, wounded in the assault, was barbarously murdered by the enemy by a lance in the head. Duncan's efficiency was diminished in consequence of the precipitate charge of Clarke's brigade on the Casa Mata, masking his fire. A well-directed fire of round-shot from his battery would have driven the enemy from that strong position, and thus saved us many valuable lives sacrificed in taking it by the bayonet. There was great difficulty in reconnoitring the position without bringing on a general action. More guns should have been brought into action. It was more a case for artillery than for the bayonet. An attempt should have been made to reconnoitre the enemy's right, with a view of sending round a column and taking his line in flank and rear. The loss to Worth's division was greater in this action than the English loss at the assault of Badajos. On the 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th, in consequence of the occupation of the church of Piedad by our troops, and the pushing of the reconnoissances in that direction, the enemy was exceedingly active in fortifying that front of the city from the gate of Belen to that of Las Vegas, and even prepared cuts in the road leading to Istacalco on the canal. On the 10th they had a very respectable battery in position, and were in expectation that the attack would be made in that direction. CHAPULTEPEC. At a council of war at La Piedad on the 11th, it was determined to establish batteries against Chapultepec, and carry it by assault, then to operate against the city as circumstances should dictate. This was General Scott's proposition, and was concurred in generally by the officers present at the council. Accordingly, on the night of the 11th-12th batteries were commenced, one for two 18-pounders and one 8-inch howitzer on the road leading to Chapultepec, and one for one 24-pounder and one 8-inch howitzer near the foundry. These batteries opened their fire about eight A.M. on the 12th, Quitman's division supporting on the right, Pillow's on the left. About 2.30 P.M. a third battery, one 18-pounder, one 8-inch howitzer, and one mortar, was prepared also near the foundry. The fire was returned with some spirit, and about eight A.M. on the 13th the order was given to commence the assault. Chapultepec stands boldly out two miles from the City of Mexico, an eminence two hundred feet high, having on its summit an irregular work with a stone scarp ten feet high, the whole defended by the strong stone building used as a military college. At the southwestern foot of the height is the venerable cypress grove of the age of Montezuma, extending to within four hundred yards of the mill whence Pillow was to direct the assault of his command. At its eastern base was a formidable battery sweeping the causeway of approach in the direction of Quitman's command, the aqueduct and stone buildings affording cover to troops. It was known, from a daring reconnoissance made by General Quitman on the afternoon of the 12th, that the enemy were in the occupancy of this base of Chapultepec, five thousand strong. Quitman, with a select storming party from Twiggs's division two hundred and fifty strong, commanded by Captain Casey and supported by Smith's brigade, was to attack on the right, carrying the formidable position reconnoitred by him on the 12th, and thence sweeping up the hill to enter the citadel itself. Pillow, supported by Worth's whole division with a select storming party from that division, headed by the gallant Captain McKensie, 2d artillery, was to break through the cypress grove, charge up the hill, and pour his men into the work in conjunction with Quitman. At eight o'clock the commands advanced. In Pillow's attack, the Voltigeurs, with Callender's howitzer battery, ran forward, and, charging the wood, soon cleared it of the enemy's skirmishers. His whole command now pushed forward with such unexpected vigor that, before the storming party could pass them to take the lead, the whole brow of the hill was covered by a dense body of men, who, finding cover behind rocks and in the inequalities of the ground, steadfastly maintained its position, swaying slightly in the effort to get better cover whilst endeavoring to advance. There they hung, like a cluster of bees, whilst a tremendous fire of artillery opened upon them from the work. The storming party with their ladders now pressed forward; soon they were planted, the gallant McKensie, with his hat on his sword, pressed forward, drawing after as by strings the whole command, who in a moment overleaped the work and drove the gunners down the eastern slope, where a fierce conflict still raged on the part of Quitman. Quitman, at the preconcerted signal, moved forward the select storming party from Twiggs's division, a light battalion under the gallant Major Twiggs, and a select storming party of forty marines under Captain Reynolds in the advance, followed by the Maine battalion, the South Carolina, New York, and Pennsylvania volunteers. The brigade of Smith was in the adjoining field on the right, and had assigned to it the duty of breaking through the aqueduct and taking the enemy in flank and rear. The command moved up the causeway, under a tremendous fire of artillery and musketry, till they reached some old buildings of adobe, where they were obliged to get a momentary shelter. From this position, a company of the rifles and portions of the storming parties being still further in advance, they opened an effective fire in return. As the volunteer regiments came up, they were turned off into the open field on the left, intersected with ditches, to the assault of Chapultepec. The New Yorkers and Pennsylvanians made a detour to the left, and entering the cypress grove at an abandoned breastwork where some fifteen minutes previously portions of Pillow's command had entered, pressed forward and became intermingled with Pillow's command as it poured into the work, as did the Palmettoes, who pierced the stone wall at a partial breach made by a cannon-ball without scarcely varying from their direction. Smith in his advance, finding two wide and deep ditches in his front without any adequate means to cross them, and his force too small to force the passage in presence of the immense force of the enemy, veered to the left, and sheltering his troops partially by maguey plants, opened a well-directed fire upon the enemy in conjunction with the storming parties and marines on the causeway. Meanwhile Drum's battery, a 9-pounder and a 16-pounder, came up and opened on the enemy, as did Hunt's section of Drum's battery. For half an hour the contest was of unparalleled severity. Our troops, however, pressed forward, and, Chapultepec having fallen, the enemy fled to the city along the Tacubaya causeway, and a causeway entering the San Cosme causeway at the English cemetery, some six hundred yards outside the garita, yet not till some of the most resolute of their troops had maintained their posts even to the interlocking of bayonets and clubbing of rifles. Quitman on the Tacubaya causeway, the rifles and 1st artillery of Smith's brigade in advance, Worth on the San Cosme causeway, pressed forward in pursuit of the enemy. Aqueducts supplying the city with water extended along both these causeways, resting on arches that afforded partial shelter to troops. The causeway of Tacubaya led directly into the city, and with a strong field-work midway was defended at the gate by another formidable battery, by the strong work of the citadel three hundred yards distant, and by cross-fires from a formidable battery on the paseo leading from the San Cosme to the Belen suburb, and on both sides were almost impassable ditches filled with water. The San Cosme suburb extended even beyond the English cemetery, where there was a formidable field-work sweeping the main Cosme causeway and the causeway from Chapultepec. At the gate, and two hundred yards without, were two batteries for two guns each. Quitman pushed forward his command with unexampled vigor. The rifles and 1st artillery in advance, closely followed by the Palmettoes, marines, and the remainder of the volunteer division, were in close contact with the enemy till possession was effected of the garita at twenty minutes past one. In this contest Drum's battery, assisted by Captain Winder's company of the 1st artillery as a fatigue party, was served with a vigor and enthusiasm unparalleled in this war. The iron men of Drum pushed it into the very teeth of the enemy's fire, and made it send forth an iron hail that drove the enemy from all his positions, even the garita itself. Drum paused not at the garita. With a sublime devotion, he marched boldly up to the very citadel itself, and fell mortally wounded, together with his gallant lieutenant, Benjamin, two thirds of his company being disabled. In command of a battery only three weeks, he fell universally lamented, the first artillerist of the army. The temporary pause in the pursuit on the capture of the garita, considered indispensable to get the command in hand in order to proceed against the enemy, who was still in force, gave time to reassure the troops at the citadel, who were at one moment struck with a panic, and on the eve of evacuating the position. Notwithstanding the heroic conduct of Drum and the gallantry of the rifles and Palmettoes, the terrible fire which was soon opened from that work and the battery on the paseo compelled Quitman to withdraw his troops to the shelter of the garita, where they sustained the tremendous fire of the enemy till nightfall. The command of Worth, on the fall of Chapultepec, boldly pushed forward to the San Cosme suburb, Garland's brigade and Magruder's battery in front. A smart encounter was had with a considerable body of the enemy's lancers, who were charging down the causeway. Magruder was vigorously pushing forward his guns, ably supported by the troops, and the battery at the English cemetery was about to fall into our hands, when the whole command was halted. Worth, on arriving at a cross-road leading to the Tacubaya cemetery, was attracted by the tremendous contest going on there, and in consequence halted his command to be in condition to lend a hand to Quitman in case of his being sorely pressed. Timely assistance was rendered by Duncan's battery, which contributed materially to Quitman's success. Meanwhile a reconnoissance by the engineers showed that the enemy had no artillery in position at the cemetery, that the infantry force there was not formidable, and the lancers hanging on the flanks were not worthy of regard. Soon the order was given to charge the works. Our troops pressed in, driving the enemy before them and with little loss, and pressed forward to the batteries at the garita and in advance. Worth, on his arrival at the suburb about half past twelve o'clock, finding that a continuous row of stone buildings put it in our power to make a permanent lodgment, and reduce the contest to the crowbar and pickaxe without exposing the lives of the men, recalled the troops, and awaited the arrival of the ordnance and engineer trains. A reconnoissance having shown that the first battery could easily be carried and with little loss, the enemy was driven from it, and Hunt's section was put in position behind it, and made to open on the enemy's battery of two guns at the garita. But he was soon compelled to put his battery under cover in consequence of the superior metal of the enemy. At four the trains arrived, and immediately the troops, armed with the proper tools, commenced making their way from house to house. One party, headed by the engineer company, reaching the top of a high building, forty yards from the garita, opened fire upon the enemy at the guns at the very moment a similar fire was opened from a party on the other side of the street led by the gallant McKensie. The enemy was driven from the garita, but took away one of their guns. At nightfall Worth's whole command was lodged in the suburb, his advance within twelve hundred yards of the Alameda. During the night Quitman, in the erection of batteries and infantry covers, was making every preparation to renew the contest in the morning and to carry his attack into the heart of the city. The enemy, however, withdrew their troops, and at seven o'clock Quitman's command entered the citadel, and, pushing forward to the main plaza, the marines cleared the palace of the leperos, or thieves, who were infesting it, and hoisted the star-spangled banner from its summit. General Scott, who had been the master spirit of the whole operations, originating the plan of attacking Chapultepec, giving the order when the time had come to make the assault, from the extended position of Chapultepec ordering the movements upon the causeways, supporting each by an adequate force, and on a lodgment being effected in the Cosme suburb ordering the resort to the crowbar and the refraining from the bayonet,--General Scott at eight o'clock issued his orders from the national palace announcing his occupation of the capital of Mexico. Still, a desultory contest was kept up throughout the day from the houses of the city by an intermingled body of soldiers and leperos led on by officers of the army. Scott took the most decided means to stop it, and ordered every house to be blown up from which a hostile shot should be fired. At night the city was tranquil and in the undisturbed possession of our troops. Thus the crowning glories of Chapultepec and of the gates of San Cosme and Belen placed us in the undisputed possession of the City and valley of Mexico. The public force of the enemy, dispirited and demoralized, paused two or three days at Guadalupe and divided: Santa Anna with a portion repairing to Puebla to try his fortunes against Childs, the governor of that place, and to watch his opportunity to fall upon our reinforcements coming up from Vera Cruz; the remainder, a disorderly rabble, repairing to Queretaro, where the government was to be temporarily established. The casualties to the American arms in this valley have been immense,--2703 out of a force of 10,737, over one fourth, equal to the English loss at the siege of Badajos. General Scott's movement against Chapultepec was masterly, and in his plans he was well seconded by his generals. The removal of the depot to Mixcoac, the concentration of the troops at La Piedad, and the reconnoissances in that direction, impressed the enemy with the belief that that point of the city was to be attacked; nor were they undeceived till the very last moment, fully believing that the operations against Chapultepec were only a feint. In the attack upon Chapultepec General Quitman's arrangements are open to criticism. His select storming party intended for the assault of Chapultepec, and armed with ladders to scale and implements to break through the walls, were kept on the causeway; whereas the whole volunteer force was sent in that direction, wholly unprovided in every particular, and that, too, at too late a period to be of much essential assistance, and in a direction which made it necessary to fall in with Pillow's command, already supported in great strength by the whole of Worth's division. The consequence was that General Smith found himself too weak to break through the enemy's force at the aqueduct and take him in flank and rear. Had Smith been preceded by the storming party provided with plank to cross the ditches, and supported by two of the volunteer regiments, the slaughter of the enemy must have been immense, and large numbers must have been taken prisoners. The marines with their storming party, the light battalion, and one of the volunteer regiments with Drum's battery would have been in place to encounter the enemy on the causeway. At the garita Drum's battery and the Palmettoes were pushed forward under the guns of the citadel, and large numbers were uselessly sacrificed. On the whole, however, General Quitman exercised good judgment, and gave proof of extraordinary vigor, intrepidity, and firmness. And he deserves the greatest credit for his perfect mastery of his command. General Pillow's dispositions were good and well executed, excepting that the storming party did not move in season, in consequence of which the supporting force, pressing onward, gained the brow of the hill in dense masses, and were there detained some little time awaiting the storming party with their ladders, who in their turn found great difficulty in pushing their way through to the front, which only a small portion succeeded perfectly in doing. General Worth, in his attack upon the city, unnecessarily delayed his advance to succor Quitman. Quitman was to be most effectually relieved by the vigorous attack of Worth on his own line. On the arrival of the trains, however, he proceeded with great judgment and efficiency, and his attack alone, in consequence of being able to work from house to house, must have of itself put the city into our hands. Had it not been for Worth's vigorous movement towards nightfall, bringing him well into the city, the enemy would not have abandoned the citadel to Quitman without a severe struggle. Twiggs's command did not have the prominence as a division that it had at Contreras and Churubusco in consequence of the brigades being separated. Smith's brigade did good service in conjunction with Quitman, and Riley at La Piedad kept the enemy in check during the storming of Chapultepec, and, afterwards joining Worth, did good service in the streets on the 14th. The engineers did good service during all their operations at Molino del Rey. Captain Mason made a most daring and successful examination of the front of the enemy's position, and in the attack on the 8th was signally gallant, but the result showed that the right of the enemy should have been more particularly examined. The character of his defenses at this point was never known till our troops, in the full tide of battle, were hurled against them, to be repulsed with the loss of nearly half their number. Without shining talents, and without any remarkable decision or independence of character, Captain Lee has rendered signal service on this line. Laborious, constant, firm, of good judgment, patient, and guarded in his conduct, of popular manners and address, he has been a safe counselor, and always efficient in the discharge of duty. Distinguished at Vera Cruz, the Cerro Gordo, and in this valley, both before and subsequent to the armistice, he continued at his post to the last moment, even when oppressed with illness and great physical fatigue. After the storm of Chapultepec he received a severe contusion in the thigh, which disabled him for the day. Lieutenant Beauregard is one of the finest soldiers in our corps. Of great strength, accomplished in all manly exercises, well read in his profession, and of forcible and independent character, much self-reliance and confidence, he has established a good reputation throughout the service. On the day of the storm of Chapultepec, although struck several times and twice severely, he maintained his post, and in the night supervised the erection of the batteries and infantry covers, from which Quitman was to open his fires upon the citadel in case the enemy had continued the conflict on the following day. Lieutenant Tower, for judgment, for an assured and natural self-reliance, great force of character, and great decision and intrepidity in emergencies, has no superior in our corps. Indefatigable at Vera Cruz and the Cerro Gordo, he was eminently distinguished at Contreras. Subsequent to the armistice he was efficient in the discharge of his duties, and the engineer officer of Quitman on the day of the storm of Chapultepec; he was remarkably intrepid under the fire of the enemy, and was at his post till a severe wound in the head compelled him to withdraw. Lieutenant Smith, in command of the engineer company, has rendered the most distinguished service. He has shown great power of command. The engineer company has rendered the most distinguished service. The engineer company devolved upon him in a state of great despondency and discontent on the part of the men. By his judicious management he breathed into it the breath of life, raised the spirits of the men, and inspired them with hope and confidence. In his hands the company has acquired a great reputation in the service. His lieutenants, McClellan and Foster, are both brave, intrepid, efficient, and devoted to duty. At Molino, Foster was dangerously wounded in the leg. But perhaps no officer of engineers has rendered more brilliant service than Captain Mason. Of remarkable intellectual force, great quickness of apprehension, highly cultivated, an ambitious student, and frank and honest in his life, on the field of battle, in a reconnoissance of the enemy's position, indeed in every emergency, he has been conspicuous for force, rapid decision, and the most daring intrepidity. In my own case, delicate health has much diminished my efficiency. Our long rest in Puebla did something towards restoring my strength, and I entertained the hope that it would prove equal to any emergency. I rode in an ambulance to Buena Vista, and subsequently from Ayotla to San Augustin. My reconnoissance of the Peñon, in which I was employed seven hours in mud and water, and within almost point-blank range of the enemy's guns, was highly satisfactory to General Scott. On the 19th, at Contreras, I was too much exhausted and in too delicate health to remain on the field exposed to the rain. I in consequence returned to San Augustin, and was not present in the splendid attack of General Smith on Valencia's intrenched camp. At Churubusco I was the senior engineer officer of Twiggs's division. At the close of that day I was almost wholly prostrated by my exertions, and I had not renewed the strength with which I left Puebla on the termination of the armistice. At Molino del Rey I accompanied the reserves to the field, and on Mason and Foster becoming disabled from wounds, did duty during the remainder of the action. Subsequently, in conjunction with Beauregard and Tower, I reconnoitred the southern front of the city. In consequence of physical exhaustion I was not assigned to duty in the establishing of batteries against Chapultepec, but on the day of the 13th was on duty till I was wounded, in the San Cosme suburb, about half past one o'clock. September 13. At half past one o'clock I was wounded in the foot, whilst posting a picket at a little work at a village some five hundred yards beyond the English cemetery. Dr. De Lein cut out the ball. It struck close to the little toe, and crossing over a little obliquely to the rear, was cut out just in front of the instep. The bones are fractured and the tendons lacerated. About half past three o'clock I was taken to Tacubaya in an ambulance, and in the evening Dr. Barnes dressed my wound. September 14. I was removed to the city this day, and placed in comfortable quarters in the palace. I suffered some little pain last night and through the day. I owe many thanks to Major Smith for his unwearied kindness. September 15. To-day I am relieved of pain, though last night I got but indifferent rest. Dr. Barnes attends me, and has commenced applying poultices. September 17. Dr. Barnes, on examining my wound this morning, observed, in a manner that showed he was relieved of much anxiety, "I can save the foot." September 18-30. During this period my wound has done famously. I have been in no pain whatever. News has come of large reinforcements pouring in from below, and many expect them to reach Mexico as early as the 10th proximo. It seems to me we cannot reasonably expect their arrival till the 20th or 30th proximo. Santa Anna, some few days after our entrance, abdicated the presidency in favor of the chief justice, Peña y Peña, and announced his intention to go to Puebla, organize a force, and operate against Childs and reinforcements coming up from below. No one here is much apprehensive of the result. The general has found it necessary to issue stringent orders in regard to assassinations of men, and to enforce the utmost vigilance on the part of our guards. In some of the regiments the police is bad, and the guards totally neglectful of their duty. A large city is ruinous to the _morale_ of troops. The officers in our army spend the nights at the gambling-houses (tigers), and the men indulge in women and drink as long as their money lasts. A camp of instruction alone affords the means of putting troops in a high state of discipline and efficiency. Yet the occupation of cities has great advantages. The residents become familiar with our character and customs, and friendly relations grow up. October 1. This day I have sat up the first time,--a most agreeable change from the recumbent posture. We hear news from below that Childs has been severely pressed. Here, we are firmly of opinion that he cannot be driven from his post. It is hoped and believed that no troops will march up from below except in a strong column, four to six thousand men. A small body might tempt the enemy. He might fall upon it with a large force and gain some success. October 2-11. Rumors accumulate in reference to Santa Anna's attack on Puebla. From all accounts, his troops are of poor quality, and he is not on the best terms with his subordinates. My wound is doing exceedingly well, and I have at length found an opportunity to write to my wife and father by way of Tampico. October 12-24. My wound has been doing badly, and my general health has been poor. For several days the foot became much inflamed, and poultices had to be applied. The new flesh has sloughed off, and the process of granulation has to be gone over again. At the present time my wound is doing well, and the fever or flux, which has threatened me for many days, I have nearly driven off. November 1. A train of six hundred wagons departed for Vera Cruz with a large number of wounded officers and men, on their return to the States; Generals Quitman and Shields, Colonels Garland, Andrews, and Morgan, Major Smith, and other distinguished officers being of the number. General Quitman leaves behind him the most enviable reputation. Courteous in deportment, just in conduct, a man of business devoted to his duty, he is second to no commander of division in this army. As a military man he is said to be well informed, and to understand well the principles of his profession. He has extraordinary vigor, courage, and coolness, and he has exhibited great ability in the management of the volunteer division. General Shields has all the dashing and enthusiastic bravery peculiar to the Irish race. There is no braver man in our army. Since entering the military service he has assiduously studied his profession, and is fast rising as a military man. November 2. Yesterday and to-day have been festival (All Saints') days. Word came from Colonel Childs that General Lane on the 29th set out from Puebla with a column to meet the train, and that General Patterson left Vera Cruz with five thousand men. There is still an impression that General Patterson will assume the command, and that General Scott will be recalled. But I discredit it entirely. Very few cases of stabbing now occur. On the departure of Major Smith, with whom I have messed nearly the whole time I have been in the country, I find myself entirely alone. Colonel Watson (in command of Shields's brigade) and staff occupied adjoining rooms, and we made a very pleasant little circle. Colonel Watson is a candid, sensible, and good man. I esteem him highly. Lieutenant Baker is a gentleman of much intelligence, considerable acuteness, and of the most friendly feelings. They are now all gone, and I am now installed in Colonel Watson's apartment. I am in a spacious room, with three large windows hung in damask looking on the street, and having at one extremity a raised platform, carpeted, and canopied with damask. Here I have my bed, my table, and my armchair, as comfortable as all the world. Indeed, I now very much feel as if I were in the halls of the Montezumas. My brother officers have most kindly offered to do all they can for me. November 3. Since the departure of the train the weather has been beautiful. Captain Naylor this morning very summarily dispelled my dreams of luxuriating in the halls of the Montezumas by saying that the room I now occupied was needed for a commission, and that he must ask me to remove to my old quarters. As they were exceedingly damp and uncomfortable, and totally unfit for an invalid, Captain Lee referred the matter to General Smith, the governor of the city, who decided that I should not be moved till a suitable room could be provided. Captain Naylor is an enthusiast on the subject of the regeneration of Mexico through American intervention. As superintendent of the archives, he avails himself of his opportunities to understand this people. They are undoubtedly degenerating. The cities are falling into decay; the mechanic arts do not improve; misrule and anarchy have long been the every-day experience of this unfortunate people. In the City of Mexico not a new house has been built for years, and many structures are crumbling into ruins. November 4. My friends, Captains Lee, Power, and Hardcastle, give glowing accounts of the scenic representations at the Santa Anna theatre,--more perfect in the mechanical contrivances, and more splendid in effect, than anything to be seen in our own country. I regretted to learn that Captain Lee's man Peter was murdered in Ayotla after the arrival of the train on the evening of the 1st instant. The officers are hard at work at their drawings, and hope to finish them against my going down in the next train. November 11. During the past few days I have been ill and well again,--a bad cold and the wound inflamed. The doctor, however, still confines me to my room. He considers that rest is necessary to prevent my foot's inflaming. Information has come that General Patterson, on the 27th ultimo, left Vera Cruz. He will probably require twenty days to reach Puebla, and some twelve days more to make his arrangements there and his journey to Mexico. I shall not, therefore, look for a mail before the 17th instant. November 14. Nothing of interest has occurred in the city. Anaya is said to have been elected provisional president. A piece of leather of the size of half a tlaco came from my wound to-day. It was cut out of my shoe by the ball and carried into my foot. November 15. A general order was published to-day announcing the determination of the general to bring to trial and punishment all officers who shall, contrary to regulations, furnish for publication accounts of operations in the field, and censuring in the severest terms the authors of "Leonidas" and of the Tampico letter in the "North American." November 16. Colonel Duncan, in a letter breathing defiance to the general, announced himself as the author of the Tampico letter, and exonerated General Worth from all knowledge even of its having been written till it was well on its way. It was not written for publication, Colonel Duncan avers. Colonel Duncan was arrested in consequence of these matters. November 18. The long-expected train arrived to-day, bringing me three letters from my dear wife, and news of my little family being in excellent health. Mr. Trist has been recalled, and it seems to be the determination of the government to abandon all attempts to negotiate a peace, and to prosecute the war unto the occupation of the whole country. November 20. Much to my delight, I mounted my crutches to-day and moved about my room. November 21. I made a call on my friend Major Kirby, and met several of my acquaintances. November 22. To-day I got as far as the engineer office. General Pillow is in arrest. December 4. Went into the streets to-day and was much rejoiced to be relieved from confinement. Called to see my friend Foster, and found him doing nicely. December 5. Went to the theatre, and was charmed with Cañete. My friends had spoken of her in glowing terms, and I went prepared to find her overrated. She is remarkably natural, chaste, and graceful in all her impersonations, and I do not wonder that she is so very popular with the whole world of theatre-going people. December 9. The train finally got off to-day, and proceeded as far as Venta Nueva. Foster and myself have a tolerable ambulance assigned to us. We got off late, the last wagons not leaving the city till towards noon. The mules were a good deal fagged, and the train will not probably get down so soon by two days in consequence of the length of this day's march. Distance, main plaza to Ayotla, fourteen miles. December 10. Proceeded to Rio Frio. Here I met my classmate, Colonel Irvin, in command of the 5th Ohio regiment. The night was quite cold, and, not finding a room, we were obliged to sleep in an ambulance. December 11. This day went to San Martin, where we found some excellent pulque. Distance, fifteen miles. December 12. Reached Puebla. Distance, twenty miles. 1847. The diary ends here. Lieutenant Stevens's wound was far more serious than he, in his cheerful way of making the best of everything, admitted. The ball ploughed across the bridge of the foot, breaking nearly all the bones. At first the surgeons were extremely doubtful of saving the foot. The wound was slow in healing, and the foot never fully recovered its strength and usefulness. Three times, at intervals of one or two years, the wound opened and expelled pieces of bone. For many years he had to wear a special shoe with extra-thick sole. The chief of the robbers who served as spies for General Scott, a man of striking presence and romantic though blood-stained career, known as Don Juan el Diablo (Don John the Devil), formed a strong attachment to Lieutenant Stevens, and took care of him during a great part of his sickness, and was devoted and unwearied in his attentions to the wounded officer. ST. CHARLES, NEW ORLEANS, December 28, 1847. MY DEAREST WIFE,--I have just reached this city after a four days' passage from Vera Cruz, and a twenty days' journey in all from the City of Mexico. I am in splendid health, although my wound still keeps me on crutches. We are all going up the river to-morrow, and I am full of the most blissful anticipations at the idea of seeing you, the children, and friends. You will not see me for eight or ten days after the receipt of this. I shall be obliged to stay in Washington some days. Love to friends, and to Hazard and Sue. I hope to see you soon. Yours affectionately, ISAAC. FOOTNOTES: [2] The hill of Chapultepec, famed as the ancient country-seat of the Montezumas, rose some two miles outside the city, and was crowned by a strong castle. An extensive grove of huge and hoary cypresses clothed its slopes and stretched half a mile westward, the whole surrounded by a solid wall of masonry. Molino del Rey, the King's Mill, a group of stone buildings, stood at the foot of the grove, and the Mexican line of defenses extended thence to a strong work, the Casa Mata, and far beyond it. It was reported that the enemy had a gun foundry in Molino, and General Scott determined to capture it. CHAPTER XII HEROES HOME FROM THE WAR WASHINGTON, January 23, 1848. MY DEAREST MARGARET,--At the strong desire of the colonel, I must remain here a few days longer. He wishes me to go with him over all the reports in order to get at all the facts in relation to the services of the engineer officers in the recent campaign of Mexico. I am able to afford many explanations of the reports, presenting in a stronger light the services of our officers, which will enable the colonel to present a strong case to the Secretary in matters of brevets. The colonel and his family have been very cordial to me, and nothing could be more grateful than the high appreciation they have for the services of our officers. The colonel takes great pride in the distinction which our corps has acquired. Indeed, the services of the engineers have been so conspicuous that the corps has become popular. Every one knows that the engineers have important functions in the field. I have paid my respects to the President and Secretary, and was highly gratified with my interview. The Secretary had a half hour's leisure, and I took the opportunity to express my sense of the great ability, wisdom, and patriotism of General Scott. The Secretary has the highest admiration for his military achievements, and is indeed a just and judicious friend to the service. I am boarding at Mrs. Janney's with my old friends, Gilmer and Woodbury. Woodbury married Miss Childs, a very pleasant lady. Her mother is also boarding at the same place, a highly intelligent person, and the wife of Colonel Childs, distinguished for his defense of Puebla. You may be sure I am very impatient to see you and my little ones. Nothing but a sense of duty to my brother officers, who are absent in the field, could have induced me to remain. I hope to reach Newport within the week, certainly by next Sunday morning. Affectionate remembrances to friends, and love, much love, to my Hazard and Susan. Yours most affectionately, ISAAC. My health is splendid, my wound improving. The enforced visit to Washington was not without pleasant features. He was received with the gratifying attentions due an officer just from the seat of war, who had distinguished himself for gallantry and conduct, and enjoyed the congenial duty of explaining the military operations to his chief, and aiding in securing for his absent comrades the honors and rewards they had so well earned. A letter of February 6 from his friend, Captain Foster, is of interest in this connection:-- "On arriving at Washington I went immediately to Mrs. Janney's. There I heard of you. They all spoke very highly of you, particularly Mr. Robbins, who was very much interested in you. I dined at Colonel Totten's on Wednesday, and Mrs. T. told me all about your being here. They all paid you some very fine compliments. Mrs. T. said she gained more information from Mr. Stevens than from _all_ the other officers who had come from Mexico, your manner of speaking of men and things was so frank and just. Miss Kate said she was _delighted_ with Mr. Stevens; he was correct and reliable in all he said. The colonel seemed glad to see me, and proud of the reputation of his corps. The result of all this, I hope, will be that he will give us two brevets, make you a major in charge of a work, and send me as your assistant.... It made me right jealous to hear the flatteries that the ladies at Mrs. Burr's bestowed on the 'gallant Mr. Stevens.'" It was a joyful reunion when he reached Newport, and enfolded his dearly loved wife and little ones in his arms. A fortnight later he visited Andover, and one may imagine how his father, brother Oliver, and cousins and fellow townsmen received the soldier, returned on crutches, with open arms, and lionized him to the full. The country had been at peace for thirty years, and the returning soldiers from Mexico, especially the wounded officers, were received with mingled feelings of awe and admiration. Writes a brother officer, "The boys look at me around the corner, remarking, 'I see him.' 'There he goes.' 'The man that's been to Mexico.'" NEWPORT, R.I., February 28, 1848. MY DEAR FATHER,--We reached Newport about half past eight o'clock in the evening the same day we left Andover. I am now in my office, and am devoting some six hours each day to official matters. My wound is improving; I go about the house with a cane simply, and through the streets with one crutch and a cane. In one month, or at least in two months, I hope to be able to dismiss my crutches entirely. I hope in all sincerity that our difficulties with Mexico are in the way of a permanent adjustment. The general opinion is that the Senate will ratify the treaty. The only difficulty (and one which in my opinion is much to be apprehended) is that Mexico, in consequence of a pronunciamiento, may disavow her own act. I trust, however, that such will not be the case, though I think it incumbent upon our government to continue to raise and push out troops till the thing is settled. Should there be want of faith on the part of the Mexicans, we should be in condition to punish it with most exemplary severity. Let our war measures be all pushed through without delay, and let there be the greatest activity in raising troops. This course of procedure, whilst ratifying the treaty, will make the treaty an effective thing. Remember me to friends. Margaret wishes to be affectionately remembered to you. Hazard has not forgotten your stories of King George and the Redcoats. At this time he was being considered for the colonelcy of one of the new regiments, which, if the war continued, would have to be raised. A prominent member of Congress from Maine, Hezekiah Williams, writes him, "I think our delegation would unite in recommending you. It certainly would give me pleasure to aid in obtaining your appointment." Mr. Stevens writes Oliver:-- "My policy is to get elected to the command of a volunteer regiment, and get a leave of absence, so as to hold on to my present commission. I should like to command a Massachusetts regiment and put it through some good service in Mexico, should we be obliged to resort to the alternative of renewing the contest." An incident occurred one day, when a light rifle that Mr. Stevens had taken to Mexico, but had never used in action there, stood in good stead. A mad dog ran amuck down Broad Street, frothing at the mouth and snapping at all he met. The people on all sides rushed into the shops and houses for refuge, with loud outcries of alarm and warning. Mr. Stevens, apprised of the danger, seized the light rifle, hobbled out on his crutches to the sidewalk, followed up the maddened beast, which had now dashed into the hall of a neighboring house, and shot him through the head, killing him on the spot. He might now reasonably expect a little rest until he could recover from his severe wound and injury. He writes Oliver, March 15:-- "I am taking things very quietly in this most quiet of all places. There is no danger from dissipation or over-excitement, and I need not, therefore, be apprehensive of anything like inflammation in my wounded part. My wound is doing exceedingly well. I can now move a little about the house with a cane." That very day he received orders to proceed to Savannah, Ga., with the view of taking charge of the fortifications on the Savannah River. After his arrival there he writes Oliver, March 27:-- "I am here on temporary duty for a few days, and shall return home next week. This is to be my permanent station in the fall. The summer I shall spend in amusing myself. A portion of it will be passed in Andover. "Savannah is an old-looking, handsomely laid out, and pretty well-built place, the most important town in the State, and the only one having much trade. "Colonel Mansfield will relieve me in Bucksport during the latter part of April, at which time I shall bid adieu to my friends in Maine. "I am tolerably well pleased with my new station. It is healthy throughout the year, and I have no doubt the change will prove highly advantageous so far as health is concerned. "The duties are trifling. The large work, Fort Pulaski, is finished, and nothing remains to be done but to prepare a bridge-head of timber, and secure the island from overflow by the construction of dikes. The small work, Fort Jackson, will require an expenditure of something less than one hundred thousand dollars in the way of enlargement and repair. "My duties will therefore be comparatively light. Nothing will be doing from June to October; so I shall be able to go North occasionally to pass the summer. "The people are very hospitable, and I shall make many acquaintances before I leave. I have an old classmate just rising at the bar here, and many officers' families reside here." His next letter to Oliver, from Newport, April 6, is interesting as presenting his view of Cromwell:-- "I am just back from Savannah after an absence of twenty days, and return thither to commence operations in November next. The intermediate time will enable me to get well of my game foot, and to pass some little time among my friends. I go down to Bucksport week after next to turn over the public property to Colonel Mansfield, and I shall probably be in Portland on Friday, April 21. "I am rather late to answer the principal thing in your letter of the 25th ultimo. Both subjects are good. I should think that 'Individuality of Character' would be preferable, because its handling does not require so much reading as Cromwell. With ample leisure for investigation, I should prefer the latter. I do not know of a single unprejudiced authority. Foster's Statesmen of the Commonwealth and Clarendon's History are the best I have seen. Russell's Biography is poor and inaccurate. Hume is very superficial. Catherine Macaulay is a great bigot. Carlyle's Cromwell is good, because it consists principally of Cromwell's letters and speeches. Babington Macaulay's essays on the various statesmen of the rebellion are good. "I like your idea of treating the subject of individuality. The greatest example of the influence of a strong, original character in moulding a great people in our own history is Franklin. It was the strong, original characters of our Revolution that achieved our independence. The many are always ruled by a few, frequently by one, the wise, the strong man, or men. I have found in this view many fine ideas in Carlyle's Heroes. "As regards Cromwell: he and he alone achieved the overthrow of the Stuarts. Without him there would have been no glorious restoration, as Burke calls the expulsion of James. The French monarchy would have still been absolute, and the French people would have still been in chains. Cromwell was bold, direct, far-seeing, a great governor of men. Cromwell was vastly superior in the elements of a great man to Hampden, to Pym, to Strafford, to Vane. A bold sketch of Cromwell's actual part in the greatest drama of English history would be highly interesting. Dwell on his great foresight, grasp, directness, sincerity; his boisterous youth, his religious fervor in after years, his unswerving advocacy of the rights of his neighbors, which caused him to be called the Lord of the Fens; his unshrinking avowal of his opinions in his early parliamentary career; his extraordinary sagacity in organizing his Ironsides, the greatest soldiers of ancient or modern times; his self-denying ordinance, in which by a bold stroke he threw half-way, indecisive men from the army, and sent it forth to victory; his earnest efforts to settle matters with Charles after the forces of the latter were dispersed, and he a prisoner; his invincible opposition to all ecclesiastical tyranny, whether presbyterian or prelatical; his part in the execution of the king; his great Irish and Scotch campaigns, particularly the battle of Dunbar, where his famous rallying cry, as the sun shone through the morning clouds, 'Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered!' spread dismay through the ranks of his enemies, and brought a glorious victory to his arms." Now he enjoyed a month of the rest he so much needed. With his wife and little ones he occupied rooms in the old family mansion, a welcome guest to Mrs. Benjamin Hazard and her daughters, who always regarded him with the greatest affection and admiration. As spring opened, he took great pleasure in making a famous garden in the spacious yard behind the mansion, having the ground manured and cultivated in the most thorough manner, and planting the greatest profusion of vegetables. His friend Mason was also in Newport, recovering from his wound, and many were the accounts and discussions had with him and Mr. Brooks and other congenial spirits of the stirring scenes of the war. Major Stevens was fully convinced of the justice and necessity of the Mexican war. The repeated depredations by Mexico upon Americans, and her long-continued refusal or evasion of all redress; her publicly declared purpose of conquering the republic of Texas after its independence had been established and acknowledged for ten years; her arrogant demand that the United States should not admit Texas to the Union, and her still more arrogant threat that she would regard such admission as an act of war; the departure of her minister from Washington; and the breaking off of all friendly relations instantly upon the passage by Congress of the resolution admitting the Lone Star State,--left no alternative but to bring the inflated and treacherous pronunciamientos to terms by force of arms, since they were amenable neither to justice nor reason, and to "conquer a peace" which even they would have to respect. And, glorious as were her arms, not less creditable were the moderation and magnanimity of the Great Republic, when Mexico, her armies destroyed, her capital taken, lay prostrate, in paying a large indemnity for the far-distant and almost tenantless regions of New Mexico and California, which, while ready to fall from Mexico's feeble grasp, were essential to the expansion of the populous and fast-growing Republic of the North. In the latter part of May he visited Boston and Andover with his little son. The following month the Savannah orders were countermanded, the Engineer Department deeming it best that he should continue in charge of Fort Knox, and the other works in Maine and New Hampshire. After a preliminary visit, he moved his family again to Bucksport, in June, and occupied a cottage at the fort opposite the town. He gathered about him his former assistants, A.W. Tinkham and John Lee, and continued in charge of the works for upwards of five years. Having a strong desire to own a home of his own, he purchased a house, with a generous lot of half an acre, overlooking the river. The house was of two stories, seven rooms, with a barn in the rear connected by a woodshed. The principal wharf was at the foot of the street, and here Major Stevens kept his boat. The house had an ill repute as being unhealthy, some of the former inmates having died from consumption. When cautioned on this score, he replied: "It is high time some one took the house who can give it a good reputation." He had the cellar and grounds thoroughly drained, sunk a well, blasting through a ledge of rock, and put the grounds and garden in fine order. He took great pains with, and pleasure in, the garden, raising all kinds of vegetables. They kept poultry also, and among them was a flock of twelve ducklings that every day solemnly waddled down to the river in single file, and as solemnly waddled up the hill again after their daily bath and paddling in the river, an unceasing source of interest and pleasure to the children. The government was contemplating the fortification of the more important points on the Pacific coast, and to an inquiry as to his willingness to be sent to that distant field, he writes the following characteristic reply:-- "As regards engineer duty on the Pacific coast for a year or two, I should be well pleased with it did I feel certain that I was physically in condition to undertake it. If the passage thither should be an easy one, as mostly by sea, I have little doubt that on my arrival at the scene of my duties my lameness would be essentially gone. If the journey should be overland, I should hardly be able to bear the fatigues of it in less than two or three months. If ordered, I should go _without hesitation_, and do the best I could. I must leave this matter entirely with you. No officer should feel at liberty to decline a distant duty of this kind, and in this case, as in all others, let the public interests alone have weight." Ambitious he was, but with a lofty ambition, not to aggrandize himself, but to serve his country, ever ready to sacrifice personal interests and feelings to the public service. In this and other letters he displays a certain impatience that personal convenience or interests should be consulted at all in matters of public duty. When the brevets were announced, Lieutenant Stevens was brevetted "Captain, August 20, 1847, for gallant and meritorious conduct in the battles of Contreras and Churubusco," and "Major, September 13, 1847, for gallant and meritorious conduct in the battle of Chapultepec." He took great pains to secure justice to all the engineer officers in the way of brevets, conceiving that he was in a measure responsible therefor because, as adjutant of the corps in Mexico, the engineer reports had been made through him; he had had charge of the records, and had been closely consulted by the chief, General Totten, and spent no little time and effort in behalf of those who had been overlooked. The engineers felt themselves treated with injustice in the matter of brevet pay, for while the officers of artillery, cavalry, and infantry were allowed full pay when assigned to duty according to their brevet rank, the former were denied the same right, although frequently placed in charge of works and assigned to duties above their nominal rank. They had other grievances, too, in the allowances for rations, horses, etc. One so disinterested and indefatigable in behalf of his corps and brother officers as Major Stevens would be sure to be often called upon. He took great interest in these matters, and even more in the general reorganization of the army, upon which he corresponded and consulted largely with able and public-spirited young officers of other corps as well as his own. It was not until November that his friend and classmate, Lieutenant J.F. Gilmer, relieved him of the vouchers and papers relating to Savannah forts. Writing from Washington, November 6, Gilmer says: "Captain Fred. A. Smith would like much to have you here this winter. It is possible you may do the corps a great service by being in Washington this winter." A call for service in any direction always appealed strongly to him, and accordingly he determined to visit Washington, as he writes his brother Oliver, under date of Bucksport, December 8, 1848. This letter displays a humorous vein not usual with him, and gives his view of the character and public policy of General Taylor, then just elected President:-- MY DEAR BROTHER,--I rejoice to learn that you are still in the land of the living, and that that severe and noble pursuit, the law, does not prevent your seeing the lions of the town. But you are very cruel to triumph over us benighted creatures in this region of frosts and snows. In truth we lead a quiet, rational, country life, perhaps as much to be envied as the more attractive life of the great city. I wish you, however, distinctly to understand that we do not suck our paws during the winter, and I feel bound to disabuse you of this misapprehension. That is done still farther down East, I believe. We do not sleep more than twelve or at most fourteen hours a day. We manage to eat three meals per day. But it is hard work; they approximate rather too closely. We drink tea nights, and eat apples mornings. We get the newspapers generally every day, and expect to read the Message to-morrow. By way of diversion, we slide down hill on a moonlight evening. Then there are prayer and conference meetings _ad libitum_. What a consolation these latter privileges would be to one of your serious turn of mind! I can almost see your grave countenance lighted up with heavenly radiance on such an occasion. By the bye, I hope to see you in about four weeks, as I pass on to Washington. There I shall probably remain till after the inauguration. I find in the election of General Taylor the great fact indicated that we poor devils in the army are citizens of the country, and eligible to civil offices of trust. I should have voted most cordially for General Cass, had I a vote to throw. His election I vastly preferred. But there has been in this canvass a vast deal of nonsense about the camp not being the place to find our Presidents, and I am much mistaken if General Taylor, in his own person, does not prove a happy instance of the mingling of military and administrative ability. And those miserable hacks of party, who have sought to depreciate his military services and talents, have now the consolation to reflect that their efforts at detraction served to promote his election, as it did that of General Harrison. "I unhesitatingly believe that General Taylor will administer the government in an able, impartial, and patriotic manner, and if during his presidency an emergency arises, he will prove a hero-President as he has proved a hero-soldier. The Democratic party ought not to prejudge him. Let them maintain a firm attitude in Congress, and keep well organized everywhere. The Whigs cannot carry any of their favorite measures through Congress for two years at least. We may then have a Democratic Congress, and, my word for it, there will be no collision between such a Congress and General Taylor. On that great cluster of questions, the public lands, the encouragement and protection of distant settlements, the development of the great Pacific coast, the old man will be right. If the Democratic party will show candor and liberality towards General Taylor, he may be their nominee four years from this time." As one result of his visit to Washington, Major Stevens took hold of the brevet pay question in his usual thoroughgoing and indefatigable manner. He first corresponded with every brevetted officer of the corps whom he had not already consulted personally. Having thus learned their views, he prepared a strong memorial on the subject, which, after being submitted to, and warmly approved by, Colonels Thayer and Mansfield and Major Tower, was sent to all the officers for their signatures. And in July he transmitted the memorial to General Totten, signed by every brevetted officer of the corps save one, with an urgent letter asking his interposition with the War Department in their behalf. It was the intention, in case the department denied the application, to appeal to Congress, but the manifest justice of the cause as presented was unanswerable. The department, after some doubts, concluded that it had the necessary authority under the law regulating brevet pay, and at length the engineers were placed on an equality with the other arms in this respect. His brother officers conceded that the gratifying triumph was due to the well-directed and persistent efforts of Major Stevens, and showered upon him their warm thanks and applause. This success, however, was followed by more and more frequent applications from them and others for assistance and advice in their own personal matters. He never failed to expend his thought, energy, and time in every deserving case as promptly and freely as, ay, far more than, if he was working for himself, and he never shunned, nor complained of, these gratuitous tasks, which in the next few years became a great burden, but always seemed to take real pleasure and satisfaction in helping others, even many who had little or no claim upon him. In April writes Captain George B. McClellan, who was stationed at West Point with the engineer company, an urgent appeal to Major Stevens to use his influence to have the company ordered away from the Point, and to Fort Schuyler:-- MY DEAR STEVENS,--The detachment of artillery (laborers) stationed here are to be transferred to the engineer company,--at least so many as may be necessary to fill up the company. On our company then will it devolve to do all the police of the Point, to make the roads, drive the carts, feed the oxen, work in the blacksmith and carpenter shops, etc., etc.,--in plain terms, the engineer company is destroyed; it has become a company of mud-diggers; it will no longer be an engineer company, for it will be impossible to do military duty, and no instruction in the duties of engineer troops can be given them. The object of the whole business is to get Shover's company of light artillery ordered on here, and we are sacrificed to attain that object. This is a matter that concerns equally all the officers of our corps. We are disgraced if this order is allowed to remain in force, and I beg of you to use whatever influence you may possess in Washington to have the order rescinded, and the company ordered away from here. I am in haste, Truly your friend, GEORGE B. MCCLELLAN. Partly in response to this letter, but more to express his own views as to the true policy in regard to engineer troops, Major Stevens writes at length to General Totten. It is characteristic that he does not treat the matter from McClellan's narrow, personal standpoint, but at once elevates the whole subject to a discussion of the requirements of the service. After referring to his intimate association with the engineer company in its organization and in Mexico, he continues:-- "I think every one owes something to his profession. Something is due to my profession, not inferior certainly in dignity to any other. I would endeavor to discharge it according to my ability. It will be in this spirit that I shall submit the following observations. In this spirit will I from time to time communicate with the department on this and other topics appertaining to the noble profession of arms, not doubting that my suggestions will be kindly received. "By law, the engineer company is restricted to one hundred men, a number entirely inadequate even to the duties of peace.... The remedy I would propose is this: Let the utmost care be exercised in enlisting men. Let no man be enlisted who cannot in due course of time be made a non-commissioned officer. Let there be in no case transfers from other branches of the service. Let the whole strength of the officers of the company be applied to discipline and instruct the men, so that in time of need we shall have a band of splendid non-commissioned officers, the peers of Everett and Hastings and Starr,--men who have received commissions for their gallant services in Mexico, and each of whom, had Smith and McClellan and Foster fallen, could have gloriously led on the company to its duty. "I would propose a complete system of practical instruction six or seven months of the year, sapping, mining, and pontooneering, and the whole subject of field-works, at some suitable place, say Fort Schuyler, and a course of theoretical instruction the remaining five months, embracing an elementary course of mathematics (including drawing, surveying, and the use of instruments) and of engineering. There should also be a good general and military library. As regards the library, the corps could be applied to for aid, if necessary. I will for one, and I doubt not many officers would, liberally make donations. "Even if the engineer arm were increased to four companies, which I trust will be done the next session of Congress, I would recommend this course. The fine practical education which would thus be secured would induce men to enlist. And we shall have the satisfaction that in the next war with England, and when the question is to besiege Montreal, Quebec, and Halifax, our four companies can be soon converted into twenty companies." Ever since his return from Mexico, Major Stevens was deeply interested in the reorganization of the army. Even while so vigorously fighting for his corps in the matter of brevet pay, in discussions and correspondence with Mansfield, Mason, Tower, G.W. Smith, F.A. Smith, Beauregard, Hunt, and others, after disposing of this particular grievance he would enlarge upon the reorganization of the whole army, giving his own ideas, and urging them as a patriotic duty, not as members of any corps, but from the standpoint of the whole army, to prepare memoirs, or letters, giving their views. He advocated an organization that would admit of fourfold extension in case of war; the keeping of at least one third of the troops in camps of drill and instruction in order to maintain the highest degree of military knowledge and discipline; and the raising of the standard of the rank and file, attracting thereby American-born young men as soldiers by increased pay, better instruction, and greater opportunities for advancement, even to conferring commissions in meritorious cases. These letters and replies, particularly a memoir by Hunt (afterwards the distinguished general, Henry J. Hunt, chief of artillery of the Army of the Potomac), are full of interest and instruction. The army, with all the improvements adopted in recent years, has not yet reached the standard set by these patriotic and able young officers fifty years ago. How Major Stevens followed up these preliminary efforts will appear hereafter. CHAPTER XIII COAST SURVEY During the summer Professor A.D. Bache, the distinguished scientist, chief of the United States Coast Survey, found himself obliged to obtain a new "assistant in charge of the Coast Survey Office," the second position on the survey, in place of Captain A.A. Humphreys, of the topographical engineers, who under the labors of that office had become broken down in health and was obliged to relinquish it. It was no light tribute to the rising reputation of Major Stevens that so wise and sagacious a man as Professor Bache, and so excellent a judge of men, should have selected him out of the whole army as his right-hand assistant and executive officer. He tendered the position, August 7, in a letter well calculated to appeal to a patriotic and ambitious young man, dwelling upon the important character of the duties of the office, and the opportunities it afforded "to build up a name for executive ability," and "to reflect credit upon the corps," etc., and stating that the chief engineer (General Totten was an intimate friend of Professor Bache) would look favorably upon his acceptance. At first Major Stevens was disposed to decline the post; but after several interviews with Professor Bache in Cambridge and Boston, he reluctantly decided to accept it, but upon condition that he should retain charge of the Bucksport works in addition to the new position for a year longer, with the right then to retain either the Coast Survey or Fort Knox, as he might prefer, and relinquish the other. This unique condition, by which an officer about to undertake new and arduous duties stipulated to retain also his former ones, thus voluntarily adding to his labors instead of diminishing them, was at once accepted by Professor Bache and agreed to by the engineer department, a convincing proof of the esteem in which he was held by both. The concluding part of the following letter to his brother Oliver shows that it was the wider field for his energies and ambition, the better opportunities for service and for putting in force his ideas of reorganizing the army, of performing his "duty to his profession," that really caused him to accept the onerous position:-- MY DEAR BROTHER,--I am ready at once to give you a decided opinion as to the course you should pursue, and I know it will be in accordance with your own judgment. Remain in Cambridge a year and a half longer. Then go to Boston. Throw yourself into the arena of the strongest men in the State. Contend with strong men, the stronger the better, and rise above them all. I have watched your progress with the anxiety and tender solicitude which an older brother must feel in a younger and only brother. This is one of the turning-points of your life. I have not the slightest doubt, in one year from being admitted to the bar, you will be able to marry and have a home of your own. Don't trouble yourself about the cost. If things go right with me here, I have no doubt I shall be able to let you have, from July, '50, to July, '51, all you will require. I write with the earnestness of deep conviction. I am proud of your talents, but you have a weight of character which gives to talent its force. Let me hear from you soon. I beg of you not to give way to despondency, and the least as to the bold course I have indicated. You and I both do best by taking bold, self-relying courses. I never once failed in my life from the boldness of my course. You will not. I feel I have come to Washington at the right time. The Coast Survey _needs me_ to overhaul it. I feel that the army has a representative in me which it has not had in Washington in years. I know my position,--my strength,--and I swear by the Eternal, to use Jackson's expression, I will put it forth. In the following he gives his views on Coast Survey and other matters. WASHINGTON, D.C., October 22, 1849. MY DEAR BROTHER,--To-day I enter upon my duties. I see no particular difficulty. There is no need of being a mere office drudge. All the work can be done without any one's breaking down. The Coast Survey is a large operation, and the charge of the office here can be made an agreeable duty. The responsibility will be considerable. But all details can be thrown upon subordinates. The fact is, the work in the world has got to be done. But it can be done by proper distribution and arrangement in an easy, quiet manner. This will be my study in my new duties. We shall have a great session of Congress the coming winter. The whole subject of our communications with the Pacific will be discussed, railroad and ship canal across the Isthmus,--railroad through our own border. I have no doubt Congress will direct the necessary explorations and surveys to determine the practicability of the various schemes. I am now boarding at a private house. But in a few days I shall occupy rooms, and take my meals at one of the public houses. This is the favorite mode with gentlemen that can afford it. A good parlor with sleeping-room adjoining, in a good situation, will cost me twenty-five dollars per month, the rooms being furnished, and provided with fuel, light, and attendance. And board simply, at the best public houses, will cost about twenty dollars more. This mode of living is free and easy. You go into retiracy when you choose, and can again at any moment mingle with the crowd. I am becoming acquainted with our Maine and Massachusetts congressmen. Duncan, of Haverhill, I find quite an agreeable gentleman. Hamlin, one of the Maine senators, seems to be quite a clever fellow. Maine, however, has a mediocre representation in both branches. I was present last evening at a reception at the White House. The President looks hardy, and as though he would survive the attacks that are being made upon him. His nonchalance is by many mistaken for vacuity. The old man has an iron will and most inflexible resolution, and I assure my Democratic friends, who say that he is in the keeping of others, that before his four years are through they will be convinced of it. Take my opinion for what it is worth, brother Oliver. The Democrats, as regards General Taylor, are pursuing the very course to reëlect him. What did the Whigs gain by representing General Jackson to be in leading-strings? Can't we learn from our enemies? The Coast Survey Office was indeed "a large operation." All the maps, charts, computations, drawings, printing, engravings, instrument-making, and business administration of the survey were done here under the management and supervision of the assistant in charge. The force immediately under him comprised from sixty to seventy persons, including several army officers. The office occupied a large brick block of houses on New Jersey Avenue, corner of B Street, the house at the northeast end being the residence of the professor. The Coast Survey now occupies the other end of the same square. The first step taken by the new chief was to organize the force into separate bureaus, each under a responsible head, and performing a particular branch of the work. This had not yet been done, although the difficulty, or impossibility, of the head of the office personally directing and supervising so many employees singly, and the details of such multifarious and complicated work, was daily becoming more evident, and doubtless was the prime cause of Captain Humphreys's breakdown. "On entering on my duties," he remarks in his first report, "I saw at once that my only hope of filling the situation, with satisfaction to the survey and to myself, was in at once applying my exertions to enlarging and adapting the organization of the office to the increasing wants of the survey. The office work would necessarily increase for two or three years without any increase of field work. But it was manifest that the field work of the survey itself must increase, and thus involve a still greater increase of office work." Accordingly he established the Departments of Engraving, Drawing, Computing, Publication and Distribution of Maps, Archives and Library, and Correspondence. To these were soon added Electro-plating, Printing, and Instrument-making. The best-fitted men were selected from the force, or new assistants were employed and put in charge of the departments. The arrears of work were rapidly brought up; the geographical data were collected and indexed; the registry of land work was improved; volumes of observations were bound; and the register, two years behind, was brought up to date. In his first report, the new assistant in charge announced that the Drawing Department would be up to the wants of the survey in one year, and made many useful recommendations for the improvement of the service. Professor Bache warmly acknowledged the efficiency of his young assistant in his reports. December 5, 1851, he declares:-- "For the development of the plans of office work, the urging to completion the list of geographical positions, and the increased rapidity of publication, the Coast Survey is indebted mainly to the zeal and industry, guided by knowledge and intelligence, of Brevet-Major Isaac I. Stevens, of the corps of engineers, in acknowledging which, in connection with the remarks on the speedy completion of the results of the survey, I feel that I am doing simply an act of justice. "Every department of the office has, under his able supervision, continued to improve, and has filled the full measure required by the increasing number, amount, and variety of results returned by the field work of the coast. It is due to Major Stevens to acknowledge the promptness which is secured in the publication of results, and the maturing of a system by which sketches and preliminary work of charts are made in every case to precede the more finished work, furnishing valuable results to the navigator as soon as obtained by the survey. "The rapid execution of the engraved charts of the Western coast reconnoissance is a proof of the perfection of this organization, and of the zeal of those who administer it. Three well-executed sheets of reconnoissance were engraved and ready for publication within twenty working days after the beginning of the engraving." During Captain Humphreys's illness the work had fallen greatly in arrears; many of the employees had become careless and idle, some of them dissipated; and great disorder and confusion prevailed. It was common report that the Coast Survey was the worst-conducted office in Washington. Major Stevens set himself to correct this state of things with a vigor, at times a severity, that admitted no delay and brooked no opposition. Strict punctuality, prompt compliance with orders, and complete and exact performance of duty, he required and exacted with military discipline. There was great discontent and indignation among the old officers and employees, and no little ridicule at the idea of the young major enforcing army rule in a scientific institution. Even the professor feared he was carrying it too far, and rather pettishly remarked, "Since Major Stevens took hold, there has been a continual jingling of bells all over the building, but I suppose it won't do to interfere with these army officers." It seems that Major Stevens had caused bells to be placed in the various offices with wires running to his own room, so that he could summon his subordinates without delay when he wished to see them. But the new assistant pursued the course he had marked out unswervingly, without fear and without favor. He summarily dismissed several of the worst offenders. Others he degraded in pay or position. He made himself master of every branch and detail of that great institution. The old computers, engravers, draughtsmen, topographers, and others, who had passed years in the office, were astonished to find that the new chief fully understood their technical work, and was watching, criticising, and directing it with expert skill and judgment. As usual, he took a warm interest in the men under his charge, ever ready to encourage and reward the deserving, and to assist them in their personal affairs. He caused one of the messengers, who had lost both arms in an explosion, to learn to write with his foot, and gave him copying to do to eke out his scanty pay. One of the higher employees was addicted to periodical attacks of intemperance utterly beyond his power to resist, but otherwise was a respectable and useful man. Major Stevens quietly told this gentleman to come to him whenever he felt one of these attacks coming on too strong for him to withstand, and he should have a leave of absence for a few days, enough to have, and recover from, his spree, and on this footing he continued on the survey for years. Under his firm, masterful, and exacting but generous treatment the outraged feelings of the office soon changed. They could not but respect a chief who, if he required good and full work, appreciated and acknowledged it; and their respect changed to admiration, and finally to affection, when they saw how he was building up the efficiency and reputation of the office, and realized that his strict rule was characterized by justice and impartiality, and tempered by the kindness of a warm-hearted and generous man. Professor Bache found in his new assistant not only relief from the cares of the office and of administration, but one whose ideas in most subjects agreed with his own, and whose strong, bright, and well-instructed mind could travel with his own through other fields. A warm and generous friendship grew up between them, which lasted unbroken during life. The task he had undertaken at the Coast Survey made this a very laborious winter for Major Stevens, but one that gratified his ambition for public service. He met many of his brother officers, "the men of Mexico," and discussed with them the questions of army reorganization, fortifications, etc. He also made the acquaintance of members of Congress, and freely impressed upon them his views of these measures. General Shields was now a senator from Illinois, and was always ready to adopt and advocate the ideas of the young major of engineers, and was glad of his aid in preparing his reports and bills. Always and emphatically a national man, believing that the preservation of the Union was essential to liberty and national existence, Major Stevens took great interest in the compromise measures so ably carried through by Henry Clay, in support of which Webster delivered his noted 7th of March speech, and fully approved the measures of these great statesmen to allay sectional strife and preserve the Union. The plans and hopes of the Southern leaders were cruelly disappointed by the action of California, which adopted a free constitution, and knocked at the doors of Congress for admission as a free State. Consequently they refused her admission unless additional safeguards were thrown around the "peculiar institution," as slavery was termed; and many of the fire-eaters openly advocated disunion as the only means of preserving it against the free ideas of the North, and the preponderating increase of free States. For a time the difference seemed irreconcilable, and disunion and civil war imminent; but at length, by the wise counsels of Clay, Webster, and the more broad-minded men of both sides, a compromise was effected, and California entered the Union a free State. The old Puritan in Andover, in his abhorrence of slavery, condemned all compromise, and writes the son he so much loved and admired a pathetic and reproachful letter, marked, too, by a sublime faith in the ultimate triumph of right:-- DEAR SON,--I have been confined to the house since the 22d of last November, but am now very well, excepting a weak leg. I have thought much of my daughters during my sickness, especially of the two youngest, who were ever ready to wait upon me by night or day.... I was sorry you should so much commend D. Webster's speech, and thought no man could commend it who was opposed to slavery. I do think Webster to be a demagogue; that he is so lost to every good principle as to court slaveholders' approbation, and vote shame on the descendants of the men of '75. I believe the great Being who rules the destinies of nations has ordained that we remain united, that we extend the area of freedom, not slavery, that other nations may copy our example,--too late in the day for Liberty to take a backward march in our country, however much she may swing to and fro in the old country. ISAAC STEVENS. His wife and family remained in Bucksport during the winter, not wishing to break up the comfortable home until he decided to remain on the Coast Survey permanently. Early in April he visited Bucksport, where, on the 28th of that month, a daughter was born to them, named Gertrude Maude. This winter Major Stevens's wound broke out afresh, and discharged several small fragments of bone, causing considerable suffering and much inconvenience. This recurred several times during his stay in Washington, and it was over four years before the wound permanently healed. Sometimes, when walking, his foot would give out entirely, and he would have to hail the nearest omnibus or carriage. He used to wear a shoe with very thick soles, which best protected and served the injured member. A letter to Professor Bache, written from Newport while on his way to Bucksport, shows that he had decided at this time to relinquish the Coast Survey, a decision which he afterwards reconsidered:-- ... "In Baltimore I met Colonel Lee and Captain Foster. Colonel Lee was kind enough to go over my article on the Mexican war. His suggestions and criticisms will very much improve the article. The colonel thinks I have made a mistake in determining not to remain on the survey. "I saw General Scott in New York. He went over many of the operations in the valley, and you may be assured it was a great pleasure for me to meet my old chief. "I need not say to you how very gratifying to me was your letter in reply to mine communicating my intention to retire from the survey; and in answer to the concluding paragraph, you may rely upon me to do all in my power to respond to your wishes. I have been growing stronger every day since I left Washington. I hope to return in condition to do more satisfactory service than was in my power for some weeks previous to my leaving." So it would seem that his hard work and close application were telling upon his health and strength. In the spring he moved his family to Newport for the summer. In August he paid off four hundred dollars of the debt on the Bucksport house. Plain, simple, and even frugal in personal habits and expenses, and careful in money matters, he saved this sum from his pay. Yet he never cared for money-making; and notwithstanding the straitened circumstances of early life, and the lessons of economy so diligently inculcated by his father, he was very generous, a free giver, a great provider, and inclined to spend money freely. He was obliged to spend most of the summer in Washington, making occasional visits North to look after the Bucksport works and see his family. He now definitely decided to stay on the Coast Survey. After a short visit at Newport in August, he returned to Washington, and spent no little time during the next month in hunting up suitable quarters. How thoroughly sick and tired he was of being separated from his wife and children; how he longed to live united with them; how lofty and noble were his ideals of woman, of marriage, of duty, of ambition; and what success he was gaining on the survey,--are graphically depicted in his letters to his wife:-- WASHINGTON, September 5, 1850. MY DEAREST WIFE,--I began to-day seeking for a boarding-house. I find great objection is made to children coming to table. I think a great deal of our children taking their meals with us, and I think I had rather go to the second table myself than to be deprived of the pleasure.... I regret I did not remain a week longer. I found on reaching Washington that there was no necessity for my hurrying back. We should all of us have enjoyed the bathing. It is mighty lonesome here, particularly from sundown till about eight in the morning. It spoils a man on some accounts to be married, particularly if he gets a good, lovable wife. He is not good for much away from her. I assure you I will never be separated from you again another winter unless it is an absolute impossibility for us to be together. We are young, and let us not renounce the comfort and support of each other's society unless the necessity is imperative. I know you will say amen to this.... WASHINGTON, Saturday, September 6, 1850. MY DEAR WIFE,--... A devoted, loving, tender, sympathizing wife is the greatest element of my success in life. It adds to my strength in all respects. Think of this, Margaret. If I achieve what may be truly called success, it will be due mainly to you. I have no desire for place, or wealth, or station. But should I do something for my kind, should it be said of me when I am gone that the world owes something to my memory, that my fellow-men are happier and better for my labors, this is what I call success. It can be achieved only by constancy, by nobility of purpose, by a self-sacrificing spirit. Your example and your affection for me will help me to cultivate these virtues. Yesterday the House passed by ten votes the Texas Boundary and the New Mexico Territorial Bill. You cannot imagine the gratulation which was shown by all persons, both in and out of Congress, when the result was announced. The feeling was that all the danger which had menaced us had been averted. If necessary, a great many members would have changed their votes. On Wednesday the measure was defeated by a majority of forty-six votes; on Thursday by a majority of eight votes; and yesterday it passed by a majority of ten. All the other measures will be rapidly pushed through, and Congress will rise early next month. In my judgment the most dangerous crisis that has occurred since the foundation of the government has been happily passed. Henry Clay has been throughout the master spirit of the times. His services the present session are enough to immortalize his name. It is the crowning triumph of his civic life, and he will descend to posterity as one of the heroes and benefactors of his age and generation. He has not his peer in Congress. No man that combines his intrepid soul, his extended views, his large American heart, his admirable tact and presence of mind, and that quality of leadership which enables him through doubt and defection, in spite of unexpected difficulties and notwithstanding repeated defeats, to undauntedly pursue his course and finally achieve the ultimate triumph. This is Henry Clay in his seventy-fifth year. He has not his peer in our whole parliamentary history. Sunday, September 8. Yesterday the California and Utah bills passed the House. Last evening a salute of one hundred guns was fired, and a large multitude assembled in front of the National to listen to a serenade to Henry Clay. But the glorious old man had gone out to enjoy a quiet Sunday in the country, and was not to be seen. Little Sue must, I know, miss me very much. She is a great pet of mine. I never feel as if I could be put out with her, let her be ever so whimsical. Tell Sue she shall see her papa in a few weeks, and then we shall keep together for many months. Our long separation, dearest wife, is drawing to a close, and we shall be again united. My last visit was an oasis in the desert. I saw the doctor in relation to my sore throat. He says it has very much improved. The only precaution I must take is not to expose myself to the night air. My general health is quite good, and is still growing even better. My foot gives me very little trouble. It has not been so strong for eight months as for the last ten days. I now am not obliged to make much use of the crutches. You may be sure I feel very much encouraged about my health, and I have no fears as to its being perfectly reëstablished. I eat well, sleep well, and am not worried by work. Remember me, my dear wife, to all the friends. Kiss the little Sue and Maude. Your ever affectionate husband. WASHINGTON, September 29, 1850. MY DEAREST WIFE,--You must not think I have forgotten you. I have been very much occupied the last few days. Our appropriations were in danger, and both Professor Bache and myself have been hard at work to save them. We have carried everything,--secured no less than one hundred and ninety thousand dollars for the Western coast. A portion of this appropriation we carried in the House in the teeth of the Committee of Ways and Means. They opposed it vehemently, yet we went to work on Friday, worked hard all day, and carried it two to one nearly against them. The professor is in one respect a most skillful manager, but his skill consists in his perfect directness, truthfulness, disinterestedness, and good temper. He is perfectly frank and open. Margaret, such men have most influence with all men of sense, whether members of Congress, or men in official station, or in private life. This is the secret of his getting along so well. You know I have always insisted that such a course was the most sure and reliable. You stand on the solid rock, and nothing can move you when you cast aside all intrigue and low cunning, and pursue an open, truthful, manly course. Cunning men cannot cope with you. This is my experience. My duties in the office are becoming more and more pleasant. The office is becoming systematized, the back work is all coming up, and in the spring I have no doubt everything will be in the best possible condition. Every department is improving, and a very fine spirit pervades all the employees. I am bringing to bear upon the men my personal weight, and you know I rarely ever fail whenever I am brought into direct personal contact with men. All the men are beginning to know me. They know I am firm and steadfast, but that I am as true to them as I am to the work itself. Every man will find that he can have entire confidence in my justice, and in my judgment of his merits. I am determined to be deserving of their confidence, and, if so, I shall most assuredly gain it. The professor's confidence in me seems to be greater every day. This makes my position pleasant. It makes me more efficient. My judgment is all the clearer for it. The truth is, I take the same general view of things that he does, and my judgment almost invariably brings me to the same conclusions. Thus, in operating to secure our appropriations, we agreed perfectly in the mode of proceeding. Indeed, the professor left the management entirely to me in the first instance. When things were prepared for him, I sent an express to his camp to bring him in. All my arrangements entered admirably into his plans. This was pleasant. My part was, of course, a subordinate one, but it was in harmony with all that was done. In the latter part of 1849 appeared the "History of the Mexican War," by Major Roswell S. Ripley, of the 1st artillery, who had served in Scott's campaign, and who had been given a year's leave of absence to enable him to write the work. The history is fairly well written, and accurate for the most part, but marred by the constant effort to depreciate the character and services of General Scott, and to extol Generals Worth and Pillow at his expense. The former of these officers, a fine soldier, and deservedly of high standing in the army and before the people, needed no encomiums; the latter was unworthy of them. Some of Ripley's statements, too, were deemed erroneous by many of the ablest officers who participated in the contest, and there was a strong sentiment among them that these errors ought to be exposed, and the truth vindicated before the public. None felt this sentiment more strongly than Major Stevens. An admirer of Scott's military talents, and a member of his staff during the famous campaign, his sense of justice and truth outraged by the attempt to disparage the general's great services, and to heap unearned honors upon Pillow, he deemed it his duty, even in the midst of his arduous labors at the Coast Survey, to give to the world a tame and just account of these events, thus defending his former chief, and vindicating the truth of history. He labored upon this work with his usual energy and thoroughness, submitted it in manuscript to Mason, Mansfield, Robert E. Lee, and other officers, by whom it was highly approved, and early in 1851 published his "Campaigns of the Rio Grande and of Mexico." In the preface he says:-- "His object in appearing before the public was to testify to the services of those heroic officers and soldiers who were in his judgment depreciated in the work of Major Ripley. He felt impelled to this course by a sense of duty, and he appeals to all the actors in those scenes to bear testimony in vindication of the truth." It is a strange instance of the foibles of a really great man that this work, inspired by the noblest and most disinterested motives, and the ablest defense of Scott's course in Mexico, was the cause of an estrangement for years between the writer and the commander he so well vindicated. Immediately on the publication of the book, Major Stevens presented General Scott with a copy with his compliments, fully expecting the warm thanks and appreciation of his former chief. To his astonishment, a few days later General Scott returned the book by the hands of General Totten, with the message that Major Stevens was to observe that the leaves were still uncut, thus implying that he disdained even to read it. This affront he offered to the officer whom for bravery and services in Mexico he had highly commended and recommended for brevets, whose advice he had listened to in councils of war and followed on the battlefield, whom, hand upon his shoulder, he had presented to the shouting multitude in Washington as 'My young friend, Major Stevens, to whose courage and ability I owe much of my success in Mexico,' and who was his warmest and ablest defender against the aspersions of his enemies. Whether General Scott, whose overweening vanity could ill brook the least criticism, was inflamed by some remark in the work, which seems incredible, or whether his mind was poisoned by one of those parasites that ever hang upon the great, is uncertain. In truth, his movements and entire course are highly commended, and in only a few instances is he criticised. Major Stevens pronounced his attack of Molino del Rey a mistake, and also the not insisting upon the surrender of Chapultepec when the armistice was granted after the battle of Churubusco. Major Stevens was not in the least cast down by this unwarranted rebuff. He simply pitied the foibles of the man, while he retained his admiration for the general's military talents. He always made it a point to call upon him on New Year's, and to show him the respect due the head of the army. But the cordial personal relations were broken forever. CHAPTER XIV LIFE IN WASHINGTON In October, 1850, Major Stevens moved his wife and little ones to Washington, and took quarters at Mrs. Kelley's on Eighteenth Street, opposite Lafayette Square, in a large, spacious brick house, known as the club-house. Here also lived General Talcott, of the ordnance, Colonel Ethan Allen Hitchcock, Senator McWillie, of Mississippi, and Representative Burt, of South Carolina, with their families, and Commodore Matthew C. Perry, soon to become famous for opening Japan to the commerce and intercourse of the world. The latter took a great fancy to the little Sue, a sprightly, graceful child, and used to keep a store of candy in his room for her especial benefit. They were all cultivated and agreeable people, who lived together harmoniously and pleasantly, and with social calls, receptions, and parties the winter passed off rapidly. They enjoyed, too, the pleasant intimacy and cordial sympathy of their Portsmouth friends, Mr. and Mrs. Hayes, and Mr. and Mrs. Coues, who were now living in Washington. During this winter Major Stevens took up the fourteen years' bill, a measure to promote lieutenants of engineers, topographical engineers, and ordnance to the rank of captain after fourteen years' service, with the same energy and thoroughness that characterized his efforts to procure for officers on duty according to brevet rank the full pay of such rank. He first induced the officers of these corps in Washington to agree upon the proposed bill, and to unite in actively supporting it, no small task, for there was much jealousy between them, and different schemes for benefiting one or another corps. How he enlisted the coöperation of officers at other stations will be seen from the following letter to Lieutenant M.C. Meiggs, afterwards major-general and quartermaster-general of the army:-- DEAR MEIGGS,--The inclosed memorial, asking that lieutenants of engineers, topographical engineers, and ordnance be promoted to the rank of captain after fourteen years' service, was introduced into the Senate yesterday and referred to the Military Committee. We are all of us determined to do our best to get this measure through. We are all acting with great unanimity. The idea is not to touch the question of the increase of either corps, or the equalization of the third corps. It is simply a measure of relief for the old lieutenants, and we ask for it for the reasons stated in the memorial. We must urge the measure especially on the ground that there is no characteristic duty for the particular grades, but that with the proposed promotion not only will all our captains, but many of the lieutenants, have the same duties essentially as field officers. The chiefs of our three corps have been consulted and approve our course. The Secretary of War is also favorable and advises us to this action. General Shields will strongly support it. Every man must help in this business, if he approves of it. The committee desires each officer to correspond without delay with such members of Congress as he personally knows, and lay before them at length the grounds why this measure of relief should become a law. Let me hear from you soon, and let us all put our shoulders to the wheel. If each officer can carry conviction to the understanding of one member of Congress, the measure will prevail. His friend, General Shields, then senator from Illinois, presented the memorial and advocated the bill in the Senate with hearty goodwill. The young major of engineers lost no suitable opportunity of impressing other members with the justice of the measure, and his earnest and forcible language, straightforward sincerity, and rising reputation for character and ability made him always listened to with attention and respect. He enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing the bill become a law in 1853, and of receiving the well-earned thanks and plaudits of his brother officers. The subject of the reorganization of the army, which ever since the Mexican war held first place in his thoughts and correspondence, now engrossed his attention more than ever. His enlarged views, patriotic spirit, and generous nature abhorred the personal and corps jealousies too rife among army officers. He was emphatically an army man, not a corps man, seeking the best for the whole army and the country, and not the advancement of his corps or himself. Accordingly he corresponded on this subject with officers of every branch of the service, and especially with those who had served on the frontier; for he rightly foresaw that the most important duties devolving upon the army would be the exploration of the vast regions acquired by the Mexican war, and the protection of the settlers thereon. By this correspondence he sought to draw out and gather the views of the ablest and most experienced officers, in order to unite them upon, and to formulate, a sound scheme of army reorganization, and to impress it upon the country and Congress. He wrote very many letters setting forth his own views, and urging other officers to treat upon one or another branch of the subject, or to pursue some line of inquiry, and called upon them freely to look up authorities and collect information. Thus he induced Major H.J. Hunt to prepare valuable papers upon artillery and army reorganization in general. He begs Captain Kendrick to prepare a memoir on the New Mexico military problem; Lieutenant-Colonel W.J. Hardee, on the defense of the frontier; Captain G.W. Smith, on "General Camp of Discipline, where all the army come together to learn the military art;" Captain George B. McClellan, on engineer troops; Captain G.W. Cullum, subject of military instruction; and others. Most of these officers responded readily and favorably to his appeals. In the following letters his ideas are clearly stated:-- MY DEAR HUNT,--We must move quietly as well as firmly in this matter [army reorganization]. We must make up our minds to encounter a violent opposition. The bureaucracy of Washington will probably be against us. We should first endeavor to get their aid, at least their neutrality in whole or in part. If they combine against reform, we must resolve to accomplish reform in spite of them. But time is necessary. A right direction to public opinion is necessary. Many men in Congress, the able men, must understand the question and be ready to act. We must first, then, enlighten public opinion, and enlighten members of Congress. We must bide our time, and, when it comes, act. Let it first, then, be stirred quietly in the army. Let a great many officers in all good time, all discreet and sensible men, be interested, and let them write for the papers.... We must work to get public men informed. I would not have the movement partake in the slightest degree of a party character. But we must act on the known fact that the Democratic party is the only party that can govern the country. The Whig party is totally incompetent. We must throw our strength chiefly on Democrats. Douglas would be a tower of strength in the Senate. Would it not be a good idea to address a series of letters to him, and request _him_, if he approves of their general spirit, to publish them in the "Washington Union"? This he could do without pledging himself to the particular views of the letters. In the House is Fuller, of Maine, a new member but a rising man, a particular friend of mine. There is Bissel, of Illinois. There is Rusk, of Texas. General Bayly, Stanton, of Tennessee, and others I might mention, are strong, reliable men. The Southern _disunion_ men will look coldly on all attempts to improve the army. Mr. Burt will be lukewarm. I am somewhat fearful of Jefferson Davis. But they are both strong, good men, and we should act on the presumption that sectional views will not sway them from their duty. Yours, etc., I.I. STEVENS. He urged the elevating of the _personnel_ of the army by-- "enlisting none but intelligent, respectable men, a fair representation of our people, attracted by increase of pay, and by opportunity of promotion to the grade of commissioned officer; that by care in selecting men, by schools, by libraries, and by camps of instruction, we can actually make of the common soldier a pretty good military man, so that going into civil life he may do good service in the militia, and in time of war be an important element in rapidly organizing armies. In this way the influence of West Point can be felt throughout the length and breadth of the land, in peace as well as on the breaking out of a war. It should be a settled principle to officer the infantry and mounted regiments in part from the rank and file. I know of no measure which is so calculated to elevate the service, and impart to it a greater efficiency. Young men of character would enter it, and our own citizens would fill up the ranks. "Commanding officers on the frontiers should have entire discretion in matters of clothing, subsistence, and transportation. Officers of the administrative departments would in this case make their usual returns and reports to their chiefs in Washington. But the directions from Washington should be to the commander, and should be of the most general character; else there will be divided, discordant government, there will be a want of unity of purpose, there will be feebleness and delays in action. It may be said that this involves great judgment, energy, and foresight on the part of the commanding officer. Undoubtedly, and none but officers of high qualities should be placed in command. This is one of the most important duties in the direction of affairs at Washington. Send the most competent man to take command. Throw the responsibility upon him. _Build him up_, or _break him down_. In the latter case, promptly supply his place by another officer." He also suggested planting military colonies:-- "Farmers and artisans to be enlisted, heads of families as well as young men, all intelligent, sober, moral men, at advanced rates of pay, and with their families be located at important points in the Indian country, the whole to be organized in a military manner; heads of families as the stationary infantry force, and the young men as the dragoon force, always in the saddle, and making up in mobility for paucity of numbers. "I know well some of the prominent members of the Military Committee. My opinion is sometimes asked, and I wish to communicate sound, practical views. Here I am, and in my intercourse with members of Congress I intend to be, an _army_ man and not a _corps_ man. Let me tell you that truthful, intelligent officers have weight with Congress. The prominent members will give heed to their suggestions, and will be apt to adopt their views. There is a strong feeling in Congress that things are not managed rightly. Officers here must not only show what things are managed well; they must also show wherein things are _mis_managed, and they must suggest the remedy. It is time for officers having a common purpose to act together, and do something for their profession. I am at all events determined to do my duty. If we will act in concert, compare views in a fraternal and generous spirit, merging the _arm_ in the _army_, and taking views as large as our country, and occupying the whole ground of the public defense, and thus come to conclusions, we shall be right, and Congress will act accordingly, I care not what opposition be made in interested quarters." In a letter to Captain G.W. Smith, he declares-- "that the experience of our corps is too confined in time of peace, and that a portion ought to serve with troops in the West. This has always been my opinion, and the first year I entered the army I corresponded with Halleck in relation to it, and was in favor of a strong effort being made by our officers to get a change in our duties.... Were I not tied up on the Coast Survey as I am, I would make a great effort to get ordered to New Mexico or Texas. There is a field for such of us as will go there with a determination to carve one out, if it is not, in consequence of the stupidity of superiors, offered us." Major Stevens followed up this subject with great diligence, expending a vast amount of thought and work upon it for three years, and until the engrossing duties of the exploration of the Northern route to the Pacific in 1853, and of the governorship of Washington Territory, the making of Indian treaties, and the conduct of the Indian war in the Pacific Northwest occupied his whole time and energies. Some of his ideas bore fruit, and have since been adopted, notably the raising of the standard of the rank and file by increasing the pay of the private soldier, improving his opportunities, and allowing him to compete for a commission. And the thoroughgoing and comprehensive plan he suggested of deciding upon the best system of national defense by the study and conferring together of the ablest military men, the appeal to patriotic and intelligent citizens, and the enlightening of public opinion, is as wise and practical now as then, and as necessary. For the dear-bought experience of our four great wars is entirely unheeded, indeed almost unknown to the mass of the people; and the army to-day, in organization as in numbers, in its influence upon the military ideas and aptitudes of the nation in peace as in its capacity for expansion in time of war, is inadequate to our needs as a great nation. Upon this subject the following characteristic letter of McClellan is of interest:-- Friday. MY DEAR STEVENS,--The inclosed are the result of a search through the libraries of the War and Eng'r Dep'ts. I hardly feel satisfied that they are precisely what you need. If they do not suit you, inform me of it, and I will gladly renew the research. I had another conversation with the general this morning about the sappers. It's of no use whatever,--his mind is made up to detail fifty men on the Coast Survey. He says the duty I propose for them in Texas is not legitimate and belongs not to them. Amen! I have said my say. I've done what I could. Some one of more influence than I possess must convince him,--my words are idle breath and of no avail. Truly your friend, GEORGE B. MCCLELLAN. It should be remembered that he was undertaking this great task of reorganizing the army, expending so much thought, labor, and time upon it, in addition to the incessant labors of the Coast Survey and the cares of the fortifications in Maine. It was his lofty and patriotic ideals, his noble ambition to do his duty by his profession and his country, that spurred him on, and his untiring energy and power of concentration that enabled him to throw off work so rapidly and effectively. His great ambition was to accomplish results, and he was careless and indifferent as to claiming credit for himself, or pushing himself in any way. Notwithstanding all these engrossing labors, he responded as promptly and generously as ever to the personal calls of his friends and others. He writes and interviews the War Department and Generals Scott and Totten in behalf of another brevet for Captain G.W. Smith, aids McClellan in regard to the engineer company, obtains information for H.L. Smith, has the accounts of Sergeant Lathrop, of the engineer company, passed, and is ever ready to lend a helping hand to any deserving man or cause. Early in 1851 Major Stevens moved to Mrs. Janney's, an excellent and well-known boarding-house on Eighth Street, next the Avenue. Here lived several members of Congress and government officials, and also the Turkish ambassador, a grave, quiet man in a dark red fez, with whom Major Stevens occasionally played checkers in the evening. At this establishment breakfast was served at eight, dinner at four, with a lunch at noon, and at nine in the evening tea and thin sandwiches were handed around in the parlor. In June Major Stevens carried his family to Newport for the summer, where leaving them, he visited Bucksport to look after the works at Fort Knox, which still remained under his charge. He hastened back to Washington before the month was out. Passing through New York, he again sat to Professor Fowler for his "phrenological character," but this time was not accused of being a poet. Whether informed by the bumps or other means, the phrenologist seems to have drawn his characteristics pretty accurately, with some glaring exceptions. Desirous of keeping house, Major Stevens now leased a roomy brick house, one in a block of two, on the west side of Third Street, and only a block north of the Avenue. This house had a large garden fronting on the street, and in the rear of it was a stable opening on an alley behind. Having obtained a position on the Coast Survey for his cousin, George Watson Stevens, a son of uncle William, a young man of nineteen, Major Stevens invited the youth to become a member of his family. WASHINGTON, July 27, 1851. MY DEAR, GOOD WIFE,--I have read your last letter over three times, and it has done me a world of good. I love to have you write so from your heart. You know that in marriage, in my wife and children, are centred all my hopes of earthly happiness. I am conscious it occupies too large a space in my youthful longings. It seems to me, with a devoted, loving, and lovely wife and lovely children, I might shut out the cares of life, and give myself up to happiness and joy. But we have duties to perform, trials to encounter, victories to achieve. Life is a warfare. We must contend with evil. We must accomplish good. I feel that I have done something, but that I have just begun; that I am entering upon the great field of useful exertion. I feel that the past has simply given me the experience and the knowledge to wisely conquer the present, and thus achieve a future. I feel there is something heroic and noble in this view of life. I feel that the greatest support, next to the consciousness of well-doing, is the sympathy and support of you, my dear companion and friend, and the confiding, tender helplessness of our dear babes. I like George in the house very much, and, so far as I am concerned, I should like to have him a member of our family. I think, moreover, it would be to his advantage. Charging him simply the actual outlay to us, it will diminish his expenditures. Moreover, I shall be absent on inspections more or less, and you will thus have some one to call on. He is studious, attentive to his duties, is impressing every one favorably with whom he is brought in contact, and is advancing steadily and quite rapidly. I feel highly pleased with his progress. With economy his pay will, the first year, pay his expenses. I fear, if I am off in August, it will embarrass me very seriously in the fall. Our reports are still coming in, and now is the time to put things in a successful train. I do not wish, by inaction or delay now, to make trouble hereafter. My health is remarkably good. I have never had a better appetite, or more ability to work, than I have now. I am surprised at my vigor. I don't care how hot the weather is. The perspiration will drop from my face and hands, and I will feel neither languor nor fatigue. The other men in the office complain and have to slacken in their exertions, whilst I seem to have, with every hot day, fresh strength and force. Give my love to the bairns. I want very much to see them. Yours affectionately, ISAAC. WASHINGTON, July 28, 1851. MY DEAREST WIFE,--I was very glad to learn that you were so well, and that the visit to Tom's was so pleasant. The farm is the place for children. On their account I wish I could pass four months every summer in that way. Hazard should go to school seven or eight months. I am delighted with his doings,--learning to swim, and do all kinds of work. Maude, too, learning to walk,--yes, actually walking, little darling. She must have forgotten me, but she will soon recollect me on seeing me again. And Sue learning to ride on horseback! Why, verily, Margaret, you have a hopeful family, one of which you may well be proud. Whether I go on to Tom's farm this summer is doubtful. I am glad they are doing so well. Daniel is a first-rate business man, and, as he likes farming, why not make it his business? I believe he could in a few years clear from debt a large farm, going upon it without a cent in his pocket. This is my opinion, and in a pecuniary point of view it is much better than a salaried place,--far better. You may be assured my health is remarkably firm and good. I never knew it better. This warm weather does not affect me in the least. I bear labor better than any man in the office. Not a man in the office can do as much as I can. Well, as to the book. It is said to sell pretty well. Most of the copies have been disposed of. Very good notices have appeared both in the "Intelligencer" and "Republic." The notice of the "Intelligencer" I sent you. The notice in the "Republic" was short, but very good. Some of my friends think it will excite a controversy. Others think it will be found a very hard thing to reply to. The fact is, whilst I have endeavored to clearly discern errors, I have sought to look charitably on all that was done. This seemed to me the only true wisdom. Some of my friends think I have carried this spirit too far, and that I have not censured enough. The general criticism is that I am too favorable towards Ripley. I think I have simply done him justice. WASHINGTON, August 8, 1851. MY DEAREST WIFE,--My health is remarkably good, my duties multifarious, and I must not spend time in recreation which my health does not require. I have not had such health for years, and have enjoyed this summer. We are getting on famously with our housekeeping. The woman is a neat, respectable, honest person, who tries to do her duty, a very respectable washer and ironer as well as cook. I think you will be pleased with her. I shall send a boy whom we have had for a month away in the morning. One of the messengers comes to the house every evening to attend to the garden. So we are getting along. To-day we put six chickens into our coop, and to-morrow eight hens will be admitted. You will find us getting on swimmingly when you come on in October. Friday morning. I have just received two very gratifying letters, one from General Shields, which I send you. Don't show it to any one, for he is very extravagant in praise of my book, and his suggestions are made in a corresponding spirit. But I value what he says very much, because he writes from his heart and in the spirit of friendship. I feel, too, there are many points of sympathy between him and me, and I value his friendship and words of encouragement. The other letter is from Major Pitman. His article on my book in the "Providence Journal" of August 6 is altogether the best that has appeared. He has presented his own views with clearness and force on certain points of difference. This is what I want. I don't want eulogies, but discriminating notices. I want to see my errors exposed, otherwise I shall not learn to correct them. Taylor & Maury have sold out all the copies of my book, and in consequence I loaned them half a dozen that I still had on hand. They think they will sell a great many more. I am pushed exceedingly, and can write no more to-day. Love to the children. Affectionately. In the latter part of September Major Stevens made a hasty visit North, spent a few days at Andover and Newport, and brought his family back to Washington. His wife's youngest sister, Miss Nancy Hazard, accompanied them and spent the winter with them. He still retained charge of the works at Bucksport, although the second year of duty on the Coast Survey was near its close, and writes full and explicit instructions to Mr. A.W. Tinkham, C.E., concerning it. At a later date he obtained a good position for Mr. Tinkham on the Coast Survey, and also secured a situation in the same service for Mr. John E. Lee, whom he had employed in Bucksport as clerk. The family this winter was increased by George W. Stevens and Miss Nancy L. Hazard. There was the colored cook, and Bridget Sullivan, the children's nurse, and Sampson Ingraham, a most faithful, capable, and respectable colored man and a free man. Sampson had one cross to bear which sorely tried his devotion to the family, and that was milking the cow and taking care of it, which Major Stevens compelled him daily to do; for Sampson, never having done any farm work, regarded this as derogatory, and was much distressed and mortified thereby. But finally Major Stevens, perceiving his trouble, relieved him from this duty. In the next house, on the south side, lived the family of Captain Simon F. Blount, of the navy. Nearly across the street Senator William Gwin, of California, and family occupied a roomy mansion, where they dispensed a generous hospitality. After breakfast, at eight, Major Stevens usually walked down to the Coast Survey Office, and walked back in time for dinner at four in the afternoon. In the evening there was tea at eight o'clock. Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot, visited Washington this winter, and attracted the greatest attention and admiration. He was a man of noble presence, a finished orator, speaking English with great purity and ease. The Democratic Jackson Club gave a banquet on January 8 in honor of Kossuth, which was attended by Webster and many of the first men of the country. Major Stevens was called upon to respond to the toast of "The Army and Navy," and spoke as follows:-- GENTLEMEN,--In the name of the army I return my thanks for the honor of this toast. I speak in behalf of the American army,--that army which presents its breast to the enemy, which pours out its blood, which lays down its life. A weighty significance already attaches to these words, "the American army." For, first, it achieved the independence of these States against the most powerful nation of modern times; second, it waged against the same power the second war of independence to maintain the freedom of the seas, the war the culminating glories of which we this evening celebrate; and, third, when a contiguous republic interfered with the domestic concerns of one of our States, the vindication of the law of nations, thus trampled under foot, was placed in its hands, and the stars and stripes soon waved over the ancient seats of the Montezumas. The American army will never forget what is due to its past renown and its future glory. We feel that, citizens alike with you, we are the army of a free people. We know, too, that our country possesses elements of military strength scarcely appreciated by the inattentive observer of events,--elements that have been nurtured by the wonderful growth, the trials and vicissitudes, of our young nation struggling into manhood. No other people so combines command and obedience, is so subordinate to law, yet is so much a law unto itself. No other people of ancient or modern times possesses such elements of military power. It is the profound conviction of my heart that in a just cause we could meet the world with a million armed men, each man a tried and true soldier, surpassing even the iron men of Cromwell, those men who feared God but not man; those men stern in fight yet merciful in victory; those men who achieved the great triumph of English independence, and transmitted to us its glorious recollections. The members of both services, which you have honored to-night, see that the American people are marching forward to mighty destinies, and that upon them heavy responsibilities will rest. We mean to do our whole duty. We mean at all times to be in harness and at our posts. We know not when the time may come,--probably in our lifetime, and perhaps to-morrow. We feel no despondency, but are filled with joy and hope. When our beloved nation, "a power on earth," shall determine to measure its strength with other powers in the maintenance of right, and in vindication of violated law and outraged humanity, the army and navy will carry their country's flag in triumph over all seas and through all lands. Congress was disposed then as now to starve the coast defenses, appropriating scarcely enough to maintain the works already built. Major Stevens, deeply interested in the proper fortification of the coast, both from his professional knowledge and experience and his enlarged and patriotic views, with his accustomed zeal and energy undertook the task of inculcating upon the country and Congress sound ideas in regard to this important subject, and of obtaining the appropriations necessary to keep up and complete existing works. In this, as in everything he undertook, was evinced his prominent characteristic of going to the bottom of a subject, of basing his action upon broad principles; and so, instead of being satisfied with simply securing the needed appropriations for the time being, he treats of the whole system of fortifications required for national defense, both present and future. He had repeated conferences with General Shields on this subject, who in March, as chairman of the Military Committee, brought into the Senate a favorable report and bill. In support of this, and advocating a proper system of coast defenses, Major Stevens wrote a number of articles, which were published in the "National Intelligencer" of Washington, the "Boston Post," Portland "Eastern Argus," "Bangor Democrat," and papers in New York, Richmond, New Orleans, and other places. He caused these articles, with Shields's report, to be sent to many officers and influential men in different parts of the country, urging them to advocate the matter on patriotic grounds. These articles were much commended, especially by his brother officers of the engineers. He also at this time published in the "Boston Post" an article on the lighthouse system. In April, 1852, Major Stevens was appointed a member of the Lighthouse Board, which was considered no slight honor, and which added much to his responsibilities and his duties. His colleagues on the board were all men of talent and reputation, the association with whom was congenial and gratifying. In May he visited Wilmington on this duty. The Bucksport house had remained on his hands all this time, a source of more care than income; but in April a purchaser was found in Mr. Knox for $1350, evidently quite a sacrifice. He took his two elder children, Hazard and Sue, to Newport for the summer; but his wife and Maude, the youngest child, remained in Washington. General Franklin Pierce, having been nominated for the presidency by the Democratic party, was outrageously assailed by the unscrupulous press and partisans of the other side on account of his services in Mexico, and even his personal courage was impugned. Major Stevens, having met Pierce in Mexico, and having been favorably impressed by him, was indignant at these slanders, and felt called upon to aid in refuting them. Accordingly he published six letters in the "Boston Post" and two in the "Republic," a Washington paper, warmly, but in a temperate and courteous style, vindicating the unjustly assailed public man. He takes pains in these articles to eulogize the military talents of General Scott, the rival candidate nominated by the Whig party, quotes his favorable mention of Pierce in his reports of operations in Mexico, and shows that the rival candidates entertained warm feelings of esteem for each other, thus ingeniously making Scott a witness to refute his own reckless partisans. He concludes the last article as follows:-- "You well know, Mr. Editor, my exalted appreciation of the conduct and services of General Scott in Mexico. It has been a pleasing reflection that the standard-bearers of the two great parties were warm personal friends, each possessing in an eminent degree the respect and confidence of the other. The friends of General Pierce have never claimed that he was a great military man. They concede with pride and gratification that General Scott is, and that he is a judge of military qualities. They simply claim that General Pierce in his service in Mexico did his whole duty as a son of the Republic, that he was eminently patriotic, disinterested, and gallant, and that it has added a laurel to his beautiful civic wreath: as a citizen he has been ready to make sacrifices for his country; as a soldier and commander, he has shown gallantry before the enemy, and was eminently the friend and father of his command." Colonel Charles G. Greene, editor of the "Post," writes that General Pierce was much pleased with, and highly commended, these letters. Major Stevens always took great interest in public affairs. He was emphatically a national man. He held the Union as the noblest work of our Revolutionary patriots, and as indispensable to liberty and national greatness. An ardent Democrat from boyhood, he regarded the Democratic party as preëminently the national party, the party of progress. He fully justified the Mexican war, the great Democratic measure, and believed with full faith in the future growth and destiny of the Great Republic. The slavery question, destined in a few brief years to wreck that party and so nearly destroy the nation, was still in abeyance, and it was almost universally believed that the compromise of 1850 had averted all danger from that quarter. Not content with vindicating Pierce in the papers, Major Stevens now concluded to support him on the stump. He wrote Gayton P. Osgood, and other friends in Massachusetts, as to the advisability of this step, but received rather discouraging replies, one correspondent even taking him to task for speaking so highly of General Scott in his articles, and recommending him to become a thoroughgoing partisan if he took the stump. But as usual he held to his own opinion, and in August addressed a large public meeting in Hillsborough, N.H., in support of the Democratic principles and candidate, and later, in October, spoke in Andover, Newport, and Portsmouth. His brother officer and friend, Colonel James L. Mason, also addressed the meeting in Newport, and Hon. Charles Levi Woodbury spoke with him in Portsmouth. In his speeches Major Stevens took pains to do full justice to General Scott as a military man, without disparaging him as a statesman or otherwise. His arguments were drawn from the ideas and objects of the two parties,--a contest of principles, not men. It appears that the course of the young army officer in stumping for Pierce, and as in Mason's case even stirring up other officers to do likewise, excited no little commotion in the War Department, for it was a Whig administration. On his return, the Secretary of War, Charles M. Conrad, undertook to take him to task for it, and wrote Major Stevens a severe letter, demanding an explanation of his conduct. This was soon bruited about Washington, and many of his friends and brother officers came anxiously to advise with him about it. They felt that he was in an embarrassing position, and one from which he could hardly hope to extricate himself with credit, and they were not a little troubled as to the outcome. At length Major Stevens prepared his answer to the Secretary, and, before sending it, read it to a group of his anxious brother officers. In a direct, forcible, but courteous style, he reminded the Secretary that, in becoming an officer of the army, he had not forfeited his rights as a citizen, nor become relieved from his duties as such; that, while he had never failed in the respect due his superior officers, he had the right of an American citizen to advocate such public measures as he deemed best for the country, and to vote for the public servants best fitted to carry them out; and he concluded in a somewhat sarcastic but perfectly respectful way by calling the Secretary's attention to the fact that General Scott himself was a candidate for the presidency, and was setting the example of that participation in politics which the Secretary so severely reprobated, and suggested that his animadversions would have greater weight with the service, and be more worthy the dignity of the War Department, if launched against the senior major-general of the army instead of a simple lieutenant and brevet major; that they were more applicable to the former than the latter, and might well be deemed an attempt to scourge General Scott over his back. As Major Stevens read aloud this letter, the faces of his friends cleared up; soon they began to applaud it, and as he finished they crowded around him with cheers and laughter and exclamations,--"That's good! that covers the ground!" "You are right, Stevens. You are perfectly right." "He can't answer it," etc. Sure enough, the Secretary did not answer it, and attempted no further action. In fact, Major Stevens had now become quite a leader among the able young officers. They were constantly calling at his house, and discussing with him the measures he was pushing forward for the improvement of the army, fortifications, etc. He was always ready to assist any of them, too, and it was known that his aid was frequently effective. He obtained a detail on the Coast Survey for his friend, Captain J.C. Foster, and secured for several others lighthouse inspectorships. He also had a number of the engineer company detailed on the Coast Survey, although his friends Cullum, G.W. Smith, and McClellan strenuously opposed it. Writes a young man on the survey, whose pay Major Stevens had tried to increase but without success:-- "Having been informed to-day that you did not succeed in your efforts to make my compensation $1500 per annum from October 1, 1851, and consequently was obliged to pay out of your own pocket $50 to make your word good, I believe it unbecoming a gentleman to remain a moment longer in possession of said money. The inclosed check will indemnify you for your loss sustained for my sake, and joyfully I return my heartfelt thanks for the efforts you have made in my behalf." Writes Cullum from West Point:-- "Your feeling and commendatory remarks on the death of private Logan were read to the company [engineer], and will doubtless produce an excellent impression." In truth, these personal demands grew to be a grievous burden upon his time and energies, yet he never refused his aid to any claim of friendship or desert. Among others a lady, who had long prosecuted a claim before Congress in vain, was introduced by his corps chief, General Totten, to Major Stevens, as the only man who could win her cause. Although the latter felt that this was a task altogether outside of his sphere of duty, and one which should not have been thrust upon him, he cheerfully undertook it, and succeeded in having it allowed by Congress. The friendship between Major Stevens and Professor Bache grew stronger the longer they were associated together. They appreciated and admired each other. Both were gifted with uncommon powers of mind, uprightness and purity of character, and disinterestedness. Bache was more the philosopher, the student; Stevens, the man of action. Major Stevens also saw much of Professors Henry and Baird, of the Smithsonian. He took pains to meet the able men in Congress, and other men of talent and reputation who visited Washington. Occasionally of an evening he would take his little boy by the hand, and make the rounds of Willard's and other hotels, meeting and chatting with old army and other friends and acquaintances. With but little intermission, Major Stevens was an indefatigable worker, and never so well content as when driving his work at high pressure; and his sound judgment guided his energy so well that he would throw off an enormous load with astonishing rapidity. He had the faculty of getting a great deal of work out of his subordinates. But, not realizing that others lacked equal ability and power of labor, he was at times too exacting and severe. He was also inclined to overrate both the good qualities and the ability of others, and too often had cause to regret having done so from the ingratitude of many whom he befriended. The two elder children, Hazard and Sue, returned to Washington in October, and Miss Mary W. Hazard, Mrs. Stevens's sister, also came on and spent the winter with them. The youngest daughter, Kate, was born in the Third Street house on November 17, 1852. In September Major Stevens with Professor Bache was appointed on a commission for the improvement of the James, Appomattox, and Cape Fear rivers, and in November visited Richmond and Wilmington on this duty. But all these additional duties and pursuits made no impairment of his vigorous hold upon, and improvement of, the Coast Survey. The character and standing of the office was steadily rising, and able young officers were glad to accept details in it under Major Stevens. Lieutenant John G. Foster became his principal assistant. Professor H.E. Hilgard, who afterwards rose to be chief of the Coast Survey, had charge of the computing; Lieutenant Richard C. Rush, and afterwards Lieutenant A. A. Gibson, of drawing; and Lieutenant E.B. Hunt, of engraving. The field work, as fast as it came in, was given to the public in preliminary sketches, or charts, which served as a great incentive both to parties in the field, who saw at once the fruits of their labors, and to the office force in affording a better opportunity to train the younger members, and prepare them for the finished charts; and for the first time the annual report was illustrated by these sketches, giving all the field work done to date. He greatly facilitated the sale and distribution of Coast Survey maps, declaring that "they should be carried to every man's door having an interest in commerce, navigation, geography, or science." He took every means to encourage and reward the deserving, and opened the office to young men to learn the art of engraving, for there was a scarcity of skillful engravers, most of whom were foreigners. He reports:-- "The system of teaching the art of engraving to youths of promise is succeeding admirably. By combining lessons in drawing, instructions at night schools, with engraving, the best spirit is excited, and the greatest excellence attained. There are now six lads in the office, whose terms vary from two to nineteen months. "During the past year there has been a visible improvement of the office in all its branches, and it is my pleasure and duty to bear unqualified testimony to the zeal and efficiency of the several assistants in charge of the departments, and of the numerous employees under them. Each man has shown an honest purpose to do his duty, and I have been much oftener obliged to moderate exertion than to rebuke indifference and neglect." And Professor Bache in his reports declared:-- "The office under the charge of Major Stevens has improved in the system and order of every one of its divisions; and the zeal and ability of the assistant in charge has been reflected in the spirit of the officers under him, and in the general diligence of the employees. The office is characterized by a very marked spirit of industry, of working to results, and of progress. Every encouragement, as it should be, is afforded to those who endeavor to advance in their several occupations. "The office work has, by great diligence on the part of the persons employed, and by the excellent administrative arrangements of Major Stevens, been kept close to the field work. In no former year have so many preliminary sketches been promptly issued, and so much information of various kinds been published, or furnished to the officers of government or to individuals." CHAPTER XV GOVERNOR, WASHINGTON TERRITORY.--EXPLORATION, NORTHERN ROUTE The triumph of the Democratic party in November, 1853, and the election of General Franklin Pierce as the next President insured a more vigorous policy of exploration and settlement of the vast domain stretching from the Mississippi to the Pacific. Major Stevens was strongly attracted to this field. It appealed to his ambition. It afforded a greater opportunity for public service and achievement. Prominent and gratifying as was the position and standing he held in Washington, he realized its limitations. He knew, too, that with the army on a peace footing and filled with young officers, no promotion in his corps could be expected for years. In brief, feeling the powers and ambition of a leader, he was not content to remain longer a subordinate. In March Congress formed the new Territory of Washington out of the northern half of what was then Oregon, being the territory extending from the Columbia River and the 46th parallel northward two hundred and fifty miles to the British Possessions and the 49th parallel, and from the crest of the Rocky Mountains westward six hundred miles to the Pacific, an area larger than New England and New York combined. Save a handful of settlers on the lower Columbia and the shores of Puget Sound, and a few missionary and trading posts in the interior, the whole vast region was unsettled, and much of it unexplored by civilized man. It contained many thousands of Indians, some of whom had lately been at war with the whites, and regarded their approach with jealous and hostile eyes; the Indian title to the land had not been extinguished; and there were troublesome questions with the Hudson Bay Company, which still held its posts in the Territory, and claimed extensive rights as guaranteed by treaty. On March 3 Congress appropriated $150,000 for the exploration and survey of railroad routes from the Mississippi to the Pacific, to be expended by the Secretary of War under the direction of the President. Jefferson Davis entered the new cabinet as Secretary of War, and it was early determined to survey four principal routes to the Pacific. Early in the year Major Stevens applied for the governorship of the new Territory, to which was attached, _ex officio_, the superintendency of Indian affairs, and also for the charge of the exploration of the Northern route. Either of these fields was enough to fully task the most able and energetic man, but his ambition reached for both. Equally characteristic was the high ground upon which he based his application. He asked the appointment, not as the reward of political services, nor for the sake of personal or political friendship, but because he was the fittest man for the place, the one who could best serve the public interests. He told General Pierce that if he could find any one else better qualified for the position, who would accept it, it was his duty to appoint him. There was no question on that score. But his wife and many of his friends thought that he was making a great personal sacrifice in relinquishing the enviable position he had attained in Washington for the toils, hardships, and dangers of the Western exploration and governorship. Professor Bache was of this opinion, and deeply regretted to lose his efficient assistant and friend. One of the first acts of the new President was to send the name of Isaac I. Stevens to the Senate as governor of Washington Territory; he was confirmed, and his commission was issued March 17. He was just thirty-four years old, in the prime of life and of mental and physical powers. Major Stevens's letter of resignation from the army and General Totten's reply show the cordial and appreciative feelings of both. WASHINGTON, D.C., March 21, 1853. BRIGADIER-GENERAL JOSEPH G. TOTTEN, _Chief Engineer._ _Sir_,--I herewith resign my commission of lieutenant of engineers and brevet major United States army, to take effect on Wednesday, the 16th instant. This resignation is tendered with a profound sense of the high honor, intelligence, and sentiment of duty which is characteristic of the officers with whom I have been associated the best years of my life, whom I have known and honored in peace and war, in sunshine and in storm, and whose equals I can scarcely expect to find in the new career upon which I have entered. I shall carry into civil life the conviction that the country owes the army a debt of gratitude, and is yet to receive signal benefits at its hands. This conviction, rest assured, will show itself both in words and deeds whenever the service has to be vindicated or maintained. To yourself, both personally and officially, as a friend and as a superior officer, permit me to acknowledge the kindness and confidence which I have received at your hands. It has had no hindrance or interruption during the period of nearly fourteen years, many of them years of weighty responsibilities and perplexing cares, during which I have served under your command. And to me, sir, not only my commanding officer, but my honored friend, it is the completest of satisfactions to be able to say that during my service in the army I have not had a serious difficulty with a brother officer, and that I am not aware that between me and any officer in or out of the service there is the slightest feeling of unkindness. Very truly and respectfully, Your friend and obedient servant, ISAAC I. STEVENS. Writes General Totten in reply:-- While regretting that the corps of engineers are thus deprived of the future services of an officer whose high traits of character have, both in peace and war, so fully vindicated its position, I anticipate the more unhesitatingly that these characteristic qualities will continue to procure for you, in the new and wider scenes on which you have now entered, all the rewards which they so justly merit.... For myself, I have to make acknowledgment for great assistance rendered in every form, and under all the circumstances that your military duties admitted,--at all times fulfilling my wishes, abridging my cares, and exalting the usefulness and reputation of the corps. And in all our personal relations you have observed a kind consideration which I have fully appreciated. These things have created a warm interest in your welfare, and make me feel that, while the service is losing a most valuable officer, I am parting from a friend. I remain with high respect, J.G. TOTTEN, _Bvt. Brig.-Gen. and Col. Engineers._ Major Stevens turned over the charge of Fort Knox to Colonel John L. Smith, and was succeeded on the Coast Survey by Captain H.W. Benham. Major Stevens had long since overcome the ill feelings excited by the vigorous and drastic way in which he had reformed the office, and had long since won the confidence of the force, and their admiration as well. They deeply regretted his departure, and in token of their esteem presented him with a beautiful service of plate, consisting of a large silver pitcher and salver, with two goblets, in _repoussé_ work. PRESENTED TO ISAAC I. STEVENS, GOVERNOR OF THE TERRITORY OF WASHINGTON, LATE BREVET MAJOR, CORPS OF ENGINEERS, U.S. A., AND ASSISTANT IN CHARGE OF THE OFFICE OF THE U.S. COAST SURVEY, AS A TOKEN OF ESTEEM, BY HIS FRIENDS ON THE SURVEY, WASHINGTON, D.C., MARCH, 1853. In his next annual report after Major Stevens had left the Coast Survey, Professor Bache remarks:-- "The gain to the country in his appointment, and especially to that new region to which he has been called, will no doubt be great, but our loss is proportionably great. An administrative ability of a high order was joined to unceasing activity and great force of character; varied general and professional knowledge to great clearness in discerning ends, and fixedness of purpose in pursuing them; remarkable knowledge of men, and easy control of those connected in business with him, to personal qualities which rendered official intercourse agreeable to those about him. The system with which he followed up plans, complicated as well as simple, insured success in his administration, and was felt in every department of the office, of which he had thoroughly mastered the details as well as the general working. The experience acquired by such an officer is invaluable to the work, and not soon to be replaced, whatever may be the resources of his successor." A remark of Benham's, soon after he assumed charge, well illustrates his egotistic and assuming character: "Major Stevens grew up with the office from its infancy, but I grappled the lion when full-grown." Benham did not long remain on the survey. Scarcely was the ink dry on his commission, when Governor Stevens set to work to obtain charge of the exploration of the Northern route, and the rapid and masterly way in which he effected it, and planned the survey and increased its magnitude and importance, must have astonished the red tape officials of Washington. As usual, all his recommendations were based upon the highest grounds of public welfare and public service. On March 21 he writes the Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, a strong letter, proposing to conduct an exploration to determine the emigrant route, and the route for a railroad from the sources of the Mississippi to Puget Sound, and submits a memoir for accomplishing it by means of three parties, with estimates of organization and cost in detail, and concludes, "Should an expedition be intrusted to my charge, I pledge the devotion of all my force, energy, and judgment to its accomplishment." The following day he addresses the Secretary of State, William L. Marcy, submitting his project, and showing that he could best promote the interests of the new Territory by exploring the route to it, obtaining a large amount of useful information in relation to the agricultural, mineral, commercial, and manufacturing resources, and publishing the information thus obtained, thereby inviting emigrants, filling up the Territory, and developing its resources. He shows that this duty need not greatly delay the organization of territorial government, and calls attention to-- "the great influence which this exploration will exercise over the Indian tribes, the exceeding efficiency which it will give to me in discharge of my duties as Superintendent of Indian Affairs, and the interesting information which it will enable me to collect in regard to their numbers, customs, locations, history, and traditions. This I design making the subject of a special communication to the Department of the Interior. Should my views meet the approbation of the department, I will earnestly request that the necessary communication be had with the War Department to arrange the exploration in conformity with the plan which I have thus rapidly sketched. I ask that it be done with the least possible delay, so as to insure its complete success. I think it important that my arrangements here should be brought to a close in sixteen days, that previous to that time competent men be dispatched to the Mississippi River to assure the expedition, and thus we shall all be hard at work in the field the first week of May." As governor he was under the jurisdiction of the State Department. On the same day he addresses a similar letter to the Secretary of the Interior, Robert McClelland, for, as Superintendent of Indian Affairs, he came under that department. Governor Stevens enforced his views by personal interviews with the secretaries and the President; and his earnestness, zeal for the public service, sound judgment, and strong, convincing way of expressing his views, carried all before him. Within four days his proposal to lead the expedition was accepted, and all his suggestions adopted. The administration were only too glad to find such a man to head the most important of the explorations and insure its success. Perhaps no part of his career more clearly stamped Governor Stevens as a born leader of men than this. At a time when the new President and cabinet were overwhelmed with the pressing questions and personal claims ever engrossing the incoming administration, a mere subordinate, not content to simply await the instructions of his superiors, surveys the whole field of Western exploration intrusted to him, and its attendant problems of white settlement, Indians, etc., with comprehensive and far-sighted vision, decides upon the measures and action required by the needs of the country and the public service, and then so impresses his views upon the President and three great departments by sheer force of character, earnest patriotism, and sound, good sense, that all his recommendations are adopted without delay, and he is given _carte blanche_ to carry them out. The bare conception, if broached in March, when the new administration assumed charge, of obtaining both the governorship of Washington Territory and the charge of the Northern Pacific exploration, of inducing three secretaries to adopt his measures, of completely organizing and outfitting and starting in the field a great expedition for the survey of two thousand miles of wilderness, and all to be accomplished within two months, would have seemed not merely bold, but visionary and presumptuous, and nothing could have relieved Governor Stevens from such reproach but the fact that all this he actually accomplished. The following letter to Jefferson Davis, Secretary of War, shows how energetically Governor Stevens was already gathering information and assistance for the exploration. The last part touches upon a delicate question, the placing army officers under the command of a civilian, as Governor Stevens now was, a thing repugnant to all military ideas and usages, and almost without precedent. But Governor Stevens held that his case was altogether exceptional, and found no difficulty in securing the voluntary services of as many able officers as he needed. It is believed that there is no similar instance in our history where twelve army officers came under the command of a civilian:-- WASHINGTON, March 25, 1853. HON. JEFFERSON DAVIS, _Secretary of War_. _Sir_,--I am now quite certain that a sufficient number of army officers will volunteer to go with me on the proposed exploration from the headwaters of the Mississippi to Puget Sound, as will much reduce the force of civilians to be employed. Several accomplished officers would be glad to be detailed, and would do effective service as astronomers, engineers, artists, naturalists, draughtsmen, etc. I can make arrangements both with the American Fur and Hudson Bay Company for active coöperation and assistance. The distinguished geologist, Dr. J. Evans, who has gone over the greater portion of the country between the Mississippi and the Pacific, has explored two of the passes in the Rocky Mountains north of the South Pass, and has received much information of the topography of the country, has kindly given me much valuable information, and is ready to coöperate with all his energy in a plan whereby each shall render to the other every possible facility, and best promote the public service without an unnecessary expenditure of means. I think it exceedingly important that the whole exploration from the Mississippi River to Puget Sound, including a thorough examination of the passes of the Cascade Range, should be placed under the charge of the same person, he, under general instructions from the department, giving the necessary direction to the several parties, thus securing united and energetic action, and guarding against the almost certain failure of the expedition should it be divided into two independent commands. As soon as the department shall decide upon the scale of the operations, and shall issue its orders assigning me to the duty, which I presume from the correspondence with the Department of State to be definitely decided upon, I will at once submit a more detailed plan of operations, and make the necessary requisition for the detail of officers, and for the various facilities which may be extended by the administrative branches of the service. As in the Coast Survey, I propose no assignment of officers except by their own desire, and of officers who have especial adaptation to the particular duty. Very respectfully your obedient servant, ISAAC I. STEVENS. Among his first acts Governor Stevens, on March 31, applied for Brevet Captain George B. McClellan, then in Texas, to be "at once assigned to duty with me as my principal officer. I design to put him in charge of the exploration of the Cascade Range, and I can not only speak with confidence of his great ability for the particular duty, but as his friend can say that the duty will be in the highest degree agreeable to him." WASHINGTON, April 5, 1853. MY DEAR MCCLELLAN,--I have succeeded in securing your detail to take charge of the Western party in the Northern Pacific Railroad survey. You will get the orders to-day, and be directed probably to repair to New Orleans, and there await instructions. The route is from St. Paul, Minn., to Puget Sound by the great bend of the Missouri River through a pass in the Rocky Mountains near the 49th parallel. A strong party will operate westward from St. Paul; a second but smaller party will go up the Missouri to the Yellowstone, and there make arrangements, reconnoitre the country, etc., and on the junction of the main party they will push through the Blackfoot country, and, reaching the Rocky Mountains, will keep at work there during the summer months. The third party, under your command, will be organized in the Puget Sound region, you and your scientific corps going over the Isthmus, and will operate in the Cascade Range, and meet the party coming from the Rocky Mountains. As soon as my force is at work in these mountains, I shall push forward with a small reconnoitring force and find you, and, after conference with you, arrange the entire plan of operations. Your scientific corps will consist of a physician and naturalist, an astronomer, a draughtsman and barometer man, and an officer of the artillery, Johnson K. Duncan, who, I am informed by Foster, is a strong friend of yours, and will work under you. You will have authority to call upon the officers and troops stationed in the Territories of Oregon and Washington, and I have no doubt you will be able to secure valuable assistance. At the same time funds will be placed in your hands to hire suitable guides, hunters, etc. A complete set of instruments and appliances will be sent with the necessary instructions. Your friend, Professor Baird, is arranging the natural history part of the business. The expedition will be altogether the most complete that has ever set out in this country, and if we are true to it, the results will be satisfactory to the country. The amount of work in the Cascade Range and eastward, say to the probable junction of the parties at the great bend of the north fork of the Columbia River, will be immense. Recollect, the main object is a railroad survey from the headwaters of the Mississippi River to Puget Sound. We must rely upon the ordinary astronomical observations in the field, upon the odometer and barometer and the compass, for getting the direction, length, and profiles of routes. With the sextant for determining height along the route, and with a good sketcher and draughtsman, you will be able to get good results. I may get for you a small detachment of sappers, and I shall try to get you assigned to duty according to your brevet rank. I telegraphed you some days since, asking your views, but in consequence of your great distance from Washington it was essential to act at once. Knowing your views so intimately in relation to such service, and venturing on our long acquaintance and mutual friendship, I have in the strongest terms pressed your case, on the ground that, could you be consulted, the duty would be sought by you. In my telegraphic message I informed you that I was put in charge of the duty in consequence of my civil position. It has been done at the joint desire of the War Department, of the Department of State, and of the Department of the Interior. Officers have volunteered for the service, and I shall receive the services of several very valuable and experienced men. I have in the strongest terms taken the ground that my having left the army and standing in a civil position would not, under the circumstances of the case, be any objection on your part to acting under my direction. As your friend, and knowing the opportunity for distinction it would give you, I would not hesitate for a moment. One word more as to the railroad survey. We must not be frightened with long tunnels or enormous snows, but set ourselves to work to overcome them. When you reach New Orleans you will find your instructions. Truly your friend, ISAAC I. STEVENS. The warning in the last paragraph seems almost prophetic; for, as will be seen hereafter, McClellan's fear of deep snows caused him to fail in an important part of his survey of the Cascade passes, viz., the determining the depth of winter snow. Governor Stevens also obtained the detail for his survey of Lieutenant A.J. Donelson, of the engineer corps, and ten non-commissioned officers and men, of the engineer company, also known as sappers and miners, and of Lieutenant Beekman Du Barry, of the 3d artillery. He also obtained from the War Department authority to call upon the several army administrative departments for transportation, subsistence, and arms, and even the pay of two civilian surgeons and naturalists, thus providing for all the expenses of the expedition except those pertaining to civilians employed as a scientific corps and their assistants, which were to be defrayed by the funds allotted to the Northern route out of the civil appropriation, viz., $40,000 out of the $150,000 thus appropriated. By these arrangements he vastly increased the extent, thoroughness, and value of his exploration. On April 7 Governor Stevens sent Lieutenant Donelson to Montreal armed with letters from the British Minister in Washington to Sir George Simpson, governor of the Hudson Bay Company, to obtain all the information possible relative to the country from the Great Lakes to the Pacific, the location of the trading-posts, the amount of supplies obtainable from them for the exploration party in case of emergency, the names of hunters and half-breeds who might serve as guides and interpreters, and to learn all possible about the geography, and examine all books and maps, making copies of the latter if necessary, etc. "The information we already have of this region," he writes Donelson, "is based upon the following works: Lewis and Clarke's Travels; Irving's Astoria and Rocky Mountains; Travels by the Missionary De Smet, Nicollet, and Pope; Governor Simpson's Journey around the World; and some information, not yet published, obtained from Dr. Evans on his geological survey of those regions. A book recommended by the British Minister, 'Hudson Bay Company,' by Montgomery Martin, I wish you to obtain. He suggested it might be obtained from Governor Simpson. As soon as you have finished your inquiries at Montreal, which I think you can do in a week, return to Washington, and report to me in person. "In reference to the detachment (sappers), it is necessary that the men be selected with great care. None should be taken who cannot assist the scientific corps as sketchers, draughtsmen, or collectors, etc. It is necessary that they should be put under special training. Captain Seymour, perhaps, might be willing to take charge of one, and Lieutenant Du Barry of another, giving them instructions in the use of the barometer and astronomical instruments used in the field." This is interesting as showing how little was then known of the region to be explored, and how few and meagre were the works describing it. Governor Stevens had thus been driving the work of preparation and organization for a fortnight, when, on April 8, the formal order placing him in charge and giving full instructions was issued by the War Department. These instructions exactly embody his own suggestions, much of them in the very language of his letters and memoir to Secretary Davis. In fact, he really prepared his own instructions. The following brief synopsis will give some idea of the scope and magnitude of the exploration, of the task Governor Stevens had set himself:-- 1. The exploration and survey of a route for a railroad from the sources of the Mississippi River to Puget Sound is placed in charge of Isaac I. Stevens, governor of the Territory of Washington, to whom all officers detailed for the same will report for instructions. 2. To operate from St. Paul, or some eligible point on the Upper Mississippi, towards the great bend of the Missouri River, and thence on the table-land between the tributaries of the Missouri and the Saskatchewan to some eligible pass in the Rocky Mountains. A depot to be established at Fort Union, at the mouth of the Yellowstone, with a subsidiary party to await the coming of the main party. A second party to proceed to Puget Sound and explore the passes of the Cascade Range, meeting the eastern party between that range and the Rocky Mountains, as may be arranged by Governor Stevens. 3. To explore the passes of the Cascade Range and Rocky Mountains from the 49th parallel to the headwaters of the Missouri River, and to determine the capacity of the adjacent country to supply, and of the Columbia and Missouri rivers and their tributaries to transport, materials for the construction of the road, great attention to be given geography and meteorology of the whole intermediate region, to the seasons and character of freshets; the quantities and continuance of its rains and snows, especially in the mountain ranges; to its geology; in arid regions the use of artesian wells; its botany, natural history, agricultural and mineral resources; the location, numbers, history, traditions, and customs of its Indian tribes; and such other facts as shall tend to develop the character of that portion of our national domain, and supply all the facts that enter into the solution of the particular problem of a railroad. 4-7. Assigns to survey, in addition to those already assigned, Captain John W.T. Gardiner, 1st dragoons; Second Lieutenant Johnson K. Duncan, 3d artillery; Second Lieutenant Rufus Saxton, 4th artillery; Second Lieutenant Cuvier Grover, 4th artillery; and Brevet Second Lieutenant John Mullan, 1st artillery; and twenty picked men of the 1st dragoons and two officers and thirty men to Captain McClellan's party. 8. The administrative branches of the army, on requisition approved by Governor Stevens, to supply the officers, soldiers, and civil employees of the expedition (except the scientific corps and their assistants), with transportation, subsistence, medical stores, and arms, and to furnish funds for the same when not supplied in kind. 9-10. After completion of field work, the expedition to rendezvous at some suitable point in Washington Territory to be designated by Governor Stevens, and reports to be prepared. Officers and enlisted men to be sent to their stations and employees to be discharged. 11. $40,000 set apart from the appropriation for the survey thus intrusted to Governor Stevens. It is difficult to realize the magnitude of the task here outlined. It was to traverse and explore a domain two thousand miles in length by two hundred and fifty in breadth, stretching from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, across a thousand miles of arid plains and two great mountain ranges, a region almost unexplored, and infested by powerful tribes of predatory and warlike savages; to determine the navigability of the two great rivers, the Missouri and the Columbia, which intersect the region; to locate by reconnoissance and to survey a practicable railroad route; to examine the mountain passes and determine the depth of winter snows in them; to collect all possible information on the geology, climate, flora and fauna, as well as the topography, of the region traversed; and finally to treat with the Indians on the route, cultivate their friendship, and collect information as to their languages, numbers, customs, traditions, and history; and all this, including the work of preparation and organization, to be accomplished in a single season. It was Governor Stevens's plan to effect this vast work by means of two parties operating simultaneously from both ends of the route, the principal one starting from St. Paul at the eastern end, under his own immediate charge; and the other, starting from the western end, under McClellan, to meet on the upper Columbia plains between the two great mountain ranges; and two subsidiary parties,--one, under Lieutenant Donelson, to ascend the Missouri to Fort Union with a stock of supplies, and there await the coming of the main party; and the other, under Lieutenant Saxton, to proceed from the lower Columbia to the Bitter Root valley, in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, with an additional stock of supplies for the main party. The subsidiary parties were also to examine the country traversed by them, and collect all the information possible bearing on the various objects of the expedition. By this plan McClellan was required simply to explore the Cascade Range, or about 200 miles of the route; while Governor Stevens allotted all the remainder, some 1800 miles, including the great plains, the Rocky and Bitter Root Mountains, to the parties under his immediate charge. During the next four weeks Governor Stevens drove forward the work of preparing and organizing the expedition with tremendous energy. He applied for and obtained the assignments of officers and men from the army; made requisitions upon the administrative branches for supplies and funds for the several parties; obtained $6000 from the Interior Department for the purchase of Indian goods and for treating with them; employed A. W. Tinkham, his former assistant at Fort Knox, and Fred. W. Lander, afterwards the Brigadier-General Lander who was wounded at Ball's Bluff and died of his wounds, as civil engineers; appointed George W. Stevens as secretary and astronomer; placed Professor Baird, of the Smithsonian, in charge of the zoölogical and botanical collections, and of preparing the outfits and instructions for field work; made Isaac Osgood, his former clerk at Bucksport, disbursing officer; Dr. John Evans, geologist; Drs. George Suckley and J.G. Cooper, surgeons and naturalists; J.M. Stanley, artist, and engaged a number of other subordinates, including six young gentlemen who went as aides. Early in April Lieutenant Saxton and Lieutenant Duncan started for the Columbia via the Isthmus and San Francisco, with detailed instructions, that no time might be lost in organizing the western parties, and were followed by McClellan as soon as he reached Washington from Texas and received his instructions. He was also furnished by Governor Stevens with letters from Sir George Simpson to the officers of the Hudson Bay Company's posts, and with letters from the governor to many of the prominent American settlers in Washington and Oregon, and also a circular letter bespeaking their goodwill and support for Captain McClellan. Governor Stevens also placed under McClellan's charge the construction of a military wagon-road from Fort Steilacoom, on Puget Sound, to Fort Walla Walla on the Columbia, for which Congress had appropriated $20,000, and which the Secretary of War had placed in Governor Stevens's hands, with authority to assign an officer or a civil engineer to its construction, as he deemed best. The governor gave very full instructions in regard to this road; furnished the names of prominent citizens and advised McClellan to consult with them as to the best location for the road, and gave him full notes of his correspondence with them bearing on the matter. Sir George Simpson having proposed to forward an extra stock of supplies to his posts in the interior for the expedition, Governor Stevens made haste to decline the proffered assistance, not wishing to incur such an obligation to a foreign company, assuring Sir George that his own government would provide ample supplies, and that he merely wished to know what the company's posts could spare from their usual stock in case of emergency. On this point he is emphatic in his instructions to Saxton and McClellan:-- "I am exceedingly desirous no exertion should be spared to have means of our own for our expedition, and shall much prefer to be in condition to extend aid than to be obliged to receive aid from others. Whilst we will gratefully receive aid from the company in case of necessity, let it be our determination to have within ourselves the means of the most complete efficacy. I am more and more convinced that in our operations we should be self-dependent, and whilst we exchange courtesies and hospitalities with the Hudson Bay Company, the people and the Indians of the Territory should see that we have all the elements of success in our hands. The Indians must look to us for protection and counsel. They must see that we are their true friends, and be taught not to look, as they have been accustomed to, to the Hudson Bay Company. I am so impressed with this fact that I wish no Indian presents to be procured from British posts. I am determined, in my intercourse with the Indians, to break up the ascendency of the Hudson Bay Company, and permit no authority or sanction to come between the Indians and the officers of this government." The Hudson Bay Company still held trading-posts in the new Territory at Steilacoom, Vancouver, Walla Walla, and Colville, and claimed extensive but ill-defined rights and possessions, and its officers lost no opportunity to cultivate the goodwill of Governor Stevens, hoping to win his favoring view, if not support, of their claims. Lieutenants Donelson and Mullan, with part of the sappers, were sent to St. Louis to prepare the supplies, etc., for ascending the Missouri to Fort Union. Governor Stevens had already ascertained by correspondence the character of the river boats at St. Louis and at Pittsburg, and the cost of purchasing or chartering them, but was unable to find one of sufficiently light draught and power, and therefore decided to send the party by the American Fur Company's boat. Captain Gardiner was dispatched to St. Paul to select the dragoon detachment, establish a camp, and make preliminary arrangements for starting the main party afield as early as possible. The civil engineers, Lander and Tinkham, were also sent to the same point to examine the crossings of the Mississippi and their approaches. Lieutenant Grover, as assistant quartermaster and commissary of the expedition, was also sent to St. Louis, assisted by a civilian employee, to procure supplies and forward them to St. Paul. Lieutenant Du Barry was directed to push on beyond St. Paul to Pembina to procure guides. The most detailed and careful instructions were furnished all these officers; requisitions and arrangements made with the officers of the army administrative branches in Washington, St. Louis, St. Paul, San Francisco, and Vancouver for the outfit and supply of the different parties; all existing information in the way of maps, reports, etc., was copied and furnished, and full instructions for the making and preservation of natural history collections, and for the astronomical and meteorological observations were prepared and printed, and placed in the hands of all those having charge of those branches. The very full, carefully considered, and complete instructions given these various officers by Governor Stevens would fill two hundred pages. They are not only a remarkable monument of industry, but show a complete grasp and mastery of the whole field, great foresight of the conditions and difficulties to be encountered, and are remarkably clear and precise in stating the objects to be obtained, but leave much to the judgment of the officer addressed in the ways and means of attaining them. Not content with omnivorously devouring all the books, reports, and maps upon the field of operations, and seeking information by correspondence with the officers of the Hudson Bay Company and citizens of Oregon and Washington, Governor Stevens procured and studied all the available works on the steppes of Russia and Asia, as throwing light upon the formation and characteristics of the great plains. During these four weeks the Third Street house was filled with clerks and draughtsmen, hard at work on instructions, requisitions, maps, etc., with officers and civil employees conferring as to their duties and making preparations, and with many others anxious to accompany the expedition and seeking positions upon it; and was crammed from garret to cellar with books, maps, papers, instruments, arms, and other paraphernalia incident to such an undertaking. Professor Baird took the greatest interest in the scientific collections, preparing rules, and getting up panniers and apparatus, and made that feature so important that Governor Stevens was impelled to say, "I want you to understand, Professor Baird, that my exploration is something more than a natural-history expedition." The fitting out of the expedition attracted much attention in Washington, and the parlors were filled every evening with gentlemen connected with or interested in it. Among them was Fred. W. Lander, a tall, athletic young man, confident in bearing, frank and ready in conversation, and fond of relating the adventurous experiences and escapes, especially with horses, into which his daring not to say reckless disposition often led him. Lieutenant George B. McClellan, afterwards the well-known commander of the Army of the Potomac, was of charming manners and personality. On being asked how he liked being under Governor Stevens, he replied, "At any rate, I shall serve under a man of brains." Lieutenants Saxton and Grover rose to be major-generals in the Civil War. General Joseph Lane, who represented Oregon in Congress, was a frequent caller. He was a man of native grace and dignity of manner and fine character,--one of nature's noblemen. The energy and capacity for effective work displayed by Governor Stevens during this time astonished his friends. His labors with the pen alone were enough to fully occupy any man. Besides this, he was incessantly engaged in consultations, conferences, and interviews with the subordinates and others, and was embracing every opportunity of talking with men who had experience on the plains or the Pacific coast. George Stevens declared that no human being could stand such a strain, and on another occasion exclaimed, "The major is crazy, actually crazy, or he never could work as he does!" In just a month from the date of the order placing him in charge, Governor Stevens had effected the whole work of organization and outfitting, and on May 9 left Washington for St. Paul to start the expedition. During the same month he also broke up housekeeping, disposed of his furniture, and moved his family into private lodgings. His wife was seriously ill, and was obliged to remain in Washington with her young child and her sister Mary until sufficiently recovered to stand the journey to Newport. He also at this time selected and purchased of D. Appleton & Co., of New York, the Territorial Library,--for which $5000 had been appropriated by Congress,--and had the books sent out by sea around Cape Horn. This was no small task, for he went over the lists of books and made the selection with great pains. He stated in his first message to the legislature that he had taken care to get the best books in each department of learning, and had applied to the executive of every State and Territory and to many learned societies to donate their publications. This work is not the place to narrate the progress and results of that great exploration and survey. They are ably and fully recorded by Governor Stevens himself in three large volumes, comprising 1500 pages, with many views and illustrations, published by Congress, being the first and twelfth volumes (the latter in two parts) of "Reports of the Explorations and Surveys for a Railroad Route from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean." And it is only from these pages that one can learn and appreciate with what thoroughness and completeness Governor Stevens executed the vast work intrusted to him. For years these volumes were the great storehouse of information relating to the region treated by them, the source of innumerable reports and articles, and are to-day full of interest and valuable information. These reports really embody the results of three years' labors. And it will be related farther on how Governor Stevens, not content with having most successfully conducted his exploration across the continent in one season and fully performed his instructions, did, of his own patriotic devotion to the public interests, carry on that great work for two years longer, using the Indian service and the volunteer forces under his command, and gave the full and final results of his labors in vol. xii., published in 1860. CHAPTER XVI THE PARTY.--THE START Leaving Washington May 9, and, after spending a day in New York to complete arrangements, going by way of Detroit and Chicago, Governor Stevens reached St. Louis on the 15th. Here he was disappointed in finding the outfits not so far advanced as he expected, and was even seriously alarmed at the mules furnished by the St. Louis quartermaster, which were only three or four years old, and perfectly wild and unbroken. This was the more inexcusable from the fact that he had previously sent Mr. Charles Taplin to St. Louis with instructions that only well-broken and serviceable animals were to be procured. Consequently he remained there a week hastening the necessary outfits, during which time he started Lieutenant Donelson's party up the Missouri on the American Fur Company's steamboat with Lieutenant Mullan, Mr. William H. Graham, and six sappers, and 10,000 rations. Dr. John Evans and Mr. Alexander Culbertson also accompanied them. The latter, having spent twenty years on the upper Missouri as a fur-trader and married a Blackfoot squaw, had great influence over that warlike tribe. He was appointed by Governor Stevens as special agent for these predatory and intractable savages, and sent forward to prepare the way for the expedition through their country by securing guides and hunters and arranging for a council. Leaving St. Louis on the 23d and proceeding up the Mississippi, Governor Stevens, in order to repair the neglect of the quartermaster, purchased at the several landings and at Galena a number of teams of strong, well-broken mules and horses, in some instances taking them off the wagons where they were at work. Four days were spent on the Father of Waters. "Leaving Galena on the 25th," says the governor, "on the steamer Nominee, we proceeded up the river, and were enabled to make short stops at Dubuque, Prairie du Chien, Lansing, La Crosse, and other places. Intervals of leisure were employed in reporting fully to the War and Interior Departments my proceedings thus far, and the arrangements in contemplation for the execution of my several trusts. The scenery on the Mississippi is bold and at times beautiful, though but little variety is presented. Bluff banks on both sides, topped with trees, line its banks, and occasionally marked views occur, among which I might mention as most prominent Lake Pepin, Maiden Rock, Barn Bluffs, etc. "St. Paul is beautifully situated upon a high bluff on the east bank of the river, and is rapidly growing in size and importance." St. Paul is said in the report to have then had a population of 1200. While on the Nominee, Governor Stevens writes a letter of eight pages to his wife's brother, Mr. Daniel L. Hazard, who had had much experience with Mississippi boats,--but was then at Newport recovering from malarial illness,--on the draught, power, and size of steamboats suitable for the navigation of the upper Missouri, and suggests to him the opportunity for steamboating on Puget Sound, concluding with the following remarks, showing his own feelings towards the new country, and how completely he was adopting it:-- "I have no doubt that it is one of the most delightful and salubrious regions in the whole country, with all the health of Newport, but with a grandeur and largeness of scenery far surpassing it. It is just such a place as I have for many years proposed to myself, one of these days, to carve out a home. I am satisfied my family will all be pleased with their new home, and that we will be willing to settle down there for life." Long before daylight the next morning after reaching St. Paul, Governor Stevens was in the saddle, riding to the camp established by Captain Gardiner two days before, and had the pleasure of rousing the gentlemen of the expedition from their sleep. The camp was situated on the borders of Lake Amelia, about nine miles from St. Paul and about three northwest from Fort Snelling, and, in honor of the President, the governor named it Camp Pierce. "About a quarter of a mile to the eastward lay another lake, connected with Lake Amelia by a creek, which was very convenient for watering our animals, and formed a fine meadow on which they grazed. These lakes furnished us with fish in abundance, consisting of bass, pickerel, and sunfish. "The mules presented a fine appearance, and were apparently strong and healthy, though young, and even more unbroken and unserviceable than I had feared. Not a single full team of broken animals could be selected, and well-broken riding animals were essential, for most of the gentlemen of the scientific corps were unaccustomed to riding. I felt that time was precious and a great difficulty to be overcome, so at once resolved that the whole force should set to work to break them. Fortunately, my purchase of mules along the river enabled me to break in the animals rapidly to the teams, by which they were started several days earlier than otherwise could have been done." A letter of George W. Stevens gives the following amusing account of the scenes which occurred when every man, by the governor's order, set to work to break his own mule:-- "Of the 200 mules received, much to the chagrin and disappointment of the major, not ten of them were broken. But though the unbroken and unqualified age of our young mules presented a hindrance, the major has the more vigorously cut out his plans. In a week's time, of very hard labor on the part of the men, we were able to move. Even the members of the scientific corps put their shoulders to the wheel, and each gentleman broke his own riding animal. The operation of breaking these most stubborn of creatures was highly exciting and interesting. First they were tolled into a corral by leading in the bell mare, which they follow with the most laughable devotion. Then lassos were thrown over their necks, and after a long process of choking and hauling they were sufficiently exhausted to allow themselves to be led out and tied to a long picket rope stretched across stakes some four feet high. They did not at all relish the feeling of the rope about their necks, and such capers as they cut up, turning summersets 'both before and behind,' throwing themselves upon the ground, and jumping and doubling themselves with all the agility of the cat. At length nearly all of the 200 were tied to the picket rope, and, after a sufficiently elapsed interval to regain their minds and strength, the same antics were gone through with again. Some leaped over the ropes, some tangled themselves with their lariats. Breaking them to the saddle proved highly interesting. After breakfast each morning we all went out and saddled our own animals, and spent an hour or two in a _pleasant drive_. Behold some fifteen or twenty of us mounted; off we start, and in a moment all sorts of scenes are being enacted. Here one is thrown headforemost; here one is borne through the air with lightning speed, fortunate if not brushed off beneath the scrubby oaks. Some of the mules lie down, and some persist in running among a number of picketed animals, and tangling themselves in the lariats; the riders--however good--are sent 'bounding through the air.' I had a truly tough job in breaking my animal. Every time I mounted her I was sure to be thrown, and it was not until some weeks' march that she became well trained, but afterwards there was not a better-broken mule in the train. Many were badly beaten and bruised in the breaking operation, and certainly a whole month's delay in our arrival at Fort Union was the result of the selection of these young, unbroken animals by the St. Louis quartermaster." The next few days the rains were almost incessant; but, says the governor, June 1:-- "Although it rained heavily all day, every one in camp was engaged in breaking mules, causing many an amusing scene. Several of the party were thrown repeatedly, but the determination they evince must overcome all obstacles; and I feel not only pleased to see their spirit, but to congratulate myself and them that no accident has occurred worthy of mention. Much hilarity was produced by the efforts of different persons, and each fall occasioned a laugh. Thus what I had seriously expected to prove a great difficulty was, in the midst of heavy rains and gloomy weather, a source of mirthful enjoyment." The main party here organized, including a few members who joined soon after starting, consisted of Governor Isaac I. Stevens; Lieutenant Cuvier Grover, 4th artillery; Lieutenant Beekman Du Barry, 3d artillery; detachment of four sappers; detachment of twenty men, 1st dragoons; Fred. W. Lander, A.W. Tinkham, civil engineers; Dr. George Suckley, surgeon and naturalist; Isaac F. Osgood, disbursing agent; J.M. Stanley, artist; John Lambert, topographer; George W. Stevens, secretary and astronomer; James Doty, A. Remenyi, astronomical and magnetic observations; Joseph F. Moffett, meteorologist; T.S. Everett, quartermaster and commissary clerk; Elwood Evans, Thomas Adams, F.H. Burr, Max Strobel, A. Jekelfaluzy, B.F. Kendall, ---- Evelyn, aides; C.P. Higgins, wagon-master; William Simpson, pack-master; Pierre Boutineau, Le Frambois, Belland, Henry Boulieau, Paul Boulieau, guides; Menoc, hunter; and sixty teamsters, packers, and voyageurs, numbering altogether one hundred and eleven members. Captain Gardiner was relieved from duty in consequence of illness, and did not accompany the expedition. The pay was certainly moderate: $125 for Mr. Stanley, the artist; $100 to the civil engineers, Lander and Tinkham; and $25 to each aide, per month. The subsidiary party, ascending the Missouri to Fort Union, where it was to join the main party, consisted of Lieutenant A.J. Donelson, engineer corps; Lieutenant John Mullan, 1st artillery; six sappers; William M. Graham, astronomer; Dr. John Evans, geologist; Alexander Culbertson, special Indian agent. The other subsidiary party, which met the main party in the Rocky Mountains, consisted of Lieutenant Rufus Saxton, 4th artillery; Lieutenant Robert Macfeely, 4th infantry; Lieutenant Richard Arnold, 3d artillery; Mr. D.L. Arnold; Mr. D.S. Hoyt; detachment of eighteen soldiers; twenty-nine packers, herders, etc.,--in all, fifty-two. The western party consisted of Lieutenant George B. McClellan; Lieutenant Johnson K. Duncan, 3d artillery, astronomer, etc.; Lieutenant Henry C. Hodges, 4th infantry, quartermaster and commissary; Lieutenant Sylvester Mowry, 3d artillery, meteorologist; George Gibbs, geologist and ethnologist; J.F. Minter, civil engineer; Dr. J.C. Cooper, surgeon and naturalist; Mr. Lewis, interpreter; detachment of twenty-eight soldiers; thirty civil employees,--in all, sixty-six in number. The entire force under Governor Stevens's command for the exploration comprised eleven officers and seventy-six enlisted men of the army, thirty-three members of the scientific corps, and one hundred and twenty civilian employees, teamsters, packers, guides, herders, voyageurs, etc.,--altogether, some two hundred and forty. Governor Stevens's general plan was, while surveying a continuous compass and odometer line with the principal train, to keep detached parties far out on the sides of the route, examining the topography of the country, and gathering all possible information concerning it, and thus to embrace the widest possible field in the exploration. The following pages will give simply the governor's personal experiences on the expedition, and largely in his own language, referring the reader to his reports, especially the final report in vol. xii., for the details of this most interesting exploration. "As rapidly as the breaking-in of the mules and heavy rains for half the time allowed, the expedition moved seventy miles up the Mississippi in detachments, crossed to the west bank, and on June 10 were again assembled on the Sauk River, two miles above its mouth, in Camp Davis, so named in honor of the Secretary of War. In this first movement of the expedition on the 31st, Lander was sent ahead to explore, and Tinkham to run the survey line. Doty on June 3, and Simpson on 4th, took the route with small trains, with such animals as were sufficiently broken in to be worked, and on the 6th Camp Pierce was broken up, and the remainder of the force followed in three parties, Grover with the scientific men and instruments by steamboat, Du Barry with Stanley, Dr. Suckley and sixteen dragoons, and Everett with the train, both these by land up the east bank of the river. Thus, despite the mules and the weather, the least possible time was lost in starting afield, and the young subordinates were being taught to command and operate detachments, which the governor regarded as of great importance, 'in order to infuse hope into the whole party, and avail myself of the present high spirit of the camp.'" Having seen the several parties started off, and the camp broken up, the governor continues:-- I remained at St. Anthony until noon of June 7 to secure the services of several voyageurs, and particularly of the guide Pierre Boutineau and the hunter Menoc, in which I was successful, and starting about noon, and taking a rapid conveyance, I pushed forward the same day forty miles, overtaking at Rum River Lieutenant Du Barry, and, some miles beyond, both Doty and Simpson, and reaching Sauk Rapids, a distance of thirty miles farther, by eleven A.M., found Mr. Tinkham actively engaged in the survey of that portion of the river. The crossing at St. Anthony is by a rope ferry, its motive power being the action of the current, having a short rope at the bow and a longer or slack rope astern. On the west side of the Mississippi, about three miles above Rum River, there was a large encampment of Winnebago Indians, consisting of about one hundred lodges. These are constructed of oak bark, fastened by strips of buckskin over arched poles, resembling in shape the cover of a wagon; they are about eight feet high, and from ten to thirty feet long, according to the number of families to be accommodated. The chief's lodge in the centre is much larger, and distinguished by the flags upon it, two British and two American colors. The shores are lined with canoes, and the village extends an eighth of a mile along the river. The country, for the first seven miles after leaving camp and striking the St. Anthony road, is a wet prairie. After leaving St. Anthony the country appears to rise towards the north; the road lies on the eastern bank of the Mississippi, along the plateau, which is generally timbered with the smaller varieties of oak, in some places forming beautiful groves. On the road, and at Sauk Rapids, several additional men were engaged, among them some Canadian voyageurs. These men, being sometimes half-breeds, speak a jargon of patois French, Chippewa, and other Indian dialects. They are a hardy, willing, enduring class, and used to encounter all sorts of difficulties in their journey between different posts of the fur companies. They must be treated with kindness and a certain degree of familiarity, and, their confidence and affections being secured, they are the most obedient and hard-working fellows in the world. This morning I learned that Lieutenant Grover and his steamboat party had landed late last evening about five miles below Sauk River, and had there encamped. In the afternoon, accompanied by Boutineau, I crossed the Mississippi to find him, and went three miles in a drenching rain without reaching his position. I dispatched Henry Boulieau in search of Lander, and he returned with the information that Lander was about eighteen miles ahead at Cold Spring, and that he had made there a good crossing for wagons. June 9. I went to Mr. Lander's camp, and examined the crossing, which I find to be practicable, and the work well done. June 10. I returned to Lieutenant Grover's camp, which was beautifully situated on the north bank of the Osakis or Sauk River, about two miles from its mouth. The grass was indifferent and backward, but, with half rations of oats, abundant for the animals; water excellent. In honor of the Secretary of War, we named it Camp Davis. Lieutenant Du Barry arrived this afternoon with his party, as did the small trains of Doty and Simpson. A very severe thunderstorm, with heavy rain for about five hours, occurred at night, amounting in the rain-gauge to 6.1 inches. My acquaintance with the voyageurs, thus far, has impressed me favorably. They are thorough woodsmen, and just the men for prairie life also, going into the water as pleasantly as a spaniel, and remaining there as long as needed; stout, able-bodied, and willing to put their shoulders to the wheel whenever necessary; no slough or bog deters them. Camp Davis, two miles west of the Mississippi River, June 10, 1853. MY DEAREST WIFE,--We are getting on finely. Camp Pierce was broken up on Monday, and in five days we have gone up the river seventy miles, and the bulk of the party is now west of the Mississippi. Yesterday I rode forward twenty-six miles to the crossing of the Sauk River to make arrangements for the advance of the civil engineer party. I had previously traveled rapidly from St. Anthony to Sauk Rapids in a carriage, passing all the parties on the road. It was a beautiful ride all the way, and I had a most interesting companion in Pierre Boutineau, the great guide and voyageur of Minnesota. He is famous as a buffalo-hunter, is a Chippewa half-breed, and surpasses all of his class in truthfulness and great intelligence. Not only is he experienced in all the vicissitudes of travel and frontier life, being the hero of many interesting events, but he has the broadness of view of an engineer, and I am confident he will be of the greatest service to us in finding our way. At the Falls of St. Anthony, where he resides, he is greatly esteemed, and is known throughout the Territory. I breakfasted with him Monday morning, and was delighted with the affection and respect with which he inspired his whole household. There was his old Indian mother; his four children by his first wife, a half-breed; his second wife and babe; his sister; his brother and wife; and the wife of an absent brother. We all sat down to a breakfast of two roasted sucking-pigs, eggs, beefsteak, etc. He is a natural gentleman, and in his family I saw exhibited the most refined and courteous manners. He drove a pair of very spirited horses, and on the road, seeing some plover, he called them to him and shot one. He understands, as Mr. Sibley in Washington told me, everything from shooting a bird or paddling a canoe to hunting buffalo, and conducting a large party through a long extent of difficult country. I have also secured Menoc, the best hunter of the Territory. He joins the party to-morrow, and will in ten days be able to supply us with deer and elk. June 12. Messrs. Osgood and Kendall reached camp this morning with the barometers and india-rubber boats. At St. Louis I was telegraphed that many of the barometers had been broken, and they could not be supplied short of New York. They were absolutely indispensable. I sent Mr. Kendall there immediately, and in thirty days the boats and instruments were made and brought to my camp, eighty miles on our way. Mr. Everett also arrived about noon to-day. I regretted to observe that many of his animals were in very bad condition. Of our whole number some forty were disabled, and eight or ten so much so as to give very little hope that they could do any further service. I refused, however, to sell even these to the many applicants who expressed a willingness to take them off our hands below the cost of purchase. Assembling both officers and men to-day, I caused to be read the camp regulations, which I had prepared for the government of the party, and made a short address, in which I informed them that every man would be expected to look to the safety of his comrades; that all alike, whether soldier or civilian, would be expected to stand guard, and in case of difficulties to meet them promptly. I exaggerated the difficulties which lay before us, and represented that the country through which they would pass was intersected by bogs, marshes, and deep morasses; that rivers were to be forded and bridged, mountains and valleys to be crossed; that the first one hundred and eighty miles of the journey was reported to be through a continuous marsh, barely practicable, where every man would have to go through mud and water and apply his shoulders to the wheel; that in ten days we would reach the Indian country, where heavy guard duty would have to be performed to protect property and preserve lives; that still farther on we would probably be compelled to force our way through the country of the Blackfoot Indians, a tribe proverbially treacherous and warlike, that then the snows of the mountains would have to be overcome, and that every man would be expected to follow wherever he might be led; that no one would be sacrificed, nor would any one be subjected to any risk which I would not freely incur; and that whoever was not willing to coöperate with us had better at once retire. After these remarks the camp regulations were read by Mr. Kendall, and my views were cordially approved. I dispatched Lieutenant Grover with a picked party of fifteen men, with instructions to reconnoitre the country north, and in the vicinity of White Bear Lake. June 13. Continuing the project of sending off the train in detached parties, and thus gradually breaking up the camp, much of the day was spent in preparing a party to be placed in charge of Dr. Suckley. All was effected by four P.M., when his party, consisting of Belland the guide, Menoc the hunter, a cook, Corporal Coster, and two dragoons, with two led horses and two led mules, two men in charge of them, Belland's riding horse, and a Pembina cart in charge of Henry Boulieau, started from camp. He was instructed to follow Lieutenant Grover's trail in easy marches, looking carefully to his animals, and paying particular attention to the collections in natural history. To-day I issued an order creating assimilated rank in the expedition, by which certain gentlemen of the party were appointed to the grade of lieutenant, and others to the grade of non-commissioned officer, for convenience in detailing guard. By this course the relative position of each man was fixed; and, whether in the main or detached parties, it was known whose duty it was to give orders in case of necessity. Military organization is in some degree indispensable, and the idea of an escort has been entirely abandoned. All are soldiers in the performance of guard duty, and the soldiers accompanying us are on fatigue duty, and not merely to escort us by day and to stand guard at night. Several of the Pembina carts purchased by Dr. Borup arrived in camp to-day. They are made entirely of wood, having no iron at all about them, very roughly constructed, and the wheels usually wrapped with rawhide or buffalo skin in place of an iron tire, to prevent their cutting through the marshy ground so extensive between here and Pembina. They are drawn by horses, oxen, or mules, one person usually driving from two to six carts, and when loaded they will carry from six to eight hundred pounds. They look as if made for only one trip, and the creaking of the wheels on the wooden axle does not give the idea of their standing much service. Their first appearance, to those of the party unaccustomed to the sight, with the oxen harnessed in them, caused much merriment, and as they moved over the prairie, the singular noise produced by their wheels assured us that, with such an accompaniment, no need existed for any musical instrument or players, for these discoursed most sweetly. "There is no such thing as an escort to this expedition. Each man is escorted by every other man," begins this order. It required each man habitually to go armed; arms to be inspected morning and evening; no march on Sundays, on which days thorough inspection of persons and things to be made, and each man to bathe his whole person; each member of the scientific corps to take care of his own horse, and to take from and place in the wagons his own personal baggage; no firing on the march; personal baggage reduced to twenty-five pounds per man. By the strict enforcement of these stringent but salutary regulations, and the extreme care with which all were required to treat the animals, Governor Stevens conducted the entire expedition without the loss of a man, save one who shot himself by accident, and the animals actually improved on the march. June 14. Spent the day in making the necessary arrangements to push forward the whole camp, to be organized for the present in detached parties under separate heads, and all under my general direction. Lieutenant Du Barry was placed in general charge of the meteorological observations and of the train, as executive officer. Everything now presents a favorable aspect, and all will be ready to move off to-morrow morning. Procured several more Pembina carts. Engaged to-day Paul Boulieau, a half-breed Chippewa of collegiate education, who has filled a seat in the territorial legislature with credit, and also been long in the service of the fur company. He was placed in charge of the Pembina train, so called, which, consisting at first of five carts, each drawn by an ox, was this day increased by a very superior wagon team, drawn by two yoke of very large and serviceable oxen. It may here be observed that the Pembina train, managed entirely by the voyageurs, invariably moved by itself, crossed all the streams without additional assistance, gave us the least trouble in supervision, and was altogether the most economical and effective transportation we had. A pioneer wagon containing rations for the advance party and the india-rubber boats, loaded lightly in order in case of necessity to be pushed rapidly forward to the advance parties, and a wagon of Indian goods, were with the train. The arrangements thus made left me free to be either with the advance parties or with the train, or to make personal examinations of important features of the country off the lines of the trail. Again sending on detached parties, under Lieutenant Grover, Dr. Suckley, Lander, and Tinkham, the march was resumed to Pike Lake, a distance of eighty-one miles. The season was unusually backward, the rains frequent and heavy, and great labor was required in crossing the swollen streams,--some by bridging, others by means of the india-rubber floats for ferrying over the goods while the animals swam across. The wagons, bogged in the miry ground, had to be frequently unloaded and loaded again; but many soft and marshy places were made passable by covering the road deep with cut grass, for which purpose the governor, with his usual foresight, had provided scythes. The country, with its beautiful prairies, groves, and lakes, and many streams and bogs to be crossed, and the incidents of the march are graphically described in Governor Stevens's report, with many views taken along the route. The following extracts will show the character of the country and the difficulties overcome:-- June 16. Three miles from Camp Davis we passed through a belt of woods for two miles, where the flies were excessively annoying, persecuting our animals so that it was hard to keep them in the road, as they constantly attempted to rush into the bushes. The country to Cold Spring has a rich alluvial soil, with scattered groves of timber. It is mostly level prairie, occasionally broken by a small stream, and is excellent for agricultural purposes. Passing through Lieutenant Du Barry's camp, I went on to Dr. Suckley's, on the west side of the Sauk. Sauk River at our ford is about one hundred and twenty feet wide, though, owing to the obliquity of the banks and rapidity of current, the ford is near three hundred feet wide and the water five feet deep. June 17. This morning I started with Dr. Suckley and went on to Lake Henry, nineteen and a half miles. The country was a rolling prairie, interspersed with small sloughs filled by the recent rains; the soil is rich and black, grass good, and occasionally gravelly hillocks. In the crossing of the Sauk by the main train, the india-rubber boats were for the first time used. The larger one is about twelve feet long and four wide, weighing seventy-five pounds, the other about one fifth smaller. A rope was stretched across the stream, and the boats ferried across by means of a ring attached to their bows, and sliding along the rope. They succeeded admirably, and a birch canoe, managed by one of the voyageurs, was also used in crossing. Some of the men were in the water for hours, but worked faithfully and efficiently. Lieutenant Du Barry effected the crossing in one day, and encamped on the west side of the river, six miles from Cold Spring. June 18. Left camp about seven o'clock, and in about three quarters of a mile crossed a bad place, requiring some grass. The water was two feet deep, and the bottom miry. Our road lay through a beautiful prairie. The shores of Lake Henry are heavily wooded. In two and a half miles farther we found two very wet places, one hundred yards apart. In two miles farther we came to a long marsh, where the ground was very soft, and where our wagons stalled. Three quarters of a mile beyond we encountered a very deep, muddy slough, to cross which we had recourse to a long rope, and all our force pulled on it. A branch of Crow River is then reached in a mile, or a little more. It is about twelve feet wide and two deep; both sides are overflown marsh, making the place very difficult to cross. To avoid breaking bulk, we again used the long rope, and attaching three pairs of mules to it, all our men pulling on it at the same time, we got the wagon through. We arrived about noon at Crow Wing River, nine miles from camp. It was four or five feet deep and twenty feet wide, and at this time overflowing its usual banks. Broke bulk here, the men packing our stuff across. Passing Crow River, we find a continuous grove of oak-trees on our left, and in five miles a series of small lakes on our right, not wooded but abounding in game. Arrived at camp on Lightning Lake about half past eight P.M. Distance traveled, eighteen miles and three quarters. The frequent sloughs and bad crossings in our march to-day added much to the labors of the men and animals. After the hard day's march we enjoyed our supper of game, cooked in hunter's style on sticks before the fire, although it was midnight before we could have it ready. June 19, Sunday. Lightning Lake is a very beautiful sheet of water, so called from the fact that during Captain Pope's expedition, while encamped here, one of those storms so fearfully violent in this country occurred, during which one of his party was instantly killed by a stroke of lightning. Its northern shore is thickly studded with timber, and the southern side, upon which we are encamped, affords an ample supply for all camping purposes. Pickerel, pike, and bass fill the lake, numbers of which our parties caught; and ducks, geese, swans, plover, and prairie chicken abound in the vicinity. The day of rest was enjoyed by the whole party; some fishing, washing and mending their clothes, others trying various modes of cooking the game and fish which abounded. Evans succeeded admirably in roasting a fish in the ashes, first rolling it up in brown paper dampened, which, when removed, brought off the scales with it, leaving the meat clean and well done. Early after dinner Mr. Osgood arrived, informing me that Lieutenant Du Barry, misconstruing my instructions, had declined to allow him to bring forward the two wagons which I had ordered for the use of the advanced parties. June 20. Started at 3.30 A.M. to go back to the main train, which I met five miles west of Lake Henry. Taking charge of the train myself, I directed Boutineau to explore in advance for the most practicable route. The bad crossing referred to in the narrative of the 18th was, by great exertion and the united force of the whole party, effected without accident, and the whole train reached Lightning Lake by 4.30 P.M. Lieutenant Du Barry appears to have felt affronted at the action of the governor in taking the personal charge of the train, and indeed the latter was apt to be pretty severe and decided if anything went wrong. It will be observed how summarily he weeded out and sent back inefficient men:-- June 21. In compliance with his own request, I relieved Lieutenant Du Barry from duty with the expedition, and ordered him to report in person to the Adjutant-General in Washington. He was desired to call upon the Secretary of War and acquaint him with the whole history of the expedition up to this point; and, to enable him to reach the settlements with some degree of comfort and expedition, I dispatched Mr. Kendall and two of the voyageurs to accompany him as far as Long Prairie on his return, whence there would be no difficulty in his procuring transportation to Sauk Rapids. Captain Remenyi and his assistant, Mr. Jekelfaluzy, were discharged to-day, as they did not perform their duties to my satisfaction. All these matters detained us until 4.30 P.M., when I pushed forward with Dr. Suckley's and the scientific parties. The clouds were gathering and indicated a severe gust. We reached a beautiful lake about three miles distant, called by us Lake Stanley, in honor of the artist of the expedition, and had just time to get into camp to save ourselves from a very severe storm, which continued with great violence till near seven P.M. June 22. My party, leaving Dr. Suckley, got off about six A.M. We arrived at White Bear Lake, about nine and a half miles from the morning's camp, at 10.15 A.M. Leaving Lightning Lake the country seems to change its character, and is no longer a flat, undiversified surface, with occasionally a gentle undulation scarcely attracting attention. It has gradually changed to a heavy, rolling prairie, which, before approaching White Bear Lake, becomes broken up into hills, valleys, and basins varying from thirty to fifty feet in depth. Boulders and stones, from the size of pebbles to paving-stones, are very numerous. Our route to-day appears to be gradually ascending at a probable rate of eight or ten feet per mile. White Bear Lake is a beautiful sheet of water, bordered with timber, about fourteen miles long and two wide, with high, swelling banks, running back a mile or so, and rising to the height of about one hundred and fifty feet. As the animals looked so fresh, and the day was cool and good for traveling, we halted only for a rest. About five miles from the lake we came to a stream, apparently running into it. Other bad places occurred; soft bogs, marshes, and brooks impeded our progress so much that we did not get into camp until three P.M., making nine and one third miles from our halting-place, and eighteen and three fourths for our day's march. Our camp was on a very rapid stream, with steep, high banks. We called it Lambert River, in honor of our topographer, who received a sad overturn as he crossed it with Lieutenant Grover's command. The main train in charge of Mr. Osgood moved from camp on Lightning Lake at seven o'clock, after settling a difficulty of a very serious aspect growing out of a strike of all the teamsters, in consequence of a discharge by him of six of their number, according to my directions, because their services were not required. They threatened to shoot the first driver who moved out of camp. Mr. Osgood declared that he would drive out each wagon himself. Finally, after some discussion, the discharged men moved off cheerfully, and the main train pushed forward to White Bear Lake. June 23. Our first labor this morning was to cross the stream at a point half a mile from our camp, from which we moved about six. This crossing delayed our little party some two hours. Grass had to be cut and placed on both sides of the stream. The banks were steep and soft, and it required the presence of a man or two at each wheel to keep the wagons in motion and prevent their being stuck in the mire. The country to-day appears admirably adapted to grazing purposes, and the bottoms, of frequent occurrence, are of a very rich character. Marshes and little streams, bordered by soft places, occur frequently. In one of these places, fully one hundred feet in length, one of our wagons got mired, making it necessary to remove part of its load to get it through. About ten A.M. I left the train in charge of Mr. G.W. Stevens, and, pushing on, reached Lieutenant Grover's camp about twelve. The train arrived at half past one, crossed a marsh and a small stream, and encamped opposite the camps of Messrs. Grover, Lander, and Tinkham. Lieutenant Grover's camp is beautifully situated on the shores of Pike Lake. The main train and Dr. Suckley's party arrived about half past eight, and the whole expedition was again brought together. This I consider the real starting-point of the expedition, and named our camp here Camp Marcy, in honor of the Secretary of State. We remained here a day in order to give the animals a chance to rest. They appear to be in very good condition, and the grazing is fine. Received of the various scientific chiefs reports of their labors to this point. CHAPTER XVII PIKE LAKE TO FORT UNION From Pike Lake the expedition pursued a general course westerly by ten degrees northerly in order to clear the great northeastern bend of the Missouri, and reached Fort Union in thirty-eight days, traversing a distance of five hundred and fifty miles. A compass and odometer line was run with the main party. Pursuing his system of exploring a wide scope of country by means of detached parties, Governor Stevens dispatched Lieutenant Grover with a picked party to survey a separate route south of that of the main body as far as Fort Union, and kept Lander, Tinkham, Dr. Suckley, Lambert, Doty, and Adams, with small parties of the voyageurs, examining the country within forty miles of the route by frequent side trips. The main train crossed the Red River near the town of Breckenridge, the James River some distance north of Jamestown, and skirted the Mouse River near Minot, on the Great Northern Railroad, from which point to Fort Union, and for hundreds of miles beyond, that railroad follows Governor Stevens's route. It is characteristic of the governor that in sending officers on the detached trips he always furnished them the best men and animals of the party, frequently allowing them to select them themselves. On July 12 he overstrained himself in his exertions to prevent a herd of buffalo from stampeding the train, and the old rupture, which had given him so much trouble in Mexico, broke out afresh, and obliged him to ride in an ambulance for many hundreds of miles. But his spirit and energy were no-wise quelled by this grievous physical disability. The graphic descriptions of the country, the incidents of the march, the encounter with countless herds of buffalo, and the meetings with the Red River hunters and Assiniboine Indians are given in the final report with a fullness of detail which cannot be attempted here, but the following extracts will give a fair idea of this stage of the exploration:-- June 24. I directed Lieutenant Grover to select a party of twenty picked men, twenty-six mules, three horses, and twenty-five days' provisions, including an ox, with which to go forward on the Dead Colt Hillock line. In thus giving to Lieutenant Grover his own selection of animals and men, my purpose was to make him in the highest degree effective in the means at his disposal, and to demonstrate by the success of his undertaking the entire feasibility of operating in detached parties. Messrs. Lander and Tinkham moved forward this afternoon to Chippewa River. On counting rations, it was found that for the main party there was a supply for twenty days, while it might take forty-five to reach Fort Union. But with the eight oxen in the carts, and the known abundance of game, I feared no scarcity. The men showed some anxiety, and talked of a strike, but, seeing the confidence of the officers, abandoned any open demonstration. I had ordered a reducing of rations whenever the quantity of game would justify it, and henceforward I gave the most particular attention to it, so that, although we did not reach the Yellowstone for thirty-eight days, there was at no time a scarcity of provisions. June 25. To-day the expedition may be considered fairly under way. Lieutenant Grover started at 7.30 A.M. The main party, under my own direction, moved forward at about the same time. In ten miles reached the Chippewa River. The india-rubber boats did good service, carrying over each time more than half a wagon-load. The whole train was all well encamped two miles further on at a fine lake by sunset. June 26. The main party moved to-day to the camp of Mr. Tinkham of last night, and the whole command was over the river and in camp by six o'clock. As we were now approaching the Indian country, I systematized all the arrangements of camp and guards, and the details of duty on the march. The dragoons were distributed as follows: two for the pack-train; two with a led horse each for reconnoitring duty; two to strike and pitch tents; two to catch fish; two with the howitzer; Sergeant Lindner and seven men with the main column. The sergeant was, moreover, charged with the duty of laying out the encampment under my direction. For the care of the camp, an officer of the guard, who also served as officer of the day, two non-commissioned officers, and six privates were detailed. Cook-fires to be made at two A.M.; the cooks and teamsters called at three, and the animals to be put in good grass; reveille to be sounded at four, and all the officers to be called by name; the whole camp to breakfast about four, and the teamsters immediately to commence harnessing up; tents struck by half past four, and camp in motion by five; the sentinels instructed to fire upon any prowling Indians. June 27. Camp roused at four A.M. While at breakfast, Lieutenant Moffett gave me notice that we had but four minutes left to eat in, and, as we failed to get through, he had the tents struck over our heads. The train moved at five o'clock. About eight miles from camp passed Elbow Lake, fourteen miles reached Rabbit River, followed the stream to where it empties into Bell's Lake, and, going along the beach through water eight inches deep with a pebbly bottom, we found a good crossing, though a ridge has to be ascended before getting upon the plain where our camp is placed. The grass is most excellent, and the animals, accustomed to each other, are visibly improving. Tuesday, June 28. At half past ten A.M. the advance had crossed Rabbit River, fifteen miles from camp, and halted until the arrival of the main train. Leaving the train to rest, the advance started at two. In three miles met Mr. Lander, whose camp was with Mr. Tinkham's, and went into camp at five on the Bois de Sioux, and were joined by the whole party at nine o'clock, after a march of twenty-seven miles over a country that had been invariably reported the very worst of the whole route. Our animals, though somewhat tired, immediately went to feeding. There were some soft places between the Rabbit River and the Bois de Sioux, in which the animals were mired and wagons stalled; but we were agreeably disappointed in having comparatively a very comfortable day's journey. Numerous large catfish were caught this afternoon, some weighing from twelve to twenty pounds. At half past eleven P.M. we sat down to a supper of ducks, catfish, and coffee, and all the men were in fine spirits. The Bois de Sioux had been a great point to reach,--the end of bad roads and the commencement of the buffalo country. Here we may take a general review of the country since leaving St. Paul. Between Camp Pierce and Sauk Rapids, seventy-nine miles, the road passes through beautiful prairies and oak openings, with occasional meadows, wet at this early season, and, at some distance to the right, groves of tamarack, varying the landscape with their light and feathery foliage. From the crossing at Sauk Rapids to Lightning Lake most of the country is rolling prairie, with the wooded banks of Sauk River on the south, and numerous small ponds and lakes with trees on their banks, abundant and excellent pasture, and swarms of water-fowl, supplying plenty of fresh provisions. A similar delightful country continues to the Bois de Sioux River, with some decrease in the amount of timber, until the banks of that river are reached. After leaving Lightning Lake the country seems to change its character; no longer a flat, undiversified surface, or with gentle undulations scarcely attracting notice, it has gradually changed to a heavy, rolling prairie, and at White Bear Lake becomes broken up into hills, valleys, and basins. Boulders and smaller stones are numerous. This whole dividing ridge, then, separating the waters of the Mississippi from those of the Red River, which flow into Hudson Bay, is not the lofty range of mountains which might be supposed to separate the sources of two such great bodies of water flowing in opposite directions and to outlets so widely distant, but is a gently undulating and exceedingly rich prairie country, abundantly wooded and watered, having a width of one hundred miles, and an elevation not exceeding six hundred feet above the river and about sixteen hundred above the sea. There is a very slight rise in the general level in going westward, the Bois de Sioux being at the crossing only thirty-one feet higher than the Mississippi at Sauk Rapids. Undulating and level prairies, skirted by woods of various growth, and clothed everywhere with rich verdure; numerous and rapid streams, with innumerable small but limpid lakes, frequented by multitudes of wild fowl, most conspicuous among which appears the stately swan,--these, in ever-recurring succession, make up the panorama of this extensive district, which may be said to be everywhere fertile, beautiful, and inviting. The most remarkable features of this region are the intervals of level prairie, especially that near the bend of the branches of Red River, where the horizon is as unbroken as that of a calm sea. Nor are other points of resemblance wanting: the long grass, which in such places is unusually rank, bending gracefully to the passing breeze as it sweeps along the plain, gives the idea of waves (as indeed they are); and the solitary horseman on the horizon is so indistinctly seen as to complete the picture by the suggestion of a sail, raising the first feelings of novelty to a character of wonder and delight. The flowing outlines of the rolling prairies are broken only by the small lakes and patches of timber, which relieve them of monotony and enhance their beauty; and though marshes and sloughs occur, they are too small and infrequent to affect the generally attractive character of the country. The elevation of the rolling prairie is generally so uniform that even the summits between streams flowing in opposite directions exhibit no peculiar features to distinguish them from the ordinary valley slopes. Wednesday, June 29. The advance parties crossed the river before seven o'clock, but the train was not started till eleven, so as to give the animals rest. The ford, very good for a small train, became very muddy towards the last, and though we unloaded all the wagons and carried the loads over in boats, the wagons and animals were badly stalled at the edges and on the soft and steep banks of the river. The country from the Bois de Sioux to the Wild Rice River is a broad, level prairie, covered with luxuriant grass eighteen inches high; the distance eleven miles, with occasional sloughs. The heat to-day was excessive, and the mosquitoes very annoying to men and animals. At four o'clock, profiting by our experience in crossing the Bois de Sioux, I sent Mr. Lander with a select force of axemen to cut timber to bridge the Wild Rice. The train came up slowly, the last wagons not reaching camp till midnight. Thursday, June 30. Part of the men were employed in carefully currying and washing the animals, and in catching fish; the remainder were detailed to build the bridge, which was completed by one P.M. It was made of heavy logs, filled in with cut willow-brush and mown grass. Moved at two o'clock; in three miles came to a small creek, which was quite marshy, and caused delay to cross. Moving a mile and a half farther we again struck the same stream, and encamped at half past four P.M. During our march we encountered a very severe storm, accompanied with thunder and lightning. Boutineau brought in an elk, which furnished about two pounds of excellent fresh meat to each man, and was much enjoyed. Kendall and the two Boulieaus overtook us to-day, bringing supplies and five Indian ponies. July 1. I determined to push forward with the engineer party to the Sheyenne, and, if I found it necessary, have it bridged. Smooth prairie extended all the way, road good, and the distance twenty-six and a half miles. A very severe thunderstorm occurred this morning, lasting an hour, and wetting us thoroughly. At eleven A.M. we met the train of the Red River traders, and visited their camp, six miles distant. We were very hospitably received, purchased some pemmican, common moccasins, and articles of dress worked with porcupine quills. Bought also some carts and oxen, being very deficient in transportation. The main train only proceeded thirteen miles, and I returned to them about three P.M., accompanied by Kittson, Father Delacour, Roulet, and Cavilaer. Kittson and Roulet were members of the territorial legislature from Pembina; Cavilaer, the collector of customs; and Delacour is a very clever, shrewd priest. They are on their annual trip to St. Paul with robes, skins, pemmican, and dried meat of the buffalo, collected by trading with the half-breeds of the Red River settlements. We found that they had bridged the Sheyenne, saving us considerable trouble and delay. Their company proved very agreeable, and we were glad that a heavy thunderstorm coming on obliged them to be our guests for the night. July 2. Struck camp at seven o'clock and parted with our new friends, sending back with them Strobel and two teamsters, who proved inefficient. The whole train crossed the Sheyenne bridge safely by noon, and camped on the other side. We had apprehended that possibly the heavy rain of last night would swell the river and carry away the bridge, but hurrying up the wagons, we made the crossing just before the water had risen sufficiently to flow over the bridge. I called this camp McClelland, intending to halt here over Sunday and make up dispatches for Washington. I sent Lander and Tinkham to reconnoitre both up and down the river. July 3, Sunday. Lander came back from his reconnoissance, having been as far south as Dead Colt Hillock. He met with a singular adventure, which afforded us a great deal of amusement. Riding along with his four voyageurs, whom he used to call his "men of iron," at some distance ahead they saw a skunk moving leisurely through the grass, with tail erect and defying their approach. Lander leveled his glass at it, and, satisfying himself that it was an Indian watching their movements and trying to hide himself, gave the order for his gallant band to "charge." They did charge, and at the same time firing their revolvers, the poor skunk fell, riddled with balls and weltering in his blood; when coming up, they discovered the extent of their bold exploit. Joking in camp is one of the pastimes to relieve the annoyances of the march, and every little thing is seized upon to feed the disposition. Fourth of July. The train started at six A.M. I remained behind to get off a mail. Started about ten and followed the Red River trail some twelve miles, when we left it altogether. Crossed Maple River, and camped on its banks. About dusk we raised the American flag, made of red and white shirts, contributed by the party and sewed together by Boulieau. As it went up, the assembled command gave it three hearty cheers, and then indulged in some refreshments in honor of the day, ending the evening with songs and story-telling. July 5. Traveled twenty miles over a high, firm, and almost level prairie, camping on a small branch of Maple River without any wood near it. The pack-train requiring more attention and care of the animals than has been given by the man in charge, who does not take sufficient pains with the disabled animals, I to-day directed Mr. Kendall to oversee them and have them properly attended to. July 6. Went twenty miles farther, making a noon halt of two hours, when Mr. Tinkham returned from a long and rapid reconnoissance ahead. Prairie more rolling, but road good. A high butte to the left of our course enabled me to get a fine view of the surrounding country. Two Indians were seen by Boutineau, who was out after buffalo, which he did not find; but abundance of ducks continue to supply the camp with fresh meat. July 7. About 8.30 we struck the Sheyenne six miles from camp, and rested an hour. Keeping the Sheyenne on our left, we moved forward ten miles and camped about a mile and a half from the river on the banks of a fine lake. To-day Le Frambois and Menoc killed an old buffalo bull, and also brought in some dozen geese. Several of the messes supplied themselves with frogs, which have been most abundant on our march for the past two days. The whole command took supper off of buffalo, and the meat, though old and tough, tasted very good, and saved us an ox which had been destined for the slaughter. Several antelopes and wolves were seen to-day. July 8. Started this morning at 6.30, and arrived at the crossing of the Sheyenne River after a march of fifteen miles. Buttes in considerable number are seen ahead, among which the Horse Butte and the Butte Micheau are plainly visible. Mr. Tinkham, Paul, and Henry were out again to-day, making a reconnoissance on the Sheyenne. We went into camp about one o'clock on the east and south side of the Sheyenne, and a party was at once detailed to cut wood and prepare charcoal. The magnetic tent was put up, and the astronomical and meteorological parties went immediately to work. I called our camp Camp Guthrie, in honor of the Secretary of the Treasury, and determined to remain here all day to-morrow. Boutineau and Henry Boulieau went out this afternoon, and returned with the choice pieces of a fine, fat, young buffalo bull, and we made a delightful meal, around the fire, of the ribs, marrow-bones, etc., cooked hunter's fashion. Towards evening, on the coteau on the other side of the river, a herd of some twenty elks made their appearance. Numerous wolves were also seen, which, during the night, kept up a constant howling. We planted flags on high hills in the vicinity as signals to Lander, who may follow the Sheyenne River to find our crossing-place. July 9. An accurate return was made of the provisions on hand, so as to regulate its weekly distribution. Our flour is fast diminishing, and the issue was reduced to half a pound per day to each man. This state of affairs caused considerable grumbling in camp. We are fast approaching the buffalo country, and then shall be expected to do with much less. About 2.30 P.M. the main train under Mr. Osgood crossed the river, and moved forward to a good camping-place. The astronomical, magnetic, and meteorological parties, with the detail of three men attending to the coal-pit, and Mr. Evans and myself, remained at Camp Guthrie, intending to join them before they moved in the morning. July 10. After partaking of a cup of coffee at three o'clock, our little train, consisting of an ambulance and spring wagon with a cart loaded with charcoal, had crossed the Sheyenne by sunrise. About seven o'clock we reached the main train, encamped some seven miles off. The train was preparing to move, and soon after we came up it started; at eight o'clock we followed and passed them. About five miles from camp we ascended to the top of a high hill, and for a great distance ahead every square mile seemed to have a herd of buffalo on it. Their number was variously estimated by the members of the party, some as high as half a million. I do not think it is any exaggeration to set it down at 200,000. I had heard of the myriads of these animals inhabiting these plains, but I could not realize the truth of these accounts till to-day, when they surpassed anything I could have imagined from the accounts which I had received. The timber bordering on Lake Jessie was distinctly visible ahead, and between us and it were countless herds of buffalo, through which we were compelled to pass. The train moved on till eleven o'clock, when we all halted, drew up in line, and picketed the loose animals. Six of the hunters, Boutineau, Menoc, Le Frambois, the two Boulieaus, and Rummell, were mounted upon the best horses in the command, some of which were specially reserved, and rode off in fine style, keeping together till ready to dash in among the herd. The immense sea of flesh remained quiet until their approach, and then, separating, they rode in among them, selected the fat cows, and, riding around until the proper time to do execution, the quick succession of shots announced the fact that our supplies of meat were fast being added to. In less than an hour a wagon was called into requisition to collect the choice pieces of nine buffalo cows. While we were resting, several small bands came within firing distance of our train. One or two dragoons on foot gave one a chase, but the buffalo, of course, distanced them. The most amusing scene was the dog Zack, of the dragoon detachment, dashing into a whole herd, and following them a considerable distance. Paul Boulieau and Rummell were both thrown by their horses stumbling in one of the numerous holes with which the prairie abounds. They were considerably, though not seriously, hurt. We arrived at Lake Jessie at three P.M., the bluff shore on which we encamped being sixty-four feet above the level of the lake. The water of Lake Jessie is considerably saline in its character; but about three quarters of a mile from camp, an excellent spring of good, fresh water was found by Henry Boulieau and myself while out on a reconnoitring trip. Between one and two o'clock at night a herd of buffalo approached our camp, and it required all the exertions of the guard, assisted by many of the men, to prevent an entire stampede of all our animals. As it was, some got loose, though none were lost. The buffalo were followed a considerable distance, and some ten or a dozen shots were fired before the animals without were entirely driven off. July 11. Having proceeded about four miles, a small band of buffalo started off ahead of us. Le Frambois's horse and four loose mules near the head of the column started in pursuit, the horse taking the lead. Boutineau, Le Frambois, Menoc, Guy, Lindner, and Paul Boulieau, all well mounted, gave chase in hopes of recovering them. By this time they had mixed up in the herd, and, though they were followed some twelve or fifteen miles, all efforts to secure them were unavailing. About a mile farther we encountered a very severe slough, the approach to which was marked by a very great curiosity in the form of a buffalo trail; at least 100,000 must have crossed here by the footprints and marks visible, and I determined on crossing the slough at the same point which the instinct of these animals had selected. July 12. In company with Tinkham and some of the guides, I started from camp this morning at five o'clock, designing to be in advance of the train some miles, to reconnoitre and pick out a good road, our route lying over high hills. At about eight o'clock I sent off Mr. Tinkham, accompanied by the two Boulieaus, well mounted, with instructions to go southward, determining the position of the headwaters of Bald Hillock Creek, and thus connecting his work with Mr. Lander's reconnoissance; thence westward in a line nearly parallel with our route of to-day, making a reconnoissance of the tributaries of the Jacques River (James), leaving it to his discretion whether to join our camp to-night or the next day. By this we would secure the reconnoissance of a belt of country forty miles wide, lying between the Sheyenne and Jacques (James) rivers. About eleven miles from camp we crossed a deep slough. About a mile farther on we crossed a fine little stream which I took to be Beaver Lodge Creek. Shortly afterwards Boutineau killed a fine buffalo cow, not twenty feet from the compass line. The dispatch and dexterity with which these men cut up buffalo is truly astonishing. Before the cart came up, the animal was entirely butchered, and had only to be thrown into the cart. We moved forward to-day some sixteen miles, and camped on the side of a small lake. We had scarcely got into camp before we were visited by a very severe storm, accompanied by thunder and lightning. Our fires were put out by the rain, and during a temporary cessation were built up again; but it soon came on with increased violence, and our fires were again washed out. About six o'clock two of Mr. Lander's party who left us on the 4th arrived in camp, announcing that Mr. Lander and the rest of his men were only some three or four miles behind, with considerable difficulty bringing in the horses, which were giving out.[3] I dispatched two men with led horses to meet them, and about sundown they came up. We found great difficulty in keeping up our fires so as to get our supper cooked. The rain fell in torrents, our supply of wood was limited, and the buffalo chips were so wet as to be entirely useless. Towards the close of the day's march I became disabled from my exertions in endeavoring to keep off a herd of buffalo from the train, causing an old wound to break out, which compelled me to ride many hundred miles in the ambulance. July 13. A very heavy fog this morning delayed our getting off as early as expected, and the hope of Tinkham and his small party joining us made me less hurried about starting. Sixteen miles from camp we struck James River, and crossed over a good ford, from which point I sent Mr. Lander down the river to examine it. Noticing that the river ran very nearly in the course of our compass, we followed it, and again crossing it some five miles above, we encamped. I had a large amount of rushes collected, with a view of building as large a camp-fire as practicable, in order to give notice to Tinkham of our position, he not having returned. July 14. The missing party not having arrived, three rounds of the howitzer were fired at sunrise, and we started later than usual. It was evident that the whole camp was in a great state of anxiety for the safety of our comrades. Many believed that they had fallen in with Indians, and were deprived of their horses and their lives. Taking everything into consideration, I deemed it best to leave a party at this point so equipped as to combine great energy and force with promptness of movement, so as to be able to overtake the main train without difficulty. Accordingly Mr. Lander was left in charge of the engineer wagon and the wagon belonging to the mountain howitzer, which was made light enough to be moved with ease forty miles in a single day. The howitzer was also left with him for the purpose of making signals. Mr. Doty, with three voyageurs and three men to manage the howitzer, together with the teamsters of the ammunition wagon, remained with Mr. Lander, having abundance of arms, provisions, animals, etc., to supply any emergency. This party was instructed to keep up fires, to fire three rounds with the howitzer at noon and at sunset should the party not arrive, and to communicate with us if any casualty occurred. A party of four brave and thorough woodsmen, whose knowledge of the prairie life was derived from experience in many expeditions, and who well understood the Indian character, were sent out on the route traveled yesterday, and were directed, after traveling some eight or ten miles, to leave the road, and, going in different directions, to plant signals and scour the country. I felt certain that Mr. Tinkham would be found by these men, if found at all. The remainder of the train left about seven o'clock, pursuing the same course as yesterday. The first ten miles was over a level plateau. We encamped about 4.30 o'clock at the bank of a fine lake, having made to-day a distance of little over twenty miles. The mosquitoes were exceedingly annoying, flying against the sides of the tents with a noise like the pattering of rain, while the inside was perfectly black with them. Their constant humming drove the men out into the open air, and rendered it almost impossible to sleep. July 15. At daybreak Broadwell went back to Lander's camp, and I dispatched Osgood and Kendall to a high hill to reconnoitre and look for a new camp. The guides and hunters were also sent on to the Sheyenne to ascertain the distance, and if not too far we would go to it. Being very unwell, I laid by all the morning, and the delay of the train was employed in shoeing the animals, equalizing loads, and arranging them in such a manner as to give about nine hundred pounds to each wagon, and so distributed in bulk that a portion of each wagon could be appropriated to the conveyance of wood and the meat killed each day. The men are much interested in the labors of Dr. Suckley, the naturalist. It is amusing to see each one making his contribution of snakes, reptiles, birds, bugs, etc. Near noon Osgood and his party returned, having been to the Sheyenne, where they found no wood, poor grass, and swarms of mosquitoes. Soon after the guides returned, announcing that they had seen a party of Sioux of a thousand lodges, not more than nine miles in advance of us. Boutineau's manner was full of fear, and his public announcement spread alarm through the whole camp. I at once gave orders to make ready, with the intention of visiting their camp; and, calling Boutineau to my tent, asked him whether they were not the Red River hunting party. He assured me indignantly that "he knew half-breeds from Indians, and that they were certainly Sioux." I suggested that they might be friendly Sioux, who, being engaged in the hunt and hearing of our approach, were coming forward to meet us, to receive the usual presents and gratify their curiosity. He still insisted that they were hostile Sioux, and saw in their presence the explanation of the cause of the absence of the missing party. We were, in his opinion, to be surrounded and cut off. After dinner, as the alarm was spreading throughout the command, the arms were inspected and ammunition distributed, and orders given to have the train in readiness to move at once. I sent Boutineau, Le Frambois, and Menoc to the top of a high ridge as a lookout, while a flag was prepared to be sent forward if necessary. Word soon came that the country was alive with Indians, who were fast surrounding us; and I sent scouts to hills on the right and left, having the lake to protect our rear. Mounting my horse, I rode to the hill in front, and saw two horsemen rapidly approaching. Our flag-bearers rode forward to meet them, and soon discovered that they were two of the Red River hunters, and that their camp was three miles beyond the Sheyenne. Having discerned our party, they came to invite us to visit them, and expressed their kindly feelings for us. The train, which before this was in motion, arranged in a double line, with the pack and loose animals between, proceeded two miles, where there was better water, and encamped. The agreeable disappointment established a fine feeling throughout camp; and, half an hour after, Boulieau and Lindner arrived in camp with news of Tinkham's safety, which was received with three cheers. The men to-day showed a good spirit, and although there was naturally some anxiety, they obeyed every order with alacrity. Thus ended the apprehensions of the command concerning Indians. RED RIVER HUNTERS. July 16. Awaited the coming up of the back parties, and during the morning Tinkham arrived and was received with nine cheers, being followed soon after by the rest of the rear guard. About two P.M. the whole Red River train came in sight, and as they approached, fired a succession of volleys of firearms as a salute, which we returned with three rounds from the howitzer. The train consisted of 824 carts, about 1200 animals, and 1300 persons, men, women, and children, the whole presenting a very fine appearance. They encamped near by, and the close yard which they formed presented quite a contrast to the open camp adopted by us. They made a circular or square yard of the carts, placed side by side, with the hubs adjoining, presenting a barrier impassable either to man or beast. The tents or lodges were arranged within at a distance of about twenty feet from the carts, and were of a conical shape, built of poles covered with skins, with an opening at the top for the passage of smoke and for ventilation. They were one hundred and four in number, being occupied generally by two families, averaging about ten persons to the lodge. Skins were spread over the tops of the carts, and underneath many of the train found comfortable lodging-places. The animals were allowed to run loose during the day to feed, but were driven into the corral at dark. Thirty-six of the men were posted as sentinels, remaining on guard all night. We had but twelve guards, three reliefs, not more than four men being on guard at one time. As our camps were only about two hundred yards apart, there was much visiting between them. I was struck with the good conduct and hospitable kindness of these people. A small band of prairie Chippewa Indians, who accompanied this party, visited our camp during the evening, and entertained us with one of their national dances. I was much pleased with Governor Wilkie, who is the head of the expedition. He is a man about sixty years of age, of fine appearance and pleasant manners. This party are residents of Pembina and its vicinity. When at home they are engaged in agriculture, raising wheat, corn, potatoes, and barley. The land yields about twenty-five bushels of wheat to the acre, their farms averaging about fifteen acres each. They are industrious and frugal in their habits, and are mostly of the Romish persuasion, leading a virtuous and pious life. They are generally accompanied by their priests, and attend strictly to their devotions, having exercises every Sabbath, on which day they neither march nor hunt. Their municipal government is of a parochial character, being divided into five parishes, each one presided over by an officer called the captain of the parish. On departing for the hunt, they select a man from the whole number, who is styled governor of the hunt, who takes charge of the party, regulates its movements, acts as referee in all cases where any differences arise between the members in regard to game or other matters, and takes command in case of difficulty with the Indians. In the early part of the year, till the middle of June, these people work at agriculture, when they set out on their first hunt, leaving some thirty at the settlements in charge of their farms, houses, stock, etc. They start out to the southward in search after buffalo, taking with them their families, carts, and animals. These carts, when loaded, contain about eight hundred pounds, and are used in common. There were three hundred and thirty-six men in the present train, of whom three hundred were hunters. Each hunt, of which there are two every year, continues about two months, the first starting in June, the second about the middle of October. Their carts were already half full, and they expected to return to their homes in the latter part of August. On their first trip the buffalo are hunted for the purpose of procuring pemmican, dried meat, tongues, etc.; the skins, being useless for robes, are dressed for lodge-skins, moccasins, etc. In October the meat is still better and fatter, and they procure a like quantity of dried meat, reserving sufficient for a year's provisions, which is about one half of the whole amount procured; they dispose of the rest at the trading-posts of the Hudson Bay Company. The meat which they carry home finds its way, through the Red River traders of the Fur Company, to Fort Snelling, where it is exchanged for goods, sugar, coffee, etc., at the rate of fifteen cents a pound. The trade of this country is all in dry-goods, sugar, tea, ammunition, etc. Notes are also issued by the Hudson Bay Company, which are currency among them. Several of these, of the denomination of five shillings, payable at York Factory and bearing the signature of Sir George Simpson, were offered in change to various members of the expedition on purchasing articles. The skins collected in the summer hunt are usually retained by the hunters for their own use, while the robes collected in the fall hunt are a staple of trade with the Fur Company, and also with the Hudson Bay Company, which latter company do a large business in this portion of the country, supplying the settlers with most of their clothes, groceries, etc. The Red River settlements are made up of a population of half-breeds, traders of the Hudson Bay and Fur Companies, discharged employees of these companies, and Indians, representatives of every nation of Europe,--Scotch, Irish, English, Canadians,--and speaking a jargon made up of these dialects, intermingled with Chippewa and Sioux, patois French being the prevailing tongue. These settlements, started some twenty-five years since, now number, in the vicinity of Pembina Mountain, some four thousand people. The men are generally much finer looking than the women. On the latter depend all the drudgery of camp duties, pitching the tents, attending to animals, cooking, etc. The men dress usually in woolens of various colors. The coat generally worn, called the Hudson Bay coat, has a capote attached to it. The belts are finely knit, of differently colored wool or worsted yarn, and are worn after the manner of sashes. Their powder-horn and shot-bag, attached to bands finely embroidered with beads or worked with porcupine quills, are worn across each shoulder, making an X before and behind. Many also have a tobacco-pouch strung to their sashes, in which is tobacco mixed with kinnickinnick (dried bark of the osier willow scraped fine), a fire-steel, punk, and several flints. Add to these paraphernalia a gun, and a good idea will be formed of the costume of the Red River hunter. The women are industrious, dress in gaudy calicoes, are fond of beads and finery, and are remarkably apt at making bead-work, moccasins, and sewing. We purchased from the train a supply of pemmican, dried meat, sugar, and other things, some of the men buying moccasins, whips, and other necessaries. I engaged the services of Alexis Le Bombard, who was in company with this encampment, as guide to the Yellowstone. He came from the Yellowstone this season, and the impression gathered from my interview with him, as well as the representations of others, satisfied me that he will be extremely valuable as a guide. July 18. Started a few minutes before seven, still following the trail of the Red River train. About eight o'clock we crossed a branch of the Sheyenne, flowing through a deep valley with an extended plateau, bounded on both sides by the high coteau. This stream appears to take its rise in a number of small lakes, and the branch crossed this morning is slightly brackish. Many of the lakes are very salt. These appear to have no outlet, and their saline qualities are accounted for by the fact that they are never washed out, and consequently retain the salt deposits and incrustations. We often notice in this region lakes lying very close to each other, in some cases not more than twenty yards apart; one will be so saline as to be offensive, while the water of the other will be excellent to the taste. We passed to-day a narrow lake, some three miles in length, somewhat resembling a canal. It lay at the foot of a high hill, called the Butte de Morale. Here occurred an engagement between some half-breeds and Sioux, in which one of the former, by the name of Morale, was killed; hence its name. The altitude of this butte, as determined by barometric measurement, is 281.8 feet above the level of the Sheyenne River. Our way was strewn with the carcasses of many buffaloes killed by the Red River hunting party. At times the air was very much tainted. One of our men reported having ridden through a section of land, a quarter of a mile square, on which were strewn the remains of some three hundred buffaloes. In killing these animals, only the choice bits and hides are taken, and the remainder is left as a prey to wolves, or to rot on the ground. We had wood to-day, for the first time since leaving Lake Jessie, our fuel in the mean time consisting of greasewood and buffalo chips. The sight of a camp-fire of wood is quite a treat to us. Our camp is beautifully located on a range of hills, nearly surrounded with salt lakes, called the White Wood Lakes. An excellent spring near by furnishes us an abundant supply of cold, fresh water. The odometer line measured to-day was twenty and a half miles. That pursued by the train was probably two miles longer. July 19. Our course lay over a level country. After proceeding ten miles we crossed a branch of the Sheyenne River, at this time very shallow, but the high banks on each side, together with the grass and deposits, gave evidence of its size during the freshets in the spring. After traveling sixteen and one half miles, we encamped near a small lake in sight of the Maison du Chien, which by bearings and calculation Mr. Tinkham estimated to be about twenty-one miles distant. We passed on the march several salt-marshes abounding with tadpoles, from which the effluvia was very offensive. In some places the ground was covered with deposits of salt to the depth of a quarter of an inch. I am much pleased with our new guide, Le Bombard, who appears to have a very accurate knowledge of the country, although his ideas of distance are not found to be very reliable, which is generally the case with voyageurs. July 20. Fitted out Lander's party, consisting of himself, Le Frambois, Guy, and Rummell, to make a reconnoissance of Butte Maison du Chien and the Coteau du Missouri, to connect our work with Lieutenant Grover's survey, and join us on the Mouse River in four days. We moved off about half past six, and after traveling five miles reached the first tributary of the Mouse River. The crossing occupied nearly three hours, the water being shoulder deep; half the wagon-loads were removed and carried across in the india-rubber boat. The road was generally very good, passing over a level prairie intersected with lakes and sloughs. About twelve miles from camp we struck a beautiful ridge, resembling a railroad embankment, which lay directly in our compass course; on the top of this the train moved for some miles. We passed around the first coulee of the Mouse River, and after a march of some seventeen miles (odometer measurement, 15.7), encamped on the bank of a small lake. July 21. Left camp at six A.M. It commenced raining about nine, and lasted an hour or more. About eight miles from camp we saw the tracks of Grover's train in a slough, by which we judged that he had passed some days previous. Soon after this we crossed one of the coulees making into Mouse River. These coulees are very severe on the animals, in some places being very steep. We traveled to-day sixteen miles. Our camp is located on the top of a ridge, which descends into a coulee. We are about one hundred and fifty feet above the valley of Mouse River. There is plenty of timber in the coulee which we are to cross to-morrow in starting. July 22. Left camp about 6.30 o'clock, and found the crossing of the coulee, about half a mile to our left. On the other side of the coulee we have a fine level plateau ahead. The grand Coteau du Missouri was in sight all day. The depth of the first coulee, as indicated by the barometer, was eighty-two feet below our camp. About four miles out we crossed another severe coulee one hundred and eight feet below the level of our camp. The third coulee was a depression of fifty-four feet, the prairie level being some forty-two feet lower than the level of our last camp. While making our usual midday halt we were overtaken by two hunters of the Red River train from the vicinity of the Selkirk settlements, who were encamped some eight miles distant. They invited me to visit them, which I determined upon doing, and, placing the train in charge of Dr. Suckley, I gave him directions to move on some eight miles, find a good camping place, and await my return. July 23. During my absence this morning Dr. Suckley sent Le Bombard and Sergeant Lindner ahead some twelve miles to reconnoitre for a good road for the train; Messrs. Tinkham and Burr went to the Mouse River, and Mr. Moffett, accompanied by Broadwell, went to the Grand Coteau. I sent Guy and Rummell ahead to Dr. Suckley's camp to apprise him of our coming. At about four o'clock, accompanied by Governor de L'Orme and seven of his principal men, we started towards Dr. Suckley's camp. The whole force of the survey, headed by Dr. Suckley, Sergeant Lindner bearing an American flag, met us about a mile out of camp, and saluted us with a volley from their guns, the mountain howitzer being fired three times. A large tent was put up for the accommodation of our guests, and Governor de L'Orme was invited to share my tent. The guard tent was made use of as a banqueting-room, and several of the men were detailed to collect buffalo chips. The cooks of the various messes assisted each other, and the meal was ready for us about nine o'clock. Tinkham and Burr got in just in time to partake of it with us, as also did Moffett and Broadwell. Mr. Moffett reported the height of the bluff or Coteau range as seven hundred and two feet above the level of Mouse River, and distant twenty miles from it; the height of the hill seven miles from the camp of to-day is two hundred and fifty-six feet. Seated around the camp-fire, we had a very pleasant conference with our friends. I was very favorably impressed with Governor de L'Orme, and with his opinion in regard to their right to hunt on our territory, they being residents of the country north of our boundary line. They claim the protection of both governments, and the doubt as to the position of the boundary line makes them ignorant as to which one they have the most claim upon. During the hunting season they carry with them their families and their property, and they consider that this territory is open to them, that the right to hunt on it belongs to them, and that their children born during this transit over our soil possess the heritage of American citizens. With but little care, our government could obtain the whole of these people as citizens, thus protecting and building up our frontier, and having in this vicinity always a controlling check upon the Indians. Already is the salutary effect of their presence visible in the entire safety, now, with which single white men and small parties can go through this country. Their virtuous mode of life, their industry and frugality, their adaptation to frontier life, all combine to render them a valuable class of people, and well worthy the attention of our government. They expressed a desire that I should represent these things to the government, and I assured them that I would do so with pleasure. Governor de L'Orme, before retiring to rest, attended to his devotions, and I have been struck with his piety and real goodness, manifested in his conduct and conversation. July 24. We took a late breakfast this morning, and after parting with our guests we got off at nine A.M. We halted for two hours at noon, during which time the hunters went out and drove a herd of buffalo towards us, and right on the line killed two fine cows. I sent Mr. Tinkham and Paul Boulieau out to the Mouse River, which they followed some distance, as also the River of the Lakes, joining us at camp at eight P.M. We made fifteen miles and a quarter to-day, and the grazing is excellent. July 25. The express started this morning at six for Fort Union, which I think cannot be over one hundred and fifty miles distant. It consists of Mr. Osgood, Boutineau, Henry Boulieau, and Gray. They are to procure additional wagons or carts at Fort Union, and carry letters to Lieutenants Grover and Donelson. Messrs. Tinkham, Lander, and Paul Boulieau went to-day to make an examination of the Mouse River valley and the River of the Lakes. We had but one coulee to cross, and that was shallow, and offered no impediment. We made to-day twenty-one miles, and found fine grass and excellent water at our camp. July 26. We started this morning about six o'clock, and, traveling eleven and one half miles, we halted on the bank of a lake. A herd of buffalo approached on the south side of this lake to drink, and crossed within gunshot on the opposite side. Some of our party fired at them, and Le Bombard followed, and killed a fine, fat cow. About seven miles farther on I received a letter from Mr. Osgood by the hands of an Assiniboine Indian. The express party camped last night about ten miles ahead of this place at a large encampment of Assiniboine Indians, numbering some one hundred and fifty lodges and twelve hundred persons. The Indians built for them a lodge in the centre of their camp, and treated them with great hospitality. One of them offered to act as Mr. Osgood's express, and he told them that on my arrival I would have a talk with them and make them some presents. By this note I also learned that Lieutenant Grover had passed some eight miles to the east of our line about four days ago. July 27. Reaching camp a little after noon, fifteen miles from last night's camp, and about a quarter of a mile from that of the Assiniboines, numbers of Indians rode out to welcome us. We found them to be under the command of the chiefs Blue Thunder and Little Thunder, the latter probably thirty-six years of age. As soon as we were encamped, they informed me that they had reserved a present of skins for me, and were making preparations to have a talk. While dinner was being prepared, many seated themselves in squads around the tents, smoking with the men. One large pipe served a dozen, and the custom adopted is to smoke it a little and pass it to their neighbor, and thus go round. It is the first signal of welcome or friendship after the hand is offered, and they will have no business or other transaction previous to it. After dinner, accompanied by Dr. Suckley, Messrs. Stanley, Lander, Tinkham, Everett, Evans, Adams, Menoc, with Paul Boulieau, Le Bombard, and Le Frambois as interpreters, I went to their camp, which was irregularly arranged in a sort of corral, consisting of about one hundred and fifty lodges, averaging ten persons to each lodge. Our approach was hailed by the barking of an immense number of dogs. These dogs are a prominent feature in every Indian camp, being used for drawing lodges, provisions, and property from place to place,--indeed, furnishing the entire transportation of the Indians in winter. A sledge drawn by four dogs will carry two hundred pounds over the snow with great ease. They appeared also to be abundantly supplied with horses, many of which were of good quality. All the women and children turned out of the lodges as we passed, curious to see us. Frames of poles stood around, upon which skins and meat were drying. Yet, in spite of the appearance of plenty, all had a look of poverty, judging from the meagreness of clothing and the length of time it appeared to have been worn, while all appeared very filthy and miserable. A very large lodge, about fifty feet in diameter, had been erected for our reception in the centre of the inclosure, within which we found seated two circles of chiefs, braves, warriors, and others. At the back of the lodge was arranged a long seat for us, consisting of a pile of skins, which were afterwards presented to me. There were about eighty persons present, including our own party. During the preparation for the ceremonial reception, there was a general smoking among all present, during which an old man, one of the dignitaries of the tribe, prepared the pipe of reception, only smoked on great occasions. The stem was decked with ribbons of various colors, and when it stood obliquely, feathers would drop down like the wing of a bird. At the lower end of this pipe, where it enters the bowl, was a duck's head. The pipe-stem was supported against a small stick stuck in the ground and crotched at the end. The pipe was turned towards the sun, the invariable practice in such cases. Some sweet grass, platted, was then set on fire and used in the manner of incense, both to the bowl and the stem. After lighting the pipe with the scented grass, it was planted near by in a small hole and burned. During the smoking the bearer of the pipe shook hands with each member of our party, handing the pipe after this ceremony was over. Then a bowl of water was handed around by a second individual, who also shook hands with each one of us before we drank of the contents of the bowl. Next came the eating of soup, made of buffalo and typsina, a species of turnip, which was rich and greasy but quite palatable. Soon after this ceremony, which completed the reception, an old man advanced to me and shook hands, after which he shook the hand of each member of our company. His appearance was much in his favor, carrying himself with great dignity. With considerable fluency, and at times with many gestures, he addressed me substantially as follows: "My father, you see us now as we are. We are poor. We have but few blankets and little clothing. The Great Father of Life, who made us and gave us these lands to live upon, made the buffalo and other game to afford us subsistence; their meat is our only food; with their skins we clothe ourselves and build our lodges. They are our only means of life, food, fuel, and clothing. But I fear we shall soon be deprived of these; starvation and cold will destroy us. The buffalo are fast disappearing, and before many years will be destroyed. As the white man advances, our means of life will grow less. We will soon have to seek protection in our poverty from the Great Father, who can so well supply it. "My father, we hear that a great road is to be made through our country. We do not know what this is for, we do not understand it, but we think it will drive away the buffalo. We like to see our white brothers; we like to give them the hand of friendship; but we know that, as they come, our game goes back. What are we to do?" After shaking hands with all of us he sat down, and after a short interval of silence the chief, through his interpreter, signified a desire to hear me reply. I explained that the road to be made from the Mississippi to the Pacific would not injure the Indians, nor deprive them of comforts; that whites would settle along the line, and, though they would drive off the buffalo, they would also supply other articles in place of them. They would receive from the President implements of agriculture, and learn to till the soil, so as to obtain food with less labor than now. I told them that I would go through the lands of the Blackfeet and other Indians beyond the Yellowstone, carrying the friendly messages of the Great Father, and insisting on peace among all, to secure the safety of the whites. My remarks seemed to make a very favorable impression, and were received with every mark of respect. Their approbation was shown, as each paragraph was interpreted, by the ejaculation "How!" a common word, answering every purpose of salutation, approval, or concurrence. The present they gave me consisted of thirty-two dressed skins and two robes. We spent about half an hour in going around among the various lodges, and then returned to our camp, being followed by the whole encampment. During the time we were engaged in inspecting their camp, they became aware of the profession of Dr. Suckley, and there was scarcely a lodge that did not contain some patient for his medical attention. The doctor vaccinated some eight or nine, and through Le Frambois explained its object. It was near dusk when the party arrived at our camp and were arranged to receive their presents. They were seated around in the form of three sides of a square, the open side being opposite the places occupied by our party, the chief, and higher order of the Indians. At each of the four corners was posted a brave or chief. These men never receive a gift, considering it a degradation to receive anything but what their own prowess acquires for them. Their hearts are so good and strong that they scorn to take anything, and self-denial and the power to resist temptation to luxury, or easily acquired property, is a boast with them. On these men in time of peace, when difficulties occur among themselves, the tribe relies, and in time of war they are their leaders to the scene of action. To two old men of the tribe was assigned the duty of making the distribution, and the presents were placed in the centre of the area. During the whole distribution the Indians sat in perfect silence. All seemed satisfied with the articles they received, and not a grumble escaped one of them. After this was over they returned to their camp, the chiefs and braves remaining. At half past eight we had a collation of coffee and bread in our mess tent, and remained till a late hour, smoking and conversing. Soon after this our friends left, myself and the interpreters escorting them outside the sentinels. I was much pleased with these Indians, and they seemed to be very favorably inclined towards the whites, and sincere in their professions of friendship. Nothing to-day of the slightest value has been missed, as far as I can learn. July 28. It was very late this morning before we started, being occupied in fitting out a party, consisting of Mr. Lander, Dr. Suckley, Mr. Burr, and Corporal Rummell, with instructions to strike the Pierced Rock on Mouse River, and make a careful examination for coal and iron. They were to explore the White Earth River, examine the Coteau du Missouri, and, reaching the 49th parallel, make a detour to the northwest, and arrive at the Yellowstone in some three or four days. Four days later, on August 1, after a march of eighty miles along the Mouse River and the River of the Lakes, they reached Fort Union. As the broad Missouri and its beautiful bluff banks dotted with timber came into view, the whole party gave three cheers. Lieutenants Donelson and Grover, who had already arrived at the fort, and Mr. Denig, the trader in charge, came out to meet them. The governor mounted his horse, for the first time since the false alarm about the Sioux, and received them with a salute of a volley of small-arms, which was answered by thirteen guns from the fort. News was brought of the death of sapper White, of Donelson's party, by the accidental discharge of a gun in his own hands. Camp was soon pitched, and the whole party assembled at the governor's tent. "I congratulated them on the zealous performance of their duty, gave them a cordial invitation to go on, and whatever their determination, even should they leave us here, promised them an honorable discharge. All seemed desirous of going on, and not one availed himself of the opportunity to leave the expedition. "By the great vigilance exercised on the march, the animals had been constantly improving, gaining flesh and becoming cured of sores, so that, though we started from the Mississippi with forty disabled animals, all but one were serviceable on our arrival at Fort Union. "The whole distance from St. Paul to Fort Union is by odometer measurement 715.5 miles, and we had accomplished it in 55 days, and, excluding halts from time to time, in 48 traveling days. The rate of traveling was therefore about 15 miles a day, most of the way over a country almost unknown, without roads, and with such an imperfect knowledge of the distances to be made between camps as to cramp our movements much more than if the route had been measured and itineraries constructed for our use." FOOTNOTES: [3] Lander, it seems, was an inveterate horse-killer, and almost always returned from his trips with his animal badly used up. Buffalo chips are the dried dung frequently used on the plains as a substitute for fuel where there is no wood. CHAPTER XVIII FORT UNION TO FORT BENTON "Fort Union is situated on the eastern bank of the Missouri, about two miles and three quarters above the mouth of the Yellowstone. It was built by the American Fur Company in 1830, and has from that time been the principal depot of that company. It is framed of pickets of hewn timber, about sixteen feet high, and has two bastions, one at the northwest and one at the southeast corner. The main or front entrance is on the side opposite the river. The fort is 250 feet square. The main buildings, comprising the residence of the superintendent and the store, are on the front or eastern side. They are two stories high, and built of wood. The shops and dwellings of the blacksmith, the gunsmith, the carpenter, the shoemaker, the tailor, and others are of adobe or of wood, and occupy the other sides. These mechanics are mostly French half-breeds, and have half-breed or Indian wives and many children. There is a grassy plain around the fort, extending to the base of the rising ground, which is a full mile distant on the eastern side. The Assiniboines, the Gros Ventres, the Crows, and other migratory bands of Indians trade at this fort, exchanging the skins of the buffalo, deer, and other animals for such commodities as they require. Mr. Culbertson, who has occupied the position of chief agent of the company during the past twenty years, has under his supervision not only Fort Union, but Forts Pierre and Benton also. He is a man of great energy, intelligence, and fidelity, and possesses the entire confidence of the Indians. His wife, a full-blooded Indian of the Blood band of the Blackfoot tribe, is also deservedly held in high estimation. Though she appears to have made little or no progress in our language, she has acquired the manners and adapted herself to the usages of the white race with singular facility. Their children have been sent to the States to be educated in our best schools." Fort Union was long since abandoned. Agreeably to instructions, Mr. Culbertson, immediately on reaching Fort Union, dispatched expresses to the chiefs of the Blackfoot nation with presents of tobacco and goods, and Governor Stevens's message:-- "I desire to meet you on the way, and assure you of the fatherly care and beneficence of the government. I wish to meet the Blackfeet in a general council at Fort Benton. Do not make war upon your neighbors. Remain at peace, and the Great Father will see that you do not lose by it." The Blackfeet at this time numbered 12,000, divided into four great bands,--Blackfeet proper, Bloods, Piegans, and Gros Ventres. Pressing down from the north over a century before, they drove back the Crows, Shoshones, and Flatheads, and took possession of all the country about the headwaters of the Missouri from above the boundary line to the Yellowstone, and from the Rocky Mountains eastward to Fort Union. True Ishmaelites, they waged perpetual war upon all other tribes, and cherished special and inveterate hostility against the whites ever since one of their number was slain by Captain Lewis, of Lewis and Clark's expedition, in 1807. They suffered, indeed, two rival trading-posts on the upper Missouri, three hundred miles above Fort Union, namely, Fort Benton and Fort Campbell, for it was indispensable for them to exchange their peltries for arms, ammunition, blankets, and goods; but the traders never dared admit them within the forts. War was their sole business, the only means by which the young braves acquired influence, gained wealth, and found favor in the eyes of the maidens. Their war parties invariably started out on foot, each warrior trailing a long lariat, and bearing a bundle of moccasins with rawhide soles. It was a point of honor never to return unless mounted, and war parties were sometimes absent over a year before they succeeded in capturing their steeds. Penetrating thus on foot from three hundred to a thousand miles into the country of their foes, they would patiently lurk in the mountains, or some hidden resort, until an opportunity offered, when, running off the horses, and perhaps lifting a few scalps, they would retreat home at full speed, mounted and triumphant. Thus they raided the Crows and Assiniboines on the east and south, the Shoshones, Snakes, and Flatheads on the west, and even beset the emigrant trail of the Platte and South Pass, eight hundred miles distant; and many a lonely trapper and emigrant had fallen victim to their cunning and ferocity. Yet the chiefs and elders plainly saw that this incessant warfare was slowly but surely cutting off their warriors in detail, and threatened the ultimate extinction of the tribe, and were not unwilling to relinquish it for a more peaceful mode of life, but ever found it impossible to restrain the young braves. With these powerful and intractable savages Governor Stevens undertook to make a lasting peace, not only between them and the whites, but also between them and their hereditary enemies, the other Indian tribes. He early realized that the establishment of peace and the cessation of Blackfoot war parties were indispensable to the exploration and settlement of the country, and the passage of emigrants through it, and characteristically set to work to effect it, without waiting for orders. He took every opportunity to meet and confer with the chiefs and parties of the Blackfeet, urging them to make peace, and proposing a great council for the next year, at which they and the whites and the other Indian tribes were to meet together and unite in bonds of lasting friendship. From Fort Benton the governor reported his views and action to the government, and in the strongest manner recommended the holding of the council. He sent Mr. Culbertson expressly to carry his report to Washington, and impress his policy upon the government. It is remarkable how Governor Stevens, although eminently loyal and subordinate to authority, always impressed his own views upon the government, and caused them to be adopted, instead of waiting for instructions to be given him. With his sagacious foresight and ardent patriotism, he was quick to discern needed measures, which always appeared to him as duties to be undertaken, and moreover he had such courage and force of character that he never hesitated to take the responsibility of any action that he deemed necessary for the public welfare. Thus far the expedition had met with most gratifying success. Lieutenant Donelson made a satisfactory examination of the Missouri to a point one hundred and twenty-five miles above Fort Union, and an extended reconnoissance of the country north of that point. The main party surveyed two routes westward from Pike Lake, and ascertained the topographical features on both flanks for a wide scope, while Lander, during the stay at Fort Union, examined the Mouse River country northward to the 49th parallel. Dr. Evans was at work geologizing in the Bad Lands on the other side of the Missouri. The force was now hardened to field work and in fine spirits, and the animals were toughened, thoroughly broken, and in fine condition. "From the 2d to the 9th of August we were closely occupied in preparing for the continuation of the survey. The men were engaged in making Pembina carts, and additional transportation was purchased of the fur companies. Our experience thus far had shown how well adapted ox-trains were to transportation, and accordingly two additional teams were added at Fort Union. In all these arrangements both the fur companies zealously coöperated, placing at my disposal not only all the animals they could spare, but guides, hunters, and their information in regard to the country. We were much pleased and benefited by the good offices of the Indian women at the two posts, the wives of the officers, who fitted us out with a good assortment of moccasins, gloves, and other guards against the severity of the weather in the fall and winter. "The voyageurs belonging to the fur companies' posts thought it a good practical joke to spread bugbear stories about the immense snows to be expected early in the season, and many of the men got to believe that they would find snow knee-deep before they reached Fort Benton, and that it would be twenty feet deep in the passes of the Rocky Mountains in October, and the men became exceedingly alarmed. Fortunately I had with me some books of travel in that country, particularly De Smet's 'Oregon Missions,' and had carefully investigated the climates of the country west of the Rocky Mountains. Mr. Culbertson and the officers of the companies also gave me reliable information in reference to the lightness and lateness of the snow this side of the mountains, and therefore little difficulty was found in satisfying the men that they had been trifled with in this matter." Advancing the expedition westward again in two parties under Lieutenants Grover and Donelson on the 9th of August, the governor, to quote from his final report, started on the 10th from Fort Union at about twelve o'clock, followed by a war party of the Blackfeet, consisting of twenty Blood Indians and forty Piegan Indians, who arrived at Fort Union on the 8th on a visit to my party, and with whom I had had the most friendly interchange of civilities. I desired their company for two or three days in order to impress them fully with the beneficent policy of our government towards the Indians, and with the peaceable character of my own duties and objects, intending then to dispatch them on their way to their several tribes, and to make generally known to the Blackfoot nation our objects in passing through their country. I camped that evening with Lieutenant Grover on the Little Muddy River, when, towards night, a serious difficulty came near happening between them and our party. Mr. Culbertson and myself, however, succeeded in arranging the matter, and we spent a most interesting evening with the principal men in conversing about the Blackfeet and the Indian policy of our government. On this occasion I presented the subject of a general council to be held at Fort Benton the ensuing year, to make peace between the Blackfoot Indians and the hunting tribes west of the mountains, and to preserve peace with the white children of the Great Father. On this as on previous occasions, Mrs. Culbertson, a native of the Blood tribe of the Blackfeet, was unwearied and efficient in her good offices. The next day we reached the Big Muddy River. The crossing was at a difficult ford, and we were all highly gratified at the zeal and efficiency of one of the Blackfeet, who pulled as steadily at the rope as any man of my party. Before leaving the Big Muddy I had a long conversation with the White Man's Horse, the chief of the war party of Blackfeet. He had frequently visited the Bitter Root valley, and stolen horses from the Flatheads. He observed, "I take the first Flathead horse I come to; it is sure to be a good one." He and one of his men had just returned from the Flathead country, and they gave a very favorable description of the route, assuring me, pointing to my wagons and Pembina carts, that there would be no difficulty in taking them through the mountains. The country between Fort Union and this point is broken and rolling, with occasional formations of the _mauvaise terre_ and outcroppings of sandstone. On the Big Muddy there is quite a large and open valley of a very good soil and excellent grass, with a very heavy growth of cottonwood near its junction with the Missouri. On starting from the Big Muddy on the 14th of August, the command was in most excellent condition and spirits. Two of the mule teams were strengthened by an additional pair of mules, and the wagons were somewhat overloaded; for I determined to take nearly all my provisions along, so there should be no possibility of suffering for want of food, even though the depot of provisions in the Bitter Root valley had not been established by Lieutenant Saxton. We made eleven and a half miles, and encamped at a most beautiful point in the midst of luxuriant grass. The day was very sultry, some rain fell, and one ox died from the heat. August 15. Excellent road all day. Crossed Poplar River and encamped on the west side, distance eighteen miles. I now felt the importance of renovating my health in order to prepare for the mountain work. It had been my custom thus far to continue at work till midnight, and to be up with the first in the morning. August, 16. The road to-day was over the level river-bottom of the Missouri. Timber in sight all day, the route running through timber for about a mile. Reached a camp where there was excellent water, grass, and abundance of timber at five o'clock, making twenty three and two thirds miles. I issued this evening an order directing every person in the expedition, so far as it was consistent with his duties, to walk a portion of the way each day; for in approaching the mountains my effort was that the animals should be increasing rather than diminishing in flesh, and our experience had taught us that, by care in all these particulars, long marches could be made and the animals improved each day. August 17. Made fifteen miles to-day, and camped on the Missouri at two o'clock. The road was over the level river-bottom. Much side work has been done since leaving the Big Muddy by Lieutenant Grover, Mr. Lander, and Mr. Tinkham, and the meteorological observations have been as numerous as they were on the route up to Fort Union. We organized to-day a day guard for the care of the animals, the object being to keep them in the best grazing without picketing as long as possible. August 18. Passed through to-day villages of prairie dogs. Crossed the Porcupine River about five miles from camp. Encamped on Milk River, sixteen miles being the day's march. Here we determined to remain a day to prepare charcoal for the blacksmith, and to make observations for the geographical position of its mouth, which is considered a very important point in the survey. Our camp was surrounded by a large grove of cottonwood, and near it was a delightful spring of water. The valley of Milk River is wide and open, with a heavy growth of cottonwood as far as the eye can reach, which is also to be found along the adjacent shores of the Missouri. At this camp, which I named Camp Atchison, in honor of the acting Vice-President, I reduced to writing, and issued in an order, the instructions for the government of the expedition and the distribution of duties, under which we had been moving by my verbal instructions from the Big Muddy River. I availed myself of this opportunity to express my sense of the services of the several members of my party. On the 19th there was some little alarm in camp in consequence of false reports about the vicinity of a war party of Blackfeet. We left Camp Atchison on the 20th, and after moving fifteen miles reached a very pleasant camp, with excellent grass, wood, and water. In the evening there was a very heavy thunder-storm. My order was read to the gentlemen of the party this evening, and was the subject of general congratulation, and not a little mischievous by-play or joking. August 21. This morning was clear, cool, pleasant, and delightful for moving. Engineer parties, both yesterday and to-day, have been actively at work getting in the country bordering the route of the main party. I dispatched a small party across Milk River to Panther Hill to observe the country. Game was very abundant; plenty of buffalo, antelope, and beaver. A heavy rain and thunder-storm occurred about noon. Wild horses were reported as having been seen to-day by the reconnoitring parties. A fine eagle was shot and brought in to Dr. Buckley, our naturalist. To my exceeding regret, I found that there were points arising regarding the relations of army officers and civilians, and I concluded that the only way to overcome all difficulty was to pursue a firm, steady course, according to the terms of my written order. The distance to-day was seventeen and two thirds miles. August 22. We crossed Milk River five miles from camp, and took a cut off to the south. We made our camp, after moving nineteen and a half miles, a quarter of a mile from the river, in the vicinity of a very heavy growth of cottonwood, there being a high bluff between us and the river. As usual, the evening was spent in considering the question of the proposed Blackfoot council, and in examining the work of the parties, and preparing for the work ahead. We passed through large herds of buffalo to-day. August 23. We left camp late in consequence of the oxen straying, and about a mile from camp crossed Milk River. The order to walk some miles each day has been carefully observed, and the effect was to be seen upon our animals. On reaching our camping-ground, we found a deputation of Gros Ventres, consisting of seven of their chiefs, five of whom were accompanied by their wives. Among these was the Eagle Chief and his son, White Eagle, and the Little Soldier. The wife of the son of Eagle Chief was a very pretty woman. Her name was the White Antelope. They welcomed us in the most cordial manner, and were dignified in their deportment, which was marked by the strictest propriety. We were invited to visit their camp, about thirty miles farther on. After smoking and talking for some time, lunch was served up about dusk, consisting of coffee, rice, etc., after which they made us presents of horses, giving one to myself and two to Mr. Culbertson, to whom they seemed to be much attached. There was a large tent put up for their accommodation, and supper was provided about ten o'clock. As my health had now been rapidly improving for some days, I determined to push ahead as rapidly as possible with two advance parties in order to examine the approaches to the mountains. Accordingly I organized two parties, under Lieutenant Grover and Mr. Lander, for the above purpose. To Mr. Lander I assigned four and to Lieutenant Grover five members of the party. Each was provided with reserve horses, and with fifty days' rations of flour, sugar, and coffee. These arrangements delayed me, so that on the following morning, August 24, I got off somewhat late, and was obliged to go into camp seven and a half miles this side of the Indian camp. Our Indian friends were again with us to-night, and we treated them with bread and coffee. I learned to-day that a feud has lately broken out between the Gros Ventres and the Blackfoot tribes. A Gros Ventre was married to a Blackfoot woman. Traveling along, he was attacked, killed, and a fleet horse of his stolen. His wife was with him at the time, and the assassin proposed that she should marry him, go northward, and the Gros Ventres would never learn of the death of one of their tribe. She assented. He gave her the slow animal, upon which he had ridden himself, mounting the fast horse, which had been taken from her murdered husband. They soon arrived at water; she went off to get some, and on her return pressed him to go, as the water was very good. He did so, leaving his horse with the squaw. After he had gone some two or three hundred yards she mounted the fast steed, and, pursuing a contrary direction, joined the tribe of her deceased husband, and gave such information as would lead to the revenge of his untimely death. I find these Indians determined to revenge this outrage, and they are now fitting out war parties for the purpose of cutting off straggling Blackfeet, and stealing their horses. August 25. Took an early breakfast, making to-day twenty-two and a half miles, when we reached the camp of Gros Ventres on the bank of Milk River, at half past three o'clock. This camp consisted of three hundred lodges, at least one thousand horses, and over two thousand Indians. We were soon waited on by others of the tribe, dressed in their finest costumes, among whom I would name the Cloudy Robe, who presented me with a horse; the Eagle, Big Top, the Discoverer or Ball in the Nose, the Man who goes on Horseback, the White Tail Deer, the Running Fisher, the Two Elks, the Wolf Talker, the Bear's Coat, White Bear, the Clay Pipestem Carrier, the Old Horse, the Sitting Squaw, the Little White Calf. Accompanied by the gentlemen of the party, I visited their camp and the lodges of the principal chiefs, at all of which we were treated with the utmost kindness and hospitality. They first received us in a large lodge prepared for the occasion, some twenty-five feet in diameter, within which some sixty were seated. We here smoked, drank, and ate, talked some time, and then visited the lodges. I was much struck with the prominent characteristics of this tribe. Polygamy is universal; several of the chiefs above named having four, five, and even six wives, one of whom is the especial favorite and mistress of the household. The husband will appropriate any of them to purposes of prostitution when he can profit by so doing. They are filthy in the extreme in their habits, many of the women actually eating the vermin out of each other's heads, and out of the robes in which they sleep. Being improvident, it is always feast or famine. Returned to camp about eight o'clock, and fixed the next day for a council. August 26. The Pembina train arrived shortly after breakfast, and the main train about noon. The necessary preparations were made for the feast, and about one o'clock the Indians were seated around in squads of twenty or thirty to the number of two hundred. Before the feast the Indians seemed to be in high glee, passing the time in singing their songs, accompanying them with rattles made of the hoofs of antelopes strung very fancifully upon a piece of wood about a foot long, with which they marked time. Shortly after the feast was over we had a council, at which the chiefs and many of the principal men were present. Mr. Culbertson acted as interpreter. When I first commenced talking with them, I found they were deeply enraged against the Blackfeet for the cause alluded to in the journal of the 24th; that they were determined to wage war against that tribe. I determined to put an end to this, and at once made a proposition to them to settle with that tribe on their delivery of the offender, or making a suitable reparation. I then explained the folly of going to war; how much they would suffer from it and how little was to be gained; that it was the desire of the Great Father that all his children should be at peace with each other; that while war parties of both tribes were scouring the country, the road was dangerous to the whites who should go there; and it was my duty to demand that they should not so act as to endanger the life of a single man of my own party, or any white man who should hereafter travel through this region. I then proceeded to explain the objects of the expedition in passing through their country. I wished to make a treaty of peace between the Gros Ventres, Blackfeet, Piegans, and Bloods, and between these and the Indians west of the mountains who resort to the plains of the Missouri to hunt the buffalo. I then proceeded to explain the advantages which would arise to the Indians from entering into such a treaty, and receiving from the government directly what they now get from other Indians. They would then obtain goods, provisions, etc., in the way of annuities; could keep their horses, instead of being obliged to go with their horses and purchase of other Indians at an increased price, what the liberality and benevolence of the Great Father, in his fostering care over his children, would at once freely and abundantly supply them. "Think well of the matter. Suspend for the present your difficulty with the Blackfoot Indians. Let some of your chiefs come with me to Fort Benton, and we will try to settle the difficulty between the tribes. If it cannot be settled there, let it be referred to a commissioner sent here by the Great Father, who will settle all your differences at a council of the tribes to be held next year, where the grievances of both parties will be fully heard. But I must insist on the safe conduct of every white man through this country." They then held a consultation with their braves and principal men. In about an hour we met again. They assented to every proposition made. Some of their chiefs consented to accompany me to Fort Benton, and the whole tribe announced their willingness to wait until some time next year, and refer their difficulties to such a council. We continued the talk for some time, after which the Indians were invited to come over to the camp of the main party and witness the firing of the howitzer, which seemed to give them much pleasure. About five o'clock we made a distribution of the presents and provisions designed for this tribe, consisting of blankets, shirts, calico, knives, beads, paint, powder, shot, tobacco, hard bread, etc. They received them with the greatest satisfaction; no grumbling or envy was manifested. They continued about our camp, loitering, smoking, and talking, all the afternoon and evening. August 27. Busy this morning in the purchase and exchange of horses with the Indians. We secured several very good horses in place of six very indifferent mules. Several members of the expedition bought horses for clothing, guns, etc., their private property, thus relieving for the use of the expedition their present riding animals. By the distribution of presents and provisions, and consumption at camp, we lightened our loads some two thousand pounds, apart from the issue to the detached parties, and have received twelve serviceable animals in place of unserviceable ones, besides four new ones purchased by members of the party, two presented to me, and two purchased by Mr. Culbertson. August 28. I made to-day twenty-four and a half miles with the advance parties. I was very much pleased with the good offices of the Running Fisher, who brought into camp two of our missing horses. By my invitation he will accompany us to Fort Benton. August 29. The road to-day was not as good as usual: the river-bottom was much dried up, with deep cracks in the soil, and the numerous holes made by the prairie dogs were even, at times, a worse obstacle to our progress. Made our halt about twelve miles from camp, where we dined. By an accident, the wind being high, the prairie took fire, which extended over considerable surface. Our dining-place was on a branch of Milk River, flowing from Cypress Mountain. Parallel to this, and some three miles farther on, crossed a second branch, issuing also from the Cypress Mountain. By a bend, the two branches nearly meet, forming what is called the junction. Mr. Culbertson estimates the number of the Gros Ventres at about three hundred lodges, ten persons to the lodge, of which the proportion of men to women is one to two, the number of men being about six hundred. On his arrival in the country twenty-three years ago, they numbered four hundred lodges. In 1838-39, by a junction of the Crees and Assiniboines, some sixty lodges were entirely destroyed at Julius Mountain. A few years subsequently another attack was made at Cypress Mountain, in which sixty more lodges were exterminated, three men only escaping on this occasion, one of whom was the Sitting Squaw, father of the one already mentioned. Soon after Mr. Culbertson's arrival in the country, he and four or five other whites, with a party of Blackfoot Indians, were attacked by a war party of Assiniboines, numbering some seven or eight hundred. The field was contested all day, night only ending the conflict. In the morning the Assiniboines did not resume the attack, and abandoned many of their dead on the field. A considerable number of the Blackfeet were also killed, but none of the whites. August 30. Yesterday we were in sight of the Bear's Paw, quite a broad and rugged mountain upheaval, stretching from Milk River to the Missouri. I sent off Lieutenant Grover, Mr. Lander, and Mr. Stanley, to make an examination of the Bear's Paw, so far as it could be done by ascending one of its highest peaks, estimated to be about seventeen or eighteen miles distant. I moved on myself with the remainder of the party, having determined that I would no longer ride in the ambulance, but would make the effort to push forward either on horseback or on foot. After moving seven or eight miles I suffered so exceedingly from riding that I walked some five or six miles with great difficulty, until, coming to a good camp on our second crossing of Milk River, and the point where we were to leave it on our way to Fort Benton, I halted the party and rested for two hours. This gave me strength enough to mount my horse and ride to camp, eighteen miles farther on, on a tributary of the Box Elder Creek. We crossed several branches of this creek, which is a tributary of Milk River, that has its source very near the Missouri and is on our general line to Fort Benton. The ascent is very gradual from Milk River to our camp; the soil generally is very good. The view this afternoon was delightful. Bear's Paw itself presents a rugged, grotesque appearance, and it requires no great stretch of the imagination to see in it the paw of a grizzly bear, ready to spring upon the plain. The Three Buttes, or the Sweet Grass Hills, some sixty miles to the northward of us, are a favorite resort of the Blackfeet, who say that Providence created these hills for the tribe to ascend and look out for buffalo. Southward we have a view of mountains on the other side of the Missouri. Our distance to-day was twenty-nine and a half miles. August 31. We made an early start this morning, and in twelve miles came to the upper waters of the Box Elder Creek, which is a clear, limpid stream, affording an unfailing supply of water. We then pushed on five miles over a fine rolling prairie to a coulee in the hills, where there was a spring, and here we halted to dine. This spring is a great resort for buffalo. Considerable water flows from it, but the ordure of the buffalo was in such great quantities about it that it infected the water, and moreover they had trampled all the ground, and had stirred up the water of the spring with their feet. We however thought it would be well enough for us to make coffee, and we managed to get up a very respectable meal. After stopping three hours, we continued on over a very good road. There was a shower of rain and hail about four P.M. At five the Missouri was in sight, the Belt Mountains looming up beyond it at a distance of not less than fifty miles. After a march of thirty-three miles from our morning camp, we came to a place called the Springs; here the water was dried up, and there was no wood, but excellent grass. We pitched our camp in a coulee surrounded by high hills, and went to work to dig wells for water, in hopes to procure some for our animals. We succeeded in getting only a small quantity for each. There was a very high wind and a heavy thunder-shower until near midnight. Our Indian friends assisted us very much in the night in looking out for our animals. Grover, Stanley, and Lander have not come in, which gives me a good deal of apprehension. The Running Fisher told me a story to-day illustrating one of the phases of Indian life. The Bear's Paw, as one would infer from its wild and stern appearance, has been a scene of Indian fight and massacre. Seven years ago a fight occurred in the Bear's Paw between their tribe, allied with the Blackfeet, and the Crows, in which he killed one of the latter. The Crows occupied an impregnable post, from whence they could shoot down all who approached within twenty paces. A Blackfoot was shot in the head through a fissure in the rocks. The Gros Ventres then determined to surround and starve them out; at night the Crows got off with the loss of one man, killed by Running Fisher. September 1. This morning we made an early start, and, crossing over a high, rolling prairie, in eleven miles and three quarters came to the Marias River. The descent to this river on the trail is somewhat steep, the prairie plateau being over two hundred feet above the river-bottom. The river itself here presents a beautiful view. It is a clear, limpid stream, flowing over a pebbly and sandy bed, the bottoms lined with cottonwood of heavy growth, with thickets of the service and other berries. The Belt Mountains are very distinctly visible in the distance, as is also Citadel Hill, called so because its base rests upon the Missouri, and it rises perpendicularly like a bastion some two hundred feet high. Near by is Square Hill, so called from its supposed resemblance to that geometrical figure. At our noon halt, or near by, was the scene of a sanguinary conflict between the Gros Ventres and the Crows in 1849, in which the latter were all killed. Several of those traveling in our company figured in the action. A party of Crows to the number of twenty-two were concealed in the hollow just in advance of where we dined, for the purpose of stealing horses from the Gros Ventres' camp, consisting of two hundred lodges. Being discovered, the Gros Ventres surrounded them, and threw up dust in the air, which was carried by a strong wind in the faces of the Crows, blinding them, when the Gros Ventres rushed in upon them, and killed the whole number without losing a man. None were left to carry home the news. We were off about noon; passed over the prairie, and descended in the valley of the Teton, where we met Mr. Clarke, in charge of Fort Benton, who came out to meet us. We arrived at Fort Benton at 3.30 o'clock, where we were received with a salute of fifteen guns. Fort Benton stands on the eastern bank of the Missouri, near the Great Bend, and three hundred and seventy-seven miles by the trail taken by me above Fort Union. The river is here perfectly transparent at most seasons of the year. The Teton River empties into the Missouri six miles below Fort Benton, the Marias twelve miles below, and the Milk two hundred miles below. The falls of the Missouri are seventy miles above this fort. The muddy character of the Missouri has its commencement at the mouth of Milk River, which takes its name from the whitish muddiness of its waters. The ascent from the wide, grassy plain in which the fort is located to the high table-land is somewhat abrupt, the only passage on a level with the plain being close to the river on the south and very narrow. Fort Benton is smaller than Fort Union. Its front is made of wood, and the other sides of adobe, or unburned brick. It usually contains about a dozen men, and the families of several of them. The Blackfoot Indians are the principal traders here. It is the custom of the several bands of this tribe to locate in sheltered and otherwise eligible places in the vicinity of wood, water, and grass in the early winter, where they remain as inert as possible until the melting of the snow. At such times the half-breeds of the fort visit them with goods upon horses and mules, and exchange their merchandise for the skins and furs captured by the Indians. Fort Campbell is situated on the same plateau with Fort Benton, about half a mile above it, and is built in very much the same way as the latter place. I was agreeably relieved by the missing gentlemen coming into the fort September 3. They were in fine spirits, although they had eaten but little food since they left me on Milk River, had traveled a very long distance, partly on foot, and had been a good deal annoyed at the loss of so much time. CHAPTER XIX WIDESPREAD EXPLORING PARTIES For several days Governor Stevens was busily engaged in examining voyageurs and Indians in regard to the mountain passes and the general character of the country. Additional horses were procured, and arrangements made for sending out parties to explore in advance and both north and south of the route. Lieutenant Donelson with the main train reached the fort on the 6th. Dr. Evans arrived on the 5th, after an extended trip through the Bad Lands, where he made a large collection of geological specimens. The same day Lieutenant Grover was sent forward with a small party to the Bitter Root valley, crossing the main divide of the Rocky Mountains, for the purpose of ascertaining if Lieutenant Saxton had established his depot of provisions at that point. Thence he was directed to forward an express to Captain McClellan and return to Fort Benton. Lieutenant John Mullan, with a party of six men, was sent southward to the Muscle Shell River, not only to examine the country, but also to convey to a band of Flathead Indians supposed to be in that region "a message of peace and goodwill, to express my desire to make a permanent peace between them and the Blackfeet, and to build up anew their beautiful St. Mary's village." Thence he was to cross the mountains by a more southerly pass and rejoin the main party in the Bitter Root valley. The governor decided to send Lieutenant Donelson ahead with a party of twenty-five men to examine the approaches to Cadotte's Pass, the main train to follow more slowly in charge of Mr. Osgood, and to dispatch Lander to examine a pass at the head of the Marias River, considerably north of Cadotte's. "I gave Mr. Lander," says the governor, "authority, with certain exceptions, to select his animals from my whole train, deeming it important that he should be exceedingly well fitted out, as he would probably have a long distance to make before he joined the main party in the valley of Clark's Fork." The governor was exceedingly desirous of taking his wagons across the mountains as the most striking demonstration of the practicability of the passes. The following from a letter of George W. Stevens, of September 10, shows the high spirits and fine condition of the party:-- "We have reached this point with our full number of scalp-locks, and now are preparing to cross the mountains. Up to this point we have proceeded with wonderful success, and have done what no American expedition has done before us. We have not felt the slightest hardship, but the journey of over one thousand miles has been made with as much ease and comfort as we could possibly have experienced in traveling at home fully equipped. Our train, of forty wagons and carts, over two hundred animals, and more than one hundred men, has safely arrived. Not a man has died (except one who accidentally shot himself), nor has there been a single case of serious illness. Not more than a dozen or fifteen animals have been lost, and as a general thing they are now in as good condition as when we left the Mississippi. We are now eighty miles from the Rocky Mountains. On Monday we leave with a train of twelve wagons, with which we hope to make a comfortable crossing of the mountains in twenty days. Yesterday the fort was the scene of the greatest confusion, growing out of the preparations making to fit out four 'war parties,' as we term them. The first, under Mr. Lander, explores the Marias Pass, the most northern and nearly in the latitude of the boundary line. The second, under Lieutenant Mullan, goes to the Muscle Shell. The third war party is under the direction of Lieutenant Donelson, and is to survey the approaches to Cadotte's Pass, the one which will be taken by the main train. A fourth war party is the major's own to a camp of Piegan Indians. Lieutenant Grover is already in the mountains. The major's health is excellent, and though the labor is enormous, he is the only man who could have carried the expedition through in so glorious a manner. If he succeeds in getting the wagons through, he will have opened a good emigrant road from the Mississippi to the Pacific, and you may be sure the attempt will be most vigorously made. If fortune continues with us, within two months we shall reach Puget Sound, that looked-for garden-spot. We have met the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre bands of Indians, and by both were hospitably received. Upon the Sheyenne River we first came upon buffalo, and from that point until a week's journey back we have met them in the greatest abundance. Buffalo meat has, therefore, been our principal article of food, and we ask nothing better." A very serious difficulty of another kind now confronted Governor Stevens. He found that the funds allotted to his exploration would not suffice to carry on the work so far and so thoroughly as he deemed necessary, and he was forced to the alternative of cutting it short or incurring a deficiency. He decided to continue the work, notwithstanding the great pecuniary risk to himself, and the risk, too, of incurring the serious displeasure of the government:-- "I very frankly and explicitly stated that to continue the survey, and to carry out the instructions with regard to the work to be accomplished, it was absolutely necessary to incur a deficiency: believing that, if the facts as they existed were known to Congress and the department, their instructions would be for me to continue the exploration, I determined to incur the deficiency and make the survey. My instructions required me to examine into the question of the snows on the route, into the freshets of the streams, and the period of time they were locked up by the ice, to do which it was indispensable that there should be winter posts established at Fort Benton, and in the Bitter Root valley; and it was desirable, in connection with these posts, to have such arrangements made, and such facilities afforded, as would enable the gentlemen in charge of them to continue the explorations of the passes and the adjacent country." In a letter to Professor Bache the governor gives the reasons for his incurring the deficiency, which were, briefly stated, the delay in the start, owing to the young and unbroken animals furnished by the quartermaster's department, notwithstanding that the governor had sent an agent especially to St. Louis to insure the securing of seasoned and broken animals, and to the unusually late and rainy season; the distance across the continent, which turned out to be greater than the best estimates previously obtainable; the fact that in consequence of the great number of Indians on the route, and the warlike and treacherous character of some of them, particularly the Sioux and Blackfeet, it was necessary to make the expedition strong, especially in guides, interpreters, and hunters; and that to carry out the instructions and objects of the exploration it was indispensable to make extended examinations, and to leave parties to continue the work throughout the winter, in order to determine the questions of snow and climate. It is perfectly apparent that the $40,000 allotted to the Northern route, even though eked out by the details and supplies furnished by the War Department, were altogether inadequate to the task intrusted to Governor Stevens. His management was marked by strict economy and good judgment; he was simply not given sufficient funds for the work. And it is most creditable alike to his judgment and moral courage that he shouldered the responsibility of the deficiency, and made his complete and exhaustive exploration. Having completed all these arrangements, made his reports to the War and Indian departments, and started off the several detached parties, the governor decided to visit personally the main camp of the Blackfeet, near the Cypress Mountain, about one hundred miles north of Fort Benton, and just above the 49th parallel, in order to confer with their chiefs in regard to the contemplated council at Fort Benton next year, and secure guides for the survey of the Marias Pass. He desired, also, personally to examine the approaches to the several passes of the mountains from the boundary southward, expecting to overtake the main party before it reached the Bitter Root valley. Says he in the final report:-- I gave my instructions to Lieutenant Donelson on the 9th instant, inspected the train, found everything in good order, the men cheerful, satisfied, and confident as to going on, and the means of transportation ample, and set off towards night, having been preceded a few hours by Mr. Lander, on the way to Cypress Mountain. I encamped that night on the Teton, fourteen miles from Fort Benton. Besides the party of Mr. Lander, I was accompanied by Mr. Culbertson, special agent; Mr. Stanley, artist; Augustus Hammell, interpreter; and three voyageurs. September 10. We had been joined last evening by a considerable party of the Blackfeet, who accompanied us to-day, the principal men being the Little Dog, the Three Bears, and the Wolf that Climbs. Started before seven, and after traveling three hours reached a fine spring, with excellent grass, at a celebrated landmark known by the name of the Rotten Belly Rocks. It is a formation of sandstone, and has the characteristic of _Les Mauvaises Terres_. Columns with capitals, resemblances to the human figure, etc., etc., abound. Beneath, in the coulee, passes the broad Indian trail leading to the Piegan camp. Here was killed Rotten Belly, the Crow chief, in an encounter between one hundred of his braves and eleven well-armed Gros Ventres of the prairie. This celebrated chief, urged on by his people, had previously beleaguered Fort McKenzie. He captured all the animals of the fort,--thirty-five horses. The place was in charge of Mr. Culbertson, and there were but nineteen men to defend it. For a month this little force baffled all the attempts of the Crows to get possession of the fort. Being, however, in a starving condition, and it being apparent that it could not hold out much longer, resort was had to stratagem. All the squaws, twenty-nine in number, were dressed in men's clothes, and with arms in their hands were distributed around the fort in sight of the Crows, who, thus deceived in reference to the force defending the place, became disheartened, drew off, and separated. Rotten Belly, with a portion, mortified at his failure, declared that he would go north and seek death in battle. On reaching the rocks, and seeing the Gros Ventres, he said: "Here I will die to-day; you have brought me to this!" And, rushing upon his enemies, he killed two, and then received his death wound. Before his death he advised his people to be the friends of the whites, saying it was their only chance to escape defeat and utter ruin. Kept on through the afternoon, passing over a rolling country, and reached the Marias about half past four o'clock, where we camped. This stream at our crossing was about fifty yards wide, one foot deep, and of somewhat rapid current, and the river valley was about a mile wide. There was plenty of cottonwood, and we had a most excellent camp. Spent the evening in conversing with the Indians who accompanied us. September 11. We were off about seven o'clock, and after traveling until near noon halted at a spring, where we procured a small supply of water. Continuing on without unsaddling, in less than an hour I was overtaken by Baptiste Champagne with an express from Lieutenant Donelson, inclosing a brief report from Lieutenant Grover, to the effect that he met Lieutenant Saxton near the dividing ridge, and that they were returning together to Fort Benton. Lieutenant Grover intimated in his brief letter that Lieutenant Saxton reported the route could not be traversed by wagons. This changed the aspect of affairs, and I determined to send Mr. Stanley to the Piegan camp with the interpreter Hammell, and to return immediately with Mr. Culbertson to Fort Benton. I determined, also, to defer the examination of the Marias Pass to another season. There was not that harmony in Mr. Lander's party which I deemed indispensable to making the examination which I had intrusted to him. Accordingly I ordered him to return with me. Stanley continued on to the Piegan camp, and I started back on my way to Fort Benton. It made a long march for us, for to get a good camp it was necessary to reach the Marias. Our Indian guide made his way pretty directly to the camp: one hour and a half we traveled in the dark. The descent to the river was steep and difficult. We succeeded in getting into a good camp about eight o'clock. Before starting on my return, I dispatched an express to Lieutenant Donelson to push on with his advanced party, but to keep the main train till my arrival. September 12. Started early, and, pushing rapidly, reached the fort by three o'clock. Lieutenants Saxton and Grover also reached Fort Benton the same day. The former successfully led the western subsidiary party by way of Pend Oreille Lake to the Bitter Root valley, from which point Lieutenant R. Macfeely, with twenty-six men and sixty animals, no longer needed, returned to the Dalles, crossing the Bitter Roots by the southern Nez Perces trail, a more direct but vastly more difficult route than that of the lake. Lieutenant Richard Arnold, with his brother, Mr. Daniel Lyman Arnold, and four men, remained with the supplies at Fort Owen in the valley; while Lieutenant Saxton, with seventeen men, pushed on across the mountains, and was met by Lieutenant Grover at the summit on September 8; and, as the governor remarks, "He felt rejoiced that the plan of our operations had been successful and the object of the expedition accomplished, as a party from the Atlantic and one from the Pacific, each in search of the other, had met by appointment, after traversing thousands of miles of unknown country, at the foot of the dividing ridge between the oceans." The same evening Mr. Tinkham arrived, after an extensive and successful trip of exploration up the Milk River to the Three Buttes, across country to Marias River, and thence to Fort Benton. In consequence of Lieutenant Saxton's positive representation that it was impracticable to take the wagons across the mountains, Governor Stevens reluctantly decided to leave them at Fort Benton, a decision he afterwards regretted, for after traversing the route he was satisfied that he could have taken them at least across the main range to the Bitter Root valley without difficulty. The whole train was now outfitted with pack animals, and was pushed forward on the 16th under Lieutenant Donelson. Lieutenant Saxton, with all but three of the dragoon detachment and some discharged men, and accompanied by Mr. Culbertson, making a party of twenty-eight all told, was sent down the Missouri by keelboat with instructions to examine the river, especially as to the navigability for steamboats of its upper waters, disband his party at Fort Leavenworth or St. Louis, thence proceed to Washington, and make a full report, in which he was to urge the necessity of holding the proposed Blackfoot council, and of continuing the surveys of the mountain section of the route. The governor also instructed him to advise with Professor Bache in relation to the continuation of the survey, and to providing for the deficiency, necessarily incurred, in the next deficiency bill; giving him letters to the professor, and to Judge Stephen A. Douglas, Hannibal Hamlin, Dr. Gwin, H.M. Rice, then delegate from Minnesota, and other prominent senators and members of Congress. Mr. Culbertson carried the governor's reports to the Indian Department, and was charged also to urge upon that department the importance of the council. Mr. Doty, with three men, was stationed at Fort Benton for the winter to make meteorological observations, and such examinations of the country as he could, and more especially to collect information about, and take a census of, the Blackfeet, and improve every opportunity to impress upon them the benefits of the proposed council and peace with the western Indians. As already stated, Lieutenant Grover was directed to examine the Missouri for two hundred and fifty miles below the fort, and the country between it and Milk River, and afterwards to cross the mountains in midwinter with dog-sledges, and study the depth of snow and winter climate. Lander, with a detached party, was directed to examine along the base of the mountains from the Marias Pass to Cadotte's Pass. As already stated, the governor had countermanded the survey of the former by Lander in consequence of the lack of harmony in that engineer's party. After leaving Fort Union, Lander developed a fractious, almost insubordinate disposition. He chafed at the presence and authority of the army officers. At Fort Benton Governor Stevens had to curb his insubordinate spirit with some severity, and even told him that he would shoot him down like a dog if he disobeyed his orders. Lander, realizing that Governor Stevens would enforce discipline at whatever cost, yielded, professing his readiness to obey instructions, but thereafter he did so according to the letter, not the spirit. Yet the governor, both before and after this occurrence, gave him the best opportunities for distinction, intrusting to him the most important side explorations, and in the reports gave him full and generous commendation for all he accomplished, passing lightly over his shortcomings. A bold, energetic, high-strung man, Lander could ill brook any authority. He afterwards conducted an independent government survey with credit, and but for his early death would undoubtedly have achieved distinction as a soldier. This appears to have been the only instance of lack of due subordination, or harmony, shown during the whole expedition, and certainly some of the governor's orders had been rigorous enough to cause restiveness, as, for instance, requiring the scientific gentlemen to break their own mules, to stand guard, and to walk a part of each day's march. Remarks the governor:-- "I was exceedingly gratified at this time by the spirit of the men. Several men, who I was afraid had not strength to make the trip, and whom I had ordered to accompany Lieutenant Saxton down the Missouri, were so anxious to go on that they brought me a certificate from the surgeon, Dr. Suckley, stating that in his opinion they were strong enough for the journey, and accordingly I allowed them to go on. We had now been together some three months, and there was great confidence between the several members of the exploration." On the 20th Mr. Stanley returned from his trip to the Blackfoot camp, having traveled on horseback three hundred and twenty miles in eleven days. A thousand Indians accompanied him back as far as Milk River, where the main body remained to hunt, while thirty of their chiefs, with their families, came with him to Fort Benton to hold council with the great white chief, who remained for that purpose. "On the 21st we held our talk with the Blackfeet. The chiefs and warriors were all richly caparisoned. Their dresses of softly prepared skins of deer, elk, or antelope were elegantly ornamented with bead-work. These are made by their women, and some must have occupied many months in making. The other articles of their costume were leggings made of buffalo skins, and moccasins, also embroidered, and a breech-cloth of blue cloth. Their arms were the Northwest guns, and bows and arrows. On all solemn occasions, when I met the Indians on my route, they were arrayed with the utmost care. My duties in the field did not allow the same attention on my part, and the Indians sometimes complained of this, saying, 'We dress up to receive you, and why do you not wear the dress of a chief?' "The governor addressed them in the same strain as the Gros Ventres: 'Your Great Father has sent me to bear a message to you and all his other children. It is that he wishes you to live at peace with each other and the whites. He desires that you should be under his protection, and partake equally with the Crows and Assiniboines of his bounty. Live in peace with all the neighboring tribes, protect all the whites passing through your country, and the Great Father will be your fast friend.'" Low Horn, the principal Piegan chief, replied favorably in behalf of the Indians, but spoke of the difficulty of restraining their young men, who were wild, and ambitious in their turn to be braves and chiefs. They wanted by some act to win the favor of their young women, and bring scalps and horses to show their prowess. To this the governor rejoined:-- "'Why is it that you have two or three women to one man? Is it not because your young men go out on war parties, and thus the flower of your tribe is cut down? And you will go on diminishing every year until your tribes are extinct. Is it not better that your young men should have wives and children, and that your numbers should increase? Won't your women prefer husbands to scalps and horses? The Gros Ventres desire to meet you in council, and have the difficulties between you arranged. Will you meet them in council?' "While in the council, Low Horn, the principal chief and speaker, made all his replies without rising from his seat, and in a quiet, conversational tone. After the council he assembled his braves, and resumed the lofty bearing of a chief. He addressed them with great fervor and eloquence, commanded them henceforth to cease sending out war parties, and threatened them with severe punishment if they disobeyed. It will not be uninteresting here to state that Low Horn, the quiet spokesman of the council and the trumpet-toned chief in the presence of his men, crossed the Missouri in 1855 with his whole band, moved up the Judith, and camped on the Muscle Shell,--the first man who extended the hand of welcome and friendship to the western Indians as they crossed the mountains on their way to the council, showing most conclusively that faith can be put in Indians; for it must be remembered that two years intervened between my conference with the Indians at Fort Benton in 1853 and their reassembling in 1855 at the council appointed at that time." [Illustration: LOW HORN _Piegan Chief_] CHAPTER XX EXPLORING THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS September 22. This morning we bade adieu to Fort Benton, and separated from the portions of the expedition who were assigned to duty east of the mountains. Before sunrise we saw Lieutenant Saxton off in his keelboat, drawing eighteen inches of water, accompanied by Mr. Culbertson, who was directed by me to report to the department at Washington, and to urge the importance of the Blackfoot council. Lieutenant Grover, on a smaller craft, commenced his minute examination of the Missouri. Mr. Doty, who had won very much upon me by his intelligence, his fidelity, his promptitude, and energy of character, parted from me with feelings of hope and pride at the idea that now a field was opening to him where he could be useful to his country, and make a reputation for himself. In order to make a long march this day, the evening before I dispatched my train to a point well up on the Teton, some twelve miles from Fort Benton; and there Mr. Osgood and Mr. Stanley, who had remained behind with me at Fort Benton, and myself, breakfasted with the rest of our party. Dr. Suckley and Messrs. Evans and Kendall, who had assisted me in my correspondence, were the additional members of my party. The whole party moved off at nine o'clock, continuing for some distance up the valley of the Teton, when we ascended a hill to the prairie, and in twenty-one miles reached a coulee, where there were springs of water sufficient for our animals. Large bands of antelopes were seen on the road. We struck the Prairie Lake at five P.M. Our guide, the voyageur Baptiste Champagne, took us to the nearest point of Sun River, hoping to get in before dark, but we did not reach camp till some time after. The view at almost any point of the plateau between the Teton and Sun rivers is exceedingly picturesque and suggestive. The various minor upheavals and swales of ground, which here and there dot the surface of the country, have connected with them some story of Indian war, wrong, or suffering. This whole country was once occupied by the Snakes, and in later times by some of the tribes of the Flathead nation. It belongs now to the Blackfeet by conquest. September 23. Moved up the valley of the Sun River, having made an early start this morning. The Sun has a wide, open valley, grazing exceedingly good and soil excellent. We continued up in the direction of the pass between the Crown Butte and the Rattlers, prominent landmarks west of the river, and visible at a great distance. This is a favorite resort of deer, antelope, and bighorn. They were present to-day in very large numbers. Continuing on, we came in view of the Bird Tail Rock, and immediately to the west, in a line near it, is another landmark, known as the Piegan's Tear. After making forty miles we found a camp a little off our route, in a most delightful valley, a spring of water gushing out near by, and the remains of an old camp of the Blackfeet at hand, furnishing us with fuel already prepared to our hands. September 24. Started as usual very early this morning, and in four miles came to Beaver Creek, a very beautiful stream of water. The stream is now full of beaver, and is much obstructed by their dams. The country is somewhat more broken to-day than it was yesterday; timber comes in view on the tops of the mountains, and the scenery becomes more grand with each mile as we proceed. Three miles beyond Beaver Creek, a high peak, called the Goose's Neck, comes in view to the south of us; at the southern foot of which equally as good a road is found, though some two days longer, as the one now being traveled by us. It is a branch of the present trail, and is usually pursued by the Flatheads on their way to buffalo. That is called the Flathead and our own the Blackfoot trail. We now crossed several mountain streams in the course of a few miles, and in sixteen miles we struck the Dearborn River. At noon we moved forward to the dividing ridge, which was reached at four o'clock. To this point our road from near the Dearborn lay over sideling hills and through timber. As we ascended the divide, a severe pelting hail and rain storm, accompanied with high wind, thunder, and lightning, suddenly came upon us, and did not abate until we had reached the summit. The wind blew very violently, and the mist resulting from the storm prevented our getting a very clear view of the country before us. It was with great gratification that we now left the plains of the Missouri to enter upon the country watered by the Columbia; and it was the more especially gratifying to me as, looking to my future duties in the Territory, I felt that I could welcome to my future home and the scene of my future labors the gentlemen of the party, which I did very cordially and heartily. The scenery throughout the day's march, up to the divide, has been picturesque in the extreme; and the latter portion of it, from the entrance proper to the pass, our road passed between hills on every side covered with timber, on the sides of which we were constantly traveling; while many feet below are to be seen the small upper tributaries of the Missouri, flowing from their source in a valley that is very wide for so small a channel, and lined with verdure and the foliage in yellow leaf. All this made a combination full of interest to the eye of one who could appreciate the beauties of nature. The ascent from the eastern base by the Indian trail is somewhat steep, though in 1855 I gained the summit by a large, wide, open ravine north of the Indian trail by a very gradual ascent, and without much increase of distance; I was a good deal surprised to find how small an obstacle this divide was to the movement of a wagon-train. Had we gone on with our wagons, there would not have been the slightest interruption, up to the entrance of the pass, to making the usual journeys each day. We were twenty minutes simply descending on the western side, which was somewhat more steep than the eastern. Continuing on, we followed the valley of the Blackfoot River some ten miles, and camped in good grass, with excellent water and abundance of wood. Shortly after getting into camp it commenced raining, and continued steadily all night, the weather being raw and cold. Immediately on crossing the divide, on the summit of the Rocky Mountains, Governor Stevens issued his proclamation, declaring the civil territorial government extended and inaugurated over the new Territory of Washington. And then, as related in the narrative, he heartily welcomed the members of the party to his new home. It was on the summit of Cadotte's Pass that this dramatic and interesting scene occurred. As originally outlined, the main divide of the Rocky Mountains formed the eastern boundary of Washington, but subsequently the mountain section was joined to Idaho and Montana. September 25. Raining hard this morning. The animals having strayed some distance, we were detained until eight A.M. The first fourteen miles was through an open, wide, and beautiful prairie, after which much of our way was through wood, where fallen timber offered serious impediment to our rapid progress. At one o'clock Stanley and myself, having gone rapidly ahead, had a big fire built to receive our party as they came up. Here we lunched. By three o'clock the clouds were breaking away, and the rain had ceased. Crossed several hills to-day, traveling on the sides of some of them. Just before we came out on the prairie on which we found Lieutenant Donelson and the main train encamped, we were three hundred feet above the level of the river. On the sides of the hill below us was growing the mountain pine; in the valley beneath, right at the base of this hill, was the clear, rapid stream; beyond was the foliage of the trees growing in the bottom. The tops looked like a rich, green carpet; further on were wide prairies, all bounded by a high ridge of beautiful hills, altogether forming a scene of surpassing beauty. At five P.M. we reached Lieutenant Donelson's camp, and found we had traveled one hundred and forty-four miles since leaving Fort Benton. September 26. The gentlemen not required by my rapid trip to the westward, namely, Dr. Suckley, Mr. Evans, and Mr. Kendall, now joined the main party, and we pushed on over the Blackfoot prairie (called, in Lewis and Clark's narrative, the Prairie of the Knobs), and after a march of thirty-odd miles came to a beautiful camp, near what is known in the country as the cañon. To show the condition of the animals of the expedition, I will observe that as I passed by the mules of the train (for I remained somewhat late in camp this morning to confer with Lieutenant Donelson, the whole party being several miles on the march before I started), I observed that their rate of travel on a fast walk was from four to four and a half miles per hour, and the advance of the train moved thirty miles that day, getting into camp early, the animals being apparently not fatigued. We had hardly made up our camp-fire, when seeing a black bear and two cubs near by, we felt sure that we should have bear-meat for supper, but although all the voyageurs were on their track, they made their escape. September 27. We started about seven o'clock, and soon entered the cañon, not, properly speaking, a cañon, for throughout its extent, until you reach the debouch of Hell Gate, there is no special difficulty on the trail, nor would there be excessive work to open a good wagon-road. But a good many sharp spurs come down close to the river, throwing the trail well back, or involving a crossing of the stream to avail one's self of the prairies invariably found opposite each of these spurs. Much of the country was of a very excellent description, abounding in timber, well watered, and with soil of an excellent quality. Emerging from the cañon, we came into a wide, open valley, commencing half a mile before reaching the mouth of the Blackfoot, continuing down the valley of the Hell Gate until we enter the Hell Gate Ronde, a large, extensive tract of many miles in circuit, and where the Hell Gate joins its waters to the Bitter Root. Crossing the Bitter Root at a good ford, we continued up its valley and reached a most excellent camp on the west side of the Bitter Root, some twenty miles from Fort Owen.[4] September 28. Keeping up the west bank of the Bitter Root River we crossed two streams, one being the Traveler's Rest Creek of Lewis and Clark, and, passing through a grove of pine timber, in twelve and one half miles crossed the Bitter Root River, just before reaching which we met some Indians from Fort Owen. Lieutenant Arnold, whom we met after crossing the river, on his way to Victor's camp, returned with us. We reached Fort Owen[5] about noon, where we met the other gentlemen of Lieutenant Arnold's party. I found Mr. Lander in camp near Fort Owen, and learned that he arrived the day before yesterday. Fort Owen is situated on the Scattering Creek of Lewis and Clark. It was a matter of the greatest gratification, with their narrative in hand, to pass through this valley and realize the fidelity and graphic character of their descriptions. Lieutenant Arnold had been jerking beef against our arrival, and making all arrangements to enable us without delay to push on westward. I examined very carefully into the condition of the train left by Lieutenant Saxton, and of the provisions brought to this point, and had every reason to congratulate myself for having assigned to him this undertaking. We found there nearly two thousand rations, but the animals were very few of them serviceable, yet from their appearance it was obvious that none of them would continue unserviceable for any considerable time, and I believed they would be entirely equal to any service which Lieutenant Mullan's duties might require of them. September 29-October 3. During these days we were all occupied in making arrangements for the movement of the parties westward, and to establish Lieutenant Mullan's winter post. Lieutenant Donelson arrived on the 29th with the main party, and Lieutenant Mullan on the 30th with a delegation of chiefs from the Flathead nation. It will not be attempted here to give any extended account of the explorations made by the detached parties, which is very fully done in the final report by Governor Stevens. No less than nine passes across the main chain, covering the range from the 49th parallel to the Yellowstone, and four passes across the Bitter Root Range, were examined. The most northerly of these, the Marias Pass, is now traversed by the Great Northern Railroad, and one of the more southerly ones, the Mullan Pass, situated some fifty miles south of Cadotte's Pass, is crossed by the Northern Pacific Railroad. Mr. Lander ran a line from the Marias River via the Teton, Sun, and Dearborn rivers to Lewis and Clark's Pass, being the one crossed by Captain Lewis on his return trip, and situated twelve miles north of Cadotte's Pass, and made an examination of the pass. After traveling some distance down the valley of the Blackfoot, he left it, and went across country to the Hell Gate River, and moved up the valley of this stream, mistaking it for the Bitter Root. Finally, realizing his mistake, he turned from it, and, crossing over a number of divides and streams, he followed an Indian trail which led him to Fort Owen. In consequence of this eccentric route, and his animals having been much pushed, they came in exceedingly jaded, although he started with the best train of the whole party. He made no observations bearing upon the railroad line except for seven miles of the pass, a short distance thence down the Blackfoot valley, and a small portion of the Hell Gate valley. Lieutenant Mullan's trip to the Muscle Shell was a very extended one, four hundred and fifteen miles in length. He returned by the pass which now bears his name, accompanied by a delegation of the Flathead Indians. Mr. Tinkham, after examining the approaches to Cadotte's Pass from the Sun River, on a more northern route than that taken by the main party, had left it at the camp of the 26th on the Blackfoot to explore a route westward to the Jocko and Clark's Fork, which it was expected might prove a cut-off, and had not yet rejoined the main party. On September 30 and October 1 Governor Stevens had conferences with the chiefs of the Flatheads, and broached to them his great idea of a Blackfoot peace council. They were very doubtful at first, having too recent and bitter experience of Blackfoot depredations. What should they do, they asked, in case the Blackfeet came near their camp at night? In reply the governor advised them not to attack unless it was evident they intended to do mischief. Still they must not remain quiet and see their men killed or horses stolen. "I would leave Lieutenant Mullan with ten or fifteen men to protect you from the Blackfeet, but they have promised not to disturb you, and I believe they mean to abide by it," etc. After considering the matter for a day among themselves, the Indians promised to attend the council. The governor decided to establish a post in the Bitter Root valley for the winter, under the charge of Lieutenant Mullan, in order to determine the winter regimen of the mountains, the depth and duration of snow, the climate, etc. Thirteen men were left with Lieutenant Mullan, and a large band of animals and ample supplies, and he was instructed to make careful meteorological observations during the winter, to continue the exploration of the mountain section, extending it to Fort Hall on the south, and as far as Flathead Lake or Clark's Fork on the north, and to keep a watchful and protective eye over the Flathead Indians. The governor directed Lieutenant Donelson to proceed with the main party by way of Clark's Fork and Pend Oreille Lake, and assigned Lander to duty with him for side examinations, while the governor himself took the more direct but rugged C[oe]ur d'Alene route over the Bitter Roots. To Dr. Suckley was intrusted the adventurous duty of descending the Bitter Root River, Clark's Fork, Pend Oreille Lake, and the Columbia River by canoe to the Dalles, then the frontier settlement. Lieutenant Arnold was to proceed from Pend Oreille Lake, separating from the main party at that point, in a direct westerly course to Colville, and thence to explore the plains of the great bend of the Columbia, east of that river. Mr. Tinkham, who came in a few days later, was directed to explore the Marias Pass from the west side, and, crossing the mountains by it, to proceed to Fort Benton, confer with and take letters of instruction to Lieutenant Grover and Mr. Doty, and return to the Bitter Root valley by one of the southerly passes. Thence he was to cross the Bitter Root Mountains by one of the Nez Perces trails, and proceed to Walla Walla valley and Olympia. Thus by the establishment of the two stations at Fort Benton and in the Bitter Root valley, under Mr. Doty and Lieutenant Mullan, respectively, and by the explorations of the detached parties, Governor Stevens kept the whole mountain region under observation and solved the questions of climate and snows. Indeed, he had the range crossed at every month in the year by one or other of these parties. Continues the personal narrative:-- Accordingly, on the 2d Mr. Lander went down the valley to make some examinations of Hell Gate, and on the 3d Lieutenant Donelson was under way with the main party. I left on the 4th and overtook and camped with the main party in my old camp of the 27th and 28th of September. Continuing on, on the 5th we both moved down the valley, and encamped on the Bitter Root, some three or four miles below the mouth of Hell Gate. Here I ascertained that Mr. Lander, instead of waiting for the arrival of Lieutenant Donelson to receive the instructions which I had directed to be issued to him, to go down the Bitter Root to its mouth and join the main party at the Horse Plain, had preceded him on the main trail, and must be somewhere near the divide between the Bitter Root and the Jocko. Accordingly instructions were sent directing him to return in order to proceed on the duty which had been assigned to him. This same day I visited Victor at his camp on the Hell Gate, three miles above its junction with the Bitter Root, and in return was visited by him at our camp, where we had much interesting conversation in regard to the Indians, the character of the country, and the passes, particularly in the winter. I determined to remain here until Mr. Tinkham returned, who had not yet been heard from. October 6. Lieutenant Donelson moved off this morning on the route of the Jocko River and Clark's Fork. Mr. Lander, who had returned to my camp in compliance with instructions, moved down the Bitter Root this afternoon. I sent up to Fort Owen for Lieutenant Mullan, and we remained in camp, passing the time as pleasantly as we could, awaiting the arrival of Mr. Tinkham. Meanwhile a huge joint of beef was placed upon the spit, to be in readiness when the explorers should come in, and honest Sergeant Simpson undertook to act as cook. Bending over the fire, with huge drops of perspiration rolling from his glowing red face, a picture was presented which Mr. Stanley thought not unworthy a trial of his pencil, while Osgood jokingly told Simpson he was working then for "two dollars a day and roast beef." The meat was cooked in the nicest manner, and at half past five o'clock we sat down to it, having as guests Mr. Tinkham and his party, the returned "lost sheep of the house of Israel," also Lieutenant Mullan, who had arrived in season to join in our meal. Having no guide, Mr. Tinkham had not succeeded in finding a direct route, but after a circuitous trip got through to the Jocko, and, moving back on Lieutenant Donelson's trail, joined the governor, who now gave him the instructions to examine the Marias Pass, etc. The narrative continues:-- It is extraordinary how easy of passage the mountains are in this latitude. A favorite time of the return of the Flathead Indians from the buffalo hunt is between Christmas and New Year's; it is only in winters of unusual severity that they are unable to cross during any month. We have to-day seen at our camp a good deal of Victor, the Flathead chief, celebrated in the book of De Smet. He appears to be simple-minded, but rather wanting in energy, which might, however, be developed in an emergency. I secured a Flathead guide to go with Mr. Tinkham through the Marias Pass, returning with him by the Flathead Pass. He was at first reluctant to go, but afterwards consented. In the course of the evening he came to me to decline going, and one or two of the men wished to back out. On tracing the cause to its source, I found they had been alarmed by some remarks of the guide Monroe, who told them he was afraid they would fall in with parties of Blackfoot young men. I will here remark that the Indian agent, Dr. Lansdale, in 1856 went over the route from the Jocko to the Big Blackfoot, sought by Mr. Tinkham in 1853. It is much used by the upper Pend Oreille Indians in going to hunt buffalo east of the mountains. October 7. At 8.30 o'clock we were on the road, the party consisting of Mr. Stanley, Mr. Osgood, and four voyageurs, with Antoine Plante, the half-breed guide. Mr. Lander, who had preceded us, we overtook in twenty-seven miles, when continuing on eight miles over a rolling country, we came to a good camp on a small stream of water; wood and grass most excellent. The valley of the Bitter Root is generally a wide valley, with occasional spurs running sharp down to the banks of the stream, but having opposite to such spurs an open prairie on the other side of the river. October 8. We started at 7.30 o'clock, passing over a hilly, wooded, and at times difficult country, with several patches of prairie, one of which, two and a half miles long and containing probably 1000 acres, was covered with an excellent growth of grass. Here we met a band of fifty Nez Perces Indians going to hunt. They have from 250 to 300 horses, most of them splendid animals, in fine condition, and with perfectly sound backs. Women and children helped to compose the band, and babies of fifteen months old, packed in a sitting posture, rode along without fear, grasping the reins with their tiny hands. We met them in the entrance to a narrow place, a mile in length, leading along the water's edge; and wishing to have a talk with them, but unwilling to lose time in returning to the open ground, I invited them to turn around to the first prairie, which Antoine assured me was not more than a mile or two beyond. The prairie we found to be well grassed, open, and wooded. We now made our halt, and, while preparing for our talk, a band of C[oe]ur d'Alenes joined us. They, too, were on their way to the hunt, and numbered about sixty, men, women, and children, and had about 200 horses. We had a long talk. I told them about the steps taken to meet in council at Fort Benton; dwelt particularly upon the prospect of the Blackfeet making peace with all the Indian tribes,--upon the promise they had given that their war parties should be stopped; and told them that at Fort Benton and at St. Mary's I had left men who would interfere unless these war parties ceased. This intelligence was most gratefully received. They tell me that they return from the hunt in March, going home by the Pend Oreille route. We parted with them at two o'clock, and at six made a good camp near the ford by which we mean to cross to the left bank of the Bitter Root River. Two miles from camp we met two Pend Oreilles, who turned around with us. At the camp we found a mother and daughter who had just crossed the river and pitched their lodge. They had eight pack and as many spare animals, and were on their way to join the Indians we met this morning. We gave all the Indians coffee, and the women in return gave us some cooked kamas root. It is of a dark color, small, between the pear and onion in shape, and of a sweet, agreeable flavor. October 9. We started at eight, and crossed the ford. The ride of to-day has been rather tedious. We left the valley to get rid of the undergrowth of bushes, and took a trail over the side-hill, which carried us up and down hill successively, and in some instances through woods, occasionally obstructed by fallen timber. At noon we halted at a creek, where we found a single Indian family drying venison. For a little tobacco they gave us some fresh meat and trout, which we roasted before the fire, and which made us a substantial lunch; after which, pursuing our course, we fell upon a stream flowing from the dividing ridge, and, continuing up it six miles, made a camp where we found an abundance of grass. Distance to-day nineteen miles. October 10. We continued in the valley about ten miles, the road leading through wood. Larch and spruce, and inexhaustible supplies of limestone and marble, were met with, and the latter we afterwards found in large quantities all through the mountains. At this point the trail forks, one keeping to the right along the stream, and the other turning to the left, and passing over a high, overhanging mountain spur. Our guide, Antoine, informed us that the mountain trail was more easy for the animals, the one to the right being much obstructed by fallen timber. After commencing the ascent we heard the voices of our men driving the animals in the valley beneath us, and waited until we had turned them upon the trail we had concluded to take. We ascended the dividing ridge, and reached a camp with good grass upon a small lake, within a mile of its top. The lake, to which we were obliged to descend for water, is twelve hundred feet below the camp. C[OE]UR D'ALENE OR STEVENS PASS. October 11. The pass beneath us was made by two rivers flowing from the dividing ridge in opposite directions, having their sources in lakes not more than half a mile apart; the general direction of the valleys being east and west. We estimated our camp to be two thousand feet above the eastern base of the mountain, and two thousand five hundred feet above the western base. The lake upon the eastern side was about twelve hundred feet below us, and that upon the western side about seven hundred feet higher. After pitching camp last night a drizzling rain commenced falling, which we supposed would turn into snow before morning. Upon awakening this morning we were surprised to greeted with one of the loveliest days imaginable. The sky was clear, and the air as soft and balmy as a morn in summer. After striking camp we ascended to the highest point of the ridge, about a mile and a half from camp. Here we made a long halt, enjoying the magnificent view spread open to us, which, I venture to say, can scarcely be surpassed in any country. Far distant in the east the peaks of the Rocky Mountains loomed up into view, stretched out to a great length, while the Flathead Lake and the valley thence to the Blackfoot Pass were plainly visible. Nearly the entire range of the C[oe]ur d'Alene Mountains, clothed with evergreen forests, with here and there an open summit covered with grass; numerous valleys intersecting the country for miles around; courses of many streams marked by the ascending fog,--all conduced to render the view fascinating in the greatest degree to the beholder. The mountains were covered with luxuriant, coarse grass. Seated on this point, Mr. Stanley was enabled to transfer this beautiful panorama to his sketch-book. Descending the peak to the general level of the ridge, we continued on for six miles, when the descent commenced, and in less than three miles we passed down a very steep descent and gained the base of the mountains, which we estimated rose thirty-five hundred feet above us. This brought us into a valley filled with gigantic cedars. The larch, spruce, and vine-maple were found in to-day's march in large quantities, the latter giving a pleasing variety to the forest growth. About four o'clock we encamped upon the bank of a stream, which here grows much wider. A C[oe]ur d'Alene accompanied us to this point from the eastern base of the dividing ridge, and at to-night's encampment we found a C[oe]ur d'Alene and his wife on their way to hunt. October 12. The scarcity of grass last night caused our animals to wander, and three of them were found at the base of the mountains six miles back. It was not until half past ten o'clock that our men had them all collected, and we were prepared to move. We rode until half past three, when we halted at a beautiful camp, although the day's march had been but twelve miles. Learning from Antoine that the C[oe]ur d'Alene Mission was only eleven miles beyond, I determined on going in to-night. Antoine and I accordingly mounted, and rode to the Mission in an hour and three quarters. C[OE]UR D'ALENE MISSION. The Mission is beautifully located upon a hill overlooking extensive prairies stretching to the east and west towards the C[oe]ur d'Alene Mountains and the Columbia River. About a hundred acres of the eastern prairie adjoining the Mission are inclosed and under cultivation, furnishing employment to thirty or forty Indians, men, women, and children. I observed two ploughing, which they executed skillfully; others were sowing wheat, and others digging potatoes. Père Gazzoli received me with the most pleasing hospitality. Associated with him are Père Ravalli, now absent to procure supplies, and Brothers Charles Huet and Maginn. Towards evening I witnessed the burial of an Indian chief. The funeral ceremonies were conducted after the Catholic form, and I was struck with the harmonious voices of the Indian choristers, and with their solemn observance of the ceremonies. The Mission is composed of buildings inclosing a square. Some of them are quite old, but the barn is large and new. The church stands a little distance from the rest, and does much credit to those who erected it. It is constructed upon a plan designed by Père Ravalli, and is of the Roman demi-style of architecture. Pulleys and ropes were the only mechanical aids in the construction. The interior is prettily arranged. The altar is supported by two massive timbers of pine which are four feet in diameter. The priests live in a self-denying manner, and the good effect of their influence over the Indians around them is plainly manifest. There is quite a village of Indians near the Mission. They have some half dozen log-houses, but most of them live in lodges. October 13. While awaiting the arrival of the train, I was enabled more particularly to observe the manner in which the affairs of the Mission are conducted. Brother Charles has charge of the buildings, and attends to the indoor work, cooks, makes butter and cheese, issues provisions, and pays the Indians for their work, which payment is made in tickets bearing a certain value, "good for so many potatoes, or so much wheat," etc. By this arrangement the Indians are able to procure their subsistence in the summer by hunting and fishing, and have tickets in store for living during the winter. They are well contented, and I was pleased to observe habits of industry growing upon them. In the barn we saw their operations of threshing: four boys rode as many mules abreast in a circle, being followed by two girls with flails, who appeared to be perfectly at home in their business. One half of the barn is reserved for their crops, while the other is arranged for cattle. Their stock at present consists of twenty cows, eight pairs of oxen, and ninety pigs, which are driven to pasture upon the prairie by Indian boys daily. I noticed an Indian woman milking, and was surprised to see her use both hands, something rarely seen amongst the Indians. We afterwards visited the field; a large fire was burning, and around it sat Indians roasting and eating potatoes. There appeared to be a great scarcity of proper implements, and in digging potatoes many had nothing better than sharpened sticks. The train arrived about one o'clock, and Père Gazzoli allowed us to turn our animals into the inclosure. I have heard of an ingenious method of hunting deer which is practiced by the Indians. When the C[oe]ur d'Alenes, Pend Oreilles, Spokanes, and Nez Perces meet together to fish and hunt, they form a large circle, and upon the trees, around its circumference, attach pieces of cloth made to resemble the human figure as much as possible. Then the hunters enter the area and start up the deer. Each cloth having the effect of a man, the deer, being afraid to pass them, are kept within the circle and easily killed. Last year the Pend Oreilles killed eight hundred in one hunt; the C[oe]ur d'Alenes, more than four hundred. When the Indians returned from the field I addressed them as follows:-- "I am glad to see you and find that you are under such good direction. I have come four times as far as you go to hunt buffalo, and have come with directions from the Great Father to see you, to talk to you, and do all I can for your welfare. I see cultivated fields, a church, houses, cattle, and the fruits of the earth, the work of your own hands. The Great Father will be delighted to hear this, and will certainly assist you. Go on, and every family will have a house and a patch of ground, and every one will be well clothed. I have had talks with the Blackfeet, who promise to make peace with all the Indian tribes. Listen to the good Father and to the good brothers, who labor for your good." October 15. We started at eight o'clock, after having given Brother Charles as many lariats for raising the timbers of the church as we could spare, and made eighteen miles and a quarter, meeting on the way some forty Indians, C[oe]ur d'Alenes, Nez Perces, and Spokanes, on their way to buffalo. We camped to-day in a beautiful prairie, called the Wolf's Lodge, with good grass. Here we found nearly a hundred Spokanes, with some three hundred horses, on their way to the hunt. Towards sundown this evening I was greatly interested in observing the Spokanes at their devotions. A bell rang, and the whole band gathered in and around a large lodge for evening prayers. There was something solemn and pathetic in the evening psalm resounding through the forests around us. This shows what good results can flow from the labors of devoted missionaries, for the Spokanes have had no religious instruction for the last five years. As I went down the river and met band after band of the Spokanes, I invariably found the same regard for religious services. Afterwards they came around to my camp-fire, and we had a talk. Garry, they say, is at his farm, four miles from the Spokane House. October 16. We started at eight o'clock, our route being through an open wooded prairie. Soon after leaving camp the C[oe]ur d'Alene Lake came in view to the south of us, and eleven miles from camp we struck it near its western extremity. It is a beautiful sheet of water, surrounded by picturesque hills, mostly covered with wood. Its shape is irregular, unlike that given it upon the maps. Its waters are received from the C[oe]ur d'Alene River, which runs through it. Below the lake the river is not easily navigable, there being many rapids, and in numerous places it widens greatly, and runs sluggishly through a shallow channel. Above the lake I am informed by the missionaries that it is navigable nearly to the Mission. Leaving the lake, we followed the river on its northern bank, passing a camp of C[oe]ur d'Alenes, occupied with their trout fisheries. Here we witnessed a touching sight, a daughter administering to her dying father. Still keeping through open woods on a most excellent road, in two miles farther we came to the C[oe]ur d'Alene prairie, a beautiful tract of land containing several hundred square miles. After crossing the prairie, a distance of some eighteen miles, we continued on and encamped at a spring with sparse grass. Had we gone two miles farther, we should have found an excellent camp on the river, and the next morning some of our animals were found in this very spot. The horses of the Spokanes roam over this prairie in herds of from twelve to twenty. Towards the latter portion of the march the river runs over a rocky bed of trap. October 17. Leaving camp, Antoine, Osgood, Stanley, and myself turned from the trail to visit the falls of the C[oe]ur d'Alene River, while Lavatte took the train ahead on the trail to the Spokane House. There are two principal falls, one of twenty feet and the other of from ten to twelve feet, in the latter there being a perpendicular fall of seven or eight feet; for a quarter of a mile the descent is rapid, over a rough bed of rocks, and in this distance we estimated a fall of ninety or one hundred feet. One mile below this point we came to the ferry crossed by Saxton. Here there is a small Indian village, and the inhabitants were engaged in catching salmon. I noticed one large woman who seemed to pride herself upon her person, which she took pains to set off in the most becoming manner by means of a blanket wrapped around her. The road to the Spokane House was over a sandy prairie, interspersed with groves of pine. Crossing a dividing ridge with high and steep banks, we came into the prairie in which the Spokane House is situated, in which were two Spokane villages. We inquired for Garry, and I sent him a request that he would visit me at my camp. The train we found a mile below the junction, across the Spokane. The Indians indicating a good camp some distance beyond, we moved on eight and a half miles to it, which we reached half an hour before sundown. Here there was good grass and plenty of water, and we soon made up a large campfire. After arranging matters in camp, I observed about nightfall a fire down the river, and, strolling down to the place, came upon a little camp of Spokane Indians, and found them engaged in religious services, which I was glad of an opportunity to witness. There were three or four men, the same number of women, and half a dozen children. Their exercises were, 1, address; 2, Lord's prayer; 3, Psalms; 4, benediction, and were conducted with great solemnity. In the evening Garry visited us with some of his tribe. They gave rumors of a large party having arrived opposite Colville, also of a small party having gone from Walla Walla to Colville. Garry was educated by the Hudson Bay Company at Red River, where he lived four years with six other Indians from this vicinity, all of whom are now dead. He speaks English and French well, and we have had a long conversation this evening; but he is not frank, and I do not understand him. He has an extensive field, where he raises a large quantity of wheat. To-morrow he is going to Colville to get some of it ground. Garry promises to send me to-morrow the Indian who has just arrived from the Yakima country, and who is posted up concerning the news of that place. October 18. A Spokane breakfasted with us this morning, and we started at 8.30 o'clock. After riding till ten o'clock we were joined by the old Indian referred to yesterday, and Antoine's services were immediately put into requisition to obtain information. At twelve o'clock we lunched. The old man stated that a large party reached the bank of the river opposite Colville yesterday, and that they would cross to-day. I was satisfied from his accounts that the party was McClellan's, and accordingly determined on going to Colville to-night. Antoine has horses half way. We rested until two o'clock and then set out, Antoine and myself pushing ahead of the train. We met Antoine's family encamped on a fine prairie, with whom Antoine remained, sending his brother-in-law with us as a guide. At 4.15 we reached the ferry, where we were detained fifteen minutes. At 4.45 we met Jack (Lieutenant Macfeely's guide), who informed me that Macfeely reached Walla Walla three weeks ago, being twenty-two days coming from St. Mary's. He lost twenty animals, and was detained two days in an unsuccessful search for a man who had strayed from the trail. The road was bad, and they got off the trail, having struck too high up. Jack told us it was twenty-eight miles to Colville, and that we could not reach there to-night, but, being determined to do so, we pushed on and reached Brown's at 5.45, who informed us that the distance to Colville was eighteen miles. After partaking of some bread and milk, we resumed the road with the same animals, dashing off at full speed, going eight or nine miles an hour most of the way, and reached Colville at nine o'clock. Mr. McDonald, the trader in charge, gave me a most hospitable reception, and addressed a note to McClellan, who had just gone to his camp near by, informing him of my arrival. McClellan came up immediately, and, though I was fairly worn out with the severeness of the ride, we sat up till one o'clock. At eleven we sat down to a nice supper, prepared by Mrs. McDonald, and regaled ourselves with steaks cooked in buffalo fat, giving them the flavor of buffalo meat. I retired exhausted with the fatigues of the day. CAPTAIN MCCLELLAN'S EXPLORATIONS. It took Captain McClellan a month to fit out his train after he reached Vancouver, on the lower Columbia, so that he did not start on his survey until the last of July. Crossing the Cascade Range by a pass south of Mount Adams, he proceeded northward over the plains on the eastern side of the range to the Yakima valley, moving one hundred and eighty miles in thirty days, and remained there a month longer, during which Mr. Gibbs examined the lower and Lieutenant Duncan the upper valley. Captain McClellan himself, leaving his party in camp, made a hasty examination of the Snoqualmie Pass, at the head of the main Yakima. Then he crossed over a dividing ridge to the Columbia River, and continued up its right or western bank to the Okinakane (Okanogan) River, a distance of ninety miles, spent several days in exploring that and neighboring streams, then ascended the Okinakane (Okanogan) River some fifty miles to Lake Osoyoos, and moved eastward from this point eighty-two miles to the Columbia, opposite Colville, and crossed on the 18th, the very day of Governor Stevens's arrival at the same point. McClellan, as appears from his report, took a decidedly unfavorable view of the country, and of a railroad route across the Cascades. He declared in substance that the Columbia River Pass was the only one worth considering, that there was no pass whatever north of it except the Snoqualmie Pass, and gave it as his firm and settled opinion that the snow in winter was from twenty to twenty-five feet deep in that pass. His examination of the pass was a very hasty and cursory one, with no other instruments than a compass and a barometer, and extended only three miles across the summit. His only information as to the depth of winter snow was the reports of Indians, and the marks of snow on the trees, or what he took to be such. Thus the most important point, the real problem of the field of exploration intrusted to him, namely, the existence and character of the Cascade passes, he failed to determine. He failed utterly to respond to Governor Stevens's earnest and manly exhortation, "We must not be frightened with long tunnels, or enormous snows, but set ourselves to work to overcome them." He manifested the same dilatoriness in preparation and moving, the same timidity in action, the same magnifying of difficulties, that later marked and ruined his career as an army commander. Two railroads now cross the range which he examined,--the Northern Pacific, by a pass just south of the Snoqualmie and north of the Nahchess, the very place of which McClellan reported that "there certainly is none between this (the Snoqualmie) and the Nahchess Pass;" and the Great Northern, by a pass at the head of the Wenachee or Pisquouse River, of which stream he declared, "It appears certain that there can be no pass at its head for a road." The snows he so much exaggerated have proved no obstacle, and in fact have actually caused less trouble and obstruction in these passes than in the Columbia Pass itself.[6] FOOTNOTES: [4] The town of Missoula is seated at the entrance to Hell Gate. The Bitter Root River is now known as the Missoula, the name Bitter Root being transferred to a branch of Clark's Fork. The Bitter Root or St. Mary valley is likewise now known as the Missoula valley. [5] Fort Owen occupied the site of the Flathead village and Catholic mission of St. Mary, which had been recently abandoned in consequence of the incessant forays of the Blackfeet. [6] One of the lines of the Northern Pacific Railroad now crosses the C[oe]ur d'Alene Pass on Governor Stevens's route, to the vicinity of the Mission, running thence south of the C[oe]ur d'Alene Lake to Spokane. CHAPTER XXI UPPER COLUMBIA TO PUGET SOUND Upon learning the results of McClellan's explorations, Governor Stevens proposed to send him up the Yakima again to carry the survey clear across the Cascades to Puget Sound, and at first that officer seemed willing to undertake the duty. After spending two days at Colville the governor, accompanied by McClellan and his party, moved south in three marches to a camp six miles south of the Spokane River, named Camp Washington, where on October 28 arrived Lieutenant Donelson with the main party. During these days there was a fall of snow covering the ground, which, however, soon melted and disappeared. But it was enough to dismay McClellan. He now demurred to crossing the Cascades, claiming it to be impracticable so late in the fall. It was indeed late; snow had already fallen on the plains, and presumably would be deeper in the mountains; and the Cascades were McClellan's own particular field, of which he ought to be the best judge. The governor therefore reluctantly, and rather against his better judgment, relinquished the plan of crossing the Snoqualmie Pass that fall, and gave orders for both parties to move by way of Walla Walla and the Dalles to Vancouver, and thence to Olympia, at the head of Puget Sound. "Had I possessed at Camp Washington," says the governor, "information which I gained in six days afterwards at Walla Walla, I should have pushed the party over the Cascades in the present condition of the animals; but Captain McClellan was entitled to weight in his judgment of the route, it being upon the special field of his examination." The incidents of the march to Camp Washington are thus narrated:-- During our stay at Colville, we visited McDonald's camp. Near it there is a mission, under the charge of Père Lewis, whom we visited. The Indians about the mission are well disposed and religious. As we returned to the fort, Mr. Stanley was just going into camp, having made a march of thirty-five miles. In the evening we listened to the thrilling stories and exciting legends of McDonald, with which his memory seems to be well stored. He says intelligence had reached him through the Blackfeet of the coming of my party; that the Blackfeet gave most singular accounts of everything connected with us. For instance, they said that our horses had claws like the grizzly bear; they climbed up the steep rocks and held on by their claws; that their necks were like the new moon; and that their neighing was like the sound of distant thunder. McDonald has, of course, given a free translation of the reports made by Indians. We listened to his accounts of his own thrilling adventures of his mountain life, and a description of an encounter with a party of Blackfeet is well worth relating. At the head of a party of three or four men he was met by a band of these Indians, who showed evidences of hostility. By signs he requested the chief of the Blackfeet to advance and meet him, both being unarmed. When the chief assented, and met him half way between the two parties, McDonald caught him by the hair of the head, and, holding him firmly, exacted from the remaining Indians promises to give up their arms, which they accordingly did, and passed on peaceably. He has lived here many years, and is an upright, intelligent, manly, and energetic man. October 21. We moved off. McDonald presented us with a keg filled with cognac to cheer the hearts of the members of all the parties, and obliged us also to take a supply of port wine. We passed his gristmill on Mill River, the only one in the neighborhood. A march of twelve miles brought us into camp, McDonald accompanying us. We had a glorious supper of smoking steaks and hot cakes, and the stories added to the relish with which it was eaten. McDonald again charmed us with a recital of his thrilling adventures. October 22. We got off early, and at Brown's we stopped to purchase horses, and succeeded in obtaining two, one for McClellan and the other for myself. McDonald accompanied me some distance farther, when, bidding each other adieu, I pushed ahead, and, reaching a small stream, I found that McClellan's party had taken the left bank, and that the captain had gone on to join them. We took the right, and thus avoided a bad crossing in which McClellan's party became involved. We encamped upon the borders of the stream. Our train is larger and more heavily laden than heretofore, in consequence of the increased supplies. To-day we have thirteen packs. At night we killed a cow purchased of Brown, and we still have an ox in reserve, to be killed when we meet Donelson. The air is cool and fresh, and our appetites keen. I may say here that two pounds of beef and half a pound of flour per man are not too much for a day's allowance. October 23. Snow is falling this morning, and it has cleaned our beef admirably. We journeyed but ten miles, encamping near where we had seen Antoine's family in going to Colville. The snow ceased falling about noon, with five inches upon the ground. It is light, and we think it will disappear in a few days. The Indians inform me that we shall not probably find it south of the C[oe]ur d'Alene, and from their statements it would seem that this river is a dividing line as regards climate. October 24. We started this morning with the intention of reaching the appointed place of meeting to-night. McClellan, Minter, Osgood, Stanley, and myself pushed ahead, and at noon we reached the old Chemakane Mission, so called from a spring of that name near by. The mission was occupied by Messrs. Walker and Eells, but in 1849, in consequence of the Cuyuse difficulties, it was abandoned. These gentlemen labored ardently for the good of the Indians. Walker was a good farmer and taught them agriculture, and by them his name is now mentioned with great respect. The house occupied by Walker is still standing, but Eells's has been burned down. The site of the mission is five miles from the Spokane River, in an extensive open valley, well watered and very rich. Here we met Garry and two hundred Spokanes. Garry has forwarded the letter to Donelson, but has received no intelligence of his arrival in the C[oe]ur d'Alene plain. We therefore concluded to encamp here, and to-morrow McClellan and myself are to accompany Garry to the Spokane House. The Colville or Slawntebus and Chemakane valleys have a productive soil, and are from one to three miles wide, and bordered by low hills, covered with larch, pine, and spruce, and having also a productive soil. In the evening the Indians clustered around our fire, and manifested much pleasure in our treatment of them. I have now seen a great deal of Garry, and am much pleased with him. Beneath a quiet exterior he shows himself to be a man of judgment, forecast, and great reliability, and I could see in my interview with his band the ascendency he possesses over them. In the Colville valley there is a line of settlements twenty-eight miles long. The settlers are persons formerly connected with the Hudson Bay Company, and they are anxious to become naturalized, and have the lands they now occupy transferred to themselves. I informed them that I could only express my hopes that their case would be met by the passage of a special act. They are extensive farmers, and raise a great deal of wheat. October 25. Having left the necessary directions for moving camp to the place of meeting with Donelson, Captain McClellan and myself accompanied Garry to the Spokane House. The road was slippery in consequence of the melting of the snow, and we were obliged frequently to dismount. We found Garry's family in a comfortable lodge, and he informed us that he always had on hand flour, sugar, and coffee, with which to make his friends comfortable. We then went to our new camp south of the Spokane, which had been established whilst we were visiting Garry's place. From the Chemakane Mission the train left the river, and, passing through a rolling country covered with open pine woods, in five miles reached the Spokane, and crossing it by a good and winding ford, ascended the plain, and in six miles, the first two of which was through open pine, reached Camp Washington. October 26, 27, 28, and 29. During these days I was occupied at our camp (Camp Washington) in making the arrangements for moving westward. Lieutenant Donelson arrived on the 28th, and we all sat down to a fine supper prepared for the occasion. All the members of the exploration were in fine spirits; our table was spread under a canopy, and upon it a great variety of dishes appeared, roasted beef, bouillon, steaks, and abundance of hot bread, coffee, sugar, and our friend McDonald's good cheer. But the best dish was a beef's head cooked by friend Minter in Texas fashion. It was placed in a hole in the ground on a layer of hot coals, with moss and leaves around it to protect it from the dirt, and then covered up. There it remained for some five or six hours, when, removing it, the skin came off without difficulty, and it presented a very tempting dish, and was enjoyed by every member of the party. Having given the necessary instructions to McClellan and Donelson to proceed with their parties to the Walla Walla, thence to the Dalles, Vancouver, and Olympia, making careful survey of the country on the route, the governor, with his small party, pushed on ahead, having Garry and his brother as guides. Starting late in the afternoon of the 29th, they journeyed thirteen miles over undulating hills and a high table-land, and encamped upon a small stream called Se-cule-eel-qua, with fine grass and fertile soil. October 30. We commenced to move at sunrise, and at three P.M. encamped on a small lake twenty-two miles from our place of departure in the morning. In view of this camp were the graves of a number of Spokane Indians, indicated by mounds of stones, designed to protect the bodies from the wolves, and by poles supported in an upright position by the stones. It was the usage until within a few years past, for the Spokanes and other northern tribes towards the Pacific to slay the horses and cattle of the deceased at his grave, and also to sacrifice his other property, but they are gradually relinquishing this pernicious practice, under the influence of the counsels and example of the white man. October 31. We continued to follow the general course of the stream upon whose banks we were encamped, and after riding eight miles we crossed another small stream, rising in a chain of small lakes south of our last camp. These lakes abound in wild fowl, which at this season are very plentiful, and they are therefore much resorted to by the Spokanes and other Indians. We saw in one of these lakes, surrounded by ducks and geese, a pair of white swans, which remained to challenge our admiration after their companions had been frightened away by our approach. Garry assures us that there is a remarkable lake called En-chush-chesh-she-luxum, or Never Freezing Water, about thirty miles to the east of this place. It is much larger than any of the lakes just mentioned, and so completely surrounded by high and precipitous rocks that it is impossible to descend to the water. It is said never to freeze, even in the most severe winter. The Indians believe that it is inhabited by buffalo, elk, deer, and all other kinds of game, which, they say, may be seen in the clear, transparent element. He also narrates the story of a superstition respecting a point of painted rock in Pend Oreille Lake, situated near the place now occupied by Michal Ogden. The Indians, he says, do not venture to pass this point, fearing that the Great Spirit may, as related in the legends, create a commotion in the water and cause them to be swallowed up in the waves. The painted rocks are very high, and bear effigies of men and beasts and other characters, made, as the Indians believe, by a race of men who preceded them as inhabitants of the land. Our route to-day has been through a rocky and broken country, and after a march of thirty-two miles we encamped on a small stream called En-cha-rae-nae, flowing from the lake where we last halted, near a number of natural mounds. November 1. Our course lay down the valley of the En-cha-rae-nae, a rugged way, beset with deep clefts in the volcanic rocks. We crossed the Pelouse River near the mouth of the former, and near the stream flowing from the never freezing lake, and twelve miles from the mouth of the Pelouse. Four miles from our place of crossing the Pelouse runs through a deep cañon, surrounded by isolated volcanic buttes, to its junction with Snake River. At two P.M. we arrived at the mouth of the Pelouse, and, crossing Snake River, we encamped on its southern bank, several Pelouse Indians accompanying us, and among them a chief from a band but a few miles distant from our camp, Wi-ti-my-hoy-she. He exhibited a medal of Thomas Jefferson, dated 1801, given to his grandfather, as he alleges, by Lewis and Clark. November 2. I have referred in an early stage of this narrative to the condition of my health, and will state that not a day was I on the road from Fort Benton to this point that I did not suffer much. The day I made my long ride to Colville, I was so feeble and exhausted that, on making my noon halt after moving fifteen miles, I was obliged to have my bed spread in order to rest; but the idea of meeting gentlemen so soon, from whom I had been so long separated, enabled me to bear the fatigue of my afternoon fifty miles' ride to Colville. Although in great suffering, I determined to move with Garry from Snake River to Fort Walla Walla to-day, leaving Mr. Stanley to come on with my party and train in two days. I desired to save a day in order to collect information at Walla Walla, and to visit the Walla Walla valley. Accordingly we set off. It required me three hours to get my courage up to the sticking-point, so that I could bear the pain growing out of traveling at a gait faster than a walk; but, getting warm in the saddle, we increased our speed, and on reaching the Touchet we dismounted for a slight halt. Pushing on a little before two o'clock, we reached Fort Walla Walla at sundown, moving the last twenty-five miles at the rate of about eight miles an hour, and were there hospitably received by Mr. Pembrum, the factor in charge, and after a little conversation I refreshed myself with reading some late papers. On the road my time was much occupied with studying the deportment of the mountain ranges in view, and all the peculiarities of the country about me, to judge something of its winter climate and the probable fall of snow; and on reaching Walla Walla I became satisfied from these things, and especially from a view of the highest spur of the Blue Mountains in sight, that the snows of the Cascades could not be so formidable as they had been represented. I accordingly determined to search thoroughly into this matter at Walla Walla. November 3-8. I remained in the Walla Walla country during these days, spending two days up the valley and the remainder at the fort. Mr. Stanley, with the train, reached the fort on the 3d, and, November 4, we started upon the trip through the valley, riding upon our horses. Arriving at the Hudson Bay farm, we exchanged them for fresh ones. This farm is eighteen miles from Walla Walla, and is a fine tract of land, well adapted to grazing or cultivation. It is naturally bounded by streams, and is equivalent to a mile square. There is the richest grass here that we have seen since leaving St. Mary's. From this we went to McBane's house, a retired factor of the company, from whence we had a fine view of the southern portion of the valley, which is watered by many tributaries from the Blue Mountains. Thirty miles from Walla Walla, and near McBane's, lives Father Chirouse, a missionary of the Catholic order, who with two laymen exercises his influence among the surrounding tribes. November 5. We remained with Mr. McBane overnight, and returned to the fort to-day by way of the Whitman Mission, now occupied by Bumford and Brooke. They were harvesting, and I saw as fine potatoes as ever I beheld, many weighing two pounds, and one five and a half. Their carrots and beets, too, were of extraordinary size. Mr. Whitman must have done a great deal of good for the Indians. His mission was situated upon a fine tract of land, and he had erected a saw and grist mill. From Bumford's to the mouth of the Touchet are many farms, mostly occupied by the retired employees of the Hudson Bay Company. On our return we met Pu-pu-mox-mox, the Walla Walla chief, known and respected far and wide. He possesses not so much intelligence and energy as Garry, but he has some gifts of which the latter is deprived. He is of dignified manner, and well qualified to manage men. He owns over two thousand horses, besides many cattle, and has a farm near that of the Hudson Bay Company. On the occurrence of the Cuyuse war, he was invited to join them, but steadily refused. After their destruction of the mission, he was asked to share the spoils, and again refused. They then taunted him with being afraid of the whites, to which he replied: "I am not afraid of the whites, nor am I afraid of the Cuyuses. I defy your whole band. I will plant my three lodges on the border of my own territory at the mouth of the Touchet, and there I will meet you if you dare to attack me." He accordingly moved his lodges to this point, and remained there three or four weeks. Stanley was on his way from Walker and Eells's Mission to Whitman's Mission, and indeed was actually within three miles of the latter, when he heard of the terrible tragedy which had been enacted there, and the information was brought to him by an Indian of Pu-pu-mox-mox's band. Pu-pu-mox-mox has saved up a large amount of money (probably as much as $5000); still he is generous, and frequently gives an ox and other articles of value to the neighbors. Some of his people having made a contract to ferry the emigrants across the river, who crossed the Cascades this year, and then having refused to execute it, he compelled them to carry it out faithfully, and, mounting his horse, he thrashed them until they complied. He has the air of a substantial farmer. On the 6th Lieutenant Donelson and on the 7th Captain McClellan reached old Fort Walla Walla with the main parties. Governor Stevens was now satisfied, both from his own observations and from information furnished by Pembrum, Pu-pu-mox-mox, and others, among them a voyageur who had actually crossed the Cascades in the month of December, that it was not yet too late to send a party across these mountains. Accordingly he directed Mr. Lander to proceed up the Yakima and over the Nahchess Pass in order to run the line to the Sound. The governor had a remarkable faculty for getting information from people of every kind and condition, Hudson Bay Company men, settlers, voyageurs, and Indians, and always took great pains to learn all they could impart, while his keen and sound judgment enabled him to distinguish the chaff from the wheat in their reports. Having provided fresh animals for Mr. Lander, given him his written instructions, and in conversation urged upon him the entire feasibility of the survey intrusted to him, the governor, with Mr. Stanley, on November 8 started down the Columbia in a canoe managed by voyageurs, and reached the Dalles on the 12th. Says the governor:-- "We took with us two days' provisions, and were four days in reaching the Dalles, having been detained nearly two days in camp by a high wind which blew up the river, but we eked out our scanty stores by the salmon generously furnished us by the Indian bands near us. At the principal rapids I got out and observed the movements of the canoe through them, and, from the best examination which I was able to make, I became at once convinced that the river was probably navigable for steamers. I remained at the Dalles on the 13th to make arrangements for the moving forward of the parties and for herding the animals, looking to a resumption of the survey, where I was the guest of Major Rains, and had a most pleasant time, meeting old acquaintances and making new ones with the gentlemen of the post. On the 14th I reached the Cascades, where I passed the night. Here I met several gentlemen--men who had crossed the plains, and who had made farms in several States and in Oregon or Washington--who had carefully examined the Yakima country for new locations, and who impressed me with the importance of it as an agricultural and grazing country. November 15 we went down the river in a canoe, and on the 16th reached Vancouver, where I remained the 17th, 18th, and 19th as the guest of Colonel Bonneville, and where I also became acquainted with the officers of the Hudson Bay Company. "Leaving Vancouver on the 20th, I reached Olympia on the 25th, where for the first time I saw the waters of Puget Sound. No special incident worthy of remark occurred on the journey, except that I was four days going up the Cowlitz in drenching rains, and two nights had the pleasure of camping out. I will now advise voyageurs in the interior, when they get suddenly into the rains west of the Cascades, to take off their buckskin underclothing. I neglected to do this, and among the many agreeabilities of this trip up the Cowlitz was to have the underclothing of buckskin wet entirely through. I was enabled to examine the country pretty carefully all the way to Olympia, and had with me a very intelligent man, who could point out localities and inform me about the country not in view of the road; and I saw that not only was it entirely practicable for a railroad line to the Sound, but that the work was light, and the material for construction of all kinds entirely inexhaustible. "After considerable delays at Vancouver, the gentlemen of the parties under Captain McClellan and Lieutenant Donelson arrived at Olympia for office duty, being preceded a few days by Mr. Lander, who for reasons not conclusive to my mind did not persevere in the examination of the Nahchess Pass. One of his reasons for not continuing his examination was that it was not on the railroad line, which did not apply, because that fact was well known to him previously, having been announced to him positively in my written instructions. I did not censure Mr. Lander for not continuing on this duty, as I know the perplexity of mind in which one is placed by the contradictory character of the information gained; but I resolved to get my line to the Sound, and accordingly dispatched an express to the Walla Walla, directing Mr. Tinkham on his arrival at that point to cross to Puget Sound by the Snoqualmie Pass, my object being twofold,--to get at some facts which would decisively settle the question of the depth of snow, in regard to which Captain McClellan and myself differed, as well as really to connect our work with the Sound itself." Thus Lander purposely balked the task intrusted to him, and threw away another fine opportunity of achieving credit for himself. Upon McClellan's arrival at Olympia, Governor Stevens directed him to take up from the Sound the reconnoissance for a railroad line to the Snoqualmie Pass, connecting with his examination on the eastern side, which had extended three miles across the summit. But again McClellan failed to accomplish the task, deterred as usual by the reports of Indians, and magnified difficulties. Leaving Olympia December 23, with Mr Minter, civil engineer, and four men, he spent five days at Steilacoom in a vain attempt to procure horses and guides for the Snoqualmie Falls, intending to proceed thence on snowshoes. Then he went by canoe down the Sound and up the Snohomish River to the falls, and pushed forward on foot four miles to the prairie just above the falls. "I found," he reports, "the prairie to be about as represented,--in places bare, but in others with three or four inches of snow. Leaving my companions at the Indian bivouac to make the best preparations they could for passing the night (for we had neither tent, blanket, nor overcoat), I went forward on the trail with two Indians. "As soon as we left the prairie the ground became entirely covered with snow; it soon became a foot deep in the shallowest spots, and was constantly increasing. All signs of a trail were obliterated,--the underbrush very thick and loaded with snow,--the snow unfit for snowshoes, according to the Indians. I now turned back to our bivouac, and there awaited the arrival of an Indian who was out hunting, and who was said to possess much information about the country. He soon arrived, and proved to be a very intelligent Yakima, whom I had seen on the other side of the mountains in the summer. He had been hunting in the direction I wished to go, and stated that the snow soon increased to 'waist-deep' long before reaching the Nooksai-Nooksai, and that it was positively impracticable to use snowshoes. He also said that the Indians did not pretend to cross over the mountains at this season, but waited till about the end of March, and then took their horses over. "Next morning, after again questioning the Indian, I reluctantly determined to return, being forced to the conclusion that, if the attempt to reach the pass was not wholly impracticable, it was at least inexpedient under all the circumstances in which I was placed."[7] Could any man but McClellan have seriously asserted that "it was positively impracticable to use snowshoes" on snow, and that, too, on the authority of Indians, who were notoriously unreliable, and who, in their jealousy of white exploration, habitually exaggerated the difficulties of the country? This seems the very acme of imaginary obstacles. It was January 10 that McClellan turned back. Had he manfully taken to his snowshoes, he could have reached the summit in three or four days, and connected with his reconnoissance on the eastern side, and this was soon demonstrated to his deep disgust. Far different was the action and spirit of Tinkham. He had just arrived at Walla Walla from a remarkable and arduous trip, during which he crossed the Rocky Mountains by the Marias Pass, proceeded to Fort Benton, recrossed the mountains by a more southern pass to the Bitter Root valley, and thence crossed the Bitter Root Range on snowshoes by the rugged southern Nez Perces trail, when he received Governor Stevens's instructions to push to the Sound by way of the Snoqualmie Pass. Starting from Walla Walla on January 7 with two Indians, he proceeded up the Yakima to its head on horseback, and there leaving his animals, he crossed the mountains on snowshoes, and reached Seattle on January 26, seven days after leaving the eastern base of the divide, and twenty days from Walla Walla. He carefully measured the depth of snow and reported:-- "From Lake Kitchelus to the summit, some five miles, and where occurs the deepest snow, the average measurement was about six feet, but frequently running as high as seven feet. Passing on to the west side of the Cascades, the snow rapidly disappears; fourteen miles from the summit there was but eight inches of snow, and thence it gradually faded away as approach was made to the shores of the Sound: for only a few miles was the snow six feet deep; the whole breadth over twelve inches deep was somewhat less than sixty miles in extent." Thus Tinkham actually crossed the range and reached the Sound, making the very trip that McClellan pronounced "impracticable" and would not even try, only ten days after the latter's failure. But McClellan's pride was hurt by this incident. He took Governor Stevens's opinion as to the snow question, and his action in sending Tinkham across the pass, in high dudgeon as a reflection on himself, and, regardless of the true friendship shown him and benefits conferred upon him by the governor, treated him with marked coldness. In his usual generous and magnanimous way, Governor Stevens took no notice of this changed attitude of McClellan, but gave him all possible credit in his reports. Some years afterwards, when Governor Stevens was in Congress, their mutual friend, Captain J.G. Foster, came to him, and said that McClellan wished to meet him again and renew their old friendship. Accordingly they met at Willard's, and McClellan appeared as cordial and agreeable as of old. Captain McClellan had been instructed, after completing his reconnoissance of the Snoqualmie Pass, to examine the harbors on the eastern shore of the Sound as far as Bellingham Bay. But he gave up this duty also, after proceeding a single day's trip in canoes about twenty miles north of the mouth of the Snohomish River to the northern extremity of McDonough or Camano Island, where he encamped for the night, alleging as usual the inclemency of the weather: "During that night six inches of snow fell and a violent gale arose, so that on the next day we were unable to proceed. On the next day (14th), the wind still continuing dead ahead and very violent, I turned back," etc. Yet at this very time Governor Stevens was making a complete tour of the Sound in a small open sailboat, regardless of wind and weather. McClellan also failed to do anything towards opening the military road across the Cascades between Steilacoom and Fort Walla Walla; and Lieutenant Richard Arnold, under the governor's general supervision, relieved him of the charge of the road, and completed it in 1854. It will be remembered how Governor Stevens had placed this road in McClellan's hands, had furnished him with information and correspondence relating to it, and had advised him to consult with the prominent settlers in regard to the best location of it. Of these people the governor remarks in his report:-- "They have crossed the mountains, and made the long distance from the valley of the Mississippi to their homes on the Pacific; they have done so frequently, having to cut out roads as they went, and knowing little of the difficulties before them. They are therefore men of observation, of experience, of enterprise, and men who at home had by industry and frugality secured a competency and the respect of their neighbors; for it must be known that our emigrants travel in parties, and those go together who were acquaintances at home, because they mutually confide in each other. I was struck with the high qualities of the frontier people, and soon learned how to confide in them and gather information from them." Contrast with this McClellan's assertions in his letter to Secretary of War Davis, of September 18, 1853:-- "But the result of my short experience in this country has been that not the slightest faith or confidence is to be placed in information derived from the employees of the Hudson Bay Company, or from the inhabitants of the Territory; in every instance, when I have acted upon information thus obtained, I have been altogether deceived and misled." But he was ready enough to adopt the reports of Indians in support of obstacles which existed chiefly in his own imagination. FOOTNOTES: [7] Pacific R.R. Reports, vol. i. pp. 622-624. CHAPTER XXII ORGANIZING CIVIL GOVERNMENT.--THE INDIAN SERVICE It was indeed a wild country, untouched by civilization, and a scanty white population sparsely sprinkled over the immense area that were awaiting the arrival of Governor Stevens to organize civil government, and shape the destinies of the future. A mere handful of settlers, 3965 all told, were widely scattered over western Washington, between the lower Columbia and the Strait of Fuca. A small hamlet clustered around the military post at Vancouver. A few settlers were spread wide apart along the Columbia, among whom were Columbia Lancaster on Lewis River; Seth Catlin, Dr. Nathaniel Ostrander, and the Huntingtons about the mouth of the Cowlitz; Alexander S. Abernethy at Oak Point; and Judge William Strong at Cathlamet. Some oystermen in Shoalwater Bay were taking shellfish for the San Francisco market. At Cowlitz Landing, thirty miles up that river, were extensive prairies, where farms had been cultivated by the Hudson Bay Company, under the name of the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, for fifteen years; and here were a few Americans and a number of Scotch and Canadians, former employees of that company, and now looking forward to becoming American citizens, and settling down upon their own "claims" under the Donation Act, which gave 320 acres to every settler, and as much more to his wife. A score of hardy pioneers had settled upon the scattered prairies between the Cowlitz Farms and the Sound; among them were John R. Jackson, typical English yeoman, on his prairie, ten miles from the Cowlitz; S.S. Saunders, on Saunders's Bottom, where now stands the town of Chehalis; George Washington, a colored man, on the next prairie, the site of Centralia; Judge Sidney S. Ford on his prairie on the Chehalis River, below the mouth of the Skookumchuck Creek; W.B. Goodell, B.L. Henness, and Stephen Hodgdon on Grand Mound Prairie; A.B. Rabbeson and W.W. Plumb on Mound Prairie. A number of settlers had taken up the prairies about Olympia, the principal of whom were W.O. Bush, Gabriel Jones, William Rutledge, and David Kendrick on Bush Prairie; J.N. Low, Andrew J. Chambers, Nathan Eaton, Stephen D. Ruddell, and Urban E. Hicks on Chambers's Prairie; David J. Chambers on the prairie of his name. James McAlister and William Packwood were on the Nisqually Bottom, at the mouth of the river, just north of which, on the verge of the Nisqually plains, was situated the Hudson Bay Company post, Fort Nisqually, a parallelogram of log buildings and stockade, under charge of Dr. W.F. Tolmie, a warm-hearted and true Scot. Great herds of Spanish cattle, the property of this company, roamed over the Nisqually plains, little cared for and more than half wild, and, it is to be feared, occasionally fell prey to the rifles of the hungry American emigrants. Two miles below Olympia, on the east side of the bay, was located a Catholic mission under Fathers Ricard and Blanchet, where were a large building, an orchard, and a garden. They had made a number of converts among the Indians. Towns, each as yet little more than a "claim" and a name, but each in the hope and firm belief of its founders destined to future greatness, were just started at Steilacoom, by Lafayette Balch; at Seattle, by Dr. D. S. Maynard, H.L. Yesler, and the Dennys; at Port Townsend, by F.W. Pettygrove and L.B. Hastings; and at Bellingham Bay, by Henry Roder and Edward Eldridge. Save the muddy track from the Cowlitz to Olympia and thence to Steilacoom, and a few local trails, roads there were none. Communication was chiefly by water, almost wholly in canoes manned by Indians. The monthly steamer from San Francisco and a little river steamboat plying daily between Vancouver and Portland alone vexed with their keels the mighty Columbia; while it was not until the next year that reckless, harum-scarum Captain Jack Scranton ran the Major Tompkins, a small black steamer, once a week around the Sound, and had no rival. Here was this great wooded country without roads, the unrivaled waterways without steamers, the adventurous, vigorous white population without laws, numerous tribes of Indians without treaties, and the Hudson Bay Company's rights and possessions without settlement. To add to the difficulties and confusion of the situation, Congress, by the Donation Acts, held out a standing invitation to the American settlers to seize and settle upon any land, surveyed or unsurveyed, without waiting to extinguish the Indian title, or define the lands guaranteed by solemn treaty to the foreign company, and already the Indians and the Hudson Bay Company were growing daily more and more restless and indignant at the encroachments of the pushing settlers upon their choicest spots. Truly a situation fraught with difficulties and dangers, where everything was to be done and nothing yet begun. It is a great but common mistake to suppose that the early American settlers of Washington were a set of lawless, rough, and ignorant borderers. In fact they compare favorably with the early settlers of any of the States. As a rule they were men of more than average force of character, vigorous, honest, intelligent, law-abiding, and patriotic,--men who had brought their families to carve out homes in the wilderness, and many of them men of education and of standing in their former abodes. Among them could be found the best blood of New England, the sturdy and kindly yeomanry of Virginia and Kentucky, and men from all the States of the Middle West from Ohio to Arkansas. Most of them had slowly wended their way across the great plains, overcoming every obstacle, and suffering untold privations; others had come by sea around Cape Horn, or across the Isthmus. They were all true Americans, patriotic and brave, and filled with sanguine hopes of, and firm faith in, the future growth and greatness of the new country which they had come to make blossom like the rose. Governor Stevens, as has been shown, at once appreciated the character of these people. After the arduous and exposed journey up the Cowlitz by canoe,--where the Indian crew had to gain foot by foot against the furious current of the flooded river, oftentimes pulling the frail craft along by the overhanging bushes,--and over the muddy trail by horseback, Governor Stevens reached Olympia on November 25, 1853, just five months and nineteen days since starting from St. Paul. He found here awaiting his arrival the new territorial secretary, Charles M. Mason, brother to his old friend Colonel James Mason, of the engineers, who had just come out by the Isthmus route. Mason was of distinguished appearance and bearing, with fine dark eyes and hair, fair, frank face, and charming but unobtrusive manner. He was highly educated, gifted with unusual ability, and a noble and amiable disposition, and was beloved by all who knew him. The other territorial officers on the ground were: Edward Lander, chief justice, and Victor Monroe, associate justice; J.V. Clendenin, district attorney; J. Patten Anderson, marshal; and Simpson P. Moses, collector of customs. [Illustration: CHARLES H. MASON _Secretary of Washington Territory_] Among the settlers welcoming their new governor were: Edmund Sylvester, the founder of Olympia; Colonel William Cock, Shirley Ensign, D.R. Bigelow, George A. Barnes, H.A. Goldsborough, John M. Swan, C.H. Hale, Judge B.F. Yantis, Judge Gilmore Hayes, John G. Parker, Quincy A. Brooks, Dr. G.K. Willard, Colonel M. T. Simmons, Captain Clanrick Crosby, Ira Ward, James Biles, Joseph Cushman, S.W. Percival, Edwin Marsh, R.M. Walker, Levi and James Offut, J.C. Head, W. Dobbins, Isaac Hawk, Rev. G.F. Whitworth, Jared S. Hurd, H.R. Woodward, B.F. Brown, and M. Hurd. The arrival of the governor and his party was the great event for the little town, as well as for the new Territory generally, and warm and hearty was his greeting by the pioneers. And when shortly afterwards, December 19, the governor delivered a lecture, giving a description of his exploration and an exposition of the Northern route, their hopes and expectations were raised to the highest point, and they already saw in the mind's eye the iron horse speeding across the plains and through the mighty forests, and the full-flowing tide of immigration following its advent. Without delay the governor issued his proclamation, as empowered by the organic act marking out and establishing election districts, appointing time (January 30) and places for holding the elections, for a delegate in Congress and members of the legislature, and summoning that body to meet in Olympia on the 28th of February. The Indian service next engaged his attention. He appointed Colonel M.T. Simmons Indian agent for the Puget Sound Indians, with B.F. Shaw and O. Cushman as interpreters and assistants, and sent them to visit the different tribes and bands, to assure them of the protection and guidance of the Great Father in Washington, to urge them to cultivate the soil and "follow the white man's road," that is, to adopt the habits of civilized life; and to impress upon them the necessity of making treaties, in order to prevent future trouble and secure them peace and safety. He also appointed A.J. Bolon agent for the Indians east of the Cascades, and William H. Tappan agent for the coast and river Indians on the Chehalis and Columbia rivers, Gray's Harbor, and Shoalwater Bay. Governor Stevens deeply commiserated the condition and probable future of the Indians under his charge, and felt the greatest interest and concern in their welfare and improvement. How wise, generous, and beneficent a policy he established in his treaties, with what great kindness, justice, and firmness he uniformly treated them, will be shown later in this work. It is enough to say now that the Indians came to know him as their friend and protector, and to this day hold his memory in reverence; that the treaties he made and the policy he inaugurated have remained in force to the present time, and that under them the Indians of Washington have more fully preserved their rights and improved their condition than the aborigines of any other State. Having thus started the civil government and Indian service, and set the young men of the exploration hard at work preparing the reports, and, as already related, dispatched McClellan to run the line from the Sound to the Snoqualmie Pass, the governor took the Sarah Stone, a small sailboat, or "plunger," and, accompanied by Mr. George Gibbs, went down the Sound in person, in order, as he states, "to visit and take a census of the Indian tribes, learn something of the general character of the Sound and its harbors, and to visit Vancouver Island and its principal port, Victoria. "In this trip I visited Steilacoom, Seattle, Skagit Head, Penn's Cove, the mouths of the Skagit and Samish rivers, Bellingham Bay, passed up the channel De Rosario and down the channel De Haro to Victoria, and on my return made Port Townsend and several other points on the western shore of the Sound. We examined the coal mines back of Seattle and Bellingham Bay, and saw a large body of Indians of nearly all the tribes. I became greatly impressed with the important advantages of Seattle, and also with the importance of the disputed islands." In a report to the Secretary of War, written immediately after this trip, he remarks:-- "I was agreeably impressed with Elliott's Bay, on which are the flourishing towns of Seattle and Alki, and I agree entirely in the opinion of Captain McClellan that it is the best harbor on the Sound, and unless the approach to it from the pass should, on a more minute examination, prove less favorable than to some other point, which is hardly to be expected, that it is the proper terminus of the railroad." In his reports Seattle is assumed as the terminus on the Sound, and all the distances measured and calculations of cost, etc., are made with reference to that point as the western end of the route. The above is a provokingly brief and meagre record of this trip, which occupied the whole month of January, the same month that McClellan, after balking the Snoqualmie survey, turned back from Camano Island and abandoned the examination of the lower Sound in consequence of the inclemency of the weather. The governor's trip could have been no holiday excursion, in an open sailboat in that stormy, rainy season, and among the swift tides and fierce gales of the lower Sound. But it was fruitful in results. He grasped with the acute and discriminating eye of an engineer the whole system of waters and the several harbors and points of importance, talked with the principal men of each place and gleaned all the information they could furnish, and gained a comprehensive and correct idea of the numbers, distribution, and character of the Indians. Moreover, he met at Victoria Governor Sir James Douglass and the other officers there of the Hudson Bay Company, and discussed with them their claims within our borders. He had now visited and personally examined all but one (Fort Okanogan) of that company's posts within his territory, Colville, Walla Walla, Vancouver, Cowlitz Farms, and Nisqually, and had discussed their claims with the officers in charge of them, and with the chief factor, Sir James Douglass. As the result of this investigation he made, on his return to Olympia, an exhaustive report to the Secretary of State, setting forth in detail the actual holdings and improvements of the company at each point. He estimated that their value could not exceed $300,000, and recommended that a commission be appointed to adjudicate the claims, and that such sum be appropriated by Congress to extinguish them. Secretary Marcy adopted his views and recommendations, and transmitted them to Congress, and a bill appointing the commission and making the appropriation passed the Senate the following session, but failed in the House. These claims remained a bone of contention between the countries for many years, until finally Great Britain, by means of a joint commission, and by sticking to the most extravagant demands with true bulldog tenacity, succeeded in wringing nearly a million dollars from the United States. At the election Columbia Lancaster was chosen delegate in Congress. He was a lawyer by profession, and a man of ability and education. The legislature assembled on the appointed day, and Governor Stevens delivered his first message. Briefly reviewing the great natural resources of the Territory and its commercial advantages, with its unrivaled harbors and location to control in due time the trade of China and Japan, he recommended the adoption of a code of laws, the organization of the country east of the Cascades into counties, a school system with military training in the higher schools, and the organization of the militia. The latter he declared necessary in view of their remote situation, compelling them to rely upon themselves in case of war, for a time at least, and to enable them to draw arms and ammunition from the general government, which could be issued only to an organized militia force. He dwelt on the importance of extinguishing the Indian title and the claims of the Hudson Bay and Puget Sound Agricultural Companies, and settling the boundary line on British territory, and recommended them to memorialize Congress in behalf of these measures. He informed them that, under instructions from the Secretary of State, he had already notified the foreign Fur Company that it could not be allowed to trade with Indians within the Territory, and would be given until July to wind up their affairs. He also urged them to ask Congress for a surveyor-general and a land office, for more rapid surveys of public land, so that they might be kept in advance of settlement; to amend the land laws by facilitating the acquisition of title, and by placing single women on the same footing with married women; for a grant of lands for a university; for improved mail service; for roads to Walla Walla, to Vancouver, and to Bellingham Bay along the eastern shore of the Sound; and for continuing the geographical and geological surveys already begun. He boldly advocated the construction of three railroads across the continent, undoubtedly the first to foresee the necessity of more than a single line. From this time he always advocated three transcontinental roads. All these recommendations were promptly adopted by the legislature, except as regarded the militia, concerning which no action was taken; an unfortunate neglect, which left the people almost defenseless when the Indian war broke out less than two years later. Soon after arriving at Olympia, Governor Stevens writes his friend Halleck announcing his arrival and the successful achievement of the exploration. In this letter he expresses the opinion that the waters of San Francisco Bay and Puget Sound should both have their connections with the States by railroad. He asks Halleck how lands should be donated and managed for the establishment of a university in Washington Territory, and his views as to a plan, etc. January 9 he writes Joseph Grinnell & Co., of New York, a great mercantile and shipping and whaling firm, suggesting to them the establishing of a whaling and fishing depot on one of the harbors of the lower Sound. Halleck writes a cordial letter in reply to the governor's, and gives him a glimpse "behind the curtain" of California and Southern Democratic politics, which throws light on Jefferson Davis's action in shutting off the further exploration of the Northern route. "I have by no means lost my interest in the Democratic party, or the great public questions of the day. The first and most important of these is the great continental railroad. Present examinations would seem almost conclusive against Benton's central project. If so, this road must run from some point in New Mexico to some pass near Los Angeles, and thence to San Francisco (and San Diego, perhaps). "If this southern route should be selected, it would lead to another northern route, perhaps the one explored by yourself to Puget Sound. Even if a single road should be adopted on the central line, it must fork to San Francisco and Puget Sound, the two great termini of the Pacific coast. "The pro-slavery extension party will work very hard against the North Pacific States, which must of necessity remain free. The first branch of this project was to call a new convention in California dividing it into two States, making the southern one a slave State, with San Diego as the port and terminus of a railroad through Texas. Circulars and letters to that effect were sent to pro-slavery men in California, and the attempt made to divide the State, but it failed. The next move was to acquire Lower California and part of Sonora and Chihuahua, making Guaymas the terminus, and the newly acquired territory slave States. Two separate plans were set on foot for the same object, the Walker 'filibustering' expedition against Lower California and Sonora, and Gadsden's treaty with Santa Anna. The former is thus far a most complete and contemptible failure, but rumor says the latter is likely to be successful, and will be undoubtedly, if backed with sufficient money. If the territory is acquired, it will be slave territory, and a most tremendous effort will be made to run _a_ railroad if not _the_ railroad from Texas to Guaymas, with a _branch_ to San Francisco." Amid all these pressing and engrossing official duties the governor found time to purchase his future homestead in Olympia, Block 84, and also a tract of ten acres a little farther back, where Maple Park is now situated. He also contracted for the purchase of the north half of the Walker Donation claim, a tract of three hundred and twenty acres situated a mile and a half south of the town and half way to Tumwater. All these tracts were then buried in the dense and tall fir forest; but when the country was cleared, it appeared that the governor had selected them with unerring judgment, for they are the finest sites in the town or vicinity. During all this time the governor and the officers and scientific men of the exploration were hard at work on the reports of their operations, working up the observations, and classifying the collections. As McClellan, Donelson, Lander, Suckley, Gibbs, Arnold, Tinkham, and Grover successively reached Olympia, bringing fresh contributions of information gathered in their trips, each took hold of the work. The offices of the survey were in two small, one-storied buildings on the west side of Main Street, between Second and Third, hired of Father Ricard, and presented a busy scene, filled with desks, tables, instruments, collections, maps, and papers, among which the young men were writing and working for dear life. Lieutenant Arnold and Dr. Suckley executed the reconnoissances intrusted to them most satisfactorily. Lieutenant Grover, starting from Fort Benton in January with his dog-train, crossed the main range to the Bitter Root valley, finding only eight inches of snow, and thence continued with horses down Clark's Fork and Pend Oreille Lake and to the Dalles. On reaching Vancouver the governor dispatched an express to Lieutenant Mullan by Spokane Garry, who had accompanied him to that point, and in January he sent wagonmaster Higgins with a second express to the same point. Thus, by these expresses going and returning, he had the route between the Bitter Root valley and Olympia traversed four times in addition to Grover's trip. Lieutenant Mullan crossed the main continental divide six times that winter, extending his trips to Fort Hall, on the upper Snake River, and traveling nearly a thousand miles. The explorations made by the young officers, including Tinkham and Doty, were very remarkable and valuable, and were attended at times with great exertions and privations, and full accounts of them are given in the final report. Thus, by his winter posts and parties, the governor was solving, in the most complete and satisfactory manner, the questions of mountain snows and climates. From Olympia he reported to Secretary of War Davis the results of the explorations, and particularly on these points. He urged that the posts be continued, and a closer examination made of the more favorable mountain passes, and that lines be surveyed from the Northern route to Great Salt Lake and to San Francisco. At this juncture Governor Stevens received a curt and peremptory order from Secretary Davis, disapproving his arrangements, and ordering him to disband the winter parties and bring his operations to a close. Acknowledging the receipt of the order, February 13, he declares that it shall be promptly obeyed, and continues:-- "But I earnestly submit to the department the importance of the continuation of these surveys, and indulge the hope that Congress will make liberal appropriations, both in a deficiency bill and in the general appropriation bill, in order that the field now so well entered upon may be fully occupied. "I will respectfully call the attention of the department to the peculiar circumstances of my exploration, which will, it seems to me, explain the exceeding of the appropriation, with every desire and effort on my part so to arrange the scale and conduct it as not to involve a deficiency. The field was almost totally new, rendering it impossible to form an estimate. Much work of reconnoissance had to be done, which had previously been done for all the other routes, before a direction could be given to the railroad examinations and estimates proper. Unforeseen expenses in the way of presents, etc., had to be incurred to conciliate the Indian tribes, for our route was the only one, so far as I was informed, that at the time was deemed particularly dangerous; and the investigation of the question of snow was a vital and fundamental one, essential to making any reliable report at all, and included within the express requirements of the original instructions. I deeply regretted the deficiency which I found impending at Fort Benton, and I took at that place that course which I believed Congress and the department would have taken under the circumstances." Moreover, to provide funds indispensable for the immediate needs of the survey, the governor had drawn on Corcoran and Riggs, government bankers in Washington, to the amount of $16,000, and these drafts all went to protest. But the Secretary's order arrived too late to frustrate Governor Stevens's thoroughgoing measures for determining the snow question. The problem was solved before the work of the winter parties could be arrested, and this most important point was clearly and satisfactorily set forth in the report. The much-feared mountain snows were found to be greatly exaggerated, and to present no real obstacle to the operation of railroads. In this respect the report has been fully confirmed by subsequent experience, and in fact less difficulty has been encountered from snow in the mountains than on the plains of Dakota. He decided, therefore, to hasten to Washington the earliest moment his threefold duties of the governorship, Indian service, and the exploration would admit of, filled with the fixed determination to prevent the discontinuance of the exploration, to secure the payment of the protested drafts, and to enlighten the government as to the necessity of the Blackfoot council, and of extinguishing the Indian title within his own Territory. To justify his going without leave first obtained, the legislature passed a joint resolution that "no disadvantage would result to the Territory should the governor visit Washington, if, in his judgment, the interests of the Northern Pacific Railroad survey could thereby be promoted." CHAPTER XXIII RETURN TO WASHINGTON.--REPORT OF EXPLORATION Governor Stevens left Olympia on March 26, and, proceeding by way of the Cowlitz to the Columbia, and by steamer down the coast, reached San Francisco early in April. Here he found a group of his old friends and brother officers, including Mason, Halleck, and Folsom, and how warmly he was received by them, and how interesting they found his accounts of the exploration, the Indians, and the many wild and new scenes he had passed through, may be imagined. His arrival attracted much public attention; his exploration was deemed a very important and remarkable one, and one conducted with remarkable ability and success; and in Music Hall, on Bush Street, April 13, before a crowded audience, and introduced by Mayor Garrison, he gave an able address upon the Northern route. In this address he boldly advocated three railroads across the continent, declaring that the subject of internal communications was too great to be treated from a sectional point of view. He demonstrated the favorable character of the route and country he had explored, the navigability of the upper Columbia and Missouri, and the little obstruction from snows. The impression made by this address is reflected in the editorial of the San Francisco "Herald:"-- "Of all the surveys ordered by the general government at Washington with a view to the selection of a route for a railroad across the continent, that intrusted to Governor Stevens is by far the most satisfactory. He took the field in June last, having left the Mississippi River on the 15th of that month, and, moving steadily westward,--throwing out parties on the right and left of his line, surveying every stream of any consequence, exploring every pass again and again,--he has accomplished in that time the survey of a belt extending two thousand miles from east to west, and from one hundred and fifty to two hundred miles from north to south. In the Rocky Mountains his explorations have extended over four hundred miles from north to south, and in the Cascade Mountains over two hundred and fifty miles. While the main work of reconnoissance was going on, the auxiliary departments of geology, natural history, botany, etc., were prosecuted with vigor and success. The results obtained in so short a space of time are, as far as we are aware, unparalleled. "The route thus occupied by Governor Stevens and his party is the route of the two great rivers across the continent, the Missouri and Columbia. Their tributaries interlock; the whole mountain range is broken down into spurs and valleys, and no obstruction exists from snow. The whole route is eminently practicable. The highest grade will be fifty feet to the mile. The summit level of the road will be about five thousand feet above the sea. There will be but one tunnel. The snows will be less than in the New England States. The Missouri River has been surveyed, and found to be navigable for steamers to the Falls, about seven hundred miles from Puget Sound, and five hundred miles to the point where the main Columbia is first reached by railroad from the East. This five hundred miles is in part along Clark's Fork, affording one hundred miles navigable for steamers. "The results of the survey may be summed up as follows: Three lines run from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains; nine passes explored in the Rocky Mountains; three lines run from the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia River and Puget Sound; the Cascades explored from the Columbia to the 49th parallel; Puget Sound examined with reference to a railroad depot; the fact that not the slightest obstruction will occur from snow established beyond controversy." After a short stay in San Francisco, Governor Stevens took the steamer for the Isthmus, and reached New York in May, and the next morning had a joyful reunion with his wife and little girls in Newport. After his severe and long-continued labors, the sea voyage compelled him to a much-needed rest. On such voyages he threw off his wonted intense, high pressure mood of work, and, with mind relaxed, enjoyed the soothing influence of old Neptune. He proceeded immediately to Washington with his family, except his son, who was at school at Phillips Academy in Andover, and who joined him later at the summer vacation, and took rooms at the National Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue. A great deal was still to be done to complete the report of the exploration, and with Tinkham, Osgood, and other assistants he drove it with his accustomed vigor. On June 30 he submitted it to the department, the first report of all the routes, although it covered the greatest field, and was by far the most comprehensive and exhaustive. Secretary Davis, recognizing that in his measures for prosecuting the survey Governor Stevens was actuated solely by zeal for the public service, submitted an estimate to cover the deficiency, which was duly appropriated, and the protested drafts were honored. General Hunt gives the following incident, which shows the confidence Governor Stevens's old friends had in his ability to carry his points:-- "I followed him in the thorough work he made of the Northern Pacific Railway survey,--of his row with Jeff Davis for overrunning in his expenditures the amount assigned him, and so preventing Jeff's designs of defeating that road. In 1854 I had, at Fort Monroe, occasion to describe your father to old Major Holmes, a classmate of Jeff. He went to Washington, and on his return told me, 'Your friend Stevens is ruined. Davis refuses to recommend to Congress to make good the expenditures as contrary to orders. It will ruin Stevens.' 'Wait awhile,' said I; 'I see by the last "Union" that Stevens has just arrived en route to Washington at Panama. He will leave Jeff _nowhere!_' Soon after he arrived in Washington, was followed by an appropriation covering all his bills, and so Jeff failed all round." Secretary Davis was in fact astonished and deeply disappointed at the results of the survey, and the very favorable picture of the Northern route and country given in Governor Stevens's report. A leader among the Southern public men, who were so soon to bring on the great rebellion, of which he was to be the official head, he had set his heart upon the Southern route, and was anxious to establish its superiority to all others and secure its adoption as the national route, in order to aggrandize his own section. He could ill brook, therefore, Governor Stevens's clear and vivid description of the Northern route, showing its great superiority in soil and climate, the easy grades, absence of snow, and accessibility by inland river navigation. He chose to consider the accounts overdrawn as the best way of sustaining his chosen route. In his report to Congress, transmitting the surveys of the several routes, he took great pains to belittle the results of Governor Stevens's labors and disparage the Northern route. In his comparison of routes, he arbitrarily increased the governor's estimate of cost from $117,121,000 to $150,871,000, or nearly $38,000,000; magnified the physical difficulties; condemned the agricultural resources; declared that "the country west of the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific slope may likewise be described as one of general sterility," and that "the severely cold character of the climate throughout the whole route, except the portion west of the Cascade Mountains, is one of its unfavorable features." He ignored the governor's statements, and Tinkham's reconnoissance as to the snow in the Snoqualmie Pass, and the practicability of the latter, and, quoting McClellan with approval, declared that "the snow is twenty feet deep, the pass barely practicable, and the information now possessed is sufficient to decide against this route." It is significant that he pays a warm compliment to McClellan, remarking that "his examination presents a reconnoissance of great value, and, though performed under adverse circumstances, exhibits all the information necessary to determine the practicability of this portion of the route." And this of an officer who had consumed a whole month in moving one hundred and eighty miles; lay another month in camp in the Yakima valley, making only the most cursory examinations; found the passes non-existent, or "impracticable;" reported the snow twenty to twenty-five feet deep on the credit of Indians; ignobly quailed at inclement weather and snows, which other men bravely faced and overcame; and generally condemned the country, and vilified the hardy pioneers. In sober truth McClellan found credit in the eyes of the Secretary, not for what he accomplished, but for what he failed to accomplish, for his unfavorable and condemnatory report on the route and the country, which was precisely the kind of testimony the Secretary wanted. The country, stigmatized as one of "general sterility," and which Governor Stevens pronounced a fine, arable region of great fertility, is now one of the great wheat-fields of the country, yielding twenty to thirty million bushels a year. Moreover, Mr. Davis manifested a dissatisfied and fault-finding spirit towards the governor. On one occasion, when the latter was calling on him, and asking his attention to some matter of importance connected with the survey, Davis interrupted him with marked impatience, and intimated that he had no time to hear him. "I do not come here to talk with Jefferson Davis," exclaimed the governor with dignity, "but to confer with the Secretary of War upon the public business intrusted to my charge, and I demand his attention." The Secretary at once gave him full and considerate hearing until the matter was fully gone into, and as the governor took his leave, followed him to the door, and frankly apologized for his momentary rudeness. Jefferson Davis was not without generous and magnanimous traits, and appreciated the earnest and sincere character of his caller. But he put a stop to further work on the Northern route, prevented any more appropriations for it, and kept up his fight against it. Some time afterwards, in speaking of the route to a mutual friend,[8] he declared: "Governor Stevens is a man of great ability, and of upright and high-toned character, but he has entirely misconceived and exaggerated the agricultural resources of the Northern route. The fact is, he has no knowledge of agricultural soils or conditions." When this was repeated to the governor he remarked: "Indeed, perhaps Mr. Davis does not know that I was brought up on a farm until my seventeenth year." But Governor Stevens indulged in no complaints at this unworthy treatment. He knew that the information given in his report was too well founded and abundant to be refuted by mere official rancor. Despite the deprivation of funds, he continued the work of exploration, survey, and observation for the next three years, making free use of the Indian agents and volunteer troops under his command, and unsparing in his own personal exertions, and on February 7, 1859, submitted to the War Department "My final report of the explorations made by me and under my direction in the years 1853, 1854, and 1855, to determine the practicability of the Northern route for a railroad to the Pacific." This report, published by order of Congress in two large quarto volumes, as Parts I. and II., vol. xii., Pacific Railroad Reports, contains over eight hundred pages, with plates, tables, and views, and most fully sustains the earlier report, besides adding an immense amount of new information. And this was Governor Stevens's answer to Secretary Davis. But the governor found the sultry summer in Washington a very trying one, in cramped quarters, overburdened with the voluminous data and details of the report, and subject to many annoyances. Unfortunately, the meteorological and astronomical observations, while in care of Lieutenant Donelson, were lost, presumably on the Isthmus, by the carelessness of the express company, and could not be recovered, although that officer returned to San Francisco expressly in search of them, and this loss caused serious embarrassment. The governor found, too, that some of the scientific corps were proposing to publish as their own separate work the materials gathered as members of the exploration, and had to adopt decided and severe measures to prevent the barefaced attempt. During great part of July he was seriously ill, and incapacitated from work. In addition to all these labors and cares, he obtained the sanction of the government for holding the Blackfoot council he had so much at heart, for which he was appointed a commissioner, and allotted $10,000 for assembling and bringing the western Indians to Fort Benton. His views and recommendations in regard to treating with the Indians of Washington Territory, and purchasing their lands, were also adopted, and he was appointed the commissioner to make such treaties. As already stated, his recommendations in regard to the claims of the Hudson Bay Company were adopted by the Secretary of State. Congress appropriated $30,000 for a wagon-road from Fort Benton to Walla Walla, a matter which the governor strenuously urged; and also amended the land laws, created the office of surveyor-general, and made appropriations for universal surveys and mail service. To all these matters "Governor Stevens addressed himself with the energy, ability, and straightforwardness which were his characteristics, supplementing the feebler efforts of Lancaster, and, with Lane of Oregon, coming to the rescue of the most important bills for Washington, and really doing the work of the delegate."[9] Notwithstanding Secretary Davis's attitude on the Northern route, Governor Stevens seems to have lost none of his influence with the administration. When about to return to the Pacific coast, President Pierce invited him to write him personally and frequently. FOOTNOTES: [8] Major George T. Clark. [9] Bancroft's _Pacific States_, vol. xxvi. p. 88. CHAPTER XXIV CROSSING THE ISTHMUS Governor Stevens, with his family, consisting of his wife, four children, the two youngest being only two and four years old respectively, and the nurse Ellen, a bonny young Irish woman, sailed from New York, September 20, 1854, en route for his far Western home. The vessel was packed full, with thirteen hundred passengers. The food was execrable, meats and poultry tainted and almost uneatable. Ice was charged extra, twenty-five cents a pound. The second cabin table rivaled at times a scene from Bedlam. The hungry passengers would often hurl the spoiled chickens overboard amid loud complaints, laughter, and the imitated crowing and cackle of cocks and hens. Christy's minstrels were on board, bound to San Francisco,--a reckless, noisy, drinking crew, but fine performers, both instrumental and vocal, and always ready and willing to entertain the passengers with their pleasing melodies. The best state-rooms were allotted the governor and family, with seats next the captain at table, but the younger children had to sit at the second table. The ship put in at Havana for a day, where the family enjoyed a delicious repast of broiled birds on toast and guava jelly at the Dominica restaurant, and viewed the cathedral and tomb of Columbus. Crossing the Caribbean sea in hot and sultry weather, they arrived at Aspinwall on the 29th. This place was squalid, dreary, and repulsive. Low, flat, swampy morass, some filled-in land; great pools of dirty, green, stagnant water; a frail, rickety wharf, which the ship hardly dared touch lest it fall over; a railroad track along the shore; a hundred yards back, a number of large, cheap-built wooden houses, like overgrown tenement houses, unpainted and dilapidated; the street a bed of mud, littered with broken boards and refuse lumber and piles of rubbish; black pigs roaming and rooting about; many rascally and worthless-looking natives, in whom the negro predominated,--the whole thoroughly wet down by heavy, drenching, tropical showers,--such was Aspinwall, as the disappointed passengers landed, and sought the shelter of the buildings supposed to be hotels, but where almost everything was lacking except extortionate charges. After a comfortless night and miserable breakfast, the party embarked on the cars, and proceeded about twenty miles to the "Summit," which was half way to Panama, and as far as the road then extended, and which was reached about noon, and learned that the rest of the way across had to be made on horse or mule back. There were no animals ready, but it was announced that the party would have to wait until the next morning, when plenty of mules would be provided. Some railroad sheds, a few native huts, and a huge pavilion, consisting of an immense pyramidal thatched roof surmounting low sides mostly open, comprised the only shelters, and into them the passengers flocked. The great pavilion belonged to a huge, jet black Jamaica negro, named Carusi, and was not partitioned off, consisting of nothing indeed but the earthen floor and the roof above it, with the low sides. At night this rude structure was thronged with the weary passengers. Delicate ladies and children, rough men, and people of every kind and condition fairly covered the floor, or rather ground, seeking rest as best they could; while in the centre of the apartment, in a big, old-fashioned, four-poster bed, lay the gigantic Carusi side by side with his fat wife, their ebony faces contrasting with the white pillows and sheets. The minstrels improved the occasion with banjo and song until late at night, when some of them, becoming drunk, began disturbing the company with oaths and obscene language, but Governor Stevens rebuked them in such stern and minatory manner that they were cowed, and relapsed into silence. The expected mules began arriving in small bands under charge of natives about noon the next day, and with much bargaining and contention the passengers secured their mounts, and started off in groups. The governor employed two natives to carry the two youngest children, who were mere babies, on their backs in chairs, and set off followed by the rest of the family mounted each on a mule. It soon began to rain in torrents. In an hour it as suddenly ceased, and the sun came out, hot and sultry, soon to be followed by another downpour, and so deluge and sunshine alternated all day. After riding two hours over narrow, muddy trails, and up and down steep though short hills, where the mules had trodden the clay into regular steps, they reached the Chagres River, and found all the passengers who had preceded them collected on the bank, gazing in dismay on the raging yellow flood, for the stream was up under the tremendous rains, and fearing to essay its passage. After viewing the river carefully, the governor forced his mule into it, and, guiding him diagonally across, safely made the opposite bank. Then, returning, he led the way across again, his little daughter Sue, only eight years old, close behind on her mule, then the rest of the family, and after them followed all the waiting crowd. It was dark when they reached Panama, and found shelter in an old cloistered stone convent, now used as a hotel, exchanged their wet clothes for dry purchased at the nearest shop, and obtained much-needed food and rest. But nothing was seen or heard of the natives with the two babies, since they stole off on a footpath soon after starting, and late in the evening the governor mounted a fresh animal, and with a guide went back to find them, spending the greater part of the night in a vain search. At breakfast the next morning the natives brought in the children, safe and well and perfectly contented. They had taken the little ones to their huts on account of the heavy rains, where the native women fed them and put them to bed, dried their clothes, and sent them in the next morning, safe and sound. During the day the passengers were taken out in boats to the steamer Golden Age, which was anchored in the bay three miles from the town. She was a larger and more commodious ship than the other. The voyage up the coast began the next morning. A stop of several hours was made in the land-locked harbor of Acapulco, which the governor improved by taking his family ashore, and treating them to a dinner of fried chicken at a small posada on the old and quaint paved main street. The Panama fever soon made its dreaded appearance among the passengers, owing to their exposure on the Isthmus; many fell sick, and a considerable number died and were buried at sea. The weather was fine, the sea calm and smooth save for the long rollers of the Pacific, and the voyage would have been an enjoyable one had it not been for the fearful fever and the crowded condition of the vessel. On the fourteenth day she entered the Golden Gate, and rested in the welcome port of San Francisco. The governor took rooms at the Oriental Hotel. His wife and the three little girls were all seized with the fever on the ship, and their condition was serious when they landed. Doctors Hitchcock and Hammond, old army friends of the governor, were unremitting in their attentions, and after several weeks' care brought the sufferers past the danger point, all except the little four-year-old Maude. Her case they at length pronounced hopeless. But her father would not give her up. He had a hot bath administered as a last resort, and sat by her bedside hour after hour, giving liquid nourishment drop by drop, and at last she passed the crisis and began to recover. By all this sickness they were forced to remain in the city over a month; but in the society of his old friends, and amid the bright, vigorous men and bustling scenes of the new-born metropolis, the time passed rapidly and well improved. Folsom, a man of wealth, placed his fine carriage and horses at Mrs. Stevens's disposal. Halleck would have long talks with the governor. Dr. Gwin and his family, old friends and neighbors, met them with real Southern cordiality. One incident is worth relating, because it materially affected subsequent events, as the governor believed. A number of officers and other gentlemen were conversing together at the hotel one evening, among whom was General John E. Wool, then commanding the United States forces on the Pacific coast. The talk turned on the battle of Buena Vista, and General Wool loudly claimed for himself all the credit for that battle, disparaging in an offensive manner General Taylor and the part he took in it. At length Governor Stevens, whose strong sense of justice was outraged by the boastful and unfair tirade, spoke up and said: "General Wool, we all know the brilliant part you bore in the battle, but we all know and history will record that General Taylor fought and won the battle of Buena Vista."[10] Wool, although visibly offended, made no reply to this rebuke, but it rankled and caused a bitter animosity, which subsequently found vent in hostile speech and action. The voyage up the coast was made without special incident; they crossed the bar, steamed up the Columbia, and landed at Vancouver early in November. Here they remained a fortnight, the guests of Captain Brent, the quartermaster, in order to enable the sick members to gain strength sufficiently to stand the hard trip to the Sound. After this brief stay the governor took his family on a little steamboat to Portland, where they spent the night. The town then consisted only of a string of small wooden buildings along the river-bank. The street, or road, was a perfect quagmire of mud-holes. Single planks laid along irregularly, with many intervals, furnished the only sidewalks. The next morning they embarked on a steamer and went down the river to Rainier, where they landed. This place consisted of a wharf and a sawmill. It was called Rainier, it was said, by way of a joke, because it rained here all the time; but doubtless it was named after Mount Rainier, which was named by Admiral Vancouver after a lord of the British admiralty. The party took canoes, manned by Indians, the same afternoon, crossed the Columbia, and paddled a few miles up the Cowlitz to Monticello, where they spent the night. At daylight the next morning the governor and family embarked in one large canoe, while the trunks and baggage followed in another, and pushed upstream against a swift current. There were in the canoe the governor, his wife and four children, the nurse, and a crew of four Indians, two at each end. It was a dark, drizzling day, with frequent showers. The passengers sat upon the bottom of the canoe upon plenty of Indian mats, and well wrapped in blankets, and, except for the constrained and irksome position, were fairly comfortable. The Indians, urged by promise of extra pay, paddled vigorously. At the rapids (and it seemed that nearly all the stream was in rapids) they laid aside their paddles, and, standing up, forced the canoe ahead with poles, which they wielded with great skill and vigor. All day long they paddled and poled with unabated energy, now paddling where they could take advantage of an eddy or stretch of back water, now forcing the canoe up swift rapids, gaining inch by inch. It was after dark when they reached Cowlitz Landing, thirty miles above Monticello, and found shelter for the night at the hospitable inn kept by Dr. and Mrs. U.G. Warbass. Writes Mrs. Stevens of this trip:-- "We were placed in the canoe with great care, so as to balance it evenly, as it was frail and upset easily. At first the novelty, motion, and watching our Indians paddle so deftly, then seize their poles and push along over shallow places, keeping up a low, sweet singing as they glided along, was amusing. As we were sitting flat on the bottom of the canoe, the position became irksome and painful. We were all day long on this Cowlitz River. At night I could not stand on my feet for some time after landing. We walked ankle-deep in the mud to a small log-house, where we had a good meal. Here we found a number of rough, dirty-looking men, with pantaloons tucked inside their boots, and so much hair upon their heads and faces they all looked alike. After tea we were shown a room to sleep in, full of beds, which were for the women. I was so worn out with this novel way of traveling that I laid down on a narrow strip of bed, not undressed, all my family alongside on the same bed. The governor sat on a stool near by, and, strange to say, slept sound through the long, dismal night. He had been shown his bed up through a hole on top of the shanty. He said one look was sufficient. Men were strewn as thick as possible on the floor in their blankets. The steam generated from their wet clothes, boots, and blankets was stifling. One small hole cut through the roof was the only ventilation. "As soon as breakfast was over the next morning, we mounted into a wagon without springs and proceeded on our journey. The governor took M. in his arms to keep her from being jolted. There surely were no worse roads to be found anywhere in the world than this. The horses went deep in the mud every step; the wheels sank to the hub, and often had to be pried up. We forded rivers, the water coming above our ankles in the wagon. Many big, deep holes they would jump over, making the horses run quick, when the wagon would jump across, shaking us up fearfully. In one of these holes our horses fell down, and we stuck fast in the mud. We were taken from the wagon by men of our party plunging up to their knees in the mud, and carrying us out by sheer force of their strength. After seating us upon a fallen log, the horses were with difficulty extricated from the mud. After another long day's tiresome travel we stopped at a log-house for the night. Upon entering from the porch we found a big room, with a wood fire filling up one side, blazing and crackling, low chairs in front; in the centre of the room was a table with a clean cloth on it, and a repast of well-cooked food, relishing and abundant, was placed upon it, to which we did ample justice. Our host was an Englishman, a farmer, who was getting on well, a genial, hospitable man. His wife was a superior woman. She had crossed the plains with her first husband. On the journey they were surrounded by Indians. He was killed. She was taken prisoner by these savages, and after passing through untold suffering she managed to make her escape, and after walking hundreds of miles, living upon berries by the way, she came into the Dalles, a forlorn, starved woman, almost destitute of clothing, with her boy ten years of age. It was here our host met her and offered shelter to her child and herself, which she gladly accepted, and finally became his wife. She was a fine-looking woman and a thorough housekeeper, but had the saddest expression on her face. At night she took us across the yard into another log-house, where we found a bright fire burning on the hearth, and nice, clean beds. I felt like staying in this comfortable shelter, hearing the rain patter on the roof, until the rainy season was over, at least." The host referred to was John R. Jackson. His farm was only ten miles from Cowlitz Landing, but the roads were in such wretched state that a whole day was consumed in traveling this short distance. After a cheerful breakfast the next morning, the journey was resumed. George W. Stevens and several other gentlemen came out to meet the governor and family, and escorted them to Olympia. The governor mounted his horse Charlie, which he purchased of the Red River half-breeds, and which was brought out to him. This was a great, powerful gray charger, of high spirit, and able to cover twelve miles an hour in a swinging trot without distress. It was another rainy, drizzling day. The road was almost impassable. At Saunders's Bottom, where the town of Chehalis now stands, the mud was knee-deep for two miles, terribly wearing on the animals. At length, after fording the Skookumchuck at its mouth, and traversing an extensive prairie, the wet, tired, and bedraggled party reached the log-house of Judge Sidney S. Ford, and found hospitable shelter for the night, having traveled about twenty-five miles that day. The next day the party reached Olympia late in the afternoon, after a thirty miles' journey over much better and pleasanter roads, traversing prairies over half the distance, including Grand Mound, Little Mound, and Bush's prairies. It was a dreary, dark, December day. It had rained considerably. The road from Tumwater to Olympia was ankle-deep in mud, and thridded a dense forest with a narrow track. With expectations raised at the idea of seeing the capital and chief town of the Territory, the weary travelers toiled up a small hill in the edge of the timber, reached the summit, and eagerly looked to see the future metropolis. Their hearts sank with bitter disappointment as they surveyed the dismal and forlorn scene before them. A low, flat neck of land, running into the bay, down it stretched the narrow, muddy track, winding among the stumps which stood thickly on either side; twenty small wooden houses bordered the road, while back of them on the left and next the shore were a number of Indian lodges, with canoes drawn up on the beach, and Indians and dogs lounging about. The little hill mentioned is where now stands the Masonic Building, opposite the Olympia Hotel. The site of the Indian camp is now Columbia Street, between Third and Fourth. There were only one or two buildings above, or south of, Sixth Street. The public square was a tangle of fallen timber. Main Street terminated in Giddings's Wharf, which was left high and dry at low tide. Mrs. Stevens continues her account as follows:-- "At night we were told, on ascending a hill, 'There is Olympia.' Below us, in the deep mud, were a few low, wooden houses, at the head of Puget Sound. My heart sank, for the first time in my life, at the prospect. After ploughing through the mud, we stopped at the principal hotel, to stay until our house was ready for us. As we went upstairs there were a number of people standing about to see the governor and his family. I was very much annoyed at their staring and their remarks, which they made audibly, and hastened to get in some private room, where I could make myself better prepared for an inspection. Being out in rains for many days had not improved our appearance or clothes. But there seemed no rest for the weary. Upon being ushered into the public parlor I found people from far and near had been invited to inspect us. The room was full. The sick child was cross, and took no notice of anything that was said to her. One of the women saying aloud, 'What a cross brat that is!' I could stand it no longer, but opened a door and went into a large dancing-hall, and soon after, when the governor came to look me up, I was breaking my heart over the forlorn situation I found myself in,--cold, wet, uncomfortable, no fire, shaking with chills. What a prospect! How I longed to find myself back in my childhood's home, among good friends and relatives! Just then we were told we were expected across the street. The governor had his office there, and had us taken directly there. It was a happy change. We went into a large, cheerful room, with the beds on the floor, a bright fire burning, book-cases filled with books smiling upon us. We soon had a good repast, and felt comfortable at last. In a few days we were at housekeeping, very pleasant indeed, all picking up in health, and good friends around us. "Many of the people called on me. I found them pleasant and agreeable people; many of them were well-educated and interesting young ladies who had come here with their husbands, government officials, and who had given up their city homes to live in this unknown land, surrounded by Indians and dense forests. "I remained three years at Olympia, a great part of the time living alone with the children, the governor being away in all parts of the Territory, making treaties with the Indians, planning and arranging the settlement of the country. There was a pleasant company of officers, with their wives, stationed at Steilacoom, twenty miles from Olympia, with whom I became acquainted, and had visits from and visited. Naval ships came up Puget Sound with agreeable officers on board. I had a horse to ride on horseback across the lovely prairies. Almost daily I took a ride about the picturesque, beautiful country, with the rich, dense forests and snowy mountains, green little prairies skirted by timber, lakes of deep, clear water, all of which was new to me, affording great pleasure in exploring Indian trails and country, which was completely new. I also had a boat built, in which I made excursions down the Sound. About two miles down there was a Catholic mission, a large, dark house or monastery, surrounded by cultivated land, a fine garden in front filled with flowers, bordered on one side, next the water, with immense bushes of wall-flowers in bloom; the fragrance, resembling the sweet English violet, filling the air with its delicious odor. Father Ricard, the venerable head of this house, was from Paris. He had lived in this place more than twenty years. He had with him Father Blanchet, a short, thickset man, who managed everything pertaining to the temporal comfort of the mission. Under him were servants who were employed in various ways, baking, cooking, digging, and planting. Their fruit was excellent and a great rarity, as there was but one more orchard in the whole country. There was a large number of Flatheads settled about them, who had been taught to count their beads, say prayers, and were good Catholics in all outward observances; chanted the morning and evening prayers, which they sang in their own language in a low, sweet strain, which, the first time I heard it, sitting in my boat at sunset, was impressive and solemn. We went often to visit Father Ricard, who was a highly educated man, who seemed to enjoy having some one to converse with in his own language. He said the Canadians used such bad French." Mrs. Stevens was still suffering from the Panama fever, and it was a year before she and little Maude recovered from it. The new quarters consisted of two long, one-story wooden buildings, one room wide, little more than sheds, hired of Father Ricard at $900 a year. They were cheaply built, without plastering, but lined inside with cotton cloth. There was a narrow passageway between them, from which doors gave access to the different rooms. In rear was a large yard, extending to the beach, upon which a gate in the rear fence opened, and where a boat was kept. The Indian camp began at the corner of the yard. The governor had secured two men servants, Agnew as cook, and W.F. Seely, man of all work. The latter was a lusty young Irishman, strong as a bull and quick as a cat, witty, boastful, brave, and devoted to the governor and his family. He was a member of the exploring party, where he had fought and beaten all the pugilistic heroes up to the wagon-master, C.P. Higgins, by whom he had been handsomely vanquished, and whom he regarded ever after with great admiration and esteem. The family soon felt at home in the new abode, amid the novel scenes and experiences, and cheered by new and old friends. George Stevens, Mason, and Lieutenant Arnold came in and out like brothers. There were Evans and Kendall, who came with the exploration; Major H. A. Goldsborough, George Gibbs, Colonel Simmons, Frank Shaw, and Orrington Cushman, known as "Old Cush," with his great red beard, a great favorite with children, and liked and trusted by both whites and Indians. Major James Tilton, the surveyor-general, arrived with his family after a voyage around the Horn,--a man of soldierly bearing and aristocratic tastes, who was to render valuable service. Captain J. Cain also arrived, as Indian agent,--a typical Indiana politician, but a man of parts and integrity and public spirit, and a true friend. The second legislature met on December 4, and the governor on the 5th delivered his message in person. After acknowledging the consideration shown him as their executive, and congratulating them on the flattering prospects of the Territory, he recommended them to memorialize Congress for roads, mail service, steamer lines, etc., and other needs, and mentioned with regret the failure of Congress to provide for objects for which he had earnestly striven, viz., the extinction of the Hudson Bay Company's claims, the running of the northern boundary line, and a geological survey of the coal measures. He urged the organization of an effective militia, referring to the danger of Indian hostilities, his recommendation to the first legislature, and to the fact that the government had refused his recent applications for arms because the militia was not organized. He summed up the results of his exploration in saying: "Beautiful prairies and delightful valleys, easy passes practicable at all seasons of the year, have taken the place of savage deserts and mountain defiles impracticable half the year from snow.... The more the country is examined, the better it develops." In closing he invoked their support of his efforts in behalf of the Indians:-- "I will indulge the hope that the same spirit of concord and exalted patriotism, which has thus far marked our political existence, will continue to the end. Particularly do I invoke that spirit in reference to our Indian relations. I believe the time has now come for their final settlement. In view of the important duties which have been assigned to me, I throw myself unreservedly upon the people of the Territory, not doubting that they will extend to me a hearty and generous support in my efforts to arrange on a permanent basis the future of the Indians of this Territory." Referring to the military road across the Nahchess Pass, he said:-- "It would be a great benefit to those traveling this road should the legislature take some step toward sowing with grass-seed the small prairie known as the Bare Prairie, situated a little below the mouth of Green River, as also the sides of the mountain known as La Tête. These points are intermediate in a long distance destitute of grass, and are almost necessarily stopping-places on the march. A very small sum would cover the expense of planting them, and the advantage would be incalculable." This humane and sensible suggestion was turned into ridicule and defeated by one of those wiseacres, strong in their own conceit and ignorance, that infest most assemblies, who cried out, "Governor Stevens needn't try to make grass grow where God Almighty didn't make it grow." There was great jealousy on the part of the settlers of the far-reaching claims of the Hudson Bay Company, and under the influence of this feeling the council requested the governor to communicate any information he had as to the manner in which Congress arrived at the estimated amount of $300,000 as the value of such claims. The attentions paid him by the officers of that company, in their open efforts to gain his goodwill and support, were well known, and, with the fact that an appropriation of the above amount for extinguishing the claims had passed the Senate, had excited some mistrust as to the governor's action and attitude on that important question. In reply he simply gave a synopsis of his report to the State Department, which set all doubts at rest. FOOTNOTES: [10] Governor Stevens's own statement. See Bancroft's _Pacific States_, vol. xxvi. p. 117, note. CHAPTER XXV INDIAN POLICY.--TREATIES ON PUGET SOUND Governor Stevens regarded his Indian treaties and Indian policy, and his management of the Indians of the Northwest, as among the most important, beneficial, and successful services he rendered the country. By ten treaties and many councils and talks, he extinguished the Indian title to a domain larger than New England; and by the Blackfoot council and treaty he made peace between those fierce savages and the whites and all the surrounding tribes, and permanently pacified a region equally extensive, embracing the greater part of Montana and northern Idaho; and during the four years, 1853-56, he treated and dealt with over thirty thousand Indians, divided into very numerous and independent tribes and bands, and occupying the whole vast region from the Pacific to and including the plains of the upper Missouri, and now comprising the States of Washington, part of Oregon, northern Idaho, and the greater part of Montana. Moreover, by gaining the wavering friendship and fidelity of doubtful tribes, and even many members of the disaffected, he frustrated the well-planned efforts of the hostile Indians to bring about a universal outbreak, and saved the infant settlements from complete annihilation at the hands of the treacherous savages. His Indian policy was one of great beneficence to the Indians, jealously protected their interests, and provided for their improvement and eventual civilization, while at the same time it opened the country for settlement by the whites. The wisdom with which it was planned, and the ability and energy with which it was carried out, during this brief period, are attested by the remarkable success which attended it, and by the fact that many of these tribes are to-day living under those very treaties, and have made substantial progress towards civilized habits. It is believed that in their extent and magnitude, in their difficulties and dangers, and in the permanence and beneficence of their results, these operations are without parallel in the history of the country. Yet for several years Governor Stevens's Indian treaties were bitterly assailed and misrepresented both by hostile Indians and by officers high in authority; their confirmation was refused by the United States Senate, and he himself was made the target for virulent abuse. It was his intention to write the history of these operations, an intention which the pressure of public duties during the few remaining years of his life, and his early death, prevented. In his final report on the Northern route he remarks, in words of manly fortitude and confidence:-- "I trust the time will come when my treaty operations of 1855,--the most extensive operations ever undertaken and carried out in these latter days of our history,--I repeat, I trust the time will come when I shall be able to vindicate them, and show that they were wise and proper, and that they accomplished a great end. They have been very much criticised and very much abused; but I have always felt that history will do those operations justice. I have not been impatient as to time, but have been willing that my vindication should come at the end of a term of years. Let short-minded men denounce and criticise ignorantly and injuriously, and let time show that the government made no mistake in the man whom it placed in the great field of duty as its commissioner to make treaties with the Indian tribes." And in another place he adds:-- "I intend at some future day to give a very full account of these large operations in the Indian service." In his journey across the plains, amid all the cares and labors of the great exploration, Governor Stevens took the utmost pains, by messages, talks, and councils to and with the Blackfeet and other tribes, to prepare them for the great council and peace treaty which he saw was necessary for the opening and settlement of the country, and on arriving in his own Territory was equally indefatigable in impressing upon the Indians there the advantages of living at peace with the white man, of adopting his better mode of livelihood, and of securing the aid and protection of the Great Father in Washington. Among his first acts was the appointment of Indian agents, and sending them to urge these views upon the tribes. It was high time for judicious and prompt action; for the Indians, especially the powerful and warlike tribes of the upper Columbia, were becoming alarmed at the way the whites were pouring into the country, and, under the invitation of Congress given by the Donation Acts, were taking up their choicest lands without asking their consent. On his recent visit in Washington he had impressed his views upon the government, obtained its sanction and authorization for the Blackfoot council, and the necessary authority and funds for treating with the Indians of his own superintendency. He now planned treating first with the tribes on Puget Sound and west of the Cascades for the cession of their lands, then with the great tribes occupying the country between the Cascades and Rocky Mountains for their lands, and then, crossing the Rockies, to proceed to Fort Benton, accompanied by delegations from the hunting tribes of Washington and Oregon, and there hold the great pre-arranged peace council with the Blackfeet, Crows, and Assiniboines of the plains east of the mountains, and the Nez Perces, Flatheads, Pend Oreilles, etc., of the western slope. Immediately on his return to Olympia the governor sent out the agents and messengers to assemble the Sound Indians at designated points for council and treaty making, and early in January dispatched Mr. Doty with a small party east of the Cascades to make the preliminary arrangements for bringing together in council the Indians of that region. The Indians on the Sound, including those on the Strait of Fuca, numbered some eight thousand five hundred, and were divided into a great many tribes and bands. They were canoe Indians, and drew most of their food from the waters, chiefly salmon and shell-fish, eked out with game, roots, and berries. Those about the upper Sound had bands of ponies, with which they roamed the prairies in summer. They lived in large lodges, several families together, constructed of planks split from the cedar, with nearly flat roofs, and often thirty or forty feet long and twenty wide. They showed no little artistic skill in their canoes, paddles, spears, fish-hooks, basket-work impervious to water, and mats of rushes. Out of a single cedar-tree, with infinite pains and labor, they hewed and burned the most graceful and beautiful and finest canoe ever seen, the very model, in lines and run, of a clipper ship. These varied in size from the little fishing-craft, holding but two persons, to a great canoe carrying thirty. They held as slaves the captives taken in war and their descendants, and, singularly enough, the heads of the slaves were left in their natural state, while the skulls of the free-born were flattened by pressure during infancy into the shape of a shovel. Many of the bands were remnants of former large tribes, for they had been greatly diminished in numbers by the ravages of smallpox and venereal disease. They lacked the energy and courage of the Indians of the upper country, and lived in perpetual dread of the gigantic and savage northern Indians,--the Hydahs and other bands of Tlinkits of British Columbia and Alaska,--who would periodically swoop down the coast in their great war canoes and raid these feebler folk, ruthlessly slaughtering the men, and enslaving the women and children. They suffered also, but to a less degree, from incursions of bands of Yakimas across the mountains, equally on trade and plunder bent, whom they designated "Klikitats," or robbers, a term which has been taken as a tribal name. To these dangers were now added the fear of the all-powerful and ever-increasing whites. Thus situated and thus apprehensive, the messages and exhortations of the governor promising them protection, pointing out the way of bettering their condition, and of even imitating the envied superior race, broke upon them like a lighthouse in a dark night upon the storm-tossed mariner, relieved their fears and anxieties, and gave them hope. They hastened to assemble at the appointed council grounds, eager to listen to the new white chief, and to learn what he offered from the Great Father for their benefit. On December 7, only two days after delivering his message to the legislature, Governor Stevens organized his treaty-making force by appointing James Doty secretary, George Gibbs surveyor, H.A. Goldsborough commissary, and B.F. Shaw interpreter, Colonel M.T. Simmons having already been appointed agent. The governor assembled these gentlemen to confer upon the projected treaties. After giving his views, and showing the necessity of speedily treating with the Indians and placing them on reservations, he had Mr. Doty read certain treaties with the Missouri and Omaha tribes, which contained provisions he deemed worthy of adoption, and invited a general and thorough discussion of the whole subject. So many points were settled by this frank and free interchange of views that Mr. Gibbs was directed to draw up a programme, or outline of a treaty, which on the next meeting on the 10th, after discussion and some changes, was adopted as the basis of the treaties to be made with the tribes on the Sound, coast, and lower Columbia. No better advisers could have been found than the men with whom he thus took counsel; and one is struck by the clever and considerate way in which he secured the best fruits of their knowledge and experience, and enlisted their best efforts in carrying out the work. Simmons and Shaw were old frontiersmen, among the earliest settlers, and had dealt much with, and thoroughly understood, the Indians, and were respected and trusted by them. Simmons has been justly termed the Daniel Boone of Washington Territory. Shaw was said to be the only man who could make or translate a speech in Chinook jargon offhand, as fast as a man could talk in his own vernacular. The Chinook jargon was a mongrel lingo, made up for trading purposes by the fur-traders from English, French, and Indian words, and had become the common speech between whites and Indians, and between Indians of different tribes and tongues. He greatly distinguished himself afterwards in the Indian war as lieutenant-colonel of volunteers. Gibbs and Goldsborough were men of education, and had lived in the country long enough to know the general situation and conditions, and to learn much about the Indians. Gibbs, indeed, made a study of the different tribes, and rendered an able report upon them as part of the Northern Pacific Railroad exploration. Doty, a son of ex-Governor Doty, of Wisconsin, was a young man of uncommon ability and energy, who had spent the preceding winter at Fort Benton, and had studied and made a census of the Blackfeet. The salient features of the policy outlined were as follows:-- 1. To concentrate the Indians upon a few reservations, and encourage them to cultivate the soil and adopt settled and civilized habits. 2. To pay for their lands not in money, but in annuities of blankets, clothing, and useful articles during a long term of years. 3. To furnish them with schools, teachers, farmers and farming implements, blacksmiths, and carpenters, with shops of those trades. 4. To prohibit wars and disputes among them. 5. To abolish slavery. 6. To stop as far as possible the use of liquor. 7. As the change from savage to civilized habits must necessarily be gradual, they were to retain the right of fishing at their accustomed fishing-places, and of hunting, gathering berries and roots, and pasturing stock on unoccupied land as long as it remained vacant. 8. At some future time, when they should have become fitted for it, the lands of the reservations were to be allotted to them in severalty. "It was proposed," reported the governor, "to remove all the Indians on the east side of the Sound as far as the Snohomish, as also the S'Klallams, to Hood's Canal, and generally to admit as few reservations as possible, with a view of finally concentrating them in one." It was found necessary, however, in consequence of the mutual jealousies of so many independent tribes, to allow more reservations than he first intended, but some of them were established temporarily, with the right reserved in the President to remove the Indians to the larger reservations in the future. The schooner R.B. Potter, Captain E.S. Fowler, was chartered at $700 per month, manned and victualed by the owner, to transport the _personnel_ and treaty goods from point to point on the Sound. Orrington Cushman, Sidney S. Ford, Jr., and Henry D. Cock, with several assistants, were employed as quartermasters, to prepare camps and council grounds, make surveys, etc. In all his councils Governor Stevens took the greatest pains to make the Indians understand what was said to them. To insure this he always had several interpreters, to check each other and prevent mistakes in translation, and was accustomed to consult the chiefs as to whom they wanted as interpreters. "It was my invariable custom," he states in the introduction to his final railroad report, page 18, "whenever I assembled a tribe in council, to procure from them their own rude sketches of the country, and a map was invariably prepared on a large scale and shown to them, exhibiting not only the region occupied by them, but the reservations that were proposed to be secured to them. At the Blackfoot council, the map there exhibited of the Blackfoot country--of the hunting-ground common to the Blackfeet and the Assiniboines, of the hunting-ground common to the Blackfeet and the tribes of Washington Territory, and of the passes of the Rocky Mountains by which this hunting-ground was reached--was the effective agent in guaranteeing to the Indians the exact facts as to what the treaty did propose, and to give them absolute and entire confidence in the government." He always urged and encouraged the Indians to make known their own views, wishes, and objections, and gave them time to talk matters over among themselves and make up their minds. Between the sessions of the council he would have the agents and interpreters explain the terms and point out the benefits of the proposed treaty, and would frequently summon the chiefs to his tent, and personally explain matters to them, and draw out their ideas. He also frequently invited public officers, and citizens of standing, to attend the councils, and would make use of them also to talk with and satisfy the Indians. All the proceedings of these councils, the deliberations and speeches as well as the treaties, were every word carefully taken down in writing, and transmitted to the Indian Bureau in Washington, where they are now on file. No one can read these records without being impressed with Governor Stevens's great benevolence towards the Indians, and the absolute fairness, candor, and patience, as well as the judgment and tact, he manifested in dealing with them. One is also likely to be enlightened as to the native intelligence, ability, and shrewdness of the Indians themselves. The first council was held on She-nah-nam, or Medicine Creek, now known as McAlister's Creek, a mile above its mouth on the right bank, just below the house of Hartman, on a rising and wooded spot a few acres in extent, like an island with the creek on the one side (south) and the tide-marsh on the other. This stream flows along the south side of the Nisqually bottom, parallel to and half a mile from the river. The governor and his party, including Mason, Lieutenant W.A. Slaughter, of the 4th infantry, Doty, Gibbs, Edward Giddings, and the governor's son, Hazard, a boy of twelve, went down to the treaty ground by canoes on December 24, and found a large space cleared of underbrush, the tents pitched, and everything made ready for the council by Simmons, Shaw, Cock, Cushman, and others, who had been sent ahead for that purpose. Seven hundred Indians of the tribes dwelling upon the upper Sound and as far down as the Puyallup River, including the Nisqually, Puyallup, and Squaxon tribes, were encamped near by. It rained nearly all day. In the afternoon the Indians drove a large band of ponies across the creek, forcing them to swim. Provisions were issued to the chiefs to distribute among their people. On the following day the Indians assembled, taking seats on the ground in front of the council tent in semi-circular rows, and the objects and points of the proposed treaty were fully explained to them. The governor would utter a sentence in simple and clear language, and Colonel Shaw would interpret it in the Chinook jargon, which nearly all the Indians understood. The governor was extremely careful to make the Indians comprehend every sentence. Colonel Simmons, Gibbs, Cushman, and the citizens present, all knew the Chinook, and attentively followed Shaw as he interpreted, so that no mistake or omission could occur. It was slow and fatiguing work, this going over the ground sentence by sentence, and after several hours the Indians were dismissed for the day, told to think over what they had heard, and to assemble again the next morning. The governor wished to give them time to fully understand and reflect upon the proposed treaty, and encouraged them to talk freely to himself or any of his assistants in regard to it. On the 26th the Indians assembled about nine o'clock to the number of 650, and Governor Stevens addressed them as follows:-- "This is a great day for you and for us, a day of peace and friendship between you and the whites for all time to come. You are about to be paid for your lands, and the Great Father has sent me to-day to treat with you concerning the payment. The Great Father lives far off. He has many children. Some of those children came here when he knew but little of them, or of the Indians, and he sent me to inquire about these things. We went through this country this last year, learned your numbers and saw your wants. We felt much for you, and went to the Great Father to tell him what we had seen. The Great Father felt for his children. He pitied them, and he has sent me here to-day to express these feelings, and to make a treaty for your benefit. The Great Father has many white children who come here, some to build mills, some to make farms, and some to fish; and the Great Father wishes you to learn to farm, and your children to go to a good school; and he now wants me to make a bargain with you, in which you will sell your lands, and in return be provided with all these things. You will have certain lands set apart for your homes, and receive yearly payments of blankets, axes, etc. All this is written down in this paper, which will be read to you. If it is good you will sign it, and I will then send it to the Great Father. I think he will be pleased with it and say it is good, but if not, if he wishes it different, he will say so and send it back; and then, if you agree to it, it is a fixed bargain, and payments will be made." The treaty was then read section by section and explained to the Indians, and every opportunity given them to discuss it. Governor Stevens then said:-- "The paper has been read to you. Is it good? If it is good, we will sign it; but if you dislike it in any point, say so now. After signing we have some goods to give you, and next summer will give you some more; and after that you must wait until the paper comes back from the Great Father. The goods now given are not in payment for your lands; they are merely a friendly present." The Indians had some discussion, and Governor Stevens then put the question: "Are you ready? If so, I will sign it." There were no objections, and the treaty was then signed by Governor I.I. Stevens, and the chiefs, delegates, and headmen on the part of the Indians, and duly witnessed by the secretary, special agent, and seventeen citizens present. The presents and provisions were then given to the chiefs, who distributed them among their people. Towards evening Mr. Swan arrived with twenty-nine Indians of the Puyallup tribe, and reported twenty more on the way. They had started three days before, but had been detained by bad weather. The governor decided to send them presents from Olympia. Thus it will be seen that the governor first explained the objects and terms of the treaty generally, and the next day had the text of it read to them and also explained. The idea of selling their lands and being paid for them was not new to the Indians, for the settlers were in the habit of assuring them, when they objected and complained at the appropriation and fencing up of their choicest camping, root, and berry grounds, that the Great Father would soon pay them well for their country. The scope and policy of the treaty will best appear by the following abstract of its thirteen articles:-- 1. The Indians cede their land to the United States, comprising the present counties of Thurston, Pierce, and parts of Mason and King. 2. Sets off and describes the reservations, viz., Klah-she-min Island, known as Squaxon Island, situated opposite the mouths of Hammersley's and Totten's inlets, and separated from Hartstene Island by Pearl Passage, containing about two sections of land, or 1280 acres, a square tract of two sections near and south of the mouth of McAlister's Creek, and another equal tract on the south side of Commencement Bay, now covered by the city of Tacoma. Provision is made for the Indians to remove to these reservations, and for roads through them and from them to the nearest public highways. 3. Gives the Indians the right of fishing at their accustomed grounds, except the right of taking shell-fish from beds staked out or cultivated by citizens, and the rights of hunting, gathering berries and roots, and pasturing herds on unclaimed land. 4. $32,500 to be paid in annuities of goods, clothing, and useful articles during the next twenty years. 5. And $3250 to be expended in aiding the Indians to settle on their reservations. 6. Empowers the President to remove the Indians to other reservations, when the interests of the Territory require it, by remunerating them for their improvements. 7. Prohibits the use of annuities to pay the debts of individuals. 8. Prohibits war or depredations, and the Indians agree to submit all grievances to the government for settlement. 9. Excludes ardent spirits from the reservations on penalty of withholding annuities. 10. Provides at a central or general agency a free school, a blacksmith shop, and a carpenter shop, and to furnish a blacksmith, a carpenter, a farmer, and teachers, all to give instructions for twenty years. 11. Frees all slaves and abolishes slavery. 12. Prohibits the Indians from trading outside the dominions of the United States, and forbids foreign Indians to reside on the reservations without the permission of the superintendent or agent. 13. The treaty to go into effect as soon as ratified by the President and Senate. The twelfth article was aimed against the liquor traffic, and also to counteract the undue influence of the Hudson Bay Company. It carried out the idea expressed in the governor's instructions to McClellan and Saxton at the outset of the exploration, already quoted. "The Indians must look to us for protection and counsel.... I am determined, in my intercourse with the Indians, to break up the ascendency of the Hudson Bay Company, and permit no authority or sanction to come between the Indians and the officers of this government." Sixty-two Indians signed this treaty, "chiefs, headmen, and delegates of the Nisqually, Puyallup, Steilacoom, Squawksin, S'Homamish, Steh-chass, T'Peek-sin, Squiaitl, and Sa-ha-wamish tribes and bands of Indians, occupying the lands lying around the head of Puget Sound and the adjacent inlets, who, for the purpose of this treaty, are to be regarded as one nation." The Indians all made their marks to their names as written out in full by the secretary. They were: Qui-ee-metl, Sno-ho-dum-set, Lesh-high, Slip-o-elm, Kwi-ats, Sta-hi, Di-a-keh, Hi-ten, Squa-ta-hun, Kahk-tse-min, So-nan-o-youtl, Kl-tehp, Sahl-ko-min, T'Bet-ste-heh-bit, Tcha-hoos-tan, Ke-cha-hat, Spee-peh, Swe-yah-tum, Chah-achsh, Pich-kehd, S'Klah-o-sum, Sah-le-tatl, See-lup, E-la-kah-ka, Slug-yeh, Hi-nuk, Ma-mo-nish, Cheels, Knut-ca-nu, Bats-ta-ko-be, Win-ne-ya, Klo-out, Se-uch-ka-nam, Ske-mah-han, Wuts-un-a-pum, Quuts-a-tadm, Quut-a-heh-mtsn, Yah-leh-chn, To-tahl-kut, Yul-lout, See-ahts-oot-soot, Ye-tah-ko, We-po-it-ee, Kah-sld, La'h-hom-kan, Pah-how-at-ish, Swe-yehm, Sah-hwill, Se-kwaht, Kah-hum-kit, Yah-kwo-bah, Wut-sah-le-wun, Sah-ba-hat, Tel-e-kish, Swe-keh-nam, Sit-oo-ah, Ko-quel-a-cut, Jack, Keh-kise-be-lo, Go-yeh-hn, Sah-putsh, William. Lesh-high, the third signer, was the principal chief and instigator of the Indian war that broke out the following year, and, after the outbreak was suppressed, was tried and executed for the murder of settlers, after an excited controversy and strenuous efforts to save him on the part of some of the regular officers. Born of a Yakima mother, he was a chief of unusual intelligence and energy, had much to do with the Hudson Bay Company's people at Fort Nisqually, by whom he was much trusted as a guide and hunter, and was supposed to be well affected towards the whites. The first signer, Qui-ee-muth, was Lesh-high's brother, and met with a more tragic fate, being slain by a revengeful settler after he was captured. Sta-hi, the fifth signer, was killed during the Indian war. The witnesses who signed the treaty, nineteen in number, including well-known public men and pioneers, were the following: M.T. Simmons, Indian agent; James Doty, secretary; C.H. Mason, secretary of the Territory; W.A. Slaughter, 1st lieutenant, 4th infantry, U.S. A.; James McAlister, E. Giddings, Jr., George Shazer, Henry D. Cock, Orrington Cushman, S.S. Ford, Jr., John W. McAlister, Peter Anderson, Samuel Klady, W.H. Pullen, F.O. Hough, E.R. Tyerall, George Gibbs, Benjamin F. Shaw, interpreter, Hazard Stevens. The governor became satisfied at a later date that the reservations set off for the Nisquallies and Puyallups were inadequate for their future needs, being of inferior soil and heavily timbered, and in 1856 caused them to be exchanged for two larger tracts of fine, fertile bottom land,--one on the Nisqually, a few miles above its mouth, and the other at the mouth of the Puyallup River, directly opposite the city of Tacoma, which the Indians still occupy. In the evening, after the council broke up, the governor had another long conference with his advisory board, and settled the points and programme for other treaties. The next morning, directing Gibbs to survey the lines of the two reservations on Nisqually and Commencement bays, and dispatching Simmons and Shaw with the rest of the party in the schooner to the lower Sound to assemble the Indians for the remaining treaties, he returned to Olympia with Mason and Doty. The treaty was immediately forwarded to Washington, and was ratified by the Senate, March 3, 1855, but little over two months after the council. THE TREATY OF POINT ELLIOTT. The next council was held at Mukilteo, or Point Elliott, where, between January 12 and 21, the Indians of the east side of the Sound assembled to the number of 2300. On the latter date Governor Stevens arrived on the Major Tompkins, accompanied by Secretary Mason, and by his friend, Dr. C.M. Hitchcock, of San Francisco, who was visiting the country. After a long conference with his assistants in regard to the most suitable points for reservations, and the views and feelings of the Indians, he appointed Gibbs secretary, in place of Doty, who had departed on his mission east of the mountains, and directed him to prepare the draft of a treaty embodying the points decided upon, and in terms similar to the one recently concluded. The next morning the Indians all assembled; the four head chiefs--Seattle, chief of the Duwhamish and other bands on White River and the Sound within twenty miles of Seattle; Pat-ka-nim, chief of the Snohomish; Goliah, chief of the Skagits; and Chow-its-hoot, chief of the Bellingham Bay and island Indians--took seats in front on the ground; the sub-chiefs occupied a second row, and the various tribes took places behind them in separated groups. The governor then addressed them as follows, Colonel Shaw interpreting:-- "My children, you are not my children because you are the fruit of my loins, but because you are children for whom I have the same feeling as if you were the fruit of my loins. You are my children for whom I will strenuously labor all the days of my life until I shall be taken hence. What will a man do for his own children? He will see that they are well cared for; that they have clothes to protect them against the cold and rain; that they have food to guard them against hunger; and as for thirst, you have your own glorious streams in which to quench it. I want you as my children to be fed and clothed, and made comfortable and happy. I find that many of you are Christians, and I saw among you yesterday the sign of the cross, which I think the most holy of all signs. I address you therefore mainly as Christians, who know that this life is a preparation for the life to come. "You understand well my purpose, and you want now to know the special things we propose to do for you. We want to place you in homes where you can cultivate the soil, raising potatoes and other articles of food, and where you may be able to pass in canoes over the waters of the Sound and catch fish, and back to the mountains to get roots and berries. The Great Father desires this, and why am I able to say this? Here are two thousand men, women, and children, who have always treated white men well. Did I not come through your country one year since? Were not many of you now present witnesses of the fact? [All said Governor Stevens came.] Did I then make promises to you? [All said he did not.] I am glad to hear this, because I came through your country, not to make promises, but to know what you were, to know what you wanted, to know your grievances, and to report to the Great Father about you. I have been to the Great Father and told him your condition. Here on this Sound you make journeys of three and four days, but I made a journey of fifty days on your behalf. I told the Great Father I had traveled six moons in reaching this country, and had never found an Indian who would not give me food, raiment, and animals to forward me and mine to the great country of the West. I told him that I was among ten thousand Indians, and they took me to their lodges and offered me all they had, and here I will pause and ask you again if you do not know that I have been absent several months on this business? [All shout, 'Yes.'] I went away, but I left a good and strong man in my place. I call upon Governor Mason to speak to you." Mr. Mason then addressed them, and then the governor called upon Colonel Simmons, who made them a speech in Chinook, at the conclusion of which the Indians cheered. The governor then resumed:-- "The Great Father thinks you ought to have homes, and he wants you to have a school where your children can learn to read, and can be made farmers and be taught trades. He is willing you should catch fish in the waters, and get roots and berries back in the mountains. He wishes you all to be virtuous and industrious, and to become a happy and prosperous community. Is this good, and do you want this? If not, we will talk further. [All answer, 'We do.'] "My children, I have simply told you the heart of the Great Father. But the lands are yours, and we mean to pay you for them. We thank you that you have been so kind to all the white children of the Great Father who have come here from the East. Those white children have always told you you would be paid for your lands, and we are now here to buy them. "The white children of the Great Father, but no more his children than you are, have come here, some to build mills, some to till the land, and others to build and sail ships. My children, I believe that I have got your hearts. You have my heart. We will put our hearts down on paper, and then we will sign our names. I will send that paper to the Great Father, and if he says it is good, it will stand forever. I will now have the paper read to you, and all I ask of you two thousand Indians is that you will say just what you think, and, if you find it good, that your chiefs and headmen will sign the same." Before the treaty was read, the Indians sung a mass, after the Roman Catholic form, and recited a prayer. Governor Stevens: "Does any one object to what I have said? Does my venerable friend Seattle object? I want Seattle to give his heart to me and to his people." Seattle: "I look upon you as my father. All the Indians have the same good feeling toward you, and will send it on the paper to the Great Father. All of them--men, old men, women, and children--rejoice that he has sent you to take care of them. My mind is like yours; I don't want to say more. My heart is very good towards Dr. Maynard [a physician who was present]; I want always to get medicine from him." Governor Stevens: "My friend Seattle has put me in mind of one thing which I had forgotten. You shall have a doctor to cure your bodies. Now, my friends, I want you, if Seattle has spoken well, to say so by three cheers. [Three cheers were given.] Now we call upon Pat-ka-nim to speak his mind." Pat-ka-nim: "To-day I understood your heart as soon as you spoke. I understood your talk plainly. God made my heart and those of my people good and strong. It is good that we should give you our real feelings today. We want everything as you have said, the doctor and all. Such is the feeling of all the Indians. Our hearts are with the whites. God makes them good towards the Americans." [Three cheers were given for Pat-ka-nim.] Chow-its-hoot: "I do not want to say much. My heart is good. God has made it good towards you. I work on the ground, raise potatoes, and build houses. I have some houses at home. But I will stop building if you wish, and will move to Cha-chu-sa. Now I have given you my opinion, and that of my friends. Their feelings are all good, and they will do as you say hereafter. My mind is the same as Seattle's. I love him, and send my friends to him if they are sick. I go to Dr. Maynard at Seattle if I am sick." [Cheers for Chow-its-hoot.] Goliah: "My mind is the same as the governor's. God has made it so. I have no wish to say much. I am happy at heart. I am happy to hear the governor talk of God. My heart is good and that of all my friends. I give it to the governor. I shall be glad to have a doctor for the Indians. We are all glad to hear you, and to be taken care of by you. I do not want to say more." [Cheers were given for Goliah.] The treaty was then read and interpreted to them, and the governor asked them if they were satisfied with it. If they were, he would sign it first, and then they should sign it. If not, he wished them to state in what they desired it to be altered. All having signified their approbation, it was signed first by Governor Stevens, and afterwards by the chiefs and headmen. The hour being late when the signing was finished, the distribution of the presents was deferred to the next day. Tuesday, January 23. The Indians having reassembled, Governor Stevens informed them that he was about to distribute some presents. They were not intended as payment for their lands, but merely as a friendly token of regard. He gave them but few things at this time, but the next summer he should again give them a larger present, when the goods intended for them arrived. Seattle then brought a white flag, and presented it, saying: "Now, by this we make friends, and put away all bad feelings, if we ever had any. We are the friends of the Americans. All the Indians are of the same mind. We look upon you as our father. We will never change our minds, but, since you have been to see us, we will always be the same. Now! now! do you send this paper of our hearts to the Great Chief. That is all I have to say." The presents were then given to the chiefs to distribute among their people, the camp was struck, and the party embarked on board the steamer, which had been chartered for the purpose of expediting the preparations for the next council, that with the S'Klallams and Sko-ko-mish, but, a heavy blow coming on, she lay at anchor till morning. An Indian express arrived with news that the Indians were collected at Fort Gamble, awaiting the arrival of the governor. The tribes, as enumerated in the treaty, furnish a long list of unpronounceable Indian names, as follows: Dwamish, Suquamish, Sk-tahl-mish, Sa-mah-mish, Smalh-ka-mish, Skope-ah-mish, Sno-qual-moo, Skai-wha-mish, N'Quentl-ma-mish, Sk-tah-le-jum, Sto-luck-wha-mish, Sno-ho-mish, Skagit, Kik-i-all-us, Swin-a-mish, Squin-a-mish, Sah-ku-me-hu, Noo-wha-ha, Nook-wa-chah-mish, Me-see-qua-guilch, Cho-bah-ah-bish, and others. The fifteen articles of this treaty contain the same general provisions as that of She-nah-nam Creek. The territory ceded by Article 1 extends from the summit of the Cascades to the middle of the Sound, and from the 49th parallel as far south as the Puyallup River, very nearly, and comprises the present counties of King, part of Kitsap, Snohomish, Skagit, Whatcom, Island, and San Juan. The reservations, Articles 2 and 3, included 1280 acres at Port Madison, 1280 acres on the east side of Fidalgo Island, and the island called Chah-chu-sa in the Lummi River. An entire township on the northeast side of Port Gardner, embracing Tulalip Bay, was made the principal reservation, to which the Indians might be removed from the smaller ones; $150,000 in annuities in goods, etc., for twenty years, and $15,000 for improvements on the reservation were provided. The rights of fishing, hunting, gathering berries and roots, and pasturage on vacant land were secured to the Indians. Slavery was abolished, liquor prohibited on the reservations, wars and depredations forbidden, and trading in foreign dominions prohibited. A free school, teachers, doctor, blacksmith and carpenter with shops, and a farmer were provided for, and provision made for eventually allotting the reservations to them in severalty. The first chief to sign the treaty was Seattle, after whom was named the metropolis of the Sound; the next was Pat-ka-nim, then Chow-its-hoot, then Goliah, and then follows the long list of guttural and sibillant native names, unspeakable by white lips, some of which were accompanied by an alias, as the Smoke, the Priest, General Washington, General Pierce, Davy Crockett, etc. The treaty was witnessed by M.T. Simmons, C.H. Mason, Charles M. Hitchcock, H.A. Goldsborough, George Gibbs, John H. Scranton, Henry D. Cock, S.S. Ford, Jr., Orrington Cushman, Ellis Barnes, P. Bailey, S.M. Collins, Lafayette Balch, E.S. Fowler, J.H. Hall, Robert Davis, and Benjamin F. Shaw,--seventeen in number. The ratification of this and all Governor Stevens's subsequent Indian treaties was delayed some four years in consequence of the Indian war which broke out in the fall of 1855, and the misrepresentations made concerning them, and the charges that they were the cause of the war,--misrepresentations and charges originally started by the hostile Indians, and taken up by prejudiced army officers and political and personal enemies; and it was not until he entered Congress, and personally vindicated his treaties before the government and Senate, that they were ratified, on March 8, 1859. TREATY OF HAHD-SKUS OR POINT-NO-POINT. The next council was held at Point-no-Point, on the west side of the Sound, opposite the southern end of Whitby Island. The weather was very stormy on the 24th and 25th, but twelve hundred Indians assembled here, comprising the S'Klallams or Clallams, who occupied the shores from half way down the Strait of Fuca to the council ground; the Chim-a-kums, of Port Townsend Bay and the lower end of Hood's Canal; and the Skokomish or Too-an-hooch, from Hood's Canal and the country about its southern extremity. The Major Tompkins reached Point-no-Point on the 24th, and, leaving the schooner at anchor, and the men on shore to form camp, ran down to Port Townsend to bring up additional provisions, and returned in the afternoon. On the 25th, notwithstanding the storm, the Indians gathered at the council ground, and, having seated themselves in a circular row under their chiefs, Governor Stevens addressed them as follows:-- "My children, you call me your father. I, too, have a father, who is your Great Father. That Great Father has sent me here to-day to pay you for your lands, to provide for your children, to see that you are fed, and that you are cared for. Your Great Father wishes you to be happy, to be friends to each other. The Great Father wants you and the whites to be friends; he wants you to have a house of your own, to have a school where your children can learn. He wants you to learn to farm, to learn to use tools, and also to have a doctor. Now, all these things shall be written down in a paper; that paper shall be read to you. If the paper is good, you will sign it and I will sign it. I will then send the paper to the Great Father. If the Great Father finds that paper good, he will send me word, and I will let you know. The Great Father lives a long way off, and some time will be required to hear from him. I want you to wait patiently till you hear from him. In the mean time the Great Father has sent to you some presents simply as a free gift. Some of these presents I will give you to-day, but I shall give you more in the course of the summer. You will also have your agent, Mr. Simmons, to take care of you. This you will have all the time; and, when the paper comes from the Great Father, then you will have your own houses and homes and schools. Now, what have you to say? If good, give your assent; if not, say so. Now, sit quiet a moment, and the paper will be read." After the treaty had been read and interpreted, Governor Stevens again asked them if they had anything to say. Che-lan-teh-tat, an old Skokomish, then rose and said:-- "I wish to speak my mind as to selling the land. Great Chief, what shall we eat if we do so? Our only food is berries, deer, and salmon. Where, then, shall we find these? I don't want to sign away all my land. Take half of it, and let us keep the rest. I am afraid that I shall become destitute and perish for want of food. I don't like the place you have chosen for us to live on. I am not ready to sign that paper." S'Haie-at-seha-uk, a To-an-hooch, next spoke:-- "I do not want to leave the mouth of the river. I do not want to leave my old home and my burying-ground. I am afraid I shall die if I do." Dah-whil-luk, the Skokomish head chief, an old man, rose and said:-- "I do not want to sell my land, because it is valuable. The whites pay a great deal for a small piece, and they get money by selling the sticks [timber]. Formerly the Indians slept, but the whites came among them and woke them up, and we now know that the lands are worth much." Hool-hole-tan or Jim said:-- "I want to speak. I do not like the offers you make in the treaty to us. You say you will give us land, but why should you give us the mouth of the river? I don't like to go on a reservation with the S'Klallams; and, in case of trouble, there are more of them than of us, and they will charge us with it. Before the whites came among us, we had no idea who made the land; but some time ago the priests told us that the Great Chief above made it, and also made the Indians. Since then the Americans have told us that the Great Father always bought the land, and that it was not right to take it for nothing. They waked the Indians up by this, and they now know their land was worth much. I don't want to sign away my right to the land. If it was myself alone I signed for, I would do it; but we have women and children. Let us keep half of it, and take the rest. Why should we sell all? We may become destitute. Why not let us live together with you? I want you to hear what I have to say. All the Indians have been afraid to talk, but I wish to speak and be listened to." Chits-a-mah-han or the Duke of York, the head chief of the Clallams:-- "My heart is good. I am happy since I have heard the paper read, and since I have understood Governor Stevens, particularly since I have been told I could look for food where I pleased, and not in one place only. Formerly the Indians were bad towards each other, but Governor Stevens has made them agree to be friends. Before the whites came we were always poor; since then we have earned money, and got blankets and clothing. I hope the governor will tell the whites not to abuse the Indians, as many are in the habit of doing, ordering them to go away, and knocking them down." Other chiefs of the Clallams and of the Chem-a-cums followed in the same strain as the Duke of York, approving the treaty. After further explaining its provisions the governor adjourned the council to the morrow at the request of the Skokomish chief, in order that they might talk it over and understand it thoroughly. It will be observed that this treaty encountered considerable opposition on the part of the Skokomish, who were, however, the most benefited by it, as the reservation was located in their country. They were largely influenced by the example of the other tribes, and after much discussion among themselves, and talks between sessions with the governor and his assistants, concluded to accept it. The next morning was a fine, pleasant one, and the Indians came to the council bearing white flags. The governor addressed them, pointing out that the treaty gave them all those things that a father would give his children, as homes, schools, mechanics, and a doctor; the right to fish, hunt, and gather roots and berries. Besides, it prohibited fire-water, and does not a father prevent his children from drinking fire-water? The Great Father was good to his children, and did not wish to steal their lands. It was for them to say what they thought right. If they had anything to say, say it now. The Duke of York then presented a white flag, saying: "My heart is white, so are those of my people, and we will never stain it with blood." Dah-kwil-luk, the Skokomish chief, said:-- "My heart, too, has become white, and I give it to the chief. I put away all bad feelings. I will be as a good man, not stealing or shedding blood. We have thrown away the feelings of yesterday and are now satisfied." He also presented a flag to the governor. Kul-kah-han, the Chem-a-cum chief, then presented his flag, saying:-- "We can say nothing but what this flag tells. We give our hearts to you with it in return for what you do for us. We were once wretched, but since you came you have made us right. Formerly other Indians did wrong us, but since the whites came we are free and have not been killed." Then all signed the treaty, and at a signal a salute was fired from the steamer in honor of the event. Some hostile feelings having previously existed between the tribes, Governor Stevens now declared that they must drop them forever, and that their hearts towards each other should be good as well as towards the whites. Accordingly the three head chiefs, in behalf of their people, then shook hands. Then the presents were distributed to them. In the afternoon the party reëmbarked, Mr. Mason returning to Olympia on the steamer, and Governor Stevens with the remainder proceeding to Port Townsend in the schooner, on his way to Cape Flattery, the next point of meeting. The tribes mentioned in the treaty as parties thereto are the Skokomish, To-an-hooch, Chem-a-cum, and S'Klallam, and the sub-bands of the last, viz., Kah-tie, Squah-quaihtl, Tch-queen, Ste-teht-lum, Tsohkw, Yennis, Elh-wa, Pishtst, Hun-nint, Klat-la-wash, and O-ke-ho, occupying lands on the Strait of Fuca and Hood's Canal. A reservation was set off at the mouth of the Skokomish River, of 3840 acres. $60,000 in the usual annuities, and $6000 for the improvement of the reservation, were provided, and the other provisions were the same as in the Tulalip and She-nah-nam Creek treaties. This treaty was witnessed by the same gentlemen who witnessed the preceding. COUNCIL OF NEAH BAY, AND MAKAH TREATY. From Port Townsend the schooner sped rapidly down the Strait of Fuca, running one hundred and twenty miles in two days,--no holiday voyage, in a small vessel in midwinter, along that exposed and shelterless coast,--and reached Neah Bay on the evening of the 28th. At this point, just inside Cape Flattery, the Makah Indians had their principal village. Messengers were immediately dispatched to call in the Indians of the other Makah villages, and of tribes farther south on the coast. The tents, goods, and men were landed on the 29th, and camp established. The following day the governor, accompanied by Mr. Gibbs, crossed the Cape Flattery peninsula to the Pacific coast, and examined the country for the purpose of selecting a suitable reservation. In the evening he called a meeting of the Makah chiefs on board the schooner, the other villages having come in during the day, and explained the principal features of the proposed treaty. The Great Father had sent him here to watch over the Indians. He had talked with the other tribes on the Sound, and they had promised to be good friends with their neighbors, and he had now come to talk with the Makahs. When he had done here, he was going to the Indians down the coast, and would make them friends to the Makahs. He had treated with the other Sound Indians for their lands, setting aside reserves for them, giving them a school, farmer, physician, etc., etc. When he concluded, Kal-chote, a Makah chief, spoke: "Before the big chiefs Klehsitt, the White Chief, Yall-a-coon or Flattery Jack, and Heh-iks died, he was not the head chief himself, he was only the small chief, but though there were many Indians then, he was not the least of them. He knew the country all around, and therefore he had a right to speak. He thought he ought to have the right to fish, and take whales, and get food where he liked. He was afraid that if he could not take halibut where he wanted, he would become poor." Keh-tchook, of the stone house: "What Kal-chote had said was his wish. He did not want to leave the salt water." Governor Stevens informed them that, so far from wishing to stop their fisheries, he wished to send them oil-kettles and fishing apparatus. Klah-pr-at-loo: "He was willing to sell his land. All he wanted was the right of fishing." Tse-kan-wootl: "He wanted the sea. That was his country. If whales were killed and floated ashore, he wanted, for his people, the exclusive right of taking them, and if their slaves ran away, he wanted to get them back." Governor Stevens replied that he wanted them to fish, but the whites should fish also. Whoever killed the whales was to have them if they came ashore. Many white men were coming into the country, and he did not want the Indians to be crowded out. Kal-chote: "I want always to live on my old ground, and to die on it. I only want a small piece for a house, and will live as a friend to the whites, and they should fish together." Ke-bach-sat: "My heart is not bad, but I do not wish to leave all my land. I am willing you should have half, but I want the other half myself." It-an-da-ha: "My father! my father! I now give you my heart. When any ships come and the whites injure me, I will apply to my father, and tell him of my trouble, and look to him for help, and if any Indians wish to kill me, I shall still call on my father. I do not wish to leave the salt water. I want to fish in common with the whites. I don't want to sell all my land. I want a part in common with the whites to plant potatoes on. I want the place where my house is." Governor Stevens asked them whether, if the right of drying fish wherever they pleased was left them, they could not agree to live at one place for a winter residence and potato ground, explaining the idea of subdivision of lands, and he desired them to think the matter over during the night. They were asked to consult among themselves upon the choice of a head chief. As they declined doing this, on the ground that they were all of equal rank, the governor selected Tse-kan-wootl, the Osett chief, as the head, a choice in which they all acquiesced with satisfaction. Temporary papers in lieu of commissions were then issued to a number of the sub-chiefs. The Indians assembled in council on the morning of January 31. The number of the tribe was found to be six hundred. Governor Stevens explained the provisions of the treaty:-- "The Great Father sent me to see you, and give you his mind. The whites are crowding in upon you. The Great Father wishes to give you your homes, to buy your land, and give a fair price for it, leaving you land enough to live on and raise potatoes. He knows what whalers you are, how far you go to sea to take whales. He will send you barrels in which to put your oil, kettles to try it out, lines and implements to fish with. The Great Father wants your children to go to school, to learn trades." The treaty was then read and interpreted and explained, clause by clause. Governor Stevens then asked them if they were satisfied. If they were, to say so. If not, to answer freely and state their objections. Tse-kan-wootl brought up a white flag and presented it, saying: "Look at this flag. See if there are any spots on it. There are none, and there are none on our hearts." Kal-chote then presented another flag and said, "What you have said is good, and what you have written is good." The Indians gave three cheers or shouts as each concluded. The governor then signed the treaty, and was followed by the Indian chiefs and principal men, forty-one in number, of the Neah, Waatch, Tsoo-yess, and Osett villages, or bands of the Makahs. Among the names are Klah-pe-an-hie or Andrew Jackson, Tchoo-quut-lah or Yes Sir, and Swell or Jeff Davis. The witnesses were M.T. Simmons, Indian agent; George Gibbs, secretary; B.F. Shaw, interpreter; C.M. Hitchcock, M.D.; E.S. Fowler, Orrington Cushman, and Robert Davis. The provisions of this treaty are the same as in the others. The annuities in goods, etc., amounted to $30,000, and $3000 were provided to improve the reservation, which embraced Neah Bay and Cape Flattery and their principal village. It was intended only for a place of residence, with enough cultivable land for potatoes and vegetables, and, what was more important, to prevent their being crowded off by fishing establishments. The locality is unfit for agriculture, being rocky and sterile, with an annual rainfall of 122 inches. And the reserve was all they needed, for the Makahs are bold and skillful fishermen and sailors, accustomed to venture thirty to fifty miles out to sea in their large canoes, and take the whale and halibut, while inshore they hunt the seal and sea-otter, and catch the salmon. They are a more sturdy, brave, and enterprising race than the natives of the Sound, more resembling the northern Indians. In their remote, rocky stronghold, protected by the strong arm of the government extended over them by this treaty, but depending upon the sea and their own efforts for a livelihood, they have prospered greatly, putting up vast quantities of fish, furs, and oil for market; and there are few white communities that have so much wealth per capita, or wealth so evenly distributed, as these industrious and manly Indians. Immediately after the signing the presents were distributed, the camp was broken up, and in the evening the party reëmbarked. The little vessel at once hoisted sail for Port Townsend, where, after a three days' trip, being delayed by head winds, she arrived February 3. The next day the governor, with some of the party, took the Major Tompkins for Victoria, in order to confer with Governor Douglass upon the means of preventing the piratical incursions of the northern Indians upon the Sound. On the 5th he returned to Port Townsend, and reached Olympia on the night of the 6th. This brief campaign was Napoleonic, in rapidity and success. In six weeks Governor Stevens met and treated with five thousand Indians, of numerous independent and jealous tribes and bands, and in four separate councils carefully and indefatigably made clear to them the new policy, convinced them of its benefits to them, and concluded with them four separate treaties, by which the Indian title to the whole Puget Sound basin was extinguished forever, and the great source and danger of collision between the races was removed. For the eight thousand five hundred Indians hitherto ignored by Congress and treated by the settlers as mere vagrants, to be shoved aside at the whim or self-interest of any white man, he established nine reservations, containing over 60,000 acres, for their permanent homes and exclusive possessions; provided annuities of clothing, goods, and useful articles for twenty years, aggregating $300,000; abolished slavery and war among them; excluded liquor from the reservations; extended over them the protection of the government, with agents, schools, teachers, farmers, and mechanics to instruct them; and, in a word, set their feet fairly on "the white man's road." To accomplish this astonishing work in such brief time, he traveled eight hundred miles upon the Sound and Strait in the most inclement season of the year, half the distance, and that the most dangerous, in a small sailing-craft. He disregarded the storms and rains of that inclement season, and spared neither himself nor his assistants. It is not easy to say who had the hardest task, the agents and messengers who traveled all over the Sound in canoes in the tempestuous rainy season to call the scattered bands together, or the unfortunate secretary, who had to catch and set down on paper the jaw-breaking native names. The success and rapidity with which he carried through these treaties were due to the careful and thorough manner in which he planned them, and prepared the minds of the Indians by his tour among and talks to them a year previous, and by the messages and agents he had sent among them. Besides, the Indians realized their own feebleness and uncertain future, divided into so many bands, exposed to the depredations of the northern Indians, and dreading the advent and encroachments of the whites. Their minds consequently were well attuned for treating; and when they understood the wise and beneficent policy and liberal terms offered by the governor, they gladly accepted them, and put their trust in him as their friend and protector, a trust never withdrawn and never forsaken. The Indian war which occurred soon after, and the delay in the ratification of the treaties, seriously militated against carrying out the beneficent policy so well inaugurated, and later the occasional appointment of inefficient and dishonest agents has proved even more detrimental; but notwithstanding all these drawbacks the Indians have made substantial advances in civilization, and it is interesting to compare their present condition, as given in the last reports of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and from local sources. Their numbers have diminished only about one half. No one seeing their debased condition in 1850 to 1860 (except the Makahs) would have deemed it possible for them to hold their own so well. Makahs 750 Tulalip Agency, lower Sound Indians 1700 Puyallup Agency, upper Sound Indians 1850 ---- 4300 All now wear civilized dress, and live in houses. Many can read and write, and many of their children attend the reservation schools. "Among the Makahs, many of the younger Indians are turning their attention to farming and raising stock, and many of them have fine gardens. They still catch a great many fish, sending them to market in Seattle by steamer, and have caught and shipped as high as 10,000 pounds in one day. There are few places with so large a population where so little crime is committed." All the reservations on the Sound have now been allotted, and the Indians are living on their respective allotments. A considerable number have taken up farms under the homestead laws, or purchased lands from the whites, and are farming successfully. Such Indians are frequently seen driving into the towns with good wagons and teams, as well dressed as the average white rancher, and accompanied ofttimes by their wives and children. "Practically all these Indians dress as civilized men and women, and live in houses, some of which are good, comfortable, and roomy, fully equal to the average farm dwellings in prosperous communities of whites, and from these they grade down to the most squalid shacks imaginable. Under the influence of the teachers, and the example of the more advanced Indians and the better class of white neighbors, there is slow but sure improvement in this particular." During the fall hundreds of them congregate on the hop-fields, where they supply the most reliable hop-pickers, whole families--men, women, and children--diligently working together. After this harvest crowds of them flock into the towns, and lay in stores of clothing and provisions for the winter before returning home.[11] [11] Commissioner of Indian Affairs' Report for 1899, pp. 301-303, 612. The Riverside Press _Electrotyped and printed by H.O. Houghton & Co._ _Cambridge, Mass, U.S.A._ * * * * * Transcriber's note: Some compound words (e.g., 'wagon-master') appeared both with and without a hyphen. They are given as printed. Where a word is hyphenated on a line break, the hyphen is retained if the preponderance of other appearances indicate it was intended. Illlustrations cannot be reproduced here, but the approximate position of each is indicated as: [Illustration: <caption>]. Footnotes are repositioned at the end of each chapter. They have been re-numbered consecutively. The following minor issues are noted and corrected. The name 'Boulineau' was likely misprinted based on that of another member of Steven's party, Pierre Boutineau. The instance on p. 330 refers to Paul Boulieau. p. 2 there is scar[c]ely a State in the Union Added 'c'. p. 28 and Schuyler Hamilton[.] Added full stop p. 97 ponto[o]n Added. p. 99 Do not fa[l/i]l to Corrected. p. 137 about twelve [P.] M. Supplied missing 'P'. p. 141 but about nine o'clock[,/.] Corrected. p. 182 at good esc[a/o]pette range Corrected. p. 210 formid[id]able Removed. p. 216 the Cerro [C/G]ordo Corrected. p. 330 Bouli[n]eau Removed spurious 'n'. p. 373 dress of a chief?["/'] Corrected. 
45779	----	The Washington Historical Quarterly VOLUME V. 1914 THE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY UNIVERSITY STATION SEATTLE, WASHINGTON The Washington Historical Quarterly Board of Editors CLARENCE B. BAGLEY, Seattle. W. D. LYMAN, Walla Walla. J. N. BOWMAN, Seattle. T. C. ELLIOTT, Walla Walla. FRANK A. GOLDER, Pullman. CEYLON S. KINGSTON, Cheney. EDWARD MCMAHON, Seattle. THOMAS W. PROSCH, Seattle. OLIVER H. RICHARDSON, Seattle. O. B. SPERLIN, Tacoma. E. O. S. SCHOLEFIELD, Victoria, B. C. ALLEN WEIR, Olympia. Managing Editor EDMOND S. MEANY Business Manager CHARLES W. SMITH VOL V, NO. 1 JANUARY, 1914 _ISSUED QUARTERLY_ Contents CLARENCE B. BAGLEY George Wilkes 3 LEWIS H. ST. JOHN The Present Status and Probable Future of the Indians of Puget Sound 12 THOMAS W. PROSCH The Pioneer Dead of 1913 22 W. J. TRIMBLE American and British Treatment of the Indians in the Pacific Northwest 32 DOCUMENTS--An Indignation Meeting Over Chief Leschi 55 BOOK REVIEWS 57 NEWS DEPARTMENT 66 NORTHWESTERN HISTORY SYLLABUS 69 REPRINT DEPARTMENT--George Wilkes: History of Oregon, Geographical, Geological, and Political (New York, Colyer, 1845) 72 THE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY UNIVERSITY STATION SEATTLE, WASHINGTON Entered at the Post-office at Seattle as second-class mail matter. The Washington University State Historical Society * * * * * Officers and Board of Trustees: CLARENCE B. BAGLEY, President JUDGE JOHN P. HOYT, Vice-President JUDGE ROGER S. GREENE, Treasurer PROFESSOR EDMOND S. MEANY, Secretary JUDGE CORNELIUS H. HANFORD JUDGE THOMAS BURKE SAMUEL HILL PRINTING DEPARTMENT UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON _Vol. V. No. 1 January, 1914_ The Washington Historical Quarterly GEORGE WILKES The republication of George Wilkes' History of Oregon, begun in the Quarterly in October, 1906, is completed in the present issue. In several ways the book or pamphlet is of much historical importance. It was prepared by a journalist rather than a historian, and with a sincere desire to give accurate information regarding the Oregon Country and the best means of getting there, and without expectation of gain in its publication. At a time when railroads and railroading were in their infancy, Mr. Wilkes was among the first to realize the importance of long and connecting lines of rail communication, and so far as I have been able to ascertain was the first to publicly advocate the building of a line from the Atlantic to the Pacific by the National Government. He argued against land grants or subsidies to private individuals or corporations. The government ownership of the proposed road was the central idea of part I of the book. It was published in New York in 1845. In 1847 he published another pamphlet entitled "Proposal for a National Rail-Road to the Pacific Ocean, for the Purpose of Obtaining a Short Route to Oregon and the Indies." The latter repeated many of the arguments of the earlier work, in fact had little new material. Both are exceedingly scarce at the present day. In the preface to the book, Wilkes says: "The second part of the work consists of a journal, prepared from a series of letters, written by a gentleman now in Oregon, who himself accompanied the celebrated emigrating expedition of 1843. They make no pretensions in their style, but are merely simple, conversational epistles, which in their familiar, offhand way, furnish a large amount of useful practical information to the emigrant, and much interesting matter to the general reader. The author has done scarcely more to this portion than to throw it into chapters, and to strike from it such historical and geographical statistics as had been drawn from other sources, and arranged in the preceding portions of the work. These letters fell into his hands after the adoption and commencement of his original design; and adapting them to his purpose, by linking them with his own mss., a deal of research was saved him by the valuable and peculiar information they contributed." Mr. Wilkes did not disclose the name of the writer of the letters, and in fact their authorship was never formally announced, but internal evidence proves they were written by Peter H. Burnett. Mr. Burnett was born in Nashville, Tennessee, November 15, 1807. The family removed to Missouri in 1817. He was almost entirely self-taught, as in his childhood and youth he had little opportunity of going to school. When about 26 years of age he began the study of law, but continued in other business until in 1839 he abandoned mercantile pursuits and began the practice of law. In 1842 he determined to go to Oregon. May 8, 1843, he left his home in Weston, Missouri, with two ox wagons, one small two-horse wagon, four yoke of oxen, two mules, and a fair supply of provisions. He had a wife and six children. They arrived at the rendezvous, some twelve miles west of Independence, just across the state line and in the Indian country, on the 17th of May. Five days later a general start was made and this historic migration was begun. An excellent account of the trip is given in Part II of Wilkes' History. Mr. Burnett was quite prominent in Oregon affairs until 1848, when he was attracted to California by its rich gold fields, and after a time he sent for his family to join him there. In August, 1849, he was chosen one of the Judges of the Supreme Tribunal of California, and on the 13th of November of that year he was elected Governor. The Constitutional Convention had been held in September and October. California was admitted a state September 9, 1850. Governor Burnett sent in his resignation in January, 1851, and resumed the practice of law. In 1857-8 he served as a Justice of the Supreme Court of the State. Later he engaged in the banking business. In 1880 there was issued from the press of D. Appleton & Co. the "Recollections and Opinions of an Old Pioneer," written by Mr. Burnett. It is an extremely interesting narrative of his life in Missouri, Oregon and California, and valuable for its history of pioneer life on the Pacific Coast. In the annual address before the Oregon Pioneers at Portland, in April, 1895, appears the following: "Perhaps the demise of no one has attracted more widespread attention nor caused deeper sorrow on the Pacific Coast than the death of the late Peter H. Burnett, the first Governor of California, and an Oregon Pioneer of 1843, who had served in the legislature and was one of the justices of the supreme court." Jesse Applegate was the only other gentleman who was with the 1843 immigration who might possibly have written the letters, but they contain dates, locations and facts that make sure the declaration that Burnett wrote them. A discussion between William I. Marshall, the author of the "Acquisition of Oregon," and Professor Schafer, of the University of Oregon, regarding this book, the authorship of its letters, etc., was published in the Oregonian in 1903. Both gentleman seem to have agreed that letters written by Mr. Burnett and by him sent to the New York Herald for publication formed the basis of Part II of Wilkes' book, but they disagreed as to the value of the work as an "Original Source" of history. References to places and affairs in Oregon were quoted in substantiation of their conclusions. In this connection both gentlemen seem to have overlooked a paragraph on page 113 that, to my mind, is more nearly conclusive than the others, as follows: "The more extended political organization of which I before spoke, is about to take place, and I was waited upon two or three days ago by a party from the Falls, to consult upon a plan of general territorial government, with a legislature of two houses, and a Chief Justice for its first executive officer. This arrangement will embrace all the settlements of the valley into one common government, the representatives of which will convene in general congress, at stated periods, at Multnomah or Oregon City, and there transact all the necessary business for our little body politic. When this plan is adopted, (as it doubtless will immediately be) it will perhaps, be the peculiar honor of your humble servant, to sit in a curule chair of the first Republican Government beyond the Rocky Mountains. We shall then be able to make our own laws, and likewise do our own voting and our own fighting." A few months later Mr. Burnett was chosen Chief Justice of Oregon, under its provisional government, thus fulfilling the prediction in his letter above quoted. Wilkes must have written considerable of Part II of his book before acquiring the letters, and then instead of rewriting it he tried to work in the letters. In some places this was quite clumsily done. The first chapter is nearly all fictitious, both in names and facts. Robbins, Smith, Harris, Baker, Brown, McFarley, Wayne and Dumberton were not members of the party, and near the bottom of page 65 Burnett is introduced to Peter H. Burnett. Why Wilkes should have failed to give the name of the writer is unexplainable. In minor details it was often inaccurate, but in important facts and in giving intending emigrants information about Oregon and those on the way there valuable facts about roads, fords, grass, distances, etc., it was reliable. Commenting upon the road from the upper waters of the Sweetwater to Fort Hall, Professor Schafer says: "When we inquire into what motive could have induced Wilkes to deliberately deceive his readers with reference to this piece of road, only one natural answer suggests itself. He evidently was doing it in the interest of his railroad scheme." The writer remembers vividly that part of the road in 1852. A lad of eight years, in common with the women and other children of the party, he trudged afoot along many weary miles of this road, up and down many long and, to his mind, interminable hills, through the biting frost of early morn and the torrid heat of midday, and he can testify to its roughness and manifold difficulties. Against Prof. Schafer's comment I wish to protest most emphatically. Mr. Wilkes was a man of high ideals, of lofty public spirit. It was impossible for him to "deliberately deceive" anyone. To attempt deceit carries with it unworthy or dishonest motives. A reader of Wilkes' writings, his books, pamphlets and newspapers, will find an entire absence of selfishness or wish for private gain or personal aggrandizement at the expense of anyone. One writer has described the style of the book as "flamboyant," which is doubtless true, but greater faults than this can readily be forgiven one not more than twenty-seven years of age who devotes his splendid talents, his time and his money to the exploitation of a colossal national improvement that for the period of seventy years ago was of infinitely more importance to the United States, and especially to the Pacific Coast, than the Panama Canal of today. By most people his proposal was thought more impossible of achievement than today would be an effort to establish a line of airships between the earth and the moon. He was a little more than twenty years in advance of his time. The first transcontinental line was completed in 1869 and the scandals that followed its construction served to prove Wilkes' contention about the unwisdom of subsidizing railroads by land grants or money and still permitting private ownership of them. Particular importance attaches to this book for another reason. The migration of 1843, consisting of about 900 men, women and children, who brought with them large numbers of horses and cattle, fruit trees, etc., was the first large one. It strengthened the hands of the men who had at all times demanded that the claims of Great Britain to any part of Old Oregon south of latitude 49 degrees should be resisted at all hazards, by force of arms if necessary. The speeches of Linn, Benton, Calhoun, Webster, Clay and nearly all the notable men of the period between 1819 and 1846 show a surprising knowledge of the soil, climate, productions of land and water, its commercial advantages and all the varied details of the grazing and agricultural possibilities of Old Oregon. The record shows that these matters were familiar to these great men before an American missionary or American settler had reached Oregon. Until many years later no member of that migration published an account of it except these letters to the Herald and fragmentary notes from others. The journals of Burnett and others, so far as they have been given to the public, were jotted down from time to time by men wearied by unremitting toil, who had no time or disposition to record more than the briefest itinerary of the day. Therefore, with all its faults, Wilkes' book is of priceless value as a memorial to Congress about the Oregon of that period and the history of its local events and men of seventy years ago. To one familiar, as was the writer of this paper, with the remarkable editorials appearing in the Spirit of the Times during all the Civil War period, with their vigorous English, their fervent loyalty and lofty patriotism, the style of the book is not comparable, but in giving the salient facts about the migration and the conditions then existing in the Willamette Valley it is so accurate that an occasional slip of the pen can be readily condoned. At the time of his death, which occurred September 23, 1885, the New York Herald and the Times each devoted nearly a column to his obituary and other newspapers of that city and other Atlantic cities made more or less extended mention of him and his life. The Librarian of the New York Public Library has furnished me with photostat reproductions of the obituaries of Mr. Wilkes published by the New York Herald and Times and the Spirit of the Times. The latter article, dated September 26, 1885, is given in full below: "We regret to record the death, in this city, on Wednesday, of George Wilkes, one of the founders and proprietors of The Spirit of The Times, and for many years its sole editor. Mr. Wilkes joined the staff of this paper when it was called Porter's Spirit. A division of the proprietorship having occurred, he continued its publication under the title of Wilkes' Spirit until 1866, when his name was dropped. He lived abroad for several years, in the enjoyment of an ample income, which enabled him to indulge his cultivated tastes, and returned here a few months ago, as if he felt some premonition of his approaching death, and desired to rest in his native land, which he loved enthusiastically and served zealously. "George Wilkes was, in his way, one of the foremost American journalists. He not only founded the greatest paper of its class which this country has ever possessed, but he made it, during the Civil War, as tremendous a power in national politics as it has always been in the departments to which it is more particularly devoted. Among such giants of journalism as James Gordon Bennett, Horace Greeley, Henry J. Raymond, Charles A. Dana and William Cullen Bryant--of whom only Mr. Dana now remains to us--Mr. Wilkes held an equal place by virtue of his remarkable talents. They had daily papers in which to address the public; his paper was published only once a week; but they all conceded the vigor and brilliancy of his writing and his articles in The Spirit were republished so extensively that their circulation may be said to have been world wide. His editorials during the War were regularly reprinted in the Tribune and some of them were read in Congress. His advice was asked and followed by President Lincoln and the members of his famous Cabinet. Having convinced himself that General McClellan was inefficient, Mr. Wilkes fairly wrote him out of the command of the Army of the Potomac. He was largely instrumental in bringing Grant to take charge of our Eastern armies. He was on most intimate terms with the leading statesmen and generals of the Union. "Mr. Wilkes went to the front at the outbreak of the Rebellion and witnessed and described for The Spirit the battle of Bull Run. In the concluding words of that report he gave the keynote for all patriots by stating that the South had fought so well as to be worthy of being brought back into the Union. Throughout the magnificent series of letters and editorials which illuminated the pages of The Spirit this was the text which Mr. Wilkes enforced. He never displayed toward the misguided men who were trying to break up the Union the bitter animosity with which he hunted down the incompetent leaders of the Union side, whose incapacity delayed the restoration of peace and unity. He never doubted the ultimate salvation of the Republic, but he was righteously impatient with those who did not share his faith and agree with him in his opinions of men and measures. He labored ardently to hasten the triumph of the Union as any soldier in the field--as General Grant himself. If he made any mistakes they were on the side of patriotism and were due to his anxiety to hurry on the inevitable victory. One mistake of his in regard to General Fitz John Porter cost that officer his condemnation by Court Martial and nearly cost him his life. But Mr. Wilkes lived to see this error redeemed by the full justice done to General Porter in The Spirit, by Grant, by Congress and by the American people. In the fever and fury of a Civil War such injustices could scarcely be altogether avoided; but Mr. Wilkes went with our armies, saw personally the matters which he criticised, and, in McClellan's camp on the Peninsula, caught the disease which has finally resulted in his decease. "George Wilkes has been so long absent from editorial connection with The Spirit that his death will not affect it in any way. But, like all strong individualities, he has left a permanent impression upon the paper which he so long conducted. His energetic and splendid style of writing elevated the journalism of sports from the slipslop methods of his predecessors. He attempted to banish slang from every department of The Spirit and he succeeded. In Shakespeare he found a living well of English undefiled and there he sought for strength and purity of diction. After his retirement from practical journalism, he wrote a commentary upon Shakespeare which is remarkable for its original views and theories. But Mr. Wilkes felt that the work of his life had ended with the Civil War and that thereafter he might take such enjoyment as his broken health permitted. He made business arrangements which left him free to live or travel wherever he pleased and independent of all cares and responsibilities. Never afraid of death and boldly facing it a hundred times in the discharge of what he believed to be his duty, he finally died at home, peacefully and fearlessly." Allibone's Dictionary of Authors, Vol. 3, p. 2720, quotes the following: "New York, April 28, 1870.--George Wilkes, the proprietor of the Spirit of the Times, has received from the Emperor of Russia the Grand Cross of the Order of St. Stanislas, as a recognition for the suggestion made to the Russian Government in reference to an overland railway to China and India by way of Russia. This mark of royal favor entitles the holder to have his male children at the Military School of Russia at the expense of the State." This great honor from the Russian Government came to him about a quarter century after he had been made the object of jest and ridicule for a similar suggestion backed by sound argument for a railroad across the United States. Scriptural comment: "A prophet is not without honor save in his own country." The New York Times said of him that when the Civil War broke out Wilkes wrote a series of newspaper and magazine articles on the burning question of the hour that attracted wide attention, and gained him the friendship of many prominent men. Secretary Stanton took a personal interest in him, and gave him a great deal of literary work to do in Washington. His articles were very vigorous, well written, and patriotic. They commanded a wide influence, and besides strengthening the attachment of the author to people who had heretofore been his friends, they had the effect of subduing the belligerence and increasing the caution of his enemies. In April, 1860, Frank Leslie's "Illustrated Newspaper" published a photograph of him and a brief but complimentary note about him. In 1849 Mr. Wilkes went to California with David C. Broderick, who afterward became U. S. Senator from that State. Wilkes took great interest in the political fortunes of Broderick, and rendered him valuable services. In 1851 he returned to New York and resumed his career as a journalist. Early pioneers will remember the wave of indignation that swept over the Pacific Coast when it was known that Broderick had been killed in a duel with David S. Terry. The latter became widely known as Judge Terry, whose tragic death while attempting to murder Justice Field is comparatively recent California history. The fatal meeting took place September 13, 1859, and Broderick died three days later. Volumes have been written about this duel. It was quite generally believed it was the result of a conspiracy among the leaders of the ultra slaveholding wing of the then dominant party in the State to get rid of Broderick at all hazards. Broderick's great friendship became apparent when his will was made public. An estate valued at $300,000 was all left to Wilkes, except one legacy of $10,000. Considerable litigation between him and the State of California ensued. The ultimate verdict was in favor of the legatee, but the estate had shrunk a good deal on account of the heavy costs of the law suit. Under date of Washington, September 9, 1913, the Librarian of Congress gave me the following list of the writings of George Wilkes so far as he had been able to find them: Europe in a Hurry. New York, H. Long & Brother, 1853. 449 pp. The Great Battle, Fought at Manassas, Between the Federal Forces, under Gen. McDowell, and the Rebels, under Gen. Beauregard, Sunday, July 21, 1861. From notes taken on the spot. New York, Brown & Ryan, 1861. 36 pp. History of California. New York, 1845. (Note.--It is doubtful if this book was published, as it is not in the Library of Congress and I have never seen a reference to it.--C. B. B.) The History of Oregon, Geographical and political. New York, W. H. Collyer, 1845. 128 pp. The Internationale; its principles and purposes. Being a sequel to the Defence of the Commune. New York, 1871. 23 pp. The Lives of Helen Jewett and Richard Robinson. New York, H. Long & Brother, 1849. 132 pp. McClellan; from Ball's Bluff to Antietam. New York, S. Tousey, 1863. 40 pp. "McClellan"; who he is and "what he has done," and "Little Mac; from Ball's Bluff to Antietam." Both in one. New York, The American News Company, 1864. 14 pp. Project of a National Rail-Road from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean for the Purpose of Obtaining a Short Route to Oregon and the Indies. 2nd ed. Republished from the "History of Oregon." New York, The Author, 1845. 23 pp. Proposal for a National Rail-Road to the Pacific Ocean, for the Purpose of Obtaining a Short Route to Oregon and the Indies. 4th ed. Rev. and repub. from the "History of Oregon." New York, D. Adee, 1847. 24 pp. Shakespeare from an American Point of View. New York, D. Appleton, 1877. The Mysteries of the Tombs, a Journal of Thirty Days' Imprisonment in the New York City Prison for Libel. New York, 1844, 64 pp. Wilkes, George, vs. John F. Chamberlin. N. Y. Supreme Court. The answer of John F. Chamberlin to the complaint of George Wilkes in an action to recover damages for defamation of character. New York, W. J. Reed, 1873. (Diplomatic Pamphlets, v. 16, p. 1.) 15 pp. CLARENCE B. BAGLEY. THE PRESENT STATUS AND PROBABLE FUTURE OF THE INDIANS OF PUGET SOUND The central fact to be observed in dealing with this problem is that the Indian of today is largely what the white man has made him. The relationship between the whites and the Indians in the past has done more than any other thing to bring about the present conditions of life among the Indians; and it is only as we understand this relationship of the past that we can fully grasp the present status and can catch a glimpse of the probable future or learn to apply remedies to eradicate existing evils. What progress the Indian has made, therefore, toward civilization can be traced directly to his relations with the whites, and similarly the evil conditions of life among a great number of our Indians can be traced to the same cause. It is, then, essential to take particular notice of some of these relations between the two races. The Indians of Puget Sound were put on reservations by treaties concluded between them and Governor Isaac I. Stevens in the latter part of the fifties. These treaties established eighteen reservations, four in the Neah Bay agency, nine under the Puyallup consolidated agency and five under the Tulalip agency. The lands were set aside for the use of the Indian, to make a home for him, and to protect it from the encroachment of the whites. Under the federal act of July 4, 1884, the Indian was allowed to take advantage, without severing his tribal relations, of the Homestead Act of 1862. In 1887, Congress passed the General Allotment Act, or the so-called Dawes Act, which had for its purpose the breaking up of tribal life and establishing the Indians on private farms according to the customs of the whites. This is by far the most important piece of legislation enacted in the history of Indian affairs, because many complications have arisen under it. This law states, in part: "Every Indian born within the territorial limits of the United States to whom allotment shall have been made under the provisions of this Act, or under any law or treaty, and every Indian born within the territorial limits of the United States, who has voluntarily taken up, within said limits, his residence separate and apart from any tribe of Indians therein, and has adopted the habits of civilized life, is hereby declared to be a citizen of the United States and is entitled to all the rights, privileges and immunities of such citizens." (24 Stat. L. 390.) It must be noted that this made such an Indian a citizen of the United States, but not necessarily a citizen of the state in which he resided. The Constitution of the State of Washington declares that Indians not taxed shall not vote, and the penal code of the State makes it a felony to induce an Indian to vote--in spite of the fact that such class legislation and class restrictions are clearly not in harmony with the intentions of this federal law. This Act has worked inestimable harm and has been one chief instrument of political and pecuniary graft through conferring citizenship under conditions which in no way required or evidenced the slightest fitness for citizenship. Charles M. Buchanan, Superintendent in charge of the Tulalip agency, said: "I know of instances where allotments have been made to an Indian without his application, without his knowledge, and without his desire--where in twenty-five years he has never set foot upon his alleged land, does not know where it is and does not want it. He is in possession of land that he does not want and a citizenship that he does not know, much less understand." It is difficult to attribute mere sympathy for the poor unprotected red man, as the only purpose for the enactment of such an ignorant, vicious piece of legislation. This Act, probably more than any other one thing, has determined the present-day status of our Puget Sound Indians. Another complication which arose under this Dawes Act was the conflicting and antagonistic procedure on the part of local courts in regard to the transfer and sale of lands. Section 6 of that Act states that allotments shall be held in trust for a period of twenty-five years and the Indian allottees are to acquire citizenship at the time of the approval of such allotments. Also the inheritance or entail of allotments is made subject to the laws of descent and partition in the respective states where such allotments might be located. This provision, together with the Act of May 27, 1902 (32 Stat. L., 245), authorizing and providing for the sale of allotments of deceased allottees, has resulted in great confusion and conflicting procedure in local courts, thus making still more difficult the already complex administration of Indian affairs and impeding the progress of the Indian as a whole. These developments of the vicious conditions arising under the Dawes Act pale into insignificance before the United States Supreme Court decision, "In the matter of Heff," 1905. This, famous or infamous, case arose in Kansas from the endeavor to enforce the federal law of 1897 relating to the sale of liquor to the Indians. A man named Heff, in Kansas, was arrested, tried and convicted for selling two quarts of beer to an Indian. He was sentenced to a fine and to a term in jail. He had the case appealed to the United States Supreme Court, and that body decided that if, under the Dawes Act of 1887, an Indian becomes a citizen of the United States, he is entitled to all the rights, privileges and immunities pertaining to such citizenship, and hence to acquire and consume liquor at pleasure. Therefore, to that extent the prohibitory provisions of the Act of 1897, affecting such privileges, were declared to be null and void, and Heff was ordered to be released. This has been the most vicious piece of legislation in the history of Indian affairs. The worst enemy of the Indian is his overpowering love for liquor. Congress has attempted again and again to protect him from this weakness, and in the Act of 1897 it was thought that this trouble was at an end with the enacting of such an ironclad law. It practically prohibited the furnishing of liquor in any form, in any place, and under any pretense to an Indian. The year following the Heff decision saw an increase of the liquor traffic among the Indians of Puget Sound undreamed of before. It spelled almost absolute ruin and prostration for the Puyallup Indians. Other agencies report a similar striking increase in the amount of drunkenness, crime, and death, and a marked lowering of moral standards and civilization. Even some of the more intelligent men of the Tulalip tribes express their sorrow over the Heff decision and its results. On May 8, 1906, Congress attempted to remedy these evil conditions arising under the Dawes Act by passing the Burke Act. This amends the Dawes Act to read, "At the expiration of the trust period and when the lands have been conveyed to the Indians by patent in fee, as provided in Section five of this act, then each and every allottee shall have the benefit of and be subject to the laws, both civil and criminal, of the state or territory in which they may reside; Provided, that the Secretary of the Interior, may, in his discretion, and he is hereby authorized, whenever he shall be satisfied that any Indian allottee is competent and capable of managing his or her affairs at any time to cause to be issued to such allottee a patent in fee simple, and thereafter all restrictions as to sale, incumbrance, or taxation of said land shall be removed and said land shall not be liable to the satisfaction of any debt contracted prior to the issuing of such patent." (34 Stat. L. 182). This postpones the acquisition of citizenship until the termination (instead of the initiation) of the trust period. This can, however, only apply to such allotments as have been made, or shall be made, subsequent to May 8, 1906. It cannot undo the evils resulting from the past. It would be sad indeed if this were the only aspect of the Indian question. There is, however, a brighter side. Great progress has been made in civilization through contact with the whites. The simple, primitive, uneducated child of Nature is a thing of the past. The Puget Sound Indian of today has discarded many of his tribal customs and habits and adopted those of the whites. Reservation reports show that nearly all have adopted the white man's dress, can speak the English language more or less, and have adopted a great many American customs, manners of living, and institutions. The occupations of the men are practically the same as those of the whites. They engage in fishing, truck gardening, stock raising, and some work in the logging camps, lumber mills, and hop fields. They are, however, as a rule, extremely shiftless, preferring to sell their land outright and get the money rather than to clear it and make it their home. Each year, however, a few more homes are made. These are quite like those found among the whites of a similar social status. One of the big obstacles with which the Puget Sound Indian is contending at the present time is found in the conditions of the fishing industry. Owing to the very rapid increase in importance of this industry, through the use of traps, together with concentration of capital and consolidation of the canning plants, the salmon fisheries, which are the chief means of subsistence of the coast Indians, are being rapidly monopolized. The means of obtaining a living are, therefore, becoming daily more precarious, particularly among the older Indians. The stock of fish is being depleted so rapidly that there is an increasing demand for more and larger hatcheries. The white man, with superior intelligence and more capital, is gradually crowding the unfortunate Indian out of his time-honored occupation. The same thing may be said in regard to the logging industry. The ignorant Indian, without capital, cannot compete successfully with the superior intelligence and greater wealth of his white neighbor. This makes the matter of employment and subsistence extremely precarious and forms one of the biggest problems that confronts us today in regard to Indian affairs. Perhaps one of the best and most hopeful signs of progress is the growing interest and rapid improvement in education. Each of the Indian reservations is provided with one or more day schools and the Puyallup and Tulalip agencies have industrial training schools. These latter especially are doing very efficient and creditable work. They are fitting the new generation of Indians for a life of usefulness. Very few of the older generations can be induced to clear and farm their lands, but the time has now come when this is the only practicable thing for them to do and so the purpose of the schools should be to fit the rising generation for a life occupation. These two industrial schools are meeting this task very efficiently. The Tulalip school ground was cleared mostly by the pupils themselves. Recently the Government has provided them with a donkey engine. A large plot of ground is set out to fruit and vegetables. A sufficient amount of garden products is produced on this to supply the entire school, and besides a large amount is sold. At the same time, valuable instruction is given to the boys in fruit raising and truck growing. In 1908 a large mill and manual training building were erected entirely by school help. Pupil self-government is used in connection with the discipline of the school. The officers include mayor, city clerk, city council, health officer, policeman and judges. The system seems to be capably managed and good results are produced. The day schools are experiencing a great deal more difficulty. The allotments are so far apart that there are, necessarily, but few families close to the schools. The remainder of the children are compelled to come a long way. This, together with the bad, rainy climate of Puget Sound, makes the enforcement of attendance at day schools a very difficult problem. These factors make the attendance uncertain and irregular, and when the pupils do go they are often compelled to sit all day long with wet clothing. Such conditions are enough to break down the strongest constitutions. What wonder is it, then, that the death rate is high among the Indian children, who are often poorly fed, poorly clad and already predisposed. Then, too, to be efficiently administered these schools require a strong, capable, well-trained teacher, one imbued with the true missionary spirit. Such teachers are not, as a rule, found in the Indian service, and the salaries are not usually large enough to attract them into the service from outside. On the whole, however, it must be said that progress in the right direction is slowly being accomplished. Better teachers and a larger number of well-equipped schools are being supplied. In a great many cases, it is a difficult undertaking to influence the older people to change their customs and habits, although the rising generation do so very readily. Some progress can be noted among the old people, however. For example, over three-fourths of the families on the Lummi reservation use the English language exclusively at home, and in a great many cases the children can speak nothing but English. The Indians have given up a great many of their forms and ceremonies and superstitions. Marriage is now performed according to the customs of the whites. Licenses are obtained usually from the county officials, seldom from the agency. Each reservation has individual courts of Indian offenses, officered and administered by Indians. These, on the whole, have done very careful, conscientious and helpful work, not only in the administration of justice, but in maintaining law and order and peaceably adjusting quarrels and disputes. The morals of the Indians of Puget Sound are as good as could reasonably be expected when we take into consideration our ignorant, unwholesome legislation and the fact that, as a race, laxness in this respect has been only too common. Contact with the lower class of whites has unfortunately resulted in the copying of a great many of their vices, as well as virtues. Some progress can be noted, however. They are observing the marriage tie with much more faithfulness than formerly, and where man and wife are not living together, they are divorced by due process of law. The Heff decision has undoubtedly done much toward sending the Indian down to destruction. Since then it has been almost impossible to keep drink and the Indians apart. The Puyallup Indians have nearly all passed the trust period and become citizens, as, in fact, have a good many on the other reservations. Since that time they have lost their property, self-respect, and health to a large degree. The only thing they haven't been able to get rid of is their citizenship, which has been largely responsible for their present condition. Superintendent Buchanan reports in 1907, in speaking of the enforcement of our state laws in regard to liquor selling, "In thirteen years of life in this vicinity I have yet to see or hear of the first case of actual enforcement of any of these provisions. In six years of very vigorous prosecution I have secured remarkably few convictions in such cases, and these only on pleas of guilty, and in all of which the minimum penalty was inflicted. Indeed, the situation is so very extraordinary that one is not always sure of a conviction even when the defendant admits his guilt and pleads guilty. In one such case, which went before the federal grand jury on such a plea of guilt, the jury, with all the facts before them, and with the defendant admitting guilt and pointing out and identifying the confiscated bottles and flasks, turned the prisoner loose as innocent, even though he insisted that he was guilty. This very extraordinary event occurred in Seattle before the May, 1905, session of the Federal Grand Jury." (Page 58, Report of Indian Agents and Superintendents to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1907.) Is it any wonder, then, that liquor dealers violate the law with impunity when it is such a difficult matter to secure conviction? In 1909, the State of Washington passed a very stringent law relating to the selling of liquor to Indians and since that time, enforcement has been somewhat stricter. This makes it a felony for anyone to sell liquor in any form, at any time, and under any pretense, to an Indian, to whom allotment has been made, while the title is held in the trust period, or to an Indian who is held under guardianship of an Indian agent or superintendent, or under the charge of the United States. This law is being much more rigidly enforced than has hitherto been the case, yet the Indians still get the liquor. Saloon keepers in towns bordering on the reservations are wary about selling it to them, but in towns some distance from the reservations open selling still goes on. On the whole, our liquor laws are more honored in the breach than the observance. The consumption of such a large amount of liquor in the past has, in a great many cases, absolutely destroyed the health of the Indians. Their constitutions always have been weak, subject to tuberculosis, pneumonia, and all pulmonary diseases, and when the consumption of large amounts of alcohol is added to this, little wonder is it that the death rate is high among them, and that so many weak, diseased Indian children come into the world. In the matter of religion, the Puget Sound Indians are in an evolutionary stage. On the whole, the old form of religion, called Tamahnous, in which the evil spirit was worshipped in order to appease it, and hence not to be visited by it, has been replaced by the Christian religion, or by a mixture of the Christian and the old. The Puget Sound Indians are peculiar in one respect, viz: that they are indolent and lazy, are easily persuaded to accept and follow any belief, but are usually unwilling to make an effort to think or reason out a question. They are indolently and willingly superficial. The result of this has been that while a great many have been converted to the Christian religion, still that conversion has been very superficial in character. They have been satisfied with the content that external forms and actions would make them right with God, and secure to them a future happiness, and, at the same time, have utterly disregarded the true inner spirit of religion. Hence, they have readily taken up anything that appeals to the sensuous in their religious nature. In 1882 or 1883, a Mud Bay Indian, named John Slocum, who had been converted to Catholicism, but who had led a rather desultory life, fell sick and apparently died. The usual death ceremonies took place. But to the great surprise of the Indians, Slocum came to life again on the second or third day after his death. He brought with him a wonderful tale. He affirmed that he had indeed died, gone up to the pearly gates and there met St. Peter, who refused him entrance on the grounds that he had led too loose a life. There was one way, however, so St. Peter informed him, by which he could yet earn his way into Paradise, and that was to go back to earth and teach his fellow Indians a new form of religion, which was to be the same as that in the white man's book, but better adapted to the needs of the Indians. Hence his return to life. Slocum immediately began to preach his new doctrine, a religion since named "Shakerism," which has gathered together at least half of the Indians of Puget Sound, who profess any religion at all. This is a curious mixture of the old Tamahnous religion and Protestantism and Catholicism. It is undoubtedly a decided step in advance of the old religion, since it enjoins a worship of an all-powerful, good God rather than malicious devils and evil spirits. The beliefs and ceremonies differ among different tribes, and are more nearly in harmony with the Christian religion where the missionaries have had the most influence. The influence of Catholicism is to be seen in the elaborate forms and ceremonies of worship and the cross and candle sticks on the altar. Those afflicted with a guilty conscience remain on their knees during the entire Sunday service, crossing themselves repeatedly. The songs and prayers are translations into Indian or Chinook done by the early missionaries. The retained features of the old Tamahnous religion are to be seen largely in the conversion ceremonies and the healing of the sick--the so-called "Night Work." It is difficult for the Indians to give up their old superstitions and barbaric rites. These still remain in their minds and crop out with the more modern beliefs in their religion. To quote from an article by Edwin L. Chalcraft, a teacher in one of the Indian schools, "Every act tends to excitement. The weird Indian chant, the dance music, the frenzied dances, the ringing of hand bells and the rubbing of the patient's body to drive out sickness or the evil spirit, as the case may be, and let in the new religion, all have a place, and are sometimes continued through the night, or until the participants become exhausted." The introduction of this new belief among the Indians worked havoc in the churches. From the first the new religion gained a large number of converts at the expense of the Christian institution. A great many of the Christian churches have had to close their doors and go out of business, because of this keen competition. Especially among the Puyallup reservation tribes is this true. This religion has taken such a firm hold upon them that Christianity is making no progress at all at the present time. For thirty-five years, up to 1901, Rev. Myron Eells worked faithfully and perseveringly among them against innumerable obstacles, but since his death in that year the work has almost ceased. The Neah Bay agency is supplied with one Presbyterian mission, but it is struggling along, fearing to have to go out of business every day. The missionary work of the Tulalip agency is done entirely by the Catholic church, and on the whole very good results have been accomplished. Most of the reservations have churches of their own, and the priests of neighboring towns minister to their welfare. Shakerism has a very weak hold among them. Taken altogether, this religion has had its place in helping the Indians live better lives, especially where the Bible has been faithfully taught. Where the old Tamahnous still bears sway, and the old superstitions are still current, however, the effect has been noticeably bad, showing itself principally in unfaithfulness in the family life. As C. L. Woods, Superintendent of the Neah Bay agency, says, "The Shakers, a peculiar religious sect, are seemingly doing good, as there has been little or no law breaking by their members, and no drunkenness whatever. Their professed creed is a model of orthodoxy, and it would be bigotry to oppose their outlandish and queer manner of worship." I think it can be safely assumed that at least assimilation, if not race fusion, between the Puget Sound Indians and the whites will take place some time not very far distant. The younger generation of Indians are showing a very marked capability of taking over our habits, customs, institutions and manner of living. Nearly all can speak and read the English language, a good many cannot speak their native tongue. They come in contact with the white children a great deal and so copy from them their games and amusements, and ultimately their ideals and ways of doing things. This is one of the most hopeful signs for the future of the race. If we can keep the Indian children interested in their school work and keep them in contact with the white children, assimilation will quickly be brought about. The closer the contact with the better class of whites, the sooner will the Indians reach our plane of civilization, and the easier will become assimilation and fusion. Already there is quite a noticeable drift away from the reservations, and I believe the time will come, and not very long distant, when the reservations will be done away with entirely. Assimilation will go on more easily and more rapidly because of the relatively small number of Indians. There are but something less than four thousand reservation Indians at the present time around Puget Sound, and statistics show that they are just about holding their own in numbers. If any change at all, there may be a slight natural increase in population. In early pioneer days, intermarriage of the whites and Indians was very common and no especial social stigma was attached to it; at the present time, however, intermarriage is commonly discountenanced, especially among the better classes of whites and somewhat of a social degradation goes with it. Young married couples of the Indians usually leave the reservations and go out among the whites to live. Often, however, they return to their reservations because of the poor social standing they receive among the whites, and because they long to be with their kinsmen. On the part of the whites, two things must be insisted upon, first, a stricter enforcement of our liquor laws, and, second, a more friendly and helpful attitude toward the Indian. We have robbed the Indian of his lands and waters by false and fair means; we have forced him to live in an atmosphere of totally different customs and ideals; it would be, therefore, far less than justice if we fail to do all we can to help him fit himself for his new life. LEWIS H. ST. JOHN. THE PIONEER DEAD OF 1913 In the list of departed pioneers following, record is made only of those that have come to the attention of the biographer. There were others, no doubt, but of them he had no knowledge. Those are considered pioneers who lived in the State of Washington, and who were on the Pacific Coast before 1860. The number of such who died in 1913 was greater than in any previous year. The average age, and the average number of years on the coast, were also greater. The information here presented was obtained principally from the newspapers of the day. Regret is expressed that it was not in all cases equally full and complete. Neely, David A.--Born in 1823, died at Kent, in King county, Dec. 31st, 1912, aged 89 years. Mr. Neely came from Missouri, and in 1854 settled on the land claim in White River valley, where he lived the following almost fifty-nine years. In the Indian war of 1855-56 he was driven from home by the savages, and he at once retaliated by enlisting in the territorial military service against them. He was second lieutenant of his company, and for a time was in command, owing to the retirement of Captain Edward Lander and First Lieutenant Arthur A. Denny. He was married in 1848. His wife, 87 years of age, survives him; also five children, fourteen grandchildren, and sixteen great grandchildren. [Note.--The foregoing went to the printer too late for publication in the list of deceased 1912 pioneers, and is therefore placed here.--T. W. P.] Montgomery, Matilda Ann--Born in Illinois, died at Meyers Falls, Jan. 2, aged 80 years. She came to Oregon in 1850, and for a number of years lived in Linn county. From there she moved to Dayton, Wash., where she remained until she went to Meyers Falls in 1906. She is survived by three daughters and two sons. Heitman, Henry--Died at Ridgefield, Clark county, Jan. 13, aged 80 years. He came from the Eastern States in 1853. He was a farmer, and by industry and economy was enabled to acquire 1,800 acres of agricultural land. Four daughters and two sons survive him. Darragh, John.--Born in New York State in 1830; died at Edmonds, Jan. 13, in his 83d year. He was an Oregon pioneer of 1851. He remained there and in Washington until 1883, when he returned to New York. In 1902 he came back to the Pacific and made his home in Edmonds. He participated prominently in the 1855-56 Indian war. A wife and daughter were left. Laws, Andrew Jackson--Born in Illinois, March 13, 1833, died at the old soldiers' home at Orting, Jan. 15, aged 80 years. In 1852 he came to Clark county, Washington, where he made his home. Like most other young men of his time, he served in the Indian war, from Oct. 20, 1855, ten months, its whole period, in the western half of the territory. Mrs. Page, a daughter, of Vancouver, was left. Newell, Therese--Born near Portland, Oregon, June 4, 1856, died at Seattle Jan. 26, aged 57 years. She was a school teacher and unmarried. Jaggy, John--Born Jan. 14, 1829, died at Vancouver, Jan. 30, aged 84 years. He came to California in 1857, and after a few months moved to Washington Territory. He was long a leading citizen of his home community. A wife, two daughters and a son survive him. Caldwell, R. P.--Born in Tennessee, June 15, 1834, died at Everett about Feb. 1, aged 79 years. He came to California in 1856, to Oregon in 1859, and to Washington in 1901. His wife, two daughters and two sons survive him. Blanchet, John B.--Born in 1840, died at Vancouver, Feb. 4, aged 73 years. He came west in 1846, and lived all the following years at Vancouver. He was a nephew of Bishop Blanchet and also of Archbishop Blanchet, the two first high Catholic Church dignitaries in this state. Livingston, David--Born in Pennsylvania, died in Seattle Feb. 5, aged 82 years. He came to Puget Sound in 1853, and thereafter made his home. His wife died in 1906. They had three children--George W., Clara and Josephine. Boyd, Levi--Born in Ohio, September, 1812, died at Walla Walla, Feb. 6, aged a little more than 100 years. He crossed the continent in 1843, and remained in Oregon and Washington until 1861. He then went East and joined the Confederates in their effort to divide the Union. Soon after the conclusion of hostilities he returned to Walla Walla, where he continued to reside to the end of his long life. He was a bachelor. Anderson, Andrew--Died at Walla Walla Feb. 21, aged 85 years. He was a pioneer of 1856, a farmer and a veteran of the Civil War. Wood, Mrs. Helen R. M.--Born in Australia, died at Dungeness, March 1, aged 55 years. She came to Puget Sound when a child one year old. Tukey, John Fossett--Born in Bangor, Me., Aug. 6, 1830, died in Jefferson county, March 1, aged 83 years. He came to the Pacific Coast by ship in 1850, and two years later settled on a land claim on Discovery Bay, where he made his home for sixty years. He served among the volunteers in 1855. His wife died a year before him. They had no children. Pettygrove, Benjamin Stark--Born in Portland, Oregon, Sept. 30, 1846, died at Port Townsend, March 7, aged 67 years. His father, Francis W. Pettygrove, settled on the Portland townsite several years before, and was one of the town projectors. He suggested the name and bestowed it, his partner in the enterprise favoring Boston instead. When this boy, this first white male child born there, came along, the question of sovereignty in Oregon was not settled between Great Britain and the United States, as far as known to the people of Oregon, though, as a matter of fact, it had been settled three and a half months before. A ship came in having on board a passenger named Benjamin Stark, who had a newspaper in which was the first report of the conclusion of the matter on the basis of the international boundary line on the 49th parallel. The Pettygroves were so pleased that they named their boy after this stranger. Streets in Portland are named Pettygrove and Stark. Benjamin Stark stayed there, became a prominent citizen, and represented the state in the U. S. Senate. The Pettygrove family removed to Port Townsend in 1852, and were among the founders of that city. B. S. Pettygrove lived there almost sixty-one years. After a married life of nineteen years, his wife died in 1893. They left one son. Watson, Phoebe C.--Born in Illinois, Feb. 19, 1840, died in Chehalis, March 9, aged 73 years. She crossed the plains in 1848 with her parents, Jacob Conser and wife. She was married in 1860, and in 1872 the family went upon a farm near Chehalis. She was survived by five sons. Sparks, Margaret I.--Born in South Carolina, died at Boisfort in March, aged 93 years. Her first husband was Wm. A. Brewer. They came to Oregon in 1853. He died in 1858. In 1860 she moved to Washington Territory, where she married John G. Sparks. She left six children. Hardison, James W.--Born in Polk county, Oregon, in 1845, died at Wahkiakum in March, aged 68 years. His whole life was spent in Oregon and Washington. A widow and four children survive. Gale, Joseph Marion--Born in Illinois in 1836, died at Orting, March 17, aged 77 years. He came to Oregon in 1853. He served in two Indian wars, and also the Civil War. He was a teacher and a newspaper editor. Moore, A. C. H.--Died at North Yakima, March 29, aged 76 years. He came overland to California in 1849. From there he moved on to Oregon, and about thirty years ago came further north, to Long Beach, Wash. A widow, five daughters and two sons survive him. Shaw, James O.--Born in Maine, died at White Salmon, March 30, aged 86 years. He came by ship to California in 1849. In 1870 he took a homestead in Klickitat county. A wife, a son and two daughters were left. Andrews, Lyman Beach--Born in New York State, Feb. 10, 1829, died at San Diego, Cal., March 31, aged 84 years. He came to California in 1859, and in 1860 to Seattle, where his home was ever afterward. He was a prominent citizen for half a century. Mrs. Andrews died in 1908. He left one daughter and three sons. Nelson, John M.--Born in Kentucky, April 14, 1824; died at The Dalles, Oregon, April 4. He came to California in 1847, a few years later to Oregon, and still later to Washington, his last home being at Valley, this state. He was a remarkable linguist, being able to talk with Indians of sixteen different dialects. Twenty-seven grandchildren and eight great grandchildren are his living descendants. McKinlay, David--Born in California in 1854; died at San Francisco, April 10, aged 59 years. He came to Victoria, B. C., and from there in 1873 to Seattle, which was his home to the end. Mr. McKinlay left a valuable estate to found an orphans' home, upon the death of his surviving wife. Fisher, Lydia Ann--Born in Oregon, Jan. 30, 1848, died near Fisher's, Clark county, April 10, aged 65 years. All her life--every hour--was spent in Oregon or Washington, the last fifteen years in this state. Three sons and a daughter were left. Shaw, James O.--Born in Maine, died at White Salmon, April 11, aged 86 years. He was a '49er of California, but in the 1870s settled in Klickitat county, Washington. A widow and three children survive. Gatch, Thomas Milton--Born in Ohio, Jan. 29, 1833, died at Seattle April 23, aged 80 years. He came to California in 1856, and to Washington Territory in 1859. He was a teacher in the higher branches of learning and in the higher schools of the country. He was principal of the Portland Academy, twice president of Willamette University, president of the University of Oregon, and president of the University of Washington. Two daughters and one son survive him. Rose, Alfred Percy--Born in Pennsylvania, died at Metaline, May 1, aged 76 years. He came to California in 1858, and later lived in every state and territory west of the Rocky Mountains, and Mexico and British Columbia besides. A widow, a son and a daughter survive him. Christ, Philip--Born in Germany, May 24, 1824; died at Vancouver, Wash., May 6, aged 89 years. As a member of Company L, First U. S. Artillery, he came by ship to the Columbia River in 1849, and under Major Hathaway, was one of the men who established Fort Vancouver, or Vancouver Barracks. Upon discharge he settled there, and there spent the last sixty-four years of his life. Upon the same ship came another company,--M, Captain Hill--which was sent to Puget Sound, and established Fort Steilacoom, the same year, these two being the first military posts in the State of Washington. Goodridge, Gardner--Born in Maine, Feb. 28, 1833; died, at Florence, May 10, aged 80 years. He came to California in 1853, to British Columbia in 1858, and thence to Washington after a short stay. He left four children. Masterson, James--Died in Seattle, May 24. He came to Oregon in 1851, and to Washington in 1873. He left three children. Faucett, Rachel A.--Died at Auburn, May 27, aged 88 years. She came from Missouri to Washington in 1854. The family lived ten years in Pierce county and forty-nine years in King. She left three daughters, one son, fourteen grandchildren and thirteen great grandchildren. Cloquet, August--Died June 14, at Toledo, aged 87 years. He came to Washington in 1851. For sixty years he dwelt in Lewis county. He left seven children. Little, Daniel--Born in Maine, died at Castle Rock, June 29. He came to Washington in 1852, and has resided ever since in Cowlitz county. Six children were left. Jaggy, Margaret Wintler--Born in Switzerland, died at Vancouver, July 4, aged 88 years. She came to the United States in 1852; and to Washington Territory in 1857. For thirty-five consecutive years she was treasurer of the Vancouver Methodist Church. Mr. Jaggy died Jan. 30, 1913. They left three children. Whitworth, James Edward--Died in Seattle, July 11, aged 72 years. He came to Oregon in 1853 and to Washington in 1854. Married in 1869, his wife died several years ago. His descendants include ten children and twenty-one grandchildren. Loomis, Louis Alfred--Born in New York State, Oct. 9, 1830, died at Loomis Station, Pacific county, July 19, aged 83 years. He was a pioneer of 1852. He served among the Oregon volunteers in the Indian war of 1855-56. Five children were left. Rhoades, L. H.--Born in Illinois in 1844, died at Bay Center, July 14, aged 69 years. He came to Oregon in 1850, and to Washington in 1862. Probably no couple in the state were married younger than Mr. and Mrs. Rhoades, he being 16 years and she 15 years old in 1860 when united. She and ten children were left. Latham, John--Born in England, June 22, 1837, died at Tacoma August 6, aged 77 years. He came to Oregon in 1856, and to Washington in 1860. He left a wife, five children and fourteen grandchildren. Haley, John--Born in New York in 1840, died at Ellensburg, August 20, aged 73 years. He came to California in 1856, and to Washington in 1879. Gaillac, Malinda--Born in Missouri in 1837, died at Olympia August 22, aged 76 years. She came with her parents (Packwoods) to Washington in 1845. Nine sons and daughters were left. Russell, D. L.--Born in Virginia, died at Vancouver, Aug. 25, aged 78 years. He came to California in 1849. He engaged in the Civil War. In 1864 he came to Washington Territory. A wife and four children were left. Bersch, Mary--Born in Switzerland, Dec. 15, 1832, died in Vancouver, August 27, aged 80 years. Mrs. Bersch came to the United States in 1851 and to Washington in 1853. Her living descendants included six children, forty grandchildren and eight great grandchildren. Scheule, Josephine--Born at Vancouver, died at Portland, Ore., Aug. 27, aged 60 years. She was a widow, but had three children. Dougherty, Thomas A.--Born in Pierce county, Washington, Jan. 3, 1853, died in Seattle Aug. 28, aged 61 years. His wife--born in 1853 and who came to Washington in 1870--died three weeks before him. Mr. Doughtery's father, Wm. P. Dougherty, came to Oregon in 1843, and his mother, Mary Chambers, in 1845, both coming to Pierce county before 1850. His mother, a brother and a sister survive him. Freeman, Rosina--Died in Seattle, Sept. 5, aged 83 years. She was the wife of Thomas P. Freeman, who came to California from Pennsylvania in 1849. She followed in 1850. They removed to Seattle in 1873. They were colored people. He died about twelve years ago. A daughter is all that is left of their family. Krumm, John--Born in Germany, died at Kent, Sept. 6, aged 86 years. Mr. Krumm came from Ohio to California in 1849, and ten years later moved on to Washington, settling in White River valley. He left a wife, two sons, two daughters and three grandchildren. Phelps, Susan E.--Died in Seattle, Sept. 22, aged 81 years. She came to California in 1849, and to Washington in 1889. One daughter was her only descendant. Clark, Elizabeth Frances--Born in Missouri, died in Seattle, Sept. 26, aged 72 years. She came to Oregon in 1853, and to Washington in 1860. She left eight daughters and two sons, besides sisters, brothers and other relatives. Walker, Cyrus--Born in Maine, died at San Mateo, Cal., Oct. 1, aged 86 years. He came to California in 1849, and to Washington Territory in 1853. He was identified as an employee with Messrs. Pope, Talbot and Keller in the location and erection of the saw mills that have been operating at Port Gamble for the last sixty years. When Keller retired Walker took his place as the Puget Sound head, and for almost half a century so remained. Under him the company acquired other saw mills at Utslady and Port Ludlow, timber lands, ships and other properties. The company in its early days built a steamer which it called the Cyrus Walker, and which had a longer existence on Puget Sound than any other craft. Mr. Walker acquired large personal properties, and became one of the wealthiest men in the state. He left a wife and son. Bagley, Susannah Rogers--Born in Massachusetts, May 8, 1819, died at Seattle, Oct. 11, aged 94 years. Married in 1840 to Daniel Bagley, who died in 1905, she and he removed to Illinois, where they remained until 1852, when they came to Oregon. In 1860 they moved on to the north, to Washington, from Salem to Seattle. He was chiefly instrumental in building the second church in the city--the Methodist Protestant--and of the location and building of the Territorial University in 1861. A son, the well known Clarence B. Bagley, survives them. Greenlaw, Wilhelmina--Born in Pierce county, died at Tacoma Oct. 18, aged 59 years. She was the daughter of Frederick Meyer, one of the soldiers under Captain Hill, who established Fort Steilacoom in 1849. She left six sons and four daughters. Charlton, Charles Alexander--Born in Virginia, March 23, 1829, died at Colville, Oct. 8, aged 85 years. He came to Oregon in 1850, where he remained until his removal to Washington, a few years ago. He, like the majority of the other men of the time, served in the Indian War of 1855-'56. His wife remains. Williamson, John R.--Born in New York State, Feb. 16, 1827, died at Seattle, Oct. 19, aged 87 years. He came to California in 1851; and to Washington in 1853, with Cyrus Walker and the others who were here to build a saw mill at Port Gamble. There he was employed for several years, and a similar time at Seabeck in a like work, when, in 1863, he joined with others in a saw mill enterprise at Freeport, now Seattle. He was an engineer, a machinist, an iron founder--in fact, a master mechanic. He left a son and a daughter. Miller, Edward--Born at Syracuse, N. Y., May 25, 1832, died at Shelton, Oct. 15, aged 81 years. He was a farmer, a trader, an early day Puget Sound navigator. A widow, two daughters and a son were left. Cook, James W.--Born Aug. 22, 1833; died in Portland, Oregon, Oct. 25, aged 80 years. He came to Portland from Chicago in 1855. He was one of the first men to go into the salmon canning business, more than forty years ago. He had canneries on the Columbia river and at Blaine and Port Townsend on Puget Sound. His surviving relatives include his wife and two daughters. Stangroom, Marc Lareviere--Born in England, May 22, 1832; died at Bellingham, Oct. 25, aged 81 years. He came to California in 1855, and to Bellingham in 1888. A son and two daughters were left. Stevens, Margaret L.--Born at Newport, R. I., in 1816; died at Boston, Nov. 4, aged 97 years. Mrs. Stevens was the widow of Isaac Ingalls Stevens, the first Governor of Washington Territory, 1853 to 1857, and who, as a Union General, was killed at the Battle of Chantilly, Sept. 1, 1862. She came to Washington Territory in 1854, and the house that was built for her sixty years ago still stands in Olympia, one of the oldest buildings in the state. She was in Washington City during his Congressional and later military careers, but returned to the Territory in 1867, with her then grown children. After some years the family removed to Boston. A son, two daughters, five grandchildren and two great grandchildren are her living descendants. Bean, Sarah L.--Born at McMinnville, Oregon, Oct. 6, 1851; died at Seattle, Nov. 9, aged 62 years. She came to Washington in 1875. Her parents, Mr. and Mrs. J. R. Bean, came to Oregon in 1845. Miss Bean's mother and sister survive her. Titus, Eliza--At La Center, Clark County, Nov. 14, Mrs. Eliza Titus died. She crossed the plains with her parents, named Rice, who took a donation claim sixty years ago. Eliza was twice married, first to John S. Pollock, and in 1875 to M. Titus. She left four children by the first marriage. Prosch, Charles--Born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, June 25, 1820; died in Seattle, Nov. 22, in the 94th year of his age. He came to California in 1853, and to Washington Territory in 1858. He published a newspaper at Steilacoom and later one at Olympia, during the first fourteen years of his residence in Washington. His was the first daily paper in Olympia. He was also engaged in the first newspaper published in Tacoma. He was a member and officer in four churches in Olympia, Tacoma and Seattle, two of which, in 1873 and 1889, he assisted in organizing. He was also more or less engaged in many other enterprises and works of pioneer days. He left a son, six grandchildren, and two great grandchildren. Ross, Eliza Jane--Born in Illinois, Dec. 10, 1830; died at Puyallup, Nov. 26, aged 83 years. She and her husband, Darius Mead Ross, came to Oregon in 1851, and lived in that state for twelve years. In 1863 they came to Washington, and made their home on a farm in Puyallup Valley. Two sons, two daughters, nineteen grandchildren and four great grandchildren survive her. Spooner, Thomas J.--Born in Kentucky, May 18, 1836; died near Portland, Oregon, Nov. 30, aged 77 years. He came to Oregon in 1859. In 1882 he moved to Tacoma, but in 1893 went back to Oregon. He left a widow and four sons. Miller, Eva L.--Born in California in 1859, died at Seattle, Dec. 5, aged 54 years. She came to Seattle in 1882 as the wife of Dr. P. B. M. Miller. A son and three stepdaughters were left. Gendron, Eliza--Born at Nespelem, Washington, in 1821; died at Marcus, Washington, Dec. 19, aged 92 years. Her father was one of the early Pacific Coast trappers and fur traders. Her mother was an Indian woman. All her own life was spent in this state, a longer time than that of any other white or half white person known. She married Alexander Gendron in 1844, her husband being a Hudson Bay Company employee. She was the mother of fourteen children, grandmother of fifty-two and great grandmother of twenty-one. Brown, Mrs. Chandler--Born in Thurston County, Washington, Sept. 18, 1855; died at Centralia, Dec. 20, aged 58 years. She was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Axtell, immigrants of 1852. Newhall, William--Died in New York, Dec. 19, aged 84 years. Deceased was a well-known Pacific Coast navigator, coming around the Horn first in 1847. The barkentine Amelia was one of his latest and longest commands. He was a Son of the American Revolution, a Pioneer and a Mason, all at Seattle. Two daughters and a son are left, in addition to relatives slightly more remote. Parker, Gilmore Hays--Born at Sacramento, California, in 1859; died in Seattle, Dec. 29, aged 54 years. He was the son of Capt. John G. Parker, who came to Puget Sound more than sixty years ago, and was one of the first steamboat men and first merchants of these parts. The son followed the father into the steamboat business. He was master of several steamers, including the T. J. Potter, Bailey Gatzert, Greyhound, City of Everett and Telegraph. His ancestors on the mother's side were the well-known Hays family, than whom none were more prominent in Washington Territory from fifty to sixty years ago. Captain Parker left a mother, two sisters and two brothers. THOMAS W. PROSCH. AMERICAN AND BRITISH TREATMENT OF THE INDIANS IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST A series of large mining "rushes" during the decade following 1858 brought an energetic population into the interior of the old Oregon country. Prosperous communities sprang up in eastern Oregon and Washington. Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia came into being. But the populating of these regions produced acute problems with regard to the Indians, and the point of view of this article is that of attempting to compare the British and American methods of attacking these problems. Let us turn our attention first to conditions and developments on the American side. To the usual causes of antagonism between the native and the white man there was added in the interior of the Pacific northwest the impossibility of any retreat of the former; for the frontier was closing in from both directions. "An unprogressive being * * * *, quite well satisfied with the present, unstimulated by the past, non-apprehensive of the future" was here brought face to face with one "in all things the reverse, a restless mortal dissatisfied with the present, with a history pointing upwards, apprehensive of the future and always striving for individual and social betterment."[1] "Now that we propose to invade these mountain solitudes," wrote the builder of the Mullan Road, "to wrest from their hidden wealth, where under heavens can the Indian go?"[2] The answer seemed patent enough to a good many thoughtful Westerners, who were not cruel men. "The experience of those who have seen most of the Indians," said the Oregonian, "has been neither flattering to the efforts of the Government, nor consoling to the hopes of the true Christian philanthropist; but the purposes of the red man's creation in the economy of nature are well nigh accomplished, and no human hand can avert his early extermination from the face of the North American Continent. Silently but irresistibly the purposes of Providence take their way through the ages, and across the line of their march treaties would seem but shreds, and the plans of men on the tide of history but waifs upon the sea."[3] A belief in such predestination, however exculpatory for white men, would scarcely help in the working out of any system looking toward the upraising of the Indians. Mullan's type of predestination was more blunt: "The Indian," he said, "is destined to disappear before the white man, and the only question is, how it may best be done, and his disappearance from our midst tempered with those elements calculated to produce to himself the least amount of suffering, and to us the least amount of cost."[4] The writer in the Oregonian, quoted above, held that it was a fundamental error in the treatment of Indians to acknowledge their rights to the soil and to make treaties with them as if they were nations. Governor Ashley, of Montana, also declared that treaty-making with Indians ought to cease.[5] To the same effect C. H. Hale, Superintendent of Indian affairs in Washington Territory, wrote as follows: "I am well satisfied that a radical change should be made in our mode of treatment towards the Indians. I do not consider the language as any too strong when I say, that for us to negotiate treaties with them as it is usually done is little better than a farce. We profess by such an act to recognize their equality in status and in power, and to clothe them with a national existence that does not at all pertain to them. Instead of thus exalting them in mere form, they should be treated as they really are, the wards of the government."[6] The rougher element among the whites, who were in contact with the Indians, bothered themselves not at all concerning theories or treaties and seldom showed towards Indians even ordinary human feeling. "A d--d Indian," as was the usual expression, got no consideration at their hands. Indians were killed by desperadoes in Montana with despicable wantonness.[7] A farmer Indian of the Walla Walla tribe had taken some wheat to mill at Walla Walla and had hitched his horses to his wagon to feed, when a gambler came from a nearby saloon and took one of the horses. The owner could not recover it, because men feared to testify against one of the roughs: but the Indian was reimbursed by employes of the Umatilla agency.[8] In southern Idaho Indian women and children were killed in attacks made by volunteer soldiers, and it was charged that many Indian women were violated.[9] In the former case, however, it was claimed that the Indian women fought as hard as the men and that they were indistinguishable from the men in a melee. It is fair to remember, in judging of atrocities committed by whites, that not a few of the frontiersmen were inflamed by memories of horrid deeds committed by Indians upon relatives and friends.[10] We of the present generation, indeed, can scarcely understand how ingrained was racial hatred in the white frontiersman of that day. "From the cradle up he was the recipient of folk lore which placed the Indian as his hereditary and implacable enemy. To the childish request, 'Grandma, tell me a story,' it was bear or Indian, ghost stories being too tame for frontier life, and that the bear and Indian did not stand upon the same plane as objects to be exterminated, seldom entered into the thoughts of the grandmother or the little one soon to take part in the conquest of the wilderness. * * * * Granny might bring tears to the eyes of her little auditors by telling how the bear cubs moaned over their dead mother, but no tears flowed for the Indian children made destitute by this perpetual conflict."[11] "On the other hand, there might have been in an early day a measure of truth in the assertion that murder is merit; scalps enviable trophies; plunder legitimate; the abduction of women and their violation, a desirable achievement."[12] In judging of Indian populations, however, and of the relations of whites to them, discriminations need to be made. There were within tribes bad Indians and good Indians, just as there were bad whites and good whites; and it was generally the bad men on both sides that made trouble. Moreover, there was a great difference between such comparatively well ordered tribes as the Coeur d'Alenes or the Nez Perces and the scattered banditti of southern Idaho and southeastern Oregon. This difference is dwelt upon in a report of the Committee on Indian Affairs of the Idaho Legislature, which was made in 1866. In the northern portion of the Territory, the report said, "the Nez Perces, Coeur d'Alenes, Pend d'Oreilles, etc., have been for a long time gradually adopting the pursuits of peace and habits of civilization, under good influences, acquired property and permanent habitations and rely for surer subsistence upon the cultivation of the soil and the raising of stock. But in South Idaho, throughout that portion of the Territory south of Snake River, your committee regret to say, a far different condition of affairs has existed from the organization of the Territory, and still continues. The scattered clans in all this region, known as the Shoshones or Snakes, inhabit a country for the most part destitute of timber and game, spreading into wide deserts, and affording them secure retreats in rugged mountains and deep canyons. Never having any fixed habitations, they acquire no property except by plunder, and hold none except for temporary subsistence and plunder. So, far from cultivating the soil, or any arts of peace, they have to a great extent ceased to depend for food upon fish, grass seeds, crickets, roots, etc., and rely upon what they seize by murder and robbery on the public highways and frontier settlements. * * * * * They have no recognized head, but simply leaders of clans, and know nothing of treaty obligations. Nothing, therefore, but vigorous war, that will push them to extremities of starvation or extermination, can ever bring peace to our borders and security to our highways."[13] If one tries to imagine himself in the conditions that then existed in southern Idaho, he will, perhaps, better understand why even humane people could have had stern and cruel opinions with regard to the treatment of some classes of Indians. There was no danger of attack upon settlements of any size; there was, in fact, no declared war. But stock was constantly being stolen, lone men murdered, and pack trains attacked. If a few men pursued the Indians, the latter would turn and fight like fiends, and with the advantage of knowledge of the country. To dwellers in secure homes, these enumerations may appear not particularly significant, but to one with understanding of frontier conditions they mean much. If travellers, for example, had their animals stolen, it meant all the discomfort and danger of being left afoot in a country of great distances. If a rancher had his stock run off, it meant temporary impoverishment and disablement. For white men to steal horses was quite generally recognized as a capital crime; why, then, compunction for Indians? Men, moreover, who looked down upon the mutilated remains of comrades, cut off in the unceasing assassinations, were very likely to vow vengeance upon the whole murderous race. Finally, there were wider considerations affecting the whole community; Indian attacks deterred packers, freighters, and stage owners, thereby raising freights, delaying mails, making supplies more scarce and costly, impeding immigration, and hindering the investment of capital,--in a word, checking prosperity in a way to which no civilized community would submit. The men who went out to find and to kill Indians who were thus damaging the communities, were not always nice men; but they often showed self-denial in leaving good-paying employments, and they endured great privations and did a necessary work for civilization.[14] The character of the United States troops, likewise, who served in these regions during the Civil War was sometimes questionable; but frontier communities were justifiably grateful to men like those of General Conner's command, many of whom in the Bear River expedition endured freezing, wounds, and death in corralling and fighting a large band of predatory Indians.[15] The exasperation of the southern Idaho communities, under continual Indian harassment, became extreme. This was especially true in Owyhee. A meeting of citizens offered rewards for scalps; one hundred dollars for that of a buck, fifty dollars for that of a squaw and twenty-five dollars for "everything in the shape of an Indian under ten."[16] When fifty-five Indians were reported killed in Humboldt, the local paper in Owyhee rejoiced that these were made "permanently friendly"; the next item, in contrast, is an announcement of a Christmas Festival for the Sunday School children at the Union Church, at which there were to be an address, songs by the children, and distribution of gifts.[17] The month previous, on report of seventy Indians being killed and scalped in Nevada, the same paper burst out with,--"Here's seventy more reasons for those safely-located, chicken-hearted, high-toned-treaty-moral suasion philanthropists to ignorantly wail about, and we're glad of it."[18] Since it was so extremely difficult to catch these Indian marauders, a novel proposal was advanced, possibly not in real earnest: "If some Christian gentlemen will furnish a few bales of blankets from a small-pox hospital, well inoculated," the _Avalanche_ announced, "we will be distributing agent, and see that no Indian is without a blanket. That kind of peace is better than treaties." "These ideas suit us exactly," commented the _Idaho World_.[19] In the case of Indians such as these in southern Idaho, the reservation system as yet was impossible; but for the more amenable Indians, who lived farther to the west and north, this system seemed not only possible, but necessary. For the mining advance was sweeping away the native means of subsistence. Game was receding into the more remote localities, and the camass and cous grounds were being continually devastated by the hogs of settlers. The fish supply, to be sure, still remained, but the location of the fisheries on the streams along which most of the travel proceeded made necessary a contact with whites which brought evil results to the Indians. It was fortunate, therefore, that arrangements for the establishment of reservations were well under way, when the mining advance began. For the Indians east of the Cascades the treaties of 1855 (ratified in 1859) provided five reservations, each the size of a large county. These were the Yakima, the Warm Springs, the Umatilla, the Nez Perces and the Flathead. On all of these reservations agents were to be stationed, mills were to be erected, farming tools furnished, and schools and teachers provided. The policy itself was conceived on generous, humane, and enlightened principles, and it is doubtful if, under the circumstances, a better could have been devised. But the test came in administration; the difficulties and weaknesses, as the system worked out, proved to be many and formidable. Among the first of these obstacles to become apparent was the natural unfitness of the Indian for civilized life. It was always a difficult task for a white settler in a new country to get a start in the cultivation of the soil. He had to be able to gain support in some manner while he was building his house, breaking up the soil, and waiting for his crops to mature. Tools were generally scarce and dear, and many shifts and ingenious devices had to be employed. To be sure, the American frontiersman had become so expert in this work, that he went at it with comparative ease; but how difficult such work is for the untrained white man may be seen today in the case of Englishmen coming direct from the old country to western Canada.[20] Much more difficult it was, then, for the Indians. The ordinary Indian was very poor, ignorant, and conservative. A few, it was true, had large herds of ponies, but the average Indian might have two or three, and these worthless for the stern work of breaking prairie sod. The shrewd Indians who owned large herds, moreover, could see no reason for raising crops when stock-raising paid better and was vastly easier and more agreeable. And this was the more true when, as on the Umatilla reservation, wheat had to be hauled long distances to be ground. Furthermore, it was not at all the proper thing for a common Indian to begin a new sort of enterprise without the consent and example of his chief. Plowing, and like work, again, was for the Indian inexpressibly awkward and hard to learn, and, moreover, contrary to his ideas and to the ideas of his women of what a man ought to do. It was entirely natural that he should prefer to such drudgery, the sport of hunting and fishing and moving around. It was not his habit to stay in one place, for when the camass was ripe he needed to be near the grounds where it grew, and when the salmon were running it was necessary to be at the fisheries. Moreover, it was not sanitary for those Indians with their tepee habits to dwell long in one place; when Indians were forced to do so, filth brought disease and death. So, it was a hard, long task [the white man had been at it for thousands of years], this task of settling down to the orderliness and laboriousness and anxiety of civilized ways,--certainly a task not to be done in a year or decade, according to the swiftness and impatience of Americans. Under the most favoring conditions it was a task that demanded time for slow and painful growth.[21] The conditions were not the most favorable. In the first place the Government that was finally responsible was far away, at its best worked slowly, and was now handicapped by an absorbing and expensive war. A new party, moreover, was in power, and new men were at work. The financial problem, which this new party had to face, was stringent; it was not to be wondered at, therefore, that funds indispensable to the right working of the reservation system reached their destinations tardily. On September 25, 1861, for example, only a portion of the funds appropriated for the Oregon superintendency in 1860 had arrived, and the remainder had been remitted so far behind time as seriously to impair efficiency.[22] Agent Bancroft, and some of his employes, in two years received pay for only one quarter.[23] Moreover, when funds did arrive for the different agencies, they were in checks, which were hard to cash and reckoned on a legal tender basis, while the entire business of the Coast was on a gold basis. It was, consequently, very difficult to secure and retain efficient employes.[24] Native employes also, in particular, wanted their pay promptly on doing their work and felt aggrieved if they did not get it. Nor could the business of the Department be economically conducted; merchants naturally asked higher prices for goods when paid for in vouchers. The practice by agents of issuing vouchers itself was a most pernicious and corrupting one, but it was the only way in which the agency business could at times be carried on at all. Goods which were bought were frequently long delayed for lack of cash for transportation, or money was borrowed for transportation at the high rates of interest which prevailed on the Coast.[25] Goods of all sorts solemnly promised to the Indians, and improvements in the shape of mills, etc., were delayed for months and years; it was natural, therefore, for the Indians to feel that the Great Father was not particular about keeping his engagements, and that they in turn need not be particular about keeping theirs. Furthermore, the Government did not provide adequate protection for Indians who were on reservations. We have noticed before how the Nez Perces reservation was invaded by miners in defiance of treaty obligations. A still more conspicuous example of the failure to provide protection occurred at the Warm Springs reservation, where repeated raids of the Snakes terrorized and impoverished the agency Indians and discouraged them from attempting the cultivation of the soil. The Snakes on one occasion killed or captured many women and children, drove off the cattle and horses, both of the Indians and the Government, compelled the employes to flee for their lives, and plundered the agency. Troops pursued them without effect; and, moreover, hardly had the pursuers returned, when another raid took the remainder of the stock.[26] No feature of the reservation system was the cause of so much dissatisfaction to Indians, agents, and superintendents as was the payment of annuities. Not a few of the Indians of some tribes--notably of the Nez Perces--were men of self-respect and shrewdness, who felt insulted at being offered gewgaws and calico.[27] Calico and loss of land became connected in the Indian mind.[28] Among the Yakimas it was noted that there was great reluctance shown by many at receiving annuities. A reported speech by Qui-tal-i-can, a Yakima Indian, on the occasion of distribution of annuities at the Yakima agency, illustrates the attitude of independence held by some Indians: "The white men propose to bring all Indians to one land. Not good. Like driving horses into a corral. Suppose Indians went to Boston and told all the Bostons to go to one place. Would it be well? I am a poor man, but I will not say to the Agent, I am a dog. The Great Spirit will take care of us. He will always cause the grass to grow and the water to run. I am somewhat ashamed to be here today. My land is not to be sold for a few blankets and a few yards of cloth."[29] The Indians in general, moreover, quite rapidly learned to prefer that which was substantial to that which was trashy. But the goods which they received were ill adapted to their needs, since these goods were not sent in accordance with their own expressed desires, nor according to the requisition of the agents. At the Umatilla reservation, when Mr. Davenport distributed the annuities, the total amount of goods had a "pretty fair appearance"; but for 91 men there were provided 59 flannel shirts, 22 coats, 23 pants, 51 wool hats, 49 caps, and 65 pairs of brogans, and there were 122-1/2 pairs of blankets for the total of 324 persons.[30] Many of the articles received by the fishing Indians of the Sound country were those suitable to the more agricultural Indians of the interior,--consisting of "pitchforks, sickles, scythes without snaiths, frying pans, and other loose ends of New York stores."[31] It was not to be wondered at that the Indians traded off or gambled away these goods. Besides lack of suitability, there was no telling when the goods would arrive for distribution, and in consequence the Indians might have to go without needed clothing in winter time: "Really, the worst part of the annuity business was the uncertainty as to what kind of goods would be furnished, and at what time, if at all."[32] It was held by agents and superintendents that this sort of expenditure was in itself not wise, since it tended to pauperism and indolence. It would have been better, they said, to expend the money for improvements such as would help the Indians to become self-supporting,--in particular for the planting of orchards,--or to pay the Indians for doing work, rather than to give them articles outright. At any rate, it was urged, annuities ought not to be issued to all of each tribe, but only to such as stayed on the reservation and showed inclination for work and progress.[33] The reason why there was so much mal-adjustment, so it was universally claimed by superintendents and agents, was that the annuity goods were purchased on the Atlantic coast. A newspaper correspondent said that the fault lay with the "Great Father in New York who annually gets contracts for furnishing things to poor Lo."[34] So important does this aspect of the annuity problem seem, that I quote at some length from the annual reports of three superintendents. Edward R. Geary reported in 1860 from the Oregon Superintendency as follows: "Reference to the several lately ratified treaties made with the Indians in the interior of Washington and Oregon, shows that the chief objects to which the large sums embraced in the first payment for their lands ceded to the United States are applicable, are such as 'providing for their removal to the reservations;' 'breaking up and fencing farms;' 'building houses;' 'supplying provisions and a suitable outfit,' etc. "The aggregate amount of these first payments, to be expended for such objects as above specified, under the five treaties with the Indians east of the Cascade mountains, and appropriated by Congress at its last session, is $231,900. Of this, the sum of $111,000 was expended in the purchase of drygoods, groceries and hardware on the Atlantic side. This expenditure does not appear to be in accordance with the spirit and intent of these treaties; nor does it meet the just expectations of the Indians." "The whole amount appropriated for first payment of annuities to the Indians, embraced in four treaties, in Washington Territory, west of the mountains, is $26,500; of which the entire amount has been expended in the same market as above. "Some of the dry goods are not adapted to the condition and habits of the Indians on this side of the Rocky Mountains, and one-half the amount would have sufficed for their present wants. "Suitable goods of the best quality can be purchased in this market at prices ranging but little above those paid for similar articles in New York. Thus the freight might have been saved, and the risk and exposure avoided, by which many articles have been damaged in the transportation. * * * *"[35] The successor to Mr. Geary, William H. Rector, wrote as follows in 1861 to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs at Washington: "Your attention has been heretofore called by my predecessor to the impropriety of disbursing in the Atlantic States the appropriations made by Congress for beneficial objects. This course has been pursued ever since the ratification of the treaties, and still continues to be faithfully observed, notwithstanding the objections and remonstrances of the superintendents and agents thereto. "The articles forwarded have invariably failed to give satisfaction to the Indians. They are of inferior quality, unsuited to their wants or tastes. Besides, it consumes the entire annuity fund for 'beneficial objects,' and a large portion of the 'incidental fund' to transport these articles to the place of distribution. No good can possibly result from such a course, but, on the contrary, great loss. Better articles can be obtained in this market at a less price, and such as are adapted to their wants. This fund should be husbanded and disbursed for objects calculated to benefit the Indians, and not in such transparent trash as has usually been received. "One-half the amount, judiciously invested in the purchase of articles actually required, suited to their tastes, and applicable to their wants, would render more satisfaction, and would have a greater tendency to promote their well-being and advance them in civilization than the whole amount expended in the manner which it is. "The policy adopted at present only tends to embarrass the operations of the agent, and create in the Indian's mind the impression that there is a deliberate intention on the part of the government to defraud them of their lands."[36] Again, C. H. Hale, at the head of the Washington Superintendency, reported in 1862 as follows: "The attention of the department has so often been called, both by agents and former superintendents, to the mistaken policy which has so long obtained in the payment of annuities, that I forbear to dwell upon the subject, being well satisfied that if the abundant evidence which has heretofore been furnished, and forcible arguments which have been employed, have not convinced the department of the folly and injustice, not to say the fraud of the practice, it is useless and vain for me to attempt it." Mr. Hale then advises that annuities be paid only to Indians willing to reside at the reservations and as incentives and aids to work; clothing might be furnished only for the aged or infirm or children attending school. "Whatever may be furnished in this way," he continues, "should be selected with the greatest care, and with due reference to its intended application. Any article needed, for all the purposes specified, can be obtained on this coast at rates equally favorable as in the Atlantic cities; thus saving the very large expenditures which have heretofore been made in the way of freights."[37] The local superintendents and agents, of course, might have been in part influenced by desire to benefit the section in which they were working, and, perhaps, by the design to get expenditures more completely into their own hands; and the Government, on the other hand, may have had good reasons for purchasing in New York. But the unanimity and earnestness of the local officials indicate here a real and grave source of trouble. We come now to the important question as to how far the local officials themselves were honest and capable. The answer to this question is difficult. Specific charges of peculation and wrong management are frequent. On a visit to the Nez Perces reservation in 1861 Superintendent Kendall found the only evidence of farming operations by the agency to consist of about three tons of oats in the straw, although the agent had a full force of treaty employes, and ten laborers besides, at an expense of seven thousand dollars.[38] As the Superintendent fed his horse, he sighed to think that each mouthful of the animal's feed cost the Government at least one dollar. On the Umatilla agency there was an expenditure called for during the first two years of sixty-six thousand dollars; as a result there were in sight in 1862 "two log houses, a half dozen log huts, an open shed for wagons and plows, about a hundred acres of loamy river bottom fenced and in cultivation, a set of carpenter's and blacksmith's tools, and farming implements insufficient for an ordinary half section farm."[39] At the same reservation the outgoing agent remarked to the special agent appointed to take his position that the place of agent was worth there $4,000 per year, although the salary was but $1,500.[40] We could wish, however, in such cases to hear the accused agent's side of the story. Yet in 1858, Mr. Dennison, Indian agent for eastern Oregon, according to his own report, spent $13,500, which "was mostly expended in opening farms upon the Warm Springs reservation"; the next year there were in cultivation on this reservation 356 acres.[41] More convincing proof of fraudulent practices, perhaps, is afforded in the attitude of merchants and others towards agents. When Mr. Davenport, agent at the Umatilla reservation, tried to get competitive bids at Portland, dealers were distrustful and sarcastic, because they thought that he, as was common, was ostensibly seeking bids while in reality having a deal on with some selected firm. "The practice of combining against the Government for mutual profit is so common," comments Mr. Davenport, "that all agents are regarded in the same unenviable light. I said to one of the older merchants: 'It is easy to say that all the agents pilfer in this way, but what do you know about it?' His answer was: 'I say all because all that I know about are guilty.' The agent at Warm Springs, at the Grande Ronde, at the Umatilla, at the Siletz does so, and I presume that the rest of them do the same."[42] Another method whereby an agent might line his own pockets was by allowing substitutions of inferior goods in government invoices; Mr. Davenport was offered $1000 for the privilege of exchanging annuity goods for others, item by item.[43] But, indeed, how could it be expected that these administrators would be efficient and honorable when we consider the system under which they were appointed and did their work? No civil service rules were applied. Men were generally appointed, not because of special fitness either through natural aptitude or through administrative training, but because of political partisanship and at the demand of some Senator or Representative; or, later, they were appointed because of religious affiliations at the suggestion of some religious body. No national tests were applied, nor was there a sustaining esprit d' corps. There could be no right spirit, indeed, when many government officials considered that the agency system was merely a cheap way of keeping the Indians quiet, and when the western population in general was profoundly skeptical as to the possibility of civilizing the Indian.[44] The outlook was the more discouraging since the great American panacea--education--seemed a dismal failure when applied to these Indians according to forms then in vogue. There might be quite a furore when a reservation school was opened and the novelty was unworn; but the white child's spelling book or reader soon proved very tame to the young Indian, the more so because of the difficulties of pronunciation. But the principal cause of failure of the day schools was the nomadic habits of the parents; hardly had the Indian child started to school, when away would go the family to the fishing or hunting grounds or to the camass fields. Teachers who were in earnest met this difficulty by establishing boarding schools, where the children could be kept removed from the parental impulsiveness. The next step was natural. These schools emphasized practical training, particularly agriculture for the boys and housekeeping for the girls. This step, taken at a time when in American educational methods, comparatively little attention had been paid seriously to this phase of education, was significant and produced good results.[45] Whatever the shortcomings of the American method of dealing with the Indians in contrast to that of British Columbia, in respect to education, at least, the American system appears to advantage; for the colonial government of British Columbia did practically nothing for the education of the natives. There were two terrible evils, prevalent both in British Columbia and in the territories, which weakened and degraded the Indians and hindered efforts of every sort for improvement. These were prostitution and the use of liquor. No more pitiable condition can be imagined than that of the helpless Indian women and girls who were devoted by their husbands and fathers to prostitution among vile whites. The northern Indians brought down to the Songish reserve at Victoria their young women, many of them girls from ten to fourteen years of age, and remained all summer as pimps and procurers.[46] Reports of American Indian agents along the Coast make frequent mention of this practice. In the interior there is less evidence of its existence, but wherever Indians had a chance to linger around towns, they became demoralized. Employes agencies prostituted Indian women or took them for concubines; the Superintendent of Washington Territory issued a circular warning all employes from such acts.[47] The results of prostitution are found in reports of physicians of the various agencies, who almost always speak of venereal diseases as common. It should very clearly be understood that these facts were not true of all tribes in like degree; the tribes in the interior were more robust physically and morally and farther removed from contamination. Nor should the chastity of all the individuals of a tribe be judged by specimens which hung about the towns. In the interior, particularly, it was probably true that "unchastity among Indians is the exception, as it is among the whites."[48] Everywhere, both north and south of the Boundary, Indian welfare was assailed by the liquor traffic, and everywhere the Government engaged in a less or more futile struggle to combat it. Many of the Indians undoubtedly believed, like an Indian orator at Ft. Simcoe, that they had a right to drink whiskey if they wanted to, especially so long as the white man made it,--and there were always white men ready to sell it.[49] Local government took little part in suppressing the trade in the United States, the work being regarded as belonging to the officials of the general Government. These were hindered by lack of summary powers, by the scarcity of jails, and by the reluctance of juries to convict. Only on the reservations were the powers of the agents ample, and even here they might, in part, be nullified by the planting of resorts on the edges. The whole power of Government in British Columbia, on the other hand, could be utilized for the punishment of offenders. Magistrates had summary powers, and conviction entailed heavy fines and, in the case of regular dealers, loss of license. But the magistrates had the care of immense districts, and the Indians were not localized as they were in the United States after the reservation system was completely established. Yet this form of lawlessness, in common with other forms, was better checked on the whole in British Columbia than in the territories. As we turn, now, to consider the efforts to solve the Indian problem in British Columbia, quotations from two American administrators will help to set before us the better ordered conditions under British rule. The first is from General Harney: "Like all Indians they [the northern Indians] are fond of whisky, and can be seen at all hours of the day in the streets of Victoria drinking whenever they can get it, yet they are not permitted to become disorderly. These Indians are more obedient under British rule, which appears to be kind, but firm, than their fellow men with us under any of the systems adopted by our government."[50] The other is from an Indian agent, Mr. Davenport, to whom we have before referred. "We have only to look across the line into the British possessions of North America," he says, "to see that their treatment of the Indian has been more promotive of peace and good will than ours, and some people are swift to conclude that the Canadians are of a higher moral tone than the people of the United States. The true reason lies in the fact that their system has a more constant and restraining influence upon the lawless class in society. There is more individual freedom with us, and consequently more room for departure from the normal line of conduct. This difference is boldly in evidence to those of our citizens who have lived in mining regions governed by Canadian officers, whose official tenure does not depend upon the mood of the populace."[51] The policy of the Colonial Government of British Columbia with respect to the Indian population was distinguished by the following principal features: (1) Title to the soil was not recognized as belonging to the Indians; (2) No compensation, therefore, was allowed to Indians either in the shape of payments, annuities, or of special educational grants; (3) Indians were held to be fellow subjects with white men, and entitled, as individuals, to the protection of law, and responsible for obedience to law; (4) Sequestration of the native population upon large reservations was not followed, but, as settlement progressed, small reserves were assigned to families and septs, in proximity to settlements of the whites.[52] The adoption of this policy, so different to that of the United States, was not due to differences between the Indian populations north and south of the line. Some differences, it is true, there were: a great part of the natives of British Columbia had been more uninterruptedly under the tutelage of the Hudson's Bay Company than those across the Boundary, and were somewhat more inclined to work; no one tribe in the Colony was so powerful or so well organized as the Nez Perces; nor did the Indians of the Interior of British Columbia possess so many horses as did those to the south. Yet Kootenays, Pend d'Oreilles, and Okanogans crossed the Line at pleasure; the Shuswaps were very like the Coeur d'Alenes or the Cayuses; and the untameability of the nomads south of the Snake was matched by the wildness and ferocity of the Indians to the far north. In numbers, organization, and character it is difficult to see why the natives of the one section were the more adapted to any certain system than those of the other.[53] The initiation of this policy (especially with respect to the non-recognition of Indian title and the withholding of compensation) was in part due to pressure for funds in the Colony and to the refusal of the Imperial Government to assume any financial responsibility in the matter. Governor Douglas before the founding of the Colony had acted, apparently, on a different principle when, as agent for the Hudson's Bay Company, he had bought in 1850-51 considerable areas from various tribes in Vancouver's Island.[54] Compensation of some sort to Indians on the mainland was at least tentatively endorsed by the colonial office of the Home Government while it was in charge of Sir E. B. Lytton; yet Lytton was careful to state that he did not adopt the views of the Aborigines' Protective Society as to the means for extending protection to the natives.[55] This society was an organization in England which had "taken for many years a deep interest in the welfare of the Indian Tribes to the west as well as the east of the Rocky Mountains," and it may be looked upon as a British manifestation of the same sort of philanthropic sentiment in regard to Indians as existed among certain classes in the eastern part of the United States. The Secretary of the Society, in a long letter to Lytton, after quoting a long extract from a New York paper relative to the extreme cruelty of miners to Indians in California and characterizing the Indians of British Columbia as a "strikingly acute and intelligent race of men," "keenly sensitive to their own rights," and "equally alive to the value of the gold discoveries," claimed for them protection against wanton outrages and asked that "the Native title should be recognized in British Columbia, and that some reasonable adjustment of their claims should be made by the British Government."[56] The policy of compensation to Indians was further endorsed by Governor Douglas in regard to lands on Vancouver Island, on the occasion of the transmission of a petition from the House of Assembly of Vancouver Island, "praying for the aid of Her Majesty's Government in extinguishing the Indian title to the public lands in the Colony." The money then needed amounted to £3000, and Douglas proposed that it be advanced by the Imperial Government, payment to be made from the proceeds of sales of land. But the Duke of Newcastle, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, replied tersely that he was "fully sensible of the great importance of purchasing without loss of time the native title to the soil of Vancouver Island; but the acquisition of the title is a purely colonial interest, and the Legislature must not entertain any expectation that the British taxpayer will be burdened to supply the funds or British credit pledged for that purpose."[57] Whatever the reason, however, for denying recognition of title to the Indians both of the Island and of the Mainland, and for withholding compensation, there can be no doubt of the fact: "The title of the Indians in fee of the public lands, or any portion thereof," wrote an eminent colonial official, "has never been acknowledged by Government, but, on the contrary is distinctly denied."[58] The beginnings of a positive Indian policy in British Columbia may be traced in an early letter of Governor Douglas to Sir E. B. Lytton, March 14, 1859. This letter was in reply to one from the latter (Dec. 30, 1858), in which Lytton inquired whether a plan for settling the Indians in permanent villages, like the plan used by Sir George Grey with the Kaffirs in South Africa, might not be feasible.[59] Douglas endorsed the plan as of advantage both to the Indians and to the Colony and then sketched the principles upon which he proposed to establish reserves on the mainland. In the first place, the reserves should "in all cases include their cultivated fields and village sites, for which from habit and association they invariably conceive a strong attachment, and prize more, for that reason, than for the extent or value of the land."[60]. Such settlements, in the second place, were to be entirely self-supporting. The Governor here adverted to the plan pursued in the United States with regard to Indian reservations, but stated that that plan was expensive to the Government and debasing to the Indians. The system followed by the Spanish missions in California, likewise, he regarded as defective, in that it kept the Indians in a state of pupilage and did not train them to self-government and self-reliance. He would avoid the evils of both these systems and, in particular, cultivate the pride of independence. He proposed to that end, that each family have title to its own plot of ground, but without power of alienation; that they should be encouraged to add to their possessions by purchasing property apart from the reserve; "that they should in all respects be treated as rational beings, capable of acting and thinking for themselves; and, lastly, that they should be placed under proper moral and religious training and then be left, under the protection of the laws, to provide for their own support."[61] "I have impressed upon the miners," wrote Douglas to Lytton, "the great fact that the law will protect the Indian equally with the white man, and regard him in all respects as a fellow subject."[62] "The Indian population," he wrote to another, "are considered by the laws of England as fellow subjects, entitled to protection and punishable, when guilty of offenses, through the sole action of the law."[63] In a review of the Colonial Indian policy, written in 1875, the Attorney General stated that that policy "was based on the broad and experimental principle of treating the Indian as a fellow subject."[64] It now remains for us to inquire how this Indian policy, so based, was applied by the Colonial Government to this class of Her Majesty's subjects; not omitting, as we do so, to notice contrasts to administration in the United States. In the administration of justice the courts of British Columbia treated the Indian as the white man was treated. "When Indians commit offenses," ordered Governor Douglas, "they are to be dealt with impartially and to receive a fair trial before the proper authorities, and not to be treated like the wild beasts of the forest."[65] We get a glimpse of the way in which the law was administered with respect to Indians from the terse records of the old Ft. Hope Police Book. An Indian, for stealing money from another was sentenced to two days in jail. Two Indians, for being drunk and disorderly, were sent to jail for twenty-four hours. Simon B. McClure was charged by an Indian with assaulting him and was fined forty shillings. William Welch, charged by another Indian with the same offense, claimed that the Indian had beaten his dog and attacked him with a knife; Welch was let off, and the Indian was reprimanded. An Indian who struck an Indian woman in the face with a gun had his hair cut off. J. Spencer Thompson, for selling about one pint of liquor to an Indian had to pay a fine of $100, with costs, and lost his license to sell liquor. The sentences, it will be observed, were generally light for minor offenses, but not for selling liquor to Indians. Whites and Chinamen, the records reveal, were treated exactly as the Indians. Of course for grave offenses Indians, as well as others, were bound over to the assizes. In a number of cases Indians were hung for murder. This even-handed, carefully adjusted dealing out of justice to Indians, whites, and Chinese alike, contrasts plainly with the carelessness, ruthlessness, and lack of system in the territories. One could scarcely imagine an event like the following occurring on an American frontier: "May 28, 1862. Chas. Millard, Capt. of the Ft. Hope (steamboat) appeared to answer the complaint of Jim (an Indian) for having on the 16th inst. broken and otherwise damaged his canoe at Union, valued at twenty-five dollars ($25.00). "Ordered to pay four pounds ($20.00) being the damage sustained by the Indian as sworn to by C. C. Craigie & Wm. Yates. Paid. P. O'Reilly, J. P."[66] It is difficult in the mining regions south of the Line to find satisfactory records as to how justice was administered to the Indian. The reservation system, as it was being applied in the Pacific Northwest, weakened the ancient tribal authority; the "subsidy plan" tended to alienate the people from the chiefs, and the presence of Agents lessened their prestige in the eyes of the young or of those inclined to be bad. The Agents, on their part, had no authority for the punishment of criminal acts. If they had possessed magisterial powers, both with regard to whites and Indians, justice might have been better administered. Local authorities had no jurisdiction over Indians who were on reservations, although they sometimes punished those who were off of them.[67] Only United States courts had full power, but these courts were slow in action, and could not be expected, moreover, to take cognizance of minor cases. Indian criminals, finally, were sometimes arrested by army officials and tried by army courts with scanty consideration.[68] For the Indian, indeed, there seems to have been at this period practically no real protection before the law in the American procedure. In case of Indian outbreak the British Columbia system aimed to punish offenders as individuals and not to take revenge on tribes. One of the marked features of the history of the Colony of British Columbia is that there was but one serious Indian outbreak during the colonial period.[69] This happened in April, 1864, when some Chilcotin Indians killed roadmakers and settlers to the number of fourteen. The whole tribe went on the warpath, but were subdued by volunteers from New Westminster and Cariboo. Rewards of $250 each were offered for the individual murderers, the aim being, as Governor Seymour expressed it, "to secure justice, not vengeance."[70] Too often, south of the Line, in case of Indian depredations, there was no discrimination between the tribe and guilty members of the tribe.[71] In the British Columbia Indian system, as we have before stated there was no policy of bestowing annuities or subsidies, although gifts were sometimes made for special reasons.[72] To the student of American Indian history special interest attaches in this connection to the judgment of Mr. William Duncan, a man of very great experience, wisdom, and success in his dealings with Indians. Mr. Duncan wrote as follows in 1875 from his mission at Metlakahtla: "In no matter affecting the Indians can the Government do more good or harm than in the matter of gifts. "Money may be spent to a large amount upon the Indians and yet tend only to alienate, dissatisfy, and impoverish them, if wrongly applied; whereas a small sum rightly administered will yield much good both to the Indians and the country at large. "The policy of dealing out gifts to individual Indians I consider cannot be too strongly deprecated, as it is both degrading and demoralizing. To treat the Indians as paupers is to perpetuate their baby-hood and burdensomeness. To treat them as savages, whom we fear and who must be tamed and kept in good temper by presents, will perpetuate their barbarism and increase their insolence. I would therefore strongly urge the Government to set their faces against such a policy." He recommended, on the positive side, that money be put into Public Works for the benefit of the Indians. It will thus be seen that Mr. Duncan held substantially the same views with regard to annuities as did the Agents and superintendents south of the Line, whose well-conceived ideas were nullified by the officials and contractors in the East.[73] As has before been remarked, the Colony of British Columbia made no special effort for the education of the Indians. It was averred on the part of the Government that "the Government merely deferred the subject, believing that it was far more important in the interests of the community at large to first reclaim the Natives from their savage state and teach them the practical and rudimentary lessons of civilized life."[74] Beyond establishing reserves, however, and placing the Indians under law, one fails to see how the Government directly tried to teach them these "practical and rudimentary lessons." Certainly there was no effort by the Government to teach the Indians agriculture or any of the practical arts, as there was south of the Line. There were other ways, however, in which the Colonial Government did help the Indians at considerable expense. In surveying reserves, and in keeping whites off of them; in the suppression of the liquor traffic; in exemptions from tolls, taxes, and customs; and in direct pecuniary aid for the destitute and the sick, the aggregate expenditures and rebates were considerable. Moreover, the Magistrates in the several Districts were to act as Indian Agents, and to advise and protect the Indian "in all matters relating to their welfare."[75] We arrive now, finally, at the very important subject of reserves. These Indian reserves of British Columbia are to be clearly distinguished from the Indian reservations of the United States. The latter were very large in area, were assigned to a tribe or to a number of tribes, were founded on the principle of sequestration from the whites, and were under the oversight of an agent; the reserves of British Columbia were small, were assigned to septs or families, were often contiguous to white settlements, and had no special agents. In size the reserves of British Columbia varied in all degrees from one acre to six thousand acres.[76] The total area of surveyed reserves amounted in 1871 to 28,437 acres.[77] The general principle on which reserves were assigned was that each head of a family should be given ten acres, but in practice there was considerable variation.[78] It seems strange to one accustomed to American reservations, that a reserve of six hundred square miles for a tribe of 400 members should have been regarded as entirely too extensive to be allowed.[79] The principle of assigning land in so small amounts, on what we may call a village system, may have been adopted with special reference to conditions of life among the Coast Indians or among those of the lower Fraser, for whose use (since they made their living by fishing or working for whites) a small parcel of land was sufficient but for the pastoral Indians of the interior it seemed manifestly insufficient. So long as there was plenty of range, the smallness of the reserves was not felt, but when whites acquired title to vacant lands and, at the same time, the wants of the Indians increased, the latter felt themselves unjustly treated.[80] When British Columbia entered the Confederation, the Dominion Government wanted the Indians to have eighty acres for each head of family. This the Province refused, but it did consent to grant twenty. This amount still being considered insufficient for the Interior Indians by the Dominion Superintendent of Indian Affairs for British Columbia, he requested that it be raised to forty acres (in accordance with the principle then recognized in the preemption laws of British Columbia, which allowed 160 acres west of the Cascades, but 320 east); but the request was not granted.[81] In addition to their reserves, however, the Indians of British Columbia had the right to acquire land outside the reserves on the same terms as white men,--a right not possessed at that time by their kindred to the South. This right was clearly stated by Governor Douglas: "That measure," he said (referring to the reserve system) "is not, however, intended to interfere with the private rights of individuals of the future Tribes, or to incapacitate them, as such, from holding land; on the contrary, they have precisely the same rights of acquiring and possessing land in their individual capacity, either by purchase or by occupation under the Pre-emption Law, as other classes of Her Majesty's Subjects; provided they in all respects comply with the legal conditions of tenure by which land is held in this Colony."[82] This right, however, was afterwards modified to the extent that preemption could be exercised by an Indian only by special consent of the Government.[83] So late as 1872 an Indian received special permission to pre-empt one hundred acres. As to which system, that of British Columbia or that of the United States, on the whole was the better, is a question difficult, if not impossible to decide; and it would certainly involve extensive research in the period subsequent to that of our study and beyond its scope. W. J. TRIMBLE. FOOTNOTES: [1] Davenport, T. W. Recollections of an Indian Agent. Quar Or. His. Soc., Vol. VIII, No. 4, Dec. 1907, p. 352. [2] Mullan--Report on Military Road, p. 52 [3] Id., p. 79. [4] Id., p. 52. [5] Con. His. Soc. Mont., Vol. VI, p. 284. [6] Rpt. Com. Indian Affairs, 1863, p. 442. [7] Langford, Vigilante Days and Ways, Vol. I, pp. 250 & 318. [8] Recollections of an Indian Agent. Or. His. Quar. Vol. VIII, No. 1, March, 1907, p. 389. [9] The Pioneer Reminiscences of George Collier Robbins, Pacific Monthly, Vol. 26, No. 2, Aug., 1911, pp. 288-9. [10] An Incident of this nature is related in Hailey, History of Idaho, p. 58. [11] Recollections of an Indian Agent, Quart. Or. His. Soc. Vol. VIII, No. 4, Dec., 1907, p. 360. [12] The Montana Post. Feb. 4, 1865 [13] Journals of the Council and House of Representatives of Idaho Territory, 4th session, 1866-7, pp. 343-4. [14] For different views of one expedition, contrast the account of the expedition led by Jeff Standifer in Hailey's Idaho, pp. 49-60, with that in the Pioneer Reminiscences of George Collier Robbins. Pacific Monthly, Vol. 26, No. 2, Aug., 1911, pp. 198-9. [15] General Conner's men marched several days in extremely cold weather, in order to catch and surprise these Indians. Of the soldiers in this expedition 15 were killed, 53 wounded, and 75 more or less seriously frozen. An account may be found in Langford, Vigilante Days and Ways, pp. 337-354. [16] The Idaho World, Feb. 24, 1866. [17] Owyhee Avalanche, Dec. 16, 1865. [18] Id., Nov. 11, 1865. [19] The Idaho World, Jan. 27, 1866. [20] The Canadian Pacific Railway has a special plan for providing for such settlers, by itself building houses and breaking land. It is a well-known fact in Western Canada that new emigrants from the old country find it much more difficult to get a start than do Americans or people from Eastern Canada. This fact was recently called to my attention, on a visit to Alberta, by an English farmer of several years' experience. [21] I am indebted for a number of the ideas and facts expressed in this paragraph to Recollections of an Indian Agent, Quar. Or. His. Soc., Vol. VIII, No. 1, March, 1907, pp. 12-18. [22] Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. 1861, p. 160. [23] Id., 1862, p. 419. [24] Id., 1863, p. 52. [25] Id., 1861, p. 160. [26] Report Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1860, pp. 173-761. [27] Rpt. Com. Ind. Affairs, 1862, p. 397. [28] The Weekly Oregonian. Sept. 7, 1861. [29] San Francisco Daily Bulletin, July 24, 1862. [30] Recollections of an Indian Agent, Quar. Oregon His. Soc., Vol. VIII, No. 2, June, 1907, p. 108. [31] Report of Henry A. Webster. Rpt. Com. Ind. Af., 1862, p. 407. [32] T. W. Davenport. Recollections of an Indian Agent, Quar. Or. His. Soc., Vol. VIII. No. 2, June, 1907, p. 108. [33] Rpt. Com. Ind. Af., 1863, p. 459. [34] San Francisco Daily Bulletin, Jan. 28, 1864. [35] Rpt. Com. Ind. Af., 1860, p. 185. [36] Rpt. Com. Ind. Affairs, 1861, p. 159. [37] Rpt. Com. Ind. Af., 1862, pp. 400-401. [38] Recollections of an Indian Agent, Quar. Or. His. Soc., Vol. VIII, No. I, March 1907, p. 14. {See transcriber notes} [39] Recollections of an Indian Agent, Quar. Ore. His. Soc., Vol. VIII., No. 1, March, 1907, p. 14. [40] Id., p. 7. [41] 36 Cong., 1st sess., Sen. Doc. I, p. 802. [42] Recollections of an Indian Agent, Quar. Or. His. Soc., Vol. VIII, No 1, March, 1907, pp. 18-19. [43] Id. No. 2, June, 1907, p. 105. [44] Cf. on these points Id. No. I, pp. 4 & 5. [45] Rpt. Com. Ind. Af., 1860, p. 184; 1862, p. 263; 1863, pp. 52, 65, 82-84, 449-451, and 473; 1864, pp. 73-4, 85. [46] British Columbia Papers Connected with the Indian Land Question, Report of I. U. Powell concerning the Songish reserve, pp. 121-2. [47] Rpt. Com. Ind. Af., 1861, p. 77. [48] Recollections of an Indian Agent, Quar. Or., His. Soc., Vol. VIII., No. 2, June. 1907, pp. 127-8. [49] San Francisco Daily Bulletin. July 24, 1862. [50] 36 Cong., 1st Sess., Sen. Doc. 11, No. 2, p. 108. [51] Recollections of an Indian Agent, Quar., Or. His. Soc., Vol. VIII. No. 4, Dec., 1907, p. 355. [52] It should be carefully noted that this statement of policy has no reference to the Canadian policy. The two are clearly distinguishable. [53] Statements of numbers of population in both sections may be found in Documents relating to Vancouver's Island Laid Before the House of Commons, 1849, pp. 9 & 10, and Report from the Select Committee on the Hudson's Bay Company, 1857, pp. 366-7. Some information as to the grouping of natives in British Columbia may be obtained from Tolmie and Dawson--Comparative Vocabularies of the Indian Tribes of British Columbia. [54] These conveyances are found in Papers Connected With the Indian Land Question, pp. 5-11. A clause common to all papers was the following: "The condition of or understanding of this sale is this, that our village sites and enclosed fields are to be kept for our own use, for the use of our children, and for those who may follow after us; and the land shall be properly surveyed hereafter. It is understood, however, that the land itself, with these small exceptions, becomes the entire property of the white people forever; it is also understood that we are at liberty to hunt over the unoccupied lands, and to carry on our fisheries as formerly." It was claimed by Hon. Joseph W. Trutch that these transactions were merely "made for the purpose of securing friendly relations between those Indians and the settlement of Victoria, * * * and certainly not in acknowledgement of any general title of the Indians to the lands they occupy." Id., Ap, p. 11. [55] Sir E. B. Lytton to Governor Douglas, July 31, 1858, and Sept. 2, 1858,--Papers relating to Indian Land Question, p. 12: Carnarvon to Governor Douglas, April 11 and May 20, 1859, Id., p. 18. [56] Id., pp. 12-14. [57] Id., p. 20. [58] Memorandum, 1870, of Joseph W. Trutch, Commissioner of Lands and Works, Id., ap. pp. 10-13. Cf. also The Indian Land Question in British Columbia, a lecture delivered April 22nd, 1910, in Vancouver by Rev. Arthur E. O'Meara, B. A., p. 13. This lecture is in opposition to the policy which has been pursued. The Roman Catholic missionaries, as well as some clergymen of other denominations, have been actively sympathetic with the Indian point of view sometimes to the embarrassment of officials; Papers Relating to Indian Land Question, pp. 27-8, 86-91, 145-148. [59] Id., pp. 16 and 17. [60] This principle was acted upon, also, with regard to burial grounds. In the establishment of the reserve system, as, indeed, in all dealings with the Indians, the officials of British Columbia were more considerate of the prejudices and attachments of the Indians than officials in the United States usually were. An interesting example of this consideration was an "Ordinance to prevent the violation of Indian graves." This ordinance decreed that anyone damaging or removing any image, bones, or any article or thing deposited in, on, or near any Indian grave in the Colony, would be liable to a fine of £100 for the first offense, and twelve months imprisonment at hard labor for the second. In any indictment "It shall be sufficient to state that such grave, image, bones, article or thing is the property of the Crown." Ordinances of the Legislative Council of British Columbia, Sess. Jan.-April, 1865, No. 19. [61] Papers Relating to Indian Land Question, pp. 16 and 17. [62] Oct. 11. 1858: Papers Regarding British Columbia, I, 39. [63] Douglas to Mortimer Robertson Miscellaneous Letters, Ms., I, p. 37. [64] Papers Relating to the Indian Land Question, p. 4. [65] Miscl. Letters, Ms. I, 37. [66] The old Police Book is the more trustworthy, because it was not intended as a report, nor for publication. The officials whose judgments were recorded were Chief Justice Begbie and Mr. O'Reilly. [67] Some Indians were tried and convicted for murder in 1861, in the Wasco County (Oregon) Circuit Court; Oregonian, Oct. 12, 1861. [68] Two renegade Umatilla Indians on one occasion attempted to rob a sleeping miner. He awoke, and in a scuffle one of them shot and wounded him. These Indians called at the lodge of Howlish Wampo, a much respected Cayuse chief, and then disappeared. Colonel Steinburger, in command at Walla Walla, had the chief arrested, put in chains, and was dissuaded from executing him only by the earnest solicitations of the Indian Agent. The two Indians were afterward arrested and, after a farcical trial by a military commission were executed. The miner had not died. Recollections of an Indian Agent, Quar. Or. His. Soc., Vol. VIII, No. 1, March, 1907, pp. 24-35. [69] There was a disturbance in 1848 between Indians and miners along the Fraser, before Government was established. Miners volunteered and organized in true American fashion and compelled peace. [70] Government Gazette, May 28, 1864, and Jan. 14, 1865. [71] When Bolon, Indian Agent of the Yakimas, was murdered in 1855, the Olympia Pioneer and Democrat said: "Chastisement can now be visited upon the tribes instead of going to the trouble of ferreting out individual guilty members." Oct. 12, 1855. [72] In the Budget of 1864, out of a total of £135,639, there was specified for gifts to Indian chiefs, £200, (Government Gazette, Feb. 20, 1864); out of a total appropriation of £122,250 in 1869, £100 was appropriated for Indian expenses. (Papers Relating to the Indian Land Question, p. 98.) [73] It might have been well for the enthusiastic Eastern philanthropists, who were so zealous in inveighing against wrongs perpetrated by Westerners upon the Indians, to have directed some of their efforts to their own neighbors. [74] Papers Relating to Indian Land Question, Ap., p. 4. [75] Id., p. 4. [76] Schedule of Indian Reserves in the Province of British Columbia; Papers Relating to Indian Land Question, pp. 104-5. [77] Report of the Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works, Id., p. 103. [78] Id., p. 137. [79] Id., p. 33. [80] On this phase consult letter of Rev. Father Grandidier from Okanogan, Id., pp. 145-147. [81] Id., p. 124. [82] Government Gazette, Jan. 30, 1864. [83] Papers Relating to the Indian Land Question, Ap., p. 4. DOCUMENTS The prominence given to the name of the Indian Chief Leschi in the City of Seattle is sufficient to lend an interest to the following record of a meeting of pioneers in Pierce County. It was copied from the Pioneer and Democrat of Friday, January 29, 1858, by Harry B. McElroy of Olympia. Mr. McElroy has a fine series of old territorial newspapers. Indignation Meeting The citizens of Pierce County, W. T., after returning from witnessing the disgraceful transaction enacted at Fort Steilacoom, the place appointed for the execution of the murderer Leschi, on the 22nd January, 1858, assembled at the church in Steilacoom City. Mr. O. P. Meeker was called to the chair, and N. W. Orr was chosen Secretary. The chairman then stated the object of the meeting. The meeting was addressed by Messrs. Sam McCaw, E. Cady and Henry Bradley. On motion, A committee of five were appointed, consisting of A. L. Porter, O. H. White, W. R. Downey, E. M. Meeker and M. J. West, for the purpose of drafting resolutions expressing the views of this meeting as regards the conduct of Sheriff, Geo. Williams, U. S. Commissioner, J. M. Bachelder, and such of the military officers at the Steilacoom Garrison as assisted in evading the execution of the law, and likewise the disgraceful course pursued by Frank Clark. The committee, after retiring for a short time, reported the following resolutions which were unanimously adopted. WHEREAS, at connivance, as we fully believe, of sheriff Williams and others, an arrest was made of said Williams for the purpose of preventing the execution of Leschi, who had been tried, convicted of murder, and sentenced to death, therefore, RESOLVED, That we, as citizens of Pierce County, denounce the act as being unworthy of honorable men. That the aiders, abetters and sympathisers in this high-handed outrage, deserve the unqualified condemnation of all lovers of good, order, and are no longer entitled to our confidence. RESOLVED, That the action of those of the officers of the U. S. A. at Fort Steilacoom, who have participated, aided and abetted in the arrest of sheriff Williams at the very hour he was to have executed Leschi, and, as we believe, solely for the purpose of preventing him from performing his duty as sheriff, deserve at our hands the severest condemnation, that we consider it an act unworthy of the officers of the U. S. Army, it being clearly their duty to assist in enforcing the law instead of throwing obstacles in the way of its mandates. RESOLVED, That the action of the U. S. Commissioner, J. M. Bachelder, in issuing a warrant for the arrest of sheriff Williams, on the affidavit of an Indian, and, as we believe, with full knowledge of the object to be effected by the arrest, is without the least shadow of excuse, and that the interest of the community demands his immediate removal. RESOLVED, That we believe that Frank Clark has done all that was in his power to prevent the execution of the laws, and has been instrumental in having an affidavit filed, which resulted in the arrest of the sheriff and his deputy, and we brand the act as being unworthy of a law abiding citizen of this Territory. RESOLVED, That the representative of the foreign company in our midst, W. F. Tolmie, has, by his own officiousness in this matter, rendered himself more than obnoxious to the citizens of Pierce County, and that we earnestly desire to see the day when our Country shall be rid of this incubus on our prosperity. On motion of A. C. Lowell, A committee of three was appointed by the Chair, consisting of Henry Bradley, A. L. Porter and Sam McCaw to circulate the above resolutions to give such of our citizens as wish, the opportunity to endorse the same. On motion of A. C. Lowell, The proceedings [were ordered] published in the Pioneer and Democrat. On motion the meeting adjourned. O. P. Meeker, Ch'n N. W. Orr, Sec. BOOK REVIEWS THE STORY OF THE PONY EXPRESS. By Glen D. Bradley. (Chicago, A. C. McClurg & Co. 1913. Pp. 175. $.75.) The Pony Express was an incidental enterprise of importance in the attempts to establish rapid communication between the Missouri River and the Pacific Coast during the early sixties. Before the middle of the nineteenth century explorers and traders in the far West had established three great thoroughfares across the continent. These were the Santa Fe, the Salt Lake, and the Oregon trails. The Mormon settlement of Utah and the discovery of gold in California led to the establishment of mail routes across the country. In spite of governmental subsidies, the difficulties occasioned by the Indians, the severe weather, especially in the mountains, irregular highways and absence of bridges made communication particularly difficult and uncertain. Railroads and telegraph lines were being pushed east and west, but had not connected when the Civil War approached, and with it grave fears lest California be lost to the Union. Rapid communication was essential and into this gap was pushed the Pony Express, a thoroughly organized system of riders who carried the mails on horseback between stations maintained along the route. For sixteen months the daring men identified with this work with unsurpassed courage and unflinching endurance kept the two sections in communication with each other until, in October, 1861, telegraph wires took the place of flesh and blood as means of communication, and the Pony Express passed into history, and California was saved to the Union. The Pony Express failed in a financial way to reimburse its organizers, but it served the country well and gave another opportunity for the exercise of "man-defying American pluck and determination--qualities that have always characterized the winning of the West." Mr. Bradley's theme has much in it of romance and heroism and he has lost none of it in the telling. EDWARD MCMAHON. * * * * * THE COMING CANADA. (The World Today Series.) By Joseph King Goodrich. Sometime Professor in the Imperial Government College, Kyoto. (Chicago, A. C. McClurg & Co. 1913. Pp. VIII, 309. $1.50 net.) This book was written not for the specialist in history or political science, but for the general reader, and should be judged from that standpoint. It is largely a compilation from satisfactory authorities, but the author relies upon direct knowledge gained by travel during the past twenty-five years and he has also received suggestions and statistics from the various departmental authorities at Ottawa. The book has no independent historical value, but forms a good guide for the general reader and is well worth perusal by one who is contemplating a Canadian tour or desires a bird's view of present conditions. The range of topics is broad, covering, with the exception of present party politics and problems of racial and religious assimilation, all subjects of major interest. One excellent chapter is devoted to sources of Canadian wealth; according to the view of the author, the greatness of The Coming Canada is founded upon agricultural products, live stock and kindred industries, rather than upon its mineral wealth. This seems to be the keynote of the book. Subjects worthy of especial mention are governmental policies for internal development, including the homestead laws; railway, past, present and future; and brief discussions of the social and economic relations of Canada and the United States. The description of local and central institutions of government is adequate for the purposes of the general reader. The historical introduction, comprising the first quarter of the book, is the least satisfactory. It has no independent historical value and the facts may be obtained elsewhere in briefer and more satisfactory shape. The notices, however, of official processes by which the present boundaries of the Dominion were attained, are adequate. The forty illustrations from photographs add greatly to the attractiveness of the volume; but the reviewer regrets that at least one of them could not have been replaced by a good map. OLIVER H. RICHARDSON. * * * * * SUBJECT INDEX TO THE HISTORY OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST AND OF ALASKA AS FOUND IN THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS, CONGRESSIONAL SERIES, IN THE AMERICAN STATE PAPERS, AND IN OTHER DOCUMENTS, 1789-1881. Prepared by Katharine B. Judson, A. M., for the Seattle Public Library. (Published by the Washington State Library, Olympia, 1913. Pp. 341.) The compiling of this index involved the examining page by page of over 2,000 volumes of documents. One can readily imagine the deadening drag of such a piece of work unless it was done by a person with a historical sense who saw what a help it would be to those making a study of Pacific Northwest history from its original sources. Those who have tried by themselves to dig out material from early documents know how helpless they are and they will readily recognize the usefulness of such a reference work as Miss Judson has compiled. It may be interesting to note that the history of no other section of the United States has been covered by such an index. There may be some question why the index was not brought down to a date later than 1881. This was unnecessary, as there are adequate general indexes to government documents from that year to date. One might be led to think from the title "Subject Index" that each document included had been minutely indexed. This is not the case and it would have been impractical to have attempted to do so, but on the other hand when a document was found to include material on several topics, such, for example, as mail service, fisheries, agriculture, it has been listed under these various headings. Perhaps it is more nearly a catalogue than an index to documents. Arranged as it is under broad headings rather than specific ones, the index can scarcely be considered a ready reference tool, but I am doubtful if it could have been made so, at least not without greatly increasing the amount of work entailed in compiling it. The index covers a much wider range of topics than the word history usually is taken to include. Banks and banking, missions, mail service, education, roads, and cost of living are some of the subject headings which are used. Accordingly it would seem that the index should prove indispensable to any one who is studying the development of the Pacific Northwest from a social, political, religious, economic, or historical point of view. Although the index is of primary use to the serious student, still it makes available much thoroughly readable material for those who have interested themselves in the history of the Pacific Northwest merely for their own pleasure. CHARLES H. COMPTON. * * * * * GUIDE TO THE MATERIALS FOR UNITED STATES HISTORY IN CANADIAN ARCHIVES. By David W. Parker. (Washington, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1913. Pp. 339.) Of the Papers thus far issued by the Department of Historical Research of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, none can prove of greater service to American historical scholarship than the present volume. As stated by Professor Jameson in the Preface: "The constant relations between Canada and the English colonies, or the United States, during two centuries of conflict and a hundred years of peace, across the longest international line, save one, that the world has ever known, have made it inevitable that the archives of Canada should abound in documents useful, and sometimes highly important, to the history of the United States." Students of our own regional history will be astonished to find what a wealth of material is preserved in the Canadian archives, particularly in the archives of the Archbishopric of Quebec, that bears directly upon the history of Oregon and Washington. It will be particularly regretted, by students in these states, that the Archives of British Columbia located in the nearby city of Victoria could not have been adequately listed. It is stated, however, that "A complete annotated catalogue of the documents in the Provincial Archives [of British Columbia] will be issued as soon as the Department moves into the new quarters, now being built, and the material will then be available to the student." * * * * * AN AMERICAN HISTORY. By Nathaniel W. Stephenson, Professor of History in the College of Charleston. (New York, Ginn & Co. 1913. Pp. 604.) AMERICAN HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT. By Willis M. West, Sometime Professor of History in the University of Minnesota. (New York, Allyn & Bacon, 1913. Pp. 801.) A SHORT HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. By John S. Bassett, Professor of History in Smith College. (New York, The Macmillan Co. 1913. Pp. 884. $2.50.) These three new textbooks appearing within a few weeks of each other bear eloquent witness of the activity of the teaching and study of history. Prof. Stephenson's book is intended for use in the elementary schools, and is eminently fair and well balanced. Very great care has been exercised in the selection of illustrations and in some cases the author has very wisely chosen those of representative men not usually pictured in a textbook. A very large number of small maps are used to elucidate the text, and in this respect the author has set a new mark in efficient textbook making. Bassett's Short History is a textbook for the use of college students and for readers who desire a reliable account of United States history in a single volume. In addition to these uses, it will no doubt have a wide sale as a reference book in schools whose library facilities are limited. Professor Bassett is always careful about his facts. The emphasis is well proportioned and the maps well selected. There are no illustrations. The subject matter of the volume is treated in a purely conventional way and differs very radically in this respect from Professor West's History and Government. If one could apply the terms of politics to history writing Bassett's book is conservative and West's progressive. Professor West is widely known as a textbook writer and is just as careful of his facts and proportion as Professor Bassett, but he has had a different purpose in mind. He views history not merely as political history. "The growth of our political democracy has been intertwined with the development of our economic and industrial conditions. I have tried to make this interaction the pervading principle in determining the arrangement and selection of material. * * * [and] I should not have cared to write the book at all, if I had not believed that a fair presentation of American history gives to American youth a robust and aggressive faith in democracy. At the same time, I have tried to correct the common delusion which looks back to Jefferson or John Winthrop for a golden age, and to show instead that democracy has as yet been tried only imperfectly among us." West's selection of material has been well made with this end in view. The book is stimulating and suggestive and will meet with hearty approval from those who are disciples of the "new history" and will throw a flood of new light upon the subject for those who have studied and taught history in the conventional way. With the spread of democracy, such books as West's are bound to grow in number and use. EDWARD MCMAHON. * * * * * WRITINGS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. Edited by Worthington Ford. (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1913. Vol. 2, 1796-1801. Pp. 531. $3.50 net.) Volume 1 of this important set was noted in the Quarterly for April, 1913, page 131. As noted there, the readers in the Pacific Northwest are awaiting with interest the subsequent volumes containing the record of John Quincy Adams in the diplomacy of Old Oregon. * * * * * DECISIONS, JULY, 1912, TO JULY, 1913. By United States Geographic Board. (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1913. Pp. 54.) There are here given 365 decisions on geographic names. Of this total a surprising number of decisions (107) are devoted to geographic features of the State of Washington. Of these there are 56 in Whatcom County in the vicinity of Mount Baker and 49 are found in the Mount Rainier National Park. The remaining two are Mount Spokane and Portage Bay, the latter a part of Lake Union, Seattle. * * * * * EARLY AMERICAN MOUNTAINEERS. By Allen H. Bent. (Reprint from Appalachia, Vol. XIII, No. 1. Pp. 45 to 67.) Western mountains come in for a fair share of attention in this interesting little monograph. There are a number of portraits, among which may be seen those of David Douglass, the famous early botanist who wrought in the Pacific Northwest, and General Hazard Stevens, who made the first ascent of Mount Rainier with P. B. Van Trump. * * * * * MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF THE GREAT PLAINS. Selected and edited by Katharine Berry Judson. (Chicago, A. C. McClurg & Co. 1913. Pp. 205. $1.50 net.) This is the fourth volume in the series of Myths and Legends edited by Miss Judson. Earlier volumes covering Alaska, The Pacific Northwest, and California and the Old Southwest have been noted in previous issues of this magazine. * * * * * ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE. By Henry Cabot Lodge. (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1913. Pp. 136. $1.25 net.) This timely book should find a welcome in the State of Washington, where committees are already at work to celebrate the centennial of peace by the erection of an arch or some other form of imposing monument where the Pacific Highway passes from the United States into Canada. * * * * * JAMES HARLAN. By Johnson Brigham. (Iowa City, The State Historical Society of Iowa, 1913. Pp. 398.) This latest volume in the very creditable Iowa Biographical Series (edited by Benj. F. Shambaugh) is the well told story of one of Iowa's best known sons. James Harlan was a typical Westerner, a man of rugged sincerity, an orator and debater of no mean ability, an independent and self-reliant leader of a pioneer people. The years of his political career were entangled with the anti-slavery agitation, the Civil War, and the confused and trying periods of Reconstruction. He was not perhaps a statesman of first rank, but Iowa does well in setting forth the work of her sons in the very excellent series of which this volume forms a creditable addition. On the whole, the volume does not measure up to the standard for fairness set by some of the earlier volumes. On too many controverted points the opinion of the "Burlington Hawk-Eye" and "the Iowa State Register" are quoted as if their judgment was final. A good many states would reflect credit on themselves by encouraging a similar excellent biographical series. * * * * * THE LIFE OF ROBERT TOOMBS. By Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, Ph. D., Professor of American History in the University of Michigan. (New York, The Macmillan Co. 1913. Pp. 281. $2.00.) This volume from the pen of one of the ablest students of American history gives in available form an interesting and instructive account of one of the leading "fire-eaters" of the ante-bellum period. Professor Phillips treats Toombs as an exponent of the social and industrial history of his period and section and therefore emphasizes these factors rather than those that are purely biographical. In very large measure he allows Toombs to speak for himself through his speeches and letters. * * * * * AN ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. By Charles A. Beard, Associate Professor of Politics, Columbia University. (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1913. Pp. VII, 330. $2.25 net.) Professor Beard in this work is concerned with the "forces which condition" a great movement in politics, viz., the making of our national constitution. Rapidly sketching the economic interests in 1787, the movement for the constitution and the property-safeguards in the election of delegates, he leads up to the most direct contribution in the book, viz., a study of the personal and financial interests of the framers of that document. Biographical sketches of the members are given from this new angle. The basis being a careful study of the extant records of the Treasury Department at Washington now used for the first time in this connection. Emphasis is laid upon the economic interests represented in "personality in public securities," "personality invested in lands for speculation," "personality in the form of money loaned at interest," "personality in mercantile, manufacturing, and shipping lines" and "personality in slaves." The remaining chapters treat of the political doctrines of the "framers" and the process of ratification. Professor Beard states frankly that his study is fragmentary, but he has unquestionably made available to students a body of facts that must be taken into account by anyone desiring to understand the making of our constitution. Other Books Received AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY. Proceedings, New Series, Volume 23, Part I. (Worcester, Society, 1913. Pp. 169.) AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY. Publications, Number 21. (N. Y. Society, 1913. Pp. 304.) AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. Annual Report, 1911. Volume 1. (Washington, Govt. 1913. Pp. 842.) AMERICAN SCENIC AND HISTORIC PRESERVATION SOCIETY. Eighteenth Annual Report, 1913. (Albany, Lyon, 1913. Pp. 832.) ILLINOIS STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. Transactions for the year 1911. (Springfield, State Historical Library, 1913. Pp. 151.) KANSAS STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. Biennial Report, 1910-1912. (Topeka, 1913. Pp. 193.) LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. Classification, Class E-F, America. (Wash., Govt. 1913. Pp. 298. 40 cents.) ONTARIO HISTORICAL SOCIETY. Annual Report, 1913. (Toronto, Society, 1913. Pp. 78.) ONTARIO HISTORICAL SOCIETY. Papers and Records, Volume 11. (Toronto. Society, 1913. Pp. 81.) Entire number devoted to a study of "Place Names in Georgian Bay and North Channel," by James White. RHODE ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY. Proceedings, 1911-1913. (Providence, Society, 1913. Pp. 92.) RHODE ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY. The Seal, the Arms and the Flag of Rhode Island, by Howard M. Chapin. (Providence, Society, 1913. Pp. 16.) SEATTLE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE. In Memoriam--John Harte McGraw. (Seattle, Chamber of Commerce, 1911. Pp. 84.) THEABAUD, AUGUSTUS J. Three Quarters of a Century (1807 to 1882); a retrospect written from documents and memory. (N. Y. United States Catholic Historical Society, 1913. Pp. 204.) VIRGINIA STATE LIBRARY. Ninth Annual Report, 1911-1913. (Richmond, State Printer, 1913. Pp. 49+335.) Appendix contains a list of the Revolutionary soldiers of Virginia. WASHINGTON BANKERS ASSOCIATION. Proceedings of the Eighteenth Annual Convention, 1913. (Tacoma, Association, 1913. Pp. 198.) WASHINGTON STATE FEDERATION OF WOMEN'S CLUBS. Seventeenth Annual Report, 1913-1914. (Printed at Sunnyside, Wash. 1913. Pp. 114.) WASHINGTON STATE HIGH SCHOOL DIRECTORY, 1913-14. (Olympia, Lamborn, 1913. Pp. 126.) WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. Collections, Volume 20. Edited by Reuben Gold Thwaites. (Madison, Society, 1911. Pp. 497.) Devoted to a history of the fur-trade in Wisconsin. NEWS DEPARTMENT Death of Reuben Gold Thwaites History interests of the Pacific Northwest, as well as those of other parts of the United States, have sustained a severe loss in the sudden death of Reuben Gold Thwaites on October 22. As Secretary of the Wisconsin State Historical Society he worked out an international reputation as editor and author of extensive works in the field of history. His will be a most difficult place to fill. Professor Turner's Visit to the Coast Professor Frederick J. Turner, formerly of the University of Wisconsin, but now of the Harvard faculty, will be in the Pacific Northwest next summer, dividing his time between the Universities of Oregon and Washington. He will deliver the commencement address at the University of Washington in June. Professor Golder Goes to Russia Professor Frank A. Golder of the Washington State College will leave for St. Petersburg on January 24, where he will catalogue the materials in the Russian archives relating to America. This work is being done for the Carnegie Institution, Department of Historical Research. Professor Golder is one of the few American historians who is perfectly at home with the Russian language. His selection for this work is complimentary to the Pacific Northwest. Death of Mrs. Isaac I. Stevens Even the older pioneers of Washington were surprised to read on November 6, 1913, that the widow of the first Territorial Governor, Isaac I. Stevens, had just died. Since her husband's heroic death at the Battle of Chantilly, September 1, 1862, she had been living at her home, 8 Bowdoin Avenue, Boston. Her son, General Hazard Stevens, who was with her to the last, writes that, though his mother had passed the ninetieth milestone of an eventful life, she retained her cordial interest in the children of men and just quietly went to sleep. Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association The Eleventh Annual meeting of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association met at Los Angeles, November 28-29, as guests of the University of Southern California. Prof. Frank J. Klingberg, of the University of Southern California, opened the programme with a paper on "The Anti-Slavery Movement in England," in which he traced the history of the movement which led to freedom, but was unaccompanied by any such upheaval as characterized our anti-slavery movement. In the second paper, "The Movement of Population in Feudal and Modern Japan," Prof. Y. Ichihashi, of Stanford University, examined the growth and decline of Japanese population in the light of the well known principles of Malthus. Prof. Ichihashi illustrated his statistical tables by means of charts and concluded that movements of population were far more intimately connected with economic development than with the natural checks discussed by Malthus. The concluding paper of the afternoon session was read by Prof. Robt. G. Cleland of Occident College. In discussing "The Relation of Slavery to the Early Sentiment for the Acquisition of California" he pointed out that the agitation of the slavery question in connection with California came after the acquisition and not before, and he made it clear to all that there is abundant need to study Western history from the sources in order to escape the bias of the more general historians who see the whole field in terms of the slavery struggle. The annual dinner was held at Christopher's and was presided over by that "Prince of Toastmasters," Prof. H. Morse Stephens. President J. M. Guinn delivered the President's Address, which was a study of the old municipal archives of Los Angeles. The dry humor and keen wit of the Nestor of California historians found an admirable field in commenting on these quaint Mexican archives. Greetings were then heard from various representatives in attendance "from Seattle to San Diego." No one who knows Morse Stephens will need be told the dinner was in every way a complete success. Saturday morning's session was given over to a wide range of discussion. Dean Bliss, of the San Diego Normal School, set forth the contents and value of "The Hayes Collection in the Bancroft Library." Prof. F. H. White, of Pomona College, summarized the history of "The Development of the National Land Administration," confining himself largely to the technique of administration. Professor Herbert E. Bolton gave the results of his study in sources by tracing some of the Spanish explorers in the West. At the business session which followed the officers for the coming year were elected, as follows: President, Edmond S. Meany, of the University of Washington; Vice-President, E. B. Krehbiel, of Stanford University; Secretary-Treasurer, William A. Morris, of the University of California. To membership on the Executive Council the following were chosen: Edith Jordan, Los Angeles Polytechnic High School; Robert G. Cleland, Occident College; Dean Bliss, San Diego Normal; and Edward McMahon, University of Washington. A complimentary luncheon given by the University of Southern California initiated the members still further into the boundless hospitality of that institution, and then the final session was held in cooperation with the Southern California Social Science Association. Owing to the absence of Professor Schafer of Oregon, Professor Bolton gave an excellent talk on the value of local history, which compensated in large measure for the absence of Professor Schafer. Miss Jane Harnett, of Long Branch, led the discussion and laid emphasis upon many of the points touched upon by Professor Bolton. The second paper, "An Introduction to the Social Sciences," by Professor Emory S. Bogardus, of the University of Southern California, was a discussion of a course designed for students in the junior colleges and was reinforced by Professor Bogardus' experience in giving the course. Professor Edward McMahon, of the University of Washington, followed with a plea for emphasis on "The Social Sciences in the High Schools." He contended that the instruction now given is inadequate to meet the demands of citizenship placed upon our citizens. Miss Anna Stewart, discussing both papers dealing with the social sciences, told very interestingly of the valuable work now being done in the Los Angeles High School with classes in social problems, and demonstrated the necessity of serious consideration of these questions by students who are passing out of the high school to deal with them as citizens. The meeting at Los Angeles was in every respect a complete success and the large attendance and hospitality of the people made all the delegates exceedingly anxious for an invitation to come again. Marking an Old Historic Site Led by W. H. Gilstrap, under the auspices of the Washington State Historical Society, a number of pioneers assembled at Tacoma recently and repaired to the site on the prairie near that city where a monument was unveiled. It marks the end of the long journey of that famous party of pioneers who in 1853 were the first to reach Puget Sound by crossing the Cascade Range. Only a few of the original party survive, but it is believed that every one of the survivors were assembled for the interesting ceremony. NORTHWESTERN HISTORY SYLLABUS [The aim of this department is to furnish outlines that will aid those who wish to study the subject systematically. It is expected that its greatest use will be as a guide for members of women's clubs, literary societies, and classes in colleges or high schools. It will be a form of university extension without the theses and examinations necessary for the earning of credits toward a degree.] VIII. Provisional Government of Oregon 1. Early Settlers. a. Fur hunters. b. Seekers for homes and lands. c. The Oregon trail. 2. Petitions to Congress. a. Seeking recognition and protection of government. b. In nature of early census. 3. Death of Ewing Young, Feb. 15, 1841. a. Possessing property but no heirs. b. Action proposed at the funeral. c. Committee to form some sort of government. d. Property probated. e. Temporary government abandoned. 4. Wolf Meetings. a. Seeking united action. b. Multnomah Circulating library. c. Lyceum for debates. d. Bounty for destruction of dangerous animals. e. Proposal to secure protection for families. f. Committee to frame temporary government. g. Plan adopted by meeting in Champoeg field. h. Legislative committee appointed. i. Executive committee of three instead of governor. 5. Reorganization. a. Influence of immigration of 1843. b. Primitive State House. c. Earliest laws enacted. d. Legislative committee becomes a legislature. e. Executive committee changed to governorship. f. George Abernethy chosen governor, 1845. g. Oath of office reveals "joint occupancy." 6. Results. a. Laws of Iowa Territory adopted. b. Prohibition. c. Failure of postoffice. d. Dwelling. e. Currency, "Beaver Money" in gold. f. Dominion up to 54-40 north latitude. g. Federal organization of Oregon Territory, 1848-1849. BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The above outline covers one of the most interesting portions of Northwestern history. It reveals the natural aptitude of Americans for self-government and shows a natural evolution of a state from settlements of pioneers in a wilderness. The literature on the subject is growing rapidly. The items following are among those most readily accessible to those wishing to pursue the study: BANCROFT, HUBERT HOWE. Works of. Vol. XXIX, chapters XII, XIV, XVI, XVIII, XIX, XXII, XXVI. Here is found the story of the provisional government told at considerable length. CLARK, ROBERT CARLTON. How British and American Subjects Unite in a Common Government for Oregon Territory in 1844. In the Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, Vol. XIII, Number 2. GROVER, LAFAYETTE. The Oregon Archives. This is a rare book, published in 1853. It contains the early laws of the provisional government and other source materials of prime importance. HOLMAN, FREDERICK V. Dr. John McLoughlin, the Father of Oregon. While this is intended as a biography of the grand old Doctor, it is a book of much helpfulness to students of this period. At the end of the volume there are nineteen documents illustrative of the text. JOHNSON, SIDONA V. A Short History of Oregon, Chapters XVIII to XXIII. The title of the book is well chosen, but many may find there the facts needed. MEANY, EDMOND S. History of the State of Washington. Chapter XVI deals in part with the provisional government while Washington was yet a part of Oregon. SCHAFER, JOSEPH. History of the Pacific Northwest. In this interesting and useful book, Chapter XIII is entitled "The First American Government on the Pacific." WOODWARD, WALTER C. Political Parties in Oregon, 1843-1868. This book was published by the J. K. Gill Company of Portland. Oregon, in 1913. It is the newest, as well as the most extensive, work in this particular field. Those who are collecting books on the Northwest should not overlook this one. Anyone studying in the field of the above syllabus will find the book helpful. REPRINT DEPARTMENT George Wilkes: History of Oregon, Geographical, Geological and Political. (New York, Colyer, 1845.) * * * * * [The reprint of this rare work was begun in the first number of the Washington Historical Quarterly and has been continued in portions of varying lengths. The installment in this issue concludes the reprinted book.--_Editor._] * * * * * But can such charters be considered an acknowledged part of the law of nations? Were they any thing more, in fact, than a cession to the grantee or grantees of whatever rights the grantor might suppose himself to possess, to the exclusion of other subjects of the same sovereign?--charters binding and restraining those only who were within the jurisdiction of the grantor, and of no force or validity against the subjects of other states, until recognized by treaty, and thereby becoming a part of international law. Had the United States, thought proper to issue, in 1790, by virtue of their national authority, a charter granting to Mr. Gray the whole extent of the country watered, directly or indirectly, by the River Columbia,[84] such a charter, would, no doubt, have been valid in Mr. Gray's favor, as against all other citizens of the United States. But can it be supposed that it would have been acquiesced in by either of the powers, Great Britain and Spain, which, in that same year, were preparing to contest by arms the possession of the very country which would have been the subject of such a grant? If the right of sovereignty over the territory in question accrues to the United States by Mr. Gray's discovery, how happens it that they never protested against the violence done to that right by the two powers, who, by the convention of 1790, regulated their respective rights in and over a district so belonging, as it is now asserted, to the United States? This claim of the United States to the territory drained by the Columbia and its tributary streams, on the ground of one of their citizens having been the first to discover the entrance of that river, has been here so far entered into, not because it is considered to be necessarily entitled to notice, since the whole country watered by the Columbia falls within the provisions of the convention of 1790, but because the doctrine above alluded to has been put forward so broadly, and with such confidence, by the United States, that Great Britain considered it equally due to herself and to other powers to enter her protest against it. The United States further pretend that their claim to the country in question is strengthened and confirmed by the discovery of the sources of the Columbia, and by the exploration of its course to the sea by Lewis and Clark, in 1805-6. In reply to this allegation, Great Britain affirms, and can distinctly prove, that, if not before, at least in the same and subsequent years, her North-Western Trading Company had, by means of their agent, Mr. Thomson, already established their posts among the Flathead and Kootanie tribes, on the headwaters of the northern or main branch of the Columbia, and were gradually extending them down the principal stream of that river; thus giving to Great Britain, in this particular, again, as in the discovery of the mouth of the river, a _title to parity_ at least, if not priority, of discovery, as opposed to the United States. It was from those posts, that, having heard of the American establishment forming in 1811, at the mouth of the river, Mr. Thomson hastened thither, descending the river, to ascertain the nature of that establishment.[85] Some stress having been laid by the United States on the restitution to them of Fort George by the British, after the termination of the last war, which restitution they represent as conveying a virtual acknowledgment by Great Britain of the title of the United States to the country in which that post was situated--it is desirable to state, somewhat in detail, the circumstances attending that restitution. In the year 1815, a demand for the restoration of Fort George was first made to Great Britain, by the American government, on the plea that the first article of the treaty of Ghent stipulated the restitution to the United States of all posts and places whatsoever taken from them by the British during the war, in which description, Fort George, (Astoria,) was included. For some time the British government demurred to comply with the demand of the United States, because they entertained doubts how far it could be sustained by the construction of the treaty. In the first place, the trading post called Fort Astoria (or Fort George,) was not a national possession; in the second place, it was not a military post; and, thirdly, it was never captured from the Americans by the British. It was, in fact, conveyed in regular commercial transfer, and accompanied by a bill of sale, for a sum of money, to the British company, who purchased it, by the American company, who sold it of _their own free will_. It is true that a British sloop of war had, about that time, been sent to take possession of that post, but she arrived subsequently to the transaction above mentioned, between the two companies, and found the British company _already in legal occupation of their self acquired property_. In consequence, however, of that ship having been sent out with hostile views, although those views were not carried into effect,[86] and in order that not even a shadow of a reflection might be cast upon the good faith of the British government, the latter determined to give the most liberal extension to the terms of the treaty of Ghent, and, in 1818, the purchase which the British company had made in 1813 was restored to the United States. Particular care, however, was taken, on this occasion, to prevent any misapprehension as to the extent of the concession made by Great Britain. Viscount Castlereagh, in directing the British minister at Washington to intimate the intention of the British government to Mr. Adams, then secretary of state, uses these expressions, in a despatch dated 4th February, 1818:-- "You will observe, that, whilst this government is not disposed to contest with the American government the point of possession as it stood in the Columbia River at the moment of the rupture, _they are not prepared to admit the validity of the title of the government of the United States to this settlement_. "In signifying, therefore, to Mr. Adams the full acquiescence of your government in the reoccupation of _the limited position_ which the United States held in that river at the breaking out of the war, _you will at the same time assert, in suitable terms, the claim_ of Great Britain to that territory, upon which the American settlement must be considered as an encroachment." This instruction was executed verbally by the person to whom it was addressed. The following is a transcript of the act by which the fort was delivered up, by the British, into the hand of Mr. Prevost, the American agent:-- "In obedience to the command of H. R. H. the prince regent, _signified in a despatch from the right honorable the Earl Bathurst_, addressed to the partners or agents of the North-West Company, bearing date the 27th of January, 1818, and in obedience to a subsequent order, dated the 26th July, from W. H. Sheriff, Esq., captain of H. M. ship Andromache, We, the undersigned, do, in conformity to the first article of the treaty of Ghent, restore to the government of the United States, through its agent, J. P. Prevost, Esq., the settlement of Fort George, on the Columbia river. "Given under our hands, in triplicate, at Fort George, (Columbia River,) this 6th day of October, 1818. "F. HICKEY, _Captain H. M. ship Blossom_. "J. KEITH, _of the N. W. Co_." The following is the despatch from Earl Bathurst to the partners of the North-West Company, referred to in the above act of cession:-- DOWNING-STREET, _27th January, 1818_. "Intelligence having been received that the United States sloop of war Ontario has been sent by the American government to establish a settlement on the Columbia river, which was held by that state, on the breaking out of the last war. I am to acquaint you, that it is the prince regent's pleasure, (_without, however, admitting the right of that government to the possession in question_) that, in pursuance of the first article of the treaty of Ghent, due facility should be given to the reoccupation of the said settlement by the officers of the United States; and I am to desire that you would contribute as much as lies in your power to the execution of his royal highness's command. "I have, &c. &c. BATHURST. "_To the Partners or Agents of the North-West Company, residing on the Columbia river._" The above documents put the case of the restoration of Fort Astoria in too clear a light to require further observation. The case, then of Great Britain, in respect to the country west of the Rocky Mountains, is shortly this:-- Admitting that the United States have acquired all the rights which Spain possessed, up to the treaty of Florida, either in virtue of discovery, or, as is pretended, in right Louisiana, Great Britain maintains that the nature and extent of those rights, as well as of the rights of Great Britain, are fixed and defined by the convention of Nootka; that these rights are equal for both parties; and that, in succeeding to the rights of Spain, under that convention, the United States must also have succeeded to the obligations which it imposed. Admitting, further, the discovery of Mr. Gray, to the extent already stated, Great Britain, taking the whole line of the coast in question, with its straits, harbors and bays, has stronger claims, on the ground of prior discovery, attended with acts of occupancy and settlement, than the United States. Whether, therefore, the United States rest their claims upon the title of Spain, or upon that of prior discovery, or upon both, Great Britain is entitled to place her claims at least upon a parity with those of the United States. It is a fact, admitted by the United States, that, with the exception of the Columbia river, there is no river which opens far into the _interior_, on the whole western coast of the Pacific Ocean. In the _interior_ of the territory in question, the subjects of Great Britain have had, for many years, numerous settlements and trading posts--several of these posts on the tributary streams of the Columbia, several upon the Columbia itself, some to the northward, and others to the southward, of that river; and they navigate the Columbia as the sole channel for the conveyance of their produce to the British stations nearest the sea, and for the shipment of it from thence to Great Britain. It is also by the Columbia and its tributary streams that these posts and settlements receive their annual supplies from Great Britain.[87] In the whole of the territory in question, the citizens of the United States have not a single settlement or trading post. They do not use that river, either for the purpose of transmitting or receiving any produce of their own, to or from other parts of the world. In this state of the relative rights of the two countries, and of the relative exercise of those rights, the United States claim the exclusive possession of both banks of the Columbia, and, consequently, that of the river itself; offering, it is true, to concede to British subjects a conditional participation in that navigation, but subject, in any case, to the exclusive jurisdiction and sovereignty of the United States. Great Britain, on her part, offers to make the river the boundary; each country retaining the bank of the river contiguous to its own territories, and the navigation of it remaining forever free, and upon a footing of perfect equality to both nations. To carry into effect this proposal, on our part, Great Britain would have to give up posts and settlements south of the Columbia. On the part of the United States, there could be no reciprocal withdrawing from actual occupation, as there is not, and never has been, a single American citizen settled north of the Columbia. The United States decline to accede to this proposal, even when Great Britain has added to it the further offer of a most excellent harbor, and an extensive tract of country on the Straits of De Fuca--a sacrifice tendered in the spirit of accommodation, and for the sake of a final adjustment of all differences, but which, having been made in this spirit, is not to be considered as in any degree recognizing a claim on the part of the United States, or as at all impairing the existing right of Great Britain over the post and territory in question. Such being the result of the recent negotiation, it only remains for Great Britain to maintain and uphold the qualified rights which she now possesses over the whole of the territory in question. These rights are recorded and defined in the convention of Nootka. They embrace the right to navigate the waters of those countries, the right to settle in and over any part of them, and the right freely to trade with the inhabitants and occupiers of the same. These rights have been peaceably exercised ever since the date of that convention; that is, for a period of near forty years. Under that convention, valuable British interests have grown up in those countries. It is fully admitted that the United States possess the same rights, although they have been exercised by them only in a single instance, and have not, since the year 1813, been exercised at all. But beyond these rights they possess none. To the interests and establishments which British industry and enterprise have created, Great Britain owes protection. That protection will be given, both as regards settlement and freedom of trade and navigation, with every attention not to infringe the coördinate rights of the United States; it being the earnest desire of the British government, so long as the joint occupancy continues, to regulate its own obligations by the same rule which governs the obligations of any other occupying party. Fully sensible, at the same time, of the desirableness of a more definite settlement, as between Great Britain and the United States, the British government will be ready, at any time, to terminate the present state of joint occupancy by an agreement of delimitation; but such arrangement only can be admitted as shall not derogate from the rights of Great Britain, as acknowledged by treaty, nor prejudice the advantages which British subjects, under the same sanction, now enjoy in that part of the world. (No. 7.) _Convention between the United States and Great Britain, signed at London, October 20th, 1818._ ARTICLE 2.--It is agreed that a line drawn from the most northwestern point of the Lake of the Woods, along the 49th parallel of north latitude, or, if the said point shall not be in the 49th parallel of north latitude, then that a line drawn from the said point due north or south, as the case may be, until the said line shall intersect the said parallel of north latitude, and from the point of such intersection due west along and, with the said parallel, shall be the line of demarkation between the territories of the United States and those of his Britannic majesty; and that the said line shall form the northern boundary of the said territories of the United States, and the southern boundary of the territories of his Britannic Majesty, from the Lake of the Woods to the Stony Mountains. ART. 3.--It is agreed that any country that may be claimed by either party on the northwest coast of America, westward of the Stony Mountains, shall, together with its harbors, bays, and creeks, and the navigation of all rivers within the same, be free and open for the term of ten years from the date of the signature of the present convention, to the vessels, citizens, and subjects, of the two powers; it being well understood that this agreement is not to be construed to the prejudice of any claim which either of the two high contracting parties may have to any part of the said country, nor shall it be taken to affect the claims of any other power or state to any part of the said country; the only object of the high contracting parties, in that respect, being to prevent disputes and differences among themselves. (No. 8.) _The Florida Treaty, signed at Washington, February 22nd, 1819_.... ARTICLE 3.--The boundary line between the two countries west of the Mississippi shall begin on the Gulf of Mexico, at the mouth of the River Sabine, in the sea, continuing north, along the western bank of that river, to the 32d degree of latitude; thence, by a line due north, to the degree of latitude where it strikes the Rio Roxo of Natchitoches, or Red River; then, following the course of the Rio Roxo westward, to the degree of longitude 100 west from London and 23 from Washington; then crossing the said Red River, and running thence, by a line due north, to the River Arkansas; thence following the course of the southern bank of the Arkansas, to its source in latitude 42 north; and thence, by that parallel of latitude, to the South Sea; the whole being as laid down in Melish's map of the United States, published at Philadelphia, improved to the 1st of January, 1818. But, if the source of the Arkansas River shall be found to fall north or south of latitude 42, then the line shall run from the said source due south or north, as the case may be, till it meets the said parallel of latitude 42, and thence, along the said parallel, to the South Sea; all the islands in the Sabine, and the said Red and Arkansas Rivers, throughout the course thus described, to belong to the United States; but the use of the waters and the navigation of the Sabine to the sea, and of the said Rivers Roxo and Arkansas, throughout the extent of the said boundary, on their respective banks, shall be common to the respective inhabitants of both nations. The two high contracting parties agree to cede and renounce all their rights, claims, and pretensions, to the territories described by said line; that is to say, the United States hereby cede to his Catholic Majesty, and renounce forever, all their rights, claims, and pretensions, to the territories lying west and south of the above-described line; and, in like manner, his Catholic Majesty cedes to the said United States all his rights, claims, and pretensions, to any territories east and north of the said line; and for himself, his heirs, and successors, renounces all claim to the said territories forever. (No. 9) _Convention between the United States and Great Britain, signed at London, August 6th, 1827._ ARTICLE 1. All the provisions of the third article of the convention concluded between the United States of America and his majesty the king of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, on the 20th of October, 1818, shall be, and they are hereby, further indefinitely extended and continued in force, in the same manner as if all the provisions of the said article were herein specifically recited. ART. 2. It shall be competent, however, to either of the contracting parties, in case either should think fit, at any time after the 20th of October, 1828, on giving due notice of twelve months to the other contracting party, to annul and abrogate this convention; and it shall, in such case, be accordingly entirely annulled and abrogated, after the expiration of the said term of notice. ART. 3. Nothing contained in this convention, or in the third article of the convention of the 20th October, 1818, hereby continued in force, shall be constructed to impair, or in any manner affect, the claims which either of the contracting parties may have to any part of the country westward of the Stony or Rocky Mountains. (No. 10.) _The Instructions of the Merchant Proprietors, to John Meares_: "* * * * Should you, in the course of your voyage, meet with any Russian, _English_, or Spanish vessels, you will treat them with civility and friendship, and allow them, if authorized, to examine your papers, which will show the object of your voyage. But you must, at the same time, guard against surprise. Should they attempt to seize you, or even carry you out of your way, you will prevent it by every means in your power, and repel force by force. You will on your arrival in the first port, protest before a proper officer against such illegal procedure; and ascertain as nearly as you can the value of your vessel and cargo, sending such protest, with a full account of the transaction, to us at China. Should you in such conflict have the superiority, you will then take possession of the vessel that attacked you, as also her cargo, and bring both, with the officers and crew to China, that they may be condemned as legal prizes and their crews punished as pirates. Wishing you a prosperous voyage, etc. (Signed) "THE MERCHANT PROPRIETORS." FOOTNOTES: [84] These Englishmen are crazy--the Columbia was not discovered by Captain Gray till 1792. If the above is intended as an illustration only, the instance is as weak as the previous arguments are inconclusive. [85] We have seen that Mr. Thomson came a year too late. [86] Those views were carried into effect. The place was regularly taken possession of in the king's name on the 1st December, 1813, and the British flag was run up with all the formalities of conquest, in place of the American standard. [87] Here is an assertion that Great Britain has been accruing title, through the operations of her Hudson's Bay Company, ever since the treaty of 1818. This gives an additional significance to her grant of the civil and criminal jurisdiction of the territory, to that incorporation. It will be well for our readers here to recollect the declaration of our Government made in 1823, that thenceforth no portion of the American Continents were to be considered as subjects for European Colonization. The Washington Historical Quarterly Board of Editors CLARENCE B. BAGLEY, Seattle. J. N. BOWMAN, Seattle. T. C. ELLIOTT, Walla Walla. FRANK A. GOLDER, Pullman. CEYLON S. KINGSTON, Cheney. W. D. LYMAN, Walla Walla. EDWARD MCMAHON, Seattle. THOMAS W. PROSCH, Seattle. OLIVER H. RICHARDSON, Seattle. O. B. SPERLIN, Tacoma. E. O. S. SCHOLEFIELD, Victoria, B. C. ALLEN WEIR, Olympia. Managing Editor EDMOND S. MEANY Business Manager CHARLES W. SMITH VOL. V NO. 2 APRIL, 1914 _ISSUED QUARTERLY_ Contents T. C. ELLIOTT Journal of John Work, June-October, 1825 83 ANNA SLOAN WALKER History of the Liquor Laws of the State of Washington 116 RALPH R. KNAPP Divorce in Washington 121 DOCUMENTS--A New Vancouver Journal 129 BOOK REVIEWS 138 NEWS DEPARTMENT 152 NORTHWESTERN HISTORY SYLLABUS 156 HISTORY TEACHERS' SECTION 158 THE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY UNIVERSITY STATION SEATTLE, WASHINGTON Entered at the post office at Seattle as second-class mail matter. The Washington University State Historical Society * * * * * Officers and Board of Trustees: CLARENCE B. BAGLEY, President JUDGE JOHN P. HOYT, Vice-President JUDGE ROGER S. GREENE, Treasurer PROFESSOR EDMOND S. MEANY, Secretary JUDGE CORNELIUS H. HANFORD JUDGE THOMAS BURKE SAMUEL HILL PRINTING DEPARTMENT UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON _Vol. V., No. 2 April, 1914_ The Washington Historical Quarterly JOURNAL OF JOHN WORK, JUNE-OCTOBER, 1825 (Introduction and annotations by T. C. Elliott.) Readers of the Washington Historical Quarterly have already become acquainted with Mr. John Work, an officer of the Hudson's Bay Company, through his previous journal--with introductory note--published in Volume III, pp. 198-228, recording the details of the journey of an expedition from Fort George on the Columbia river to the Fraser river and back in November-December, 1824, (in which he remarked among other things about the "weighty rain" common to the Coast and Puget Sound localities). Mr. Work's particular duties during January-May, 1825, we do not know; this was the period during which Governor Simpson and Chief Factor John McLoughlin selected the site for Fort Vancouver and the headquarters were removed from Fort George (Astoria) to the new location, which was on the high ground east of the present city of Vancouver, Washington, where the buildings of the Washington (State) Asylum for the Blind and Deaf now stand. Governor Simpson returned up the Columbia river in March, 1825, with the Express bound for York Factory on Hudson's Bay, but events indicate that he already had learned to place much confidence in the young clerk John Work. In June, Mr. Work finds himself assigned to duty in the interior and accompanies the "brigade" of officers and voyagers under Mr. John McLeod returning up the river with goods for the trade at the various interior forts. Mr. McLeod was then stationed at Thompson River (Kamloops) but had been given leave to return across the mountains to Hudson's Bay the following spring. Readers of the "three synoptical writers of Astoria," as Dr. Elliott Coues designates Gabriel Franchere, Alexander Ross and Ross Cox, have had occasion perhaps to tire of the narratives of successive journeys up and down the Columbia river with the constant encounters with the Indians at the Cascades and Dalles portages. In this journal we have another account of the same journey and discover that with the education of the Indians of the Columbia to the fixed and just policy of the Northwest and Hudson's Bay Companies in their trade relations, the hatred and distrust and armed resistance of these Indians has already ceased to a great extent and that only the natural disposition to pilfer has to be taken much into account. Between June 21st and November 1st, 1825, the period covered by part of this journal, Mr. Work journeys many miles and introduces us to the regular lines of travel of the fur traders between their forts in Washington, Northern Idaho and Montana and to some of the routine life of the forts. He visits the Nez Perces at their trading ground where the City of Lewiston, Idaho, now stands, the Flatheads at the spot where the large power plant is now being erected below Thompson Falls, Montana, and the then active Fort Okanogan, Washington, at the mouth of that river where now there is only barren waste; but his headquarters were at Spokane House, then as now the trade center for all the "Inland Empire." He also tells of the very beginning of building and planting at Kettle Falls, where the most important of the interior trading posts, Fort Colvile, was just being started. Only the first part of the entire journal is given in this issue and the remainder is to be presented in a later number of the Quarterly, and then to be followed by a second journal of the same writer. For brief mention of Mr. Work's career the reader is referred to the earlier number of this Quarterly--already cited, and to page 464 of Volume II of H. H. Bancroft's History of the Northwest Coast. It is sufficient to say here that Mr. Work was of Irish descent, the name being properly spelled Wark, and that he remained in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company continuously up to the time of his death at Victoria, B.C., in 1861. This journal comes to us through his descendants and is now deposited as a part of the archives of British Columbia, and Mr. Scholefield, the Provincial Archivist, has kindly compared this copy for publication. The journal has never before been published and does not appear to have been examined or used by Hubert Howe Bancroft, who had access to others of the Work journals in the preparation of his series of histories. The parenthetical marks are used to designate words that are doubtful by reason of the original manuscripts being blurred or faded. T. C. ELLIOTT. JOURNAL. June 21, 1825. Drizzling rain with some weighty showers. Very little wind. At 10 o'clock the Interior brigade, consisting of five boats carrying pieces and manned by 32 men, left Fort Vancouver under the charge of Mr. McLeod.[88] A sixth boat and 12 men under the charge of Mr. McKay[89] accompanied the Brigade as a convoy to above the Chutes.[90] The water is very high and the current strong. Encamped at 4 o'clock opposite Quick Sand River.[91] We stopped at this early hour to get some of the boats which were badly gummed. Some of the pieces were put in Mr. McKay's boat to lighten the others. Being ordered to proceed to Spokane in charge of the outfit for that place, I accompany the brigade. Wed.y. 22 Drizzling rain forenoon. Wind W. Embarked at 3 o'clock and reached the Cascades at 1, had to carry at the New Portage,[92] everything was got half way across the Portage by 5 oclock when the men were employed gumming the boats. There were a good many Indians, but they were very quiet, 60 to 70 salmon were purchased from them, principally for Tobacco, at an inch per salmon. Thursday 23 Dry weather, blowing fresh from the N. W. Resumed carrying at 3 oclock and by 6 everything was embarked at the upper end of the portage, where we proceeded up the river under saill with a fine strong wind till 12 oclock when we put ashore a little below Cape Horn,[93] Mr. McLeod considering it too rough to proceed. Friday 24 Dry weather a fine breeze from the N. W. Continued our journey at a little past 3 oclock with a nice sail wind and reached the lower end of the Dalles about two and got boats & foods about half way across the portage. We were detained more than two hours at breakfast below the portage, as Mr. McKay left his boat with two men, and the pieces had to be put in the other boats. On approaching the Dalls the current was very strong and the boats being deep laden it was difficult getting them up. My boat was caught in a whirlpool and very near sunk, she was wheeled around three times before the men got her out. There are a good many Indians on the portage we reckon from 400 to 500, however they were very peaceable. Gave them a little Tobacco to smoke and bought as much salmon as we required at equally as low a price as at the Cascades. Satd.y. 25 Clear very warm weather a little wind up the river in the morning but calm afterwards. Recommenced carrying at 1/2 past 2 oclock, had everything across the portage[94] & embarked at 6, and were across the Chutes by 11. The portage at the Chutes was short on account of the high water. Encamped at 6 in the evening a little below Day's River,[95] to gum the boats. We lost nearly 2 hours at breakfast below the Chutes. We reckoned 150 to 200 Indians at the Chutes, they were very quiet. Gave them to smoke and also about an inch of Tobacco each when we were coming off. Mr. McKay & Mr. Douglas,[96] with the convoy men left us at the upper end of the Chutes to return to Fort Vancouver. Sunday 26 Clear weather little breeze of wind from the N. W. in the morning and evening, but calm and very warm in the middle of the day. Continued our journey a little past 3 oclock and encamped at 7 in the evening. Were detained 2 hours gumming the boats,--had the sails up while the wind lasted in the morning and evening. A good many Indians along the river. Monday 27. Clear, a fine breeze up the River in the morning but calm and insufferably warm afterwards. Embarked a little before 3 oclock, passed the lower end of the Big Island[97] at 1/2 past 4 and encamped at 6 to gum one of the boats, we were also detained 1-1/2 hours in the day gumming. Tuesday 28 Clear very warm weather, a little breeze of wind down the river which prevented the heat from being so oppressive as yesterday. Continued our route before 3 o'clock and encamped late a little above the Grand Rapid.[98] In ascending a piece of strong current doubling a point in the evening, two of the boats got aground and sustained some injury, one of them put ashore & gummed, the other went on to the encampment, & had not time to repair. Traded some beaver from the Indians along the River. Wed.y. 29 Clear weather and notwithstanding there was a nice breeze down the river the heat was oppressive. We were detained gumming the boat till hear 5 o'clock when we embarked and proceeded to Fort Nez Perces[99] where we remained at 12 o'clock and had boats immediately unloaded, and the cargoes examined. These were landed here from the five boats independent of the gentlemen and mens private baggage 262 pieces, viz. (Laments) boat Mr. McLeod passenger 47 pieces.--Ignace's boat J. Work passenger 52 pieces.--P. La (Course's?) boat, Mr. Dease passenger 53 pieces.--Grosse (Chalon's?) boat 55 pieces and Thomas Tagouche's boat 55 pieces. Thursday 30th. Notwithstanding it blew strong from the N. W. the heat was oppressive, the sand, and wood about the fort were absolutely burning. In the evening there was a great deal of thunder and lightening with heavy squalls of wind and a few drops of rain, the wind sometimes quite hot. Mr. McLeod occupied the greater part of this day separating the pieces belonging to the different posts. July 1825 Friday 1 Blowing strong from the N. W. A party having to make a trip up the South branch[100] to trade horses, (150 if possible,) the forenoon was occupied in making up an assortment of goods for that purpose and a 1/2 past 1 o'clock Mr. Dease accompanied by Mr. Dears,[101] myself and 28 men, embarked in two boats and proceeded to a little up the South branch where we encamped for the night.--Several Indians were about the entrance of the river, purchased a few salmon from them, mostly small ones at about 2 inches of tobacco each.--Our boats are very light laden, and the men well armed. Mr. McLeod & 10 men remain at the Fort. Satd.y. 2 Clear, and notwithstanding a pleasant breeze from the N. W., very warm. Embarked at 3 oclock and pursued our journey up the river till past 6 when we encamped for the night. Made a good days march, as the men worked constant and very hard.--The current was uniformly very strong, and the water high, though it has fallen at least 1-1/2 or 2 feet from its greatest height this season.--The shores are generally high, some places steep rocks, at others undulating hills, the vegetation on which seems to be burnt up with the heat and has a barren appearance. Here and there along the river, bushes and grass appear green, having not been deprived of moisture. Passed several Indian lodges and traded 42 fresh and 9 dry salmon for 1-1/2 yards of Tobacco. The salmon are all of a small size. Sunday 3 Clear excessive warm weather though there was a little breeze of wind from the N. W. the heat was oppressive. Continued our journey at 3 clock and encamped at the Flag River[102] at 2. There are a few lodges of Indians here who have some horses two of which were purchased from them at 15 skins each. these are the first horses we have seen in this river. The general appearance of the river the same as yesterday, the shores high and clearer. The general course of the river from its entrance to this place may be about N. E., a little above its entrance it takes a considerable turn to the Eastward and thus bends back to the Westward a little below the Flag River.--From this place to Spokane[103] is about 1-1/2 days march on horseback. Nez Perces is about the same distance. Monday 4 Clear very warm weather, the heat was suffocating. Expecting that the Indians would bring some more horses to trade we delayed embarking till 8 oclock when we proceeded up the river a short distance where we put ashore at an Indian lodge and bought a horse, which detained us a considerable time.--Two men rode the horses along shore--made but a short days march. The heat and plenty of musquitos which were very troublesome, allowed us to have but little sleep last night. Encamped past 6 oclock. The current still very strong, the general course of the river from a little above Flag River a little more to the Eastward. Not many Indians on the river and but few horses to be seen. Tuesday 5 Clear a good breeze of wind up teh river which made the heat more supportable than these days past.--The current very strong, course of the river nearly E., the shores high with some times a low point, all parched up with the excessive heat, here there some bushes that are green are to be seen along the shores and in the little valleys or creeks. Embarked at 3 oclock and encamped a little below the La Monte. Made a very short days march as we delayed a good deal along the river at Indian lodges, bought 3 young horses at 18 skins each. The Indians inform us that a large party went off to Spokane yesterday, and that the Flat Heads and (Pendius?)[104] have been with the Indians above and bought a number of horses from them. Wed.y. 6 Stormy in the night and blowing fresh all day, Wind N. W. In order to get some salmon from the Indians, delayed embarking till 8 oclock when we proceeded up the river, to La Monte[105] where we encamped at 10--This is a place of rendezvouse for the Indians but only one lodge is here at present, the others are all off in the plains digging camass. Some Indians were sent off with Tobacco for the Natives to smoke & to apprise them that we were here & would remain a few days to purchase horses from them, and that we would then proceed to the Forks[106] so that such of the Indians as are in that neighborhood may be there to meet us. Thursday 7 Cloudy blowing fresh from the N. W.--pleasant cool weather. Several Indians of different tribes arrived at our camp from whom ten horses were traded, 15 to 18 skins each. The most of these horses are young not more than 3 years old and some of them very small. It would have been desirable to get ones of larger size, but the great number required renders it necessary to take such as can be got and not be too choice. Friday 8 Weather as yesterday. Trade going on very slowly. A few Indians visited the camp, but only 6 horses were traded one of which was a wild one and was immediately killed for the people. The Natives seem not eager to part with their horses.--Generally young small ones are offered for sale, yet some of those purchased today are good stout horses.--The articles generally paid for a horse are a blanket, 3 pt, 6 skins, 4 or 5 skins, 1 yd. each of green beads, a few skins of ammunition, a skin of Tobacco, a knife, and sometimes, Buttons and Rings a skin or two. Satd.y. 9 Cloudy Warm weather, Wind variable, not blowing so much as these days past. A few more Indians visited us but only 4 horses were traded & two of these are young ones not broke in. We learn from the Ind.s. that the natives above are collecting on the River to meet us. The Indians at our camp occupy the most of their time gambling. The River is falling very fast, the water is lowered four to 5 feet perpendicular since it has been at its height this season. Sunday 10 Though a fresh breeze from the Eastward the weather was very warm and sultry. In expectation that the Indians would trade some more horses we delayed embarking till one oclock when we proceeded up the River, seeing that nothing further was to be done. Stopped at the Indian lodges as we passed and bought two unbroken in young horses one of which a beautiful animal, lept so when he was haltered & the man not managing him properly that he tumbled on his head & broke his neck. The current continues very strong the course of the river from E. to S. E. The appearance of the country continues much the same, the bank very high & mostly rocky, the smooth summits & sides of the hills clothed with dry grass, burnt up with the heat, here and there along the water edge and in some of the deep valleys or coves tufts of willow and poplars, and a few bushes of other kinds. Though the hills and valleys, except on the faces of the steep rocks are well clothed with vegetation nearly dried up, the country has altogether a barren appearance. The Indians live (in) sort of houses or lodges constructed of drift wood split & set on end, they are generally high and very large and inhabited by a great many Indians. I counted upwards of fifty at one house the dimensions of which were 40 yards long and 10 wide. These houses are generally high and flat roofed, the one side is occupied by the inhabitants who sit and sleep on the ground, and the other side is appropriated for drying fish which are hung up generally in two tiers the one above the other the lower ones so near the ground that one has to stoop to get under them.--The air has a free circulation through these habitations from the openness of their walls, which makes them cool & comfortable when there is the least air of wind, but in case of rain, from the openness of the roof, very little would be excluded. However, this is an article that seldom troubles them. The Natives along the River now are generally employed curing salmon and collecting camass. Monday 11 Cloudy but occasionally very warm Wind Easterly. Waiting till the Indians would bring us some horses to trade deterred us from embarking till 8 clock when seeing that only one horse could be traded, we proceeded up the river and as usual stopped to smoke at the most of the lodges which we passed which made our progress very slow, however only one horse was purchased till we encamped in the evening when four more were traded, making in all six today. The appearance of the River and country much the same as yesterday. The course from E. to S. E. The hills along shore appear less elevated towards evening. The Indians near whom we are encamped offered a sturgeon for sale, which shows that these fish ascend this high. Tuesday 12 Cloudy blowing fresh from the Westward. The Indians traded two more Horses which detained us till after breakfast when we proceeded up the River till 11 oclock when we encamped a little below the Forks at the lodge of an Ind.[107] called Charly where a good many Indians are expected to assemble. About 70 men collected to smoke in the course of the afternoon. Two horses were traded from them which makes 4 today. Charly is considered to have a good deal of influence among the natives. A present was therefore made him and he afterward harangued the Indians from which good effects are expected tomorrow. Wed.y. 13 Though cloudy part of the day, the weather was very warm and sultry. A brisk trade of horses commenced in the morning and 15 were purchased during the day, the greater part of which were bought before breakfast. They are much finer horses and the prices rather lower than those procurred below.--Horses are more numerous and much better here than in the lower part of the river.--There were not so many Indians with us today as yesterday, but they had more horses. The Indians who visit us are of four different tribes, Chapoples[108] or Nezperces, Pelooshis,[109] Carooris and Wallawallas. They are very peaceable but a good deal of Tobacco is required to keep them smoking.--They amuse themselves gambling in the evening they had a horse race. In the course of the day a message was received from some Indians further up the river, requesting us to go to their place, and more horses would be procured. It seems a kind of jealousy exists among the natives and the one party does not wish to sell their horses at the camp of the other, or that they wish to have the honour of being visited at their own camp. Thursd.y. 14 Very little Wind, excessively warm, where we are encamped on the stony sandy beach we are literally next to be roasted. The trade did not go on so briskly as yesterday, only 8 horses were bought, one of which was an unbroken in lame mare to kill, as she was fit for nothing else. Friday 15 Sometimes a little breeze of wind from the S. E. yet it was clear and so sultry that the heat was oppresive. Embarked at half past 5 oclock proceeded up the river and in 2 hours arrived at the Forks[110] and encamped on the E. side of the North branch where a few Indians are encamped shortly after we arrived about 40 of them with the old chief Cut Nose at their head visited us in form, smoked, and were presented with about 3 inches of tobacco each. A trade of horses was immediately commenced and 8 very good ones were soon bought from them, though these people have plenty of horses yet they say they have none, they mean probably that they can spare. This is not Cut Nose's camp, it is farther up this branch. In the afternoon a party of upwards of 100 men and a good many women on horseback with the son of broken or cut arm, as chief at their head, arrived down the S. branch, the Chief immediately on his arrival presented a horse to Mr. Dease, and received a gun, 6 yds. of Beads & Tobacco and ammunition 27 skins as a present in return. After smoaking and getting about 3 Inches of Tobacco for each of his people, a trade for horses was opened and 5 very good ones were soon bought which with the one presented and the eight bought in the forenoon make 14 that have been procured to day. These are the best horses we have got yet, they are 18 to 20 skins each. There is a little short of 200 Indians about our camp now, several of those from below accompany us as we advance up, and those encamped here with the band that arrived from the S. branch make about the above number. They are very quiet and peaceable for so far. The country about the Forks is flatter and the hills not so abrupt as farther down. The South branch[111] falls in from the Southward, and the North one from the S. E. the waters of these latter are quite clear, while those of the other are white and muddy the North branch seems not so large as the other, nor does not discharge such a body of water. It may be about 250 to 300 yards wide. Charlie the chief who accompanied us from our last encampment crossed the river with a horse, and in swimming back either was seized or pretended to be seized with a cramp & called out for assistance. Some of the Indians brought him ashore, where he became very ill and got little better, though at his own request he got 2 or 3 drams, untill evening when he thought he would be the better of an airing and got the men to paddle him in a boat up and down the river and sing at the same time, which must considerably contribute, no doubt, to the recovery of his health.--This man may have some influence among the Indians at least to do injury, but he is undoubtedly an artful knave. Saturday 16 Cloudy, a storm of thunder with squalls of wind from the Westward and a little rain in the afternoon, last night there was a violent storm of thunder & a great deal of lightening, with squalls of wind and some rain. A Brisk trade commenced in the morning and 19 horses were bought during the day, they are generally good ones and cost mostly 20 skins each. At noon (Tawerishewa) arrived at the head of a troup of 64 men and several women with plenty of horses from up the North branch. After smoaking and each of his people being presented with a piece of Tobacco he presented a fine horses to Mr. Dease and received a present of different articles to the amount of 32 skins in return.--The other chief now here seems not to be fond of this man on account of his being a doctor or medicine chief. On account of our articles of trade falling short we will not be able to answer these people's expectations in the way of Trade. Sunday 17 Cloudy, gusts of wind from the Westward. A heavy thunder storm with strong wind and same rain in the afternoon. Commenced trading after breakfast & bought horses during the day, four horses were presented during the day by principal men of (Tawerishewa's) band, but they were dearer than if they had been traded on account of the quantity of articles that had to be presented in return. The most of the horses purchased today are very fine ones and cost mostly 20 skins each. Our articles of trade got short or we would have got more horses. Green Beads, Tobacco and blankets are entirely gone, several blankets were borrowed from the men. The last band of Indians that arrived were considerably disappointed by these articles being nearly gone when they came. There are about our camp near 250 or 300 Indians. they are very quiet and give us very little trouble, they occasionally get a little tobacco to smoak. They pass the greater part of their time gambling, horseracing & foot racing. We have traded 112 horses, 5 of which have been killed. A fine young white one was drowned crossing the river today. Monday 18 Cloudy pleasant weather not too warm. Wind Westerly. Our trade being finished and everything ready, we took leave of our friendly Indians and I and six men and an Indian Charlie as a guide, set out with 106 horses across land to Spokane at 1/2 past 8 o'clock. two of the horses which were traded had got lame and were not able to start.--We were detained two hours waiting for Charlie who delayed after us to make some arrangements with his family. On account of this delay and not being able to drive quick as one of the finest horses in the band (Mr. Dease's) being lame which I did not perceive till after we were off, we made but a short days' march. We passed through a fine country the course from N. to N. W. On leaving the river ranges of high hills had to be ascended[112], the country then was not level but a continual succession of little rising hills or hummocks and valleys destitute of trees or bushes except along the margins of little brooks, but pretty well clothed with grass and other plants though rather dried and parched, in some of the valleys along little rivers there are a few trees and bushes besides different plants of an uncommonly luxuriant growth. A Ridge[113] of high land runs along at a short distance to the Eastward, thinly wooded, close to a point of this wooded land is a beautiful situation at a litle spring of water. We encamped in the evening at about five oclock having to wait for one of the men who remained behind with the lame horse.--Though the country was dry yet water was to be found at short intervals the most of the day. Five Indians with 8 horses also on the way to Spokane joined us in the day & kept company with us. In the evening we passed a party of women with a number of horses going off to the plains to collect horses. My object in accompanying the horses besides seeing them taken care of principally is to visit Spokane, see how affairs stand there and consult with Mr. Birnie as to the practicability of getting all the property, etc., removed at once to the Kettle Falls so that the whole may be there by the time the boats arrive, by which means the trading parties to the Flat Heads and Kootenais could be sent off immediately and meet the Indians at a proper season or at least as early as possible, while the remainder of the people, when two establishments are not to be kept up, could be advantageously employed at the building of the new establishment. This is the only plan which will enable us to accomplish the objects of removing to the new Fort and attending their trading excursions at this advanced season without material injury to the trade. In order to enable us to put the above plan in execution I got Mr. Dease prevailed upon to supply Spokane with 11 Pack Horses which are certainly very few considering that there are only eight at Spokane, and there is little prospect of being able to hire any from the Indians as removing the Fort is likely to be disagreeable to them.--I have also brought two men intended to be left at Spokane to assist. I also wished much that Mr. Dears should accompany me for the same purpose, so that he might proceed to the Kettle Falls & remain in charge of the property with one man while the transportation of the property was going on, but Mr. Dease would not consent to his coming lest Mr. McLeod would not be satisfied, as he would not have any one to assist him in taking up the boats from Wallawalla to Okanogan. He certainly needed no assistance to conduct these boats well manned, when little danger is to be apprehended from the Indians.--I represented these things to Mr. Dease but it had no effect. I also pointed out the inadequacy of the number of horses, but as he had orders to procure a certain number for New Caledonia and Thompson's River, and no mention made of any to Spokane, 11 besides 2 saddle horses were all he could give, after completing the numbers for the other places, and depending on his own Fort for 60 for the Snake Country. In case the above plans are found to be practicable I intend to proceed on to Okanogan to receive the Spokane and Rocky Mountain outfits and accompany the boats to the Kettle Falls. One or two more men were also requested but they could not be granted lest Mr. McLeod would have too few to take up three boats, though there are 23 for that purpose, of which number 2 certainly might have been spared. Tuesday 19 Cloudy pleasant weather. Wind Westerly. Proceeded on our journey at an early hour but in consequence of having to delay & drive generally very slow waiting for the lame horse, we made but a short days march and encamped late in the evening at a small River or rather sort of swamp. In the morning we crossed the Flag River.--The lame horse gave up in the afternoon and with reluctance I was obliged to leave him at a spring in a little valley with plenty of grass about it. he seems to be otherwise diseased besides the lameness, his near foreleg is swelled, the outerfilm of the skin and hair is come off his breast in the shape of a horses foot, where probably he has received a blow, before leaving him Charlie scarified his foot, he will be sent for if possible. The country through which we passed today has much the same appearance as that passed yesterday and the course nearly the same. Though the horses have not been driven hard yet some of them are getting fatigued, many of them are getting very lean.--Last night as the night before the horses were watched all night by 3 men at a time. Wed.y. 20 Weather cloudy, but sultry and oppressively warm by turns. These two nights past were very cold which is a great change from the excessive heat experienced some time back. This is probably owing to our being in the vicinity of the high land. Set out on our journey early in the morning and got out of the plains into the woods about 1/2 past 7 oclock. At 4 oclock I left 4 of the men (C. Gregoire.) (A. Laparde.) (I. Levant) and (J. Maria) at the fork[114] of the road that branches off to Okanogan, and proceeded to Spokane with 2 men and 16 horses, 12 for this post and 4 with which I am to go to Okanogan. One of them knocked up by the way & had to be left to be sent for tomorrow. As the horses were fatigued I ordered the men to encamp and allow the horses the evening to rest, and to march at a very slow rate for the future. I left them with 89 horses but one of them was so much jaded that it could not be expected to be able to march. I therefore ordered it to be left and it would be sent for tomorrow.--Arrived at Spokane[115] at 7 oclock and found Mr. Birnie and his people all well. The country through which we passed today as we advanced towards the woods and in the woods was in places very stony which was not often the case these past days. Water was also scarcer than hitherto. Thursd.y. 21 Clear very warm weather. Employed this day examining the property to be transported to the Kettle Falls and find that the whole amounts to 254 pieces including trading goods, provisions, stores & sundries. Mr. Birnie has been actively & diligently employed during the summer, & has almost the whole tied up and ready to put on horseback.--Had Mr. Dears been permitted to accompany me I could have returned to Okanogan with an Indian, and the transportation of the property might have commenced immediately as Mr. Dears with one man could have remained in charge of the property at Kettle falls. But now as the horses which I brought with me must be returned to Okanogan and it being necessary that I should be at that place to receive the goods and to accompany the boats up, and no one being here to spare to take charge of the goods at the Kettle falls, and leave enough to remain here with Mr. Birnie and attend to the horses on the voyage, the conveying the property must be deferred until Mr. Dease and some men can be sent from Okanogan and the first trip will be at the Kettle Falls by the time the boats arrive.--From the dislike the Indians have to the removal of the Fort, of which they have heard some vague reports, which they seem unwilling to believe, there is reason to apprehend that no assistance will be received from them in the horse way which will very much retard our business, as the number of horses which we have, about 34, will be a long time of conveying all these pieces. Mr. Birnie for so far has been pretty successful in the trade of provisions, appichimens & saddls, and about a dozen of horses the latter at a much cheaper rate than those purchased in the Nezperces River. But the returns in furs are far short of those of last year at this season the Indians from different places have done very little.--The garden looks remarkably well, the potatoes are bigger than eggs. Six kegs which were sowed at the Kettle Falls also looked well the last time people were there they have been hoed twice. Paid the Indian Charlie who accompanied us with the horses 20 skins which he was promised more than he received at the Forks, and also made him a present of a Buffalo Robe, he has promised to bring the horse to the Fort. In case any other Indian trapper (should happen) to take him off he is the only one that would be likely to recover him. I intended to have sent a man & an Indian for this horse immediately but Mr. Birnie doubts that it would not be safe as a good many straggling Nezperces Indians are going & coming who might probably pillage them. On my arrivel last night Mr. Birnie handed me a note from Governor Simpson of which the following is a copy. Columbia Lake 16th Apl. 1825. Dear Sir The Dr. will no doubt have informed you of the reasons that induced me to alter your destination for this season and I trust the change will be agreeable to you.-- I have lined out the site of a new establishment[116] at the Kettle Falls and wish you to commence building and transporting the property from Spokane as early as possible. Mr. Birnie has been directed to plant about 5 kegs of potatoes--You will be so good as (to) take great care of them the produce to be reserved for seed, not eat, as next spring I expect that from 30 to 40 Bushels will be planted.--Pray let every possible exertion be used to buy up an abundant stock of Fish and other Provisions counrty Produce, as no imported provisions can in future be forwarded from the coast.--If you can dispense with the service of Mr. Dears in the course of the summer I wish him to be sent with a couple of Indians to examine the Flat Heads River[117] as far as the Ponderoy Camps at the Camass plain and if Navigable you will be so good as (to) forward the outfit of that Post by water instead of land carriage which will save a great expense in horse hire, etc.--The Cantany[118] River we know to be navigable; it is not, therefore, necessary to examine it, but you will likewise forward the outfit for the Post of that name by water--A few long Portages must not interfere with this plan as the benefits to be derived from the change will more than counterbalance the additional trouble and personal labour it may give our people.--If this plan is found to answer of which I have not the smallest doubt we shall be perfectly independent of the Indians in regard to horses which will be a great saving of property, and thereby we shall also avoid the chance of quarrels with the natives in regard to horse thieving as we shall have few or none to tempt them.--Mr. Dears appears to be a self-sufficient forward young man, he must not, however question or dispute your authority, if he does let me know it, in the meantime show him this paragraph if necessary.--With Mr. Birnie you will have no difficulty, he is unassuming active and interested.--Pray use every exertion to trade horses for Thompson's River and let them be sent in the fall so as to be forwarded from Okanogan to New Caledonia with all the pack saddles and appichimens that can be collected. The cedar canoes brought down this season from Spokane will be the proper craft for the Cootanies & Flat Head Rivers. The Spokans will not be pleased at the removal of the Fort but you must (?) the chiefs with a few presents besides fair words. Do me the favour to collect[119] all the seeds plants Birds and quadrupids & mice & rats you can and let them be forwarded by the ship of next season to N. (Gosny) Esqur. care of Wm. Smith Esqr. Secty. H. B. Cmy., London. Wishing a pleasant & prosperous season. I remain Dear Sir Your most obd. servant, (Signed) Geo. Simpson. Friday 22nd. Cloudy, but sultry warm weather. I deferred setting out for Okanogan, as I intended, in order to allow the horses which are fatigued another days' rest, and there still being plenty of time to reach that place before the boats from the Wallawalla: something more could also be done here. In the course of the day the business of removing the Fort was broached to the Chiefs and notice given them that they would be requested to lend some assistance in horses. They gave no decisive answer on the subject but seemed to take it better than was expected. It was intimated that the Fort would be left in their charge and that probably instructions might be received in the fall for some people to reside at Spokane with them still. They seem to swallow this notwithstanding its improbability.--Very few of them are now about the Fort the most of them being a short distance below it at a fishing barrier where they are taking 7 or 800 salmon per day. Satd'y. 23 Cloudy blowing strong from the Westward. At 1/2 past 9 o'clock set out from Spokane for Okanogan accompanied by a man and an Indian as a guide with seven horses, that is the 4 that belong to Okanogan, & 3 to return to Spokane with some people.--At 12 oclock we got clear of the woods & into the plains, except a short time that we stopped to allow the horses to feed. We drove on at a round pace all day and encamped at 1/2 past 7 oclock at a little pool of bad water, some distance from the Key encampment. The clouds of dust raised by the wind which was right ahead made riding very disagreeable as we were like to be choaked & blinded. Our guide did not keep the road but cut from place to place through the plains.--Our course might be from N. W. to W. Ridges of mountains or highlands run along at no great distance to the Northward, thinly clothed with wood, the country through which we passed though not (even) could not be called hilly but swelling into little knowls, covered with a thin coat of dry vegetables and generally of a barren & scorched appearance, except some little valleys where some few bushes & green vegetables are produced in consequence of there being water in the place or some moisture in the ground.--The road was in some places good, but in others very stony. Nothing to be seen to the S. E. but extensive plains bounded by the horison. Sunday 24 Weather as yesterday. Continued our route at 4 oclock and arrived[120] on the opposite side of the River at Okanagan at 1/2 past 7 after a smart days ride, and our horses much fatigued, some of them nearly knocked up, this was owing to their being allowed to drink too much water. If indulged in water while on the route they ought never to be allowed to take more than a mouthful or two.-- The appearance of the country course etc were much the same as yesterday except that we passed through a point of woods, in the morning we passed along the banks of the Columbia at the Lampoile[121] River, and before noon crossed the Grand Coolley. Some of the mountains to the Northward were topped with snow. The men whom I left to proceed with the horses on the 20th arrived here about noon with the whole band but one which they lost a little more than a days march from this place.--It is a small horse 2 yrs. old, and does not seem well. Mondy 25 Cloudy blowing fresh from the Northward. Went with the men for the purpose (of) bringing the horses across the River, but as it was blowing fresh and several of the horses very lean, it was deemed advisable to let them remain untill another occasion. Tuesday 26 Clear warm weather. Brought the horses[122] across from the other side of the River all safe. A little past noon an Indian arrived from Spokane with a note from Mr. Birnie and a packet which had recently reached that place from Mr. Ogden[123] dated East branch of the Missourie 10th July. In consequence of the former coming out at the Flat Heads, the Snake business would be so much involved with that of Spokane that I deemed it my duty to open the dispatch which I am sorry to find contains intelligence of a disagreeable nature. A series of misfortunes have attended the party from shortly after their departure on the 24th may they fell in with a party of Americans when 23 of the former deserted, two of this party were killed one by the Indians and one by accident and the remainder of the party are now coming out by the Flat Heads. This occurrence will entirely change all our plans at Spokane, respecting moving the Fort, as all our time will be occupied in transporting the Snake outfit from Fort Nezperces to Spokane if the Snake country business is carried on.--It is indispensably necessary that these despatches should be sent to Fort Vancouver as soon as possible, they must be sent either direct to Fort Nezperces from this place or round by Spokane, by the former rout they will reach Nezperces in four days, by the latter they will require six.--I shall wait for Mr. McLeod's arrival when I expect he will furnish a man to accompany Mr. Dears whom I intend to send for the more safe conveyance of the packet, and who can return accompanied by an Indian direct from Wallawalla to Spokane, with all the despatches remaining at that place for Mr. Ogden, by this route he will reach Spokane as soon as I will with the boats and the papers can be forwarded by the Trading party to the Flat Heads & thence to Mr. Ogden by his men who are to come in with their furs. Mr. McLeods man LaPrade[124] who passed in the spring and who knows the road from this place to Nezperces can return accompanied by an Indian and be back at Okanogan in 8 days or if deemed safe he could come round by Spokane which would occupy 2 or 3 days longer. If this plan meets Mr. McLeod's approbation it will be the most expeditious. The route by Spokane will answer equally well, but it will occupy at least 2 or three days longer to reach Nezperces. Wed.y. 27 Warm sultry weather. Sent off two of the men E. Gregoire and J. Moreau to seek the horse which they lost by the way coming.--La Prade is retained at the Fort to accompany Mr. Dears to Nezperces, in case Mr. McLeod allows him to go. Thursd.y. 28. Cloudy sultry weather. Mr McLeod arrived with the boats 3 in number at 9 oclock in 8 days or rather on the 8th day from Nezperces, the day was occupied separating the cargoes, when I made out an a/c of the pieces which are to be taken to Spokane Forks.[125]--Some pieces belonging to Nezperces and the Snake expedition, it is thought advisable to take to Spokane, for the Nezperces pieces Mr. Dease is to take an equal number of the same description from the Snake outfit at his place. By taking these pieces to Spokane it will save the carriage across land from Nezperces. Friday 29th. Sultry warm weather. This day was employed preparing despatches for the sea which are to accompany Mr. Ogdens letters which are to be sent off tomorrow. I expected that Mr McLeod would have spared a man to accompany Mr Dears to Wallawalla, but he cannot. I therefore thought he would have had to go round by Spokane, but on consulting Robbie Doo[126] the Indian who came with me, he engages to take him from here to Wallawalla though he never was that road, this will save the horses, and two or three days time. Mr Dears is to return straight to Spokane where I expect he will arive as soon as men with the boats, & have all Mr. Ogdens (documents) with him. Though we have not more than full cargoes for two boats and 18 men to work them to the Forks, yet as the road is very (bad) and Mr. McLeod's and Mr. Ross's[127] families to accompany us it is the guide's opinion that we will get on safer and more expeditiously by taking three boats, 6 men per boat. Three are therefore to be taken. Satd.y. 30 Clear warm weather. Left Okanogan with 3 boats at 8 oclock and encamped at 6 in the evening to gum one of the boats which was leaking though she had been gummed at the fort. The road was tolerable though the current was very strong till afternoon, they got on without the poles but afterwards the boats had to be towed the greater part of the way with lines, sometimes the united strength of the two crews was required to take up one boat. The water is high though it has fallen greatly. Mr Dears & the Indian also set out in the morning for Wallawalla. The Indian who brought Mr. Ogdens letters from Spokane, also returned to that place, with a letter to Mr Birnie requesting him to send horses to meet me at the Forks to take the property up to Spokane, as we know not whether the Fort can be removed this year untill answers are received from the sea[128] to our letters. Sunday 31st. Clear warm weather. Embarked before 4 oclock this morning and reached the lower end of the dalls[129] at 9 oclock and got over there at 1, and encamped at half past 6 in the evening, having made a better days march than the common. In the evening we got on a little with the poles, but all the rest of the day the tow line had to be used, at the dalls it was very bad, the men had to pass the line over high projecting rocks where had they missed a foot they would have been killed. At the upper end of the dalls the boat had to be lightened and the one half of their cargoes carried a piece, as the boats could not b dragged up with the cargo all in. August, 1825. Mond.y. 1 Clear very warm. Embarked at 3 oclock and put ashore at 5 to wait for Mr McLeod who was to come across land with his family to embark for the mountains, and with some papers which he had not finished when he left the Fort, and were delayed till 3 oclock, when we proceeded on our journey and encamped at 1/2 past 6. Tuesday 2nd. Cloudy mild weather. Continued our route at 3 oclock and put ashore near 7 having made a very good days work.-- Wed.y 3 Cloudy weather. Embarked at 3 oclock passed the (Lampoile) River at 9 where we breakfasted and traded a few pieces of dry salmon from the Indians, and encamped past 6 oclock. A good days march. Tho' our boats are only a little more than 2/3 loaded yet they are a good deal embarrassed, as we have four women and ten children passengers. Thursday 4 Cloudy and very warm afternoon, a great deal of thunder & lightening and some rain in the night. Embarked past 3 oclock and arrived at Spokane Forks at 8. The road this morning was very bad being continual rapids. These two days past, it was not so bad as the tow line had only to be used at some strong points. The boats were immediately discharged, at 10 oclock 3 men arrived with the horses horses from Spokane with a letter from Mr. Birnie. It appears that they had some trouble at Spokane with the Indians. The scoundrel Charlie with some others was making a disturbance, about removing the Fort. Busily employed the after part of the day, distributing the property among the men who are divided into two pairs and are to take a brigade of horses each two, and also laying out the goods for Rocky Mountain that are to go to Kettle falls, and some boxes of tools for the building at Kettle Falls.--The two boats that are to remain are also laid up and some guns, 26 pieces, which was sent from Spokane, burried in the sand, till it be sent below in the fall.-- Sent a little Tobacco to the old chief at the Sampoile bourne and a message that some salmon were wanted for the people, he brought twenty fresh ones in the afternoon, which was abundance for the people. Some dry ones were also traded. Frid.y 5. At an early hour, had the horses assembled and divided into brigades, loaded and set off by 8 oclock and encamped at 1 at the bottom of the big hill which is a good days march. We have altogether 35 horses loaded, including baggage, etc. Left the guide P. L. Etang preparing to start with the boat and cargo destined for the R Mountains, to the Kettle Falls, where he is to remain until the 20th of next month, he has 7 men with him, who are to be employed preparing timber and, if they have time, building a store as a beginning to the new establishment,[130], tools are sent with him for the purpose.--Intend sending Mr. Dears who I expect is arrived nearly at Spokane by this time, to Superintend the people, and L. La Bentie who is a carpenter to assist & direct in the building. As there is a great demand for provisions, the salmon can be loaded at the same time, for which purpose and to feed the people, an assortment of goods is sent up. Saturday 6 Cloudy, blowing fresh from the Westward. Proceeded on our journey at 4 oclock and halted to let the horses rest & feed at 10 and again resumed our journey at three and encamped for the night before 6 at camp at Cariboo (?) having made a long days march, the horses are tired. The cords which fastened a load of traps gave way and the cases fell, the horse took fright and ran off with the load hanging to him, and so lamed one of his shoulders and leg that that he is disabled from carrying his load & scarcely fit to walk.--An Oil cloth which one of the men Gros Carlo had in charge was also lost through negligence. This is a serious loss as there in none to replace it and all we had were required. I sent notice among the Indians to seek it & if found to bring it to the Fort & they would be paid for their trouble. Sunday 7 Mild warm weather. Resumed our journey at a little past 4 oclock and by 10 all the brigades had arrived at the Spokane Fort and delivered in the cargoes. The horses were immediately sent across the River to graze and a man to take care of them.-- Mr. Birnie was like to have some trouble with som of the Indians shortly after my departure to Okanagan. Charlie, according to inteligence received by Mr. B., with a few other Nezperces had laid a plan to cut off the fort, but as this is grounded on report and as the Inds are very prone to belie each other, there is no knowing what degree of reliance to place on it. Charlie is doubtly a notorious scoundrel, when he heard of the Fort going to be abandoned he was much displeased and declared among the Indians that had he known of it not a horse would have been got in the Nezperces River if in his power to prevent it.--The trade of furs has been a little better last month than the preceding ones, but the whole returns are far short of this time last year.--In provisions the trade is still increasing, there are now between 4 and 5000 pieces of salmon in store, besides roots. Saving so much provisions is a fortunate circumstance as unfortunately almost the whole of the dry meat is found to be so completely spoiled and damaged that it is useless.-- Mr. Dears contrary to my expectations is not yet arrived, 9 days are now elapsed since he left Okanagan for Wallawalla, which is a day later than I had calculated on his being able to reach this place. Probably something may have occurred to prevent him from arriving on the day expected. Monday 8 Cloudy warm weather Employed opening & examining the outfit--and making preparations by packing up the outfit for the Flat Heads. Mr. Dears and the Indians arrived at noon from Wallawalla with despatches from that place, they were five days coming and had been four days going from Okanagan to Wallawalla. however he got through safe. Tuesday 9th Cloudy warm weather. At 10 oclock sent off 11 men with 10 horses loaded with an assortment of trading articles for the Flat Heads and a supply of some articles required by Mr. Ogden. I intend following them tomorrow accompanied by the old Flat Head chief who has passed the summer here & is now going to his friends, & another Indian who is to bring back the horses. I was prevented from accompanying the people today by having some papers to arrange. After the people had been off some time one of them returned for anothr horse in stead of one that had thrown his load and ran off from them. Wed.y. 10 Clear fine weather. At 9 oclock I set out after the people accompanied by the old Flat Head chief and another Indian. Near 6 oclock we came up with the party encamped at the little Lake[131] in the woods.--Mr McDonald's[132] horse which the old chief rode had been unwell before he left the fort though we did not know it, and was so knocked up that we had to leave him at the little River at this end of the Coer de Alan plains where we arrived before 3 oclock which (is) a little more than 6 hours though we stopped to smoke by the way & seldom went past a trot. Left Mr Dears preparing to go off to the Kettle Falls with L. La Bontie to to go on with the buildings at that place. Thursday 11 Showery in the morning, fair afterwards with strong Westerly Wind. Set out at 4 oclock and arrived at the Flat Head River[133] at noon & immediately commenced gumming the canoes which occupied the whole afternoon and is not yet entirely completed. One of the canoes was taken across the River by the Indians & we had to send across for it. The Indians had also taken nearly all the poles and paddles which will cause us a loss of time and labour to replace them with others. We are very scarce of gum. An Indian handed the men who crossed for the canoe, a note from Mr Kittson[134], he has been at the Chutes[135] since the 31st of July, with the Indians waiting to trade Friday 12 Cloudy pleasant weather. Notwithstanding I had the men at work by daylight, they were so long getting paddles, poles & ready that it was 11 oclock before we started & then lost nearly an hour crossing (a freeman, the Soteaux & his baggage.--) So that it was noon when we got off. We got on pretty well and encamped past 6 oclock in the Lake[136] below the traverse to the island. One of the canoes had only 2 men & as they found poles & paddles ready, they went off in the morning & are yet ahead. Two of the canoes are still very leaky notwithstanding the time that was taken to gum them. Sent off the Indians in the morning to the Fort with the horses, and the appichimens, at the same time I wrote to Mr. Birnie & Mr Dears & desired the latter if he could to prevail on the Kettle falls Indians to get a quantity of cedar bark to cover the store. I doubt the season is too far advanced to raise the bark. Saturday 13 Cold in the morning blowing fresh from the Southward. Lightening & some thunder & rain in the night. Had the men up at 3 oclock but it was blowing too fresh to attempt crossing the Lak & nearly 2 hours were lost waiting, still it was rough making the haven, afterwards we got on very well and encamped near 7 oclock below Isle de Pierre.[137] Came up with the two men in the canoe that was ahead of us, in the afternoon. Passed a good many Indians at the upper end of the Lake, gave them a little tobacco to smok, bought a little cammass from them, & then proceeded.-- Sunday 14 Cold foggy weather in the morning but very warm afterwards. Proceeded on our journey before 4 oclock and encamped before 6 a good piece above the Barrier River.--We had to stop early to gum the canoes which were very leaky. Passed a few Indians, two accompanied us all day in a canoe. Monday 15. Showry in the morning, fine afterwards. Embarked at 4 oclock and reached the Indian camp at the Chutes[138] at 11 oclock, where I found Mr. Kittson and two men from Mr Ogdens party with 38 packs & 6 (Parto....) braves. The Indian chiefs (with) Snake furs soon visited us and on being asked whether they wished to trade immediately or wait till tomorrow they preferred the latter. Some tobacco was given them for all hands to smoake.--And in the afternoon Mr. Kittson and I visited their principle lodge where the whole of the Indians soon assembled, when we gave them all the news from the different quarters of the country when they were enjoying the pipe & gave us what news they had in return.--The chiefs sent us some provisions immediately on our arrival. Tuesday 16 Cold in the morning, very warm afterwards. At an early hour the Indians began to arrive & a brisk trade was immediately commenced and by noon nearly the whole trade was finished, some lodges & trifling things were brought for sale during the afternoon.-- In the afternoon the men were off in the woods collecting pitch for the canoes, we applied to the Indians but a sufficiency could not be obtained from them and the canoes much in want of it as they will be very deep laden. Wed.y. 17 Cloudy mild weather. The men were employed the whole day gumming the canoes & had not the Indians favored us with the lend of their kettles to boil pitch it would have taken another day to finish their business. All the Indians, except one chief who remained with us, took a most friendly leave of us and departed during the day, there might be altogether about Indians of four different nations, Flat Heads, Kootanies, Ponderus and Piegans, of the latter there are but very few. A considerable number, 30 tents, were coming, but from some cause turned back. It was from the Flat Heads and Kootenais that the trade was principally obtained. These are remarkably fine Indians and easily dealt with. After the trade was over made each of the chiefs a trifling present of a little ammunition & Tobacco, a look.g. glass & a little beads.-- Joachin Hubert accompanied the Indians with the horses that brought the Snake furs and a small supply of articles for Mr. Ogden to whom I wrote and forwarded a number of letters and despatches addressed to him. The packet packet was put in charge of Grospied one of the F. Head chiefs, as being more safe. It was not till I was perfectly satisfied by Mr Kittson that there was no danger of these documents falling into improper hands, that I would trust them. The chiefs are directed to give them to no one but Mr Ogden and in case of any accident having befallen him to bring them back. It was Mr. Ogden's directions to Mr Kittson that only one man should be sent back to him. Our trade amounts to 374 large & 99 small beaver and 1 otter large, 76 bales meat, 44 Robes, 122 appechimans 16 dressed skins & 11 (chevereaux) and 5 lodges and 1 horse, 29 saddles and cords. etc. Beaver and dressed skins are far short of last year, the deficiency in beaver is owing to a great many of the Kootanies having gone off to their own lands before our arrival, the scarcity of leather may be attributed to the same cause and to their having been at the Buffalo this season. Every encouragement was given for leather, it being so much wanted, and very high prices offered and articles given which is not customary to give for it. A trip will yet have to be made to the Kootany country to endeavour to get some leather and what beaver they may have. Thursday 18 Foggy in the morning, fine weather afterwards. Having everything ready, commenced loading at daylight and fell down the river and encamped in the evening a little above the Heron rapid. The canoes are very full and deep laden, it was so much as we could do to get the whole into them, they are in fact heaped up in the middle. We came down the first rapid with half cargo, the other rapids were run with four men in each canoe, so that having to take only two canoes down at a time detained us. Two of the canoes were broke by striking on stones & some time was lost in repairing them, the cargoes fortunately sustained very little damage as they got ashore before they had time to be wet. The old chief La Brash, who remained with us all night, took his leave and went off in the morning. Friday 19 Cloudy fine weather. Continued our rout at daylight, and encamped in the evening at the lower side of the wide traverse in the lake.[139] We were detained sometime repairing one of the canoes that was brok, also two hours at the Lake which was too rough to cross with our canoes so deep laden, tho there was no wind--Some of the bales of meat were a little wet in the canoe that was broke.-- Satd.y. 20 Rain in the morning dry afterwards. Continued our course at daylight and reached the Portage[140] at noon where three men were immediately sent off to the Fort[141] for horses. the men that remained employed drying the bales that were wet, and preparing places to lay up the canoes. Sunday 21 Foggy in the morning, warm afterwards. The men laid up the canoes & arranged part of the baggage to be in readiness when the horses arrive. Monday 22. Clear fine weather. Had all the pieces tied and distributed among them who are divided into twos, saddles, appichimans & cords were also divided among the men. Three Indians visited us in the evening from whom we got four ducks and a little bears meat. Three bags of balls, & 9 half & 6 small axes which we had over & above our trade was hid in the woods in the horse pond in the night as it will save the carriage to the Fort and back in the Fall, and these are articles that will not injure by being burried under ground a short time. Tuesday 23 Cloudy mild weather. Before noon the men arrived from the Fort with all the Company's horses and what Mr Birnie could collect from the Indians which was still seven short of the number required. However an Indian arrived with these in the evening. The Indians at the Fort it seems are mostly off collecting roots which renders it difficult to procure horses.--As the horses require time to feed & as there would not have been time to get out to the plains where they can be kept without danger of loosing them we deferred starting till this morning. Wed.y. 24 Some rain in the night, and wet disagreeable weather morning. The weather being unfavourable we were detained some time in the morning, but it clearing up afterwards, the horses were loaded and we set out & encamped in the evening at the little River at the edge of the woods. Some of the horses are very weak, and scarcely able to manage thir loads. Thursday 25 Showery in the night, but fair weather during the day, blowing fresh from the Westward. Proceeded on our journey at 6 oclock and halted at Campment Bindash[142] at 11, where, as some of the horses are weak, I left the people, to go to the Fort tomorrow, & proceeded with Mr. Kittson to the house where we arrived at 4 oclock. I found two of Mr Dease's men who had arrive with despatches from the sea a few hours before they also brought 26 horses for the use of the Snake country expedition. By a letter of instructions to me I am directed to bring half or such part of the Snake outfit as Mr. Kittson may suppose sufficient, from Nezperces. Now as it is uncertain whether Mr. Ogden may equip his men at the Flat Heads or take them to Nezperces, I am at a loss how to act, as if Mr Ogden takes his peoples to Nezperces it would be lost labour to bring goods from Nezperces and just have to take them back again, it is therefore determined to defer sending for any part of the outfit till the beginning of October, by which time we will have heard from Mr. Ogden & perhaps from the sea and will be able to act according to the instructions received.--I am apprehensive we will not be able to remove to the Kettle Falls this fall as we are uncertain what what assistance we may have to give the Snake people. by remaining the trade will be little affected, where as by removing we run a great risk of having the property, particularly the provisions injured as a store will not be ready to receive it, the horses would also be so completely knocked up transporting the property, that they would be of little service to Mr. Ogden in case he requires them, & probably not able to bring his outfit from Wallawalla. Friday 26th Augt. 1825. Clear fine weather. The men arrived with the horses before noon when the furs, provisions &c were all delivered in safe.--In the afternoon the Indians were settled with for their horses which we hired for the trip. In the evening I was employed writing letters to Fort Vancouver. Saturday 27 Clear fine weather. Sent off Mr Dease's men with dispatches to Nezperces to be for-forwarded to the sea. A young Indian was engaged to carry the dispatches to Mr Ogden in the Snake country he is to have a horse for his trip, and promises to make the most expeditious he can. Nothing material has occurred since I have been absent. Trade in furs still slack but a little doing in provisions. Sunday 28 Weather as yesterday. Sent off the Indian with the express to Mr. Ogden he expects to reach him in about 8 to 10 days. We are living now entirely on dry provisions as nothing fresh is to be got, not a salmon to be caught in the river. Monday 29th Clear fine pleasant weather. Mr Kittson (&) two men with 6 horses set out for the Kootany country[143] with an assortment of Goods on a Trading excursion. Sent off 9 men with some tools etc to the Kettle falls to assist with the buildings. I intend following them tomorrow or next day, to see how the business is going on. Getting the store completed is the first object. Had the Flat head Furs opened and counted, they are in good order, the meat which was opened on Saturday is also in fine condition and weighs about 5500 lbs. The blacksmith Philip made 2 large axes, on Saturday he made 5 & did not begin early. we have now axes for all the people.-- A fire kindled about the Ind camp & spread about our garden & burnt the greater part of the fence which was composed of thorn bushes.-- Tuesday 30 Fine pleasant weather. Several Indians of the Pendant Oreill tribe arrived and traded, some beaver & roots & berries. Seventy salmon were taken in our barier which are the first that have been caught for some time The Indians took 100 in this. Wed.y. 31 Pleasant weather. Set out from Spokane accompanied by an Indian with 3 horses & some articles, required for building and trade, to the Kettle falls at 8 oclock and encamped at an old barn on a little River in the evening at 5clock. The road lies on the hills & through valleys, some plains thickly wooded & some places clear & here, & there a plain in the valleys. Sept. Thursd'y. 1 Warm weather. Resumed our journey at 4 oclock and arrived at the New Establishment at noon.--The road was much the same today as yesterday, it lay a considerable distance through a plain along side of a little river[144], the plain is covered with very long grass and reeds in some places higher than the horse. The course from Spokane is nearly North, perhaps a little to to E of it. The men who were sent off from Spokane on Monday arrived yesterday and are at work. The men who were here before have made but very little progress in the work.--7 men of them have been employed since the 13th of Augt. and have only squared 4 logs 70 Feet long, 4-25 feet long. 16-12 feet long & 13 Joists 25 feet long. Mr Dears says he could not get them to go quicker, as same of them were almost always sick.--Two of them are at present ill with the venereal and fit to do very little, one of them does nothing. A pretty good stock of provisions is traded, dry fish & berries sufficient to serve all the peopl here now 18 days. Very few fresh fish are now to be got the water is fallen so much that the salmon do not leap into the baskets which the Indians set for them. Friday 2nd Very warm in the middle of the day. The men were at work at an early hour and finished squaring the logs mentioned yesterday, the pitt saw was also put in order and a pit made to commence sawing tomorrow. A carriage with two wheels and horse harness were also furnished that carting the timber to the house may be begun tomorrow.-- The fort is to be situated in a little nick just above the falls on the South side of the River. This little nick or valley, is of a horse shoe form, about 2 miles along the River side and about 2-1/2 or 3 miles in depth surrounded by steep hills on both sides, a ridge of hills runs along the opposite side of the River. The Fort is to be situated on a sandy ridge about 600 yards from the river side. There is not a sufficiency of wood about it to build the store, that is now under way there the nearest wood is 1400 yards off on one side, 1500 or 1200 yards, on the other, where a little river is to be crossed.-- I took a ride along the river, through a point where there is some fine timber. The most expeditious mode of getting the dwelling house and other houses built will be to have the timber squared a few miles from the fort and rafted down the river. There seems to be some fine timber on the opposite shore about the same distance off. The potatoes look well, but the moles are destroying some of them. the ground they occupy may be about 35 yards square.-- Saturday 3 Fine pleasant weather. The men were differently employed, four preparing the frame for the store, some sawing, some squaring & one carting. there are now fifteen men fit for duty at work I expect as they are now properly set agoing they will get on well, and be able to have the store so far completed that the property can be deposited in it if we can effect a removal from Spokane this fall. This must in a great measure depend on what assistance we can give the Snake people. Two Indians, the old chief's sons, were spoken to and having agreed to accompany a gentleman up the Pendent Oreille River in case he can be spared to go, to examine the lower part of it. An Indian was also engaged to accompany me to Spokane & bring a supply of some articles of trade & toll that are wanted. Sunday 4 Pleasant cool weather. Set out from Kettle Falls at 1/4 past 6 oclock and arrived at Spokane at 7 in the evening, which was a hard days riding, I was accompanied by two Indians who were driving ten horses to the (Buffer de Chideu) where I left them in the evening as some of the horses were giving up. The Indians changed horses frequently, but I changed only once the one I rode in the afternoon came from where I left the men in 1-1/2 hours. Monday 5 Clear fine warm weather. Three of the freemen belonging to Mr Ogdens party arrived here two days ago for supplies & say they were permitted to leave the party to proceed across the mountains to the S. side. But as they had no writings with them but notes specifying the state of their a/c which we did not consider sufficient authority to give them any advances and deeming it necessary to send them back to Mr Ogden, so that he might keep his party as strong as possible, they were refused any advances but a little ammunition to take them back to where they would likely meet Mr. Ogden. These men are (A. Valle). A. (Curvais) and (Wetacass), they have brought some beaver & have all money coming to them. Mr Ogden's notes are dated on the 15 Augt. when all the freemen but 6 had parted from him,[145] his party then was only 15 strong, and he was going through a dangerous country, they had been successful in their hunting since Mr Kittson left them.--All the freemen but these three and another, turned back with the Flat Heads.--These men met the Indians who went off on Sunday week with the despatches to Mr Ogden, he was getting on well.-- The Indians whom I left yesterday evening arrived with the horses, some of them are much fatigued. Nothing material has occured here since I have been absent. Tuesday 6 Fine weather. Mr. Kittson arrived from the Kootenais and has made a pretty good trade, 99 beaver, 62 deer & 34 elk skins & 2 horses, he changed some of his horses which were jaded for others. The Kootanies desire a Post[146] to be in their country this season, though some of those we saw at the Flat Heads said it would not be necessary. (To be continued.) FOOTNOTES: [88] John McLeod, Senior, stationed at Thompson river or Kamloops. Consult "Peace River," by Archibald McDonald, for his career. [89] Probably Charles McKay, son of Alex McKay who was blown up with the Tonquin, and step-son of Dr. John McLoughlin. [90] Celilo, or the Falls of the Columbia, above The Dalles. [91] The Sandy river, Multnomah County, Oregon; camp being near Washougal on opposite shore. [92] Portage around the Cascades on north bank, where railroad portage was built in later years. [93] The Upper Cape Horn, below Klickitat river; see Wilkes' Map of Oregon. [94] This was the long portage of about 4-1/2 miles from Big Eddy to the upper end of Ten Mile rapids. From here they used their boats to the Falls, or Chutes, where again carried boats and goods a short distance. Here was the "Wishram" village of Washington Irving. See "Astoria." [95] John Day river, Oregon side. [96] David Douglas, the English botanist, who was then on the Columbia. Consult Oregon Historical Quarterly, Vol. 5, pp. 218 and 245-6-7. [97] Now known as Blalock Island but more often referred to by the fur traders as the Long Island; opposite Cayote station of O. W. R. & N. Ry. [98] The Umatilla rapids, above mouth of Umatilla river, Oregon side. [99] Also called Fort Walla Walla, built in July-Aug., 1818, by Donald McKenzie & Alex. Ross: consult "Fur Hunters of the Far West," chaptres 6 & 7 and frontispiece for picture of the Fort. Location 1-1/2 miles west of Wallula, of present day. [100] South branch of the Columbia, that is the Snake river. [101] Mr. Thos. Dears, a clerk of the H. B. Co., but not attached to any special Post. Mr. J. W. Dease, a Chief Trader, was then in charge of Fort Nez Perces. [102] The Palouse river of today; the Drewyer's river of Lewis and Clark, and known to the fur traders also as Payton and Pavillon river. [103] Spokane House, about 100 miles northward; see Ross Cox' "Adventures" etc for an account of this trail to the Spokane river. [104] Meaning the Pend d'Oreille Indians. [105] Almota Whitman county, Wash., always a favorite Indian camping place, and meaning the hilly or mountainous stream or place. Lewis and Clark camped here Oct. 11th, 1805 and mention the Indian houses described by John Work a little further on in this text. [106] That is, the junction of the Snake and Clearwater rivers. [107] Red Wolf crossing of the Snake river, at mouth of Alpown creek Garfield country, Washington. Col. E. J. Steptoe's expedition crossed here in the year 1858 on its disastrous expedition. [108] John Work's corruption of the Indian family name Shahaptin. [109] The Palouse and the Cayuse tribes. Not unlike Lewis and Clark Mr. Work was "something of a speller." [110] Where Lewiston, Idaho, now stands. See page 128 of Vol. 2 of "Trail of Lewis & Clark" (Wheeler) for photo and description of this site. [111] That is, the Snake river proper but designated by Lewis and Clark as the Kimooenim, while the Clearwater from the S. E. was the Kooskooske. [112] A very correct description of "Lewiston Hill" and of the famous Palouse country beyond. Travelers by stage over that road all remember it. Mr. Dease evidently returned direct to Fort Walla Walla by the river. [113] The regular Indian trail northward followed the line between Washington and Idaho, generally speaking; consult Mauring's "Conquest of Coeur d'Alene, Spokane & Palouse Indians" for this. [114] Probably near Phileo Lake between Spangle and Cheney, Spokane county, Washington. [115] Spokane House, at junction of main with the Little Spokane river, nine miles N. W. of City of Spokane, first established by Finan McDonald in 1810; Mr. James Birnie in charge. Mr. Birnie afterward settled at Astoria and Cathlamet near the mouth of the Columbia. [116] This, and previous entries, give us the actual plans for removal of this trading post to Kettle Falls on the Columbia, as had evidently been agreed upon during the winter at Fort George. Consult "Fur Hunters of Far West" (Ross) Vol. 2, p 162 as to this. Also Gov. Stevens large map in Vol. 12 of Pac. Ry. Reports. [117] The Pend d'Oreille river, from its mouth to the Calispel river and flats near Cusick, Washington. [118] The Kootenay river. [119] Evidently Gov. Simpson was not without some gift of humor; he was preparing Mr. Work for David Douglas' expected visit to the Interior to collect botanical specimens. [120] After at least 150 miles across the best farming lands of Spokane, Lincoln and part of Douglas counties, Washington. Fort Okanagan was then on the Columbia river side of the plateau at mouth of Okanogan river. [121] The San Poll river, from the north. [122] These horses were for use in transporting goods to the Thompson river and New Caledonia Districts, which from now on were to deliver furs and get goods at Fort Vancouver on the Columbia. Up to this time they had shipped everything to and from York Factory to Hudson Bay, using the Tete Jaune Pass across the Rocky Mts. [123] Peter Skene Ogden, who was in charge of the Snake Country trappers that season. Consult Oregon Historical Quarterly Vol. 10, pp. 229-273. [124] A half breed named La Prate, who afterward was for many years resident at Fort Okanogan. [125] The mouth of the Spokane river. [126] This name should be Robideaux, another half breed. [127] Alexander Ross, who had proceeded to Red River with Gov. Simpson this same Spring and whose family now follows: and Mr. McLeod sends his family preparatory to himself leaving the Columbia river district the following spring. [128] Meaning Fort Vancouver. [129] That is Whirlpool Rapids at the foot of Nespalem Canyon. Consult Lieut. Thos. W. Symon's Report of Examination of Upper Columbia River for this journey from Okanogan to mouth of Spokane river. [130] The trading post to be known as Fort Colville just above Kettle Falls. [131] Probably Spirit Lake Northeast of Spokane, and the little river mentioned a little further on was probably Rathdrum creek. [132] Mr. Finan McDonald, who built Spokane House in 1810 and had but recently left there. [133] Pend d'Oreille river at Sineacateen crossing, the north end of David Thompson's "Skeetshoo Road"; later known as Markham's Ferry, Kootenay County, Idaho. [134] William Kittson; see "Fur Hunters of Far West" Vol. 1, p. 207. [135] Thompson Falls, Montana. [136] Lake Pend d'Oreille. [137] Probably the Cabinet Rapids in Clarks Fork river. Barrier river next mentioned is probably Trout Creek of today and maps. [138] Thompson Falls, Montana, where the Indians would be gathered for the summer trade and to fish. Mr. Ogden's party was either on head waters of Jefferson's Fork of the Missouri in Montana, or on the Snake or Salmon rivers in Idaho. [139] This wide traverse or crossing of Lake Pend d'Oreille was from near Hope, Idaho westward across the Lake. [140] That is at Sinecateen again. During mining days this was the principal crossing of the Pend d'Oreille river and is well known to all early settlers of Idaho and Montana and the Kootenay country. [141] Spokane House. [142] Probably they had camped for the night at the Hoodoo lake and this Bindash Campment at Spirit Lake, but impossible to locate certainly. [143] Mr. Kittson goes as far as Bonners Ferry, Idaho, near which David Thompson's "Lake Indian House" had been, for a summer trade with Kootenays there. [144] The Colville river and valley, and we now get a glimpse of the beginnings of actual settlement and trade in that valley. The "little nick" mentioned further on is Marcus Flat, just above Kettle Falls, where Fort Colvile (so named after one of the H. B. Co. officials) was maintained until about 1872. [145] This refers to the desertions of the H. B. Co. Free-hunters under inducement from the American traders, concerning which there has been some reflection cast upon Gen. W. H. Ashley, but without real evidence to support it. [146] Probably meaning the rebuilding of the Post or Fort near Bonners Ferry; a regular Post had been maintained further up the Kootenay river about opposite Jennings, Montana. See Ross Cox' "Adventures." p. 233. HISTORY OF THE LIQUOR LAWS OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON The State of Washington passed through three forms of government before attaining statehood. The present state was first a part of the "Old Oregon" under the provisional government. In 1840 the American population sent a petition to Congress enumerating reasons for a territorial government. This petition closed with these words: "We pray for the high privilege of American citizenship. The peaceful enjoyment of life, the right of acquiring, possessing and using property and the unrestrained pursuit of rational happiness and for this your petitioners will ever pray." In 1848 Congress approved the "Oregon Bill" and for four years longer Washington continued a part of the territory of Oregon. The region was then, in 1853, organized as a separate territory and for thirty-six years the "Organic Law." with added amendments, served as the territorial constitution. Washington then became a state in 1889. It is under these different forms of government and through the different stages of growth and development, therefore, that the question of legalizing or prohibiting the sale of alcoholic liquors becomes interesting: Provisional government, 1843-1849: Oregon territory, 1849-1853; Washington territory, 1853-1889; Washington state, 1889. The first territorial legislature of the present state of Washington convened in 1854. During this session of the legislature there was an effort made to pass a state-wide prohibition law. There had been widespread agitation upon temperance and prohibition throughout the country, by such reformers as John B. Gough and Neal Dow. In the state of Maine Dow's work had resulted in the Maine prohibition law. The effort for prohibition in the territory in 1854 failed but in 1855 a general liquor law was passed entitled "An act to prohibit the manufacture or sale or Ardent Spirits in the Territory of Washington." It is interesting to note the language of this law in the light of the present. Sec. 1 says "The manufacture, sale or gift of intoxicating liquors is prohibited." Sec. 2 says "A public agent may be appointed to sell spirituous liquors for certain purposes, such agent to conform to the rules and regulations of the appointing power and receive a compensation." There is further provision in this law for bond, for punishment, for violation and for fines under the law to go to the public school fund. In addition to this there were two general liquor laws and much minor legislation which we wish to notice. This law passed June 30, 1855. Five days previous to this date, January 25, there was an enactment prohibiting the sale of liquor to Indians. The penalty for violation was a fine of from $25 to $500. These fines also went into the school fund. In 1858 another law was passed making it a crime to sell to the Kanakas (Hawaiian Islanders). This law was re-enacted in 1860. In 1863, as there came to be more respect for law and community life was more firmly established, we find the first provision of a jail sentence for the violation of a liquor law. This was under an act to prevent the sale of adulterated liquor, which made provision for inspectors and defined the duties thereof. The penalty for violation of this law was $500 and six months in jail. The first law to prohibit the sale to minors was passed on November 9, 1877. For violation of this law there was a jail sentence and fine not to exceed $500, one or both. At the same session on the same day there was a law passed to protect those who sold to a minor who misrepresented his age. Any minor misrepresenting his age was liable to fine of $25 to $100, and jail sentence of not to exceed three months. Two years later we find the first law for the recovery of damages for injury by use of intoxicating liquors. The law holds the owner of the building liable jointly with the seller. This law was enacted November 14, 1879. An interesting bit of legislation is a law passed in 1879 restraining the sale of intoxicating liquor in certain counties, Spokane, Stevens and Whitman, within one mile of the Northern Pacific Railroad, during construction. For violation of this law there was provided a fine of $300 or three months in jail or both. In 1881 a second damage law providing for damages for one who suffered injury in person, property or means of support. This law says no license shall be granted without the consent in writing of the owner of the building for his property to be used for saloon purposes. The property then becomes liable and the owner may be held for damages. The money for damages may be recovered by civil action. No further legislation of notice follows till the year 1885, just thirty years after the first general liquor law was passed--thirty years of attempted control which had not been very successful. The agitation for teaching the effects of alcohol and narcotics in the public schools resulted in the passage of such a law in this state December 23, 1885. This law applies to all schools supported wholly or in part by money from the territorial treasury. "The County Treasurer shall withhold the county funds from any school not complying with the provisions of this act." A fine of $100 is assessable against any county or state superintendent who fails to enforce the provisions of the law. This law, passed December 23, 1885, went into effect in July, 1886, and provided that teachers must take an examination in this subject after 1887. In the year 1886 a second general liquor law was passed. This law is known as, "An act to prohibit the sale of Intoxicating Liquors in Election Precincts of Washington Territory, Whenever a Majority of Legal Voters of Any Such Precinct, at any election to be held for that purpose, shall vote in favor of the prohibition of such liquors." This is quite a lengthy law beginning with Section 1 which defines the terms used, stating the singular shall include the plural and the plural the singular. Nouns and pronouns of the masculine gender shall include the feminine. The term intoxicating liquor shall include all liquor of any nature. We may infer from this clause that there had been some dispute over the interpretation of previous laws. Through court cases under this law an incorporated town or city shall be a voting precinct. This law contained eighteen different sections. In 1887 there was a license law passed. This law permits the county board to license outside of cities and towns. The license fee was from $300 to $1000 divided as follows: 10 per cent goes to the state; 35 per cent goes to the school; 55 per cent goes to the county. In cities the council may grant the license. Then 10 per cent goes to the state, 90 per cent goes to the city. Bonds are fixed at $1000. It was approved February 2, 1888, to be in force sixty days after approval. In 1893 there was a law passed amending municipal incorporation liquor tax regulation. In 1895 a law was passed making it a nuisance to sell liquor contrary to law. Another law was passed in the same year, 1895, which is of interest. This was an act prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquor on or within two miles of the University Grounds, making an exception of a small corner of ground in Madison Park on Lake Washington. This law was drawn by Professor Edmond S. Meany, Department of History, Washington State University. Illinois has a law similar to this one, but the limit in that state is one mile while in Washington it is two. In 1903 a law passed prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquor within the proscribed limit (of 2000 feet) of state institutions. This applied to state institutions, not educational as well, and contained a clause stating that this law would not affect the law concerning the State University. The fine for violation of this law was a fine of $200 to $1000. Another law in 1903 was for the search and seizure of liquor. In 1905 a law passed providing for the license to be endorsed by the treasurer of the state when he received his share of the license fee. This law would lead one to believe that there might sometimes be some irregularity in handling license monies. Another act in 1905 was an amendment to the act providing for the right of action for damages. In 1907 there was passed "An act relating to sale of intoxicating liquors," fixing a state license fee of $25 and providing punishment for violation thereof. A number of measures were passed in 1909; An act to prohibit a wholesaler from holding an interest in a saloon or acting as bondsman. The fine for the violation is from $100 to $500 or a jail sentence for thirty days to six months. Monies loaned for such purposes in violation of this law are forfeited to the city or state. An act prohibiting the sale of liquor to Indians or mixed bloods and fixing a penalty for the violation thereof. The state board of tax commissioners are empowered to regulate the enforcement of the law of 1907. The Military Code gives the commanding officer of the National Guard authority, saying, "He shall prohibit or prevent the sale or use of all intoxicating liquors. The sale of intoxicating liquor is prohibited within 2000 feet of State institutions, Normal, Agricultural Colleges, etc., and provides a fine of $200 to $1000 for the violation of this act." In this same year, 1909, the third general liquor law of this state was passed. This is known as the "Local Option Law." The unit of territory under this law shall be each city of the first, second, third or fourth class each unclassified city having a population of 1000 inhabitants and each county having no first, second, third or fourth class city. Under this law the question shall be submitted at the general election or at special elections by the petition of 30 per cent of the electors at the last general election. This is quite a lengthy law and would appear to cover almost every point of regulation of the traffic. One clause of the law says, "No provision is intended or shall be construed to violate or contradict the laws of the United States." The text of this act contains twenty-three sections. This local option law passed the Senate February 18, 1909; passed the House March 4, 1909, and was approved March 12, 1909. We are now close to the present time and it may be well to notice that in 1911 an effort was made to amend the law of 1909. The amendment was introduced in the Senate by Mr. Falconer and known as Senate Bill No. 121. The bill was read the first and second time and was referred to the Committee an Morals--evidently an effort was made to kill the bill in committee. There was two reports, a majority and a minority report. The former was accepted. The bill was advanced to third reading. Eight amendments were offered but all were lost. It passed the senate by a vote of 24 to 16. The measure did not fare as well in the house. Here also it was House Bill 121. It was read the first time, referred to the committee on rules of order, reported back without recommendation, then indefinitely postponed. The legislature in 1911 did at least pass one measure. This law made it a gross misdemeanor to permit minors in saloons. The general law of 1909, which is known as the Local Option Law, was secured through the temperance forces of the state. The strongest and most active organizations are the Independent Order of Good Templars and the Anti-Saloon League. The Good Templars of this state have in addition to the American order a branch society among the Scandinavians, which numbers several thousand voters. Much credit for the advance in temperance and anti-saloon sentiment in Washington must be given to George F. Cotterill, the former mayor of the city of Seattle. Mr. Cotterill has not only been active among the American and Scandinavian Good Templars of which he is the national head in America, but he has been fully as diligent in the circles of organized labor. Labor organizations have been active in temperance agitation. They realize that sober men command a higher wage than drinking men and are quite as zealous as the church in training their members to stay sober. The question of "State Wide Prohibition" will be submitted to a referendum vote of the people of the state in 1914. We have the same question confronting us today that we had 59 years ago. ANNA SLOAN WALKER. DIVORCE IN WASHINGTON In the matter of divorce, the commonwealth of Washington has passed through a social evolution. In the early part of the territorial period it was a common practice for the legislature to enact private laws, granting divorces. The first of these divorces on record was granted by the Oregon territorial legislature as far back as 1845. The ease with which divorces could be obtained resulted in a wholesale abuse of this legislative privilege. According to Arthur A. Denny, Fayette McMullin accepted the office of governor of the territory and came to Olympia for the expressed purpose of obtaining such a legislative divorce. Mr. Denny was plied to vote for the measure but refused. He never would vote for a divorce bill, and always told the applicants to go to the courts for their divorces. Mr. Denny's attitude on the question was shared by many others, as the constant opposition to the practice shows. As for Governor McMullin, he was successful in getting his divorce. It was granted on the 25th day of January, 1858. Two other such divorces were granted at the same session. One was granted at the following session and fifteen at the next. The average at the next few sessions was between ten and fifteen. McMullin afterwards married Miss Mary Wood of Olympia. The fact that he was removed from office for incompetency in July, 1858, will serve to give one an index to his personality. His term of office was from 1857-59 and Charles H. Mason, secretary of the territory, filled out the unexpired term. A more sturdy type of man, who served as war governor, was William Pickering. His views on the granting of legislative divorces is but a voicing of the general sentiment. Prior to his arrival in the territory, unhappy married people had usually applied to the legislature for the granting of divorces. At nearly every session one or more acts had been passed and the divorce business had been particularly active during the two preceding sessions, at one of which fifteen and the other seventeen such acts had been passed. Secretary Turney, as acting governor, had declared against this practice in the message he sent to legislature in December, 1861, but no attention was paid to his recommendation that it be discontinued. Turney's attitude on the question was expressed as follows: "All good citizens acknowledge and respect the marriage relation. Yet, the interests of society are often stabbed and stricken down, and public sentiment outraged and insulted by disregarding that sanctity, in severing those who have been united in wedlock's holy bands. Those ties should be sundered only by courts of competent jurisdiction, and only for one cause--the scriptural ground for a writing of divorcement." Pickering's message was but a renewal of this recommendation and his principal points were that the law declared marriage to be a civil contract, all breaches or violations of which were proper subjects for the judiciary alone. The courts alone could hear the testimony of the parties and they alone could render final judgment and decree for alimony and determine which of the parties should have the care and custody of the minor children. Although sixteen divorces were granted at this session, an act was passed at the succeeding session which practically committed the granting of divorces to the courts, and the practice of applying to the legislature was soon discontinued. Pickering's position on the question, as brought out in his first gubernatorial message to the legislature on December 17, 1862, was as follows: "I should be recreant to the duty I owe to society, if I failed to call your serious attention to the sad and immoral effects growing out of the readiness with which our legislative assemblies have heretofore annulled that most solemn contract of marriage. Let me earnestly invoke you to stay the evils, which result from the legislature granting divorces, thereby destroying the sacred responsibilities and duties of husband and wife merely upon the request, or petition, of one of the parties. "Without intending to trespass upon your law making province, permit me to suggest for your consideration the fact, that the present laws declare marriage to be a civil contract; therefore all breaches or violations of its conditions are proper subjects for the judiciary alone, and not for legislative enactment on one side, or ex parte statements. "The law as it stands upon the statute books of the territory has conferred full jurisdiction upon the courts, in all cases belonging to divorces, which is the only tribunal that can deliberately hear and examine all the witnesses on both sides of those unfortunate domestic difficulties of the parties applying for a dissolution of the marriage contract. "The legislature seldom has the opportunity of hearing any witnesses, even on the side of the complaining party, and never can have before them all the witnesses connected with both parties, especially necessary to the proper adjudication of these cases. It will also be well to remember, that in the divorce cases the legislature cannot decree or enter judgment for alimony, division of property belonging to the married parties, nor legally decide whether the separate husband or wife, shall lawfully continue the possession, care and control of their children. "The court alone can have full power to render final judgment and decree of alimony, division of property and direct who shall have the care and control of the minor children. "Many of the legislatures of the states, for several years past, have positively refused to grant divorces. Eminent lawyers are agreed in the opinion that all divorces granted by the legislature are entirely unconstitutional, and therefore null and void, for the reason that no act of the legislature can destroy, annul, violate, or set aside the said civil contract nor the sacred and religious bonds and mutual obligations entered into by man and wife at the solemnization of marriage. It is at all times a very serious and delicate matter for any person or persons to interfere in any manner in the unhappy quarrels and family difficulties of man and wife. There are few subjects brought before the courts of our country requiring to be treated with more deliberate care and caution than divorces. "Whenever a legislative body takes an action in cases of divorces, it is not improperly regarded as an infringement upon the legislative provinces of the courts. For these reasons I trust your honorable body will firmly refuse to interfere with the rights of husband and wife. Applicants, seeking separation, should be directed to the courts of our territory where they can receive all the relief and remedy for their grievances which the laws of our country afford." In spite of this protest that same session enacted sixteen such private bills, and at the following session the governor renewed his objections. In January, 1866, the legislature enacted a law declaring marriage to be a civil contract which would throw the consideration of divorce into the courts. In 1871 another divorce bill was passed but this was the last and subsequent efforts to revive the practice failed. The attempted constitution of 1878, which was drawn up at Walla Walla, declared against such legislative divorces, as did the approved constitution of 1889. The causes of this dissatisfaction in the method of granting divorces are apparent. The people realized that marriage is the institution at the basis of our social existence. An undoubted reaction against the laxity of the divorce laws was springing up, not only in Washington, but throughout the United States. This action ultimately resulted in two reforms. It diminished the grounds on which a divorce may be granted and it extended the period necessary to establish a legal residence. Today there is no state in which an action for divorce may be brought without a preliminary residence of at least six months. The drift of legislation in the last twenty years has been almost wholly in the direction of greater restriction. In spite of this the national ratio of divorce is 1:12. Although most states have but a single provision in their constitution regarding divorce, Washington has two. They are: Article II, Section 24. The legislature shall never authorize any lottery or grant any divorce. Article IV, Section 6. The superior court shall have jurisdiction of all matters of divorce and for the annulment of marriage. These provisions have removed, beyond all doubt, the granting of legislative divorces. A brief survey of the laws at the present time reveal the following information: _Jurisdiction._ Jurisdiction shall lie in the district court in the county where the petitioner resides. The act of February 21, 1891 provides that divorces shall be granted by the superior court. _Residence._ The petitioner must have been a resident of the state for one year next before the filing of the petitions. This is an amendment of the act of January, 1864, which required only three months. _Service of Process or Notice._ Legal notice shall be personal or by publication. Like process shall be had as in all other civil suits. By the laws of 1893 it is provided that when the defendant cannot be found in the state, a copy of the summons and complaint shall be mailed to him at his place of residence, but if the residence is not known, service may be by publication. Publication must be once each week for six consecutive weeks in a newspaper published in the county where the action is brought or, if there be none there, in an adjoining county, or if there be none there, in the capital of the state. _Causes for Absolute Divorce._ 1. When the consent to the marriage of the party applying for the divorce was obtained by force or fraud and there has been no subsequent voluntary cohabitation. 2. For adultery on the part of the wife or husband, when unforgiven, and application is made within one year after it shall come to his or her knowledge. 3. Impotency. 4. Abandonment for one year. 5. Cruel treatment of either party by the other. 6. Personal iniquities rendering life burdensome. 7. Habitual drunkenness of either party. 8. Neglect or refusal of the husband to make suitable provisions for his family. 9. The imprisonment of either party in the penitentiary, if complaint is filed during the term of such imprisonment. 10. Any other cause deemed by the court sufficient, when the court shall be satisfied that the parties can no longer live together. 11. In the discretion of the court, in case of incurable, chronic mania or dementia of either party, the same having existed for ten years or more. The above causes were in effect in 1887. By an act approved Feb. 24, 1891, cause 6, as given above, was amended so as to read as follows: "Personal indignities rendering life burdensome." _Limited Divorce._ There is no limited divorce in Washington. _Special Provisions for Defence._ Whenever a petition for divorce remains undefended, it shall be the duty of the prosecuting attorney to resist such petition, except where the attorney for the petitioner is a partner of or keeps his office with, such prosecuting attorney, in which case the court shall appoint an attorney to resist the petition. _Temporary Alimony._ During the pendency of an action for divorce, the court may make such orders relative to the expenses of the suit as will insure to the wife an efficient preparation of her case, and a fair and impartial trial thereof. _Permanent Alimony._ In granting a divorce the court shall make such disposition of the property of the parties as shall appear just and equitable, having regard to the respective merits of the parties, and to the condition in which they will be left by such division and to the party through whom the property was acquired, and to the burdens imposed upon it for the benefit of the children. _Refusal of Divorce._ No divorce shall be granted in case of adultery, if the offense has been forgiven by the petitioner, or on the ground of force or fraud, if there has been subsequent voluntary cohabitation of the parties. In case of adultery the action must be commenced within one year after petitioner shall have knowledge of the act. _Answer or Cross-complaint._ The defendant may, in addition to the answer, file a cross complaint for divorce, and the court may grant a divorce in favor of either party. _Change of Name After Divorce._ In granting a divorce, the court may, for just and reasonable cause, change the name of the wife, who shall thereafter be known and called by such name as the court shall in its order or decree appoint. _Trial by Jury._ Practice in civil actions govern all proceedings in the trial of actions for divorce, except that trial by jury is dispensed with. _No Divorce on Confession._ When the defendant does not answer or, answering, admits the allegations in the petition, the court shall require proof before granting the divorce. _Custody of Children._ On granting a decree, the court shall make provision for the guardianship, custody, support and education of the minor children of the marriage. Pending an action for divorce the court may make such orders for the disposition of the children of the parties as may be deemed right and proper. _Remarriage._ When a divorce is granted, a full and complete dissolution of the marriage as to both parties follows: Provided, That neither party shall be capable of contracting marriage with a third person until the period has expired within which an appeal may be taken, or until the determination of such appeal, if taken. The act approved March 9, 1893 in addition, makes such a marriage unlawful under any circumstances within six months, and requires that the judgment or decree must expressly prohibit such a marriage within six months. Thus we have a summary of past and present conditions. In conclusion, a few statistics will clearly show whether or not the laws have accomplished their purpose. Divorces granted in Washington. 1867-86. 1887-1906. 996 16,215 Average annual divorces per 100,000 population. 1900 1890 1880 1870 184 190 75 88 Per 100,000 married population. 1900 1890 513 316 Rank according to average number of annual divorces per 100,000 population. 1900 1890 1880 1870 1. Wash. Colo. Colo. Wyom. & Ind. Terr. 2. Mont. Mont. Mont. ... 3. Colo. Wash. Utah Rhode Is. 4. Ind. Ore. Wyo. Wash. 11. Wash. In city counties In other counties Excess of city rates 1900 1890 1900 1890 1900 1890 266 140 162 103 104 37 Number and cause of divorces granted from 1867-1906. Desertion 6,446 Cruelty 4,026 Neglect to provide 3,087 Adultery 699 Drunkenness 674 Combinations of preceding causes 1,388 All other causes 891 Thus we have the most recent government statistics. However, a review of conditions in King County during the last year will give us a more accurate idea of conditions. The records show that almost 25 per cent of the total number of cases filed in the superior court were divorce cases. The figures show a total of 6,710 cases filed, of which 1,539 were divorce cases. The increase in the number of divorces over 1912 is approximately ten per cent. Of the total number of divorce cases filed decrees were granted in 986 cases, and nearly 200 cases are now pending. The majority of applicants for divorce are wives, the larger number asking for divorce on the grounds of cruelty. The ratio of marriage to divorce in this county for 1913 is 3.5:1. Judges of the superior court, while ascribing different causes to the increase of divorce, all deplore it. One judge holds that a change in the laws would tend to decrease the number of divorces. Other judges hold that divorce is a social matter that is entirely outside of the particular form of law and arises from personal and local surroundings. The total number of divorces, it is held, should not be taken as an indication of local domestic trouble, for the reason that 20 per cent or more come from British Columbia. Of the remainder a large number arise in the cases of people who have arrived from the East during the past two years. The fact remains, however, that it is not easy to account for the wide variation in the divorce rates in the different states. The results are affected by a wide variety of influences: the composition of the population as regards race or nationality; the proportion of immigrants in the total population and the countries from which they came; the relative strength of the prevailing religions and particularly the strength of the Roman Catholic faith against divorce; the variation in divorce laws and in the procedure and practice of the courts granting divorces; the interstate migration of population, either for the purpose of obtaining a divorce or for economic or other reasons not connected with divorce--all these, and doubtless many more, are factors which may affect the divorce rate. The states with the highest ratio are generally those in the western part of the country. The west is a progressive country. But this is one path along which we would prefer to progress less rapidly. Let us not, in our mad rush for wealth, honor and pleasure, forget the religion of our fathers and the sacredness of the marriage bond. Remember that marriage is the foundation of the state and divorce is the torrent which is rushing madly forward in an ever-increasing effort to undermine it. Let each one do his part to divert this ruthless enemy to progress. RALPH R. KNAPP. DOCUMENTS A NEW VANCOUVER JOURNAL Vancouver was one of the greatest explorers who visited the shores of Northwestern America. Any new document that can throw light on his work is therefore important. The known history of this present document is very brief. In 1907, the Macmillan Company published Vancouver's Discovery of Puget Sound, by Edmond S. Meany. The relatively few copies printed travelled widely over the earth. Among the letters received by the author was one from A. H. Turnbull of Wellington, New Zealand. He said Vancouver's work was of great interest to the people in that part of the world because of his explorations there. The armed tender Chatham, consort of Vancouver's ship Discovery, had discovered and named Chatham Island, which was later associated with New Zealand in government. In his search for books bearing on explorations, Mr. Turnbull had located in an old book stall in London the manuscript of a journal kept by a member of the Chatham's crew. He purchased it and placed it in his private library in Wellington. Finding that part of the journal related to the Northwest coast of America he had that portion carefully copied and it is from this copy that the present publication is made, Mr. Turnbull entered "(sic)" in a few doubtful places and these are allowed to stand. He also omitted a portion descriptive of a tragedy in Hawaii. This journal is by no means as full or as finished in style as that of Vancouver, but it will certainly be cherished as a companion to the larger work. Probably one reason for the name of the writer being unknown is that it was a government expedition and no private journals were permitted. The present editor is responsible for the annotations. EDMOND S. MEANY. * * * * * March, 1792. _From the Sandwich Islands to the No. We. Coast of America._ After leaving Ooneehow we had the wind from the Northward and Eastward, with which we stood to the N. W. close hauled. At daylight Ooneehow[147] bore East 7 or 8 leagues, Atooi Eb N 1-2 N, and Tahouru S E b S. As the morning advanced we got the wind from the N. Wrd. and the Signal was made to steer NNE. The wind blew fresh in squalls attended with rain all day and at night, and we lost sight of the Discovery, in the morning she was perceived a considerable distance to Leeward with only her head sails set, and we bore down to her, and as we came nearer we judged from what we saw going forward on board her, that she had sprung her Main Mast, indeed we could observe clearly that they were fishing it. This disagreeable weather continued several days, the wind chiefly from the Nd. & NbE. On the 23rd our Latitude: was 24.49 Nd. and the Longe: 209° Et. We now began to feel a very considerable change in the weather, and from the thin linen clothes that we were used to wear at the Islands, we were obliged to change to our warmest dresses. The Sandwich Island fowls though fed on their own country food all died. The 24th in the afternoon being calm Capt. B. went on board the Discovery, and Mr. Paget[148] returned and dined on board the Chatham, when we learnt that their Main Mast was not only sprung, as we conjectured but that they had found the head of the Foremast also sprung, and had carried away both the Fore & Main Top Gallant Yards on the night of the 19th. In the evening we had the wind again from the N Erd. which continued and with it continued also very gloomy disagreeable weather. On the 27th our Lat: was at noon 24.21 N and the Longe: 215.5 Et. Tack'd and stood to the N W. We kept tacking occasionally, and on the 31st we were no further to the Nd. than the Lat. of 28°. The 1st of April being the Anniversary of our leaving England, double allowance of Grog was served to the Ship's Company to commemorate the day and drink the healths of their old friends at home. We made but a very poor hand of working through the Trade Wind and from the 1st to the 4th made scarce anything. We then got the breeze pretty fresh with fair weather at N. E. and steered N. N. W. the Lat: 30.26 N. this fine weather continued till the 6th when we were in Lat: of 33.59 N. and the Longe: of 216.30 Et. It was not till the 8th in the Lat: of 36° N. that we lost the N E trade, to carry it so far is uncommon; we then had it calm, and two gentlemen from the Discovery who had been shooting some marine Birds came on board. They had kill'd a very large bird call'd by the sailors Mother Carey's Goose, it measured 7-1/2 feet from tip to tip of the wings. They told us they had seen a duck fly past the Ship the day before, which is somewhat surprising as we know of no land very near us. This day and yesterday observed the surface of the water to be covered with a species of what is call'd the Medusa Vanilla.[149] The weather became now very thick & foggy with drizzling rain, and it continued for the most part calm till the 10th. When a breeze began to freshen from the W b S we made all sail steering E N E. In the morning of the 11th it veer'd to S E b S where it made a stand with fine pleasant weather. Our Lat: that day was 36.10 and the Longe: 221.8 Et. We had this fine weather till the 16th when the wind veer'd to E S E blowing in hard squalls attended with rainy dirty weather, that at night increased to a hard gale and brought us to close reef'd Topsails. We wore occasionally, and our Lat: at Noon was 38.50 N. The gale settled at S. E. increasing in volume, and in the course of the night, we were oblig'd to hand the Topsails. Moderating a little by the morning, we let out the reefs and stood to the E N E. At noon the 17th the Lat: was 39.23 N and the Longe: 234.50 Et. The weather was very thick and Hazy, and about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, the Discovery who was two mile ahead of us made the Signal for seeing the Land. At this time we had vast numbers of Shags, Divers, Ducks & other Birds of the Seashore about us, but from the thickness of the weather it was not till near 5 o'clock that we saw the Land, when the Coast of New Albion[150] was seen bearing from N b E to E b S. not many miles distant. The haze over the Land clearing up a little gave us an opportunity of seeing it. It had a very pleasing appearance, high and covered to the top with tall pines with here and there some rich verdant lawns. We tack'd early and stood off and on during the night and in the morning stretch'd in again for the shore. We had no wind till towards noon when a fine breeze from S. S. E. sprung up and we bore away along shore with all sail set. As we had now entered upon our Station, and the survey of the Coast, we were obliged to haul off at dark and spend the night in short boards, that we might take up the Land in the morning where we left off the evening before. The 19th we had a fine moderate Breeze at S. E. with which we run along shore. Our Lat: at Noon 40.2 N & Long: 235.22 Et. It freshened in the evening with rainy hazy weather and by midnight we had a very hard gale which continued all the 21st. In the morning of the 22nd it fell calm with thick, foggy unpleasant weather and it was not till the following day that we were enabled to get in with the Land and run along shore. Our weather was now clear and pleasant with the wind from the Sd: & S. Eastd. At noon on the 24th our Lat: was 42.31 N and it falling calm soon after, with a Current setting us fast on Shore we anchor'd per Signal in 37 fm: in a deep Bay, the N Extreme of which is a remarkable Cape, which Captn: Vancouver named Cape Orford[151], in honor of the Earl of that name. We presently found that this place was inhabited, for two Canoes appear'd (the first on this Coast we had seen) one of which went to the Discovery, the other came to us. In this one there were five men who after making fast their canoe came on board with great confidence, and did not shew much surprise on entering the Vessel. Though they had brought nothing purposely to sell yet they were perfectly well acquainted with bartering, and their Cloathing which was Deer Skins with one or two Fox Skins, and a few Bows & Arrows that they had, they readily sold for trifles, nor wou'd they part with anything till they got what they conceived an equivalent. They were fond of metal of any kind and Bits of Iron & Yellow Buttons they eagerly took. One of them had a thin bit of old Iron fixed into a piece of wood as a knife. Some of them had ornaments of Necklaces, composed of a small black berry and shells, intermixed with small tubes of copper. Their Ears and the Septum of the Nose were perforated and ornamented in the same manner. They were perfectly naked except two of them that had deer skins thrown loosely over their shoulders. Their colour was not easily to be found out from the quantity of dirt and paint with which they were besmeared, but were they clean I should suppose they are something of an Olive colour. They had very bad teeth, their hair was black and grew long behind, and their Language was the most uncouth I ever heard. Their Bows were small and made from the Ewe Tree and their Arrows were strait and even of about two feet and a half long, feathered at one end and barbed and pointed with flint at the other. Some of them had also Knives of Flint. Their canoes were extremely rude and unwieldy and little calculated for any distant embarkation, they were about 17 feet in length, 4ft. 6in. in breadth at the Gunwales, and 3 feet deep, roughly hewn out of one solid tree, flat bottom'd and square at each end. After selling every little thing they had they took their leave. This Canoe had no Sea Otter skins in her but the one that went to the Discovery had a couple of small Cub Otter Skins. 25th. At night with the land wind we weigh'd and stood out to the Wd. and at daylight with a fair Soly: Breeze bore away along shore. The fair and pleasant weather continued, and on the 27th at noon we observed in the Lat: of 46.10 N. Just then the Discovery made the Signal that we were standing into Danger, we haul'd out, this situation is off Cape Disappointment from whence a very extensive Shoal stretches out and there was every appearance of an opening there, but to us the sea seem'd to break entirely across it.[152] On the 28th at Noon our Lat: was 47.32 N and in the Evening the 29th falling calm, we came to an anchor with the Discovery near Destruction Island, the place where a Boat's Crew of the Imperial Eagle commanded by Mr. Berkley[153] were barbarously murdered by the Natives as mention'd in Mears' Voyage. None of the natives came off to us but we observ'd two canoes entering a small Bay abreast of us. At about 3 we weigh'd per Signal and at 5 set Studding Sails with a moderate Soly: Breeze, but rainy weather. At daylight a strange Sail was seen in the N. W. quarter standing towards us, she hoisted American Colours. About 7 we spoke her, she proved to be the Ship Columbia of Boston commanded by a Mr Grey,[154] on the Fur trade. She had wintered on the Coast in Port Clynquot[155] in Berkley's Sound. This Mr. Grey being the man who Mr Mears[156] in his Chart has published having entered the Streights of De Fuca, and after proceeding a considerable distance up, return'd to sea again by another passage to the Northward of that by which he entered--Captn: Vancouver was desirous of obtaining from him some information respecting the Streights, he therefore hoisted a boat out, and sent an officer on board the Columbia. Mr Grey very civilly offered him any information he could possibly give him, but at the same time told him that Mr Mears had been very much misled in his information and had published what never had happened; for though he (Mr Grey) did enter the Streights of De Fuca, and proceeded a considerable distance, where he still saw an unbounded horizon, he return'd, but return'd by the same way he entered. He had been two & twenty months from Boston, and had obtained a valuable cargo of Furs. He had built a small sloop of about 45 tons at Clyoquot which was now trading to the Northward. He gave no very favourable account of the Northern Indians whose daring and insolent spirit had carried them to very unwarrantable lengths. Several attempts had been made by them to seize his, and other Vessels on the Coast. Several people of different Ships had been treacherously murdered, and Mr Grey's Chief Mate with two of the seamen were in this manner murder'd while fishing round a point of Land, a small distance from the Ship. This happen'd somewhere about the Lat: of 54-1/4°. After the Boat with the Officer return'd we made sail to the Nd. and the Columbia stretched in for the Shore. About noon we were nearly abreast of the much talked of Streights of Juan De Fuca, the Discovery made our Signal to lead in. The weather was thick and Hazy and prevented our having an observation. Cape Classet[157] at Noon bore N 20 E 2 miles. This Cape is settled by Captn: Vancouver in the Lat: of 48.23 N and the Longe: 235.38 Et. At one o'clock we haul'd round Green Island,[158] and as we pass'd had a view of the Spiral Rock,[159] which is remarkable. On Green Island is a very large Village, and from it and the Villages on the Main, a number of canoes came off. The Natives brought a number of Otter Skins to sell, but wou'd part with none for anything but Copper & Blue Cloth Cloathing with Metal Buttons they were very eager after and we saw several with Blue Coats & round Hats. Mr Mears is very much out in the distance he makes the entrance of these Streights, he says they are 15 leagues wide, whereas the Entrance is no more than 12 leagues in breadth. In the Evening having but little wind and it coming on thick we brought up on the S. shore in 12 fathoms water and then observed the Columbia following us. She had just entered the Streights. After we came too a few fish were caught with the hook & line. May. The following morning the 1st of May with a fine breeze at West and clear pleasant weather we got under weigh and proceeded up the Streights, and left the Columbia off Green Island laying too, bartering with the Natives for Skins. Several canoes follow'd us with skins, fish &c., to sell but the rage was copper; next to this article Cloth & wearing apparel with Brass Buttons, Copper wrist bands, Musquets & Swords were chiefly in demand. Among other articles offered for sale was their children, several were offered for a Musket or a Sheet of Copper. The women being the first we had seen since leaving the Sandwich Islands, had not a few attacks of Gallantry made on them by the Sailors though they were by no means inviting. But however great the difference between them and the Sandwich Islanders in point of Beauty much greater was it in point of behaviour, for here the smallest degree of indelicacy towards one of these Ladies, shock'd their modesty to such a degree, and had such an effect on them, that I have seen many of them burst into tears, they would endeavour to hide themselves in the bottom of their canoes and discover the most extreme degree of uneasiness and distress. Some of the canoes were very large and contain'd a whole family of men & women and a considerable part of their Household furniture, large Bladders full of their delicious Whale Oil was in every canoe and the little Infants in their Cradles were plied with large quantities of it by their Mothers. As we got the Breeze fresher, the canoes soon dropp'd off. About 6 o'clock in the evening having run about 20 leagues from the Entrance in a Bite on the S. side in 8 fathoms, from this the Streights appear'd to widen, but we saw some very distant land in which there were many apparent large openings. So far as we had yet proceeded up these Streights, we had seen no opening, nor the appearance of any Harbour, on the Southern, or Continental Shore; now two or three openings presented themselves, and as the great object of the voyage was if possible to discover a communication by water between this Coast and the Lakes situated on the other side of America, the Continental Shore must of course be kept always aboard and all openings minutely explored. Captain Vancouver was now anxious to get the Vessels into a Harbor, and while the Vessels were refitting it was intended that the boats should be sent to explore the openings now in sight. Accordingly the next morning he went himself in the Pinnace, accompanied by our Cutter (both well arm'd) to look for a Harbour. This they found at a short distance from us, and the next morning we weigh'd and made sail for it. The Harbour was a very complete one and shelter'd from all winds but the water was deep and we anchor'd in 25 fathoms water not a quarter of a mile from the Shore. This place at first was named Port Discovery, conceiving ourselves the first that had been in it, but we afterwards found ourselves mistaken, it having been visited by two Spanish Vessels, and call'd Port Quadra,[160] by which name it was continued and we settled its Lat: to be 48.2.30 N and the Long: 237.22.19 E. Opposite to where the Vessels lay a low Point of Land run out, where there was an excellent run of Freshwater. Here the Tents and Observatory were set up, and there being plenty of Spruce Pine here a party from each Ship was sent on shore to brew Spruce Beer for the Ships' Companies. As this Beverage was well known to be a great Antiscorbutic, the people were allow'd to drink freely of it in lieu of their Grog. As the Chatham was very open in her upper works the Carpenters of both Vessels were employ'd in Caulking her. Not having met the Store ship at the Sandwich Islands as was expected and fearing that we might probably not see her till the next Season at those Islands, and possibly not then, should any unfortunate accident have happen'd to her in which case we should have been somewhat distress'd for Provisions particularly Bread & Flour, it was only proper to guard against such disappointments and delays. The Ships Company was therefore on the 5th put to two-thirds allowance of Bread only. This on the coast of America cou'd be no hardship as Fish is always to be got. We haul'd the Seine here generally every day, and in general with success, and we frequently got Salmon Trout in it. On the 17th Captn: Vancouver, with Lieut: Paget, and Mr. Johnstone our Master set out in 3 Boats well Mann'd and arm'd, and victuall'd for a week, to explore the openings between this and our last anchorage which I spoke of. In the meantime the Vessels were refitting for sea. The Powder was sent on shore to dry, and being in want of Plank the Carpenters were employ'd, after the Caulking was finished, in sawing up a fine large tree, of which there were plenty, and very convenient. As there were no Inhabitants here we carried on all our operations with facility; now and then a couple or 3 canoes wou'd come in with a little Fish to sell, but this was not often, and they were very quiet and inoffensive. They were evidently a tribe that visited the Sea Coast but seldom, as they were generally clad in skins of Land animals, and during our stay here, they brought but one Sea Otter skin to sell. Once or twice they brought some fresh kill'd Venison which was very acceptable to us, for though we could everywhere observe the track of Deer, and shooting excursions were frequently made, we were never so fortunate to shoot any here. When the time arrived for the expected return of the Boats we began impatiently to look out for them, but it was not till the 16th that they return'd to the Ships, after nine days absence. They had examined several arms or openings, which after running some distance inland closed, and they had left some extensive openings unexplored to the Eastward of this Port, where it was now intended to proceed to with the Ships. Having got everything ready for Sea, on the 18th we sail'd out of Port Quadra. The weather was fair and pleasant, indeed we had enjoy'd much fine weather in Port. After getting outside, by desire of Captn: Vancouver, we parted company with the Discovery, in order to examine an opening in the N. W. quarter, whilst she proceeded up an arm to which the Continent had been brought, to the Eastd. of Port Quadra. We cross'd the Streights with a fine Breeze, and entered the opening about 6 o'clock in the evening and came to an anchor for the night. In the morning boats were dispatched to examine the branches which run within this opening, which employ'd us till the 23rd. It is very extensive being full of Islands.[15] The land is delightful, being in many places clear and the soil so rich that the grass in several parts grew to man height. We were surprised in such a fine country to find scarce and inhabitants, not a smoke or a village was seen, and only two small canoes with 3 people in each were met by the Boats in all their cruizing; from these, three young Fawns just kill'd were purchased. We saw several Deer on the sides of the rising grounds, but could never kill any. The navigation in this place so full of Rocks and small Islands was intricate and dangerous. On the 21st we touch'd a Rock on one side, whilst at the other we had twenty-two fathoms water. On the 23rd we again entered the Streights but a different opening to that we came in at. We cross'd over and about Noon got into the arm up which the Discovery went when we parted from her. Here we met with a small tribe of Indians who came off to sell a little fish, Bows & Arrows, and some few skins of Land Animals. We observ'd among them some articles we knew they must have got our of the Discovery, and they soon made sufficient (sic) that she was up the arm. The people spoke a different language from the Indians we saw at the entrance of Dufuca's Streights though little else about them appeared different for they were equally as dirty. It seemed evident that their intercourse with Ships had been limited (if indeed they ever had any) from their surprize and astonishment at many things, and their not having about them any European articles whatever except it might be a knife, but they had a very good idea of bartering and wou'd not part with anything without the value of it. Copper was yet the rage. (To be continued.) FOOTNOTES: [147] The names here given of the Hawaiian Islands are not all recognizable, but this one is evidently the modern Oahu. [148] This officer is always referred to as Mr. Paget. Captain George Vancouver, chief of the expedition, used the more familiar spelling and the world has long known him as Lieutenant Peter Puget. [149] A form of jelly-fish. Other common names are sun-fish, sun-squalls and umbrella-jellies. [150] This name was given to the Northwest coast of America by Sir Francis Drake two hundred years before this voyage. [151] This name is still in use on the Southern coast of Oregon. [152] Here is seen the reason why the expedition doubted the existence of a river there until Captain Robert Gray discovered and named the Columbia River during that same year. [153] The family and the British Columbia map-makers are particular about this name being spelled Barkley. See Captain John T. Walbran's British Columbia Coast Names, Pp. 33-35. [154] This name is also misspelled throughout. He refers to Captain Robert Gray. [155] He refers to Clayoquot Sound but errs in making it a part of Barkley Sound. [156] Like errors in other names, he leaves out a letter in that of Captain John Meares. [157] A former name for Captain Cook's Cape Flattery. Vancouver mentions "Classet" as the Indian name, but in a footnote gives the name Cook had written on his chart. [158] In 1788, Meares named this island "Tatoosh" after the Indian chief he found there. Vancouver calls it Tatooche. See Vancouver's Voyage (2nd Ed.), Volume II, p. 46. It is not clear where the writer got this name of Green Island. [159] This rock was supposed to be the one referred to in the De Fuca record now supposed to be a myth. Vancouver refers to it in doubtful terms. [160] The crew may have continued the use of this older Spanish name, but Vancouver in text and chart retained the name Port Discovery, which continues to the present time. BOOK REVIEWS THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE, OR KLALAM AND KLICKATAT. By Theodore Winthrop, to which are now first added his Western Letters and Journals. Edited, with an Introduction and Notes, by John H. Williams. With sixteen color plates and more than one hundred other illustrations. Royal 8vo. half vellum. (Tacoma, John H. Williams, Publisher, 1913. Pp. XXVI, 332. $5.00 net; express 30 cents extra.) The number of books properly classed as "Northwest Americana" is surprisingly small. Through the instrumentality of Mr. John H. Williams, of Tacoma, Winthrop's "Canoe and Saddle" enjoys the distinction of recently appearing in new form, enlarged, annotated and illustrated. The new book retains all we older men and women have prized for half a century, and, in addition, the author's complete Western travels are presented to us in a volume to delight every lover of good and beautiful books. Mr. Williams' previous work had been good preparation for this still more important undertaking. A lifelong student and newspaper editor, he is not only an experienced writer, but also an enthusiast for the Northwest, to which he has given two notable books of his own, "The Mountain That Was 'God'" and "The Guardians of the Columbia." No other volumes so well and so briefly tell so much of the scenery, physical geography and Indian lore of our North Pacific Wonderland. It was natural that he should see in Winthrop's graphic story the foundation for an artistic book, which would, by reason of its added Winthrop material and its editor's notes and illustrations, be largely a new work. Mr. Williams has restored in a sub title Winthrop's own name for the book, "Klalam and Klickatat." Two survivors of that early period, Gen. Henry C. Hodges, who, as a lieutenant of the Fourth U. S. Infantry, was adjutant of Capt. McClellan's railway reconnaissance in the Cascades, and Col. E. Jay Allen, builder of the famous "Citizens' Road," which Winthrop describes with much humor, contribute interesting recollections of the brilliant young adventurer, and of events in which he and they played a part in that eventful summer. In the spring of 1853, Theodore Winthrop, then only twenty-five, came to the Pacific Coast from Panama. Five years earlier he had been graduated from Yale, with honors in languages and history. Not of robust constitution, he sought health by life in the open air. Two years were passed in the south of Europe, mainly in travel on foot amid the Alps and in the Mediterranean countries. Study of the scenery and historical monuments of those lands developed a naturally poetic and imaginative mind, and prepared him to appreciate the vast panorama that spread before him as he traveled from the Isthmus to California, thence, after a brief stay in San Francisco, up the coast by steamer to the Columbia, overland from there to Puget Sound, and finally across the Cascades and through our great "Inland Empire," homeward bound, to Salt Lake and Fort Laramie. This journey of half a year, then almost unprecedented, is fully recorded in his letters and journals which Mr. Williams has recovered for us. In these wanderings Winthrop visited the young communities of the Northwest, Portland, Salem, Vancouver, The Dalles, Olympia, Nisqually, Steilacoom, Port Townsend, Victoria. He studied its scenery, resources and people. He quickly won the regard of pioneer leaders, army officers, Hudson's Bay Company factors, and of the humbler settlers as well, by a hearty democratic appreciation of the meaning of their work in founding future states. It was just this quality, as Mr. Williams has well shown, that enabled Winthrop to understand the raw west. To a real liking for people add his well trained powers of observation, unfailing humor, a vivid imagination and a tireless love of adventure, and we have the secret of his success as a painter of the frontier and its life. In his delightful introduction Mr. Williams points out and emphasizes these qualities: "Winthrop was probably better fitted to study and portray the West than any other Eastern man who attempted to describe it. His books and still more his private letters and journals show him wholly free from that tenderfoot superiority of tone found in most of the contemporary writings of Eastern men who visited the frontier. In an age when sectionalism was fast driving toward civil war, his point of view was broadly national. His pride in his country as a whole had only been deepened by education and foreign travel. He had come home from Europe feeling the value to humanity of the struggle and opportunities presented by the conquest of the new continent. In the rough battle with the forest, in the stumpy farms on the little clearings, in the crude road that would link the infant settlements with the outside world, he recognized the very processes that had laid strong the foundations of the republic to which later he so gladly gave his life. Ungainly as was the present, this descendant of the great governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut saw in it the promise of a splendid and beneficent future. "Most of our writers in the years preceding the Civil War were either occupied with sectional discussions and local traditions, or were looking to Europe and the past for their inspiration. * * * For fiction, our people read 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' and reprints of the English novelists. Our literature had not yet discovered the West. Winthrop's Western books, 'The Canoe and the Saddle' and 'John Brent,' minted new ore." George William Curtis, who was Winthrop's neighbor on Staten Island and his closest friend in the years just before the war, bore similar testimony, in a conversation with Mr. Williams more than twenty years ago: "Winthrop's death was as great a loss to American letters as was that of John Keats to English poetry. He was far ahead of his time in thinking continentally. Cut off before his prime, his books, brilliant as they are, are the books of a young man. But he had vision and power, and had he lived to improve his art, I have always believed that he might have become the strongest, because the most truly American, of our writers." Readers of Books of Old Oregon are all familiar with the early "Canoe and Saddle." It was the only work in lighter vein descriptive of conditions on the ultimate frontier, when we had here a white population vastly outnumbered by the Indians. The new volume will appeal to surviving pioneers, to Native Sons and Daughters, and to all who are genuinely interested in Northwestern history. The original "Canoe and Saddle" tells only of its author's last days in Washington Territory. It recounts his swift trip by boat, with the celebrated Clallam chief, the "Duke of York," from Port Townsend to Fort Nisqually, and thence under other Indian guidance across Naches Pass to The Dalles. For the second part of his journey he had as his guide a treacherous young Indian whom he calls "Loolowcan the Frowsy," but who was in real life, as Mr. Williams discovered from an entry in the old "Journal of Events" kept by the Hudson's Bay Company at Nisqually, no less notorious a character than Qualchen, son of the chief Owhi. Both of these Klickitats, father and son, are remembered as trouble-makers in our territorial history, and both paid with their lives for the parts they took in the great Indian war of 1855-7. The role played by Qualchen in murdering the Indian agent, A. J. Bolon, and thus starting that war, is now well known. It is proof of Winthrop's nerve that even after he saw the shifty nature of his guide, he refused to heed the warnings of Allen and his fellow road-builders, whom he met in the Cascades, but pushed ahead with him over the mountains to the Yakima country, where white men were scarcer even than on the Sound. Later, he may have realized that but for the presence of McClellan's soldiers on the Naches, and for the long arm of the Hudson's Bay Company, which had outfitted him for his trip, he probably would have anticipated the fate of Bolon. But he tells of his adventure as gaily as if he had felt no danger, and with a zest that make his own enjoyment of its incidents contagious. "The Canoe and the Saddle" was the first book to put our Northwestern scenery into literature. Its account of Puget Sound, of the Cascades with their forests, canyons, ranges and snow-peaks, and of the Columbia basin, stamps Winthrop as a true poet and lover of nature. No better descriptive writing has yet been inspired by the Northwest. The original "Canoe and Saddle" had a supplement describing Panama as Winthrop saw it in 1852 and 1854. Mr. Williams has very properly omitted this, since it had no relevancy to the book; and he has substituted Winthrop's letters and journals, which, with other new matter already mentioned, make up more than a third of the volume. This part of the book is of especial value to students of Western history, and of absorbing interest to the few remaining pioneers who, like the writer, crossed the plains in a "prairie schooner." In 1852, our wagon train was part of the great migration westward over South Pass in the Rockies. From Fort Hall we came across the Blue Mountains to The Dalles. A year later Winthrop traveled homeward practically over the same route. His journals, with their brief but illuminating descriptions of people and scenes that presented themselves as he rode swiftly eastward, bring back memories of our five months' journey along the old "Oregon Trail." Most of his names of men and places, his notes of the great army of settlers pushing forward to California and the Northwest, his accounts of the British recruits for Mormonism, which he later expanded in his stirring Western novel, "John Brent," and his pen-pictures of the wild lands that are even now just beginning to yield to irrigation and settlement,--all this will be appreciated by every immigrant of that early day. Allowing for their personal appeal to me as a pioneer, I still feel that Winthrop's letters and journals add as much to the value of Mr. Williams's edition as they do to its scope. Winthrop's monologues in Chinook are idiomatically correct, but the proof-reading of the original was done by persons unfamiliar with the "jargon," and a number of typographical errors occurred. Unfortunately, some of these have been perpetuated in the new edition. The Chinook vocabulary however, has been revised and materially improved by Dr. C. M. Buchanan, Indian agent at Tulalip. The editor's notes are accurate, succinct and interesting. He has happily kept in view the Eastern reader who knows little of the West, but he has not on that account overloaded the book with notes. Several passages, indeed, would bear further annotation. The appendixes are valuable for the light they throw on the methods of McClellan, the building of the heroic road across the Naches, our Indian place names, and other matters of historic interest. Mr. Williams's success in selecting the illustrations testifies to experience and much study, and would alone make the volume noteworthy. The pictures are of great historical value, and they really illustrate the text. There are sixteen magnificent plates in color and forty-eight half-tones. These show the Sound, the Columbia, the Cascades with all their snow-peaks from Mt. Hood northward; many scenes of Indian life, our coast cities in their infancy, the army posts and Hudson's Bay forts. More than sixty line etchings in the text give us portraits of the important personages of the book, white and Indian. Several of the illustrations are from celebrated paintings, others from rare books, or from early photographs treasured by our Northwestern historical societies and museums, the National Museum at Washington, and the great American Museum of Natural History in New York. Mr. Williams himself made a trip with a photographer across Naches Pass and obtained splendid views of Winthrop's route through a region now rarely visited. This book is of the highest value to students of our Western history, and of such beauty and interest as make it a joy to all readers. I bespeak for it a place in every public and home library in the Northwest. CLARENCE B. BAGLEY. * * * * * EARLY HISTORY OF IDAHO. By ex-Governor W. J. McConnell. (Caldwell, Idaho, The Caxton Printers, 1913. Pp. 420.) It has been somewhat the fashion (and a very good fashion it is) of late years by retired public men, Governors, Senators and others, to leave in the form of reminiscences or histories the record of the events in which they were participants. Among recent volumes in this field we find that W. J. McConnell, twice honored and Honorable, as Governor and Senator, has given the world a view of the Idaho of which he was one of the builders. This volume may be considered as having official endorsement, for it is authorized by the Idaho legislature. Governor McConnell is well qualified for the work. Long residence in the great state so well styled the "Gem of the Mountains," an intimate acquaintance with affairs from the days of the Vigilantes to date, an accurate memory, and a clear, simple and vivid style, all qualify the author to tell the story of Idaho. Broadly speaking, we may note that the book consists of two main features. The first is a series of events in the days of the "bad man," the mining and Indian era. The second is largely composed of extracts from legislative sessions and judicial proceedings. In this material and the handling of it are both the strength and weakness of the book. For the account of the desperadoes, though vivid, interesting, and no doubt characteristic of that period, occupies so much space as to give a disproportionate importance to it. The extensive extracts from legislative and court proceedings, though valuable, lack the introductions and explanatory connections desirable for a continuous story. They therefore lack perspective and give a fragmentary impression. Moreover the two types of matter are rather incongruous, one being so much of a "Wild West" type of narrative and the other suggesting a small volume of session laws. There are occasional slips in names and statements indicating imperfect proof-reading. On page 31 we find _William_ P. Hunt. It should be _Wilson_. On page 32 it is stated that the Hunt party was near the site of old Fort Boise on Dec. 24. This could not be possible for they were in the Grand Ronde on New Year's Day and had been struggling for many days along Snake River in the vicinity of the present Huntington and up Powder River into the present Baker Valley. On page 33 we find _Worth_ for _Wyeth_. We find Spalding spelled Spaulding, and De Smet appears as Demet. But these and other slips are relatively of little moment and do not detract from the general interest and value of the volume. Among the many items of interest in the history of legislative acts is the mention on page 370 of the fact that the Idaho Territorial Legislature acted as a divorce court and that a number of discordant couples were separated by act of legislature. One historical matter of much interest, which has almost drifted from the remembrance of the present time is the effort made in both Idaho and Washington, as well as Congress, to attach Northern Idaho to Washington, in 1885-6, and the final failure of the congressional bill to go into effect. This book of Governor McConnell may certainly be regarded as a valuable contribution to the historical literature of our section. W. D. LYMAN. * * * * * FOLLOWING OLD TRAILS. By Arthur L. Stone. (Missoula, Montana, Morton J. Elrod, 1913. Pp. 304.) The author of this book has been for some years and still is the editor of "The Missoulian," the leading daily newspaper of the Bitter Root Valley in Montana. From personal experiences and acquaintances he gradually accumulated the material for a series of articles entitled Old Trails, or Trail Stories, which appeared in the Sunday editions of his paper during the years 1911 and 1912. These articles, written in free newspaper style and without claim for historical accuracy, have now been gathered together in book form and published by Prof. Elrod of the University of Montana, this at the request of numerous residents of Western Montana, who recognized the value of the contributions and the wisdom of preserving them. In his foreword the author frankly states his reluctance to grant the request and the unworthiness of the material for book form, but has wisely refrained from any revision or amplification. Mr. Stone has made good use of his acquaintance with localities and men and events prominent in the exploration and settlement and growth of Western Montana, and his book furnishes the reader with a glimpse of the wealth of historic material to be had for the digging in that comparatively new state. It has not been appreciated by many that in point of time the Indian trade near the head waters of Clark Fork of the Columbia antedated that at Astoria, and that the railroads traversing Montana follow for miles the lines of travel early in use by explorer, fur trader, missionary, prospector and immigrant. Many tracks of these various periods of pioneering have been actually traveled by Mr. Stone, in some instances with the very men who had used them during the fifties and sixties; of others he has learned from the lips of those yet living to tell the story, and of others he has read the authoritative sources. With Dr. Elliott Coues he personally followed the trail of Lewis and Clark through the Bitter Root Valley, with Judge Woody (a Montana pioneer of 1857 who contributed to this Quarterly in No. 4 of Vol. 3) he climbed Gibson Pass, the main range of the Rockies, with Duncan McDonald, who was born on the Salish reservation in 1849, he has traveled along the Jocko, and of the deeds of the Vigilantes he had the facts from the very men who took active part in that movement. There are numerous errors apparent to the close student of history but these may be overlooked in an appreciation of the actual value of such a contribution, to the pioneer families of Montana to whom it is dedicated and to the large number of casual readers who get their first incentive for further reading and study from such a source. The book is plainly but well bound and illustrated. Doubtless the suggestion for its publication came from the meeting of the Society of Montana Pioneers at Missoula in September, 1913, which meeting it was the privilege of the writer of this review to attend, and its early appearance is an example of how they do things in Montana when they set out to. T. C. ELLIOTT. * * * * * PIONEER TALES OF THE OREGON TRAIL. By Charles Dawson. (Topeka. Crane and Company. 1912. Pp. 488.) This book relates almost entirely to the Oregon Trail and other matters and people in Jefferson county, Nebraska. In fact, Jefferson county is made a secondary part of the title. It is full of incidents connected with the early settlements of that locality, in the 1850s, 1860s and into the 1870s. It goes back of those dates in telling of the coming of the Spaniards in the 1500s, of the French in the 1700s and of the Americans in the first years of the 1800s. The wars of the Indians and with the Indians occupy considerable space, and also the lawless acts of the white frontiersmen. The Trail is mentioned continually in connection with these events, and with the great movements of immigration to Oregon, Utah and California before the completion of the Union Pacific Railroad. The book contains a great number of short biographies, and sightly illustrations, chiefly portraits. No doubt this work is highly prized in its home locality, and in future years will there be looked upon as a first service historical authority. The reviewer somewhat depreciates the use of "Trail" in connection with the magnificent highway referred to. "Trail" is a recent day appellation. It was the finest and greatest road in the United States, and probably in the world, being two thousand miles in length, of great width, six or eight teams driving abreast; of easy grades and of good, surface--in nowise resembling the ordinary understanding of a trail. How truthful and reliable these Nebraska tales are it is, of course, impossible for one at this distance to say. We will suppose they are all right. Some other statements are not. What will be thought, for instance, of this sentence, taken from page 22: "Prior to Dr. White's band of colonists, a Dr. Whitman, who was a missionary in the Puget Sound country, where he had settled in 1835 with a colony of Americans, and where there were only about 150 white people living at this early date, was sent to Washington. D. C., to place the situation of that section before Congress, setting forth the fears of the American residents that England had intentions of forcibly adding this vast country to her domain." THOMAS W. PROSCH. * * * * * CONTEMPORARY HISTORY, 1877-1913. By Charles A. Beard, Associate Professor of Politics in Columbia University. (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1914, Pp. 397.) Professor Beard, whose work in opening new paths in historical study ranks him among the most virile writers and thinkers, breaks another historical tradition in the present volume. Constantly being confronted by the facts that students know almost nothing of the elementary facts of American history since the Civil War, Professor Beard concluded to break down one reason for it--by presenting a handy guide to contemporary history. This volume like all Professor Beard's writings is vigorous, stimulating and incisive. It is not meant to be the final word, but it is hoped that it will stimulate "on the part of the student some of that free play of mind which Matthew Arnold has shown to be so helpful in literary criticism." The work was well worth doing and has been exceptionally well done. * * * * * VIRGINIA UNDER THE STUARTS, 1607-1688. By Thomas J. Wertenbaker, Ph. D. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1914. Pp. 271.) Doctor Wertenbaker presents a neatly printed volume in which the story of Virginia's history is rewritten in the light of the results of modern research into the documentary side of Virginia's early colonial history. He has made no claims of originality but appreciating the need of a history of Virginia which takes into account the newer discoveries of manuscripts, legislative journals and letters, and the work put forth in monographs, he has rewritten the account. Students of Virginia history who have not had access to this new material, or the time to digest it will thoroughly appreciate Doctor Wertenbaker's services. May his good example be followed by others. * * * * * LES ETATS-UNIS D'AMERIQUE. By Baron D'Estournelles de Constant. (Paris, Librairie Armand Colin, 1913. Pp. 536. 5 fr.) This volume of observations upon the United States is based upon the author's extended trip through this country in the year 1911. While on his journey he wrote a series of letters for publication in "Le Temps" of Paris and these letters have been revised and printed in book form. The volume forms a most interesting study of American characteristics as seen by this distinguished foreigner. With rare discernment he has caught the spirit of all that is best in our American life and the book should go far toward cementing the friendly relations existing between France and the United States. While written primarily for his own countrymen, it will be read with great pleasure by those whose activities are so appreciatively described. Particularly complimentary are the author's impressions of Seattle and the Pacific Northwest. * * * * * THE POWER OF IDEALS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. By E. D. Adams, Ph. D. Professor of History, Leland Stanford, Jr. University. (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1913. Pp. 159.) Five lectures delivered at Yale University on The Responsibilities of Citizenship are collected by Professor Adams into a handsome and stimulating little volume. In a sense they are an offset to the prevailing emphasis in American History upon economic and geographic influences, for Professor Adams, without denying the influence of these factors, emphasizes the power of five ideals that have played a large part in American History. These ideals are nationality, anti-slavery, manifest destiny, religion and democracy. * * * * * LEGENDS AND TRADITIONS OF NORTHWEST HISTORY. By Glenn N. Ranck. (Vancouver, Washington, 1914. Pp. 152.) The title does not fully cover this book and it is doubtful if any title could do so. It comprises a collection of Mr. Ranck's writings in prose and verse. Mr. Ranck was born in the city of Vancouver where he still lives. He served in the Spanish American war and has held many public offices including that of legislator and register of the United States Land Office. He has a lively interest in the dramatic incidents of Northwestern history and these he has tried to catch in the meshes of his verse and colorful prose. The book makes an interesting addition to the growing literature of the Northwest. Future writers are sure to find helpful suggestions here of fact and fancy. Present day readers will find the book entertaining as it springs from one of the most historic portions of the Pacific Coast. * * * * * ANNUAL REPORT, 1911. VOLUME II. By American Historical Association. (Washington, 1913. Pp. 759.) This is an important addition to Americana. It does not, however, touch the Northwest and therefore will receive no extended notice in this Quarterly. It comprises the correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb. * * * * * LIST OF REFERENCES ON THE HISTORY OF THE WEST. By Frederick Jackson Turner. (Cambridge, Harvard University Press. 1913. Pp. 129.) Professor Turner will participate in the summer sessions of the University of Oregon and the University of Washington during 1914. Thus the pamphlet, prepared for Harvard University, will have a distinct interest for many on the Pacific Coast. Aside from that peculiar interest it has an important value for all students and writers of Western history for he cites a wealth of authorities which he has grouped in handy workable form. * * * * * A HISTORY OF EDUCATION IN MODERN TIMES. By Frank Pierreport Graves. (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1913. Pp. 410. $1.10 net.) This book does not particularly relate to the Pacific Coast, but it deserves mention here because the author was for a number of years President of the University of Washington. Dr. Graves now has five volumes to his credit mostly in this field of the history of education. His work is attracting favorable attention and has led to repeated promotions from one university to another, the last being to the University of Pennsylvania. * * * * * A HUMANITARIAN STUDY OF THE COMING IMMIGRATION PROBLEM ON THE PACIFIC COAST. By Charles W. Blanpied. (San Francisco, 1913, Pp. 63.) This is a digest of the proceedings of the Pacific Coast Immigration Congress held in San Francisco, April 14-15, 1913, and of the Immigration Congress held in Tacoma, February 21-22, 1912. The chief value of the pamphlet lies in its reflection of the effort by the awakened citizenship of the Pacific Coast to prepare for problems that are sure to arise on the completion of the Panama canal. * * * * * REPORT OF THE MINISTER OF LANDS FOR THE PROVINCE OF BRITISH COLUMBIA FOR 1913. By William R. Ross. (Victoria. William H. Cullin, Printer to the King's Most Excellent Majesty, 1914. Pp. 505.) With maps, illustrations, tables of statistics and voluminous descriptive matter, this book is useful to students as it covers what was once a part of the Old Oregon Country. The province of British Columbia does many things in this line and it always does them well. * * * * * THE UNIVERSAL EXPOSITION OF 1904. By David R. Francis. (St. Louis, Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company, 1913, 2 Volumes. Pp. 703 and 431.) Since there have been two expositions in the Pacific Northwest and another, much larger one, is being built in San Francisco for the year 1915, these books have a distinct interest for the Pacific Coast. There is another and more intimate reason for such interest. The Western states participated in the Louisiana Purchase Exposition which facts are revealed in the letter press and the beautiful illustrations of the two large volumes. The books are sent with the compliments of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company and bear the autograph of its President, David R. Francis. * * * * * THE MOUNTAINEER, SECOND OLYMPIA NUMBER. (Seattle, The Mountaineers, Incorporated, 1913. Pp. 87.) MAZAMA. (Portland, Oregon, The Mazamas, 1913. Pp. 85.) SIERRA CLUB BULLETIN. JANUARY, 1914. (San Francisco, Sierra Club, 1914. Pp. 125-220.) These three publications cover the last year's mountaineering in Washington, Oregon and California. They are all beautifully illustrated. With the exception of one article the contents of The Mountaineer are devoted wholly to the mountains, flowers, glaciers and rivers of Washington. The other two publications deal with their own localities and yet each of them carry articles also about mountain explorations in Washington. Readers of this Quarterly will therefore find valuable material in all three of these beautiful mountain books. * * * * * JOURNAL FROM DECEMBER, 1836, TO OCTOBER, 1837. By William H. Gray. (Walla Walla, Whitman College Quarterly, Volume XVI, No. 2. June, 1913. Pp. 79.) Mr. Gray was the lay member of the famous Whitman mission. This fragment is all that is now known to be in existence of Gray's journal. It is here published for the first time. The manuscript was obtained from Mrs. Jacob Kamm (nee Caroline Gray) of Portland, Oregon. The major portion of the journal tells of a journey "back to the states" from the mission. But it also tells of doings at the missions of Whitman and Spalding and mentions a number of the Hudson's Bay Company men of that day. Whitman College is to be congratulated for giving the Northwest this interesting piece of source material. * * * * * THE VANISHING RACE, THE LAST GREAT INDIAN COUNCIL. By Dr. Joseph K. Dixon. (New York. Doubleday, Page & Company, 1913. Pp. 231. $3.50.) This is a most beautiful book of the Indian. The author had charge of Rodman Wanamaker's three expeditions to study the Indian. On these expeditions the author made some wonderfully good pictures of the Indian. Eighty photogravures of these pictures illustrate this book. They would tell the story without words. The frontispiece is "The Last Outpost" and the last picture is "The Empty Saddle." The letter press tells the story of a great, intelligent effort to help the Indian enter upon a new career as a citizen of the United States. The author, while passing through Seattle on his last expedition, told the present reviewer that he believed that if the United States had spent half as much time and effort on the citizenship of the Indian as had been spent on the negro half of our National Congress would now be composed of Indians. He is enthusiastic over the possible future of the Indian and his enthusiasm pervades the pages of this attractive and valuable book. * * * * * MICHIGAN HISTORICAL COMMISSION, AND SUGGESTIONS FOR LOCAL HISTORICAL SOCIETIES AND WRITERS IN MICHIGAN. By George Newman Fuller, Secretary. (Lansing, State Printers, 1913. Pp. 41 and 45.) These are the first two bulletins of the Michigan Historical Commission. Their titles show how sensibly that state is proceeding in this important field of work. * * * * * Other Books Received ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY. Alabama Official and Statistical Register. Compiled by Thomas M. Owen. (Montgomery, Brown, 1913. Pp. 344.) CLODD, EDWARD. The Childhood of the world. A simple account of man's origin and early history. (N. Y. Macmillan, 1914. Pp. 240. $1.25.) DWIGHT, MARGARET VAN HORN. A Journey to Ohio in 1810. Edited by Max Farrand. (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1913. Pp. 64.) FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY. Annual Report for the year 1913. (Chicago, Field Museum, 1914. Pp. 273-363.) HENGELMULLER, LADISLAS BARON. Hungary's Fight for National Existence; or, The History of the Great Uprising Led by Francis Rakoczi II, 1703-1711. (N. Y. Macmillan, 1913. Pp. 342. $3.25.) INNES, ARTHUR D. History of England and the British Empire. To be in four volumes. Volume 1, to 1485; Volume 2, 1585-1688. (N. Y. Macmillan, 1913. Pp. 539; 553. Each, $1.60.) INTERNATIONAL JOINT COMMISSION. Progress Report On the Reference by the United States and Canada in re Levels of the Lake of the Woods. (Washington Govt. 1914. Pp. 186.) LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. Report for the year ending June 30, 1913. (Washington, Govt. 1913. Pp. 269.) MACAULAY, LORD. History of England From the Accession of James II. Edited by Charles Harding Firth. To be in six volumes. (London, Macmillan, 1913. Volume 1. Pp. 516. $3.25.) MORLEY, JOHN. On History and Politics. (N. Y. Macmillan, 1914. Pp. 201. $1.) OGILVIE, WILLIAM. Early Days on the Yukon. The Story of its Gold Finds. (London, Lane, 1913. Pp. 306. $1.50.) SEATTLE BAR ASSOCIATION. Annual Report, 1913. (Seattle, Association, 1913. Pp. 72.) TAFT, WILLIAM HOWARD. Popular Government: Its Essence, Its Permanence and Its Perils. (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1913. Pp. 283. $1.15.) VEDDER, HENRY C. The Reformation in Germany. (N. Y. Macmillan, 1914. Pp. 466. $3.) WASHINGTON STATE BAR ASSOCIATION. Proceedings of the Twenty-Fifth Annual Convention, 1913. (Olympia, Association, 1913. Pp. 204.) NEWS DEPARTMENT Course in Current Events The Department of History in the University of Washington has begun a course on Contemporary History running the second semester. The course is given by various men on problems of historical import of the last decade. Among the questions handled are: The Monroe Doctrine; China as a Republic; the Mexican Situation; the Undoing of Ireland; The Balkan Question; the Growth of a Religion of Democracy; the Economic Interpretation of History; the Relation of Natural Science to History; German Imperialism; etc. The course is open to all classes except the freshman; about one hundred students have elected the course. While the public increased the audience to about two hundred persons at each lecture. History Teachers' Club On Saturday noon, March 21st, at the Good Eats Cafeteria, Seattle, twelve history teachers of the grades, high schools and University met and discussed the need and desirability of the formation of a History Club. Such a club has had a successful life of six years at San Francisco dealing with history in the different trades and professions--men from these walks give the history men the value of history to their lines of work. This idea was accepted by those present on Saturday; and another question was urged as a worthy and vital question for mutual discussion: the relation of the three parts of the public school system to history teaching on the basis of the belief that a better understanding among the three sets of teachers would result in good to the pupils. It was unanimously voted to attempt such a club to deal in the beginning with these two subjects. The question of time, place of meeting, organization, and the first program was left to Mr. Flemming, Seattle, and his committee of three. He hopes to have the first meeting early in May in Seattle. It was also the hope that the Club could serve the interests of the teachers in the grades and high schools of Seattle, Tacoma, Everett, and other cities about the Sound, and the University. Professor J. N. Bowman, of the University, was elected temporary chairman. Seattle Historical Society A number of ladies, mostly of pioneer families, have organized and incorporated the Seattle Historical Society. The first officers selected are as follows: President, Mrs. Morgan J. Carkeek; vice-president, Mrs. William Pitt Trimble; secretary, Mrs. Redick H. McKee; treasurer, Mrs. William F. Prosser; historian, Mrs. Thomas W. Prosch; trustees, Judge C. H. Hanford, Judge George Donworth, Judge R. B. Albertson, Miss M. L. Denny, Lawrence J. Colman and Professor E. S. Meany. Manuscript records of the old pioneers are being collected, as also are pictures, books, diaries and relics. Cooperation has been cheerfully extended by Librarian W. E. Henry and Curator of the Museum F. S. Hall, of the University of Washington. That cooperation has been accepted and for the present, at least, the Society's collections will be cared for at the University. There is every indication that this new organization will do much toward awakening interest in the luring field of local history. Death of an Efficient Man While going home on the evening of November 1, A. F. Muhr dropped dead in the street car. The event proved a shock to a wide circle of friends and acquaintances. For many years Mr. Muhr had been in charge of the photographic studio of Edward S. Curtis. It was he who gave personal attention to the development of the negatives made in the field by Mr. Curtis for his monumental work on the North American Indian. In the prefaces of those great volumes, Mr. Curtis has frequently commended the skill, patience and efficiency of his prized assistant. Before coming to Seattle, Mr. Muhr had made a name for his own photographs of Indians, many of which received high awards at exhibitions. With all his talent he was a very modest man and was loved by all who knew him. History of Thurston County A brief prospectus from Olympia announces the fact that the Thurston County Pioneer Association plans to publish a volume in 1914 to contain the proceedings of the organization from its inception four years ago. There will be included personal reminiscences of old-time residents and other data, "the whole to form a beginning and foundation for the future permanent and reliable history of the county." The little prospectus is issued for the association and is signed by Allen Weir, secretary, and Mrs. G. E. Blankenship, treasurer. The scope of the proposed book will depend upon the response received from the prospectus. Twenty-Ninth Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association There are several matters pertaining to the twenty-ninth annual meeting of the American Historical Association which should be of interest to the historians of the Pacific Coast. In the first place, notwithstanding the great distance to Charleston, South Carolina, there were three delegates from the Pacific Coast--Professors H. Morse Stephens and R. F. Schloz of the University of California and Professor Edmond S. Meany of the University of Washington. During the last year efforts have been made to get a fuller expression of sentiment from the general membership as to the selection of officers. On a committee for that purpose Professor E. B. Krehbiel of Stanford University represented the Pacific Coast. At his request the members of the Association in the University of Washington held a meeting and by unanimous choice selected Professor George Lincoln Burr of Cornell for the position of second vice-president to be promoted, as is the custom, to the presidency. Others must have had the same thing in mind, for Professor Burr was regularly nominated and elected. Professor H. Morse Stephens of the University of California was promoted to the first vice-presidency and will become president in 1915. That is especially fortunate as the Association will hold an extra meeting in San Francisco during the summer of that year. President Stephens will then be the chief host to the organization at his own home. Similarly, Professor A. C. McLoughlin of the University of Chicago will serve as president during 1914, when the regular meeting will be held in Chicago. Preparations are already under way for the special meeting in San Francisco in 1915. The chairman of the general committee is Rudolph Julius Taussig, Secretary of the Panama Pacific International Exposition Company, and Professor E. D. Adams of Stanford University is chairman of the programme committee. The programme will deal wholly with historical problems of countries bordering on the Pacific Ocean. At the Charleston meeting the Pacific Coast was recognized further by having Professor H. E. Bolton of the University of California placed on the Historical Manuscripts Commission; F. J. Teggart of the University of California on the Committee on Bibliography; Professor William A. Morris of the University of California on the General Committee; Professor Joseph Schafer of the University of Oregon on the Committee on Nominations. A citizen of the State of Washington on passing through Virginia will see much of interest to remind him of the great American for whom his State is named. The Virginia State Historical Society is housed in Richmond in the building used by General Robert E. Lee as a residence during the Civil War. Among the prized collections there is a musket carried to the Pacific Coast and back by a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Probably the most interesting portion of the programmes at the South Carolina meetings was that devoted to military history. There were several papers relating to Charleston's part in the Civil War and during the same afternoon the entire convention was taken on an excursion to Fort Sumter, a memorable event for the northern visitors. NORTHWESTERN HISTORY SYLLABUS [The aim of this department is to furnish outlines that will aid those who wish to study the subject systematically. It is expected that its greatest use will be as a guide for members of women's clubs, literary societies, and classes in colleges or high schools. It will be a form of university extension without the theses and examinations necessary for the earning of credits toward a degree.] IX. Territory of Oregon 1. Treaty of 1846. a. Northern boundary fixed. b. Accepted as a compromise. c. Really a diplomatic triumph. 2. Organic Law of Oregon. a. Congress passed the act, 14 August, 1848. b. Boundaries from 42 degrees to 49 degrees and from Rocky Mountains to Pacific Ocean. 3. First Officers. a. Governorship refused by Abraham Lincoln. b. Accepted by General Joseph Lane. c. Joseph Meek, United States Marshal. d. Samuel R. Thurston, Delegate to Congress. 4. Laws. a. Anti-slavery laws. b. New counties created. 5. Gold Excitement. a. Settlers diverted to California. b. Gold-dust currency. c. California precedes Oregon into Union. 6. Division of Oregon. a. Washington Territory created, 1853. 7. Indian Wars. a. Rogue River War. b. Other wars and treaties. 8. Oregon Attains Statehood. a. Date, February 14, 1859. b. First United States Senators c. Other officers of new state. * * * * * BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Books for the above outline are easily available in most of the libraries in the Northwest. New ones are appearing continually, but the ones cited below will cover the field satisfactorily. BANCROFT, HUBERT HOWE. Works of. Vol. XXX. This is Vol. II. of his History of Oregon. It starts with "Condition of Affairs in 1848" and carries the narrative to the year 1888. COMAN, KATHARINE. Economic Beginnings of the Far West. Vol. II. Pp. 113-166. This is one of the newer books. The chapter cited is entitled: "Acquisition of Oregon," the latter part of which bears especially on this outline. DEADY, M. P. The Organic and Other General Laws of Oregon, 1845-1864. The official publication of Oregon laws, compiled by Judge Deady and published by H. L. Pittock, Public Printer, 1866, is a convenient form in which to study the laws of Oregon Territory. JOHNSON, SIDONA V. A Short History of Oregon. Part Four of this compact little book deals with the portion of Oregon history under consideration. MEANY, EDMOND S. History of the State of Washington. Consult chapter XV and the first part of chapter XVI. SCHAFER, JOSEPH. A History of the Pacific Northwest. Chapters XIV, XV, and XVI will be helpful for this study. WOODWARD, WALTER C. Political Parties in Oregon, 1843-1868. This new book should be in all Northwestern libraries. Its title conveys its true usefulness for a study of Oregon in territorial and early statehood days. HISTORY TEACHERS' SECTION The History Teachers' Section, inaugurated in this number, will be edited by various members of the editorial staff. The Section will be devoted to questions and problems of interest to the teacher of history in the high schools and colleges. This first number will be given to a survey of the magazines edited in the interest of the teaching of history. * * * * * The HISTORY TEACHERS MAGAZINE is edited by the McKinley Publishing Co., Philadelphia, under the supervision of a committee of the American Historical Association. The first number appeared September 1909, under the sole editorship of Dr. Albert E. McKinley; financial difficulties arose and caused the suspension of publication from June, 1911, to February, 1912, when it came under the present supervision of the American Historical Association. The contents cover a wide range of interests: Articles of a general character on subject matter or methodology of history; Reports from the Historical Field; Periodical literature; Book Reviews; and Recent Historical Publications. In the January, 1914, number, Waldo L. Cook, of the Springfield (Mass.) Republican, published the address he gave before the New England History Teachers' Association last April on The Press in its Relation to History. He discussed in full the "cause of the reporter," and concluded that the case "might also be said to be in the hands of you teachers of history; your ennobling influence upon the press of the future, and consequently upon the history which shall be born of the future, may become incalculable if your teaching is aflame with the ideal that facts are sacred and that truth is holy." In the next number Dr. Jameson, of the Carnegie Foundation, has an article on the Typical Steps of American Expansion wherein he traces through the expansion of American territory his contention that "the processes we have been following were mainly the fruit, not of artificial intrigue and political conspiracy, but of natural economic and social development, on the part of men chiefly engaged in the great human occupation of making a quiet living." Perhaps the most important article in the March number is A Hidden Cause of the Mexican War, by Moses W. Ware. In this article he brings out the fact of the Northern holdings of Texan securities, which joined with Southern interest in slavery; and these two independent interests were "each equally potent in involving the United States in the war with Mexico." Another article, in the February number, it is hoped will be read by every history teacher in the state: Edwin E. Slosson's A Stranger at School. It has been reprinted from _The Independent_. It must be read to be appreciated. A series of articles have been appearing through several numbers dealing with the teaching of Greek History from several points of view of both subject matter and methods. The book reviews are of passing interest, while the recent historical publications are especially valuable. In the latter the announcements of the books of the month are classified according to American, Ancient, English, European, Medieval, Miscellaneous, Biography, Government and Politics. * * * * * The University of Texas is now publishing a "Texas History Teacher's Bulletin." The first number was issued November 15th, 1912; and four numbers have appeared so far. It is published quarterly by the History Department of the University and contains "brief, practical articles and suggestions, discussions of local problems, occasional reprints from The History Teachers' Magazine * * * and other educational journals, outlines, book lists and notes, and news of history teachers in Texas and elsewhere." The articles are of a very practical nature, dealing with the use of maps in the class work: Local History in various schools; use of note-books in high school work; parallel readings; efforts to improve history teaching; is questioning essential to good teaching; Historical Geography; sources; etc. It reprints for its readers the book publications of the History Teachers' Magazine. * * * * * The English "Historical Association," formed a few years ago, does not have as yet a regular publication. It publishes instead a series of leaflets on subjects of interest and value to the teachers. The following titles will give an indication of the nature: Source-books; some books on the teaching of History in Schools; the addresses of James Bryce on Teaching of History in Schools; Text-books; Supplementary Reading; the address of Thomas Hodgkin on the Teaching of History in Schools; The Teaching of Local History; Historical Maps and Atlases; Civics in the Schools; Recent British History; The Methods of Teaching History in Schools; Schools Historical Libraries. The publications of the Association may be secured through the History Teachers' Magazine. * * * * * In January, 1913, the Germans began the publication of a History Teachers' Magazine called _Vergangenheit und Gegenwart_. It is edited by Fritz Friedrich and Dr. Paul Ruhlmann, and is published by the Teubner house in Leipzig. It is issued bi-monthly and costs 6 marks a year. The character of the general articles may be seen from the following titles of some of the articles: The French Peasant before the Revolution; the new Munich history course of study; the history teaching in France; the colonization of North America; political training through the teaching of history; the burning of Rome and Nero's persecution of the Christians; the eastern border of German culture; the newspaper in the upper schools; the evolution of types of war-ships from Trafalgar to the present; State and Church; the History of Civilization in the teaching of History in the upper classes; and in the last number, March, 1914, there was published the translation of the presidential address before the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association at Berkeley, November, 1912, given by Professor A. B. Show, of Stanford University, on The New Culture-History in Germany. It was published in full in the History Teachers' Magazine for October, 1913. Of especial value are the book reviews; practically half of the pages of each number are given to this subject. In the last number, for instance, the running comments and criticisms on books and historical literature are arranged in the following manner: Pre-historic and Ancient Archaeology, under which are grouped the new books on Ethnology, Races, German Antiquities, etc.; Methodology and Didactics; History in the Pedagogical Press. Another issue, May, 1913, arranged the reviews in this manner: Renaissance and Reformation; History of Religion and the Church; Methodology and Historiography. The number of books reviewed in the March, 1914, number was 108. The number of books reviewed in the various numbers run from 49 to 154: the average being about 90 books. In the first issue of the magazine there was published a call, signed by 34 gymnasium and university teachers of the Empire, to the German history teachers for the formation of a German History Teachers' Association. The call was answered by 53 teachers and on September 29th, 1913, at the University of Marburg the Association was organized. Dr. Neubauer, of Frankfort am Mein, was elected president; Professor Ernst Bernheim, of Greifswald, vice-president; and Mr. Behrendt, of Leipzig, secretary. The principal address was given by Professor Bernheim on The Preparation of the History Teacher which ended in a lengthy discussion. The next important address was on the Teaching of History in "Prima," and this also resulted in an animated discussion. The whole proceedings of the Marburg convention was published as a special number of the Vergangenheit and Gegenwart in October, 1913. The Washington Historical Quarterly Board of Editors CLARENCE B. BAGLEY, Seattle. J. N. BOWMAN, Seattle. T. C. ELLIOTT, Walla Walla. FRANK A. GOLDER, Pullman. CEYLON S. KINGSTON, Cheney. W. D. LYMAN, Walla Walla. EDWARD MCMAHON, Seattle. THOMAS W. PROSCH, Seattle. OLIVER H. RICHARDSON, Seattle. O. B. SPERLIN, Tacoma. E. O. S. SCHOLEFIELD, Victoria, B. C. ALLEN WEIR, Olympia. Managing Editor EDMOND S. MEANY Business Manager CHARLES W. SMITH VOL. V NO. 3 JULY, 1914 _ISSUED QUARTERLY_ Contents T. C. ELLIOTT Journal of John Work, Sept. 7th- Dec. 14th, 1825 163 C. O. ERMATINGER The Columbia River Under Hudson's Bay Company Rule 192 EDMOND S. MEANY Three Diplomats Prominent in the Oregon Question 207 DOCUMENTS--A New Vancouver Journal 215 BOOK REVIEWS 225 NEWS DEPARTMENT 232 NORTHWESTERN HISTORY SYLLABUS 235 HISTORY TEACHERS' SECTION 238 THE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY UNIVERSITY STATION SEATTLE, WASHINGTON Entered at the postoffice at Seattle as second-class mail matter. The Washington University State Historical Society * * * * * Officers and Board of Trustees: CLARENCE B. BAGLEY, President JUDGE JOHN P. HOYT, Vice-President JUDGE ROGER S. GREENE, Treasurer PROFESSOR EDMOND S. MEANY, Secretary JUDGE CORNELIUS H. HANFORD JUDGE THOMAS BURKE SAMUEL HILL SEATTLE DEPARTMENT OF PRINTING, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON 1914 _Vol V., No. 3 July, 1914_ The Washington Historical Quarterly JOURNAL OF JOHN WORK, SEPT. 7TH-DEC. 14TH, 1825 (Introduction and annotations by T. C. Elliot) That part of this Journal covering the period from June 21st to Sept. 6th, including the introduction thereto, is already familiar to readers of Vol. V., No. 2 (April, 1914), of this Quarterly: a second installment is now given, and the third and last will appear in the October number. From September 7th to November 14th Mr. Work is in charge of Spokane House, the Hudson's Bay Company Trading Post located near the present city of Spokane, and his journal relates the day-to-day occurrences there, the arrival of the express from across the Rocky Mountains, the starting off of the clerk going to the Kootenay District for the winter, etc. On the 14th of November Mr. Work leaves Mr. Birnie at Spokane House and himself starts off for his winter station at Flathead Post or Fort on the Clark Fort of the Columbia. This journal enables us to identify positively the location of this Flathead Fort at this time, it being several miles further up the River than the original Saleesh House built on Thompson's Prairie or Plain by David Thompson in 1809. The parenthetical marks are used to designate words that are doubtful because indistinct in the original manuscript, of which this is a copy. JOURNAL (Continued from Page 115, Vol. V., No. 2.) Wed.y. 7 Fine warm weather. The three freemen got a small supply of articles to enable them to reach Mr. Ogden[161] and went off to join him.--I wrote to him by them. Sent a man & an Indian off to the Kettle Falls with a supply of tools and articles of Trade for Mr. Dears.[162] Some of the men were employed clearing out the store and opening & arranging some of the furs.-- Thursday 8 Sharp cold weather in the mornings but warm in the middle of the day. The men employed about the store.--I am busy making out a (scheme) to take an inventory and get the papers arranged.-- Little doing in the way of Trade, a few fish and roots but no beaver worth mentioning--A horse was traded today. Friday 9 Overcast weather. The men were employed airing and beating the Snake furs.-- Mr. Birnie & Kittson & I taking an inventory of the goods &c in the store.-- Saturday 10 Thunder & heavy showers of rain. The Store is in such bad order that the least rain pours in through the roof that scarcely anything can be kept dry except it is covered. Part of the Snake beaver were put out in the morning to air and be beat but the rain coming on they had to be taken in. We are getting a few bad salmon in the barrier, but the most of them are so bad that they can scarcely be eaten. Sunday 11 Clear fine weather. Monday 12 Clear fine weather. The men employed airing and beating the beaver.--Some Pendent Oreille Indians arrived and traded about 20 beaver. Tuesday 13 Overcast lowering weather. The men employed about the store. Wed.y. 14 Clear fine weather. The people employed about the store, the remainder of the furs were aired and beat, they are now all piled bye in excellent order. Getting very little fresh provisions, the barrier is producing nothing even of the bad salmon. Thursd.y. 15 Sent a man and an Indian off to the Kettle Falls with some provisions & other articles required for the Express. Mr. McLeod's family[163] accompanied them.-- The smith & one man employed making Axes. The other man cleaning up the store & about the Fort. A few Nezperces Indians with a large band of horses arrived from the plains, they had been collecting roots and came on a visit. No furs. Friday 16 Thunder & heavy showers of Rain. The smith making Axes, the other men differently employed about the Fort. Satd.y. 17 Pleasant weather. Had horses brought from the plains to set out to the Kettle Falls tomorrow accompanied by Mr Kittson to send off the canoe with the Express to the Rocky Mountains & see how the people are getting on with the buildings. After dark a man and an Indian arrived from Wallawalla in three days with letters from Fort Vancouver dated on the 5th inst. Some for Mr Ogden & some for the (mountain), with instructions to forward the former by a trusty person to meet Mr Ogden at the Flat Heads or carry them to him if it can be done with safety. I am also directed by Mr McLoughlin to stop the buildings at Kettle Falls till the arrival of the Express from across, because the site[164] pointed out for the Fort is on the South side of the River.-- I wrote to Mr Dease as I have to be off early in the morning, though the man will not get off for a day or two as his horses are fatigued. Sunday 18 Foggy weather in the morning. Mr Kittson & I set out at 1/2 past 5 oclock from Spokane and arrived at the Kettle Falls at 1/2 past 6 in the evening which is good days ride. We had two horses each, we left the ones which we rode in the fore part of the day about half way, though they were not knocked up. We were only two hours from the South end of the long plain[165] to the Kettle Falls. The men who left Spokane on the 15th arrived last night.-- Monday 19 Cloudy weather. Set the Express men to work to gum the boat and sent them off[166] at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. The crew consists of 8 men. The boat is not deep laden but a good deal lumbered on account of the passengers, Mr McLeod's wife & 2 children, Mr Ross's wife and 4 children & St. Martin & 1 child. The men have provisions, corn, pease, dry meat & dry salmon for 36 days. The despatches are in Pierre L'Etang's charge.--Two of the Express men were sick one with venereal, two others had to be sent in their place.-- Since I have been here last very little progress has been made in the building. Not a stick of the house is up yet nor will the timber be in readiness for some time, I expected the frame at least would have been up. The causes assigned for this slow progress is principally the want of a proper hand to lay out the work for the men. L. La Bonta it appears is quite unfit for this duty, the whole of the posts (14) were squared too small & others of a proper size had to be taken out of the woods.--J. B. Proveau is now laying out the work & the business is going better on. The timber for the frame is now pretty well advanced in readiness to put together, but only about the 1/3 of the filling up pieces are squared. Sawing also has gone on very slowly, only about 93 boards & planks are yet cut--the saw at first was badly sharpened, & some time was lost putting it in proper order. Some of the men were also often sick, or pretended to be so, & unfit for work. Certainly there is little work done for the number of men & times they were employed. 7 men since the 10th or 12th August and 9 more men since the 1st inst. Tuesday 20th Raining in the forepart of the day.-- Set out at 11 oclock on our return to Spokane & encamped at 7 at the Big Camass plain.[167] Left directions with Mr Dears to keep the men at work a few days longer to have the timber for the store all in readiness to be put up in the spring if another situation does not be fixed upon. There is no other convenient spot near the fishing at the falls on which to build a fort. It will be necessary to call home the men to put the houses, etc., at Spokane in order to pass the winter.--Mr Dears is to be in readiness to proceed up the Pendent Oreville River when the men are called home. Wed.y. 21 Foggy in the morning, fine weather afterwards. Proceeded on our journey at 6 oclock and arrived at Spokane before 11. Mr. Kittson & I crossed the point from the (Buffau de Chaudin[168]), in 50 minutes. Nothing material has occurred during our absence. By an Indian arrival lately from the Flat Heads it is reported that the Blackfeet have stolen the most of our peoples' horses which were in company with the F Head Indians. It seems the horses & some of the freemen who last left Mr Ogden were ahead of the Flat Head camp with some of the chiefs and that the women & people had stopped to gather berries while the horses went on a short distance ahead with (Revit)[169] & crossed a small River where the Blackfeet were lying in wait and drove them off. The F. Head chiefs, on the alarm being given, instantly pursued but could come up with only a few of the horses, and killed one of the thieves, and it is now reported that the F. Head chiefs are so exasperated that war is determined upon & that the Blackfeet will be attacked immediately. however this is only Indian reports. The young Indian who was sent off with the despatches to Mr Ogden on the 28th Augt. is supposed to have reached the Flat Head camp some time ago.-- Thursday 22nd Clear fine weather. Part of the men here employed covering the store with mats, the others getting firewood. Fresh provisions are now very scarce scarcely a sufficiency of trout and a small kind of salmon can be procured for on our table, and very few of the bad salmon are got so that the people are mostly fed on dry provisions. Friday 23 Clear fine weather. The people employed as yesterday, two covering the store with mats & two getting firewood. Saturday 24 Clear fine weather. Men employed as yesterday. Finished covering the store with mats. Sunday 25 Weather as yesterday. Part of the Nezperces Indians went off today. they have been here some time. Monday 26 Fine weather. Late last night Faneant one of Mr Ogden's men arrived from the Missouri with letters dated on the 11th inst--Mr. Ogden is now on his way with 20 men to Wallawalla by the Snake Country[170] and has sent orders here for the part of his outfit that is at this place, with about 50 horses, 20 saddles and appichimans, leather, cords, etc., to be forwarded to meet him at Wallawalla. he expects to reach that place about the 20th October. He also requests Mr Dears to be sent to meet him with the horses.--There will be only about 20 horses left, and the most of them unfit for any duty.-- Tuesday 27th Clear fine pleasant weather. Sent off an Indian to Wallawalla with Mr Ogden's disptaches, so that they may reach Mr Deane as soon as possible, that he may forward them to the sea if he deems it necessary & also have time to purchase horses for Mr Ogden.--An Indian with some horses was sent off to Kettle Falls with instructions for Mr Dears to get the potatoes put in a pit and well covered up so that the frost cannot injure them, that they may serve for seed next year. He is also to get the timber laid up in a proper manner, & come home as soon as possible with the men and all the tools.--We will have plenty of work for all the men here, preparing material for boats, & providing fuel for the winter and repairing the houses. These jobs require to be done before the Express arrives as the number of men allowed for this place will have plenty to do attending to the boat building and other necessary jobs during the winter. My object in having them at Kettle falls when I was last there was to save provisions & to have the material for them ready to set up. Mr Dears is directed to leave strict injunctions with the old chief to see that nothing that is left there be injured by the Inds. The tools are all to be brought home. Wed.y. 28 Clear fine weather. A few Indians coming & going, but very little doing in the way of trade. I am busy arranging the accounts, but the Inventory was so incorrectly taken in the spring and the goods disposed of in the beginning of the season so badly accounted for that, I cannot get any kind of a satisfactory account made out out.-- Thursday 29 Fine weather. Had a man employed these two days past cutting (?) (?) into cords. An Ind. was employed, boiling gum.--Scarcely any fresh provisions. Nothing for the people, and but very little for our own table. Friday 30th Cloudy mild weather. Visited the hay makers they will require a day or two yet to have a sufficiency made. Octr. Satd.y. 1 Some rain in the night, cloudy mild weather afterwards. Mr Dears and the men under his charge arrived from Kettle Falls with all their tools baggage etc. They were sent for in good time as they would have been obliged to come home or have had provisions sent to them as no more could be got there.--He took up the potatoes and put them bye in a little house that was built there by one of the men, the produce is only 13 kegs[171] from six that were sowed. they burried & (put) a good thickness of earth over them that the frost may not injure them so that they may serve for seed next year if the Indians do not steal them in the winter. The old chief is directed to take particular care of them. The timber &c is also left under his charge, and he promised to take good care of it as well as the potatoes. It would require ten men, 8 or 10 days yet to have the store up and ready for covering the roof. The frames are now all ready for setting up and about the one half of the filling up pieces ready, of the covering planks 18 feet long are ready plank of ten feet for doors &c and boards of two feet for the gable ends are also ready.--There have been 7 men at work from the 10 or 12 of Augt. to the 30th. 16 & part of the time 17 from the 1st to 19th Sept. and 9 men from the 19th of Sept to the 28th were employed doing this work.--had there been an experienced hand to lay out the work for the men much more would have been done.-- We will have full employment for all the men now till the Express arrives preparing material for boats, making cor(r)als, getting firewood, and putting the houses in order for the winter, these works will require to be done now, as there will not be enough of people here to attend to them in winter.-- Sunday 2nd. Heavy rain in the night & forepart of the day.-- The Indian who was sent to Kettle Falls with the horses did not return till today. One of his horses which he had to leave by the way was stolen by an Indian & taken to the Chutes, he said he had taken him in revenge for a quarrel he had with one of the women of the fort from whom he got a bloody face, this happened only a few days ago. Monday 3 Fair mild weather. Had four of the men off seeking timber to saw for boats, they felled nine trees none of which would serve, they are a good distance up along the River seeking it.[172] Wood of the dimensions required, 40 feet long & 14 inches square, is difficult to find. The most of the others were employed getting firewood, they tried to raft in the morning but the wood is so far from the water side and the river so shallow that they could make nothing of it & had to commence cutting cord wood which will have to be carted[173] home by horses. Tuesday 4 Fine pleasant weather. The men employed as yesterday, those in search of the boat timber found three trees suitable for the purpose & have made some progress in squaring them. Wed.y. 5th. Clear fine weather. Two more men were sent to assist the squarers. The others were employed taking up the potatoes, the crop is but very indifferent only about 28 kgs from 5 that were sowed, they had begun to grow again & some of them were budded several inches. Prepared & tied up sundry articles to be sent off tomorrow to Nezperces for the Snake expedition, the horses were brought home in the evening to be ready.-- Thursday 6 Sharp frost in the morning.-- The Indian Charlie who is to accompany the people to Nezperces did not arrive as he had promised and one of the men's horses being lost, deferred sending the party off till tomorrow. The men were sent off to assist in getting home the timber, they got it in and down part of the way. The River is very shallow & it is difficult getting it down the rapids. Friday 7 Weather as yesterday. Sent off the party to Nezperces at 8 oclock, it consists of Messrs. Kittson, Dears, their wives[174], six men & 2 Indians, with 50 horses 18 of which were loaded, the loads are not heavy. Mr Kittson, 4 of the men and 1 Indian are to return, some of the horses are to be brought back if they can be spared. Mr Dears & the other two men who belong to the Snake expedition are to remain.--The party are well armed and I think sufficiently strong to pass through the Indians with safety. The men at the Fort got home the timber and were afterwards employed getting wood for a sawpit. Trade has been improving a little for some time past, a few beaver are coming in daily.--No fresh provisions, this will likely be a starving winter with the Indians, they are getting no bad salmon, formerly at this season they used to be abundant. By the old Kettle Falls chief I sent a note to be handed to the Gentlemen coming in with the Express.--It was intended that some one would, in compliance with the Governors orders, would have gone up the Pedent Oreille River to examine it. Mr Dears was to have gone, but his having to go to Nezperces prevented it. Mr Kittson in consequence of a hurt in the foot received by a fall last winter of which he is not yet thoroughly recovered & which prevents him from undertaking any journey on foot of any extent he was incapable of going, moreover it was considered necessary that for the more safe conveyance of the property to WallaWalla & the safe return of the people who have to come back, that he should (mak) (an effort to?) accompany the party. Mr. Birnie declared himself totally incapable of embarking in a small Indian canoe & could not undertake the trip but in a large canoe with at least four men, from the press of business at present, & a great deal of work being absolutely necessary to be done before winter commences it is impossible to spare the men, the examining the River must, therefore be deferred until next season. I am sorry it is out of our power to execute the Govrs instructions[175], though as we are at present situated, not having been able to remove the Fort, the trade can sustain no injury by the river not being examined this season, for even were the River navigable, the old rout would be preferable. Satd.y. 8 Cloudy cold weather. Some of the men employed finished the sawpit & getting everything in readiness to commence sawing on Monday.--The others cutting firewood. Sunday 9 Weather as yesterday, some rain in the night.-- Monday 10 Cloudy cold weather, showers of rain & hail, rain in the night. Men employed as follows.--Two sawing wood for boats, 2 seeking stem and stern posts, and six cutting wood for coals. The sawyers got on pretty well. The wood for stem & stern posts was also found. Tuesday 11 Cold showery weather. Sent off 4 men with 6 horses to seek cedar for boat timber. 4 were employed cutting wood for coals & 2 sawing. Wed.y. 12 Heavy rain the greater part of the day. Men employed as yesterday, but on account of the bad weather, both the wood cutters and sawyers were stopped a considerable time.--A sufficiency of wood is cut for the coals, but they have yet to build it into a pit or furnace. Thursday 13 Heavy rain the greater part of the day. The rain kept the people idle a considerable part of the day. With this unfavourable weather the work is getting on very slowly. Friday 14th Cloudy fair weather. The woodmen finished arranging the wood for the coals, they are now ready to set fire to. Those who went off on tuesday returned with the wood for boat timber sufficient for 4 boats they would have been back sooner had it not been for the bad weather. The sawyers got on pretty well, but unfortunately one of the logs which we had so much trouble getting, turns out to be rotten in the heart, it was sound at both ends. It will not answer the purpose & finding trees of a proper size & getting them home is attended with a good deal of difficulty. Satd.y. 15 Cloudy fair weather. Four men employed squaring a piece of timber 40 feet long, 12 inches wide and 6 thick to make up for the boards that are deficient in the one that was rotten. Two others of the men brought home some white earth to whitewash the houses. The sawyers made about 120 feet today. Sunday 16 Wather as yesterday. Monday 17 Cloudy fair weather. The men brought home the log which was squared on Saturday.--Afterwards 6 were employed cutting firewood, 2 cutting wheels for a truck, to cart home wood & 2 sawing. It requires all hands to be employed at firewood as none was cut in summer it being supposed that the fort was going to be removed. Tuesday 18 Cloudy pleasant weather, frost in the night & foggy in the morning.-- Men employed as yesterday. The sawyers made about 110 feet. The Indians had taken away the canoe so that the men could not get home the wheels after they were cut. Old Philip occasionally catches a few little fish with the scoop net which with a choice trout got from the Indians serves on our table but the people are fed entirely on dry provisions. Wed.y. 19 Cloudy weather. Men employed as yesterday. Mr Kittson and his party arrived from WallaWalla[176] in 5 days. All the property &c reached that place safe. He has letters from Dr McLaughlin and Mr Dease, the former had just arrived at WallaWalla and intimates that he will probably visit[177] this place to meet the Express.--Mr Kittson brought five horses & four men back with him, two of the men which were sent (Cender) and (Laduoite), were exchanged for Wagner and Pierre, the former is sent here by way of punishment for disobedience of orders.--Mr. Kittson had six horses with him but he had to leave one of them by the way, which the Indians promised to take back. So that 5 will have to be deducted from the number sent. Thursday 20 Fine weather. The four men who arrived yesterday employed packing up saddles. appichimans, cords &c for N. Caledonia & Thompson's River, which are to be sent to the Forks to be forwarded to Okanogan by the Express boat. Our men employed white washing the Fort, the others employed sawing & cutting wood as yesterday. Friday 21 Weather as yesterday. Men employed as yesterday. Finished packing the saddles appichimans &c--and sent a man & an Indian off to the Plains[178] for the horses to send off to the Forks tomorrow. One of the (?) Soteaux who has been here some time set off in the evening to the Flat Heads with several of the Spokane Indians. he got a small supply of ammunition and other necessary articles. Mr. Ogden requested this man to be sent to him to Wallawalla but we could not get him prevailed on to go, he is an Indian and it is useless to withhold these supplies as he would have gone off without them & in sulks & probably hunted more during winter. We endeavored to detain him till the arrival of the Express but he would not stop.-- Saturday 22 Cloudy fine weather. Part of the men employed cleaning about the Fort, the others as before. Sent off J. B. Proveau, Louis (Shaegockatsta) and two Indians (one of them the chief of this place.) to the Forks with 16 horses loaded with the appichimans saddles &c for New Caledonia & Thompsons River. The people are to remain at the Forks till the Express arrives. Sunday 23 Clear pleasant weather. Some Nezperces Indians are now driving towards the Fort. Monday 24 Pleasant weather. Two men employed sawing, 2 beating & changing the furs to another place, 5 cutting wood, 1 making wheels & arranging a carriage for wood, 2 sundry jobs.--The sawyers finished the wood for 3 boats, in all 73 boards 6 Inches wide and 40 feet long & 3 broad pieces for keels 40 feet long & 14 Inches wide, and 6 pieces for gunwales 40 feet long & 2 Inches wide in 15 days, they worked well, they were retarded a good deal by bad weather when they commenced. Sunday 25 Clear pleasant weather. The sawyers squaring two trees for plank to make a stern box for the boat timber. 1 man carting home wood, the other employed as yesterday. Wedy 26 Frosty in the morning fine weather afterwards. Two of the men employed covering the dwelling house with mats, the sawyers squared a log for boards to make a stearing box, the others cutting cord wood. Thursday 27 Weather as yesterday. The sawyers sawing, the others employd as yesterday--The horse keeper came home & reported that three of his horses have strayed.-- Friday 28 Weather as yesterday. The men employed as yesterday. Old Philip & another man finished covering the dwelling house with mats,--and afterwards commenced burning a pit of coals. Saturday 29th Overcast mild weather. Men employed as before. The sawyers brought home another log for a few more boards.-- Sunday 30 Clear mild weather. Employed all day taking an Inventory of the goods in the store. Monday 31 Mild pleasant weather. At midnight last night, A. R. McLeod[179] Esq. C. T. & Mr. F. Ermatinger arrived from the Forks with the Express. Mr. Black & Mr. E. Ermatinger remained at the Forks.--Towards evening Mr. McLeod with three men and an Indian on horseback set out for Nezperces to meet Mr McLaughlin with the despatches. Three men were also sent off with provisions for the people at the Forks and to bring up some property that has been brought back from the Rocky mountains. One of the passengers St. Martin who was going out, was drowned crossing a small creek near the mountains. By Mr. McLeod I wrote to Mr McLaughlin and to Mr Dease, apprising them that it will be incumbent on Mr Dease who is to come & take charge of this District, to make all the Expedition in his power that the Flat Head people may get off in sufficient time not to be stopped by the ice. Tuesday 1st (November) Overcast mild weather. Messrs. Kittson[180] and Ermatinger left for the Forks the former to return with the horses and property, the latter to accompany the boats to Okanagan. The men remaining at the Fort were employed cutting & carting home wood. Mr Birnie & I finished taking the invtry. Wed.y. 2 Overcast cold weather. The men employed as yesterday. Two attending the coal pit that is burning, (charcoal) 3 cutting wood and 1 carting. Thursday 3 Overcast cold weather, some snow in the night and the morning. Mr. Kittson arrived from the Forks. he left the men behind they will not arrive till tomorrow.--The Express gentlemen also left the Forks yesterday. From some misunderstanding between Mr. McLeod & Mr. Black respecting a man P. Wagner who was exchanged for one of the Spokane men at Wallawalla by way of punishment for disobedience of orders, & was to be taken to Okanagan taken in his place, and the Spokane man's place supplied by one of the new hands coming in, instead of which Wagner is taken on & no one left in his place. altho' Mr Kittson explained how it stood yet he said he had no orders, tho' mr. McLeod mentioned the circumstance to him in his letter. We will be a man short unless one is sent from Wallawalla. Friday 4 Stormy cold weather, snowing. The men arrived with the property from the Forks. they were so benumbed with cold that they could scarcely untie the loads.--the outside of some of the Bales were wet with soft rain & snow. Satd.y. 5th Snowing & raw cold weather, winter like weather. Dilivered the Kootany outfit to Mr Kittson.-- The men that arrived yesterday not employed. The carter had to stop work, the snow clogged so to the wheels that he could not work. Sunday 6th Stormy, cold, snowing weather. There is a good thickness of snow on the ground.-- Monday 7 Disagreeable weather soft snow and sleet. The horses were brought home from the plains[181] & all the Kootany outfit prepared to be sent off tomorrow. The Coer de Alan chief brought home three of our horses which have been missing some time. One of them was thought had been stolen.--two or three more have been missing some days.-- Tuesday 8 Some showers of rain and sleet & overcast foggy weather. Mr. Kittson sent off his people, five men with nine horses and the Kootany outfit on horses to the Forks where they are to embark in a canoe or small boat and proceed up the Columbia to the entrance of McGillivrays Kootany[182] River, up which they are to continue to a place called the falls[183] about half a days march below the Old Fort, where they are to build. This road is taken in obedience to orders received from Governor Simpson.[184] By this route a considerable deal of horse carriage will be avoided, and the Fort being situated farther down the river will be the means of keeping the Indians in a part of the country, where beaver are more numerous than where they usually hunt near the Flat Head lands. Another advantage attending this track is that if necessary they will be able to put out much earlier in the spring. The only objection to this road is running the risk of being taken by the ice on account of the lateness of the season, as the River is not known but very imperfectly except from Indian reports, but as they will not be deep laden being only 14 or 16 pieces including baggage & provisions and as there are five men (an additional one being sent on account of the road not being known, & buildings to be erected) it is expected they will still arrive before the ice sets in calculating by the other road the distance cannot be very long. Wed.y. 9 Foggy soft mild weather. One man employed repairing & making horse harness, one filling up a pit in the boat house,[185] and one working about the store, two men are still attending the coal pit, which is not yet burnt out. Put aside the greater part of the Outfit for the Flat Heads. Thursday 10 Weather as yesterday--The snow has not all disappeared off the hills & very hollow places yet-- One man employed cutting wood, the other as yesterday-- Mr Kittson started for the Forks after his men, where he expects to arrive this evening, and embark tomorrow, the men will probably arrive a little before him and be employed gumming the boats.--Mr Kittson is not certain until he arrives at the Forks, whether he will take a canoe or a small boat, the men proposed taking the boat as it would be able to sustain much more injury than the canoe, and they thought they would be able to carry it, when it was necessary to carry it. I recommended Mr Kittson to be certain before he left the Forks whether they will be able to carry it. Friday 11 Excessive heavy rain in the night, overcast mild weather during the day. Two men cutting wood & 1 carting it home to fill up the sides of the house where the boats are to be built. Philip came home from his coal pit having finished it, he and another man have been employed at this job 15 days. Late last night an Indn. arrivd from Okanagan for a horse that was promised Mr Ermatinger, with which we sent off the Indn. this morning. Satd.y. 12 Mild pleasant weather during the day. Sharp frost in the night. Three men employed at wood for the boat house as yesterday--Philip doing little jobs in the forge, & Canotte tieing up the pieces of the Flat Head outfit. An Indian arrived from the Forks with the horses that took down the Kootany outfit and brought a letter from Mr Kittson in which he informs us that the men were perfectly able to carry the boat and that he was going to take it, & expected to get on well--he would be off about noon yesterday. In the evening the men who accompanied Mr McLeod arrived from WallaWalla, and brought letters from Mr Dease[186] informing us that in consequence of Mr Ogden not having yet arrived he was prevented from setting out for this place but directing me to to lose no time in setting out for the F. Heads and to leave Mr Birnie in charge of this place.--And also with directions to leave him any notes that may be useful to him.-- The horses from both places are much fatigued. Sent them off late in the evening to the plains.-- Sunday 13 Overcast mild weather. Busy employed getting everything ready to set out to the Flat Heads[187] tomorrow. The horses were brought home in the evening they are so very lean & weak that we will scarcely get 12 the number required to carry the outfit and baggage across the portage able to go. I have all the papers &c in readiness to give Mr Dease all the information I can on his arrival, and requested Mr Birnie who is well acquainted with the place and the routine of the business to explain everything to him. We will be compelled to take 8 men up as fewer would not be able to work the canoes, this will leave only 2 men here, but as many as possible must be sent down from the F. Heads as soon as we arrived. Monday 14 Foggy soft weather. Set out with the people before noon for the Flat Heads, and encamped at the Horse Plains,[188] which is but a short journey but, as the horses are very lean & did not feed last night they require to feed. The Horses that remain except the 2 (carters) and 6 that are missing were put under charge of the Senchos chief who is to keep them during the winter. Tuesday 15 Proceeded on our journey at 8 oclock and encamped at the little River[189] at the farthest end of the Coer de Alan plain at 3, the horses much fatigued. Found four of our horses that were missing in the plain & 1 where we slept last night, the other is in the plains at the Chutes,[190] which is the whole that was missing. (Le Course's) horse strayed in the night, he was searching for him all day without success, it was dark when he arrived at the camp. Two of the men Paul and Felix were about all night. Paul was on a marrying excursion and had bargained with an Indian for his sister and paid him the articles stipulated for, but on coming a little further on passing the lodge of the girl's mother, who it seems had received nothing, she objected to the girl going and Paul much disappointed had to come away and leave her & the property too. Wed.y. 16 Soft mild weather, heavy fog like drizzling rain. Continued on journey before 8 oclock and encamped at 3 at the rat Lake[191] though but a short journey the horses much fatigued.-- In the evening Conoth one of the men killed 2 geese.--(Charlo) the Iroquoy was off seeking Deer but without success. Thursd. y. 17 Sharp frost in the night fine clear weather all day. Resumed our journey before 8 oclock and reached the end of the Portage[192] after 10 when the canoes were immediately got out of the woods and the men distributed into crews and busily employed repairing the canoes arranging paddles poles &c. The saddles appichimans &c were tied up ready to send off with an Indian who came to take home the horses. I had intended to take four canoes as they would be all required to bring down the fall trade & for the spring, but on account of the lateness of the season and the length of time it would take going up with two men per canoe, I am induced to alter my plans & take only three, we will then have 3 men per canoe including an Indian who is going up. A woman who is going this road to join one of the Cootenay men ( ), very shortly after arriving at the camp brought forth a child, and seemed attending to her little affairs during the day afterwards as if nothing had happened. Friday 18 Some sleet and rain in the morning. foggy soft weather afterwards. Everything being ready & the canoes loaded, we embarked before 8 oclock, and made a good days work, as we encamped at the old Fort[193] at the upper end of the Lake, it was past 4 oclock when we encamped, fortunately it was calm when we crossed the lake, we were retarded a little at the sandy point[194] by the shallowness of the water. I had first intended to take four canoes with two men in each, but considering that it would take a long time to get up so weakly manned at this late season. I altered my plan & took only three, we have now three men in each and an Indian that it going up with us making the 9th man. Passed some Indians only one of whom we spoke to him we induced to tell all he knew, that Mr. Kittson had taken another rout that the Kootenies would find him below the Chutes[195] at the place appointed. Before we embarked in the morning sent off the Indians who came from the Fort for the purpose, with the horses saddles, appichimans, cords, in all 20 horses including the Company's 13. Messrs. McDonald[196] Kittson & myself 3 Men 4 & Indian 3, besides he is to take 5 by the way, 4 from the Coeur de Alan plains & 1 from our first encampment, these are the horses that were strayed, three are now missing now. Satd.y. 19 Soft foggy weather cold in the morning. Embarked a little past six oclock & encamped a little past 3 above the (Lower) Rapid[197], to get the canoes gummed as they had become very leaky.--This is a pretty good days work at this late season. Sunday 20 Blowing fresh in the night some rain. Mild foggy weather during the day. It was near 7 oclock when we embarked owing to the bad road we had to pass--it required to be broad daylight--We were detained two hours gumming Chala's canoe, which retarded us considerably, yet we got over the Stony Island portage & encamped near 4 oclock at its upper end where all the canoes were gummed. Monday 21 Soft weather but raw and cold. Embarked past 6 oclock, and were detained an hour gumming Charla's canoe again, and again encamped a little below the barrier Rivers[198] a little past 2 oclock to get the canoes thoroughly gummed, it was night by the time this business was completed.--Saw 2 deer but could not approach them. Tuesday 22 Raw cold foggy weather. Embarked a little past 6 oclock and encamped before 4, (in order to join the canoes), a little below the Chutes. Notwithstanding that the canoes were gummed yesterday evening an hour was lost gumming Chala's one shortly after we started. had it not been for these delays we would have been past the Chutes. Wed.y. 23 Foggy in the morning, cloudy pleasant weather afterwards. This is the only day the sun shone occasionally since we left Spokane. Continued our route at 6 oclock reached the Chutes[199] at, had canoes and all carried across & the canoes gummed & reembarked at 12 and encamped at the upper end of Thompsons[200] near 4.--We took up some goods a barrel of powder, 2 traps and two bags of ball and shot mixed that were burried at a rapid a little above the Chutes. Though these things were burried in a dry place the bags that contained the ball were completely rotten, and the hoops on the keg so rotten that it hardly held together till the powder was got emptied into a bag. Property hidden this way ought to have wood all round it on every side so that the earth could not touch it, otherwise it will in a very short time be rotten and spoiled. Some Indians and a freeman visited us shortly after we encamped. From the former we got 4 small trout and a bale of meat which was very acceptable to the men as they have had nothing but dry salmon since they left the Fort. By these people we learn that the Flat Heads are not yet arrived, but that the Pendent Orielles are a little above the Fort. The two men whom Mr Ogden[201] sent with the F Heads to take up the beaver which he hid found them all safe and are on their way in with them. Gave the Indians a little Tobacco. Thursday 24 Sharp frost in the forepart of the night rain afterwards,--foggy in the morning cloudy in the afternoon.-- Embarked at a little past 6 oclock and arrived at the Fort[202] at 11. The houses are all standing but without doors or windows & all the floors torn up by the Indians scouting for anything that might be under them. Some of the pieces were burned & marks of where a fire had been made in the dwelling house that had the wood been dry would have destroyed all the buildings.--Some of the doors could not be found & several empty kegs which had been left here were brok to pieces. The men were employed the afterpart of the day fixing doors to the store and laying the floors. The store was got temporarily closed and the goods stowed in it. Two Indians who were here went off to the Pendant Oreille camp with whom a piece of Tobacco was sent to the three principal men.--And notice sent them that we would be ready to trade tomorrow or next day when they chose to come.-- Friday 25 Snow in the night & morning the most of which had thawed & disappeared on the low grounds towards evening. The men employed arranging their axes and afterwards squaring planks for doors &--. An Indian one of the Pendant Oreille chiefs arrived to enquire when we would be ready to trade, though word had been sent to them yesterday that we were ready when they chose to come. Gave him a little tobacco when he set off & a few balls and Powder to send some of his young men to get some fresh meat. A young man also came with a present of 4 fresh buffalo tongues. Saturday 26 Disagreeable weather with snow and sleet the forepart of the day but fair in the afternoon. Had the men employed making doors and putting the houses in order. The Indians began to arrive about noon and a brisk trade was immediately commenced and continued on till it was getting dark. I am unable to ascertain exactly the amount of the days trade, but there are upwards of 340 beaver skins and nearly 40 bales of meat. There was a great demand for guns and Tobacco.--The Indians as is the case still when a stranger arrives among them, complain about being harder dealt with than heretofore, however they seemed well pleased notwithstanding that (not?) a single item of their (prices) demanded would be abated. Sunday 27 Sharp frost in the night. Mild pleasant weather during the day. The Indians arrived in the morning & trade was resumed and continued on nearly all day, but not so brisk as yesterday. The Indians say their trade is nearly finished.--Some parchment skins were traded to make windows for the houses and some mats to cover them of which they are in want as the wet drips through the roofs. A present of 16 inches of Tobacco to each of the 3 F. H. chiefs was given to an Indian to carry to them and to apprise them of our arrival. The Indians with whom we have been trading these two days are principally Pendent Oreilles or Collespellums, with a few Flat Heads, or Asschesh,[203], and some Spokans.-- Monday 28 Thin frost in the night, fine mild weather during the day. Two men employed assorting & examining the meat, the others finishing the doors putting in windows, & covering the house with mats.-- A few straggling Indians traded a little meat and a few Beaver Skins and appichimans. The Indians are all encamped at some distance[204] from the Fort, there is only one lodge here.-- Tuesdy 29 Frost in the night. Pleasant mild weather during the day. The men differently employed as yesterday. The meat is not all yet assorted. La (Broch), one of the principal F. Head chiefs arrived with 8 or 9 men who traded 16 bales meat & 13 Beaver skins, & a few appichimans. A Kootany Indian arrived in the morning from the camp of a small party of that tribe that is at a short distance and told us that they intended to visit us and trade what furs they had in a few days. I did not wish that these Indians would come here at all as a Fort is on their own lands expressly for them, but as it is likely it would be well on in the season before they might see Mr. Kittson & that perhaps they would not exert themselves hunting while they have furs on hand I thought it most advisable not to prevent them from coming in and that after trading they would hunt briskly on their way to Mr Kittsons Fort & that although more furs would be obtained for the Company I understand there is only a few lodges of them here which separated from the Pendent Oreilles & Flat Heads a short time ago. The carcasses of 3 Deer and 2 Beaver were traded from the Indians. Wedy. 30th Sharp frost, clear pleasant weather. The men differently employed. A few Indians visited the Fort and traded a little meat & a few beaver and appichimans.--I sumed up the trade since our arrival on the 24th Inst. and find it to amount to 310 large & 202 small beaver, 11 otters, 76 Rats, 4 fishes, 1 mink, 1 Robe, 6 dressed, deer skins, 17 pacht, do. 4 dressed Elk skins, 11 saddles, 111 fathoms cord, 97 appichimans, 69 bales, 4094 lbs. net wt. dry meat, 170 fresh Tongues, 103 dry do, 342 lbs. 5-1/4 (dry) fresh venison, 4 Bushels Roots, 50 (?), 14 Horns buffalo, 4 Hair Bridles and 2 dogs. The Expenditure for the above trade including presents of Tobacco & am. to the chiefs, smoaking &c is as follows 4 doz. Inds. awls, 6 half & 4 small axes, 1-2/3 doz. (hawk balls), 2-1/4 lb. N. W. 5 lb. canton, and 2-1/2 yds. green Transparent Beads, 115 lbs. Ball, 1 (Eyed Dog), 2 Files 7 Inch. 14 guns, 78 flints, 3-1/2 doz. gun (?), 11 Looking Glasses, 37 lbs. gun Powder, 11 Kirby hooks, 18-1/4 lbs. brass & copper kettles, 4-1/6 doz. scalpers & 11/12 doz. Folding Knives, 3-1/2 yds Red Strands, 3 pr. (?), 2 lbs. Beav. shot 3-1/2 doz. Thimbles, 72 lb. Tobacco, 3 Beaver Traps and 1/2 lb. Vermillion--The awls, Flints and gun (worms) were generally given for nothing and also some of the Tobacco. The bales of dry meat cost on an average 3-1/2 (Pluis) and was paid for principally with ammunition, a little Tobacco & some knives. The bales as bought from the Indians average about 60 lbs. net each. Of the above 4094 lbs. meat, there are 2314 lb. Lean, 1340 Back fat, and 440 Inside fat. Decr. Thursday 1st. Overcast frosty weather. The men employed splitting planks cutting firewood, &c. An old Flat Head chief Le Buche, the only one yet arrived visited the Fort with 8 or 9 attendants, who traded in the course of the evening 13 bales of meat and a few beaver skins.--The old chief has taken up his quarters with me and says he intends to stay three nights. He has a good deal of influence with the Indians. Friday 2 Weather as yesterday. Snow in the night. A few Indians still visiting the house but little to Trade. 1-1/2 Deer were purchased. Saturday 3 Overcast milder weather than these days past. Some snow in the night. The men splitting planks. A Kooteany Indian arrived yesterday evening and went off only this morning. With him I sent a letter to Mr Kittson which I supposed might be nearly at his fort by this time, but as I had learned from Soteaux a freeman that the road was very difficult & that probably he would have to return I sent word to the Indians that in case of their not hearing of his arrival, to come in here and trade their furs immediately, but if heard of his arrival to go to their own Fort & by no means come here. The sooner the furs can be got out of the Indians hands the better, as they will then exert themselves to collect more. Mr Kittson and his people arrived in the evening in a canoe with their supplies for the Kootenais. It seems that on entering the Kootany River after mounting the Columbia they found the Navigation so difficult that it was deemed impracticable to reach their destination with the craft they had (a small boat) or indeed with any craft except one that two men could carry. Mr Kittson therefore determined to return to Spokan and make his way by the old rout[205] across Au Platte Portage, but reaching Spokan the Company's horses were so lean that a sufficient number (only 8 or 9) were totally incapable of undertaking the journey and would not have been able to perform it. He, therefore proceeded on to this place with the canoe that I left at the Coeur d Alan portage, and sent a man across land to the Kootenais to apprise them of his failure in attempting to get to their country and to make the best of their way to this place to Trade. Not succeeding in getting to the Kootany country in time will be attended with some loss in beaver as a part of the fall hunt will be lost, however as things are now situated there is no means of remedying it, the supplies cannot be sent to meet them and detain them in their own country for want of horses, which cannot be procured here. The Governor was certainly misinformed regarding the navigation when he ordered the Kootany supplies to be sent by water. Sunday 4 Foggy mild weather, but still freezing. Eight young men from the Kootany camp arrived and traded 15 small beaver skins for Tobacco with which they set off in the evening to regain the camps. A little Tobacco was sent to the chiefs.--The young men report that seeing no whites arrive, the chiefs had raised camp to come here[206] & trade, and that the man whom Mr Kittson sent came up with them & is now with the Chief.--The camp is not far off but it will be some time before they reach this as they make but short days marches. They have plenty of beaver. Monday 5th Some snow in the morning. Overcast mild weather afterwards. The Old Chief La Buche paid us another visit. A few other Indians visited the Fort but had little to trade. The man whom Mr Kittson sent round by the Kootanies arrived in the afternoon accompanied by an Indian. He was very well treated by the Indians. The whole tribe are on their way here and at no great distance, but it will still be some days before they arrive as they make but slow marching. The men employed packing up what beaver and appichimans we have already traded, for the purpose of sending off two canoes. The furs, appichimans, saddles &c will not more than load 1 canoe the other we will have to load with provisions though by so doing we subject our silves to the chance of being in want before the spring in case any mischance should befall the Flat Heads so that they have been unsuccessful and do not bring in a supply. I much wished to detain the canoes till the F. Heads arrived but being anxious to get La Course to Spokan to commence the boat building as soon as possible, and being apprehensive that the Navigation might be stopped by the ice it is deemed necessary to send them off immediately, specially as the men have to go to Spokan for some supplies, and on account of the canoes it is very disirable that they get back by water.-- Tuesday 6th Rain in the night & snow towards morning and snow & sleet during the day. Sent off the two canoes 5 men each 7 of whom are to return and 3 to remain below. The canoes are not deep laden having only 22 pieces each besides the people's provisions.-- Th Old Chief La Buche took his departure in the evening. Some Indians traded a few beaver & appichimans. Wed.y. 7 Rained hard in the night and all day. Some Indians Pendent Oriells & Spokans traded nearly 40 beavers & some appichimans.-- With the constant rain the water is dripping through the houses in every direction. Sent word to the Indians to bring some mats to cover them. Thursday 8 Continued raining all night & the greater part of the day. Some Indian women arrived in the morning with mats which were traded and the men immediately set too to cover the houses with them which nearly completed befor night, at least the trading shop & store. We have only two men & the cook since we sent the people off.-- Received news from the F. Head camp they are still at a considerable distance and will be some time before they reach us, as their horses are very lean & they make but slow marching. It is said they have plenty of meat, but no amount of furs.-- Friday 9th. Foggy with showers of rain. A party of about 20 Nezperces arrived in the evening from the Buffalos[207] but deferred trading till tomorrow. Gave them to smoke. These peoples horses are very lean, & from them we learn that the Flat Heads horses are still worse in consequence of which it will still be some time before they come away. These Indians fired a salute to the Fort on their arrival.[208] It has been hitherto the custom to return the salute as I had omitted to do so to Old La Buche (from not knowing their customs,) when he arrived with a few young men and also fired, lest it would cause jealousy, however, as the old gentlemen again paid us a visit this evening, & was smoking with the chiefs we explained to him the cause of our not firing, and told thse people we would give them a round on their departure, which La Bouche said would give him no offense. I understand it is pleasing to the Indians to receive this mark of respect. As the expense is but trifling we intend returning their salutes when they arrive in future.-- Saturday 10th Foggy in the morning, Sun shining occasionally during the day. The Nezperces that arrived yesterday traded 18 beaver, 23 Appichimans, 2 Robes, 5 Saddles, 4 dressed skins, 97 Tongues, 10 (Bosses), & 11 Bales of Meat 665 lbs net., principally for Tobacco & ammunition. Some other Indians visited the Fort but had little to trade. Sunday 11 Overcast soft mild weather. The Nezperces chief & his men went off for the Flat Head camp. A few shots were fired on their departure. A little Tobacco was sent with the chiefs to C. McKay[209] who is coming in with the Snake furs.--A young man arrived from the Kootany Chief who is encamped with all his people at a short distance & will be here tomorrow. A small piece of Tobacco was sent to the Chief. Had 113 Buffalo Tongues salted in bags made of (pannefliches)[210] having no kegs, we expect they will keep in the bags. Monday 12 Foggy raw cold weather, drizzly rain in the evening. The Kootany chief with about a dozen of his men arrived and smoked but brought no furs with them as they said they intended to trade tomorrow. The Chief it seems has been occasionally accustomed to get a dram on his arrival, and on asking for it got a glass of rum mixed with water, which, little as it was, with the smoking took him by the head and made him tipsy. A woman who goes in mens clothes[111] & is a leading character among them was also tipsy with 3/4 of a glass of the mixed liquor and became noisy, some others of the leading men who got a little were not affected by it. Gave them some tobacco to smoke when they went off in the evening. When it was dark 3 Au Plattes, another band of Kootenais, arrived for some Tobacco to smoke, these people are all afoot and were not able to keep up with the main band who have horses. They are all said to have plenty of beaver. The men employed sorting and baling up meat. Tuesday 13 Weighty rain in the night, soft mild weather during the night. The Kootenay chiefs with 60 to 80 of his people arrived in the morning, and after smoking & conversing to about 11 oclock a brisk trade was commenced and continued on to night, when all their furs & leather was traded, the Chief got some tobacco for his people to smoke in the night besides a small present of Ammunition and beads 4 Pluis. A present was also given to, Bundosh[211], a woman who assumes a masculine character and is of some note among them, she acted as interpreter for us, she speaks F. Head well. A little ammunition & Tobacco was also given to some of the other leading men.--The trade was as follows, 481 Large & 205 small beaver, 8 Otters, 1200 Rats, 6 Fishes, 7 Mink, 10 Martens, 21 Elk skins, 27 Deer Skins, 9 (Pannefliches) & 31 fath. cords, which may be considered an excellent trade as it is seldom or never that things come up to it in the fall.--The Chief & indeed the whole of them went off apparently well pleased, though the trade is very cheap, excpt 12 guns, 3 blankts, and a few Kettles, principaly ammunition & Tobacco. Wed.y. 14 Blowing a storm with heavy rain in the night. Blowing fresh from the Northward all day, but fair. The Kootany Chief with some of his people visited the fort & Traded 15 beaver a few rats & some dressed skins. The beaver traded today make up the Kootany trade now 488 Large & 213 small beaver.-- C. McKay & Joachim Hubert arrived with the Snake Furs, 17 packs & 4 partons, they had only 4 horses of the Companie's and not being able, as Mr Ogden expected, to obtain any assistance from the Indians, McKay, had to get part the furs carried by 4 Freemen who accompany him. Some of these freemen are in disgrace and will probably have to be punished for their conduct towards Mr Ogden, but as this gentleman has not written or sent any instructions on the subject, it was thought best to give them a dram & a piece of Tobacco and not make it appear that anything was against them till instructions which are written for, be received from below regarding how they are to be dealt with. These steps are necessary in order to endeavour to get the furs out of their hands so that they may not dispose of them in trade among the Indians.--The caches were not found all complete a few beaver belonging to one of the men's wives were missing and a cache of 100 Large beaver belonging to two of the freemen, Bastong & Gadua, was stolen by the Indians. The horses are very lean and would have been able to go little farther. They parted with the Indians some time ago. The F Heads will not be here for some time yet. (To be continued.) FOOTNOTES: [161] Peter Skene Ogden, then in charge of the Snake Country trapping expedition and on the headwaters of either the Snake or the Missouri rivers. [162] Thos. Dears, a clerk in charge of the building at the new trading post at Kettle Falls, Wash., to be known as Fort Colville. [163] The family of John McLeod en route to the Red River Dist. Consult Note No. 40, p. 103, of April Quarterly. [164] Dr. McLoughlin visited this place the following summer and the Fort was built where Gov. Simpson had selected the site. [165] More recently known as Long Prairie, about 18 miles from the Fort. [166] This Express boat ascended the Columbia River to Boat Encampment at the mouth of Canoe river and met there by appointment the H. B. Co. officer returning from York Factory after the annual summer council there. The horses that brought that Gentleman's party across the Athabasca pass returned with these passengers and dispatches, and the officer came back down the Columbia in the boat. Consult this text Oct. 31st Prox. [167] A prairie still known by the same name; near Springdale, Stevens county. [168] Probably Walkers Prairie, where the Walker-Eells Mission was located in 1838. [169] This would be Francois Rivet, an interpreter, who was given some authority by the traders. He afterward settled on French Prairie below Salem, Oregon. [170] That is, by the Snake river route through Boise, Payette, Weiser, Burnt river and the Grande Ronde in Eastern Oregon. He actually arrived at Fort Walla Walla on Nov. 9th. [171] The first vegetables grown in Stevens county, Washington, by white men. [172] Good cedar timber suitable for boats is said to have grown above the mouth of Deep creek four or five miles above the Fort. [173] The flat where Spokane House was built was a small prairie with some scattering timber in spots. Gov. Stevens found it so in 1853; see Part 1, Vol. 12 of Pac. Ry. Reports. [174] Mr. Kittson's first wife was from the Walla Walla tribe: their son Peter William, born at Fort Walla Walla in 1830, is still living (1914) about 25 miles from Portland, Oregon. [175] See Gov. Simpson's instructions in entry of July 21st ante. The Pend d'Oreille river between Metaline Falls and its mouth is not navigable to this day and this route was never adopted. [176] That is: from Fort Nez Perces or Walla Walla. [177] From other sources we know that Dr. McLoughlin did not get further inland than Fort Walla Walla that season. [178] Spokane or Coeur d'Alene prairie. [179] A. R. McLeod, a chief trader who remained on the Columbia several years and commanded expedition against the Clallam Indians In 1828, for which he was criticised and perhaps censured: Mr. Samuel Black (who was afterwards murdered at Kamloops) was on the way to take charge of Fort Walla Walla to relieve Mr. Dease there; Francis Ermatinger remained in the Columbia District for twenty years, but the brother, Mr. Edward Ermatinger, retired to St. Thomas, Ontario, in 1828. Consult "Journal of Edward Ermatinger," published by Royal Society of Canada, Ottawa, 1912. This "Express" brought mail from Hudson's Bay and all Eastern points. The Forks means the mouth of the Spokane river. [180] William Kittson and Francis Ermatinger, clerks of the Hudson's Bay Company, the latter on his way to take charge of Fort Oknaugan for the winter; Mr. Work and James Birnle, also a clerk, remain in charge at Spokane House. Mr. Birnie passed his last days at Cathlamet on the lower Columbia; his descendants reside there. [181] The prairie pasture between the Spokane Falls and the Coeur d'Alene lake. [182] The Kootenay river was originally named McGilllvray's river, by David Thompson. [183] Kootenay Falls near Troy, Lincoln County, Montana; the "Old Fort" referred to stood opposite Jennings, Montana, about 25 miles further up the river. For mention of that Fort consult Ross Cox. [184] See letter from Gov. Simpson in Part I of this Journal (p. 98 of this Quarterly for April 1914). [185] That is, the house for building cedar batteaux, which were to be run down to the Columbia river at high water in the spring. [186] Mr. J. W. Dease, who had been in charge of Fort Walla Walla, but was being transferred to Spokane House, but is delayed waiting for Peter Skene Ogden's arrival from the Snake Country of Southern Idaho. [187] Mr. Work is assigned to spend the winter at the trading post among the Flathead Indians in Montana. The "portage" refers to the 76 miles over which they must carry the trading goods on pack animals between Spokane House and the Pend d'Oreille river. [188] About where Hilyard now is, near city of Spokane. [189] Rathdrum creek, probably. [190] That is, at the Spokane Falls. [191] Now called Hoodoo Lake, in Bonner County, Idaho. The Spokane-International By. passes by it. [192] That is at Sina-acateen crossing of the Pend d'Oreille river, nearly opposite Laclede station of the Great Northern By. [193] Meaning the Kullyspell House or trading post established in Sept., 180, by David Thompson, but long since abandoned; it stood not far from Hope, Idaho. [194] Sand Point of the present day, very early and properly so named. [195] Kootenay Falls of the oKotenay river. [196] Meaning Mr. Finan McDonald, who had resided among the Spokane Indians for years, but who was absent now on exploring expedition into southern Oregon. [197] Probably Cabinet rapids of the Clark Fork river. [198] Probably Trout creek, of today. [199] Meaning Thompson Falls, Montana. [200] Thompson's Prairie or Plain, where David Thompson established his Saleesh House in Oct., 1809. The H. B. Co. removed the trading post further up the river. This camp was close to the mouth of Thompson river. [201] Peter Skene Ogden. Consult Oregon Hist. Quarterly, Vol. 10, pp. 229-78. [202] Flathead Fort or House, then located at or near the present R. R. station of Eddy, in Sanders county, Montana, on main line of No. Pac. Ry. [203] The best Mr. Work could make or the Indian family name Saleesh or Salish. [204] Probably about 8 miles away on the Horse Plains, of Plains, Montana, where was usual Indian camping ground. [205] The portage across from Pend d'Oreille lake north to Bonners Ferry on the oKotenay river, known as the flat portage because of there being no high mountain range to cross, and the Kootenay Indians on that part of the river being designated by the same name. [206] These Indians crossed by the "Kootenae Road," shown on David Thompson's famous map (See Henry-Thompson Journals) from near Jennings, Montana, south across the Caldnet Mountains to Thompson's Prairie, or to the Horse Plains. [207] Both Nez Perces and Flatheads spent the summer and fall hunting buffalo on the prairie along the Missouri river. [208] For a graphic description of this custom consult Oregon Hist. Quarterly for December, 1913; given in Journal of Alex. Ross, who had charge of this Fort in Dec., 1824. [209] Mr. McKay was bringing furs from Mr. Ogden's party, which had been in southern Idaho, but the main party had returned direct to Fort Walla Walla. [210] Parflesches or saddle bags. [211] In 1811 two Indians in men's clothes appeared at Ft. Astoria, as related by Franchere, Ross and Irving. They returned to the interior with David Thompson's party that summer. He described them as Kootenays and one of them as a prophetess and this may be the same Indian. THE COLUMBIA RIVER UNDER HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY RULE[212] By his _Astoria_ Washington Irving drew the eyes of the world to the now far famed Columbia River and perpetuated the story of the late John Jacob Astor's ill fated enterprise on the Pacific Coast. The name "Astoria" recalls, not only the trading fort which gave the book its title, but the varied adventures by sea and land of those who went forth to plant the Stars and Stripes on the Columbia and to secure for Mr. Astor's company a share of the rich fur trade of the far West. If Mr. Astor's great enterprise was, through no fault of his, doomed to failure, almost from its beginning, it enabled him to supply, from the correspondence and journals of his co-partners and employees, material with which Washington Irving was able to shed the halo of a romantic early history upon the Columbia and the Northern Pacific Coast. Captain Bonneville's adventures enabled the illustrious author to extend his chronicles to regions further east. Among the cherished possessions of the present writer is an old volume, presented to his father by the author. It was published in Montreal in 1820. It is written in French by G. Franchere, _fils_, one of the clerks who sailed in the _Tonquin_ in 1810, on her memorable voyage round Cape Horn, to the Sandwich Islands and the Columbia, where he remained to assist in the founding of _Astoria_ and other trading posts. On the cession of the posts to the Canadian "Northwest Company" he remained a few months in the employ of the latter, and returned over the mountains and by way of the Red River settlement and Lake Superior to Montreal in 1814. His narrative agrees in the main with that of Irving. Indeed, it is probable that it was one of the sources from which the latter obtained his account of the _Tonquin's_ trip and subsequent events on the Columbia. On two points dwelt on by Irving it is, however, silent--the one, the marriage of Macdougall, one of the partners in the Astor company, to the dusky princess, the daughter of King Comcomly--the other, the chief part played by Macdougall in the transfer of Astoria to the British company. It is probable, however, that a marriage, after the Indian custom, may have taken place between these personages, M. Franchere not thinking it worth while to mention the matter, nor even the fact of the young woman's existence. That there was treachery toward Mr. Astor in McDougall's dealings with the North West Company is rather a matter of inference with Irving than a distinct charge. Franchere--who speaks of the bargain with the North West Company as participated in by all present at Astoria at the time--not being a partner, could scarcely know more than appeared on the surface. The only sentence in English in Franchere's book is contained in a footnote. It is the now historic exclamation of Captain Black of His Majesty's ship _Raccoon_ when he landed at Astoria: "What! Is this the Fort I have heard so much of! Great God! I could batter it down with a four pounder in two hours." Franchere evidently thought his French rendering of these memorable words did not do the gallant captain complete justice, so he re-translated them, and Irving repeats them in all their nautical Anglo-Saxon vigour. Washington Irving's chronicle of Astoria practically closed with the cession of that post to McTavish, representing the North West Company--with the running up of the British in place of the American flag at the Fort in 1813 and the change of name from Astoria to "Fort George." As the North West Company thus swallowed up the American Company in 1813, so in 1821 the Hudson's Bay Company practically swallowed the North West Company--though the settlement of the irregular warfare, waged for years between these rival British companies, was termed an association or coalition. The industrious beaver and his less industrious neighbour, the Indian, saw little or no change. It will, however, be remembered by readers of _Astoria_ how disgusted was the worthy one-eyed monarch, King Comcomly, chief of the Chinooks, at the sudden change of flag at Astoria, brought about by his son-in-law, McDougall, whom he finally concluded to be a squaw rather than a warrior. Yet Comcomly lived on and, making a virtue of necessity, cultivated friendship and amity with the British as he had before with the Americans. His poor opinion of his whilom son-in-law may have subsequently been confused by the fact of the latter's leaving the princess, his wife, behind when he left the country--though, as a rule, both the wife and her family in such cases preferred her remaining among her own people to venturing into the haunts of civilization. The divorced princess in question, too, we reserved for higher honours; as we are told by Paul Kane, a Canadian artist and traveller, who visited the country in the forties, that she subsequently became the favourite wife of a powerful chief named Casanov, who could previously to 1829 lead into the field 1000 men--leaving at home, at the same time, ten wives, four children and eighteen slaves. Casanov is described as a man of more than ordinary talent for an Indian, and of great influence with the people whom he governed, in the vicinity of the British fort, Vancouver--Chinooks and Klickitats. He possessed, among other luxuries, a functionary, known as his "Scoocoone" or "evil genius"--a sort of Lord High Executioner--whose duty it was to remove persons obnoxious to his lord and master, by assassination. This functionary had the misfortune to fall in love with one of Casanov's wives, who eloped with him--with the result that, though they at first eluded his search, Casanov at length met and "removed" his errant wife on the Cowlitz river and procured also a like fate for her lover, the whilom executioner himself. It was the belief of the chiefs that they and their sons were personages so important that their deaths could not occur in a natural way, but were always attributable to the malevolent influence of some one, whom they selected in an unaccountable manner and unhesitatingly sacrificed. One most near and dear to the deceased was as likely to be selected as another. The former wife of McDougall, now favourite wife of Casanov, was thus selected by him, to accompany her own son, who died of consumption, to the great beyond, but she escaped and sought and was accorded protection at Fort Vancouver. Mr. Black, an officer of the Hudson's Bay Company in charge of their Fort on Thompson's River, fell a victim to the same superstitious custom--shot in the back by the nephew of an old chief with whom Black had been on the most friendly terms, at the instigation of the dead chief's widow. Regard for Mr. Black, however, impelled the young man's tribe to ignore the sanction of the custom and hunt down and put him to death. The company chartered by gay King Charles II--"the company of gentleman adventurers trading into Hudson's Bay," or "the Honourable the Hudson's Bay Company"--as it was and still is styled--was undoubtedly the dominant partner in the new coalition. Newspaper and pamphlet warfare occasionally broke out between partizans or admirers of the former rival corporations during the next half century--an occasional flow of ink of controversy instead of the flow of blood which sometimes characterized their collisions in former days--but the North West Company had ceased to exist, while the Hudson's Bay Company ruled almost half a continent. On the Columbia their chief post was established ninety miles up the river from the sea and was called Fort Vancouver--which must not be confused with the flourishing young city at the western terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Fort George or Astoria became thereafter a subsidiary post, utilized as a place from which a watch could be kept on the movements of American traders. Though the territory now comprising Oregon and Washington was claimed by the United States ever since Captain Gray with his good ship _Columbia_ passed the dreaded bar and gave the river a name, the Hudson's Bay Company was, under a series of ten-year treaties between the two nations, leaving the question of ownership open--providing indeed for a joint occupation--in practical possession of the country and its trade, until the boundary question was finally settled in 1846--not long after which the company withdrew its headquarters to the north of the 49th parallel. The company gradually obtained control by lease of a number of the Russian posts as well, maintaining also vessels to trade along the seashore. The country tributary to the Columbia was rich in furs in those days. Even as late as 1840, one trader, for example, was able to bring out of the Snake country 3300 beaver and otter skins, the result of his season's work for the company. Though Sir George Simpson was the governor in chief of the Hudson's Bay Company after the coalition, the dominant spirit west of the Rocky Mountains for some twenty-five years was Dr. John McLaughlin--the "Big Doctor," as he was familiarly termed. "He was the partner in charge of the whole Columbia department, to which is attached that of New Caledonia and Fraser River, for more than a quarter of a century," wrote an old Hudson's Bay clerk[213] who knew the doctor, "a more indefatigable and enterprising man it would have been difficult to find. With an energetic and indomitable spirit, his capacious mind conceived and pushed forward every kind of improvement for the advancement of commerce and the benefit of civilization. With only seven head of horned cattle and others which he imported from California, by good management and perseverance, he stocked the whole of the Oregon territory, until they had increased to thousands. He built saw mills and cultivated an extensive farm on the beautiful prairie of Fort Vancouver. Subsequently he laid the foundation of Oregon City, where he built a splendid grist mill. The machinery of the mill he imported from Scotland and from the same country a good, practical miller. * * * By every means in his power he promoted trade and commerce with other countries. To Sitka, the principal Russian establishment, the company exported produce--chiefly wheat--to the Sandwich Islands lumber and salmon, and to California, hides and tallow. In short, under Dr. McLaughlin's management, everything was done to develop the resources of the country." Two military officers, Warre and Vavaseur, who visited Oregon on the part of the British government, reported that the doctor favoured the Americans. While his correspondence shows a sympathy with the advanced political party in Canada, which at that time would have been there regarded as proof positive of "Americanism," the fact is that the doctor's mind was of that liberal cast which favoured everyone who could be useful to the country. Britisher or foreigner. This is borne out by his actions as well as his unpublished correspondence. Not only was there an extensive farm established at Fort Vancouver, but others at Fort Colville and on the Cowlitz, while a large grazing company or association was formed, to raise sheep, near Puget's Sound. The doctor was, moreover, anxious to wean the red man from his savage life to agricultural pursuits, as well as to promote in every way the settlement of the country. He succeeded in making cattle plentiful by forbidding the killing of any for a considerable period. At last he wrote in 1837, "I killed forty head of cattle last summer, so, you see, the taboo is broken." He hailed with satisfaction the arrival of missionaries, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, and did much to inculcate temperate habits among the people, both whites and natives. Indeed, in 1843 he rejoiced in having for a number of years successfully enforced a prohibitory law for both Indians and the French settlers on the Willamette, at that time numbering 200, ninety per cent of whom were old voyageurs and American Rocky Mountain trappers, yet with few exceptions temperance men, "which," quaintly wrote the doctor, "I think may be said to be unique of its nature in such a number." The American traders seem to have been his chief foes in the region of the Columbia, in regard to the liquor traffic--as the Russians were in the regions farther North. The doctor was a firm believer in exemplary punishment for crime, especially in territories where such punishment only would act as a deterrent on savages, who might at any time be tempted to outrage. One instance of his method of dealing with such cases may be referred to. From an old manuscript report of one of the Company's traders, who took part in the proceedings detailed, the following particulars are gleaned. In January, 1828, Mr. Alexander McKenzie and four men under his charge were murdered on Puget's Sound, on their way from Fort Langley, and an Indian woman of the party carried off, by the tribe known as the Clallums. All the effective men at Fort Vancouver were mustered and told by Chief Factor McLaughlin of the affair and of the necessity for an expedition being sent off in search of the murderous tribe, to make a salutary example of them if possible. A call for volunteers brought a ready response and on the 17th June a force of upwards of sixty men under Chief Trader Alex. R. McLeod set forth, with a salute of cannon from the fort and cheers from the officers and crew of the _Eagle_--presumably an American vessel. The voyageurs having enjoyed their customary _regale_ and the Iroquois their war dance, on the previous evening, no delay for these ever necessary functions occurred and the expedition proceeded down the Columbia and up the Cowlitz to the _portage_, where their boats were _cached_, and horses obtained. Then the motley army, consisting of Canadians, half-breeds, Iroquois, Sandwich Islanders and Chinooks, with Scotch and English officers, mounted, set forth, looking, as the chronicler thought, more like a band of gypsies than a force collected for the purpose in view. At the end of the _portage_ the force again embarked in canoes and on 1st July, coming upon a couple of lodges, one, understood to be occupied by Clallums, was at once attacked and death immediately dealt out to its inmates, ruthlessly, regardless apparently as to whether they were concerned in the murder of McKenzie and his party or not, while in the semi-darkness of evening men, women and even children appear to have shared the same fate. Off Cape Townsend the company's vessel _Cadboro'_, Captain Simpson, was sighted. Thereafter the land and naval forces co-operated--so far, at least, as the somewhat divergent views and orders of their respective commanders permitted. A day or two was spent off one of the Clallum villages, near New Dungeness, in apparently fruitless negotiations for the return of the Indian woman, whose father was a man of great influence in his own tribe. Not until a chief and eight others had been slain by shots from the vessel's guns and a bombardment of a village, where some articles of Mr. McKenzie's were found, had taken place, was the woman brought on board. A second village, from which the murderers of McKenzie's party were said to have set out, was burned. The force then parted from the _Cadboro'_ and returned to Fort Vancouver. The Indians stated that seven people had been killed at the lodge fired upon on the 1st, and that the friends of these had at once avenged their deaths, by putting to death two of the principal murderers of McKenzie. In all, they reported 25 people killed in these various affrays, to avenge the original crime, not to speak of a very considerable quantity of Indian property destroyed. It would be unjust to charge Dr. McLaughlin with the responsibility for the entire proceedings of this merciless expedition. What his instructions to _Mr. McLeod_ were that gentleman kept pretty well to himself. Unfortunately the latter showed vacillation and timidity, at the moments when firmness and promptness were required, disputed and quarrelled with Captain Simpson on board his own vessel, assumed too much authority at one time, too little at another, with the result that indiscriminate slaughter and destruction of property seem to have taken the place of just and merited punishment. It is to be presumed, however, that the deterrent effect was produced, at any rate as to the Clallums. The population, native and foreign, of the Columbia district, at this period, was of a wonderfully heterogeneous character. The number of small tribes into which the native population of the Pacific Coast and islands was divided is well known to have been large. Yet Indians from the plains and Iroquois from the far East had come in as servants of the company, while Sandwich Islanders--or Owhyhees (Hawaiians) as they were termed--were among almost all the company's crews and forces. French half-breeds and others of varying tints and gay costumes lent picturesqueness to the Hudson's Bay posts and campfires. Sir George Simpson gives a striking instance of the variety in colour and language afforded by a single boatload. "Our batteau carried as curious a muster of races and languages as perhaps had ever been congregated within the same compass in any part of the world. Our crew of ten men contained Iroquois, who spoke their own tongue; a Cree half-breed of French origin, who appeared to have borrowed his dialect from both his parents; a North Briton, who understood only the Gaelic of his native hills; Canadians who, of course, knew French; and Sandwich Islanders, who jabbered a medley of Chinook and their own vernacular jargon. Add to all this that the passengers were natives of England, Scotland, Russia, Canada and the Hudson's Bay Company's territories; and you have the prettiest congregation of nations, the nicest confusion of tongues, that has ever taken place since the days of the tower of Babel. At the native camp near which we halted for the night, we enriched our clans with one variety more, by hiring a canoe and its complement of Chinooks, to accompany us." Sir George Simpson was at this time on his famous overland journey round the world, having the previous day, Sept. 1st, 1841, left Fort Vancouver, where, by the way, his party found two vessels of the United States exploring squadron under command of Lieutenant (afterward) Commodore Wilkes, which contributed much to the enjoyment of their week's stay there. The circumnavigators had parted on the beach at Fort Vancouver with Lieutenant Wilkes and party and had added to their number another Hudson's Bay officer, Mr. Douglas (afterwards Sir James Douglas, governor of Vancouver Island) and had visited the company's extensive dairy on the delta or island of Multnomah or Wapatoo. Thence down the Columbia and up the Cowlitz, across to Fort Nisqually and Puget's Sound, visiting the Cowlitz farm and the sheep ranch--a four days' journey from Fort Vancouver brought them to the company's steamer, the _Beaver_, on which they set out for the posts of the Pacific coast and Sitka--that coast trip now familiar to thousands of gold-seekers. At the Stikine (or Stickeen) River--a place much in the world's eye during the past year or two--Sir George found young John McLaughlin, a son of the big doctor, in charge of the company's post, with a force of twenty-two men. The governor next proceeded to Sitka, and, after a somewhat protracted side trip to California and the Sandwich Islands, returned in the Spring of '42 to Stikine on board the company's ship, the _Cowlitz_, in tow of a Russian steamer loaned him by Governor Etholine of Sitka--to find that young McLaughlin had just been murdered by his own men, who were in a state of mingled mutiny and intoxication within the fort, while about 2000 Indians were gathered without, in readiness to take advantage of the insurrection within! The opportune arrival of Sir George, with two ships' crews at his disposal, enabled him to speedily quell the disturbance and disperse the Indians, after preparing their minds for a measure which the company was anxious here as elsewhere to enforce--the discontinuance of the liquor traffic. It may here be remarked that the one good result of this most unhappy tragedy at the Stikine was the agreement arrived at soon after with the Russian company--whose bad example had been held to necessitate the British company's fighting "firewater" with "firewater" at competitive trading posts--under which agreement both companies inaugurated a prohibitory liquor law on this coast. Doubts as to his powers and the best policy to pursue led Sir George to take the man who fired the fatal shot with him to Sitka, whither he was returning _en route_ to Siberia and Europe. For a less comprehensible reason he sent another man--a supposed participant in the affair--to Fort Vancouver, accompanied by a letter to Dr. McLaughlin, apprising him of the tragedy and casting some blame upon the murdered son for the insurrection. The letter the big doctor had, of course, no alternate but to receive, but the man he would not see nor so much as suffer to set foot on shore at Fort Vancouver--but had him kept a prisoner on board the _Cadboro_. On a trip of that vessel to Vancouver Island, this man saw Mr. Douglas and at once made a confession to him, implicating all the people at Stikine in a plot to murder John the younger. He even stated that an agreement to that effect had been drawn up by the man who was acting as a temporary assistant or clerk to the murdered man. The confession absolved the young trader from the charge of drunkenness and contradicted the depositions taken by Sir George in every material point. Little wonder is it that the doctor, smarting under the blow received, was not satisfied with the apparently easy methods pursued by Sir George, with whom he had moreover recently exchanged some angry words in California on matters of business; nor that he sent an officer of the company to Mr. Manson, with a complete new complement of men, to the Stikine to re-open the investigation--with no known retributive result, though the evidence taken tends to justify the doctor's summing up--his vigorous penmanship adding strength to his words--"The short and the long of the affair is, these fellows wanted to impose on my son, to which he would not submit"--true chip of the old block it seemed!--"They, finding they could not make him bend, conspired and murdered him." It is worthy of note that at the last the young man seems to have relied upon his Owhyhees (Hawaiians) to make a stand against the whites. The doctor's subordinate officers at these various and remote posts eagerly scanned all news of the affair which reached them and sympathized with the afflicted father--but they could scarcely grasp the situation in all its details of doubt and difficulty as to criminal procedure, territorial jurisdiction, etc. "I fear we have got ourselves into a hobble and that it will turn out we are more _au fait_ in our humble occupation as Indian traders than as the dispensary of Her Majesty's criminal law," wrote one. But the big doctor's feelings were still aroused--he attributed, whether rightly or wrongly, his son's death to Sir George indirectly, as a result of the governor's having removed a trusted man, Mr. Finlayson, from the post of assistant to the young trader, substituting a labourer in his place--and he carried the matter before the heads of the company in England--"wrote a thundering epistle to their honours at home, concerning Sir George, ripping up old grievances," as another old trader, John Tod (1 Sept. 1842) put it. Yet Sir George remained at the head of the company, while the old doctor continued to mourn the unavenged death of the son he evidently loved much. The witnesses who were examined by Mr. Manson at Stikine testified that the document referred to by their former comrade in his confession, as an agreement to murder the trader, was simply a formal complaint against him, which they intended presenting to Sir George Simpson, as head of the company, on his expected arrival--but that it was never presented, but destroyed, because it was too dirty to be presented to the governor. Not only was Sir George a man whose examples as to soiled documents had to be considered, but he seems to have had a prejudice in favour of clean linen as well--as the following less tragic incident would seem to indicate: Sir George at one time wrote Dr. McLaughlin to remove the officer in charge of Fort George (Astoria), with a seven years' pension. The doctor declared the governor "must do his dirty work himself," and took no decisive steps to interfere with the officer in question, who was described as youthful in appearance, though fat and indolent, but with "children enough far a colony." The officer nominated to succeed him enquired of the condemned, what he had done to offend the governor. He stated that Sir George had sent two cotton shirts ashore to be washed and while they were being taken, under the fat officer's charge, from the fort to the ship, one of them fell overboard, but he declared his intention of sending another to London and hoped his offense would be forgiven. His propitiatory offering, or Sir George's better feelings, it is presumed, prevented his becoming the victim of another "tale of a shirt," by an ignominious expulsion from office, for such a cause. On December 8th, 1846, there arrived at Fort Vancouver a person whose errand was of a novel character to dwellers upon the Columbia--Mr. Paul Kane, to whom reference has already been made, was a native of Toronto, who had adopted painting as the profession of his choice and, after spending some four years in Europe qualifying himself in his art, conceived the idea of making an overland trip across the continent, making sketches, as he proceeded, of the representative Indians of the various tribes and of the scenery of the country through which he passed, then an almost unbroken wilderness. He spent nearly four years in these wanderings, to and from the Pacific, sketching portraits of chiefs, medicine men, warriors, their wives and daughters--also fishing, hunting and other scenes, illustrative of the customs, occupations and amusements of the red men and the physical features of the country. From these sketches he subsequently executed many paintings, some of which are on the walls of the embryo Canadian national gallery at Ottawa, but a much more extensive and elaborate series in oils--numbering about 100 canvasses--is among the valued possessions of a Toronto gentleman, the Hon. George W. Allen, Canadian senator.[214] The artist's Journal, published in London in 1859, with specimens of his work--now unfortunately out of print--gave an interesting narrative of his travels and adventures, with much of the history and folklore of the various people of the Northwestern regions. Kane reached the height of land on November 12th. His voyage down the Columbia to Fort Vancouver he accomplished in little more than a fortnight--including stoppages at Forts Colville and Walla Walla _en route_--whereas it took him four months to cover the same distance on his return the following year. It may well be imagined that the advent of such a character excited no little interest. At Fort Vancouver two chief factors, Messieurs Douglas and Ogden, now reigned, in place of Dr. McLaughlin, with eight or ten clerks and 200 voyageurs. Her Majesty's warship _Modeste_, with her complement of officers, lay in the broad river, opposite the fort. Outside the stockade was the village with its motley population of English, French, Iroquois, Sandwich Islanders, Crees and Chinooks, and its confusion of tongues. The artist enjoyed the hospitality of the officers at the fort for about a month and on 10 January, 1847, in company with Mr. MacKenzie, a chief trader, proceeded up the Willamette to Oregon City, passing "two cities that are to be," one of which contained but two houses and the other not much more advanced. Oregon City, located by Dr. McLaughlin, who owned the chief mills, contained then about ninety-four houses and two or three hundred inhabitants, a Methodist and a Roman Catholic church, two grist mills and as many hotels. A lawyer and "doctors ad libitum" were already on the ground. That it would be rivalled, if not eclipsed, by a city to be built where Portland now is, was even then predicted, owing to intervening impediments to navigation. A few weeks at Oregon City and a few days at the Roman Catholic missions further up the Willamette, and Kane returned to spend the balance of the winter pleasantly with the Hudson's Bay and naval officers at Fort Vancouver in riding, and in fishing and shooting the waterfowl and seal with which the neighbourhood abounded. In the Spring he made a trip to Vancouver Island and adjacent coasts and islands, returning to Fort Vancouver in June, and on July 1st began his homeward journey. The artist was regarded as a great "medicine man" by the natives, who sometimes gathered in great numbers to watch him manipulate his supposed implements of magic--insomuch that at one village on the coast of De Fuca Straits, so great was the crowd gathered in the head chief's lodge that it was filled, and those outside climbed to the roof and, tearing the mats from their supports, to which they slung one upon another, peered down at him from above. He experienced much difficulty everywhere, however, in prevailing upon the natives to sit for their portraits, owing to their superstitious fear that the possessor of their likenesses would have some mysterious power or evil influence over them. In addition to entreaties and bribes, he had sometimes to resort to various strategies and arguments to attain his end--as, for instance, that the pictures were to be shown to their "great mother," the queen, who would no doubt be much disappointed on missing his proposed subject's portrait. On one occasion he allayed the fears of a repentant sitter, who continued to pursue him only by hastily preparing a duplicate sketch of him and destroying the duplicate in his presence--on another occasion he was in great peril owing to the unexpected death of one of his subjects--a woman--whose demise was attributed to his malign influence. Kane, notwithstanding, had many interesting subjects. Among others he met at Fort Victoria the great Yellow-cum, head chief of the Macaws at Cape Flattery and the wealthiest man of his tribe in slaves and iaquas, the shell money then in circulation there. His father was the pilot of the _Tonquin_, who escaped destruction by the terrible explosion, which blew in pieces Mr. Astor's ship, with the man who fired the magazine and all the savage horde on her deck. On his way home he paid a four days' visit to Dr. Whitman, the well known missionary, and his family at their home on the banks of the Walla Walla. The doctor took him to see an Indian named To-ma-kus that he might take his likeness--his appearance being the most savage, Kane says, he ever beheld. The Indian, a prey to superstitious fears, endeavoured to burn the sketch made of him by Kane, who snatched it from him and fled, the man appearing to be greatly enraged. The circumstance is referred to, as it must have been peculiarly distressing to the artist to hear when at Colville of the massacre of Doctor and Mrs. Whitman and a dozen others and that the ferocious To-ma-kus was the man who had tomahawked his late host, while another Indian, whom he had sketched, was present when the deed was done. Kane had, however, done all he could to warn Dr. Whitman of his danger and endeavoured to persuade him to seek safety at Fort Walla Walla--having, indeed, taken a three hours' ride back from the fort, where he had heard and seen enough to arouse his fears for the missionary, to the missionary--but in vain. The devoted man said he had lived so long among these Indians that he had no apprehension of their injuring him--yet they attributed, it seems, to him various ills which Providence and their enemies visited upon them, with the lamentable result just mentioned. Rev. H. Spalding and family were made prisoners by another tribe, from whom, however, Mr. Ogden, chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company, who had at once repaired to the scene on hearing of the trouble, purchased their release. The light of the gospel had first been brought to the natives of the Columbia some 14 years before this sad occurrence by a young Indian lad, christened Spaganbarry, by the English missionary at Red River, where he with some other sons of chiefs, had been sent in 1825, through the instrumentality of Governor Simpson. He returned in 1832 and subsequently spent some time in instructing his people, but afterwards himself lapsed into a profligate and savage life, according to the testimony of Governor Simpson himself. The Methodist Episcopal mission on the Willamette was begun by the Lees in 1834. In 1836 Dr. Whitman and Rev. H. Spalding with their wives--said to have been the first white women to cross the mountains--had begun their work among the Indians, as did also two Roman Catholic missionaries in 1838--while a chaplain, Rev. Mr. Beaver, and his wife, had come from England to supply the spiritual wants of Fort Vancouver. More than a decade of Christian teaching, it will be seen, had failed to eradicate superstition and savagery from the native character; yet the same spirit which has imbued those who have suffered similarly in Africa and China, in more recent years, has inspired the soldiers of the Cross on the Columbia and its tributaries to persist in their self-sacrificing labours, with what success the present residents of Oregon and Washington can best attest. The difference in appearance and customs, as well as language, between the Indians of the plains east of the mountains and those of the coast was great. Washington Irving attributed--no doubt correctly--the bent legs, corpulent bodies and generally squat appearance of the latter, as compared with the tall, straight figures of many of the natives of the East, to their life as fishermen and mariners, constantly squatting in canoes, while the aborigines of the plains scoured the prairies in the chase. Their disposal of their dead also reflected the character of the coast Indian's life--their cemeteries being collections of elaborately decorated canoes, containing the corpses, and finished with all manner of paraphernalia and provision for the deceased in their future state, in happy _fishing_, rather than _hunting_, grounds. Slavery was rife among the aborigines of the coast, the number of a man's wives and slaves being the two chief items in estimating his importance. The lives of these slaves were completely at the mercy of their owners, who killed them without compunction whenever the occasion seemed to them to call for such a sacrifice. The custom of flattening the head in infancy was a characteristic of certain of the tribes in the region of the Columbia and Puget's Sound, especially of the Chinooks and Cowlitz Indians. The process, which is well depicted, as well as described by Paul Kane, commenced with the birth of the infant and continued for a period of from eight to twelve months, in which time the head had lost its natural shape and acquired that of a wedge, the front of the skull flat and higher at the crown, giving it a very unnatural appearance. The infants are said to have shown no signs of suffering while subjected to the treatment, but on the contrary to have cried when their bands were removed--nor was their health or acuteness of intellect apparently impaired by it. The Flatheads took their slaves from among the roundhead tribes, the former looking with contempt even upon the whites, whose heads had grown in the natural shape which served to distinguish slaves from their masters. The fondness of the Indian for arraying himself in the white man's garments, especially if they be of a showy or striking appearance, has been often remarked, and the Indians of the Columbia were no exception to the rule. "I remember old King Comcomly," said the old Hudson's Bay clerk quoted in the earlier part of this article[215], "once marching into Vancouver, with all his naked aides and followers, rigged out in a British general's uniform. But His Majesty had thrown off the pantaloons before he marched out--considering that they impeded his progress"--a scene which reminds one somewhat of the visit of the founder of the late Hawaiian dynasty and his suite to the _Tonquin_, while she lay at the Sandwich Islands. The lot of the officers and clerks at the more remote posts of the Hudson's Bay Company was, in most cases, by no means an enviable one. Their letters to their friends and to each other--usually long and neatly written documents--contained many a tale of dangers surmounted and hardships endured. One wrote from Colville, in 1835, "we had five or six hundred Blackfeet upon us and fought some hours"; another, speaking of Fort Simpson in the same year, said: "A winter voyage on that rugged stormy coast is both dangerous and unpleasant and, when arrived, the matter is not much mended. The natives are very numerous, treacherous, daring, savage and ferocious in the extreme." Separated from his family, whom he would not expose to the dangers of the voyage, he exclaims against the country of his exile. Such instances might be multiplied and it is little matter of wonder that the burden of the trader's letter was at all times an expression of longing for the time when he hoped to "go out" to the far away civilized world and that he invariably looked upon one already there as in a situation akin to Paradise. The hope of promotion--which could not begin until after many years of service--the heartburnings at sometimes being passed over, the long waits of twenty or even thirty years for their "parchments," as they termed their commissions as chief factors or chief traders--were the subject of ceaseless thought and some grumbling. Now and again the bullet, knife or tomahawk of some treacherous foe would put an end to the earthly solitude of the trader at a remote post. In spite of all their drawbacks, however, the Hudson's Bay factors, traders and clerks formed a brotherhood of men, who, for courage, loyalty to the service and good comradeship, were unexcelled perhaps anywhere. In Eastern Canada, the Red River settlement and Vancouver Island, which formed the chief havens of their retirement from service, the old Nor'westers and Hudson's Bay men formed a confraternity of large-hearted and often opulent veterans, full of affection for their families and old comrades and of thankfulness to God for mercies vouchsafed them. That not only the highest position in the company's service, but the highest imperial honours as well, were open to the Hudson's Bay clerk possessing the necessary ability, tact, vigour and perseverance is evidenced by the case of the Hon. Sir Donald A. Smith, who, entering company's service as a lad from Scotland, 18 years of age, has risen, step by step, to the highest position in that service, has amassed great wealth, held a seat for many years in the Canadian parliament, and occupies now the important position of High Commissioner for Canada at London, where he holds a seat in the House of Lords as Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal. As already stated, the Hudson's Bay Company withdrew headquarters to the north of the present boundary after it became fixed in 1846. Meantime settlement, especially in the Willamette valley, was going on apace and cities and towns arose. Though the fur trade departed, the fisheries have remained and the city of Astoria has been reared chiefly on a diet of fish--for the salmon and sturgeon, as well as smaller fish, of the Columbia, were ever justly celebrated. Ships of all nations found their way in increasing numbers across that bar which has ever been the chief drawback to navigation to and from the Columbia. Across the broad river down which the express boat propelled by the light-hearted, gaily-singing voyageurs, made its way in former times, the swift express train now travels with passengers who mayhap have crossed the continent in less time than would, in the early days, have been consumed in a trip from Spokane to Fort Vancouver. C. O. ERMATINGER. FOOTNOTES: [212] Mr. C. O. Ermatinger, of St. Thomas, Ontario, the writer of this paper, is the son of the E. (Edward) Ermatinger and a nephew or the F. (Francis) Ermatinger who are mentioned in the entry on Monday, October 31st, 1825, of the Journal of John Work, which is printed in this Quarterly. Judge Ermatinger is a prominent member of the Elgin (County) Historical and Scientific Institute of Ontario, Canada. This paper was prepared for use in the East some years since; its publication in this Quarterly has now been kindly permitted.--T. C. Elliott. [213] The present writer's father. [214] Now deceased. The paintings were purchased I believe by Mr. C. B. Estes, M. P., of Toronto. [215] The writer's father. THREE DIPLOMATS PROMINENT IN THE OREGON QUESTION[216] English-speaking people throughout the world are preparing to celebrate the century of peace which was begun on Christmas Eve, 1814, by the signing of the Treaty of Ghent. It is especially appropriate that here, in the Pacific Northwestern part of America, we should join in such a celebration, for it was by the Treaty of Ghent that the Oregon Question first entered the realm of diplomacy. There remained thirty-one years of struggle for sovereignty, during which war seemed imminent on more than one occasion, and yet, at the end of that period, the case was settled by diplomacy. Many men took part in that struggle, but it is the present purpose to call attention to three eminent American statesmen who were brought into contact with the diplomacy of the case at each important stage of its evolution. As a group, they deserve more credit than is usually accorded to them in Northwestern annals. Their names are John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay and Albert Gallatin. It is not necessary to trace their early careers, except to point out that they fairly represented the United States in the critical year of 1814. Adams of Massachusetts was a New Englander. Clay, though born in Virginia, removed to Kentucky, at the age of twenty, to begin the practice of law. He thus represented the West as well as the South. Gallatin, born in Geneva, Switzerland, came to America, a boy of nineteen years, and passed through remarkable experiences in Massachusetts, Maine, Pennsylvania and Virginia, settling finally in New York City, a man of fame and wealth. During the War of 1812, these three men were in public service as follows: John Quincy Adams was United States Minister to Russia; Henry Clay was Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Albert Gallatin was rounding out his twelfth year as Secretary of the Treasury. When Czar Alexander offered to end the war by mediation, President Madison took the proposal very seriously. He appointed Clay and Gallatin as commissioners to join Minister Adams in the negotiations. The two resigned their important positions to accept the new duty. When they arrived at St. Petersburg, it was learned that Great Britain had declined the Czar's offer of mediation. There followed months of weary waiting. The victories over Napoleon relieved the pressure on Great Britain, but she finally made the proposal for commissioners of the two powers to meet in a neutral port. Ghent was chosen and the United States added James A. Bayard and Jonathan Russell to their commission. The long and tedious record of the negotiation reveals many a discord between the two sides but, much more unfortunate, it also reveals many clashes between Adams and Clay within the American commission. Adams insisted on protecting the fishing rights off British American shores and Clay wanted to deprive England from the use of the Mississippi River. Clay even tried to stop negotiations at the last moment. Adams says: "Gallatin and Bayard, who appeared not to know where it was that Clay's shoe pinched him, were astonished at what they heard, and Gallatin showed some impatience at what he thought mere unseasonable trifling."[217] Yet Gallatin surely did know where the shoe pinched and he was determined that the larger interests should not be jeopardized. His biographer says: "Far more than contemporaries ever supposed, or than is now imagined, the Treaty of Ghent was the special work and the peculiar triumph of Mr. Gallatin."[218] The biographer of Clay also refers to Gallatin's resources as a peacemaker, adding: "At the very last, just before separating, Adams and Clay quarreled about the custody of the papers, in language bordering upon the unparliamentary. But for the consummate tact and the authority of Gallatin the commission would not seldom have been in danger of breaking up in heated controversy."[219] These quarrels of the pinching shoes had little to do with the Oregon Question. They reveal, however, some of the qualities of the men destined to cling to the question for many years. Oregon is not mentioned in the completed treaty. In general terms it is included in the following language of Article 1: "All territory, places and possessions whatsoever, taken by either party from the other during the war, or which may be taken after the signing of this treaty, excepting only the islands hereinafter mentioned, shall be restored without delay, and without causing any destruction or carrying away any of the artillery or other public property originally captured in the said forts or places, and which shall remain therein upon the exchange of ratifications of this treaty, or any slaves or other private property."[220] The islands mentioned were those in Passamaquoddy Bay and Gallatin suspected that the British commissioners desired to pave the way for securing in the future a part of Maine "in order to connect New Brunswick and Quebec."[221] That Oregon was included in the treaty's general terms is shown by the instructions from Secretary of State Monroe to the American commissioners under date of March 22, 1814: "Should a treaty be concluded with Great Britain, and a reciprocal restitution of territory be agreed on, you will have it in recollection that the United States had in their possession, at the commencement of the war, a post at the mouth of the river Columbia, which commanded the river, which ought to be comprised in the stipulation, should the possession have been wrested from us during the war. On no pretext can the British Government set up a claim to territory south of the northern boundary of the United States. It is not believed that they have any claim whatever to territory on the Pacific Ocean. You will, however, be careful, should a definition of boundary be attempted, not to countenance, in any manner, or in any quarter, a pretension in the British Government to territory south of that line."[222] The American commissioners were therefore informed as to the determined attitude of the United States as to Oregon and Adams declares that the British understood that Oregon was included in the provisions of Article 1 of the Treaty of Ghent. He says that Anthony St. John Baker, Secretary of the British Commission, was to go to America with the ratification of the treaty and, later, he says that Baker showed in a letter to Secretary of State Monroe that the British understood that Astoria was included in he terms of Article 1 of the Treaty of Ghent.[223] Subsequently (21 February, 1822) it was revealed by the publication of the report of the American commissioners, dated at Ghent, 25 December, 1814, the day after the treaty was signed, that an attempt had been made to settle the boundary from the Lake of the Woods westward along the forty-ninth parallel of latitude. That would have settled the Oregon controversy then. It was rejected because it was involved with "a formal abandonment on our part, of our claim to the liberty as to the fisheries, recognized by the treaty of 1783."[224] That Oregon was included in the provisions of the Treaty of Ghent was recognized in 1818 by the formal transfer of Astoria (Fort George of the British) to J. B. Prevost, representing the United States for the purpose of that transfer. In the same year, 1818, was signed by Great Britain and the United States an agreement that has since been known in the Oregon country as the Treaty or Convention of Joint Occupancy. The official title is Convention Respecting Fisheries, Boundary and the Restoration of Slaves. Article III of this convention provided that "any country that may be claimed by either party on the northwest coast of America, westward of the Stony Mountains" should for the term of ten years be free and open to "the vessels, citizens and subjects of the two Powers."[225] There were no American settlers in Oregon then. The Northwest Company of Montreal had a number of trading posts. The convention was a mutual confession that the future would have to solve the question of actual sovereignty. When that convention was signed, John Quincy Adams was Secretary of State, Henry Clay was Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Albert Gallatin was United States Minister to France. But he was directed to go from Paris to London to join United States Minister Richard Rush in the negotiations and Gallatin's name is the first signature on the completed document. On 22 February, 1819, John Quincy Adams, as Secretary of State, signed with Luis de Onis, Spanish Minister to the United States, an agreement known as the Treaty of Friendship, Cession of the Floridas, and Boundaries. Just exactly two years elapsed before the treaty was ratified and proclaimed. The delay was caused by Spain's fear that the United States was about to recognize the independence of the revolted Spanish American colonies. Article III of this treaty affects the Oregon case in two ways. It fixes the southern boundary of the Oregon country along the forty-second parallel of latitude and it passes to the United States a quitclaim to any title that Spain may have in lands lying north of that boundary.[226] Adams surely sensed the importance of this item at the time. It was frequently cited and urged in subsequent negotiations. In 1821, the Czar of Russia claimed the coast of America from the frozen seas in the North to the fifty-first parallel of latitude. On 17 July, 1823, Secretary of State Adams told Baron Tuyl, Russian Minister to the United States, that the time had passed for further colonization by European powers in the lands of America. On the first Monday of the following December, President Monroe gave to Congress the famous message that embodies the Monroe Doctrine. Russia's claim to part of Oregon provoked a part of that Doctrine. Henry Middleton, United States Minister to Russia, was directed to begin negotiations which resulted in the convention as to the Pacific Ocean and Northwest Coast of America, bearing the date of 17 April, 1824. Article III of this convention fixes the northern boundary of the Oregon country at fifty-four degrees and forty minutes of north latitude. At this juncture, Gallatin had returned to private life, but Clay was still Speaker of the House and Adams was Secretary of State. When the ten-year limit of the joint occupancy feature of the Convention of 1818 was about to expire, our three diplomats were sharply confronted with the Oregon Question once more. John Quincy Adams had become President, Henry Clay was his Secretary of State, and Albert Gallatin, who had refused a cabinet position and a nomination for vice president, now consented to serve as United States Minister to Great Britain. In sending Minister Gallatin instructions under date of 19 June, 1826, Secretary of State Clay said: "You are then authorized to propose the annulment of the third article of the Convention of 1818, and the extension of the line on the parallel of 49, from the eastern side of the Stony Mountains, where it now terminates, to the Pacific Ocean, as the permanent boundary between the territories of the two powers in that quarter. This is our ultimatum, and you may so announce it." There still were no American settlers in the region. The fixing of the boundary was apparently impossible, but Gallatin succeeded in concluding on 6 August, 1827, a convention to continue indefinitely the joint occupancy feature and providing that either side could terminate the agreement by giving the other side twelve months' notice. President Adams felt that it was a compromise, but a good one. Said he to Congress: "Our conventions with Great Britain are founded upon the principles of reciprocity."[227] In the course of the negotiations there was submitted a declaration prohibiting both sides from "exercising, or assuming to themselves the right to exercise, any exclusive sovereignty or jurisdiction over the said territory, during the continuance in force of the present convention."[228] That declaration was not made a formal part of the convention except so far as it is covered by Article III, which provides that nothing in the convention shall impair the claims of either party "to any part of the country westward of the Stony or Rocky Mountains."[229] Oregon was projected into the struggles of joint occupancy. It remains to follow the interest of the three diplomats. Clay could not have forgotten Oregon wholly during his campaigns for the presidency or during his great fight for the Compromise of 1850, including the free constitution of California. He did not, however, come into definite contact with the Oregon case after his term as Secretary of State. Gallatin entered permanently upon private life in 1831. For about eight years he was a banker and then devoted himself to literature. There is abundant evidence that he remembered Oregon. He wrote in the field of ethnology about Indians of the west and, in 1846, when Oregon was reaching toward a final struggle in diplomacy, he wrote his well known pamphlet on The Oregon Question, beginning: "I had been a pioneer in collecting facts and stating the case."[230] When he wrote that pamphlet he was eighty-five years old and within three years of his death. Adams continued longest in the public service; indeed, his wish to die in the harness was gratified. The ex-President entered Congress in 1831 and represented the same district in the House of Representatives until his death in 1848. He knew the Oregon Question from end to end. He knew how Doctor Floyd and others had tried, in 1821, to persuade Congress to establish a settlement on the Columbia. He knew about William A. Slacum's investigation and report, in 1837, as well as the report of the Wilkes Expedition, in 1841. On returning from church on 24 July, 1842, he called on Lord Ashburton and spent an hour with him learning about the negotiations with Secretary Webster for a treaty in which, as he found, the "Oregon Territory and Columbia River question remains open."[231] The Webster-Ashburton Treaty was concluded on 9 August, 1842, but there were further negotiations, for in March, 1843, after an illness of eight days, Adams got to the State Department and had a three hours' talk with Secretary of State Daniel Webster. He was displeased. Webster seemed frank enough with him about some points, but he admitted with apparent reluctance that Great Britain would not object to the United States extending southward from the Columbia River to San Francisco, at the expense of Mexico, if Great Britain was given a free hand north of the Columbia. Remembering the Puget Sound region as a part of such a sacrifice, Adams wrote in his diary: "What an abime of duplicity!" On 16 February, 1843, as Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, he reported unfavorably Senator Linn's bill for the occupation of Oregon Territory. For this he has been criticized, but no one knew so well as he what lay behind that Article III in the Convention of 1827. After the election of 1844, with its successful battle-cry of "Fifty-four, Forty, or Fight!" Congressman Adams watched the Oregon Question closely. He got through the House a call on the President for papers in the case and his diary of 14 December, 1845, says: "My chief occupation was to read the discussion between the successive Secretaries of State, Daniel Webster, Abel P. Upshur, John C. Calhoun, and James Buchanan, with the British Ministers Henry S. Fox and Ricard Pakenham, concerning the contest of title between the United States and Great Britain to the Oregon Territory. The most remarkable reflection to which this correspondence gives rise in my mind is that, notwithstanding the positive declaration of Mr. Polk in his inaugural speech of the unquestionable title of the United States to the whole Oregon country to latitude 54.40, notwithstanding a repetition of the same declaration in his recent message to Congress, and notwithstanding the constant professed inflexibility of his official newspaper in support of this claim, he has actually repeated the offer heretofore made by Mr. Monroe, and repeated by me, of continuing the boundary-line between the British possessions and the United States in the latitude of 49 from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean, and that it has again been rejected by Great Britain."[232] He was of opinion that the offer ought not to be repeated or accepted if made by Great Britain, but he felt that Mr. Polk "will finish by accepting it." He was right, Mr. Polk did accept it. The treaty was concluded on 15 June, 1846, and it is a great blessing that the end came through diplomacy without an appeal to arms. Few realized at the time how close we had come to war. The cry of "Fifty-four, Forty, or Fight!" was looked upon as mainly bluster for campaign purposes. But what of the other side? Within the last five years were published for the first time the Warre and Vavasour papers,[233] by which it is revealed that the British Government had sent the two secret agents into the Oregon country and they had shown how feasible would have been a war of conquest in that region. Instead of war, Great Britain renewed the offer of the forty-ninth parallel as a compromise boundary and it was accepted. Each of our three diplomats lived beyond the Biblical allotment of years. Adams died in 1848 at eighty-one years of age, Gallatin in 1849 at eighty-eight, and Clay in 1852 at seventy-five. Grand old men, all of them! The public annals of their day are shot through and through with the records of their thoughts and deeds. Inadequate collections of their works have been saved, the greatest of which is the monumental diary of John Quincy Adams. He, himself, has written of that diary; "There has perhaps not been another individual of the human race, of whose daily existence from early childhood to fourscore years has been noted down with his own hand so minutely as mine."[234] It has not been possible to search every document for this occasion, but enough has been gleaned to show something of the debt of gratitude which the Oregon country owes to the diplomatic triumphs achieved by the brains and hands of these three great men. When the century of peace shall be rounded out on next Christmas eve, it would be well to send to Quincy, Lexington, and Trinity churchyard in New York wreaths of evergreens from the Oregon hills,--memorial tributes to Adams, Clay and Gallatin. EDMOND S. MEANY. FOOTNOTES: [216] Presidential address for the special meeting of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association, Seattle, 22 May, 1914. [217] Charles Francis Adams: Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, 111, 121, 22 Dec., 1814. [218] Henry Adams: Life of Albert Gallatin, 516. Quoted by John Austin Stevens: Albert Gallatin, 335. [219] Carl Schurz: Henry Clay, I., 113. [220] William M. Malloy: Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, Protocols and Agreements between the United States of America and Other Powers, 1776-1909, I., 613. [221] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, IV., 811. (Mr. Gallatin to the Secretary of State, 25 December, 1815.) [222] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, III., p. 731. The copy of this document was submitted to Congress in response to the Senate's request of 15 February, 1815. The statement was made that it was one of only two documents that had been withheld from Congress. In a former document under date of 21 March, 1814, there appears the line: "(Confidential paragraph omitted.)," which may be the same as that given above, though the date is one day later. [223] John Quincy Adams: Memoirs, IV., 93-94; (15 May, 1818). [224] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, IV., 808-811. [225] Malloy: Treaties, I., 632. [226] Malloy: Treaties, II., 1652-1653. [227] James D. Richardson: Messages and Papers of the Presidents, ii., 380. [228] Public Documents, Serial No. 173; 30 Congress. 1st session. House of Representatives. Documents 199, p. 77. [229] Malloy: Treaties, I., 644. [230] Albert Gallatin: The Oregon Question (New York. Bartlett & Welford, 1846); reprinted by Henry Adams: Writings of Gallatin, III., 489-553. [231] John Quincy Adams: Memoirs. XI., 219. [232] John Quincy Adams: Memoirs, XII., 220-221. [233] The Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society. X., 1-99 (March, 1909); also the Washington Historical Quarterly, III., 131-153 (April, 1912). [234] John Quincy Adams: Memoirs, XII., 276-277. (31 October, 1846.) DOCUMENTS A New Vancouver Journal Taking up the Journal from where it left off in the April Quarterly we find the party approaching Restoration Point, opposite the present city of Seattle. The record here given is much briefer than in Vancouver's own official Journal, but it should prove of interest in spite of that fact. It retells the discovery of this region in the style of a mariner. In years to come this brief record is sure to be preserved by the side of the larger official record. EDMOND S. MEANY. THE JOURNAL (Continued from page 137, April Quarterly.) We were detained by the Tides, which were rapid, from joining the Discovery before the 26th when we found her at anchor off a Point of a small opening called by Captn: Vancouver Restoration Point.[235] Here there was a small village, containing, I shou'd suppose, about 60 or 70 Inhabitants.[236] It was situated on a fine rising ground, and the Country round it was extremely pleasant to appearance and clear. The Natives had brought a good supply of Venison to the Discovery. Two of her boats with Lt: Paget & Mr Whidby were now absent on a surveying expedition up the continuation of this & the Arms round us, and the morning after our arrival Captn; Vancouver with Mr Johnstone set out with two Boats on another expedition. Though I have but just before mentioned that I conceived the Natives hereabouts had but little intercourse with Europeans, we had here a proof that they were not entirely unaccustomed to Trading Vessels for two very good Sea Otter Skins were brought off for sale, and the price was copper. However they took so reasonable a price, and their having no more than these two skins among them makes me think that the knowledge they have of Trading Ships is acquir'd by their own commerce with Tribes between them and the Sea. On the 27th at night Mr Whidby & Lt. Paget return'd from their cruize having closed up the Arms.[237] In one place they met with a considerable tribe of Indians from whom he had nearly met with some trouble, but by early good management nothing material happened. After being very well treated by the Boats party the Natives seized the opportunity of their stopping at a Beach to Dinner, to attack them. They were observed to string their Bows & sling their Quivers and were making for the Wood behind the party at Dinner from whence it was no doubt their intention to fire on them but as this was observ'd Mr Menzies & Mr Manby catching up their Muskets ran up and drove them back to their Canoes. As there were some opening to look into the Northd. we weigh'd anchor and quitted this place the next day the 28th and as Mr Johnstone was still absent in our Cutter with Captn: Vancouver we took Mr Whidby and the Discovery's Launch with us to carry on the survey and when we came abreast of the opening she was dispatched along with our Launch in which went Ltd: Hanson with a week's provisions. In the meantime we anchored off a place called Rose Point from the numerous trees of that name that were on the low ground; besides this there were plenty of currant, Gooseberry, & Raspberry bushes, and large beds of Strawberries but very little if any of these Fruits were yet ripe. June. On the 30th we were join'd by the Discovery and we proceeded with her on the further examination of this tedious Inland Navigation. Nothing remarkable occurred till the 2nd of June when sailing up a place called Port Gardner in Possession Sound, by the negligence of the man in the chains about one o'clock in the afternoon we run aground upon a Muddy Bank. We immediately gave the Discovery the alarm and at the same time made the Signal for assistance. She was astern of us and directly anchor'd and dispatched her Boats to our relief. On sounding astern of the Ship it was found that we had run a considerable distance over a Shoal and before we could carry an anchor out into water sufficiently deep we veer'd away four Hawsers on end. At Highwater we hove off without any damage whatever and brought up in 9 fam. water. As we found this place like all the others shut up, we weigh'd the next morning and sail'd out of the Port and the following day anchor'd in a Bay to wait the return of Lt Hanson & Mr Whidby and to celebrate His Majesty's Birthday. The Boats return'd on the 4th and on that day possession was taken on shore[238] by Captn: Vancouver in His Majesty's name of all the Land in the Streights, and the part in which we now were call'd Gulf of Georgia. On this occasion the Discovery fired 21 guns on the Flag of possession being hoisted and as the King's Birth Day the Ship's Companies were served double allowance of Grog to drink his health. There was in this Bay a fine Sandy Beach where the Seine was haul'd with pretty good success. We saw no Village nor Inhabitants near this place but on the point of the beach there stood a remarkable high pole, strongly supported by props at the Bottom, and at the top of it was fixed a human skull. What the reason of so curious a thing could be no one could divine. Many such had been seen in different parts of the Inland Navigation and in Mr Hanson's late cruize. No less than three of these Poles with skulls on them were seen at one place contiguous to which was a very large burying Ground. Some bodies were wrapp'd up in Mats & Skins and laid in canoes, whilst some that appear'd but recently dead were thrown into a deep hole in the earth and not covered. On the 5th we left this Bay and proceeded on our exploration, crossing over to the opening out of which we came the 23rd of May, having to that place carried the Continent. We found Tides here extremely rapid and on the 9th in endeavouring to get round a point to a Bay in which the Discovery had anchor'd, we were swept to Leeward of it with great impetuosity. We therefore let go the Stream anchor in 28 fathoms water but in bringing up, such was the force of the Tide that we parted the Cable. We immediately let go the Bower with which we brought up. On trying the Tide we found it running at the rate of 5-1/2 miles an hour. At slack water we swept for the anchor but could not get it, after several fruitless attempts to get it we were at last obliged to leave it and join the Discovery in Strawberry Bay. This Bay obtain'd its name from a tolerable quantity of Strawberries we found there. As the Discovery had only been waiting for us here we left it the following day and steered for a very extensive opening trending about N. and came to an anchor in a very pleasant Bay which was called Birch Bay.[239] From this place two Boat expeditions were undertaken one by Captain Vancouver and the other by Mr Whidby. In the meantime the Observatory was set up for the purpose of regulating the watches and Spruce Beer brew'd for the Ships Companies. Our operations on shore were carried on in a very convenient place there being a fine Grass plot of nearly a mile in length with a fine fresh water River at the back of it. Captn: Vancouver set out with his two Boats and 10 days provisions on the 12th to the Westward and Mr Whidby with two Boats and a weeks provisions towards an opening to the Eastward of us. The same Evening we were surprised to see Mr Whidby's Boats return but much more so when we learnt from them that they had seen two Vessels, a Brig and a Schooner coming down the Arm which lay round the point of the Bay. It was immediately conjectured from the improbability of trading vessels being in this inhospitable part of the Coast and the distance from the entrance of the Streights that they were foreign Vessels employed on the same service as ourselves and which conjecture we afterwards found to be right. A lookout for them was kept during the night and nothing been seen of them. In the morning a boat was dispatched to the Entrance of the arm but she returned without seeing them. It was thought they had pass'd during the night. Mr Broughton therefore got under weigh in the Chatham and the boats were re-dispatched on their examination. Whilst the Chatham was getting under way the Vessels were observed by the help of the Glasses a considerable way to the Westward of us so that they must have pass'd in the night. We soon came up with them and they hoisted Spanish Colours. A Boat with an officer was sent on board the Brig where he was very politely received by the Commander. They proved to be His Catholic Majesty's Brig Soutile commanded by Don Dionisio Galiano and the Schooner Mexicana, Don Cayetano Valdez, Commander; both Captains of Frigates in the Royal Navy of Spain and employed in surveying these Streights to complete the parts left unfinished by Seigr. Malespini with whom these two gentlemen had been Lieutenants. They left Nootka late in May where there were at that time lying 3 Frigates and a Spanish Brig of War, Don Quadra, Commodore. Don Galiano offered us every information & civility in his power and sent on board some milk & cabbages that he had brought from Nootka. The Vessels were very small, the Brig not being more than 45 tons Burthen. They had each a Lieutenant, a Pilot, and twenty men and carried two Brass Guns each. After receiving the necessary information we parted from them and made for our old anchorage, whilst they continued their route to the West. From this time to the 23rd we were employed in taking the necessary observations for determining the rates of the watches, and in other ways and Mr Whidby's party having returned after an absence of six days, closing the places up which he went to explore. We cut here some remarkably fine Plank, of the Pine tree, and there was a good deal of Alder & Birch here. We had had tolerable good luck with the Seine, the Bay affording plenty of Flat fish, some Salmon Trout and a small kind of Bream and we now and then shot some Ducks. Though there was no village near us and we were but very seldom visited by canoes, Mr Whidby in his last Cruise,[240] at no great distance from the Ships, met with a numerous Tribe of Indians, not less than 300, that were just shifting their Village. They had very little connexion with them as the Indians shew'd no desire for their landing near them. On the 23rd Captn: Vancouver returned after an absence of twelve days; he had met with the two Spanish Vessels and been on board them and now was by agreement going to join them as our destination was much the same as theirs and as we shou'd be obliged to visit at the place to which Captn: Vancouver had carried the Continent during a further expedition of the Boats[241] we shou'd have an opportunity of being sociable. On the 24th we quitted the Bay which is in the Lat: of 48.53.30 N and the Long: 237.32 Et. and stood to the Westward. About Noon we came up with the Spanish Vessels with whom we kept company till the 26th when we came to the situation from whence our next surveying cruize was to commence, and late at night the whole Squadron anchored, in a place which from its uninviting shore and the few refreshments beyond water which it produced was call'd by us Desolation Reach, its Lat: is 50.11 N and Longe: 235.27 Et. In this dreary place (the first place that deserves that name that we had been since we entered De Fuca's Streights) we lay about three weeks in the course of which time no less than three Boat expeditions were undertaken from us and two by the Spaniards. In the last of ours by Mr Johnstone a passage to sea was discover'd by an extensive Arm that led into Queen Charlotte's Sound and to which the continent had been carried. Mr Johnstone's situation in this Arm of the Sound was once or twice rather critical, for coming into it unexpectedly he was surprised to find himself among several villages, populously inhabited and well arm'd with Musquets, and they had endeavoured to decoy him to a place where he observed, as he proceeded on, several large canoes well mann'd, he however did not go near them, and prevented them from following him. July. On the 13th of July we took our leave of the Spaniards and made the best of our way to where Mr Johnstone left off, and on the 17th entered the Arm which is called in Captn: Vancouver's chart Johnstone's Arm. When we got near the Villages, which chiefly lye on the Southern Shore several canoes came off with Otter Skins to sell. Their demand was here as at Cape Classett-Copper or Blue Cloth, Musquets and Powder. Several of the Indians were habited in European Cloathes on most of which was a profusion of Metal Buttons, and of Musquets, there was scarce a canoe that we saw that had not two or 3 in it, and in excellent order. On the 18th by desire of Captn: Vancouver we parted from the Discovery to look into an Arm to the Northwd. This opening led us into many small arms & Branches among a cluster of Islands that ended all in Low Land. One of these Arms, and the most extensive, Mr Broughton called Knight's Canal, and the whole was named by Captn: Vancouver, Broughton's Archipelago.[242] In this business we were employed upwards of a week. We met with but few Indians (the populous part of this Sound being the So. side) they had all of them skins and for the first time we got from them plenty of excellent Salmon. On the 29th we again join'd the Discovery, she had since we left her, been at anchor off a very large Village call'd by the natives Whanneck, the chief's name was Cathlaginness, it was numerously inhabited but they were subject to Maquinna the chief of Nootka Sound; they as well as all the people we had seen since entering the Sound spoke the Nootka Language. Thus far and no further North does that Language extend and its limits to the Southwd. is about Cape Classett. At this Village were a great number of Sea Otter skins, and not less than two hundred was purchased on board the Discovery, chiefly for old Cloathes and some Copper. As it is impossible to point out the boundaries of Defuca's Streights I have carried on that name till we came into a place to which we know there is a name and as all our examination continued Inland in Arms & Branches of the Sea I have now begun to entitle this "The Inland Navigation on the N. We. Coast of America." August. We continued our survey of the Continent in the usual way without any material circumstance happening till the 7th of August, being still in the Sound, when the Discovery got aground on a ledge of sunken rocks, we immediately brought up as near to her as we could with safety, and sent the boats immediately to her assistance. The Tide unfortunately was ebbing so that nothing could be done till High Water, when she was hove off with out receiving any apparent damage, for while she lay on the rocks the water was very smooth and she did not thump. We continued our course to the Nd. The very next evening, having but little wind and a strong Ebb tide running we were hustled upon some Rocks and stuck fast. The Discovery was ahead of us and on our making the Signal of Distress sent her Boats to our assistance. At High water we hove off but we had every reason to suppose that her Copper (at least) must have been much rubb'd, from her striking on the Rocks, as there was a good deal of swell, and indeed when we came to lay her ashore at Nootka, we had we found been right in out conjecture for besides the Copper being much rubb'd her Gripe and part of her false keel were carried away. On the 11th we came to an anchor in Port Safety in Calvert's Island and the following day dispatched two Boat expeditions, one to the S. & E. to some opening we had pass'd and the other to the Nd. Here we endeavoured to lay the Chatham ashore, for to look at her bottom, but after frequent trials we found the Tide did not rise sufficiently. The Seine was haul'd here with very great success, the First haul we took 120 large Salmon. The weather that we hitherto enjoyed since entering the Streights of Defuca was remarkably fine having had in all that time not a weeks bad weather but now the scene was changed and we had nothing in this port but heavy rain & gloomy weather. On the 17th a Brig entered the Harbour who shew'd English Colours. An officer was immediately dispatched on board her. On his return we learn'd the Vessel's name was the Venus, commanded by a Mr Shepherd from Bengal, on a trading voyage to this Coast for skins, after she came to an anchor the Master of her waited on Captn: Vancouver with his papers and brought the agreeable news of our Storeship's being at Nootka waiting for us. He delivered Captn: Vancouver a letter from the Master of her, which had been given him in case of his falling in with us. This letter merely said that they had been lying at Nootka ever since the beginning of July and had heard of our being on the Coast from Mr Grey Master of the Columbia whom we had spoke the day we entered Defuca Streights. The news of her arrival threw everybody in high spirits which however was soon damp'd and in no small degree by hearing the remaining part of the letter, which mention'd that the King's Agent of the Transport, Lieut. Hergest, and the Astronomer that was sent out in her to the Discovery had been unfortunately murdered by the Natives of Woahoo (one of the Sandwich Islands). The Spanish Commandant, Don Quadra, Mr Shepherd inform'd us was anxiously looking out for us as he had been sent there for the purpose of giving up the Port to us. These circumstances, together with the unfavorable weather that still continued and which we imagin'd was the commencement of the bad season, induced Captn: Vancouver to alter his intentions and he now determined on giving up any further examination this year and to make the best of his way to Nootka. The 18th we all left the Port, the Venus standing to the S. E. whilst we proceeded to sea round the N. side of Calvert's Island: the Boats having joined us after their examination about Noon. They had carried the continent up an extensive arm to a place called by Captn. V. Cape Menzies, in the Lat: 52.19 N. & Long: 232.57 Et. they were obliged to return their provisions being out but the arm seemed to run a considerable distance beyond where they left off. Our Lat: at Noon was 51.57. We had now spent three months and a half in exploring an Inland Navigation between the Lats: 48.23 N & 52.19 N. and the Long: 235.38 & 232.57 E. having kept the continental shore on board ever since our entering the Streights of Defuca. The most Southern situation that we were in, in the Streights was in the Lat: 47.3 N call'd Paget's Sound and our most Eastern situation 238.2 E. long. The Land in the Southernmost parts of these Streights was in several places exceedingly pleasant, there were many extensive plains where the soil was extremely rich and the verdure luxurious. Gooseberrys, Currants, Raspberrys & Strawberries were to be found in many places, and at the most of them, the Raspberrys & Strawberries were well tasted. Onions were to be got almost everywhere, as was also Samphire and a plant call'd by the Sailors Fat-hen, both of which when boil'd eat remarkably well, the former being not unlike French Beans and the latter but little inferior to Spinach. In the Northern parts two kinds of what is call'd Huckleberries, Red & Black, were found; these were excellent in Pies. The Trees were of all kinds. Oak, Ash, Elm, Alder, Pine, Birch & Cedar. Of Oak & Cedar we did not see so much as of any of the other kinds, but as to the Pine Tree, the whole Coast is a Forest of it[243] and of it and the Oak we saw trees of an immense size and calculated for any uses. For such an extent as we travers'd over in Defuca and in so grateful a part of America, from what we saw, it cannot be said to be very populous, & tho' there were few that had not some European ornaments, metals &c., about them, yet there were the most considerable number of them that I shou'd suppose never saw a Ship before. The European articles they possess being got I suppose by bartering with one another between them and the Sea Coast. They appeared in general very quiet people and the only weapons I ever saw among them were Bows & Arrows & some few knives (but I shall have occasion to mention some accounts of the Natives in general before I leave the Coast). The Skins they had about them and what they brought to sell were all of Land animals, Moose, Deer, Bear, Fox, Raccoon, Wild Cat, Martin, Land Otter, Weasel, Rabbit &c. but no Sea Otters, these animals never being found so far inland. After we got to Sea we were harrassed with a foul wind from the S. E. attended with Rain & Haze till the 25th (7 days) when at last we had the wind from the pleasant quarter N. W. and pass'd to the Westward of Scott's Islands, but what with calms and more foul winds it was not till the 28th that we came in sight of Nootka Sound. _Transactions in Nootka Sound_ On the 28th about 11 o'clock in the forenoon we enter'd the Sound with a fair fresh Breeze, but so very foggy that we had lost sight of the Discovery, nor did we see her when the Fog cleared away which was about Noon. As we approach'd the Cove we observed a Boat coming out to us with the Spanish Colours flying, she came on board us, and proved to be the Guard Boat. The Officer in her, on hearing who we were, and that we were come out in company with the Discovery to receive this place of them, discovered much satisfaction and the people in the Boat were ready to leap overboard for joy, for it seems we were so long expected that they had now given up all hopes of seeing us at all this season. We found lying in Friendly Cove His Catholic Mjs. Brig. Activa of twelve guns wearing Seigr. Quadra's Broad Pendant, the Doedalus Transport, with Stores and Provisions for us; and the Three Bs, a Brig commanded by a Mr Alder, on the Fur Trade from New Castle. The Discovery was not here. Seigr. Quadra sent off an invitation to Captn. Broughton to dine ashore which was accepted, and after the usual ceremonies of demanding: gun for gun we saluted the Fort with 13 guns which were returned with an equal number from the Activa. The Master of the Storeship, Mr New, waited on Captn. B. and brought some Packets of Letters for us from our friends in England. About 4 o'clock the Discovery hove in sight and shortly after enter'd the Cove and took her berth close to us. She likewise saluted the Fort with 13 Guns, which was returned and in the evening Captn. Vancouver waited on Seigr. Quadra ashore. The next day (the 29th) Seigr. Quadra gave a grand dinner at his house on shore to the two Commanders and their officers. After the dinner was over (which by the bye was given in a style but little expected in such a place as Nootka) Seigr. Quadra gave the Healths of the Sovereigns of England & Spain accompanied by 21 guns fired from his Brig and also Captn. Vancouver's health with 13 guns. In the evening the Governor sent a couple of fine sheep with a large stock of Cabbages &c. on board each of the vessels and also a cask of Rum to the Ship's Company. The live stock on shore belonging to the Governor consisted of about ten head of cattle, some sheep & goats, Pigs, and Poultry of all kinds. Their stock, we were informed, had been much larger, but expecting that we should have been much earlier with them they had been very liberal with it and as it was supposed that on receiving the Port one of our vessels would stay here the remainder of the stock was intended to be left with us. There were besides several large gardens well stocked with vegetables of all kinds. All the Vessels in the Cove were regularly supplied with Hot Rolls, Milk & Vegetables every morning--such was the Hospitable and friendly attention of Seigr. Quadra. Except the Governor's House,[244] which is large, and built of wood and has a second floor, there are none other except some sheds for Artificers and two or three storehouses. In one of these was now living a Mr Magee, Master of the Margaret, merchant ship of Boston. She was now trading to the N. for Furs but had left Mr Magee here on account of ill health, his Surgeon and a gentleman of the name of Howell (a passenger) was residing on shore with him. But before we were here long we found that ill-health was not Mr Magee's only motive for remaining on shore here, for he was carrying on a most profitable trade with the Spaniards & Seamen in Spirituous Liquors, generously charging only four Dollars a gallon for Yankee Rum that cost him most probably about 2/--or half a crown per gallon. Indeed the ill effects of this shameful trade was soon too great to pass without taking notice of it, and endeavouring to put a stop to it. Our Seamen were continually drunk which from the badness of the liquor threw them into fits of sickness; and Captn. Vancouver was at last oblig'd to take measures that prevented any further trade of that nature with our people. On the Fort which is at the S. pt: of entrance of Friendly Cove there were now but two guns mounted: there had been 18 but the Frigate which had sailed for San Blas about a month before had taken the remainder of the guns with her. As we expected to remain here some time the Tents & observatory were taken ashore and set up in an advantageous spot behind the Governor's house in a garden fronting the entrance of the Sound. The new observatory with the circular instrument, Astronomical Clock, three Timekeepers & the other Astronomical Instruments that were sent out by the Board of Longitude with the unfortunate Astronomer Mr Gooch were also sent on shore here. We now heard the particulars of the two unfortunate gentlemen, Lieut. Hergest the Agent, and Mr Gooch and the poor seaman who were cut off by the Natives of Woahoo, one of the Sandwich Islands. (Description of the massacre of these men is omitted as of no interest for the present purpose. A. H. T.) (To be continued.) FOOTNOTES: [235] Opposite the present City of Seattle and near the entrance to Port Blakeley. [236] Chief Seattle, then a boy of about six years, was undoubtedly with the natives mentioned. [237] When Captain Vancouver rejoined the party he reviewed the work of his lieutenants and wrote upon his chart in honor of the quality of that work the well known name of "Puget's Sound." Puget had gone on one side and he, himself, had gone on another side of a large body of land which he called Vashon Island, in honor of Captain James Vashon of the British navy. [238] On that shore there now stands the beautiful and prosperous City of Everett. [239] Just south of Semiahmoo Bay on which stands the City of Blaine. [240] During this cruise Whidby had found a narrow passage connecting with Port Gardner. Vancouver called it Deception Pass and he gave Whidby's name to the large island thus made known. [241] Vancouver's boat expedition had traversed much of the waterway between Vancouver Island and the mainland. The Spaniards reported the probability of a large river. Vancouver declared it impossible. Later the Fraser River was discovered from the land side and traced to its mouth where the Spaniards had thought it to be. [242] William Robert Broughton was associated with Vancouver as commander of the armed tender Chatham on which consort this journal written. [243] Reference is here made to the red fir, which has been called by many names from the first time the trees were seen to the present time. [244] From sketches published by Vancouver, the present editor was able to locate the site of this house or fort in 1803 and several fragments of Spanish tile-like bricks were found where the foundation corners had rested. BOOK REVIEWS THE INDIAN HISTORY OF THE MODOC WAR AND THE CAUSES THAT LED TO IT. By Jeff C. Riddle, the Son of Winema, the Heroine of the Modoc War. (Klamath Falls, Oregon, D. L. Moses, 1914. Pp. 295. $2.74.) At the time of the advent of the white man, the Klamath Lake country, an elevated plateau in southeastern Oregon interspersed with numerous lakes and extending across the boundary into California, was occupied by a number of bands of Indians commonly regarded as being of a single stock, but having little intercourse with one another and that not always friendly. But one characteristic they had in common, the suspicion and dislike of the white man and the pertinacity and fierceness with which they resisted his attempts to occupy their country. When Ewing Young and his party, as early as 1837, brought the first herd of cattle from California to Oregon, he was attacked by Indians in this region, and from that time forward hardly a year passed without depredations on one side or the other, until the close of the Modoc war in 1873. The Indian who felt himself wronged by a white man revenged himself according to Indian custom upon the first white man that fell in his way. In like manner, if a white man was robbed or murdered, his associates or neighbors were but too apt to avenge him by attacking the first party of Indians they might encounter. It thus happened that oftener than otherwise the punishment for undoubted outrages fell upon those who were entirely guiltless, and in this way, too, every act of aggression became the source of an additional feud. The usual consequences followed, of constantly increasing bitterness between the races, and of reprisals that were simply ferocious in their cruelty. Nor were these by any means confined to the side of the Indians. One of the smallest of the bands inhabiting the region mentioned was the Modocs, who dwelt along the shores of Rhett Lake, better known locally as Tule Lake, on both sides of the boundary between Oregon and California. There were different bands of these, under different chiefs, but we are here more particularly concerned with what is known as Capt. Jack's band. These were even more turbulent and warlike than the neighboring tribes, and from the earliest appearance of the whites in that region had been in frequent collision with them. The government, in the beginning of 1870, succeeded in getting them to settle on a part of the reservation which was assigned to them with the consent of the Klamaths, but they got along no better with the Klamaths than with the whites, though it appears quite certain that the fault was altogether with the latter Indians. Various attempts were made to compose their troubles without success, and the Modocs after a short time abandoned the reservation and returned to their former home. The authorities ignored this action until, about two years later, complaints began to be made by the white settlers that the Indians had become menacing and were committing frequent depredations. These complaints resulted in an order from the head of the Indian department in September, 1872, to the Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Oregon, to return the Modocs to the reservation "peaceably if you can, forcibly if you must." The Indians, on being informed of the order, flatly refused compliance. Thereupon Mr. Odeneal, the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, applied to the military authorities in command at Fort Klamath, to compel obedience. Maj. Jackson with a detachment of some thirty-five men marched to Captain Jack's camp and after a parley asked the Indians to lay down their arms. The Indians, on Capt. Jack's advice and following his example, were doing so when an affray arose between Lieut. Boutelle and the Indian known as Scar-face Charley, who each at the same moment fired at the other. A general fight ensued, in which some twenty whites, soldiers and citizens, were killed or wounded, but, as is claimed, no Indians except a squaw and her baby. Lying around the southern end of Tule Lake is a region known as the "Lava Beds," a vast field of congealed lava intersected in every direction with a labyrinth of fissures and caves and abrupt walls of rock. The place is a natural fastness of such extraordinary defensive strength that a handful of resolute men could hold it against an army so long as provisions and ammunition held out. To this place the Indians fled, numbering, with those who afterwards joined them of fifty-three men with their families. And here took place during the next year the most remarkable defense of which the annals of Indian warfare afford any account, and the most unparalleled act of treachery, the murder of Gen. Canby and Dr. Thomas, and the attempted murder of Mr. Meacham and Mr. Dyer, who as commissioners had met the Indians under a flag of truce to negotiate a treaty of peace. The volume before us is a narrative of the events of this war and a sketch of the history of the tribe during the preceding quarter of a century. The author is the son of a Modoc mother and a white father. His father and mother acted as interpreters in the negotiations between the Indians and the peace commissioners, and had and deserved the confidence of the best informed on both sides. The mother was a woman of remarkable character, and is in fact the most heroic Indian figure of the Modoc war. With such an ancestry it is not surprising that the author should exhibit strong sympathy for the Indians. In fact, he avows, as a reason for his book that "the Indian side has never been given to the public yet." To the credit of his fairness it must be said that his account of actual occurrences is hardly more favorable to the Indians than that of others who witnessed and have written of them. If fault can be found anywhere it is in an occasional lack of details where details would lend a darker color to the facts given. The author modestly says of himself and his book: "I have one drawback, I have no education, but I have tried to write as plain as I could. I use no fine language in my writing, for I lack education." The book itself fully sustains this statement. But at times the very lack of art and skill betrayed lends a certain pathos to the story. The volume can hardly be called a valuable contribution to the history of the war. Its chief interest will be to the pioneer of the locality who will turn to it as he would to a newspaper of the time, or an old letter written from the midst of the scenes it describes, and thus live over again the scenes of this stirring period. JULIUS A. STRATTON. * * * * * TEN THOUSAND MILES WITH A DOG SLED. By Hudson Stuck, D. D., F. R. G. S., Archdeacon of the Yukon. (N. Y., Charles Scribner's Sons, 1914. $3.50.) This is a most interesting narrative of winter journeys with dog team into many remote corners of the Yukon basin in Alaska from 1905 to 1913, connected primarily with the administration of the extensive mission work of the Episcopal church among the natives of interior Alaska. It is the work of a man of trained mind who describes clearly and entertainingly his own experiences from day to day in traveling through drifting snow, over frozen rivers and lakes and across mountain ranges, in temperatures as low as 70 degrees below zero, making camps in the open plains, on mountain sides, in log huts, and with Eskimos in their igloos, and cooking his meals for himself and his helpers, and for his dogs as well, under all the trying conditions of a subarctic climate in mid-winter. Thousands of Alaskans go through similar experiences every winter, but few have the ability to tell their experiences so clearly and faithfully as Archdeacon Stuck has done. The special value of this work, aside from its popular interest as a narrative of winter travels in the interior of a new territory about to be opened to development by the building of government railroads, is threefold: First--He calls attention very forcefully to the bad effects on the natives of contact with a class of whites whom he calls "the low down whites." He compares the good results of the mission work in settlements remote from army posts and saloons, and the discouraging results of the same kind of work in settlements where the natives are preyed upon by immoral whites with bad whiskey as their principal agency. He does not overdraw the facts. His words burn, but they are true. Second--He shows, from familiarity with the native languages, that the Indians of the upper Yukon valley, above the mouth of the Tanana, and of the entire Tanana valley, are Athabascans, speaking the same language and having the same traditions as the Indians of the Mackenzie river, while the Indians of the lower Yukon as far as Nulato, and of the upper Kuskokwim, are of a wholly different primal stock, speaking a language in no way related to that of the Athabascans. The Eskimos along the coast, in the interior, and in the lower Kuskokwim, he describes as all of one race with the Eskimos of the Arctic ocean clear to the east of Greenland. He speaks highly of the Eskimos, describing them as superior in character and in possibilities of mental development to any of the tribes of American Indians. Third--The different breeds of dogs, so invaluable to Alaska as the universal friend and helper of prospectors and travelers in every part of the territory, are described in a manner that will help to clear up many of the long standing myths among Alaskans as to the origin of the "Malamute," the "Huskie," and the "Siwash." The "Malamute," he shows, is the typical Eskimo dog, the same in Alaska as in northern Labrador and in Greenland. The "Huskie" is not a cross with a wolf, he avers, contrary to the belief of many Alaskans, but was originally a cross between hardy dogs like the Scotch collie and others with the Malamute itself. The "Siwash" is simply one of the many kinds of native Indian dogs, pure or mixed with other stocks. It would have been better for Archdeacon Stuck if he had stopped with telling what he knows from long experience among the natives, and had not devoted a chapter in opposition to the building of government railroads in Alaska. Here he prognosticates. He urges the building of a system of wagon roads instead, which, in this twentieth century, is strange advice from a man of his keen powers of observation in other respects. Of course, not ten men in all Alaska will agree with him on this point. His argument against railroads in Alaska is the same as that advanced for many years by the big trading companies, which desire above all things to prevent Alaskan development for their own good. In dealing with the agricultural possibilities, which he minimizes, he omits mention altogether of the great Susitna valley, which all Alaskans know to be the best in Alaska from an agricultural standpoint. It is very clear that Archdeacon Stuck is not an authority on agriculture in any of its branches, and that he never lived a day on a farm. Aside from his opposition to government railroads in Alaska and his doubts as to agricultural possibilities there, on which subjects a minister of the gospel is not necessarily good authority, his book is one of the best of the many recent popular works on Alaska. JOHN E. BALLAINE. * * * * * THE COMING HAWAII. By Joseph King Goodrich. (Chicago, McClurg, 1914. Pp. 329. $1.50.) Like the author's earlier books on China, Mexico and Canada, The Coming Hawaii is based partly on the writer's own experience and partly on other authorities, which he cites in footnotes throughout the book. Like his earlier works, also, it is written in a popular style and is intended for the reader whose interest in Hawaii is a general one. Mr. Goodrich made his first visit to Hawaii in 1866. A second and longer one was made after the government there had become republican. His residence in Japan as professor in the Imperial Government College at Kyoto has enabled him to speak authoritatively on the attitude of that country toward Hawaii. In The Coming Hawaii, Mr. Goodrich sketches the history of the islands, surveys present conditions and considers the relation of Hawaii, in the future, to other countries. The historical outline includes some notice of the myths and legends which are interwoven with the early history of the Hawaiians, the rule of native monarchs, the transition to American control, and the present administration of the islands by the United States. The discussion of present conditions is sufficiently broad in its scope as to include almost everything of general interest. Among the subjects presented are the origin of the Hawaiian race, the Hawaiians as laborers, native arts, manners and customs, social life, natural resources, volcanoes, the missionary movement, literature, and immigration. A most interesting chapter is the one on Agriculture in the Islands. Mr. Goodrich commends the government for the interest it has taken in this pursuit, as shown by valuable experiments with soils and crops, and by its efforts to induce a desirable farming class to settle in the islands. He believes that upon the development of its agriculture, more than upon anything else, depends the economic future of Hawaii. It is of special interest to us that Hawaii turns to the United States, particularly to the Pacific states, to find a market for her products. In considering the future of the Islands, Mr. Goodrich does not overlook the opportunities they offer all for pleasure, to which the scenery, the equable climate and the fine beaches, especially, contribute. The reader's enjoyment of the book is increased by the reproductions of attractive photographs. It contains also a good bibliography and an index. MARY HUBBARD. * * * * * TRAVEL AND DESCRIPTION, 1765-1865; TOGETHER WITH A LIST OF COUNTY HISTORIES, ATLASES, AND BIOGRAPHICAL COLLECTIONS AND A LIST OF TERRITORIAL AND STATE LAWS. By Solon J. Buck. (Springfield, Ill. Illinois State Historical Library, 1914. Pp. 514.) This book, published as volume nine of the Illinois Historical Collections, is a product of the Historical Survey conducted by the University of Illinois. It forms the first part of a comprehensive bibliography of Illinois history, which is being prepared by Solon J. Buck. An attempt is here made to list all works of travel covering any part of the territory of Illinois during the period 1765-1865. Full items of imprint and collation are given, followed by annotations and references to notices and reviews. Such a thoroughgoing piece of bibliography covering description and travel in America becomes of general interest to all students of the Western Movement. * * * * * GUIDE TO THE MATERIALS IN LONDON ARCHIVES FOR THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES SINCE 1783. By Charles O. Paulin and Frederic L. Paxson. (Washington, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1914. Pp. 642.) This is the third volume to be issued by the Department of Historical Research of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in the series of Guides relating to the London Archives. The two previous volumes relate to the History of the United States preceding 1783. The present volume covers the period from 1783 to 1860. It therefore becomes of great interest and value to students of Pacific Northwest History from the time of the Nootka Sound Embroglio to the Acquisition of the Oregon Territory. A glance at the index reveals more than sixty references to Oregon with nearly as many to the Hudson's Bay Company and a goodly number to Washington Territory. * * * * * ANNUAL PUBLICATION OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, 1912-1913. (Los Angeles, J. B. Walters, 1914. Pp. 158.) This volume marks the thirtieth anniversary of the organization of the Historical Society of Southern California. In addition to articles of direct bearing upon the local field are several papers of a more general interest. Among the latter may be noted: "Events leading to the Chinese exclusion act"; "Drake on the Pacific Coast"; and "Anti-Japanese legislation in California." * * * * * Other Books Received CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY. Annual Report, 1913. (Chicago, The Society, 1914. Pp. 173.) DOUGHTY, ARTHUR G., and MCARTHUR, DUNCAN A. Documents Relating to the Constitutional History of Canada, 1791-1818. (Ottawa, Government, 1914. Pp. 576.) FAXON, FREDERICK W., _editor_. Annual magazine subject-index, 1913. (Boston, Boston Book Company, 1914. Pp. 278.) MICHIGAN HISTORICAL COMMISSION. First Annual Report, 1913. (Lansing, Public Printer, 1914. Pp. 63.) NORTH CAROLINA HISTORICAL COMMISSION. North Carolina Manual, 1913. (Raleigh, Public Printer, 1913. Pp. 1053.) PENNSYLVANIA SOCIETY. Yearbook, 1914. (New York, The Pennsylvania Society, 1914. Pp. 256.) TREXLER, HARRISON A. Slavery in Missouri, 1804-1865. (Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins Press, 1914. Pp. 259.) NEWS DEPARTMENT Professor Turner in the Northwest All those in the Pacific Northwest who are interested in history have received inspiration and uplift by the presence and work of Professor Frederick Jackson Turner, formerly of the University of Wisconsin and now of the faculty of Harvard University. He gave the Commencement address at the University of Washington and continued at work there with two courses of lectures during the first half of the Eleventh Summer Session. He will later serve the University of Oregon in a like capacity at the Summer Session of that institution. Professor Turner has achieved an elevated and abiding position among the historical scholars of America by his work on the influence and meaning of the expanding West. His students are now scattered all over the country transmitting the impulse received in his classes. Researcher in Northwestern History Victor J. Farrar has arrived from the University of Wisconsin to take up his new work as Research Assistant in the University of Washington. At Work on Russian Archives Professor Frank A. Golder of the State College of Washington reports success at St. Petersburg, where he is at work on the Russian archives for the Historical Research Department of the Carnegie Institution. Mountaineers' Lodge The Mountaineers dedicated on June 21 a log-cabin lodge in the Cascade Range near the Snoqualmie Pass, probably the most historic pass through that range. The ceremonies were participated in by Professor Frederick J. Turner, Major E. S. Ingraham, A. H. Denman, Sidney V. Bryant, Sofie Hammer and Professor Edmond S. Meany. History Convention The Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association held a special meeting at the University of Washington on May 21-23, 1914, as a part of the Pacific Association of Scientific Societies. The history programmes were expanded to give representation to the Northwest Association of Teachers of History, Government and Economics and the proposed Pacific Coast Branch of the American Political Science Association. The programmes were as follows: Thursday Morning.--Literature of the Northwest, Professor J. B. Homer, Oregon Agricultural College; Spanish Voyages on the Pacific Coast, Professor F. J. Teggart, University of California; Fur Trading Posts of the Columbia River Basin, T. C. Elliott, Walla Walla. Thursday Afternoon.--Schleiden's Diplomacy in Connection with the American Civil War, Dr. Ralph H. Lutz, University of Washington; Spanish-American War and the War of 1812, C. A. Sprague, Assistant State Superintendent of Washington; The Basis of Interest in History, Professor Joseph Schafer, University of Oregon; Natural Law and the American Homestead Act, Professor John P. O'Hara, University of Oregon. Friday Morning.--History of the Oxford Press, Professor Alice E. Page, Willamette University; Holbach and the French Revolution, Professor M. P. Cushing, Reed College; The Fundamental Factor in the Renaissance, Professor Edward M. Hulme, University of Idaho. Friday Afternoon.--Direct Government in Oregon, Professor W. F. Ogburn, Reed College; The Teaching of Latin-American History and Institutions in American Universities, Professor R. C. Clark, University of Oregon; Commonwealth Legislatures, Professor L. B. Shippee, State College of Washington; Law and Opportunity, Professor W. G. Beach, University of Washington. Annual Dinner, Friday Evening.--Professor O. H. Richardson, University of Washington, Toastmaster; Presidential Address, Professor Edmond S. Meany, University of Washington, President of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association; Professor R. C. Clark; representing the proposed Pacific Coast Branch of the American Political Science Association. Greetings were voiced by the following: Professor Alice E. Page of Willamette University, Professor W. F. Ogburn of Reed College, Librarian E. O. S. Scholefield of the Provincial Library of British Columbia, Assistant State Superintendent C. A. Sprague of Olympia, Professor William A. Morris of the University of California, T. C. Elliott of Walla Walla, Professor Young of the University of Utah, Professor Leroy F. Jackson of the State College of Washington, President C. J. Bushnell of Pacific University. Saturday Morning.--Perspective in History, President C. J. Bushnell, Pacific University; Training for Citizenship--What to Do? How to Do It? Professor Leroy F. Jackson, State College of Washington; Discussion opened by Miss Adella M. Parker, Broadway High School, Seattle; What Shall Be the Treatment of Pacific Coast History in the American History Course? Principal H. N. Gridley, Daniel Bagley School, Seattle. Political Science Section.--State Administration of Health, Professor U. G. Dubach, Oregon Agricultural College; Unemployment, Professor A. R. Wood, Reed College: Discussion: The Report of the Committee of the American Political Science Association on Instruction in Political Science in Colleges and Universities. The Programme Committee consisted of Professor William A. Morris, University of California, Secretary-Treasurer of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association; Professor Edward McMahon, University of Washington; Miss Rose Glass, Franklin High School, Seattle; Ellis H. Rogers, Stadium High School, Tacoma; Leo Jones, University of Washington, representing the Proposed Political Science Branch. In addition to the above programmes, the allied associations were represented on the one general programme of the Pacific Association of Scientific Societies in the person of J. Allen Smith, Dean of the Graduate School of the University of Washington. His theme was The Citizen and the State. NORTHWESTERN HISTORY SYLLABUS [The aim of this department is to furnish outlines that will aid those who wish to study the subject systematically. It is expected that its greatest use will be as a guide for members of women's clubs, literary societies, and classes in college or high schools. It will be a form of university extension without the theses and examinations necessary for the earning credits toward a degree.] X. Review of Boundaries 1. Louisiana Purchase. a. France cedes to Spain, 1763. b. Spain cedes back to France, 1801. c. Lucien Bonaparte's Diary. d. Treaty of 30 April, 1803. e. Indefinite boundaries. 2. Treaty of Ghent, 1814. a. Instructions to American Commissioners. b. Ante-bellum conditions as to territory. c. Astoria included. 3. Joint Occupancy Treaty. a. Signed 20 October, 1818. b. Article III provides for joint occupancy. c. Limit of ten years. 4. Purchase of Florida, 1819. a. Fixes southern boundary of Oregon country. b. Spain gives United States quitclaim to Oregon. 5. Fifty-four, Forty. a. Ukase of Russian Czar, 1821. b. Europe too disturbed to notice. c. England and United States object. d. Part of Monroe Doctrine, 1823. e. Russian Treaty with United States, 1824. f. Russian Treaty with Great Britain, 1825. g. Boundary fixed at 54-40. 6. Joint Occupancy Renewed. a. Treaty with Great Britain, 1827. b. Term indefinite. c. May be terminated by twelve months' notice. 7. Webster-Ashburton Treaty, 1842. a. Northern boundary adjusted. b. Ended at Rocky Mountains. c. Oregon not included. 8. Treaty of 1846. a. Compromise boundary fixed at 49th parallel. b. Skirting Vancouver Island sowed seed of further trouble. * * * * * BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Former citations will in many cases apply to this syllabus. The following works will, however, bear directly on the subjects and will also point to other works as needed. BANCROFT, HUBERT HOWE. Works of. See the two volumes on the Northwest Coast, the two on Oregon and the one on Alaska. The indexes will guide. HERMANN, BINGER. The Louisiana Purchase and Our Title West of the Rocky Mountains, with a Review of Annexation by the United States. Mr. Hermann was United States Commissioner of the General Land Office and his book was issued as a public document in 1898. It should be found in all libraries of the Northwest. He shows that Oregon was not included in the Louisiana Purchase, although his predecessor had issued a government map showing that it was so included. HOSMER, JAMES KENDALL. History of the Louisiana Purchase. This work was issued in 1902 as a timely book on account of the approaching Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904. Here may be found an extract from Lucien Bonaparte's Diary. JOHNSON, SIDONA V. A Short History of Oregon. This little book, cited heretofore, will touch upon most of the points covered in this syllabus. The table of contents and index will guide. MALLOY, WILLIAM M. Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, Protocols and Agreements between the United States of America and Other Powers, 1776-1909. This prime source book in two volumes is a government publication and ought to be in every public library. The treaties are arranged in alphabetical order as to countries and there is an adequate index as well as abundant explanatory notes. Every student of our boundaries should become familiar with this work. MARSHALL, WILLIAM I. Acquisition of Oregon, Vol. I., Pp., 142-143. Here the author shows that Astoria was included in the antebellum conditions of the Treaty of Ghent. If the student has access to a large library he may go to the source quoted by Marshall: American State Papers, Foreign Relations, Vol. III., Documents 269 and 271. MEANY, EDMOND S. History of the State of Washington. The table of contents and index will guide to the various topics and footnotes will point the way to original sources. SCHAFER, JOSEPH. A History of the Pacific Northwest. This is another work which will help the student working on such a syllabus as the above by applying the index to each of the topics. HISTORY TEACHERS' SECTION The HISTORY TEACHERS' MAGAZINE for April, May and June contain several articles of general interest to all history teachers. The Teaching of Greek History series continues through all three numbers. In the April Number Professor Sill of Cornell writes on the Two Periods of Greek Expansion; in the May number Professor Fling of Nebraska has an article on the Use of Sources in Teaching Greek History; and in the June number Professor Botsford of Columbia writes on The Choice and Use of Books Relating to the History of Greece. In each number also is the excellent announcement of the Recent Historical Literature. The leading article in the May number is by Professor Hull of Swarthmore College on the International Interpretation of United States History. He makes a plea for a wider view of American history, wider even than that which has recently rebelled from the traditions of the New England interpretation. The great number of immigrants into this country, and the great acceptance of culture and civilization from the different European countries leads him to make a plea for an interpretation from the point of view of all of these countries. The substance of his article may be seen in the following paragraph: "The great founders of our Republic besought their fellow-countrymen to think _continentally_; to realize that their individual and their local welfare was wrapped up in the creation and preservation of the national Union. Today we teachers must appeal to our fellow-countrymen of our own and the growing generation to think _internationally_; to realize that our national history, in its origin and in every step of its growth, is the world's most striking object-lesson in the virtue of internationalism; to realize that as a cosmopolitan nation our history and the very substance of our being bind us to the duty of making our ideals of _American Internationalism_ prevail in the Family of Nations." In the same number also is a survey of The Teaching of History in Maine, which does for that State what the same kind of a survey by Professor Sprage did for Washington--and which was published in the History Teachers' Magazine some time ago. The most interesting article in the June number is an article by Professor Marshall of the Alameda (Cal.) High School on Present Tendencies in High School History Teaching. After discussing the question of pedagogy and the child-study for the high school he goes on to say regarding the tendencies of teaching that "the increased emphasis upon economic and social history is sound, for it broadens the view of the child, increases his understanding of the human kind, and gives him the substance for the forming of judgments. But when it comes to the shifting of emphasis, the pendulum begins to swing the other way. In ancient history I would push back the borders to the earliest dawn of civilization, broadening rather than contracting its limits. Greek history should not be curtailed to give more time to the Roman Empire. The Hellenic contribution to mankind is as vital as that of the Roman." For the European and English history he would also be conscious of the long past on which they rest, stating that all questions of the day thread their way far into the past. For American history he would push the colonial periods into their respective European settings and see them also as part of that great movement of Europe as a whole for colonial expansion. His view of the teaching of local history is interesting--and he is speaking for California conditions. Local contracts rather than broadens the vision of the child; too often the pupils can see no further than the boundary of his state, forgetting the general movement of which his state is only an incident. He also points out the scarcity of suitable and worthy texts on local history; and closes with the belief that "There are two places in the wide field of education where California history has its place; namely, in the grammar school, where a technical knowledge of the subject is unnecessary, and in the post-graduate work of the university, where the subject is a fruitful field for investigations." In the same number is also a thoughtful article: Suggestions for Beginners in the Teaching of History. * * * * * The TEXAS HISTORY TEACHERS' MAGAZINE for May contains an article by Professor Riker of Texas on The Art of Studying the Text-Book. High school teachers of European history will very likely find many valuable suggestions in it. Of special value is the article by Professor Kellar of Texas on Some Suggestions for Equipment in History Teaching in the High School. In the thirty-three pages he gives an excellent selection of books for high school purposes on Ancient, Medieval and Modern, English, American, History and Civics. The lists are arranged in separate lists, costing, respectively, $5, $10, $25, $50 and $100. * * * * * VERGANGENHEIT UND GEGENWART for May has its leading article on The Epic Principle in History Instruction. Another interesting article describes the attempts of Krupp and Zeiss at Essen and Jena to increase the educational advantages of their employees. The usual excellent bibliographical notices, covering twenty-five pages in number, covers the field of ancient and art history. In the section given to the auxiliary sciences is an excellent review of the new edition of Aloys Meister's Principles of the Historical Science. In the last number of the Quarterly reference was made to an article in the Vergangenheit und Gegenwart by Professor Show of Stanford--his presidential address before the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association in 1912. The translation elicited much comment in Germany and in this number of the magazine are printed three replies to Professor Show and his criticisms of the Lamprecht school of history at Leipzig. One is written by present and former students under Lamprecht at Leipzig: another is written by Lamprecht himself: and the third is from the editors of the magazine. * * * * * On June 2nd the Seattle History Teachers' Club held its second meeting at the Good Eats Cafe. Professor Fleming of the Franklin High School presided, while Professor Bowman of the University spoke on the history work of the high school as seen in the freshman class in the University. There was pointed out the usual laxness on the part of the students to read a sentence with care and understanding, also the inability to hold to a question and do only what the question calls for. Dr. Lutz of the University also spoke. The speakers urged that the high school teachers and the university instructors get together and see to what extent they could come to an understanding as to the elementary work in doing history so that the university could begin where the high schools leave off. Certain activities should be secured in the high schools so that when the student goes to the university these steps could be taken as the beginning of the work there. After a discussion of the talk a committee was authorized to work on the problem of the "power method" in the high schools and the point to which it could be carried in the schools. This was the first of a general discussion of the relation of the several phases of the school system history teaching. The next meeting of the club will consider the history work of the university from the point of view of the high school; later the same relation will be noted between the high schools and the grades. Professor O'Conner was elected chairman of the next meeting. A constitution was reported by Professor Fleming and was adopted. The name of the club is to be The Seattle History Teachers' Club. It will meet two or three times each year with a changing committee in charge of each meeting. It is also intended to urge the participation of the history teachers around the Sound. The Washington Historical Quarterly Board of Editors CLARENCE B. BAGLEY, Seattle. J. N. BOWMAN, Seattle. T. C. ELLIOTT, Walla Walla. FRANK A. GOLDER, Pullman. CEYLON S. KINGSTON, Cheney. W. D. LYMAN, Walla Walla. EDWARD MCMAHON, Seattle. THOMAS W. PROSCH, Seattle. OLIVER H. RICHARDSON, Seattle. O. B. SPERLIN, Tacoma. E. O. S. SCHOLEFIELD, Victoria, B. C. ALLEN WEIR, _Olympia_. Managing Editor EDMOND S. MEANY Business Manager CHARLES W. SMITH VOL. V. NO. 4 OCTOBER, 1914 _ISSUED QUARTERLY_ Contents FREDERICK JACKSON TURNER The West and American Ideals 243 T. C. ELLIOTT Journal of John Work, December 15, 1825, to June 12, 1826 258 EDWIN EELLS Elisa and the Nez Perce Indians 288 DOCUMENTS--A New Vancouver Journal 300 BOOK REVIEWS 309 NEWS DEPARTMENT 320 NORTHWESTERN HISTORY SYLLABUS 322 HISTORY TEACHERS' SECTION 325 INDEX, VOLUME V. 327 THE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY UNIVERSITY STATION SEATTLE, WASHINGTON Entered at the postoffice at Seattle as second-class mail matter. The Washington University State Historical Society * * * * * Officers and Board of Trustees: CLARENCE B. BAGLEY, _President_ JUDGE JOHN P. HOYT, Vice-President JUDGE ROGER S. GREENE, Treasurer PROFESSOR EDMOND S. MEANY, Secretary JUDGE CORNELIUS H. HANFORD JUDGE THOMAS BURKE SAMUEL HILL SEATTLE DEPARTMENT OF PRINTING, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON 1914 _Vol. V., No. 4 October, 1914_ The Washington Historical Quarterly THE WEST AND AMERICAN IDEALS[245] True to American traditions that each succeeding generation ought to find in the Republic a better home, once in every year the colleges and universities summon the nation to lift its eyes from the routine of work, in order to take stock of the country's purposes and achievements, to examine its past and consider its future. This attitude of self examination is hardly characteristic of the people as a whole. Particularly it is not characteristic of the historic American. He has been an opportunist rather than a dealer in general ideas. Destiny set him in a current which bore him swiftly along through such a wealth of opportunity that reflection and well-considered planning seemed wasted time. He knew not where he was going, but he was on his way, cheerful, optimistic, busy and buoyant. Today we are reaching a changed condition, less apparent perhaps, in the newer regions than in the old, but sufficiently obvious to extend the commencement frame of mind from the college to the country as a whole. The swift and inevitable current of the upper reaches of the nation's history has borne it to the broader expanse and slower stretches which mark the nearness of the level sea. The vessel, no longer carried along by the rushing waters, finds it necessary to determine its own directions on this new ocean of its future, to give conscious consideration to its motive power and to its steering gear. It matters not so much that those who address these college men and women upon life, and give conflicting answers to the questions of whence and whither. The pause for remembrance, for reflection and for aspiration is wholesome in itself. Although the American people are becoming more self conscious, more responsive to the appeal to act by deliberate choices, we should be over-sanguine if we believed that even in this new day these commencement surveys were taken to heart by the general public, or that they were directly and immediately influential upon national thought and action. But even while we check our enthusiasm by this realization of the common thought, we must take heart. The University's peculiar privilege and distinction lie in the fact that it is not the passive instrument of the State to voice its current ideas. Its problem is not that of expressing tendencies. Its mission is to create tendencies and to direct them. Its problem is that of leadership and of ideals. It is called, of course, to justify the support which the public gives it, by working in close and sympathetic touch with those it serves. More than that, it would lose important elements of strength if it failed to recognize the fact that improvement and creative movement often come from the masses themselves, instinctively moving toward a better order. The University's graduates must be fitted to take their places naturally and effectually in the common life of the time. But the University is called also to justify its existence by giving to its sons and daughters something which they could not well have gotten through the ordinary experiences of the life outside its walls. It is called to serve the time by independent research and by original thought. If it were a mere recording instrument of conventional opinion and average information, it is hard to see why the University should exist at all. To clasp hands with the common life in order that it may lift that life, to be a radiant center enkindling the society in which it has its being, these are primary duties of the University. Fortunate the state which gives free play to this spirit of inquiry. Let it "grubstake" its intellectual prospectors and send them forth where "the trails run out and stop." A famous scientist holds that the universal ether bears vital germs which impinging upon a dead world would bring life to it. So, at least it is, in the world of thought, where energized ideals put in the air and carried here and there by the waves and currents of the intellectual atmosphere, fertilize vast inert areas. The University therefore, has a double duty. On the one hand it must aid in the improvement of the general economic and social environment. It must help on in the work of scientific discovery and of making such conditions of existence, economic, political and social, as will produce more fertile and responsive soil for a higher and better life. It must stimulate a wider demand on the part of the public for right leadership. It must extend its operations more widely among the people and sink deeper shafts through social strata to find new supplies of intellectual gold in popular levels yet untouched. And on the other hand, it must find and fit men and women for leadership. It must both awaken new demands and it must satisfy those demands by trained leaders with new motives, with new incentives to ambition, with higher and broader conception of what constitute the prizes in life, of what constitutes success. The University has to deal with both the soil and sifted seed in the agriculture of the human spirit. Its efficiency is not the efficiency which the business engineer is fitted to appraise. If it is a training ship, it is a training ship bound on a voyage of discovery, seeking new horizons. The economy of the University's consumption can only be rightly measured by the later times which shall possess those new realms of the spirit which its voyage shall reveal. If the ships of Columbus had engaged in a profitable coastwise traffic between Palos and Cadiz they might have saved sail cloth, but their keels would never have grated on the shores of a New World. The appeal of the undiscovered is strong in America. For three centuries the fundamental process in its history was the westward movement, the discovery and occupation of the vast free spaces of the continent. We are the first generation of Americans who can look back upon that era as a historic movement now coming to its end. Other generations have been so much a part of it that they could hardly comprehend its significance. To them it seemed inevitable. The free land and the natural resources seemed practically inexhaustible. Nor were they aware of the fact that their most fundamental traits, their institutions, even their ideals were shaped by this interaction between the wilderness and themselves. American democracy was born of no theorist's dream; it was not carried in the Susan Constant to Virginia, nor in the Mayflower to Plymouth. It came stark and strong and full of life out of the American forest, and it gained new strength each time it touched a new frontier. Not the constitution, but free land and an abundance of natural resources open to a fit people, made the democratic type of society in America for three centuries while it occupied its great empire. Today we are looking with a shock upon a changed world. The national problem is no longer how to cut and burn away the vast screen of the dense and daunting forest; it is how to save and wisely use the remaining timber. It is no longer how to get the great spaces of fertile prairie land in humid zones out of the hands of the government into the hands of the pioneer; these lands have already passed into private possession. No longer is it a question of how to avoid or cross the Great Plains and the arid desert. It is a question of how to conquer those rejected lands by new method of farming and by cultivating new crops from seed collected by the government and by scientists from the cold, dry steppes of Siberia to the burning sands of Egypt, and the remote interior of China. It is a problem of how to bring the precious rills of water on to the alkali and sage brush. Population is increasing faster than the food supply. New farm lands no longer increase decade after decade in areas equal to those of European States. While the ratio of increase of improved land declines, the value of farm lands rise and the price of food leaps upward, reversing the old ratio between the two. The cry of scientific farming and the conservation of natural resources replaces the cry of rapid conquest of the wilderness. We have so far won our national home, wrested from it its first rich treasures, and drawn to it the unfortunate of other lands, that we are already obliged to compare ourselves with settled states of the Old World. In place of our attitude of contemptuous indifference to the legislation of such countries as Germany and England, even Western States like Wisconsin send commissions to study their systems of taxation, workingmen's insurance, old age pensions and a great variety of other remedies for social ills. If we look about the periphery of the nation everywhere we see the indications that our world is changing. On the streets of Northeastern cities like New York and Boston, the faces which we meet are to a surprising extent those of Southeastern Europe. Puritan New England, which turned its capital into factories and mills and drew to its shores the vast army of cheap labor, governed these people for a time by a ruling class like an upper stratum between which and the lower strata there was no assimilation. There was no such evolution into an assimilated commonwealth as is seen in Middle Western agricultural states, where immigrant and old native stock came in together and built up a homogeneous society on the principle of give and take. But now the Northeastern Coast finds its destiny, politically and economically, passing away from the descendants of the Puritans. It is the little Polish or Jewish boy, the Greek or the Sicilian, who takes the traveller through historic streets, now the home of these newer people to the Old North Church or to Paul Revere's house, or to Tea Wharf, and tells you in his strange patois the story of revolution against oppression. Along the Southern Atlantic and the Gulf Coast, in spite of the preservative influence of the negro, whose presence has always called out resistance to change on the part of the whites, the forces of social and industrial transformation are at work. The old tidewater aristocracy has surrendered to the up country democrats. Along the line of the Alleghanies like an advancing column, the forces of Northern capital, textile and steel mills, year after year extend their invasion into the lower South. New Orleans, once the mistress of the commerce of the Mississippi Valley, is awakening to new dreams of world commerce. On the southern border, similar invasions of American capital have been entering Mexico. At the same time, the opening of the Panama Canal has completed the dream of the ages of the Straits of Anian between Atlantic and Pacific. Four hundred years ago, Balboa raised the flag of Spain at the edge of the sea of the West and we are now preparing to celebrate both that anniversary, and the piercing of the continent. New relations have been created between Spanish America and the United States and the world is watching the mediation of Argentina, Brazil and Chili between the contending forces of Mexico and the Union. Once more alien national interests lie threatening at our borders, but we no longer appeal to the Monroe Doctrine and send our armies of frontier men to settle our concerns off hand. We take council with European nations and with the sisterhood of South America, and propose a remedy of social reorganization in place of imperious will and force. Whether the effort will succeed or not, it is a significant indication that an old order is passing away, when such a solution is undertaken by a President of Scotch-Irish stock, born in the fiery state of South Carolina. If we turn to the Northern border, where we are about to celebrate a century of peace with England, we see in progress, like a belated procession of our own history the spread of pioneers, the opening of new wildernesses, the building of new cities, the growth of a new and mighty nation. That old American advance of the wheat farmer from the Connecticut to the Mohawk, and the Genesee, from the great valley of Pennsylvania to the Ohio Valley and the prairies of the Middle West, is now by its own momentum and under the stimulus of Canadian homesteads and the high price of wheat, carried across the national border to the once lone and vast plains where the Hudson Bay dog trains crossed the desolate snows of the wild North Land. In the Pacific Northwest the era of construction has not ended, but it is so rapidly in progress that we can already see the closing of the age of the pioneer. Already Alaska beckons on the North, and pointing to her wealth of natural resources asks the nation on what new terms the new age will deal with her. Across the Pacific looms Asia, no longer a remote vision and a symbol of the unchanging, but borne as by mirage close to our shores and raising grave questions of the common destiny of the people of this Ocean. The dreams of Benton and of Seward of a regenerated Orient, when the long march of Westward civilization should complete its circle, seem almost to be in process of realization. The age of the Pacific Ocean begins, mysterious and unfathomable in its meaning for our own future. Turning to view the interior, we see the same picture of change. When the Superintendent of the Census in 1890 declared the frontier line no longer traceable, the beginning of the rush into Oklahoma had just occurred. Here where the broken fragments of Indian nations from the East had been gathered and where the wilder tribes of the Southwest were being settled, came the rush of the land hungry pioneer. Almost at a blow the old Indian territory passed away, populous cities came into being and it was not long before gushing oil wells made a new era of sudden wealth. The farm lands of the Middle West taken as free homesteads or bought for a mere pittance, have risen so in value that the original owners have in an increasing degree either sold them in order to reinvest in the newer cheap lands of the West, or have moved into the town and have left the tillage to tenant farmers. The growth of absentee ownership of the soil is producing a serious problem in the farmer centers of the granger and the populist. Along the Old Northwest the Great Lakes are becoming a new Mediterranean Sea joining the realms of wheat and iron ore, at one end with the coal and furnaces of the forks of the Ohio, where the most intense and wide-reaching center of industrial energy exists. City life like that of the East, manufactures and accumulated capital, seem to be reproducing in the center of the Republic the tendencies already so plain on the Atlantic Coast. Across the Great Plains where buffalo and Indian held sway successive industrial waves are passing. The old free range gave place to the ranch, the ranch to the homestead and now in places in the arid lands the homestead is replaced by the ten or twenty acre irrigated fruit farm. The age of cheap land, cheap corn and wheat, and cheap cattle has gone forever. The federal government has undertaken vast paternal enterprises of reclamation of the desert. In the Rocky Mountains where at the time of Civil War, the first important rushes to gold and silver mines carried the frontier backward on a march toward the East, the most amazing transformations have occurred. Here, where prospectors made new trails, and lived the wild free life of mountain men, here where the human spirit seemed likely to attain the largest measure of individual freedom, and where fortune beckoned to the common man, have come revolutions wrought by the demand for organized industry and capital. In the regions where the popular tribunal and the free competitive life flourished, we have seen law and order break down in the unmitigated collision of great aggregations of capital, with each other and with organized socialistic labor. The Cripple Creek strikes, the contests at Butte, the Gold-field mobs, the recent Colorado fighting, all tell a similar story,--the solid impact of contending forces in regions where civic power and loyalty to the state have never fully developed. Like the Grand Canon, where in the dazzling light in the huge geologic history is written so large that none may fail to read it, so in the Rocky Mountains the dangers of modern American industrial tendencies have been exposed. As we crossed the Cascades on our way to Seattle, one of the passengers was moved to explain his feelings on the excellence of Puget Sound in contrast with the remaining visible Universe. He did it well in spite of irreverent interruptions from those fellow travellers who were unconverted children of the East, and at last he broke forth on the passionate challenge, "Why should I not love Seattle! It took me from the slums of the Atlantic Coast, a poor Swedish boy with hardly fifteen dollars in my pocket. It gave me a home by the bountiful sea; it spread before my eyes a vision of snow capped peaks and smiling fields; it brought abundance and a new life to me and my children and I love it, I love it! If I were a multi-millionaire I would charter freight cars and carry away from the crowded tenements and noisome alleys of the eastern cities and the Old World the toiling masses, and let them loose in our vast forests and ore-laden mountains to learn what life really is!" And my heart was stirred by his words and by the whirling spaces of woods and peaks through which we passed. But as I looked and listened to this passionate outcry, I remembered, the words of Tallyrand, the exiled Bishop of Autun, in Washington's administration. Looking down from an eminence not far from Philadelphia upon a wilderness which is now in the heart of that huge industrial society where population presses on the means of life, even the cold-blooded and cynical Tallyrand, gazing on those unpeopled hills and forests, kindled with the vision of coming clearings, the smiling farms and grazing herds that were to be, the populous towns that should be built, the newer and finer social organization that should there arise. And then I remembered the hall in Harvard's museum of social ethics through which I pass to my lecture room when I speak on the history of the Westward movement. That hall is covered with an exhibit of the work in Pittsburgh steel mills, and of the congested tenements. Its charts and diagrams tell of the long hours of work, the death rate, the relation of typhoid to the slums, the gathering of the poor of all Southeastern Europe to make a civilization at that center of American industrial energy and vast capital that is a social tragedy. As I enter my lecture room through that hall, I speak of the young Washington leading his Virginia frontiersmen to the magnificent forest at the forks of the Ohio. Where Braddock and his men, "carving a cross on the wilderness rim," were struck by the painted savages in the primeval woods, huge furnaces belch forth perpetual fires and Huns and Bulgars, Poles and Sicilians struggle for a chance to earn their daily bread, and live a brutal and degraded life. Irresistibly there rushed across my mind the memorable words of Huxley: "Even the best of modern civilization appears to me to exhibit a condition of mankind which neither embodies any worthy ideal nor even possesses the merit of stability. I do not hesitate to express the opinion that, if there is no hope of a large improvement of the condition of the greater part of the human family; if it is true that the increase of knowledge, the winning of a greater dominion over Nature, which is its consequence, and the wealth which follows upon that dominion, are to make no difference in the extent and the intensity of Want, with its concomitant physical and moral degradation, among the masses of the people, I should hail the advent of some kindly comet, which would sweep the whole affair away, as a desirable consummation." But if there is disillusion and shock and apprehension as we come to realize these changes, to strong men and women there is challenge and inspiration in them too. In place of old frontiers of wilderness, there are new frontiers of unwon fields of science, fruitful for the needs of the race; there are frontiers of better social domains yet unexplored. Let us hold to our attitude of faith and courage, and creative zeal. Let us dream as our fathers dreamt and let us make our dreams come true. "Daughters of Time, the hypocritic days, Bear diadems and fagots in their hands To each they offer gifts after his will Bread, kingdoms, stars and sky that hold them all. I, in my pleached garden watched the pomp, Forgot my morning wishes, Hastily took a few herbs and apples, And the day turned and departed, I too late, Under her solemn fillet, saw the scorn!" What were America's "morning wishes?" From the beginning of that long westward march of the American people America has never been the home of mere contented materialism. It has continuously sought new ways and dreamed of a perfected social type. In the fifteenth century when men dealt with the New World which Columbus found, the ideal of discovery was dominant. Here was placed within the reach of men whose ideas had been bounded by the Atlantic, new realms to be explored. America became the land of European dreams, its Fortunate Islands were made real, where, in the imagination of old Europe, peace and happiness, as well as riches and eternal youth, were to be found. To Sir Edwin Sandys and his friends of the London Company, Virginia offered an opportunity to erect the Republic for which they had longed in vain in England. To the Puritans, New England was the new land of freedom, wherein they might establish the institutions of God, according to their own faith. As the vision died away in Virginia toward the close of the seventeenth century, it was taken up anew by the fiery Bacon with his revolution to establish a real democracy in place of the rule of the planter aristocracy, that formed along the Coast. Hardly had he been overthrown when in the eighteenth century, the democratic ideal was rejuvenated by the strong frontiersmen, who pressed beyond the New England Coast into the Berkshires and up the valleys of the Green Mountains of Vermont, and by the Scotch Irish and German pioneers who followed the Great Valley from Pennsylvania into the Upland South. In both the Yankee frontiersmen and the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians of the South, the Calvinistic conception of the importance of the individual, bound by free covenant to his fellow men and to God, was a compelling influence, and all their wilderness experience combined to emphasize the ideals of opening new ways, of giving freer play to the individual, and of constructing democratic society. When the backwoodsmen crossed the Alleghanies they put between themselves and the Atlantic Coast a barrier which seemed to separate them from a region already too much like the Europe they had left, and as they followed the courses of the rivers that flowed to the Mississippi, they called themselves "Men of the Western Waters," and their new home in the Mississippi Valley was the "Western World." Here, by the thirties, Jacksonian democracy flourished, strong in the faith of the intrinsic excellence of the common man, in his right to make his own place in the world, and in his capacity to share in government. But while Jacksonian democracy demanded these rights, it was also loyal to leadership as the very name implies. It was ready to follow to the uttermost the man in whom it placed its trust, whether the hero were frontier fighter or president, and it even rebuked and limited its own legislative representatives and recalled its senators when they ran counter to their chosen executive. Jacksonian Democracy was essentially rural. It was based on the good fellowship and genuine social feeling of the frontier, in which classes and inequalities of fortune played little part. But it did not demand equality of condition, for there was abundance of natural resources and the belief that the self made man had a right to his success in the free competition which western life afforded, was as prominent in their thought as was the love of democracy. On the other hand, they viewed governmental restraints with suspicion as a limitation on their right to work out their own individuality. For the banking institutions and capitalists of the East they had an instinctive antipathy. Already they feared that the "money power" as Jackson called it, was planning to make hewers of wood and drawers of water of the common people. In this view they found allies among the labor leaders of the East, who in the same period began their fight for better conditions of the wage earner. These Locofocos were the first Americans to demand fundamental social changes for the benefit of the workers in the cities. Like the Western pioneers they protested against monopolies and special privilege. But they also had a constructive policy, whereby society was to be kept democratic by free gifts of the public land, so that surplus labor might not bid against itself, but might find an outlet in the West. Thus to both the labor theorist and the practical pioneer, the existence of what seemed inexhaustible cheap land and unpossessed resources was the condition of democracy. In these years of the thirties and forties, Western democracy took on its distinctive form. Travellers like De Tocqueville and Harriet Martineau, came to study and to report it enthusiastically to Europe. Miss Martineau pictures the American "exulting that he has caught the true aspect of things past and the depth of futurity which lies before him, wherein to create something so magnificent as the world has scarcely begun to dream of." "There is the strongest hope of a nation that is capable of being possessed with an idea," she adds, and she adjures the American people to "give perpetual and earnest heed to one point, to cherish their high democratic hope, their faith in man. The older they grow the more must they reverence the dreams of their youth." Side by side with this westward marching army of individualistic liberty-loving democratic back woodsmen, went a more northern stream of pioneers, who cherished similar ideas, but added to them the desire to create new industrial centers, to build up factories, to build railroads, and to develop the country by founding cities and extending prosperity. They were ready to call upon legislatures to aid in this, by subscriptions to stock, grants of franchises, promotion of banking and internal improvements. Government was not to them so much a necessary evil as it was a convenience for promoting their industrial aims. These were the Whig followers of that other Western leader, Henry Clay, and their early strength lay in the Ohio Valley, and particularly among the well-to-do. In the South their strength was found among the aristocracy of the Cotton Kingdom. Both of these Western groups, Whigs and Democrats alike, had one common ideal: the desire to leave their children a better heritage than they themselves had received, and both were fired with devotion to the ideal of creating in this New World a home more worthy of mankind. Both were ready to break with the past, to boldly strike out new lines of social endeavor, and both believed in American expansion. Before these tendencies had worked themselves out, three new forces entered. In the sudden extension of our boundaries to the Pacific Coast, which took place in the forties, the nation won so vast a domain that its resources seemed illimitable and its society seemed able to throw off all its maladies by the very presence of these vast new spaces. At the same period the great activity of railroad building to the Mississippi Valley occurred, making these lands available and diverting attention to the task of economic construction. The third influence was the slavery question which, becoming acute, shaped the American ideals and public discussion for nearly a generation. Viewed from one angle, this struggle involved the great question of national unity. From another it involved the question of the relations of labor and capital, democracy and aristocracy. It was not without significance that Abraham Lincoln became the very type of American pioneer democracy, the first adequate and elemental demonstration to the world that that democracy could produce a man who belonged to the ages. After the war, new national energies were set loose, and new construction and development engaged the attention of the Westerners as they occupied prairies and Great Plains and mountains. Democracy and capitalistic development did not seem antagonistic. Any survey of Western forces which have affected American ideals, would be sadly defective which failed to take account of the profound influence of immigration. Whether we consider the enthusiasts who came to find in the wilderness the freedom to institute their experiments in religion, or the masses who broke from their Old World habits and customs and turned to America as the land of promise, there is the same note of hope and aspiration. On the dullest faces of the steerage a new light falls as the American gateway is entered. We shall not comprehend the element that are shaping and are to shape our destiny, without due realization of the immigrant's dream. With the passing of the frontier, Western social and political ideals took new form. Capital began to consolidate in even greater masses, and increasingly attempted to reduce to system and control the processes of industrial development, but of the age of free competition, there came the greatest private fortunes and the most stupendous combination of economic interests in few hands that the world has ever seen. Labor with equal step organized its forces to destroy the old competitive system, it is not strange that the Western pioneers took alarm for their ideals of democracy as the outcome of the free struggle for the national resources became apparent. Prophesied by the Granger movement, these new tendencies came fully into the light with the Populists and from them the new gospel passed to Bryan Democracy, Roosevelt Republicanism and the Progressives. It was a new gospel, for the Western radical became convinced that he must sacrifice his ideal of individualism and free competition in order to maintain his ideal of democracy. Under this conviction the Populist revised the pioneer conception of government. He saw in government no longer something outside of him, but the people themselves shaping their own affairs. He demanded therefore an extension of the powers of governments in the interest of his historic ideal of democratic society. He demanded not only free silver, but the ownership of the agencies of communication and transportation, the income tax, the postal savings bank, the provision of means of credit for agriculture, the construction of more effective devices to express the will of the people, primary nominations, direct elections, initiative, referendum and recall. In a word, capital, labor, and the Western pioneer, all deserted the ideal of competitive individualism in order to organize their interests in more effective combinations. The disappearance of the frontier, the closing of the era which was marked by the influence of the West as a form of society, brings with it new problems of social adjustment, new demands for considering our past ideals and our present needs. Let us recall the conditions of the foreign relations along our borders, the dangers that wait us if we fail to unite in the solution of our domestic problems. Let us recall those internal evidences of the destruction of our old social order. If we take to heart this warning, we shall do well also to recount our historic ideals, to take stock of those purposes, and fundamental assumptions that have gone to make the American spirit and the meaning of America in world history. First of all, there was the ideal of discovery, the courageous determination to break new paths, indifference to the dogma that because an institution or a condition exists, it must remain. All American experience has gone to the making of the spirit of innovation; it is in the blood and will not be repressed. Then, there was the ideal of democracy, the ideal of a free self directing people, responsive to leadership in the forming of programmes, and their execution, but insistent that the procedure should be that of free choice, not of compulsion. But there was also the ideal of individualism. This democratic society was not a disciplined army, where all must keep step and where the collective interests destroyed individual will and work. Rather it was a mobile mass of freely circulating atoms, each seeking its own place and finding play for its own powers and for its own original initiative. We cannot lay too much stress upon this point, for it was at the very heart of the whole American movement. The world was to be made a better world by the example of a democracy in which there was freedom of the individual in which there was the vitality and mobility productive of originality and variety. Bearing in mind the far-reaching influence of the disappearance of unlimited resources open to all men for the taking, and considering the recoil of the common man when he saw the outcome of the completive struggle for these resources as the supply came to its end over most of the nation, we can understand the reaction against individualism and in favor of drastic assertion of the powers of government. Legislation is taking the place of the free lands as the means of preserving the ideal of democracy. But at the same time it is endangering the other pioneer ideal of creative and competitive individualism. Both were essential and constituted what was best in America's contribution to history and to progress. Both must be preserved if the nation would be true to its past, and would fulfill its highest destiny. It would be a grave misfortune if these people so rich in experience, in self confidence and aspiration, in creative genius, should turn to some Old World discipline of socialism or plutocracy, or despotic rule, whether by people or by dictator. Nor shall we be driven to these alternatives. Our ancient hopes, our courageous faith, our underlying good humor and love of fair play will triumph in the end. There will be give and take in all directions. There will be disinterested leadership, under loyalty to the best American ideals. Nowhere is this leadership more likely to arise than among the men trained in the Universities, aware of the promise of the past and the possibilities of the future. The times call for new ambitions and new motives. In a most suggestive essay on the Problems of Modern Democracy, Mr. Godkin has said: "M. de Tocqueville and all his followers take it for granted that the great incentive to excellence, in all countries in which excellence is found, is the patronage and encouragement of an aristocracy; that democracy is generally content with mediocrity. But where is the proof of this? The incentive to exertion which is widest, most constant, and most powerful in its operations in all civilized countries, is the desire of distinction; and this may be composed either of love of fame or love of wealth or of both. In literary and artistic and scientific pursuits, sometimes the strongest influence is exerted by a love of the subject. But it may safely be said that no man has ever labored in any of the higher colleges to whom the applause and appreciation of his fellows was not one of the sweetest rewards of his exertions. "What is there we would ask, in the nature of democratic institutions, that should render this great spring of action powerless, that should deprive glory of all radiance, and put ambition to sleep. Is it not notorious, on the contrary, that one of the most marked peculiarities of democratic society, or of a society drifting toward democracy, is the fire of competition which rages in it, the fevered anxiety which possesses all its members to rise above the dead level to which the law is ever seeking to confine them, and by some brilliant stroke become something higher and more remarkable than their fellows? The secret of that great restlessness which is one of the most disagreeable accompaniments of life in democratic countries, is in fact due to the eagerness of everybody to grasp the prizes of which in aristocratic countries, only the few have much chance. And in no other society is success more worshipped, is distinction of any kind more widely flattered and caressed. "In domestic societies, in fact excellence is the first title to distinction; in aristocratic ones there are two or three others which are far stronger and which must be stronger or aristocracy could not exist. The moment you acknowledge that the highest social position ought to be the reward of the man who has the most talent, you make aristocratic institutions impossible." All that was buoyant and creative in American life would be lost if we gave up the respect for distinct personality, and variety in genius, and came to the dead level of common standards. To be "socialized into an average" and placed "under the tutelage of the mass of us," as a recent writer has put it, would be an irreparable loss. Nor is it necessary in a democracy, as these words of Godkin well disclosed. What is needed is the multiplication of motives for ambition and the opening of new lines of achievement for the strongest. As we turn from the task of the first rough conquest of the continent there lies before us a whole wealth of unexploited resources in the realm of the spirit. Arts and letters, science and better social creation, loyalty and political service to the commonweal,--these and a thousand other directions of activity are open to the men, who formerly under the incentive of attaining distinction by amassing extraordinary wealth, saw success only in material display. Newer and finer careers will open to the ambitious when once public opinion shall award the laurels to those who rise above their fellows in these new fields of labor. It has not been the gold, but the getting of the gold, that has caught the imaginations of our captains of industry. Their real enjoyment lay not in the luxuries which wealth brought, but in the work of construction and in the place which society awarded them. A new era will come if schools and universities can only widen the intellectual horizon of the people, help to lay the foundations of a better industrial life, show them new goals for endeavor, inspire them with more varied and higher ideals. The Western spirit must be invoked for new and nobler achievements. Of that matured Western spirit, Tennyson's Ulysses is a symbol. "I am become a name For always roaming with a hungry heart, Much have I seen and known-- I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch, where thro' Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades Forever and forever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end. To rest unburnished, not to shine in use! And this gray spirit yearning desire To follow knowledge like a sinking star Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. * * * Come my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the Western stars until I die-- To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield." FREDERICK JACKSON TURNER. FOOTNOTES: [245] Commencement Address, University of Washington, June 17, 1914. JOURNAL OF JOHN WORK, DEC. 15TH, 1825, TO JUNE 12TH, 1826 (Introduction and Annotations by T. C. Elliott.) The publication of this journal was begun in Vol. 5, No. 2 (April, 1914) of this Quarterly and has been completed in three parts instead of two as first intended; the introductory statements in the previous numbers will be of assistance to readers. For the sake of those who may not see the earlier numbers some of the annotations are repeated. The journal ends rather abruptly just before the arrival of Mr. Work at Fort Vancouver in June, 1826, almost an even year after it began with his departure from that same Fort. This third part of the journal begins with Mr. Work in charge of the winter trade, 1825-6, at Flathead Fort or House located near the present Eddy Station of the Northern Pacific Railway in Sanders County, Montana. He remains there until February and returns to Spokane House and is on duty there with Mr. Dease, the chief trader, during the dismantling of that establishment in the spring of 1826. He then proceeded to Fort Okanogan for a short time and joins the annual "brigade" going down the Columbia river to Fort Vancouver, in June, 1826. I have been asked to explain the meaning of the term "gummed," which is used quite often in these traders' journals. It means the smearing of the seams of the canoes or boats with pitch or gum gathered from the forest trees. Reference has been made (note 2, p. 85) to C. McKay, as a son of Alex. McKay of the Astor party, but there appears to be doubt as to that relationship; quite likely C. McKay belonged to another family. There is also a question as to when the furs from the New Caledonia district began to come down over the Okanogan trail for shipment to Fort Vancouver; that trade route was probably opened earlier. The Thompson river (Kamloops) furs had come that way from the very beginning, in 1812. Research as to the identity of the actual builder of the trading post called Spokane House has progressed a little farther since the beginning of this publication; meaning the original Northwest Company post and not that of the Pacific Fur Company. There are reasons to believe that Mr. Jacques Finlay built it rather than Finan McDonald, as stated in notes No. 28 and 45. This journal furnishes the source of our information for the beginning of occupation of the trading post on Marcus Flat, above Kettle Falls, and it is well to emphasize the correct spelling of the name of that post, namely Fort Colvile; not Colville as corrupted. It took the name from one of the directors of the Hudson's Bay Company, Mr. E. Colvile. Doubtful words and expressions are enclosed in brackets. JOURNAL (Continued from Page 191, Vol. V., No. 3.) December 1825. Thursday 15 Stormy with sharp frost in the night. Mild pleasant weather during the day. Had the men employed with Mr. Kittson opening and examining the Snake[246] furs, they are generally in good order but of a very inferior quality, they also do not answer the description given of them as many small beaver have been called large, the sums are as follows; 744 Large & 298 Small beaver and 15 otters.-- Friday 16th Mild soft weather. The Kootenasy Chief paid us another visit and after trading a lodge and some Deer skins, got a small present and in the evening took his final departure for the winter. He is going with his people to hunt in their own lands not far from the fort[247] on their own river, where they intend to live on deer and endeavour to get a few beaver. On account of the snow they are apprehensive that they will not be able to go sufficiently far off to make a great hunt.-- In different conversations with the Kootanies since their arrival they express a particular wish to have a fort in their own country, and represent the communication by water much less difficult than the Indians whom Mr. Kittson saw stated it to be,[248] and say that the part which Mr. Kittson saw is the worst of it. They were told that they might depend on having an Establishment on their lands next season either by land or by water. Every means should be adopted to keep them on their own lands as they make much better hunt there than elsewhere. Their unprecedented trade this fall is to be mainly attributed to their hunting in the summer & fall on the upper waters of their own river and the Columbia. It is out of our power to send people & supplies with them at present for want of horses, the six we have here, some of them from the Snake Country are so lean that they are totally unfit for the journey.-- Old LaBuche the F. Head chief paid us another visit.-- Saturday 17th Heavy rain in the night & the greater part of the day. The Flat Head Indians to the number of 60 to 70 arrived headed by three chiefs, they were all on horseback and came singing and firing guns with a flag flying.[249] We answered their fire with a volley of Muskets. The Chiefs & some of the principle men smoked in the gentlemens' house, & all the others in the Indian House: The weather is so very bad that we cannot well put them out and they will have to sleep through the houses the best way they can. It is too late to trade today. After dark the men arrived from below bringing letters from Mr. Dease[250] dated on the 4th & 10th inst. and five guns & 4 doz. gun worms which we requested, but no Tobacco is sent which is unfortunate as it is an article which is in great demand and of which I am apprehensive we will be short.--Mr. Dease informs us that we will require to be down in time to meet the Express at the Forks about the 5th of April. Without injuring the trade we cannot reach Spokane so early as our Indians will not have arrived with their spring hunts. Sunday 18 Sharp frost in the morning. Commenced trading with the F. Heads and by noon had traded all the articles they had for sale when a present of 20 Ball & Powder & 2 feet of Tobacco was made to each of the Chiefs and a remuneration made two of them at the request of Mr. Ogden, per note, for services rendered the Snake Expedition & assisting in bringing home the Snake furs.--Some others of the principal men got also a present of a few balls & Powder and in the afternoon they all went off apparently well pleased. On account of the bad road and weakness of the horses the greater part of the Flat Heads are not going to (hunt) the Buffalo this winter but are going to pass the winter hunting beaver. This will probably occasion a small quantity of Provisions being procured in spring than usual, but I expect it will be the means of an increase in the more valuable articles of furs. I have not yet been able to ascertain the amount of the Trade. Monday 19th Overcast mild weather. Had the men busily employed packing the Snake furs and also those traded here, in order to send off two canoes to the Coeur de Alan Portage[251] as soon as possible, so that the men may get the canoes back before the ice takes. Examined yesterdays trade and find it to amount to 222 Large and 107 small beaver, 1 Otter, 4 Robes, 72 Appichimons, 1 Elk Skin, 18 pack saddles, 113 fath. cords, 4 Hair Bridles, 52 Bales, 3122 lbs. dry meat, 119 fresh Tongues, 23 dry Tongues, 2 bosses & 10-1/2 lb. castorum, which is much less than we expected. The greater part of the summer was occupied in pursuit of Buffaloes, which prevented them from hunting beaver, and as they are not going back to the Buffalo at present, they kept a considerable part of their meat to subsist on during the winter. Some freemen paid us a visit, they were told to come tomorrow with the furs and get some supplies.-- Tuesday 20th. Soft mild weather. The freemen A. Paget. C. (Loye), C. Gras Louis, J. Beauchamp & J. B. Gadwa delivered in their furs & received a little advance to enable them to pass the winter. These men would not accompany Mr. Ogden and were not to have received any supplies, but Mr. Dease directed them to get a little in case they delivered in the furs. Paget & Gadwa were unfortunate in losing a cache of 100 beaver which was stolen by the Indians.--Gadwa was ordered to be sent to Spokan. He denies that his engagement was only to be free[252] as long as the Company thought proper and seemed unwilling to go, but on being told that he must comply he submitted, but with reluctance. The Indians traded a few appichimans. The men employed finishing out the packs. Wed.y. 21 Cloudy cold weather. The men employed gumming & repairing the canoes. We had no gum till the Indians were employed to gather it, or the canoes would have been repaired yesterday. The Kootany chief & 6 of his men visited us, and after smoking traded a horse & a few saddles and appichimans. Thursd.y. 22nd Some snow in the night, cloudy cold weather. Wind N. W. Sent off 2 canoes 5 men each to the Schachoo[253] Portage laded with the following articles for Spokan viz 27 packages containing 762 Large and 376 Small beaver, 11 Martens. 10 Mink, 1385 Rats, 8 Elk Skins, 12 deer Skins, 70 Appichimans. 22 Saddles & 90 Salt tongues, of the F. Heads and Kootenay returns, and 21 Pieces containing 881 Large & 381 Small beaver, 16 Otters, 2 Rats & 7-1/2 lbs. Castrum, Snake Returns, besides 1 Bale private property, rivits and 5 bales meat 60 lbs. each for the peoples voyage down and back. The above part of the Snake returns is all that was brought here by C. McKay & delivered in by the Freeman.--I wrote to Mr. Dease informing him of the state of affairs of this place and requesting 1/2 Roll Tobacco and a few awls for the trade.--I wrote for the Tobacco the last time the Canoes went down but was refused it on the plea that it was more required below. I have now urged the necessity of its being sent here where it will be much required in the Spring.--The Men are directed to make all the expedition in their power so that they may get back before they are stopped by the ice, no danger is apprehended of ice stopping them before they reach the portage. Three Men Ignace, Martin & Gadwa are ordered to start for the Fort with the letters immediately on their arrival at the portage. Friday 23rd Cloudy cold weather. The Indians are encamping about the Fort where there are now 21 Lodges. Some are going off to the Buffalo. The Pendent Oreilles are blamed for stealing some of the Kootany horses. It is reported likewise that the Piegans have stolen 7 of the best horses from the Pendent Oreilles that went first off to the Buffalo. Two Beaver Skins, the carcass of 2 deer & a few appichimans[254] were traded. One of the old Freemen, Paget, father-in-law to Gadwa who was sent to Spokan, has come & encamped at the Fort he is an old man & having only Gadwa to depend on, he did not go off with the others. he is a very old servant and always bore a good character. After what little provisions he has will be done, he will probably become a burden on the Fort.-- Saturday 24 Cloudy cold weather. Wind N. W.--Some ice along the edge of the River. The Indians[255] traded a few Appichimans and Saddles, to obtain a little ammunition as some of them are going off. Sunday 25th Cloudy. Raw cold weather. Masses of ice running pretty thick down the River. This being Christmas Day the two men here had a dram, and we served out extra each a ration of fresh meat, a tongue, & a quart of Flour. For the old freeman Bastang the same. Five Kootany Indians of the Au platte tribe arrived and traded 14 Large and 4 Small beaver, 1 Otter, 17 dressed Deer Skins and 3 (parrefliches), principally for ammunition & Knives & a little Tobacco. Two Pendent Oreilles traded the carcasses of 2 sheep, females, the one weighed 62 & the other 60 lbs. Monday 26 Overcast mild weather. the river clear of ice, except some patches along its edge. The men employed cutting firewood. Tuesday 27th Overcast stormy weather. Wind Northerly. The men employed assorting and bailing up meat. The Indians are still trading a few appichimans, saddles &c but few furs. Wed.y. 28th Cloudy cold weather. Ice running pretty thick in the River. The Men finished assorting and baling up the meat. We have now in store 67 Bales, 84 lbs. net each, viz 36 of lean, 19 Back Fat & 12 Inside Fat, or 3024 lbs. Lean Meat 1596 lbs. Back fats & 1008 lbs. Inside fats, in all 5628 lbs. Some of the Indians moving a little further down the River, but as some others are coming up in their place the number of lodges still keeps about 20. Those Indians that remain here employ the most of their time gambling.-- Thursday 29th Overcast, Snowed thick the afterpart of the day. Ice running in the River.-- The River below will probably freeze over with this weather and prevent the Canoes from getting up. Friday 30th Overcast mild weather, some snow. Ice running in the river but not so much as yesterday. Nothing doing in the way of trade except a chance appichiman, (parrefliches) etc. The Indians occupy the greater part of their time gambling, even where it is snowing they are playing out of doors and a group sitting about the parties engaged watching the progress of the game. Saturday 31st Snowed thick in the night and the forepart of the day. The snow lies nearly 6 inches thick on the ground. Very little ice running in the River. The men who were sent off to Spokan on the 22nd arrived in the evening with letters from Mr. Dease and 1/2 Roll of Tobacco & 1/2 gross of awls. The men had to leave the canoes yesterday below the Chutes as the Navigation was stopped by ice. They have made a very expeditious voyage.-- Mr. Dease in one of his letters expresses a wish that Mr. Kittson or I would pay him a visit.--Nothing material has occurred at Spokan since we heard from it last. Jan.y. 1826. Sunday 1st Stormy with heavy rain the greater part of the day, the snow has nearly all disappeared. This being the first day of the new year, according to custom, each of the men got an extra ration of 6 lb. fresh venison, 2 lbs. back fat, 1 Buffalo tongue, 1 pint of Flour and 1 pint of Rum.--At daylight they ushered in the new year with a volley of muskerty, when they were treated with 4 glasses each of Rum, cakes & a pipe of Tobacco. With this and the pint given to each of them, they soon contrived to get nearly all pretty drunk. They appeared to pass the day comfortably enjoying themselves without quarreling. An Indian brought us a female (Chiveaux), Round, Skin & all.-- Monday 2nd Wind N. W. and stormy during the night and all day, but not cold, the snow has all disappeared except on the mountains. No ice driving in the River. The men doing little today. The Indians women were sent off to gather gum to repair one of the canoes to make another trip below if the weather continues favorable.-- Tuesday 3rd. Blew a perfect storm in the night, but calm overcast mild soft weather during the day. Had part of the men repairing and gumming a canoe & making paddles, the others packing up Appechimons, dressed leather, Robes, Saddles &c making in all 18 pieces or about 2/3 a canoe load, which is all in readiness to start tomorrow, for the Coeur de Alan portage. I intend going myself, with 6 men, to proceed to Spokan. I expect we will reach the portage before the River freezes but we will probably have to walk back.--I am induced to take this trip in consequence of Mr. Dease expressing a wish that either Mr. Kittson or I would visit him.--Mr. Kittson remains in charge of the place. Wed.y. 4th Some frost in the night. Cloudy fine weather during the day. Left F. Head haven 20 Minutes before 8 oclock in a canoe with 8 Men. Iroquoys, reached the Chutes[256] 20 minutes past 10. Making the portage, which is 1380 yds. long, took more than 2 hours.--At 2 oclock we reached the canoes the men left a few days ago and encamped to change our canoe for a better one. The men were employed till it was dark gumming the canoes we are going to take. The canoe though not deep laden is a good deal lumbered, the saddles & appechimons take up a good deal of room. There is not much snow. a little ice along the edge of the River & on the banks. The ice that stopped the men going up is all gone. Two parrefliches & a little meat which the men left in cache is stolen by the Indians.-- Thursday 5th Overcast soft weather. Proceeded on our journey at 1/2 past 6 oclock, reached Stony island portage at 10 & 1/2 past 10 got across it, the canoe taken down by water, by one oclock we reached the Heron Rapid,[257] the portage here also occupied half an hour. the canoe & part of the baggage got down by water. At 1/2 past 3 encamped near the Lake. A good days work. The snow is deep at the portage we passed, and also where we are encamped but it is soft and thawing.--It is difficult making the portage as the track is through rough stones & the hollows being filled up with the snow, the men with the loads tumble into the holes before they are aware. Friday 6th Stormy weather with heavy rain, rained hard in the night. Embarked at day light and in an hour reached the Lake[258] where we encamped and had to remain all day it being it being too rough to attempt crossing it. Saturday 7 Stormy with rain in the night. Moderate mild weather with some rain during the day. Embarked at 8 oclock and reached the portage[259] at 3 in the afternoon when the goods were laid up & covered, but it being too late deferred starting for the Fort till tomorrow. Killed a small deer crossing the River. Sunday 8 Soft weather with disagreeable sleet & snow showers.-- Set out an hour before day light with 4 men to cross the portage on foot for the Fort and encamped at sun setting at the little River[260] at the edge of the plains after a hard days walking. Two of the mens feet got sore and I sent them back from Rat Lake.[261] Part of the road in the middle of the woods the snow is deep &? with the thaw but not sufficiently hard to bear ones weight, and walking through it is very fatiguing on the other parts of the road there is little snow.--Met two Indians in the afternoon & got a horse from them but having no saddle & he being very poor it was a most fatiguing job to ride any distance. We rode turn about. Monday 9th Soft weather Snow showers. Resumed our journey before 3 oclock in the morning and reached Spokan[262] at 1 in the afternoon, and received a cordial reception from Mr. Dease who with his people were found well. There is little snow on the ground during this day's march.-- Tuesday 10th Snowed thick the forepart of the day but soft weather & rain in the evening so that the most of the snow had disappeared by night.-- Wed.y. 11 Overcast mild weather some light snow. Thursday 12th Weather as yesterday, some light snow and rain showers. Friday 13 Sharp frost in the night but cloudy mild weather during the day. Have made preparation to return to F. Heads tomorrow. Sad.y. 14th Snowing and raining all day. Having every thing ready left Spokan at 10 o'oclock for the F. Heads accompanied by my own two men, & La Bonte & an Indian with 9 horses for the baggage that I left at the other end of the Portage. On account of the very bad weather and having to go round by the Chutes[263] where we were detained some time in the plains catching two of the Inds horses, we only reached the Fountain[264] in the plain where we encamped for the night. Every one of us completely drenched to the skin.--There is very little snow on the plains. Sunday 15th Overcast mild weather some light snow & rain showers. Some of the horses strayed off in the night, & it was 8 oclock before they were all collected, when we proceeded on our journey and only reached the W. end of Rat Lake. The snow in the woods takes the horses up over their knees so that they were able to make very little way through it. Where we are encamped, the poor horses can eat but very little. Saw the tracks of several deer and some martens. Monday 16 Overcast mild foggy weather. Three of the horses strayed off in the night owing to the Indian having neglected to hobble them. I sent a man & the Indian after them, while I with the other men & horses proceeded to the portage[265] where we arrived before noon, the man and Indian with the other horses did not arrive till sun setting. Had all the pieces arranged & ready to send off the horses in the morning. & at the same time set out myself with the canoe. The snow is not so deep at this end of the portage as yesterday. Tuesday 17 Except a short interval in the afternoon, rained without intermission all day and blowing fresh part of the day. Had the horses collected at day light and the man and Indian commenced loading them. At the same time I embarked & we proceeded up the River, and encamped a little Above the lake, a good days march considering the very bad weather. Very little more wind would have prevented us from crossing the Lake. The snow has in several places disappeared but on the hills and along the shores it is still thick. Wed.y. 18 Overcast fair mild weather. Proceeded on our journey at daylight and encamped late above the Stony Island Portage.[266] The snow along the shore and particularly at the portages, was very deep.-- Thursday 19 Weather as yesterday but colder.-- Continued our rout at an early hour, and encamped below the Chutes in the evening. About noon we passed the Crooked rapid after which there was very little snow to be seen. Found some Indians at the Barrier River[267] & traded some Venison from them which made us a good supper. Friday 20 Snowing and raining all day, very disagreeable weather. Embarked before sunrising and reached the F. Head House near dark. We were delayed some time at the Chutes gumming the canoes.--Found Mr. Kittson and the people all well.--Nothing material has occurred since I went off. Little done in the way of trade except of fresh provisions, some Inds. from above arrived with 14 deer which has served the people & saved dry provisions for some time back on account of the mild soft weather it is difficult to keep it from spoiling. The men have been employed, getting wood for a canoe, making troughs to (beat) meat & make pimmican, cutting cords, & putting an upper flooring in the house, etc.-- Satdy. 21 Cloudy fine pleasant weather, thawing.-- An Indian brought the carcass of a deer. Sunday 22 Mild pleasant weather. Monday 23 Cloudy cold weather sharp frost in the night. Six men with some horses were sent off for canoe timber with which they returned in the evening. The road was very bad as they had to ascend the mountains.--It is difficult to procure wood for canoes here now. Tuesday 24 Overcast soft weather. C. McKay and six men were sent up the river in a canoe to an Indian camp in expectation that they will be able to trade some fresh provisions. It is supposed they will be two days reaching the camp.[268] If we be able to procure some venison it will save the dry provisions.-- The Old freeman Paget and a man Pierre, were sent down to Thompson's Plain with the horses where the grass is better. Wed.y. 25th Overcast soft mild weather. Two men employed dressing canoe wood, the others cutting wood &c.-- Thursday 26 Weather as yesterday, some light snow. The men employed as yesterday. Two Kootany Indians arrived and traded Deer skins principally for ammunition. Friday 27 Disagreeable cold weather blowing fresh from the Northward. The men bent the timbers for the canoe. Sata.y. 28 Soft weather some snow. Had the provisions examined, a little of it was mouldy. put 5 bales on the loft to dry, to beat for pimican. Sunday 29 Raw cold overcast weather. C. McKay and the men who went off on tuesday returned. The River is so shallow above that they could not get the canoe to the Indians camp but two men were sent. The Indians have had no provisions and the people were starving when they got a little. Only about two animals are brought home. They brought home the skin of a ram, horns and all, for stuffing. Monday 30th Snowed in the night and snowing thick the greater part of the day. Men differently employed. Tuesday 31 Snowing part of the day, but soft weather & thawing. There is now nearly a foot deep of snow. The men employed cutting and melting down talow.-- Wed.y. 1 Feby. 1826 Overcast soft weather. Some some sleet and rain showers. Part of the men employed cutting and melting Tallow, & part, pounding meat to make pimican. Thursday 2 Sharp frost in the night, and cloudy cold weather during the day. The men employed as yesterday. Friday 3 Frost in the night. Overcast soft weather thawing during the day. Blowing strong in the evening. The men employed as yesterday except those that were pounding the meat, who are making a trough as the one already made is broken. Some Indians arrived from above & traded the carcasses of 2 deer & the skin of a (byson). The meat is a seasonable supply as our stock of fresh meat was nearly out.-- Saturday 4 Some snow in the night but clear mild weather during the day. Had the men employed melting down fat. Yesterday evening. I gave one of the men Togonche, a boxing for making too free with my wife[269] but being in a passion he got out of my hands before he got enough & to avoid getting another which I promised him he ran off to the woods. Sunday 5 Clear mild weather. Monday 6th Snowed hard in the night and snowing part of the day. Part of the men employed pounding meat and part, dressing canoe timber. Tuesday 7th Stormy in the night with very heavy rain, rain & snow the greater part of the day. Part of the men employed melting fat the others at the canoe timber. T. Toganche came to the fort in the night and took away his things, and the other provisions, the others deny that they knew of his going off or where he is gone too. I bilieve they are telling lies. Wed.y. 8 Rain in the night & rain & snow during the day. The men employed as yesterday. Nothing doing in the way of trade except a little gum.-- Thursday 9th Rain & very stormy in the night, mild weather during the day.--The snow is disappearing very fast, there is now very little on the ground. The men employed at the canoe, the wood is all dressed. Friday 10th Fair mild weather. Men employed at the canoe and other jobs about the Fort. Late last night three Kootanies arrived from Flat Head Lake & traded 3 small beaver and few ribs of dried venison, they report that the Kootanies & Flat Heads at the Lake are employed hunting Beaver.--A little Tobacco was sent to the Kootany Chief & some of the principal men, word was also sent for them to be here about the middle or 20th of next month so that we may be ready to get off in good time. Saturday 11th Soft mild weather. The canoe was put on the stocks & the head and stern formed. Last night another Kootany arrived from the Kootany Fort, & traded 2 large Beaver & 9 deer skins. He reports that the Aue platts & Kootanies in that quarter are also employed hunting beaver. The Pendent Oreilles arrived from up the River & brought the carcasses of 7 deer & an Otter Skin. The Venison is a timely supply as our stock of fresh meat was nearly done. None of these Indians can give us any account of Toganche who deserted some days ago. Sunday 12 Sharp frost in the night & bleak cold weather during the day. The Indians who arrived yesterday with the venison went off. Monday 13th Sharp frost in the night. Cloudy cold weather during the day. Four men employed at the canoe & two pounding meat. An Indian arrived from Spokan, with letters dated on the 3rd Inst. Mr. Dease sends me orders to proceed to Spokan to make out the a/c & leave Mr. Kittson in charge of this place. As I have a particular wish to see the years transactions of this Post finished so that I might be able to make some observations on it, that perhaps might have been useful, I certainly do not like the trip, and think Mr. Dease[270] might have made more judicious arrangements, especially when it is only to make out the Accounts. Tuesday 14 Sharp frost in the night & very cold all day. The men employed as yesterday, finished pounding the meat and we are now ready to make it into Pimican to take below to Spokan. Wed.y. 15 Keen frost in the night, and cold freezing weather all day. The river driving full of ice, which is an unusual thing at this season of the year. Two of the men employed repairing a canoe to to below to the Le (?) Portage if the River keeps open. Five more men making Pimican. They made 14 bags 80 ls. each. Five of the Au platte Indians arrived late last night, & today traded 2 Otters, about 500 Rats, and some dressed leather and (Parrefliches).[271] Thursday. 16 Cold frosty weather but milder than yesterday. A good deal of ice driving in the River. Two men employed repairing a canoe to go below.--The others at the Pimican, Made 6 more bags & filled 2 bags of Tallow 90 lb. each. A Flat Head Indian arrived for a little tobacco for his tribe who are now on their way coming in, but still far off.--several are daily arriving from different quarters principally from the Fd. H. Lake and encamping about the fort, they bring nothing except a little dry Venison.-- Friday 17 Overcast freezing weather. Some ice still driving in the River & ice fast along its edges. The water is rising considerably some days past. Three men employed repairing the canoe.--The others tying up the Pimican & making packs of cords, to go below & doing other jobs about the fort.-- The Flat Head Indian that arrived yesterday went off, he got a little Tobacco for each of the principle men. He made us to understand that his tribe were still in pursuit of buffalo but would soon come off for the fort. They were likely to have a good deal of provisions but he could not say what success they had in the fur way.-- A band of 13 Kootanies principally Auplattes arrived in the evening with some furs.--It was too late to trade. Saturday 18 Cloudy mild weather, frost in the night. Ice still driving in the River. The Kootanies that arrived last night, traded 19 Beaver large & small, 1 Otter, 5 martens & 1 fish, 210 Rats, 4 Elkskins, 114 dressed & 5 parchment Deerskins and some (parrefliches), principally for ammunition.-- Part of the men employed at the new canoe, and three finishing repairing the one they were at these two days past, it is now ready and I intended to start tomorrow for Spokan with a load of provisions but the people arriving from the horse guard[272] informed me that part of the River there is frozen over and of course, impassable, a piece of the River above the fort has also been fast some days. In order to ascertain exactly the state of the River below so that we might be able to ascertain whether a passage is practicable or when it is likely to be so, C. McKay & Canotte, who is a good judge of the River, were dispatched to take a view of the water below at different places from which they will be able to judge of the state of the River farther down, they are to be back tomorrow, so that I must defer starting for another day. As Mr. Dease wants two men down also, by taking a canoe & cargo down at present is the only means by which they can be spared. The canoe is also the most expeditious mode of conveyance. We cannot attempt taking down the horses as Mr. Dease suggests, without running the risk of making a very tedious journey, and perhaps losing some of the horses, on account of the great depth of the snow along parts of the road. The journey on foot must also be tedious.--Performing the journey in the canoe is decidedly preferable, as it can be done much quicker, & the cargo can be taken down at once & probably not more than three canoes will require to be taken down in the Spring. So that the men wanted below can now be spared which they otherwise could not. Sunday 19th Cloudy mild weather. Some ice still driving in the River. C. McKay & Conotte returned & reported that the River is frozen in 4 places where, Portages will have to be made, not very long ones, & that only one place farther down is likely to be frozen at the Cobias. I therefore have determined on starting tomorrow, it will require longer time but it is the only means we now have of performing the journey. From all that we can learn there is too much snow for the horses to be sent down with safety. Monday 20 Left the Flat Heads early, in a canoe with 7 men & an Indian and 22 pieces Pimican & fat, 1 box candles & my baggage, besides provisions for the voyage, in all about 27 pieces. A little below the Fort we were stopped by ice & had to make a portage at least 3/4 of a mile, after which we proceeded to the Chutes, made the Portage & a little farther down the River was again frozen over & we had to make another portage about the same length as the last, but over a much worse road. The ice is too weak to carry upon it & it is difficult to get ashore and a bad road along shore. If we find obstructions of this kind tomorrow the canoe will probably have to be sent back & I will have to proceed on foot, as it would occupy a long time to carry over some of the portages below.--Very disagreeable weather. Snow & sleet heavy in the evening so that it wets everything. Tuesday 21 Cloudy overcast weather, drizzling rain, sleet & snow the greater part of the day. Proceeded down the river at an early hour & again soon found our road barred with ice in two places of considerable length, it was, however, so soft that we got our way broken through it with a great deal of labour & damage to our canoe. We crossed the Stony island portage & encamped below it at a late hour. In the forepart of the day there (was) little snow along the River but towards evening it was very deep. At our camp it is not less than three feet. In the morning when I was away with the foreman examining the ice one of the men (Bonufont) deserted and ran off with my old gun and Powder horn. The others said they thought I had sent him for them. This man is almost out of his senses about our peril at the F. Heads which is probably the cause of his running off--I had no idea that he ran off entirely or I certainly would have pursued him with the people & caught him although it would be difficult to find him as there is little snow in the woods and we had no time to spare.--He will probably go no farther that the fort where Mr. Kittson will stop him. Wed.y. 22 Snow & rain the most of the day. We were detained some time in the morning gumming the canoe, after which we continued our route & encamped in the evening near the lower end of Pendent Oreilles Lake. We just got across the lake in good time as it began to blow immediately afterwards. We met no more obstructions from the ice, but in several places it had very recently broke up. Thursday 23rd Very disagreeable cold weather, thick snow & sleet all day. Embarked at an early hour & reached the portage at noon,--where we got the property all safely laid up & the canoe gummed for for me to return with her tomorrow morning while I start with one man & an Indian to the fort & leave one man to take care of the property, till people & horses come for it.--I am afraid the horses will have a bad job of it as the snow here is very deep. The ice in different parts of the river has not been long broke up. Passed two Indian camps and lodges and loaded 3 pr. of small snow shoes from them.--The badness of the weather prevented me from setting out for the fort immediately. Friday 24th Overcast cloudy weather, snow showers. At daylight set out for Spokan accompanied by an Iroquoy & an Indian, and encamped at 4 oclock in the afternoon between the big hill and the Lake. The snow on the portage is generally from 3 to 4 feet deep and very soft and on account of the smallness and badness of our snowshoes walking through it is very fatiguing, when we encamped we were very tired, & had no water, however, by melting snow on a piece of bark at the fire we soon obtained a sufficiency.--We stopped early having only a small axe to cut firewood. I am afraid, there is so much snow, it will be a bad job getting the property across. Saturday 25 Overcast, snow and sleet the greater part of the day. Proceeded on our route at daylight and reached the plain at 11 oclock and encamped at sunsetting at Campment de Bindash, with J. Finlays[273] sons who were hunting fortunately we fell in with them or we would have had little fire during the night. The snow continued the same deapth to near the edge of the woods where it was not so deep. There was not much snow on the plains and on the South end we walked without snowshoes.-- Sunday 26 Clear cold weather in the night and mild weather during the day. Continued our journey at 3 oclock in the morning and arrived at Spokan at 11. Not much snow in the woods & it was so hard that we walked the most of the way without snowshoes. We were well tired. There were some horses on the opposite side of (Schuihoo)[274] plain but we thought it too far to go for them yesterday evening. Found Mr. Dease & his people all well. Monday 27 Snowed in the night and the greater part of the day. It being deemed impracticable to get the property across the portage at present on account of the depth of the snow, without, the risk of losing some of the horses, Mr. Dease had determined to let it remain some time till the snow thaws.--But a man (Chilifaux) was sent off to give the man who was left behind instructions & leave an Indian with him--and at the same time to bring home some of my things, particularly the box containing the papers.--The Indians would not trust their horses to cross the portage.-- Tuesday 28 Cloudy mild weather, some snow. A good deal of the snow that fell yesterday thawed. Wed.y. 1 Overcast mild weather. The snow thawing. Mr. Birnie[275] & the men busy packing beaver these two days.-- Thursday 2 Overcast cold weather. The people still employed packing furs. Friday 3rd Overcast cold weather, the snow thawing a little about the Fort but diminishing very little in the woods. Saturday 4 Weather as yesterday. Keen frost in the night.-- Sunday 5 Cloudy mild weather in the middle of the day, but cold in the night morning & evening. Snow dimishing very slowly.-- The men finished packing the furs. I am employed arranging the accounts. Monday 6th (Monday, Sunday & Tuesday here given in exact order of original M. S.) Keen frost in the night. Cloudy cold weather during the day. The Chiefs we spoke to about horses to carry off part of the furs and property to the Forks,[276] they engaged to furnish 80 horses. Sunday 7 Clear fine weather but cold & the snow wasting very little. Tuesday 7th Cloudy cold weather keen frost in the night. The men busy tying up the pieces & preparing to go off tomorrow. The Indians collecting the horses.-- Mr. Birnie with 3 men, 13 Indians and 80 loaded horses set out for the forks the first trip. Mr. B. is to remain in charge of the furs & property. Only 4 or 6 pieces of this is private property. Tuesday 7th In the evening Cholefaux arrived with my trunk & blankets about 100 lb.--The other things he left.--The snow on the Portage is now very deep, more so than when I passed it is now not less than 4 feet. There is no knowing when horses may be able to pass through it. The night before Cholefaux arrived at the other end of the Portage some Inds slept there with the man who was left in charge of the goods, & stole a small bag 25 lb. fine pimican.-- Wed.y. 8 Cloudy cold weather, sharp frost in the night.-- Chalifaux was sent off to the Forks to remain with Mr. Birnie. Thursday 9th Sharp frost in the night. Cold bleak weather during the day.--The snow wasting very little to be this season of the year.-- Friday 10 Keen frost in the night, Raw cold weather. Snow in the afterpart of the day. The men[8] employed with two Indians pressing the fur packs, but had to give it up on account of the snow. Saturday 11th Froze keen in the night. Light clouds fine weather though cold during the day. The people above mentioned employed pressing the furs which was finished in the evening having done 36 packs in the day. In the evening an Indian with part of the horses that went off to the Forks on tuesday, arrived, the whole reached their destination safe, & the property all in good order, having had dry weather. Sunday 12 Frost in the night, cloudy cold weather during day. All the rest of the horses & Indians & men returned from the Forks. Monday 13 Keen frost in the night. The men employed tying up and arranging the pieces for the next trip. Busy all day paying the Indians for their horses for their last trip. Tuesday 14 Frost in the night, light, cloudy, cold weather during the day. The Snow is disappearing about the Fort, but going off very slowly. Wed.y. 15 Cloudy cold weather. The men employed cutting firewood. Thursday 16 Heavy rain in the night some time in the morning, which has diminished the snow considerably, the valley round the fort is nearly all bare except patches here and there but in the woods and higher ground snow still lies pretty thick & is wasting very tardily.--Mild, soft foggy weather, & the first spring like day we have had this season.-- The men employed cutting firewood in the forepart of the day, afterwards arranging and separating the furs & property to be sent off to the forks on Saturday, in all 60 loads.--The Indians were engaged to furnish sixty horses on that day, for the trip.-- Pere de Jolie Fille was also engaged to cross the (Schuihoo) portage for the property that remains there, he is to go as soon as the road is passable through the snow, which he expects will be in two or three days. Friday 17. Raw cold weather in the morning, mild afterwards.-- Had provisions &c., tied up for the party going off tomorrow.--The Indians collecting their horses. Saturday 18th Cloudy, snow & sleet the forepart of the day, snowed in the night, the snow in the morning was nearly 2 inches deep, but it had nearly all disappeared during the day, on the low ground, but on the high ground that faces the north, the snow still remains. On account of the bad weather the departure of the horses with the property was deferred until tomorrow. The water in the river has risen considerably, these few days past. Sunday 19. Frost in the night & fine weather in the forepart of the day but disagreeable weather with rain and sleet afterwards. Three men and ten Indians, with the Interpreter Rivit,[277] were sent off to the Forks with 62 horses loaded with Furs, Provisions & Sundries. The after part of the day turned out very unfavorable which was not expected in the morning as the weather was fine.--There is very little property of any kind now remaining.[144]--The women and children also went off today.-- Monday 20 Overcast fair weather in the morning some light showers during the day.-- Tuesday 21 Rain and sleet in the night, but fair weather during the day. The River continues much the same, the water is rising very little. The Blacksmith & cook, the only two men we have now here, employed collecting all the iron about the place, stripping hinges off doors[278] &c. The Indians much regret our going off, and frequently complain that they will be pitiful when the whites leave them.[279] The Indians are getting a few trout and suckers in their barrier, a part of which they give us. Wed.y. 22 Light showers.-- The men employed as yesterday. Thursday 23. Sleet & rain showers, rained hard in the night. The greater part of the Men and Indians that went to the Forks on Sunday last, returned. Notwithstanding the bad weather their property got down safe.-- Friday 24. Showery weather and cold, notwithstanding the advanced season the snow still lies on the North side of the hills and banks.-- The rest of the people arrived from the Forks. Late last night two Indians arrived from Coeur de Alan Portage with letters from Mr. Kittson dated F. Head 9th Inst.--The trade was then completed and preparations making to start. The provision trade has been excellent but the returns in furs less than was expected.--War has broken out between the F. Heads and (Piegans.) C McKay is at the other end of the Portage with the horses that were at the F. Heads, he had a bad journey down on account of the depth of the snow, the horses were five nights without eating. The snow on the portage is still near 3 feet deep.--Mr. Kittson was to have proceeded to the Pendent Oreilles Bay but as it is supposed from accounts that that portage is impassable with the depth of the snow, a man was sent off immediately with letters to Mr. Kittson to stop him at the Coeur de Alan portage.-- Some people were sent off to fetch home our horses from the Coeur de Alan plain to be ready to start for the F. Head property. Le Course caulking his boats.--Paid off part of the Indians for their trip to the Forks.-- Saturday 25 Raining the greater part of the day. The horses were brought to (Birnie's)[280] plains. Paid some more of the Indians for their horses. Sunday 26th Rain in the night and the most of the day. The water in the River rising considerably these few days.--Some snow still lies on the banks and hills that face the North. Monday 27 Overcast weather. Martin arrived from Coeur de Alan Portage, in place of Charles who went off on the 23rd who was so fatigued that he could not come back. Martin can also scarcely walk, though he came part of the way on horseback. Mr. Kittson had not arrived at the Portage 2 days ago.--By Indian report he had started from the F. Heads but was detained at Thompsons plains, seeking after one of his men (Benifont) who had deserted. There is still a great deal of snow on the Portage. Some places it is said to be 3 feet deep.-- The horses were brought home, & the Indians engaged to furnish some more, to go off for the F. Head property tomorrow, as Mr. Kittson is expected to have arrived by the time they reach the Portage. Tuesday 28 Overcast mild weather. Rivit, 2 men & some Indians went off to meet Mr. Kittson with about 70 horses. Wed.y. 29th. Fine weather, sharp frost in the night. Old Philip was sent off to the Forks to send home Chalifaux who is there.-- Thursday 30th Fine weather, but keen frost in the night. La Course busily employed caulking and gumming the boats. Friday 31st. Frost in the night, Overcast mild weather during the day. Notwithstanding the weather is rather cold, Vegetation is making considerable progress, the ground about the fort is getting quite green, and the bushes are putting forth their leaves and some small plants flowering. The snow, nevertheless still keeps possession of the banks that Front the north.--The River has risen considerably for some days past. The Indians are hungry as they have little to depend upon but moss. They have for some time past got a good many trout from the Barrier but last night it was broken by the height of the water, & they will not be able to repair it. April 1826 Satd.y. 1 Heavy rain the greater part of the day. The men employed gumming the boats. Sunday 2 Overcast mild, soft weather. Mr. Kittson arrived from the F. Heads. he left his people yesterday.--One of the men (Bonenfant) who deserted from me on the 21st. Feby. but was afterwards secured, ran off a second time, when Mr. Kittson sent two men in pursuit of him. One of these Ignace (Astaryan), also staid away & is supposed to have deserted also. Bonenfant made his escape from an Indian lodge before the men got up. Three of the canoes were broke 2 two of the them sunk, & though none of the property was lost a great deal of it was wet, & though pains was taken to dry it, it is feared from the witness of the weather that a deal of the meat will be much damaged.-- Monday 3rd Overcast fair weather. C. McKay & Canotte arrived & left Rivit and the Men this morning, they are to stop the most of the day opening and airing the provisions. Tuesday 4. Overcast, weather drizzling rain. The Men employed tying up some things that were loose in the Store.-- Wed.y. 5 Overcast fair weather. The people with horses loaded with Flat head returns arrived. The men immediately employed opening and examining the Provisions. A good deal of it is wet & getting mouldy. Some of the Bales of leather were also wet, indeed scarcely anything in the canoes missed.-- Busy the after part of the day settling with the Indians for their horses. Thursday 6th Fine weather. Busy settling with the Indians & paid them up for all their horse hire & services for so far.-- Mr. Kittson & the men drying and packing up the meat.-- Friday 7th Fair weather. Had the Indians & Companys horses collected and the property taken to below the Forks,[281] in the boat, the river being too high to cross it on the horses. At past noon I set out with 59 loaded horses and encamped late at the Kettle encampment.[282] Our loads are principally provisions, a few packs of furs & leather.--All Indians but one white man that are with the horses, they are very careful of the property. Saturday 8th Clear pleasant weather. It was some time in the morning before the horses were all collected after which they were all loaded and proceeded on the rout. Mr. Dase and Mr. Kittson shortly come up with us. I accompanied them & we proceeded on ahead and arrived at the Forks in the evening. We had some difficulty crossing a small River[283] that was swelled by the snow melting in the mountains, the current was very strong & the water deep. My horse was carried a considerable distance down the stream. I was completely wet up to the middle it was with difficulty I kept his back as he was different times nearly upsetting by getting on branches or trees. Sunday 9th Clear fine weather. The boats,[284] three in number, which left Spokan yesterday arrived at the Forks this evening, they loaded the cargoes above the little Dalles & the light boats were run down. La Courses boat struck a stone near the mouth of the Spokan river in a dangerous rapid and was broken. She very nearly upset, had she done so everyone on board would have perished. Yesterday the boats fell in with the horses & transported all the property past the little river. Monday 10 Cloudy weather, sun shining occasionally. The horses and property all arrived at the Forks safe in the morning where the loads were received.--The Bales of meat were opened to be aired, several of them were a little wet.--Busily employed in the afterpart of the day paying off the Indians for the lend of their horses and their own labour coming to the Forks.-- Tuesday 11 Cloudy weather. The meat was again all opened & spread out to air.-- The Express arrived in the evening. Messrs. McLeod.[285] Ermatinger & Douglas.--They brought 3 pigs & 3 young cows for Fort. Colvile[286] Wed.y. 12-- Mr. A. McDonald[287] arrived from Okanagan by land. Thursd.y. 13. Two boats sent off to Okanagan landed with furs.--And afterwards 20 of the Spokan horses for the same place to go on to Kamloops to meet the New Caledona people.-- F Rivit. Old Philip & old Paget & Pierre with a number of women and children & all the horses & the young cows, were sent off to Kettle falls. They have a quantity of seed potatoes with them & tools to commence farming immediately.[288] Friday 14th Nothing particular,--All busy finishing the account. Saturd.y. 15th do do. Sunday. 16. The Express for the Mountains. Mr. McLeod & Mr. Birnie, set off in the evening.--One boat 8 men. Monday 17-- A Cargo was prepared for a boat to Okanagan.-- Tuesday 18 A boat loaded with Packs of furs, appichimons, leather &c. Messrs. McDonald, Ermatinger & myself passengers. Set out in the morning for Okanagan.-- Wed.y. 19th Arrived at Okanagan in the morning with all safe.-- Met the man that left the forks on the 12th returning yesterday morning. They would reach the forks in the course of the day.-- Thursday 20 Overcast mild weather. Messrs. A McDonald, E. Ermatinger and Annance,[289] 12 Men and 2 Indians took their departure for Nezperces & thence to Fort Vancouver in a boat, with 12 Packs furs, 15 bales salmon, 4 Bales Appichimons, 1 bale Saddles, 1 Bale leather, 1 Bale Cords & 3 (caffetes). They are to proceed from Wallawalla by land with horses. I remain in charge of Okanagan till the Brigade goes down. Five men remain with me, two of whom are shortly to go off to Kamloops with horses to meet the N. Caledonia people, and two of them are invalids.-- (No journal kept from Apr. 21 to May 31 inclusive, unless in separate book.) June 1826 Thursd.y. 1st Cloudy fair weather. The men employed gumming the boats.--Yesterday I gave up the charge of the store &c. to Mr. F. Ermatinger[290] who is to remain at this place during summer.-- Friday 2nd Fair weather. Men employed as yesterday.--Mr. Connolly[291] arrived about 5 oclock in the evening.--He left his people this morning, they are expected to arrive with the horses tomorrow. Satd.y. 3 Cloudy, Showery weather. Mr. Connollys people under the charge of Messrs. Pambin[292] & Douglas[293] arrived late in the evening, 60 loaded horses 85 packs furs & 6 Kegs Castorum.--They have been 25 days from Alexander 10 of which were from Kamloops to Okanagan.-- Sunday 4th Cloudy mild weather.-- An Indian traded a salmon.-- Monday 5th Cloudy Showery weather Tuesday 6th Sultry warm weather, some Showers. Mr. Connolly being very anxious for the arrival of Mr. Deases people, and apprehensive that letters which he sent some time ago had not reached their destination an Indian and a man were dispatched with letters to Fort Colville.--About 1 oclock 2 boats & 11 men with Mr. Douglas[294] & Kittson arrived from Ft. Colvile, with some appichimons, cords, Provisions, &c.--The sending off in the morning is unnecessary.-- Everything made ready to start tomorrow. Wed.y. 7th Cloudy Sultry weather. Departed from Okanogan with 6 boats, Men loaded with pack furs & other baggage.[295] All under the charge of Mr. Conolly, Messrs. J. Douglas, Pambin, Kittson, D. Douglas, & myself passengers.--Started at 8 oclock & encamped to gum the boats at 6 a little above Priests Rapid.--Saw but few Indians on the River, traded some roasted salmon.--The Current is very strong & the water high. Thursday 8th Cloudy showery weather. Continued our journey at 3 oclock and arrived at Nezperces[296] at 7 in the afternoon.--A few Indians along the river.--Traded 6 fresh salmon.-- Friday 9th Cloudy weather, excessively warm in the middle of the day. In consequence of the rain yesterday evening, the boat and additional cargoes to be taken from Nezperces could not be arranged. Some time was, therefore, occupied doing that business this morning. Near noon the boats all started 8 in number with 45 packs furs in addition to those brought from Ok: and some other property.--Messrs. D. Douglas & Kittson remained.--Our party now consists of 8 boats, 51 men, & 1. C. F. & 3 clerks.--We got on well during the day.--Shortly after leaving Nezperces at Grand Rapid[297] we met an Indian with dispatches from Ft. Vancouver dated 3rd Inst., announcing the Arrival of the Ship. Encamped in the evening below J. Day's River. A good many Indians along the river.--Mr. Black gave the people a horse to eat. Satd.y. 10 Cloudy fine weather, very warm though there was a little breeze of wind.-- Proceeded on our journey at daylight, Passed the Portage at the Chutes[298] and to near the lower end of the Dalles where we encamped to get the boats gummed.--The men had a hard days labour carrying across the two Portages.--There were about 100 Indians at the Chutes, & from 200 to 300 at the Dalles. They are very peaceable. Traded salmon from them to serve the people 2 days.-- Sunday 11 Cloudy, Blowing fresh part of the day. All hands were in motion at daylight, and after proceeding down a small channel & making a portage at its lower end,[299] continued our rout, but it blew so fresh that we had to put ashore before noon and could not proceed during the day.--The Indians were very quiet during the night, but before they could be all sent off from the camp they made a hole in the sand under the edge of one of the boats & stole a capot from under one of the mens heads when he was sleeping.--There was some trouble getting through the rapids and whirlpools below the Dalles. Traded some more salmon.-- Monday 12 Continued blowing fresh all night and all day, storming in the afternoon. It being a little moderate we embarked at daylight, but had proceeded only a few hours when the wind reversed so that we had to put ashore & remain all day a little below Cape Heron.[300] Some Indians visited us from whom part of a sturgeon was purchased & some other little things.-- A canoe of Indians on their way from the fort below visited us.-- Two Indians who had solicited a passage from the Dalles to Fort Vancouver returned in the afternoon. One of them had the misfortune to lose his gun. It was lying in the oil cloth which being blown up by the wind tossed the gun overboard. FOOTNOTES: [246] That is, the furs sent from the Snake river country where Peter Skene Ogden's party had been trapping during winter and summer of 1825. [247] The trading post known as Fort Kootenay had been located nearly opposite the present town of Jennings, Montana, but was not being maintained this year. [248] This refers to attempt of Mr. Kittson to ascend the Kootenay river from the Columbia in a batteau, mentioned on pages 178-9 of this quarterly. [249] See note 108 on page 189. [250] Mr. John Warren Dease, Chief Trader, in charge at Spokane House during this winter. [251] The portage mentioned in note 86, page 179, of this Quarterly. [252] Free trappers nominally owned their horses, guns, traps and lodges, but usually were in debt to the Company for everything and obliged to turn in their furs to pay the indebtedness. The regularly employed servants were called the engages. [253] The same as the Coeur d'Alene portage mentioned in note 117, this being Mr. Work's spelling or "Skeetshoo," the name given by David Thompson to the Coeur d'Alene lake and river and Indians. [254] Saddle blankets, made of skins. [255] The Indians residing along the lower Kootenay river; see note 104 on page 187. [256] Thompson Falls, Clark's Fork river, Montana. [257] The name still remains and is said to have its origin from numerous small fish resembling herring that were common there. [258] Pend d'Oreille lake. [259] North end of Skeetshoo Road and in later years called Sineacateen Crossing. [260] Rathdrum creek, probably. [261] Hoodoo lake, Kootenay County, Idaho. [262] Spokane House, at forks of Little Spokane and Spokane rivers. [263] Spokane Falls. [264] Some large spring on Spokane prairie; perhaps where Antoine Plante afterward lived. [265] Sineacateen again. [266] Previously mentioned as Isle d'Pierre and impossible to locate with certainty; possibly Cabinet rapids, Clark Fork river. [267] Possibly the Trout creek, Montana: on main line of No. Pac. Ry. [268] The large camp of the Flatheads near the lake of that name. [269] Mrs. Work was of Spokane blood and a very Intelligent woman. [270] Mr. Dease was suffering from some chronic disease from which he died a few years after at Fort Colvile. [271] Saddle bags. [272] Herders at Thompson's Prairie, where the horses were pastured. [273] Jacques Finlay, clerk of David Thompson, who was in charge of Spokane House in 1811, and after whom Jocko creek, Missoula county, Montana, is named. [274] Another attempt to spell the name Skeetshoo. [275] See note 79, page 176. Mr. Birnie came to the Columbia about 1820. [276] The mouth of the Spokane river where the boats were loaded to proceed either up or down the Columbia. [277] See note 68, page 167. [278] Mr. Work and Mr. Dease remain until the arrival of Mr. Kittson with the furs and provisions from the Flathead trading post. [279] This marks the end of Spokane House as a trading post. For glimpse of this place in July, 1826, consult David Douglas' account in Oregon Hist. Quarterly, Vol. 5. [280] Evidently some prairie near the House, possibly the Five Mile Prairie of present day. [281] Meaning the Forks of Spokane and Little Spokane rivers about three-fourths mile below the House, where the ford usually was. See map in Pac. Railway Reports, Vol. 12. [282] Uncertain but probably where the main trail Walla Walla to Kettle Falls crosses the Spokane River. [283] One of several creeks entering Spokane river from the south. The road from Spokane House to the Forks evidently followed the south side of Spokane River very closely. [284] The boats that had been built at Spokane House during the winter; the Little Dalles are the gorge at Miles. Lincoln County, Wash. [285] John McLeod. Chief Trader, on his way to cross the Rocky Mts., Francis Ermatinger, a clerk, and David Douglas, the botanist from England. For contemporaneous mention of this meeting consult pp. 334-5 of Vol. 5 of Oregon Hist. Quarterly, being Journal of David Douglas. [286] This marks the beginning of the pork, beef and dairy business in Stevens county, Washington, in particular, and all the Inland Empire in general. [287] Archibald McDonald, then a clerk; the father of Ranald McDonald. [288] These people are to become the first residents at Fort Colvile, then being completed on Marcus Flat above Kettle Falls. [289] Mr. Annance, Chief Trader, had been in charge of Fort Okanogan that winter and Mr. Edward Ermatinger had probably been at Thompson river. [290] See note 78, page 176. [291] Chief Factor William Connolly from Fort St. James in New Caledonia en route for Ft. Vancouver to exchange his furs for trading goods. [292] Pierre Chrysologue Pambrun, a clerk under Mr. Connolly, afterward in charge of Fort Walla Walla; consult Irving "Capt. Bonneville." [293] James Douglas, clerk under Mr. Connolly, whose daughter he married, and afterward Sir James Douglas, Chief Factor and Governor of British Columbia. [294] David Douglas, the botanist, again. [295] Constituting what was known as a fur brigade. [296] Fort Nez Perce or Walla Walla; Mr. Samuel Black then in charge. [297] Umatilla rapids. [298] Ceillio Falls and the Upper and Lower Dalles, now charted as Ten and Five Mile Rapids. [299] Three Mile Rapids. [300] Upper Cape Horn. See note 6. ELIZA AND THE NEZ PERCE INDIANS Seventy-six years ago a little six-months old baby sat in her mother's lap in an humble home in the eastern part of what was then known as Oregon. (Oregon then comprised all that section of country lying west of the Rocky Mountains and north of the California line.) The baby was a dark-haired, dark-eyed little girl, and was the joy of her parents, who had peculiar reasons for being attached to her. She was not different from other children of like age, but had the distinction of being the second white American child born on this Northwest Coast, and the first who grew to years of maturity. She is still living, and has been for years a resident of this state, though now living in Idaho. Her parentage and environment were unusual. On the banks of a swiftly running stream, called Lapwai, which empties into the Clearwater river a dozen miles or so east of the City of Lewiston, in the State of Idaho, was the place of her birth. Their home was a nondescript building, made of logs, eighteen feet wide and forty-eight feet long. A partition, also made of logs, divided it into two rooms, one eighteen feet square in which the family lived, and the other eighteen by thirty feet, which was used for a school and assembly room. It had been a great task to erect that house. There were no teams, and all the logs had to be carried four miles by the Indians. It took thirty men to carry one log. The parents were missionaries, and had lived there about eighteen months, with no white neighbors nearer than one hundred and twenty miles and the only means of communication between them was on horseback. Now let us go back thirty years or more. In the spring of 1806, when Lewis and Clark were returning back across the continent in their most wonderful exploring expedition, they passed through this section of the country. On arriving at a place called Kamiah, sixty miles east of Lapwai, they found the snow too deep to allow of their crossing the mountains, and were obliged to remain there about a month. They found the Indians of this tribe very friendly and accommodating. They were really a superior race of people. Most of them had never seen any white people before, and none of them had ever seen a black man, like York of that party. Their curiosity was greatly aroused. They even tried to wash the black off from his face. The thirty days or more spent there was mutually very enjoyable, and the memory of it was treasured up in their minds for very many years. It is not known that there were any very religiously inclined men among them, but all knew of the existence of a God, and Mr. Clark at least is said to have been a church member. It is more than probable that some seeds of Divine truth were dropped into their darkened minds at the time, for twenty-five years later they sent a delegation of four men to St. Louis to get further knowledge of the white man's God, and the book or guide to Heaven. Two of these were elderly men, and two were younger. On arriving at St. Louis, then the emporium of the West, they were cordially received by General Clark who was then Superintendent of Indian Affairs, having charge of all Indians living in the far West. He remembered well the hospitality he and his company had received at the hands of their tribe a quarter of a century before, and took great pleasure in requiting it in a fitting manner. They arrived in the fall. During the following winter the two elderly men sickened and died. There is a tradition, that just before starting, one of the survivors made the following speech: "I came to you over the trail of many moons from the setting sun. I came with one eye partly open for more light for my people who dwell in darkness. I made my way to you through many enemies and strange lands that I might carry back much to them. I go back with both arms broken and empty. The two fathers, who came with us, the braves of many winters and wars,--we leave them here asleep by your great waters and wigwams. My people sent me to get the book of Heaven from the white men. You make my feet heavy with the burden of gifts, but the book is not among them. When I tell my poor blind people after one more snow that I did not get the book, no word will be spoken. One by one they will arise and go out in silence. My people will die in darkness. No book from the white men to make the way plain. That is all." There has some doubt been expressed whether the Indian used this exact language. But Mr. Catlin, the Government painter of Indian portraits, and who traveled with them on the steamer going up the Missouri river, and who painted their portraits which are now in the museum at Washington City, is authority for the statement that this was their object. At any rate, their very unusual mission became known among the missionary societies in the east, then in their infancy, and awakened a deep interest in their call for help. In 1834 the Methodist denomination sent out four single men, two ministers, the Reverends Lee, uncle and nephew, and two laymen, Messrs. Shepherd and Edwards. These men established a mission in the Willamette Valley nine or ten miles from where the City of Salem now stands. Two years later Messrs. Spalding and Whitman followed in their footsteps. They were accompanied by their brides, who, with indomitable pluck, heroism and devotion faced that long and terrible journey from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and accomplished it successfully. Of their privations and sufferings on that long and toilsome journey there is not now time to dwell. Week after week, and month after month, they traveled on horseback, sleeping on the ground at night, with no house but a tent, and no mattress but skins and blankets; fresh buffalo meat their principal diet, and through tribes of Indians who had never seen a white woman. After many delays and dangers, in November, 1836, Mr. and Mrs. Spalding located among the Nez Perce Indians, the tribe who had sent the messengers east. Doctor and Mrs. Whitman had settled in the Walla Walla Valley, among the Cayuse Indians. For the first three weeks the Spaldings lived or rather camped in an Indian lodge, the poles of which were covered with buffalo skins with the hair taken off, called parfleches, until their cabin was prepared. The two missionary couples were one hundred and twenty miles from each other; and neither woman saw the other or any other white woman for a year after their separation. The following year, 1837, witnessed the birth of two girls, the first white American children born in the Northwest. Alice Clarissa Whitman was born March 4th, and was the first, and Eliza Spalding, born November 15th, was the second. In November, 1837, Mrs. Whitman made her first visit to Mrs. Spalding, bringing her little girl with her, when each child beheld for the first time a white baby. On the 23rd of June, 1839, little Alice was accidentally drowned in the Walla Walla river, leaving Eliza as the first white American child who grew to years of maturity. Mr. and Mrs. Spalding pursued their labors for the benefit of the Indians; she collecting the women and the girls in the assembly room, and teaching them the simple arts of domestic life. Being somewhat of an artist, she also drew pictures representing events recorded in the New Testament, and also the alphabet, which they readily learned. The room was often crowded to its utmost capacity. Men as well as women of mature age, as well as the young people, applied themselves with eagerness. Mr. Spalding would often collect a crowd about a campfire and tell them Bible stories, often somewhat embellished, and he held their attention until long into the night. The interest of the Indians was very encouraging. The next year, 1838, brought them fresh cheer and assistance in the arrival of a reinforcement to the mission, of which they got Mr. W. H. Gray and his wife, and a Mr. Rodgers, besides which a Mr. Smith and his wife went to Kamiah to establish a mission there. For some reason, Mr. Smith did not succeed at Kamiah and soon left the country. But with the help of Mr. Gray and Rodgers, Mr. Spalding built a grist mill, bringing the stones forty miles down the Clearwater river. One of those stones is in the collection of curios of the Historical Society in Tacoma. This little mill was very much appreciated by the Indian women, who before that time had to pound their grain and roots in a mortar with a pestle. This was very laborious work for them. In later years a sawmill was also built there. Messrs. Walker and Eells, who also came at that time, located among the Spokane Indians, where they remained about ten years. In the year 1839, three years after they commenced teaching the Indians, their hearts were gladdened by the receipt of a printing press, a gift from the native Christians of the Sandwich Islands. With it came a printer by the name of E. O. Hall, who, with his wife, made things brighter for the Spaldings. They immediately went to work with fresh vigor to prepare books and pamphlets for the use of the Indians. A primer, an elementary spelling book, a book of songs, a translation of the book of Matthew, and some other books were prepared. These the Indians learned to use. In their lodges and around their campfires they studied them, and the air often resounded with their songs, they using the books that had been prepared for them. The printing press remained there seven years, when it was taken to The Dalles. It is now in the rooms of the Historical Society of Oregon at Portland. It is interesting to note in this connection the fact that the first printing press was brought to the Atlantic Coast in 1639, just exactly two hundred years prior to the arrival of this one which was brought to the Pacific Coast in 1839. There were lights and shadows in their work. Sometimes the Indians got tired of their books. At other times they got cranky and lazy. Then there were outside influences that they had to contend with. Some of the missionaries got discouraged and left the mission; but Mr. and Mrs. Spalding labored on. The important results of their work were seen in later years, when a large proportion of the Indians were found to be nominally Christians. Eleven years passed by when a tragedy occurred, which shocked the whole Northwest, and drove the missionaries from their work and their homes. Many immigrants had come across the plains with their teams, and most of them went on down to the Willamette Valley. In the fall of 1847, however, some fifty or sixty, who for various reasons had found it impracticable to go any further, were stopping temporarily at Walla Walla, at Dr. Whitman's place. There were in all about seventy-five stopping there, including the mission family and attaches. So many white children were among them that a school of English speaking children was established. It seemed an opportune time for Eliza Spalding, who was then ten years old, to be there, where she could associate with children of her own race, and her father took her down to spend the winter with the Whitmans. Arriving the latter part of the week, Mr. Spalding decided to remain a few days, and on Saturday he accompanied Dr. Whitman to the Umatilla, some forty miles to the south, where there were some sick Indians that the Doctor wished to visit. Dr. Whitman returned the next day, as the calls for him at home were urgent; while Mr. Spalding remained a few days to hold services with the Indians there and do missionary work among them. On Monday, the 29th of November, 1647, shortly after noon, while Dr. Whitman was sitting in his house, two Indians came in and asked for some medicine, which was given them. While the Doctor was explaining to one of them something about the use of it, the other stealthily slipped up behind him, drew his tomahawk out from under his blanket, and struck him a blow on the top of the head which stunned him. A second blow and he fell to the floor insensible. This was the signal for a general attack. The screams of the women and children, the rapid discharge of firearms, and the yells of the savages made pandemonium let loose. During this affray little Eliza was almost the only one who understood the Indian language, and her terror was increased by knowing what they were saying. At one time, when she heard the order to shoot all the children, she turned her back so she could not see it done, and leaning over the sink, put her hands over her face and listened in terror. But better counsels prevailed and they were saved. During that and the few following days thirteen men and one woman, Mrs. Whitman, lost their lives, a few escaped, and more than fifty women and children were taken prisoners. Two days later Mr. Spalding started back from the Umatilla, knowing nothing of what had occurred. The same day a party of three, a Catholic priest, a half-breed and an Indian, left Walla Walla to go to the Umatilla. The latter went for the purpose of killing Mr. Spalding. Eliza heard of this, and having learned in some way that the half-breed was friendly, managed to have a little private conversation with him, and implored him to do what he could to protect her father. This he promised to do. They met on the road; but a short time before meeting the Indian had discharged his gun at some game, and stopped to load, and was otherwise engaged, so that he did not see Mr. Spalding. When he overtook his companions nothing was said about having met Mr. Spalding for some time, so that he had quite a start to get away. In the meantime they had given Mr. Spalding the warning, and he had hid in the brush, and although the Indian and his party passed close to him, they did not discover that he was there. He hid there till it was dark, and then traveling by night, and hiding by day, made his way toward his home, but by a very circuitous route. He was near a week on the way. In the meantime he lost his horse, his shoes gave out, he had but little food, and crazed with grief for the fate of his comrades, tortured with fear for the fate of his daughter, and terribly anxious about what should befall his wife and three small children whom he had left at home, he staggered along until he reached an Indian village in his own neighborhood. Uncertain whether they were friends or foes he listened intently, when he heard them singing. Creeping slowly along, he discovered that they were singing the songs that he and his wife had taught them. A wave of relief swept over him. He was now among his friends. The next day, accompanied by a strong guard, he reached his home, which he found deserted. It had been looted that very morning. But where were his wife and children? At length they were found secreted in an Indian lodge with some friendly Indians ten miles distant. When he finally found them, all were overcome with emotions too deep to be described. They then all returned to their home under a sufficient guard, where they remained for several weeks, protected by friendly Indians. In the meantime an express had been sent to Vancouver, the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company, apprising the chief factor of what had occurred. He immediately dispatched Factor Peter Skeen Ogden, one of the most tactful men, who made all possible haste to Walla Walla to rescue the prisoners. He was successful. For about four hundred dollars' worth of blankets, beads and other trinkets the Indians delivered to him all at the fort, which was located at what is now Wallula. Negotiations were also entered into for the delivery of Mr. Spalding and family. They, under a guard of forty Nez Perces, finally rode into the fort. There little Eliza fell into her mother's arms with transports of joy too deep for utterance. The last days of December witnessed the departure of all these people from the upper country, who arrived at Oregon City December 31, 1847. Soon after this, the provisional governor of Oregon, George Abernethy, called for a regiment of volunteers, who went up and fought the Indians. That is what is known as the Cayuse Indian war, the first Indian war in the Northwest. After a campaign of six months, the Indians were driven out of their country and large numbers of their horses were captured. Eventually, through the kind offices of the Nez Perces Indians, five of the murderers were delivered up, and taken to Oregon City, where they were tried, convicted and executed by the authorities. Mr. Spalding then settled in the Willamette Valley, where he lived for a number of years. Governor Abernethy had issued a proclamation warning all Americans not to settle east of the Cascade Mountains, and for nearly ten years that section of the country was closed to settlement. Three years after they went to lower Oregon, Mrs. Spalding passed away. Never a strong woman, the excitement, fatigue, and exposure, incident to the breaking up of the mission, and moving to the Willamette Valley, had been too much for her. After a lingering illness, she closed her labors for the cause of her Master, whom she so much loved. Eliza was now left at the age of thirteen at the head of the household with the care of the family. She had one brother and two sisters. The burden was a heavy one for her young shoulders to bear. In a few years, her father having married, she also married, and for a time disappears from our narrative. Now let us return to the Nez Perce Indians. After the close of the Cayuse war, for years they were left to themselves. They did not, however, forget the worship of the true God. The books that had been distributed among them, and which they had learned to read, were used continually, and served to strengthen them in the belief and practice of the truths that had been taught them. Seven years passed away, during which time the Territory of Oregon, and later that of Washington, were organized. Governor Isaac I. Stevens had arrived. He was also Acting Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Territory. With his accustomed impetuous energy, he had made treaties with most of the Indians west of the Cascade Mountains. In May, 1855, he assembled a large council of Indians in the Walla Walla Valley, to try to make treaties with them. He had with him less than one hundred men. The Nez Perces were the first to arrive, who came, twenty-five hundred strong. While waiting for the others to arrive, Sunday intervened. Governor Stevens relates that the tribe held religious services in their camp, conducted by one of their own number. He commends the good order, interest and devotion manifested by them. When all had assembled, it was estimated that there were five thousand present. A large proportion were opposed to selling any of their land. There was much angry discussion, and it looked as though the effort would be a failure. Late one night, Lawyer, the head chief of the Nez Perces, came unattended into the tent of Governor Stevens and disclosed to him the fact that a conspiracy had been formed to kill him and his whole party. He proposed that he move his own family into the midst of Governor Stevens' camp; and although it was now past midnight it was immediately done, and word was circulated that he was there for their protection. The plot failed by this bit of strategy, and their lives were saved. Matters then took a turn, and in a few days the terms of the treaties were agreed upon. Lawyer was the first to sign, and the others then followed. This result was largely due to the teachings of Mr. and Mrs. Spalding, whose instructions had made Lawyer, who was the head chief, a Christian, as well as so large a following that they controlled, for the time being, the other bands who were there. However, a few months later the general Indian war broke out, in which a large proportion of all the Indians in Oregon and Washington took part, led by many of the very Indians who had signed the treaties above mentioned. During all of these hostilities, which lasted about two years, the Nez Perces Indians remained friendly to the whites and saved many valuable lives. By the year 1859, peace had been declared, the Indians having been conquered, and the country east of the Cascade Mountains was opened up to settlement. The next year Mr. Spalding moved his family into the Walla Walla country, and attempted to renew his work among his former Indians. The Indian Service at that time was very corrupt, and he encountered such strong opposition on the part of the agent and employes that he had to desist and await further developments. The influences about these Indians during the next ten or twelve years was very bad. The White Salmon River and the Oro Fino mines had been discovered, and thousands of miners, many of whom were of the worst class, passed through their country. In 1871, however, the Indian Service had been reconstructed, and what was commonly known as the peace policy was adopted by the government. In accordance with its principles, all religious work among the Indians of the United States was to be encouraged. The way was now open for Mr. Spalding to return to his former field of labor. Twenty-three years had passed since he was driven away, during which time no work had been done by white men to encourage the best, while much had been done to encourage the worst, in them. The Indians received him with open arms. They thronged about him, and a more joyous welcome could not have been given him. The old church organization was resuscitated and during the next three years, while he still lived, he baptized nearly seven hundred of this tribe, and more than two hundred and fifty among the Spokanes, a smaller tribe, where Messrs. Walker and Eells had been stationed. During his last days, not being able to travel about as he had done, he established a boys' school in Kamiah, in which he taught and trained young Indian men to be preachers. But he had not much longer to live. He was worn out. In August, 1874, he was brought down to Lapwai, where he laid down to die, at the ripe age of seventy-one. He was buried near the same spot where, thirty-eight years before, he had commenced his labors which had accomplished so much for the tribe and the country. Another chapter in the good work done for the Nez Perces was the advent of the McBeth sisters. Nearly a year before Mr. Spalding's death, Miss Susan L. McBeth arrived at Lapwai under appointment as a teacher in the Indian school. As subsequent events will show, hers was a remarkable Christian character, in every way worthy to be the successor of Mrs. Spalding. The following year she went to Kamiah, and took up the work begun by Mr. Spalding, the training and education of young men to do missionary work among their own people. In addition to her work as a teacher, she was also a missionary, and held services among the Indians there. Although afflicted with partial paralysis, she performed her duties with a heroism and success that was remarkable. For three years she was there alone. When the breaking out of the Chief Joseph Indian war made it unsafe for her or any of the whites to remain there, she, in company with two other white families, fled hastily to Lapwai under guard of forty of the Christian Indians. The war closed in the fall of that year, 1877, but there were still stragglers about, and the agent felt it would be unsafe for her to remain there alone, and under his direction she remained in Lapwai for two years. Some of her students followed her down to Lapwai to receive the benefit of her instruction at that place. She had now been on that reservation for six years, when in the fall of 1877 her sister, Miss Kate C. McBeth, arrived, and joined her in her work. Together they went back alone to Kamiah, where Miss S. L. McBeth resumed her work teaching the young Indian men, and her sister, Miss K. C. McBeth, opened a school especially for young women. It had been found that however well the young men were instructed and trained, when they wished to marry, they could not find young women fitted to be help-meets for them; and they deteriorated so much as greatly to impair their usefulness. This new school soon became popular, and was very useful and important. Those were happy days for the two sisters. The church work, the Sunday school services, the Women's Missionary Society, the hearty cooperation, and I had almost said the adoration of the Indians, was very enjoyable. For six years they continued there, supported by the Presbyterian Missionary Society. A part of the time a government school was kept near them, and the intercourse between the teachers of the different schools was mutually enjoyable. About this time the health of Miss S. L. McBeth gradually failed, and there were changes in the management of affairs on the reservation which did not help the McBeth sisters in their work. At first, during the hot weather, and later permanently, Miss S. L. McBeth removed to Mt. Idaho, fifteen miles distant and across the reservation line. She went there first in 1885. She bought a little home there, and lived in it until her death. Many of her pupils followed her and built little houses in which to live while attending her school. In addition to her other duties, during all these years, she prepared a dictionary of the Nez Perce Indian language, containing upwards of fifteen thousand words, which she left as her legacy. It was a most valuable one. For nearly twenty years she had lived among and for the benefit of the Nez Perces Indians, when her end came. In May, 1893, at the age of sixty years, she passed away. Born on the banks of the Doon, in Scotland, hers was a strong character, and a long and useful life. Loving hands bore her fifteen miles to the little church at Kamiah, near which, on the banks of the Clearwater, she was buried. Her influence, even after her death, was most potent. The young men she had taught and trained lived and labored for others for many years thereafter. Some of them went to preach to the Spokane Indians, some to the Umatillas, some to the Shoshones, and some even followed the prisoners taken in the Joseph Indian war to the Indian Territory, where so many of them died. They were of great comfort to the suffering ones, and finally returned with some of the prisoners to the home land. The high moral tone of the Nez Perces Indians, as well as those living in that vicinity, is largely due to her influence. As has been said, six years after Miss S. L. McBeth came to the Nez Perces Indians, Miss Kate McBeth, her sister, followed her, and also took up a similar work, especially among the young Indian women. Upon her shoulders has fallen the mantle of her elder sister and now for a third of a century she has been among them. "Miss Kate," as she is familiarly called, is to them the little mother to whom they come for advice and counsel. She has written a book, covering the principal events of their history during the past century, which is valuable, and intensely interesting to any one who cares for information regarding the Indian tribes of the Northwest. From this book I learn that there are now six churches among the Nez Perces, two among the Spokanes, a smaller tribe, and where Messrs. Walker and Eells were for nearly ten years, one among the Umatillas, where was the remnant of the Cayuse tribe who remained friendly during the Cayuse war. Old Istychus, who had led the first wagons across the Blue Mountains, in 1843, when Dr. Whitman was called away to visit the Spauldings, when so many were sick there, who with his band of forty-five Christian Cayuses always remained true to the faith taught them by Dr. and Mrs. Whitman. There were two other real mission churches, one among the Shoshones, and one among the Shivwits in Utah, eleven in all. These are the results of the work of the early missionaries, among whom the Spaldings and the McBeths were the most fruitful. All of these churches are self supporting, and conduct their own affairs with so much wisdom that at present they do not need a superintendent to care for them. In the Christian Endeavor Convention, held in the Presbyterian church of Tacoma, in 1912, half a dozen well dressed Indian men were there as delegates sent by those churches. The Nez Perce tribes originally numbered about three thousand, approximately. Their country is especially well adapted for their needs. Consequently they were always well supplied with the necessities of life, and were, compared with the other tribes, well off. They were an unusually high-minded, noble and intelligent tribe. About two-thirds are what are called the Treaty Indians. About half of these are nominally Christian Indians, and all are and always have been friendly to the whites. About one-third are called non-treaty or wild Indians. It was from these that Chief Joseph collected his band, and made war on the whites in 1877; and whom General Howard followed across the Rocky Mountains to near the British line, where they were surrounded, and taken prisoners. They were then taken to the Indian Territory and given land. Many of them died there. Most of the children could not endure the climate of the hot land, as they called it, and wilted away. After eight years of captivity, they were permitted to return. Those who were willing to come on the reservation were given lands and homes. The others were sent to the Colville Reservation. Among these was Chief Joseph, who steadily refused to return to his own tribe. He felt that those Indians had sold his country without his consent, and he could never forgive them. Perhaps two hundred stuck by him as long as he lived, and since then they have been gradually drifting back. Something like half of the non-treaty Indians joined Chief Joseph in the war. They have now dwindled, so that scarcely one hundred are left who have not come on the reservation. Joseph, himself, died in 1904. And now let us come back to our Eliza, the first American white child born in the Northwest who grew to years of maturity. We left her married, and living in the Willamette Valley. About the year 1861, she was living with her young family on the Touchet in what was then Walk Walla county. There we met her, being neighbors, although living twenty miles apart, but I saw more of her younger sister, then unmarried, living a mile or so from her home, than I did of her. She soon after returned to the Willamette Valley and our paths diverged, so that we did not meet each other for a long time. Three years ago we again met at her beautiful home on Lake Chelan. Fifty years had elapsed since we last met. She was then a widow, but well preserved for one of her age. She had been active in religious work, having been superintendent of one or more Sunday schools; and "Grandma Warren," as she is familiarly called, is universally respected and esteemed. She has since sold her attractive home, and is at present living with one of her sons at Dudley, Idaho. She intends soon to return to Spokane and purchase a small home. She is an honor to her family, and to our state, where she has lived for many years, and where she expects to end her days. EDWIN EELLS. DOCUMENTS A New Vancouver Journal In this portion of the new Vancouver journal (continued from the July Quarterly) we find the party arriving at Nootha and participating in the diplomatic negotiations there with Bodega y Quadra. It is gratifying to note that the publication is attracting attention. One who has manifested an especial interest is Judge F. W. Howay of New Westminster, British Columbia. He is well known as a student and writer in the field of Northwestern history. He has kindly sent the following notes applicable to the portion of the journal which appeared in the April Quarterly: "The conventional spelling of the name of Lieutenant John Meares is 'Meares;' and it is thus spelled by all parties to the famous controversy between Meares and Portlock and Dixon (Meares' voyages, p. XXXIV _et seq._, Portlock's Voyage, p 218 _et seq._, and Dixon's Voyage, p. 154 _et seq._) This is also the form in Dixon's Remarks and in Vancouver's Voyage, Vol. 1, Pp. 208-9. Yet in the official copy of the Memorial ordered to be printed 13th May, 1790, Meares repeatedly spells it 'Mears' and so does Duffin; Douglas, on the other hand uses both forms. A comparison of this document with the copy appended to Meares' Voyages shows many alterations in the spelling, doubtless for the sake of uniformity. "As regards Classet: this is shown on Duncan's chart as 'Cape Claaset.' Vancouver had this chart with him; on page 216 of Volume I, he speaks of it as an 'excellent sketch of the entrance into this inlet.' In the same volume, page 416, he states that he had been given to understand that this was the Indian name; 'but now finding that this name had originated only from that of an inferior chief residing in its neighborhood, I have therefore resumed Captain Cook's original appellation of Cape Flattery.' "The name 'Green Island,' so far as I know, first appears in Duncan's sketch dated 13th August, 1788, above referred to. In the legend therein it is stated: 'Green Island or To Touch es is about 1/4 mile in length; covered over with green grass; on the West Side is a small Cove very narrow and only navigable for Boats; I saw some Canoes go in and out and many Indians on the Beach; on the East Side is a large village, and from the number of Canoes that come to us from thence, I suppose it to be well inhabited.' "On that sketch Duncan says of the 'Spiral Rock': 'Pinnacle Rock appears to be about 34 fathoms high; its Base in front about 10 fathoms, the Top projects over the rest of it: The sides appear steep; it stands about half way between the Cape & Green Island; the distance between the Cape and the Island is 1/4 mile, not navigable to appearance.'" The Journal will be continued in the subsequent issues and the present editor will welcome any additional information from Judge Howay or other readers. Especially welcome would be information that might help to determine the probable author of the Journal. Mr. A. H. Turnbull of Wellington, New Zealand, who owns the original manuscript has not learned the author of it. The text leaves no doubt that he was a member of the Chatham's crew. That seems all that is known of him so far. EDMOND S. MEANY. THE JOURNAL (Continued from page 224, July Quarterly.) August 30th. Seigr. Quadra, the Commandant, visited both ships this day when he gave a general invitation to all the officers to his table. The agency of the Doedalus being vacant by the death of Lieut: Hergest, Captn. Vancouver appoint'd Mr. James Hanson, Lieut: of the Chatham to fill the vacancy, in consequence of which he promoted Mr Johnstone Master of the Chatham to Lieutenant of her in the room of Mr Hanson and a Mr Swaine (one of the mates of the Discovery) to be Master in the room of Mr Johnstone. The Three Bs. Brig were now building a small vessel here which they had brought out from England in frame, Mr. Alder, the Commander of her, had two other vessels in this expedition under him, one of these was now to the Northward for Furs, the other he expected to meet at the end of this season at the Sandwich Islands. They belong'd to a company of merchants at New Castle. There was now here a Mr Wetherell, Master of the Matilda, one of the Botany Bay Transports, who was unfortunately wrecked upon some Rocks in the Lat: ---- and Long: ----. The crew, except the Chief Mate, were all saved and got safe to Otaheite about a month after we left that place. They had not remained long there before the Jenny, Captn: Baker of Bristol stopped there on his way to this Coast whither he was bound for Furs. The very confined size of his vessel, and the large crew he had, together with his not being provided with a superfluity of Provisions, would not admit of his taking more on board than Wetherell, his nephew and 4 or five seamen all of whom he brought to Nootka. The rest of the shipwrecked crew remain'd at Otaheite except three who took their boat and proceeded for Botany Bay., Captn. Baker having fitted out their Boat with different necessaries and provided them Provisions &c. The Matilda had been at Botany Bay from whence after leaving her cargo of convicts she was bound on the Southern Whale Fishery and in her way call'd at Otaheite to refresh her crew, when about a week after leaving the Island, in the dead of night, she struck upon the Rocks where she was unfortunately wrecked, the Rocks had never been seen before. Seigr. Quadra with all that Benevolence & humanity that those who know him, knows he possesses, on hearing poor Wetherell's lamentable tale immediately took him under his protection, he supplied with money, invit'd him to make use of his house and Table as his own and at the same time offered to take him, a passenger, when he went himself to San Blas and provide him with an ample sum of money &c. to carry him home to England. Surely there cannot be a greater proof of the goodness of this man's character. Mr Wetherell wisely accepted these offers. Everything being now got ready for hauling our vessel on the Beach, to look at her bottom, as we conceived she must have received some damage when she was on the Rocks in Queen Charlotte's Sound, the Yards and Topmasts were struck and at high water she was hauled upon the Beach, at this she had everything in her, it being conceived that the Tide wou'd Ebb sufficiently for what we wanted to do to her without taking anything out of her. At low water she was left nearly dry when we found that part of her stern and false keel was knocked off and some copper torn off her bottom so that it was necessary to get her on blocks to repair her and that she must be lightened something in order to do this. Accordingly Blocks were prepared and laid down, the Guns and all the Lumber were sent on shore together with Hawsers & Cables, and some few casks of Provisions and part of the Water in the Forehold was started. The next day the 31st at high water we hove her head on shore but could not get her on the Blocks. More Provisions were now got out of her and the following days, September the first, at high water we hove her on the Blocks. At low water the carpenters repaired that part of the Stern that was knock'd off, which done, the Blocks were shifted forward to get at the False Keel but the next Tides not being high enough, could not get her upon the Blocks. 'Twas now found that it would be necessary to get everything out of the Vessel, in order to get her high enough on the Blocks to repair the False Keel, we therefore on Tuesday the 4th, at high water hove her off and moored at a short distance from the Beach to be ready to get on next Spring Tides. It being supposed that the business between Captn. Vancouver and Seigr. Quadra, on the parts of the respective Courts as to the giving up and receiving this place, _was only a matter of course_, that could produce no difficulties nor differences on either side, and that everything would be settled in due form; the Storeship shifted her berth nearer the shore and the Spanish Storehouses being emptied, parties were sent from the two vessels to help to unload her and house the Cargo in these Storehouses and Captn. Vancouver appointed Mr Orchard his clerk,[301] _Naval and Ordinance Storekeeper_. About this time a party was made, of which I was one, to pay a visit to Maquinna the King of the Sound at his Village at Tashees, about 15 miles up the sound.[302] Four boats well mann'd and arm'd in case of accident set out on this expedition. The party consisted of Seigr. Quadra and his officers, Captns. Vancouver and Broughton and some of their officers. The weather was fine and the expedition was productive of much variety and amusement. Maquinna received us with all the welcome and Hospitality of a Prince and seem'd much pleased with the honor done him. On entering his house we were conducted up to the end of it where there were seats placed in a long range covered with clean mats. His wives (for he had no less than four) & his children all clean dressed were seated near this end of the house ready to receive us and along the sides within the house were ranged crowds of his subjects. Maquinna had prepared an entertainment for us which was to be exhibited after Dinner, in the meantime the two Captains made the Royal family some handsome presents consisting of Copper, Blue Cloth. Blankets &c. The frame of Maquinna's house was amazingly large but only the habitable part of it was roof'd, this part was thirty yards long and eighteen broad. The roof was about 10 or 12 feet distant from the ground, and composed of large planks of Fir the ends of which were laid on Beams and were moveable at pleasure. But the size of the Beams and their supporters was what raised in us more surprise and astonishment from the labour they must have cost in placing them in their present situation than any thing else we saw among them. In this house were three of these Beams that run along the whole house, one along each side and the other in the middle. They were of an equal length and thickness. We measur'd one of them, and the dimensions were, in length, sixteen fathoms (or 32 feet) and in circumference twelve feet. They were supported at each extremity by Trees of much the same size on which were carved figures resembling (from the formation of the features) human figures but so large, and so horribly preposterous that they were frightful to appearance. The Beams were solid Trees without a Knot in them and varied very little in thickness at either end. At one end of this house were piles of Boxes and Chests, containing their Property and about a foot from the ground was a kind of Platform raised for the purpose of sleeping on & sitting on. It ran along one side of the house and across the ends and was about a yard wide. In a corner of the house was the Royal Kitchen, where the Cooks were busily employed in boiling Oil of different kinds, preparing Stews and Fricassees of Porpoise, Whale, Seal, and such delicious Meats. But the Cooks' trouble & skill was thrown away upon us for we had a far better dinner to sit down to. It was agreed on setting out that Don Quadra shou'd furnish the Eatables and Captn. Vancouver the Drinkables but one would have imagined that Seigr. Quadra's whole Household had been there. A Table was soon raised which was one of the broad planks from the roof of Maquinna's House and we were served up two Courses, _on Plate_, in a style little inferior to what we met with at the Governor's own house. After dinner Maquinna's Entertainment began. It was performed by men and chiefly consisted of a display of Warlike Evolutions. They were most fantastically dressed and I suppose in their best and most showy apparel which was for the most part all of English manufacture, such as Woolens, Blankets, Helmets and a number of other different wearable articles; indeed Maquinna's Brother was habited in a complete suit of Stage Armour that very likely was often the property of Hamlet's Ghost. Their faces were ludicrously painted in all colours among which Red & Black were the predominant and their Hair was richly perfumed with Fish Oil, powdered with Red Ochre & profusely adorned with the down of Birds' feathers. About twenty men, one after the other, and each waiting till the one before him had finished his part, and retired, first appear'd, every one having a musket in his hand. They entered running furiously, making horrid gestures, hallooing & dancing. After these, came in the same manner an equal number of men having long spears in their hands. Each performer was summoned by a signal given by a number of men who sat near the door and who with small bits of sticks smartly struck a long plank of wood, this was the signal. After each man had made a circuit before the place where we were seated they retired to the opposite end of the house and being now all assembled there they joined in a song which they executed with great exactness in keeping time and beating the ground together with their different weapons. Some of their songs were not devoid of Harmony. They were all of the Fierce & Warlike style and subject and one or two of them ended with a frightful Yell that to a strangers ear was truly terrific. Maquinna, dancing, now entered, dressed in a very rich garment of Otter skins with a round Black Hat, and a Mask on, and with a fanciful petticoat or apron, around which was suspended hollow tubes of Copper and Brass and which as he danced, by striking against each other made a wonderful tingling noise. After dancing thus some time in the course of which he play'd some dextrous Pantomimical tricks with his Hat & Mask, he retired and two more songs were sung by the Performers, to which they danced. A man then came forward holding up a Sea Otter Skin and after most pompously and vociferously proclaiming that it was a present from the King Maquinna to Captn. Vancouver, laid it at his feet, then retiring and producing another skin went through the same forms[303] at the conclusion of which they all set up the Finale song and thus ended this Entertainment in which there was something grand & curious and well worth coming the distance from Nootka to see alone. As it was by this time late in the Evening, and it would not only have been imprudent but unpleasant to pass the night here we took our departure from Tashees and after pulling a few miles down the arm stopped to pass the night at a clear convenient spot on the Northern short where we erected the small Marquee and other Tents we had brought with us, and with an excellent supper, and much conviviality & pleasantry concluded the day. The following (day) after Breakfast we set out for the Cove, after stopping to dinner on a very pleasant point of an Island and drinking Tea at Mowinna, the Village of Clyquawkini, a chief of the Sound, we got to the Cove about dusk in the evening. This trip was productive of much amusement, pleasure & variety, every person contributed what they could to render it pleasing, which with the good cheer provided by Seigr. Quadra and Captn. Vancouver made it to be regretted that it was not of longer continuance. On our arrival at this place it was settled that we (the Chatham) were to winter here, and Mr. Quadra intended to leave the Houses, Gardens &c., in good order for us, but just about this time it was reported that some difference had arose between Captn. Vancouver & Mr. Quadra respecting the right of possession of the English to Nootka, but in so trifling a light was it considered and so very little was it thought 'twould effect the settlement of the business in the manner we conceived that scarcely any notice was taken of it and business still went on the same as ever. Mr. Quadra was making preparation for his departure with all dispatch, and considerable progress had been made in unloading the Doedalus. I had forgot to mention that Seigr. Quadra spoke no language but Spanish nor Captn. Vancouver any but English. All business was carried by an interpreter, a gentleman of the name of Dobson, one of the Mates of the Doedalus who fortunately spoke and wrote tolerable good Spanish. I say fortunately for there was not any other person in the Cove that understood both Spanish and English except a servant of Mr. Quadra's and he could only _speak_ them. Maquinna came down from Tashees on the 7th and Captn. Vancouver according to his promise to him exhibited in the evening some Fireworks on shore, that astonished the natives though in a much less degree than I expected, for such is their frigid inanimate disposition that nothing will alter the Muscles of their Countenances, and the greater part of those that were present at this sight showed as much unconcern and were as little moved by it as if nothing of the kind was going on. 8th. This morning arrived here the Spanish Ship (or as they call them) Frigate, Aransasu, commanded by Seigr. Don Camaano,[304] a Lieut. in the Royal Navy, one of His Catholic Majesty's Ships belonging to the Establishment at San Blas, their only Arsenal on the N. Western Coast of America. She came last from the Charlotte's Islands, which, together with some part of the Streights of Defonte they had this last summer employed surveying. This Vessel was like all the other vessels in the Service of the King on this Coast to the Southward. They are used for little else than carrying stores &c., from San Blas to their settlements up the River Colorado & on the Coast of California. They are from two to five hundred Tons Burthen, built of Cedar, large, clumsy & ugly, carrying from about 16 to twenty Guns & from 100 to 130 men. They were formerly commanded by Pilots in the Spanish Service _of New Spain_, but since the Nootka disturbance, when Martinez (who then was only one of these Pilots) captured the British vessels, the Spanish Government understanding that the English were surprised, and displeased that a business of so important a nature should have been put in the hands of an officer of such low rank made an alteration in the establishment of the officers of these vessels, they sent out Lieutenants of the Royal Navy to command these Vessels, and the Pilots that before were the commanders became then the second in command on board, there are besides in the establishment two more Pilots, a Padre (or Priest) and a Surgeon. The Aransasu being on an expedition something out of their usual track had a Botanist on board her. 11th. This day arrived an American Brig call'd the Hope, commanded by a Mr Ingram,[305] on the Fur Trade. She had been one summer on the Coast and was now going strait to China with about 450 Skins. Mr Magee own'd a considerable share of this vessel. The return of the Spring Tides, now fast approached and we began again to prepare for hauling on shore, the remainder of our water, which was of Thames river was started, the Spirits, Provisions, and in short every thing was landed out of her, and the Blocks were again laid down. On the 14th we endeavoured to get her on the Blocks but we found the water would not flow high enough for some days so that we again haul'd off. The same day the English Sloop Jackal arrived, a Mr. Stewart, Master, she is one of a Squadron of three vessels belonging to a company of London Merchants, the principal of which is Alderman Curtis, employ'd on this Coast on the Fur Trade, and afterwards intended to go on the Southern Fishery. The Commander of this expedition, a Mr Brown in a large ship call'd the Butterworth, was now, together with the third Vessel the Prince Lee Boo (a small sloop) to the Northward collecting their cargo. This was their first season, but they had as yet not been very successful. The Jackal came last from the Queen Charlotte's Islands. On the 15th a very melancholy business[306] was discover'd. A fine little Spanish Boy--one of Mr Quadra's servants, who had been missing about eight & forty hours, was found most barbarously murdered in a small bight within the Cove where the Ships lay. A bloody knife was found lying near him. It is supposed he was decoyed thither by some of the Indians, under the pretence of gratifying an illicit intercourse with one of their women, but no reason could be assigned whatever for the taking away his life. No quarrel was known of that had happened between the Indians and him or any of the Spaniards, on the contrary the Indians enjoyed a happier time since the arrival of Mr Quadra among them that they had ever done since the Spaniards had been first there. None of his Cloathes were to be found but he was left naked with his throat cut in a dreadful manner from ear to ear. He had several stabs and cuts in his arms and on the backs of his hands, and the calves of his legs, and the fleshy parts of his thighs were most Butcherly cut out and supposed to be eaten by the savage perpetrators of this act. When he was carried to the house, and the Indians heard of his being found, those that were in the Cove took instantly to their Canoes, and made out of the Cove, and in a few minutes not a canoe was to be seen, except one, which with four Natives happened to be on board the Hope Brig, but hearing the alarm, and observing the Spanish Boats coming in haste towards them, three of them jump'd into the canoe and got off, the remaining poor fellow had jump'd overboard from the Brig, and was endeavouring to escape by swimming, but he was taken up and carried on shore where he was detained a very short time being supposed innocent of the affair. Maquinna was sent for and Mr Quadra questioned him as to the murder, but declaring his total innocence of the transaction and his ignorance of it at all till he was sent for, nothing more was done and the matter rested. It is surely to be regretted that Mr Quadra's mildness and lenity would not suffer him proceeding further, and with more rigour in this inhuman affair, as it was thought by many, and even by all his own officers he ought, and might have done. But though I myself have not the most distant idea that the murder was committed by any persons but of the Native Indians, and that those parts of the Flesh cut out of the Legs & Thighs were eaten by them, it seems some of the Spaniards had their doubts of this, and did not think it improbable but that it was committed by a Mexican Indian, that had formerly belonged to the Spanish Brig but had deserted some time back and had not been heard of a good while. But this was far from being the general opinion, for the accounts of all that saw the Boy last pretty generally agreed that he was walking along the Beach towards the corner of the Cove with two Indians, and some of these said they saw him embark in a canoe from that place with these Indians and a woman and paddle towards the little Cove where he was afterwards found. But these good qualities, mildness and Lenity, that I have observed Mr Quadra possessed so considerable a share of, are often too mistaken, and are as frequently carried to as great extremes by some as the opposite qualities are by others. Here we may say Mr Quadra was _too good_ a man, he even treated the Indians more like companions than people that should be taught subjection. His house was open to them all and a considerable number of them were fed there every day. But such goodness is thrown away on these wretches, they are possessed of no affection, nor gratitude and the man that would profess himself your warm friend today would cut your throat & dine off you tomorrow. (To be continued.) FOOTNOTES: [301] This clerk had been honored by having Port Orchard named for him. [302] The Indians moved from one village to another according to the season. At present they live mostly at the village in Friendly Cove where the transactions referred to took place. The present chief proudly wears the same name Maquinna. [303] Evidently the writer here left out some such phrase as "for Seignor Quadra." It may be depended upon that the Indians knew the equal rank and different nationality of the two white leaders and would treat them the same on such an occasion. [304] His name is perpetuated by that given to the island lying between Whidby Island and the mainland. American geographers conferred the honor transferring the name from the waters explored by the Spaniard to the land he never saw. [305] Reference is here made to Captain Joseph Ingraham, who had been at Nootka in 1788 as a mate with Kendrick and Gray. With the latter he returned to Boston in the Columbia and then accepted command of the Hope, sailing from Boston September 16, 1790. He was successful in the fur-trade, wintered in China and returned to Nootka as stated in 1792. [306] Vancouver's brief account of this strange murder is not much different in conclusion. Both accounts leave the case shrouded in mystery. BOOK REVIEWS THE MINING ADVANCE INTO THE INLAND EMPIRE. By William J. Trimble, Professor of History and Social Science in North Dakota Agricultural College. (Madison, Wisconsin. The University of Wisconsin, 1914. Pp. 254.) This monograph, which was written as a thesis for the doctor's degree while Mr. Trimble was a fellow at the University of Wisconsin, is an epic in spirit, though a work of historical and economic science and expressed in prose. It is the thrilling and romantic story of a movement which, because it eventuated in the creation of civilized society and political order, is of kin with the swarming of the Teutonic peoples into the Roman Empire. Specifically, it is a study of the beginnings of mining for precious ores in the territories now known as the Inland Empire, and also in parts of the regions adjoining this territory. In addition, it studies laws and institutions originating from the mining industry. It is a significant symptom of appreciation of the Pacific Northwest and especially of this inland district by old institutions of learning east of the Rockies. Investigation of the subject was rendered feasible through use of such libraries as those of the University of Wisconsin, the University of California, the Province of British Columbia, the Historical Society of Oregon, the Historical Society of Montana, the University of Idaho and the private collections of Mr. Bagley of Seattle, Mr. Howay of New Westminster, Mr. Justice Martin of Victoria and others; and through the generous cooperation of personal authorities on our northwestern history as Professor Frederick J. Turner of Harvard University, Judge Howay of New Westminster, Mr. Elliott of Walla Walla and others. It opens with the statement that the decade following 1858 brought the expansion of American mining on a large scale for gold and silver into many parts of our mountainous area. Who first discovered gold here is not known. But the vicinity of Fort Colville, Washington, saw the occurrence of a movement in 1855 which ushered in the golden age of the Inland Empire. The miners labored under measureless disadvantages. Supplies were scant. From Puget Sound there were no suitable roads. Steamboating on the Columbia had only begun. The Indians frequently proved a baffling obstacle at first. But the friendship of the Nez Perces for the whites and the policy of peace pursued by this tribe became a determining factor in the wars with the natives and the development of this new country. In justice to the Indians it is due to admit that conditions for which they were not responsible made the situation ripe for desperate measures on their part. On November 23rd, 1857, the miners in the neighborhood of Colville effected a rude governmental organization. In 1858 the stern measures of Colonel George Wright brought just and lasting peace to the Indian country and cleared the way for pushing forward the frontier of civilization. In 1861 the final fixation of the boundary between British Columbia and Washington drew clearly the artificial line of different governments where, as Professor Trimble exhaustively and conclusively demonstrates, nature had made one country. Consequently, the political differentiation contributed to making the construction of the famous old Mullan Road in every way an important matter. This noble highway of empire, not unworthy of comparison with Rome's Appian Way, was completed in 1862 at a cost of $230,000 for its 624 miles of length. In a few years the carriers on the Columbia enjoyed an immense and profitable traffic in the transportation of miners and their supplies. Professor Trimble's description of steamboating on the rivers of the Inland Empire is intensely vivid and interesting. In 1861 came the great movement of miners into these new fields. Among the most important of the localities they entered were the Nez-Perce and Salmon-River districts in northern Idaho. A swiftly accelerating stream of travel started in 1861 for the new mines. A new era of development began. The Portland Oregonian then predicted that there would follow "tremendous stampedes from California, a flood of overland immigration and vastly increased business on the Columbia." The shrewd forecast of the sagacious editor was fulfilled to the foot of the letter. Of the total yield from the mining districts in northern Idaho it is impossible to secure exact figures. A conservative estimate would put the production from the time of discovery until 1900 at about $50,000,000, of which probably $35,000,000 were obtained before 1870. In this connection Dr. Trimble rightly directs attention to the fact that the mines of eastern Oregon have not yet received the study that their importance as builders of that part of the state would warrant. The mines of the Boise basin in Idaho not only were rich and easily worked, but were so situated as to encourage homemaking and the up-building of a permanent community. Soon towns with stable interests and staple industries arose. The mining founders of Boise showed themselves to be exceptionally enterprising and farsighted men. As the Caribou, British Columbia, mines had shown that in placer fields the individual, once a camp was established, could do little except labor for some one else or in lieu of this prospect for new fields, some form of organized or cooperative effort being essential to the development of mining, even in its simpler stages; so now the War-Eagle quartz-mines of Idaho, remote and newly born, called for outside capital and for science. The mining advance gave occasion for the creation of British Columbia, Idaho and Montana as political units. In considering the societies that owe their origin to mining it is essential to remember that almost from the moment of discovery cooperation is indispensable in the development of gold-fields and also that the individualism of placer-mining frequently is greatly exaggerated. In the period now under review "the lone prospector" was much of a myth. This and similar seemingly small matters are among the many observed by Dr. Trimble's microscopic eye, which also is not wanting in telescopic range, that show how thoroughly he has surveyed his field and with what scrupulous science he has interpreted all his facts. Prospecting generally was done by organized parties numbering anywhere from five to fifty men. These companies consisted of experienced miners, who usually had already mined in California. Careful preparation in advance was made. An expedition might travel for weeks or even for many months, studying the geology of the land as carefully as professors from great universities and prospecting wherever promising indications presented themselves. When diggings that seemed to afford reasonable likelihood of profit were found, claims were staked out. The plan of the miners' camp corresponded more closely to that of a town than to that of a country district. This feature is another of several which prove that combination, cooperation and organization formed basic features in the work of the miner. It is not the least of the merits of Dr. Trimble's monograph that it enables and in fact compels the lay reader unacquainted with the ways of miners to see that their social and governmental activities were a seed of the political commonwealth and rendered its existence and growth inevitable. The discoverers of pay-dirt as a rule had to return for supplies to some commercial center. Here the news of a find invariably leaked out and generated a stampede to the new field. Merchants and packers pushed freight-caravans ahead with strenuous but reasoned energy. The man who rushed a well supplied set of teams into a new community was certain to reap great profits. Before much work was performed by the miners at their Eldorado they held a mass-meeting and organized the community. A judge, recorder and sheriff were elected, and laws for the camp enacted. The political instinct of the English and the Americans for government and ordered society was prompt to manifest itself. Men who had been schooled in the Californian camps not only had learned to mine skillfully, but turned spontaneously to the form of political organization that the mines of that golden commonwealth had developed. This was the case no less in British than in American communities. Work on claims ceased and universally or almost universally in winter, but might stop at other times, such as seasons of drouth, when want of water handicapped operations. The arrangement gave the miners an opportunity to visit home or to pass the winter at such towns as Boise, Lewiston or Portland. Men seldom thought of making homes for themselves at the Mining camps. But a considerable number would usually remain there through cold weather, and in deep diggings actual mining could still be carried on. The miner's lot was a most laborious life. It did not consist in picking large, loose nuggets from streams and in spending most of the time on fun or adventure. There were cabins to build--and the skill of American axmen, especially of the Missourians, was greatly admired by English observers--ditches to be dug, flumes and sluices to be constructed, and lumber to be obtained. The skill of the pioneer Californians in every industry stood out preeminently. Everywhere their methods and judgment were held in high esteem. At Orofino they superciliously sneered that the Willamette farmers in the mines did not know how to sift gold from the dirt, but the Oregonians could have retorted that they were not Californian experts at losing their gold in gambling. But placer mining then, in spite of such skill as that of the Californians, was wasteful work. Men mined to make the maximum of money in the minimum of time. The enormous expensiveness of operation and transportation rendered it profitable to work only the richest gravel. In 1868 Ross Browne, who knew mining conditions better than any other American then living, declared that "since the discovery of our mines there has been an unnecessary loss of more than $300,000,000 of precious metals. The question arises whether it is not the duty of government to prevent, so far as may be consistent with individual rights, this waste of a common heritage in which not only ourselves but posterity are interested." The early mining communities whose economic basis was placer mines were unstable, and this is a fact of social importance. For the purpose of overcoming this instability business men, the more substantial miners and governmental authorities everywhere turned their attention to quartz. Working quartz claims and building quartz mills required the use of capital and of corporate methods. The significant development of mining in the Inland Empire during 1860-70 consisted in the supersedure of the surface methods of the placer by quartz mining and in the working of deep placers by corporations. The individual working in informal organization had free play, but his day was passing. Individualism began to become submerged, capital to become foremost and corporate methods to enter. What was the total of the product from the labor and capital invested in the mining advance? Until 1867 there was no governmental attempt in the Inland Empire, though there was in British Columbia, to gather statistics. Express companies, however, especially the Wells-Fargo, were a fairly trustworthy source of information. George M. Dawson's estimate for British Columbia and Ross Browne's for the Inland Empire are regarded by Dr. Trimble as falling well inside the truth. British Columbia during 1858-67 inclusive is believed to have produced $26,110,000 of the precious metals; Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington together from the beginning of mining to the close of 1867 to have yielded $140,000,000. Montana led with $65,000,000. Idaho followed with $45,000,000 and Oregon with $20,000,000. Washington brought up the rear with $10,000,000. After deducting the probable production in western Oregon, because this territory lies outside the regions considered by Professor Trimble, the grand total for British Columbia and these four American commonwealths during the decade of 1858-67 appears to have aggregated $156,110,000. In order to value this stupendous yield aright, it must be borne in mind that nearly all of it was an economic surplus and also in such shape as to be transformed with ease into the commodities of civilization. Consequently civilization's material body sprang forth full panoplied from those early mining communities. This aspect of the mining advance--a phase too frequently forgotten these days--gave the first civilization in the Inland Empire a compelling power and a vitalness that were out of all proportion to the relatively small number of the miners who originated that civilization. This life and energy contributed greatly to the swift development of this Inland Empire after the railroads arrived. The production of so huge and mobile an economic surplus as $156,110,000 of the precious metals helps to explain the greatness of the immigration in the eighties into these mining commonwealths. The farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant and the banker of the Pacific Northwest during the past generation owe a great debt to the miner of the sixties of the last century. Nor these only. The nation also is deeply indebted to the economic development wrought here by mining in those far days. The Inland Empire's production of gold during the terrible years of 1861-5, when the republic was pouring out blood and treasure like water to save its life, had great effect in supplying those financial sinews of war on which so largely depended the credit of the United States. Thus Dr. Trimble threshes out to the last straw the bearings of mining upon government in the Inland Empire, upon agriculture, grazing, transportation and many other interests. What he has done is really to write a history of civilization in these states during their intermediate era. Every page presents evidence of his competence and trustworthiness. He inspires confidence thro his candid confession that "the student of the history of a section may overrate its importance. * * * It may be that revaluation by comprehensive historians will be necessary." There speaks the historical conscience that rates loyalty to the fact as the supreme good in writing history. But this student has done his work so judicially and with such scholarship, that it will not require to be done again. It is an honor to him and his university and an invaluable service to the Pacific Northwest. FREDERIC PERRY NOBLE, PH. D. Spokane, Wa., June, 1914. * * * * * MASTERS OF THE WILDERNESS. By Charles Bert Reed, M. D. (Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1914. Pp. 144.) This beautifully printed and illustrated little book should find many readers among those who care for the beginnings of American history. Its scope and purpose are well revealed by the brief table of contents as follows: The Masters of the Wilderness, a study of the Hudson's Bay Company from its origin to modern times; The Beaver Club, some social aspects of the fur trade; A Dream of Empire, the adventures of Tonty in old Louisiana. Dr. Reed has assembled his material in very readable and entertaining fashion. For the benefit of those who wish to pursue the subjects further he appends a brief but serviceable bibliography. The book is one of the Chicago Historical Society's Fort Dearborn Series. EDMOND S. MEANY. THE UNITED STATES FEDERAL INTERNAL TAX HISTORY FROM 1861 TO 1871. By Harry Edwin Smith, Ph. D., Instructor in Economics, Cornell University. (Boston, and New York; Houghton Mifflin Company, 1914. Pp. XIX, 357.) This useful and valuable volume is one in the series which owes its existence to the generosity of Hart, Schaffner and Marx, of Chicago, and the one which received the first prize of $1,000 for the year 1912. Dr. Smith came to the University of Washington this fall to take up work in connection with the newly established courses in commerce. His book is a carefully worked out and scholarly presentation of a difficult and involved subject. The treatment of the subject by Dr. Smith has made easy for the student to get access to the facts for they are all grouped about the separate and single phases of the subject. Following an introduction a chapter is devoted to each subject, as for example the "Direct Tax," "The Income Tax," "The Inheritance Tax," and "Stamp Taxes." The closing chapters, XI and XII, present concretely "The Influence of Internal Taxes on the Import Duties," and the "Administration" of the whole system. Students interested in these subjects owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. Smith for the masterly and painstaking way he has made available a world of badly scattered material. Nineteen statistical tables give in graphic way the statistical side of the study. An exhaustive bibliography and an adequate index complete the volume. EDWARD MCMAHON. * * * * * THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE STATE GOVERNMENT IN CALIFORNIA, 1846-1850. By Cardinal Goodwin, M. A. (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1914. Pp. 359. $2.00.) This book covers the period of California history from 1846 to 1850, dividing the period into three parts. It deals first with the period from the American acquisition of the territory to the meeting of the constitutional convention; then follows the history of the constitutional convention; and the last part deals with the organization of the State government. Much new material has been used and consequently many accepted facts and interpretations have been proven fallacious. One of these errors was the great influence of New York on the constitution; but Goodwin finds that Iowa contributed about seventy of the hundred and thirty-six articles and New York only twenty. He also has found new material which explains the entrance of the slavery question into the State: a Texan using his slaves for mining claim registry. The book is well written; it is, however, a bit broken and irregular in its story through following carefully the chronology of events. The conclusion is very disappointing as a resume of the whole book, of the valuation of the new material and of the events. J. N. BOWMAN. * * * * * PROCEEDINGS OF THE WASHINGTON BANKERS' ASSOCIATION. NINETEENTH ANNUAL CONVENTION, 1914. (Spokane, Shaw & Borden, 1914., Pp. 232.) This volume, compiled by W. H. Martin, the Secretary of the Association, gives the Proceedings of the 1914 Convention, held in Walla Walla. All similar records of the proceedings of Washington associations become a part of the institutional history of the state. Of special interest in the present volume is an article on the History of the Walla Walla Valley by Allen H. Reynolds. THE SEATTLE MUNICIPAL WATER PLANT; HISTORICAL, DESCRIPTIVE, STATISTICAL. By John Lamb. (Seattle, Moulton Printing Company, 1914. Pp. 316.) This report upon the Seattle Municipal Water Plant is a model for clearness and completeness. It is well printed and well bound and contains many excellent illustrations. It gives a surprisingly full account of the early water systems antedating municipal control. THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. A PHILOSOPHICAL INTERPRETATION OF AMERICAN HISTORY. By Roland G. Usher, Ph. D.. author of "Pan-Germanism," Etc. (New York, The Century Co. 1914. Pp. 413.) An attempt by a well known writer to present for the general reader a lucid account of the results of American History without over-burdening him with the details and processes by which these results were obtained. UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS STUDIES IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES. (Urbana, Illinois, 1913-1914.) Three of these Studies have been received: The West in the Diplomacy of the American Revolution by Paul Chrisler Phillips, Ph. D., Assistant Professor of History in the University of Montana; The Development of Banking in Illinois, 1817-1863, by George William Dowrie, Ph. D., Assistant Professor of Economics in the University of Michigan; A History of the General Property Tax in Illinois by Robert Murray Haig, Ph. D., Instructor in Economics in Columbia University. HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. By Matthew Page Andrews, M. A. (Philadelphia and London, J. B. Lippincott Company. Pp. XVII. 378, XLVIII.) A text book for schools in which the subject matter is up to date but the arrangement, proportions and printing are decidedly behind the times. WRITINGS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. Edited by Worthington C. Ford. (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1914. Vol. 3, 1801-1810. Pp. 555. $3.50 net.) Volume I of this important work was noted in this Quarterly for April, 1913, page 131 and Volume 2 in the issue for January, 1914, page 61. At the chronological rate followed it is likely that the next volume will reach the time when the distinguished statesman began his work on the Oregon question. THE BALKAN WARS, 1912-1913. By Jacob Gould Schurman. (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1914. Pp. 140. $1.00 net.) This timely work by the distinguished President of Cornell University is divided into two parts: Turkey and the Balkan States and The War Between the Allies. Each part is supplied with a map and the book carries an adequate index. Interest in the work will, of course, be enhanced by the present war in Europe. THE PHYSICIAN IN ENGLISH HISTORY. By Norman Moore, M. D., Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. (Cambridge, England, University Press, 1913. Pp. 57.) This is the Linacre Lecture, 1913, in St. John's College, Cambridge. It is issued in the same attractive form that characterizes all the works from the Cambridge University Press. Those in the medical profession will find the book illuminating. WRITINGS OF WASHINGTON RELATING TO THE NATIONAL CAPITAL. (Washington, The Columbia Historical Society, 1914. Pp. 258.) This may be called a source book on the subject indicated as there is no attempt at narrative or connective matter. The letters are simply reproduced. However, the source of each letter is shown and there is a preface by the compiling committee. The book is Volume 17 of the society's records. THE YEAR BOOK OF BRITISH COLUMBIA, 1911-1914. By R. E. Gosnell. (Victoria, B. C., by authority of the Legislative Assembly, 1914. Pp. 406.) This is a reprint of the elaborate Coronation Edition of 1911. Statistics for the years 1911, 1912, and 1913 have been added, bringing those useful features down to date. In the beautiful pictures, as well as in the compiled facts, there is much to serve the historian of the Pacific Northwest. AN ARTILLERYMAN'S DIARY. By Jenkin Lloyd Jones. (Madison, Wisconsin History Commission, 1914. Pp. 395.) This extensive work gives the rich details of one part of Wisconsin's remarkable participation in the Civil War. The book is embellished with portraits, the frontispiece being a portrait of the distinguished author. The work is listed as Wisconsin History Commission: Original Papers, No. 8. A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL. By Wilhelmus Bogart Bryan. (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1914. Pp. 669. $5.00.) This elaborate history of Washington City carries maps and plans and a copious index. All citizens are interested in this subject, and this new work will undoubtedly find its way to the reference shelves of all the best libraries. THE BIRDS OF EL PASO COUNTY, COLORADO. By Charles E. H. Aiken and Edward R. Warren. (Colorado Springs, Colorado College, 1914. Pp. 455 to 496 and 497 to 603.) These two pamphlets are in the College's General Series, Numbers 74, 75 and 76. Besides maps, the illustrations show a fine use of the camera. Other counties of the west would do well to follow the example set in these pamphlets. THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL COLLECTION FROM THE SOUTHERN INTERIOR OF BRITISH COLUMBIA. By Harlan I. Smith, (Ottawa, Government Printing Bureau, 1913. Pp. 40.) When Harlan I. Smith was associated with the American Museum of Natural History in New York he did much work on the archaeology of the Pacific Northwest. This new publication shows that he is continuing his work for the far west, though now for the Canadian Government. The book is beautifully printed and is enhanced in value by sixteen full-page plates, mostly of stone implements. Future students will find the work of prime value. Other Books Received AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. Annual Report,. 1912. (Washington. Government, 1914. Pp. 734.) CANADIAN ANNUAL REVIEW, 1913. (Toronto, Annual Review Publishing Co. 1914. Pp. 766.) CROSS, ARTHUR LYON. History of England and Greater Britain. (New York. Macmillan, 1914. Pp. 1165. $2.50.) FRANK, TENNEY. Roman Imperialism. (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1914. Pp. 365. $2.00 net.) ILLINOIS STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. Transactions, 1912. (Springfield, Society, 1914. Pp. 233.) NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. Manual, 1914. (Printed for the Society, 1914. Pp. 62.) RHODE ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY. Proceedings. 1913-1914. (Providence,, The Society, 1914. Pp. 66.) ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA. Proceedings and Transactions, Third series, Volume 7, 1913. (Ottawa, Hope. 1914.) SONNECK, OSCAR G. T. The Star Spangled Banner. (Washington, Government, 1914. Pp. 115. Pl. 25.) WASHINGTON STATE GRANGE. Proceedings of the Twenty-sixth Annual Session, 1914. (Olympia, The Society, 1914. Pp. 196.) WASHINGTON STATE FEDERATION OF WOMEN'S CLUBS. Eighteenth Annual Report, 1914-15. (Hoquiam, The Society, 1914. Pp. 135.) WISCONSIN STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. Proceedings, 1913. (Madison. The Society, 1914. Pp. 238.) NEWS DEPARTMENT Lewis County Organized On September 26 the executive committee of the Veterans and Pioneers' Association of Lewis County met in the Chehalis Citizens' Club rooms, Chehalis, and perfected their organization by adopting the constitution and by-laws and by electing the following officers: President, William West, affectionately known as the "Father of Chehalis"; Vice President, I. W. Schultz of Toledo; Secretary and Treasurer, Peter Sommersett of Chehalis; Chaplain, J. R. Buxton of Centralia. The objects of the association are set forth in the constitution as the compilation of historical data of the early days of Lewis County, the preservation of historical relics, the marking of historical places in the county and to further the social relationship among old timers. One by one each county of the State is forming such organizations. Death of Curator Gilstrap On August 2, William Henry Gilstrap died at his home in Tacoma. He was Curator of the Ferry Museum and Secretary of the Washington State Historical Society. He was sixty-five years old at the time of his death. In his younger days he had gained considerable fame in his chosen profession of portrait painting. Later he used his talent in the field of landscape architecture. In later years, however, he was wholly devoted to history. With unusual industry he sought to have the early records preserved and also to have historic sites appropriately marked. He was a quiet Christian gentleman held in high esteem by those with whom he worked. In Honor of Professor Turner While Professor Frederick Jackson Turner of Harvard was in the Northwest he was the recipient of many courtesies and honors. One of these took the form of a dinner at the New Washington Hotel, Seattle, on the evening of July 8. The hosts were Professors Richardson and Meany of the University of Washington. Some of the guests had been students of Professor Turner at the University of Wisconsin, while all were, of course, interested in history. Those present were Frederick Jackson Turner, Samuel Hill, General Hazard Stevens, Scott C. Bone, General H. M. Chittenden, Mayor H. C. Gill, Winfield R. Smith, Victor J. Farrar, Edward McMahon, George W. Soliday, J. N. Bowman, Ralph H. Lutz, Charles W. Smith, Oliver H. Richardson and Edmond S. Meany. The after-dinner talking took the form of suggestions and plans for improving the work of historical research in the Pacific Northwest. Good Trails as Well as Roads Mr. Samuel Hill, long recognized as a leader among good roads advocates in the United States and especially in the Pacific Northwest, has launched on a new campaign to supplement the roads with trails in the mountains. This is a splendid idea and one of the first things necessary is to compile a list of the present trails. This will be helpful to historians for by those trails may many threads of early settlements be traced. Northwestern History in Congress The Congressional Record, Sixty-third Congress, Second Session, pages 16571 and 16584, shows that interesting passages of Northwestern history were given to members of the House of Representatives during the debate on coal leases. Congressman Albert Johnson of Washington made a convincing speech to set other Congressmen right as to the acquisition of Oregon through discovery, exploration and settlement and not by purchase. A Survivor of Many Wars Mr. Thomas W. Prosch has lately been in receipt of a number of letters from his old pioneer friend, Major Junius Thomas Turner of Washington, D. C. Mr. Turner served in the Mexican War of 1846-47; in 1853 in the Rogue River Indian War; in 1855-56 in the Indian War on Puget Sound, and in 1863-64-65 in the Civil War. He located on Whidby Island in 1853, where he took a donation land claim and where he also served as Auditor, Treasurer and County Judge. He was Chief Clerk at different terms of both branches of the Territorial Legislature. He enlisted in the California Battalion of a Massachusetts Regiment, from which, after a year's service he was discharged that he might accept a proffered Lieutenancy in a Maryland regiment, followed soon by a Captaincy. After the war he engaged in clerical service in the Land Office at Washington, D. C., and later in the practice of law, where he has since remained except for a period in Olympia as Secretary to Gov. Alvan Flanders in 1869-70. Major Turner is now in his 88th year. His other pioneer friends in Oregon and Washington will be pleased to learn that the present Congress has considerably increased his pension, taking into account his advanced age; his disabilities and his services in four wars. Major Turner has a son in the Artillery branch of the U. S. Army, who also has served in the Corps of Engineers. NORTHWESTERN HISTORY SYLLABUS [The aim of this department is to furnish outlines that will aid those who wish to study the subject systematically. It is expected that its greatest use will be as a guide for members of women's clubs, literary societies, and classes in college or high schools. It will be a form of university extension without the theses and examinations necessary for the earning credits toward a degree.] XI. Old Oregon Subdivided 1. Treaty of 1846. a. Northern boundary at 49th parallel. b. Remnant extended from 42nd to 49th parallel and from Rocky Mountains to Pacific Ocean. 2. New Territories Created. a. Washington Territory, 2 March, 1853. b. Idaho Territory, 3 March, 1863. c. Montana Territory, 26 May, 1864. i. Western portion was part of Old Oregon. d. Wyoming Territory, 20 July, 1868. i. Western portion was part of Old Oregon. XII. Organization of Washington Territory 1. Two Previous Forms of Territorial Government. a. Under the Provisional Government of Oregon. b. Under the Territorial Government of Oregon. 2. Agitation for Separate Government. a. Long distance to capital of Oregon. b. Fourth of July celebrations at Olympia, 1851, 1852. c. D. R. Bigelow's oration. d. New Territory to be called Columbia. e. First Newspaper--The Columbian. i. Published at Olympia 11 September, 1852. ii. Printed Bigelow's Fourth of July Oration. f. Convention at Monticello, 25 October, 1852. g. Memorial by Oregon legislature, 4 November, 1852. 3. Action by Congress. a. Bill introduced by Delegate Lane of Oregon. b. Interesting debate. c. Name changed from Columbia to Washington. d. Bill passed, 2 March, 1853. e. Bill signed by President Fillmore just two days before end of his term. 4. First Governor Appointed. a. President Pierce appointed Isaac Ingalls Stevens, 17 March, 1853. b. Stevens also given charge of northern route of Pacific Railroad Survey. i. In this work he explored a zone 2,000 miles long and from 200 to 400 miles wide and examined nine passes through the Rocky Mountains demonstrating the practicability of a railroad to the coast. c. Stevens also obtained appointment as Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Washington Territory. i. In this capacity he made ten treaties with the Indians. 5. Other Officers. a. Secretary, Charles H. Mason. b. United States Marshal, J. Patton Anderson. c. United States District Attorney, John S. Clendenin. d. Judges of United States District Court, Edward Lander, Victor Monroe, O. B. McFadden, William Strong. e. Delegate to Congress, Columbia Lancaster. 6. Government Begun. a. Governor Stevens selects temporary capital. b. Calls for election of legislature. c. Fixes time of meeting. * * * * * BIBLIOGRAPHY. The following works will be found helpful and most of them ought to be accessible in the better libraries. In addition there are to be found a number of books published for which prices have been paid for the inclusion of biographies. Some of them contain helpful information. BANCROFT, HUBERT HOWE. Works of. See Volumes 29 and 30 for Oregon and Volume 31 for Washington, Idaho and Montana. Indexes will guide the reader. CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE. Thirty-second Congress, December 1852, page 6 and following. Here under the dates of December, 1852, 8 February, 1853 (p. 540), 10 February (p. 555) and 2 March (p. 1020) may be found the debate and action on the bill to establish Washington Territory. JOHNSON, SIDONA V. Short History of Oregon. Pages 263 to 296 cover the Oregon record here outlined. MEANY, EDMOND S. History of the State of Washington. Chapters XVI and XVII are devoted to the period of Washington Territory's organization. SCHAFER, JOSEPH. A History of the Pacific Northwest. Consult chapter XVI entitled "Progress and Politics, 1849-1859." HISTORY TEACHERS' SECTION The first article in the June number of VERGANGENHEIT UND GEGENWART deals with the Historical Teaching and Research Institute. It deals with a present-day controversial question in Germany regarding the organization of a school for the better training of professional historians. The Germans recognize that they do not train their men as do the French Ecole des Chartes at Paris or the Austrian Institute for historical research at Vienna. Another article considers the Importance of the Philosophy of History Teaching. It is in a way a review of Fritz Munch's book on Experience and Evaluation. This book as a transcendental philosophy deals with man in his present position in society and the world; it is the business of history teaching to have the next generation grow into this condition so that the condition may continue. "Civilization is activity. And just because philosophy as science does not create the values is there something in the world to do." The German Land and its Importance for People and State as an article considers the land question for the territories wherever the Germans are located. The last of the articles--History teaching in the United States--is a good interpretation of the high school history subject. It is illustrated with two schedules of the four years' history work. The usual excellent book reviews are in this number. * * * * * THE HISTORY TEACHER'S MAGAZINE for September indicates by its articles that it is to continue the consideration of the Ancient History teaching. A good article deals with the European War and History Teachers, and holds that this war must have a deep interest "for every teacher whose mind is at all trained to grasp the true significance of events. The history teacher has now the opportunity to stand as an expert guide for his school community and for the larger community about the school." Two articles consider from different points of view the question of the ends for which history is studied and taught in the grades and high schools. One of them is on the Early Teaching of History in Secondary Schools giving the reasons for this study as seen in texts and books of instruction since 1743. The reasons are arranged as follows: moral training; provision for leisure hours; religious training; patriotism; overcoming international prejudice; training for citizenship; discipline. The second article is on The Reconstruction of History Teaching. Here Professor Gathany analyzes the question under the heads of Point of view, subject matter and results. The old school of history teaching, as he calls it, taught the subject as a body of knowledge and stopped there. The new school does this and goes further to ask other questions. In his own words he puts it: "This newer school says: study the past, but don't stop _right_ there. Study the past not simply to know the past _because_ it is the past, but study the past so as to know how the present has come to be. Don't stop right there even, says this recent school, but go a step further, and study the _present_, so as to understand the life that now _is_. Study the past and the present so that we may intelligently analyze the present and its problems. This school believes that historical facts or events are comparatively of little value unless they have a bearing upon the present world of thought and action. The real function of history teachings according to the new school is to develop _constructive_ and _interpretative power_ in order that we may rightly judge contemporaneous problems, movements, institutions, and public leaders. We are to study history not for history's sake, but for our sake and for our children's sake." The book reviews in this number of the History Teacher's Magazine are of their usual poor quality; while the list of recent historical publications is of its usual excellent quality. INDEX TO VOLUME 5, 1914 Adams, John Quincy, and the Oregon Question. (Meany), 207-214 Adams, John Quincy. Writings. Edited by W. C. Ford. (Note), 61, 217 Adams, E. D. The Power of Ideals in American History. (Note), 147 American and British Treatment of the Indians of Puget Sound. By W. J. Trimble, 32-54 American Historical Association. Meeting, December, 1913, 153-155 Anderson, Andrew. Death, 23 Andrews, Lyman Beach. Death, 25 Andrews, Matthew Page. History of the United States. (Note), 317 Bagley, Clarence B. George Wilkes, 3-11 Bagley, Clarence B. Review of William's Edition of Canoe and the Saddle, 138-142 Bagley, Susannah Rogers. Death, 28 Ballaine, John E. Review of Stuck's Ten Thousand Miles With a Dog Sled, 227-229 Bassett, John S. Short History of the United States. Reviewed by Edward McMahon, 60-61 Bean, Sarah L. Death, 29 Beard, Charles A. Contemporary History, 1877-1913. (Note), 145-146 Beard, Charles A. Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. (Note), 63 Bent, Allen H. Early American Mountaineers. (Note), 62 Bersch, Mary. Death, 27 Blanchet, John B. Death, 23 Blanpied, Charles W. Coming Immigration Problem on the Pacific Coast. (Note), 148 Bowman, J. N. Review of Goodwin's Establishment of the State Government in California, 315-316 Boyd, Levi. Death, 23 Bradley, Glen D. Story of the Pony Express. Reviewed by Edward McMahon, 57 British Treatment of Indians in the Pacific Northwest. (Trimble), 32-54 Brown, Mrs. Chandler. Death, 30 Bryan, Wilhelmus Bogart. History of the National Capital. (Note)., 318 Buck, Solon J. Illinois Travel and Description, 1765-1866. (Note), 230 Caldwell, R. P. Death, 23 (The) Canoe and the Saddle (Winthrop). New Edition. Reviewed by C. B. Bagley, 138-142 Canadian Archives, Material for United States history in (Note), 59-60 Charlton, Charles Alexander. Death, 28 Chief Leschi. (Document), 55-56 Christ, Philip. Death, 26 Clark, Elizabeth Frances. Death, 26 Clay, Henry, and the Oregon Question (Meany), 207-214 Cloquet, August. Death, 26 Colorado College Publications. (Note), 318 (The) Columbia River Under Hudson's Bay Company Rule. (Ermatinger), 192-206 (The) Coming Hawaii (Goodrich). Review by Mary Hubbard, 229-230 (The) Coming of Canada (Goodrich). Reviewed by O. H. Richardson, 57-58 Compton, Charles H. Review of Judson's Subject Index to the History of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, 58-59 Constant, Baron D'Estournelles de. Les Etats-unis D'Amerique. (Note), 146 Cook, James W. Death, 29 Current Events Course in University of Washington, 152 Darragh, John. Death, 22 Dawson, Charles. Pioneer Tales of the Oregon Trail. Reviewed by Thomas W. Prosch, 145 Divorce in Washington. By Ralph R. Knapp, 121-128 Dixon, Joseph K. Vanishing Race. (Note), 149-150 Daugherty, Thomas A. Death, 27 Early Oregon Diplomacy (Meany), 207-214 Early History of Idaho (McConnell). Reviewed by W. D. Lyman, 142-143 Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the U. S. Beard (Note), 63 Eells, Edwin, Eliza and the Nez Perce Indians, 288-299 Eliza and the Nez Perce Indians. By Edwin Eells, 288-299 Elliott, T. C. Review of Stone's Following Old Trails, 143-144 Elliott, T. C. Editor. Journal of John Work: June-September, 1825, 83-115 September-December, 1825, 163-191 December, 1825-June, 1826, 258-287 Ermatinger, C. O. The Columbia River Under Hudson's Bay Company Rule, 192-206 Establishment of the State Government in California (Goodwin) Reviewed by J. N. Bowman, 315-316 Farrar, Victor J. Appointed Research Assistant in the University of Washington, 232 Faucett, Rachel A. Death, 26 Fisher, Lydia Ann. Death, 25 Following Old Trails (Stone). Reviewed by T. C. Elliott, 143-144 Freeman, Rosina. Death, 27 Gaillac, Malinda. Death, 27 Gall, Joseph Marion. Death, 24 Gallatin, Albert, and the Oregon Question (Meany), 207-214 Gatch, Thomas Milton. Death, 25 Gendron, Eliza. Death, 30 George Wilkes. By Clarence B. Bagley, 3-11 Gilstrap, William Henry. Death, 320 Golder, Frank A. Leaves for Russia, 66 Goodrich, Joseph King. The Coming Canada. Reviewed by Oliver H. Richardson, 57-58 Goodrich, Joseph King. The Coming Hawaii. Reviewed by Mary Hubbard, 229-230 Goodridge, Gardner. Death, 26 Goodwin, Cardinal. The Establishment of the State Government in California. Reviewed by J. N. Bowman, 315-316 Gosnell, R. E. Yearbook of British Columbia, 1914. (Note), 318 Graves, Frank Pierrepont. History of Education in Modern Times. (Note), 148 Gray, William H. Journal from December, 1836, to October, 1837. (Note), 149 Greenlaw, Wilhelmina. Death, 28 Haley, John. Death, 27 Hardison, James W. Death, 24 Harlan, James. Life of, by Johnson Brigham. (Note), 62-63 Heitman, Henry. Death, 22 Hill, Samuel, Launches Trail-building Campaign, 321 Historical Society of Southern California. Annual Publication, 1912-13. (Note), 231 History of the Liquor Laws of the State of Washington. By Anna Sloan Walker, 116-120 History Teachers' Club. Seattle Meeting, 152 History Teachers' Section, 158-160; 238-240; 325-326 Hubbard, Mary. Review of King's The Coming Hawaii, 229-230 Hudson's Bay Company Rule on the Columbia, 192-206 Idaho, Early History of (McConnell). Reviewed by W. D. Lyman, 142-143 Immigration Problem on the Pacific Coast (Blanpied), 148 Indians in the Pacific Northwest, British and American Treatment of, 32-54 Indians of Puget Sound (St. John)., 12-21 Indignation Meeting Over Chief Leschi. (Document), 55-56 Jaggy, John. Death, 23 Jaggy, Margaret Wintler. Death, 26 Johnson, Albert. Speech in Congress on the Acquisition of Oregon, 321 Jones, Jenkin Lloyd. An Artilleryman's Dairy. (Note), 318 Journal of John Work. Edited by T. C. Elliott, 83-115; 163-191; 258-287 Judson, Katharine B. Myths and Legends of the Great Plains. (Note), 62 Judson, Katharine B. Subject Index to the History of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Reviewed by C. H. Compton, 58-59 Knapp, Ralph R. Divorce in Washington, 121-128 Krumm, John. Death, 27-28 Lamb, John. Seattle Municipal Water Plant. (Note), 316 Latham, John. Death, 27 Laws, Andrew Jackson. Death, 23 Leschi, Indignation Meeting Over Chief. (Document), 55-56 Lewis County Veterans and Pioneers' Association, 320 Liquor Laws of Washington. History of (Walker), 116-120 Little, Daniel. Death, 26 Livingston, David. Death, 23 Lodge, Henry Cabot. One Hundred Years of Peace. (Note), 62 Loomis, Lewis Alfred. Death, 26-27 Lyman, W. D. Review of McConnell's Early History of Idaho, 142-143 McConnell, W. J. Early History of Idaho. Reviewed by W. D. Lyman, 142-143 McKinlay, David. Death, 25 McMahon, Edward. Review of American Histories by Stephenson, West and Bassett, 60-61 McMahon, Edward. Review of Bradley's Pony Express, 57 McMahon, Edward. Review of Harry E. Smith's United States Federal Internal Tax History, 315 Masters of the Wilderness (Reed). Reviewed by E. S. Meany, 314 Masterson, James. Death, 26 Meany, Edmond S. Three Diplomats Prominent in the Oregon Question, 207-214 Meany, Edmond S. Review of Reed's Masters of the Wilderness, 314 Meany, Edmond S. Editor. A New Vancouver Journal, 129-137; 215-224; 300-308 Miller, Edward. Death, 29 Miller, Eva L. Death, 30 Mining Advance Into the Inland Empire (Trimble). Reviewed by F. P. Noble, 309-314 Modoc War, Indian History of (Riddle). Reviewed by J. A. Stratton, 225-227 Moore, A. C. H. Death, 25 Moore, Norman. The Physician in English History. (Note), 317 Montgomery, Matilda Ann. Death, 22 Mountaineering Publications, 1913. (Note), 149 Mountaineer's Lodge, Dedicated June 21, 1914, 232 Muhr, A. F. Death, 153 Neely, David A. Death, 22 Nelson, John M. Death, 25 (A) New Vancouver Journal. Edited by E. S. Meany, 129-137; 215-224; 300-308 Newell, Therese. Death, 23 Newhall, William. Death, 30-31 Nez Perce Indians, Eliza and (Eells), 288-299 Noble, Frederic Perry. Review of Trimble's Mining Advance Into the Inland Empire, 309-314 Northwest History, Legends and Tradition of (Ranck). (Note), 147 Northwestern History Syllabus. See Syllabus of Pacific Northwest History. Obituaries, 1913, 22-31 Oregon Question (Meany), 207-214 Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association. Meeting at Los Angeles, November, 1913, 66-68 Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association. Meeting at Seattle, May, 1914, 232-234 Parker, David W. Guide to Canadian Archives. (Note), 59-60 Parker, Gilmore Hays. Death, 31 Paulin, Charles O., and Paxson, Frederic L. Guide to the London Archives Since 1783. (Note), 230-231 Pettygrove, Benjamin Stark. Death, 24 Phelps, Susan E. Death, 28 Pioneer Dead of 1913. By Thomas W. Prosch, 22-31 Pioneer Tales of the Oregon Trail (Dawson). Reviewed by T. W. Prosch, 145 Present Status and Probable Future of the Indians of Puget Sound. By Lewis H. St. John, 12-21 Prosch, Charles. Death, 30 Prosch, Thomas W. The Pioneer Dead of 1913, 22-31 Prosch, Thomas W. Review of Dawson's Pioneer Tales of the Oregon Trail, 145 Puget Sound Indians (St. John), 12-21 Ranck, Glenn N. Legends and Traditions of Northwest History. (Note), 147 Reed, Charles Bert. Masters of the Wilderness. Reviewed by E. S. Meany, 314 Richardson, Oliver H. Review of Goodrich's coming of Canada, 57-58 Riddle, Jeff C. Indian History of the Modoc War. Reviewed by Julius A. Stratton, 225-227 Rhoades, L. H. Death, 27 Rose, Alfred Percy. Death, 26 Ross, Eliza Jane. Death, 30 Russell, D. L. Death, 27 St. John, Lewis H. Present Status and Probable Future of the Indians of Puget Sound, 12-21 Scheule, Josephine. Death, 27 Schurman, Jacob Gould. The Balkan Wars. (Note), 317 Seattle Historical Society. Organized, 152-153 Seattle Municipal Water Plant; Historical, Descriptive, Statistical. By John Lamb. (Note), 316 Shaw, James O. Death, 25 Smith, Harlan I. Archaeological Collection From the Southern Interior of British Columbia. (Note), 318-319 Smith, Harry Edwin. The United States Federal Internal Tax History From 1861-1871. Reviewed by Edward McMahon, 315 Sparks, Margaret I. Death, 24 Spooner, Thomas J. Death, 30 Stangroom, Marc Lareviere. Death, 29 Stephenson, Nathaniel W. An American History. Reviewed by Edward McMahon, 60 Stevens, Mrs. Isaac I. Death, 66 Stevens, Margaret L. Death, 29 Stone, Arthur L. Following Old Trails. Reviewed by T. C. Elliott, 143-144 Story of the Pony Express (Bradley). Reviewed by Edward McMahon, 57 Stratton, Julius A. Review of Riddle's Indian History of the Modoc War, 225-227 Stuck, Hudson. Ten Thousand Miles With a Dog Sled. Reviewed by John E. Ballaine, 227-229 Subject Index to the History of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska as Found in United States Government Documents (Judson). Reviewed by C. H. Compton, 58-59 Syllabus of Pacific Northwest History: Provisional Government of Oregon, 69-71 Territory of Oregon, 156-157 Review of Boundaries, 235-237 Old Oregon Subdivided, 322-324 Ten Thousand Miles With a Dog Sled (Stuck). Reviewed by J. E. Ballaine, 227-229 Three Diplomats Prominent in the Oregon Question. By E. S. Meany, 207-214 Thurston County History, 153 Thwaites, Reuben Gold. Death, 66 Titus, Eliza. Death, 29 Toombs, Robert, Life of. By U. B. Phillips. (Note), 63 Trimble, William J. American and British Treatment of the Indians in the Pacific Northwest, 32-34 Trimble, William J. Mining Advance Into the Inland Empire. Reviewed by F. P. Noble, 309-314 Tukey, John Fossett. Death, 23-24 Turner, Frederick Jackson. Dinner in Honor of, 320-321 Turner, Frederick Jackson. List of References on the History of the West, 147-148 Turner, Frederick Jackson. Visit to the Coast, 66 Turner, Frederick Jackson. The West and American Ideals, 243-257 Turner, Frederick Jackson. Work in the Northwest, 232 Turner, Junius Thomas. News Note, 321 United States Board on Geographic Names. Decisions July, 1912, to July, 1913. (Note), 61-62 United States Federal Internal Tax History, From 1861 to 1871 (Smith). Reviewed by Edward McMahon, 315 University of Illinois Studies in the Social Sciences. (Note), 316 Usher, Roland G. Rise of the American People. (Note), 316 Vancouver, Capt. George. A New Journal Kept by a Member of the Chatham's Crew. Edited by E. S. Meany, 129-137; 215-224; 300-308 Vanishing Race. By J. K. Dixon. (Note), 149-150 Walker, Anna Sloan. History of the Liquor Laws of the State of Washington, 116-120 Walker, Cyrus. Death, 28 Washington. Divorce in (Knapp), 121-128 Washington. Liquor Laws (Walker), 116-120 Washington State Bankers' Association. Proceedings, 1914 (Note), 316 Watson, Phoebe C. Death, 24 Wertenbaker, Thomas J. Virginia Under the Stuarts, 1607-1688. (Note), 146 (The) West and American Ideals. By Frederick Jackson Turner, 243-257 West, Willis M. American History and Government Reviewed by Edward McMahon, 60-61 West, References on the History of (Turner). (Note), 147-148 Whitworth, James Edward. Death, 26 Wilkes, George. History of Oregon, Geographical and Political (Reprint). Concluded, 72-80 Wilkes, George (Bagley), 3-11 Williams, John H. Editor. The Canoe and the Saddle (Winthrop). Reviewed by C. B. Bagley, 138-142 Williamson, John R. Death, 28-29 Winthrop, Theodore. The Canoe and the Saddle. New Edition. Reviewed by C. B. Bagley, 138-140 Wood, Helen R. M. Death, 23 Work, John. Journal Edited by T. C. Elliott, 83-115; 163-191; 258-287 Transcriber's Notes: Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed. Simple typographical and spelling errors were corrected except for Journal of John Work entries which were apparently printed as they were in the original manuscript. The Journal entries inconsistencies were also not changed. Italics markup is denoted by _underscores_. Bold markup is denoted by =equals=. Footnotes on pp. 42, 89, 192, 243, 263, and 279 had no anchors. Placed anchor at best guess to what the footnote is referring to. Deleted footnote anchor 8 on p. 278 with no corresponding footnote.