BE*KEIEY\ LIBRARY r OF I HA y UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA TWO YEARS IN OREGON, BY WALLIS NASH, AUTHOR OF "OREGON, THERE AND BACK IN 1877.' Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures, While the landscape round it measures, Russet lawns, and fallows gray, Where the nibbling flocks do stray ; Mountains on whose barren breast The lab'ring clouds do often rest ; Meadows trim with daisies pied ; Shallow brooks, and rivers wide. I/ALLEGBO. Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown-, With that wild wheel we go not up or down ; Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great ; Smile and we smile, the lords of many lands; Frown and we smile, the lords of our own hands ; For man is man and master of his fate. TENNYSON. NEW YORK: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 1, 3, AND 5 BOND STREET. 1882. COP7RIGHT BY D APPLETON AND COMPANY 1881. I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO MY FATHER, WHO, THOUGH SEVERED FEOM US BY LAND AND OCEAN, YET LIVES WITH US IN SPIEIT, M374S13 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. IT is my grateful task to recognize the marked kindness with which my modest volume has been received by the public and the press. It is rare that a second edition of a work of the kind should be called for within three months of the first issue, and still more rare that, out of a vast number of reviews by the leading journals all over the coun- try, but one newspaper, and that the one I deemed it my duty to the State of Oregon to denounce (on page 216), has found aught but words of commen- dation. I desire also to tender my apologies to the es- teemed Roman Catholic Archbishop, and to the Sisters of Charity of Portland, for the error on my part in ascribing to Bishop Morris, of the Episco- pal Church, the credit of St. Vincent's Hospital. I ought not to have forgotten to notice the Good 4 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. Samaritan Hospital and Orphanage founded by Bishop Morris. A single remark should be added about the price or value given, on page 70, for seed-wheat as an element of the cost of the crop raised from it. The wheat reserved by the farmer for this pur- pose, being exempt from the charges and waste in- cident to hauling, storage, insurance, and sacking, necessary in marketing, is fairly estimated at sev- enty cents, though the marketed portion of the crop averages eighty-five to ninety cents; the difference being composed, in part, of profit. W. K PKEFACE. I SEND forth this book, as sequel to the sketch published three years ago, with many misgivings rather as if one who, as a lover, had written poems in praise of his mistress, should, as a two years' hus- band, give to the world his experience of the fireside charms and household excellences of his wife. Per- haps the latter might more faithfully picture her than when she was seen through the glamour of a first love. Be that as it may, it is true that the questions put from many lands, as to how we fare in this West- ern country, demand fuller answers than mere letter- writing can convey. I trust that those correspond- ents who are yet unanswered personally will find herein the knowledge they are seeking, and will accept the assurance that they are themselves to blame for some of the more solid and tedious chap- ters; as, if I had not known that such information 6 PREFACE. were needed, I would not have ventured to put in print again that which previous and better authors have given to the world. "While I have striven to write what is really a guide-book to Oregon for the intending emigrant, others may be interested in the picture of a young community shaping the details of their common life, and claiming and taking possession of a heritage in the wilderness. No one can go farther "West than we have done : it is fair, then, to suppose that the purposes of the Western movement will be seen here in their fullest operation. Since 1877 a vast change has taken place in this, that Oregon now shares with older States the benefits of becoming the theatre for large railroad operations. No apology to American readers is needed for the endeavor to show things in a fairer light and differ- ent color from those chosen by persons interested in causing all men to see with their eyes. Transatlantic readers may not have the same concern; but even from them I bespeak a hearing in matters which may indirectly, if not directly, touch their interests. But I do not wish to suggest that I write as hav- ing only a general feeling that certain things would be the better for a more open discussion than they have hitherto received. My own affairs, and those of PREFACE. 7 many friends, both in Oregon and elsewhere, and, indeed, the successful development of this great Wil- lamette Valley, largely depend on our convincing an unprejudiced public that Nature is on our side in the effort we are making to secure a direct and near out- let to the great world. I only claim in these particulars to be an advocate, but I add to this a full and honest conviction of the justice of the views for which I contend. To turn again to more general matters, I have the pleasant duty of thanking several friends who have contributed to the information here collected. To our shame be it said that there was not, among our English immigrants, one naturalist who could rightly name the birds, beasts, fishes, and insects in our Western home. But I was fortunate in finding an American friend, Mr. O. B. Johnson, of Salem, whose complete and accurate knowledge of these subjects only rendered more easy his kindly endeavors to give me the benefit of all his stores. I wish to acknowledge also the care with which, ever since our visit in 1877, the professors at the Corvallis Agricultural College have kept the records of climate and rainfall, the results of which are now published. I trust that, if any sketches in these pages are recognized as portraits, not one grain of offense will 8 PREFACE. be taken by those who have unwittingly served as models in the life-studio. Or that, if any effect is produced, it may be as good and lasting as that which followed on a fancy picture in the former book, in which many stray touches were collected. Whether the cap fitted, or was pressed on his head by too officious neighbors, I know not ; but this I know, that cleared fields, neat fences, new barn, clean house, and fitting furniture, rendered it impossible for me to recognize a tumble- down place which then served to point a warning. These improvements, I am told, the owner lays at my unconscious door. WALLIS NASH. CORVALLIS, OREGON, April 14, 1831. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE Personal reasons for coming to Oregon Plans of colonizing Who came Who have returned Who remain Bowie-knives and revolvers A sheriff in danger No tragedy Our landing at Corvallis Frail houses Pleasant welcome The barber's shop Its customers Given names New acquaintances Bright dresses Keligious denominations 17 CHAPTER H. "Where we Iiv3 Snow-peaks and distant prospects Forest-fires The Coast Mountains and Mary's Peak Sunset in Oregon- Farmhouses: the log-cabin, the box-house, the frame-house Dinner at the farm Slay and eat A rash chicken Bread- making by amateurs Thrift and unthrift Butter and cheese Products of the " range," farm, and garden Wheat- growing. . . 26 CHAPTER III. The land-office ; its object and functionaries How to find your land Section 33 The great conflagration The survivors of the fire The burnt timber and the brush The clearing-party Chop- ping by beginners Cooking, amateur and professional The wild-cat Deer and hunting Piling brush Dear and cheap clearing The skillful axeman Clearing by Chinamen Drag- ging out stumps What profits the farmer may expect on a valley farm On a foot-hills farm 36 10 CONTENTS. CHAPTEK IV. PAGE A spring ride in Oregon The start The equipment Horses and sad- dleryPacks The roadside Bird fellow-travelers Snakes The nearest farm Bees The great pasture The poisonous lark- spur Market-gardening The Cardwell Hill The hill-top The water-shed Mary River Grain's The Yaquina Valley Brush, grass, and fern The young Englishmen's new home A rustic bridge " Chuck-holes "The road supervisor Trapp's The mill-dam Salmon-pass law Minnows and crawfish The Pacific at rest Yaquina Newport 48 CHAPTER V. Hay -harvest Timothy-grass Permanent pasture Hay-making by express The mower and reaper Hay-stacks as novelties "Wheat-harvest Thrashing The " thrashing crowd " " Head- ers" and "self-binders" Twine-binders and home-grown flax Green food for cows Indian corn, vetches Wild-oats in -wheat Tar- weed the new enemy Cost of harvesting By hired machines By purchased machines Cost of wheat-growing in the Willamette Valley 62 CHAPTER VI. The farmer's sports and pastimes Deer-hunting tales A roadside yarn Still-hunting Hunting with hounds An early morn- ing's sport Elk The pursuit The kill Camp on Beaver Creek Flounder-spearing by torchlight Flounder-fishing by day In the bay Rock oysters The evening view The general Btorc Skins Sea-otters Their habits The sea-otter hunters Common otter The mink and his prey 72 CHAPTER VII. Birds in Oregon Lark Quail Grouse Ruffed grouse Wild-geese Manoeuvres in the air Wild-ducks Mallard Teal Pintail Wheat-duck Black duck Wood-cluck Snipe Fl ight-shoot- ing Stewart's Slough Bitterns Eagles Hawks Horned owls Woodpeckers Blue-jays Canaries The canary that had seen the world Blue-birds Bullfinches Snow-bunting Hum- ming-birds at home 91 CONTENTS. 11 CHAPTER VIII. PAGE Up to the Cascades Farming by happy-go-lucky The foot-hills Sweet Home Valley Its name, and how deserved and proved The road by the Santiam Eastward and upward Timber Lower Soda Springs Different vegetation Upper Soda Springs Mr. Keith Our reception His home and surroundings Emigrants on the road The emigrant's dog Off to the Spokane Whence they came Where they were bound Still eastward Fish Lake Clear Lake Fly-fishing in still water The down slope east Lava-beds Bunch-grass The valleys in Eastern Oregon Their products Wheat-growing there Cattle-ranch- ers Their home Their life In the saddle and away Brand- ing-time Hay for the winter The Malheur reservation The Indians' outbreak The building of the road When, how, and by whom built The opening of the pass The history of the road Squatters The special agent from Washington A sham survey 100 CHAPTER IX. Indian fair at Brownsville Ponies The lasso Breaking-in The purchase " Bucking" extraordinary Sheep-farming in Eastern Oregon Merinos The sheep-herder Muttons for company A good offer refused Exports of wool from Oregon Price and value of Oregon wool Grading wool Price of sheep Their food Coyotes The wolf-hunt Shearing Increase of flocks " Corraling" the sheep Sheep as brush-clearers 118 CHAPTER X. The trail to the Siletz Reserve Rock Creek Isolation Getting a road The surveying-party Entrance at last Road-making Hut-building in the wilds What will he do with it ? Choice of homestead Fencing wild land Its method and cost Splitting cedar boards and shingles House- building The China boy and the mules Picnicking in earnest Log-burning Berrying-par- ties Salting cattle An active cow A year's work Mesquit- grass on the hills 127 CHAPTER XI. The Indians at home The reservation The Upper Farm Log- cabins Women must work while men will play The agency 12 CONTENTS. PAGE The boarding-house Sunday on the reservation Indian Sun day-school Galeese Creek Jem The store Indian farmers As to the settlement of the Indians Suggestions A crime- Its origin Its history The criminals What became of them Indian teamsters Numbers on the reservation The powers and duties of the agent Special application 136 CHAPTER XII. The Legislative Assembly The Governor His duties Payment of the members Aspect of the city ; the Legislature hi session The lobbyist How bills pass How bills do not pass Questions of the day Common carriers Woman's suffrage Some of the acts of 1878 Judicial system of the State Taxes Assessments County officers The justice of the peace Quick work 145 CHAPTER XIII. Land laws Homesteads and preemption How to choose and obtain Government land University land School land Swamp land Kailroad and wagon-road grants Lieu lands Acreages owned by the various companies 157 CHAPTER XIV. The "Web-foot State" Average rainfall in various parts The rainy days in 1879 and 1880 Temperature Seasons Accounts and figures from three points Afternoon sea-breezes A " cold snap "Winter Floods Damage to the river-side country- Rare thunder Rarer wind-storms The storm of January, 1880. 164 CHAPTER XV. The State Fair of 1880 Salem The ladies' pavilion Knock-'em- downs a, V Americaine Self-binders Thrashing-machines Rates of speed Cost Workmanship Prize sheep Fleeces Pure versus graded sheep California short-horns Horses American breed or Percheron Comparative measurements The races Runners Trotters Cricket hi public Unruly spectators . 174 CONTENTS. 13 CHAPTER XVI. PAGR History of Oregon First discoverers Changes of government Recognition as a Territory Entrance as a State Individual histories "Jottings" "Sitting around" A pioneer in Ben- ton County How to serve Indian thieves The white squaw and the chief Immigration in company Kafting on the Colum- bia The first winter Early settlement Indian friends Indian houses and customs The Presbyterian colony The start Across the plains Arrival in Oregon The "whaler" settler A rough journey u Ho for the Umpqua ! " A backwoodsman Compliments School-teacher provided for Uncle Lazarus Rogue River Canon Valley of Death Pleasant homes Changed circumstances 183 CHAPTER XVII. State and county elections The Chinese question Chinese house- servants Washermen Laborers A large camp Supper Chinese trading The scissors Cost of Chinese labor Its re- sults Chinese treaties Household servants Chee and his mistress "Heap debble-y in there" The photo album Temptation A sin and its reward Good advice on whipping- Chung and the crockery Chinese New Year Gifts " Hood- lums " Town police Opium 201 CHAPTER XVIII. Life in the town Sociables Religious sects Sabbath-schools Christmas festivities Education, how far compulsory Colleges Student-life and education Common schools Teachers' insti- tutes Newspapers Patent outsides " The Oregonian " Other journals Charities Paupers Secret societies 209 CHAPTER XIX. Industries other than farming Iron-ores Coal Coos Bay mines Seattle mines Other deposits Lead and copper Limestone Marbles Gold, where found and worked Silver, where found and worked Gold in sea-sand Timber Its area and distribu- tion Spars Lumber Size of trees Hard woods Cost of pro- 14 CONTENTS. PAGB duction and sale of lumber Tanneries Woolen-mills Flax- works Invitation to Irish Salmon Statistics of the trade- Methods Varieties of salmon When and where caught Salm- on-poisoning of dogs Indians fishing Traps Salmon-smok- ^g .. 219 CHAPTER XX. Eastern Oregon Going " east of the mountains "Its attractions Encroaching sheep First experiments in agriculture and planting General description of Eastern Oregon Boundaries- Alkaline plains Their productions The valleys Powder Eiver Valley Description The Snake Eiver and its tributaries The Malheur Valley-Harney Lake Valley Its size Productions- Wild grasses Hay-making The winters in Eastern Oregon Wagon-roads Prineville Silver Creek Grindstone Creek Valley Crooked Kiver Settlers' descriptions and experiences Ascent of the Cascades going west Eastern Oregon towns- Baker City Prineville Warnings to settlers Growing wheat for the railroads to carry 231 CHAPTER XXI. Southern Oregon Its boundaries The western counties Popula- tion Ports Rogue River Coos Bay Coal Lumber Practi- cable railroad routes The harbor Shifting and blowing sands A quoted description Cost of transportation Harbor im- provements Their progress and results The Umpqua Doug- las County Jackson County The lake-country Linkville Water-powers Indian reservations The great mountains Southeastern Oregon General description Industries 248 CHAPTER XXII. The towns Approach to Oregon The steamers The Columbia en- trance Astoria Its situation, industries, development Salmon Shipping Loading and discharging cargo Up the Columbia and Willamette to Portland Portland, West and East Popula- tion Public buildings United States District Court The judge Public Library The Bishop schools Hospital Churches Stores Chinese quarter Banks Industries The CONTENTS. 15 PAQB city's prosperity Its causes Its probable future The Oregon Railway and Navigation Company Shipping abuses and ex- actionsRailroad termini Up the Columbia The Dalles Up the Willamette Oregon City, its history The falls Salem Its position and development Capitol buildings Flour-mills Oil-mills Buena Vista potteries Albany Its water-power Flour-mills Values of land Corvallis The line of the Oregon Pacific Railroad Eugene, its university and professors Rose- burg The West-side Railroad to Portland Development of the country Prosperity Counties of Oregon Their population Taxable property Average possessions In the Willamette Val- ley In Eastern Oregon In Eastern Oregon tributary to Co- lumbia and Snake Rivers ... , . 252 CHAPTER XX1U. The transportation question Its importance Present legal posi- tion Oregon Railway and Navigation Committee's general re- port That company Its ocean-going steamers Their traffic and earnings Its river- boats Their traffic and earnings Its railroads in existence Their traffic and earnings Its new rail- roads in construction and in prospect Their probable influence The Northern Pacific Terminus on Puget Sound Its pros- pectsThe East and West Side Railroads " Bearing " traffic and earnings How to get " control "Lands owned by the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company Monopoly How threatened The narrow-gauge railroads Their terminus and working Efforts to consolidate monopoly The " blind pool " Resistance The Oregon Pacific Its causes, possessions, and prospects Land grant and its enemies The traffic of the val- ley Yaquina Bay Its improvement The farmers take it in hand Contrast and comparisons The two presidents Proba- ble effects of competition Tactics in opposition The Yaquina improvements Description of works The prospects for com- petition and the farmers' gains 271 CHAPTER XXIV. Emigration to Oregon Who should not come Free advice and no fees English emigrants Farmers Haste to be rich Quoted 16 CONTENTS. PAGE experiences Cost and ways of coming Sea-routes Eailroads Baggage What not to bring What not to forget Heavy property The Custom-house San Francisco hotels Conclu- sion 293 Appendix t . 305 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. CHAPTER I. Personal reasons for coming to Oregon Plans of colonizing Who came Who have returned Who remain Bowie-knives and revolvers A sheriff in danger No tragedy Our landing at Corvallis Frail houses Pleasant welcome The barber's shop Its customers Given names New acquaintances Bright dresses Eeligious denomina- tions. AFTER visiting Oregon in the year 1877, and travel- ing with three or four companions through its length and breadth, I ventured to publish in England on my return a short account of our seeings and doings. "While the reception of this book by the reviews generally was only too kind and nattering, one paper, the " Athenaeum," distinguished me by a long notice, the whole point of which lay in the observation that it would be interesting to know if I, who had been rec- ommending Oregon to others, were prepared to take my own prescription, and emigrate there myself. Now, although it would not perhaps be fair to make all physicians swallow their own medicines, re- gardless whether or not they were sick, and although I certainly was not in any position rendering emigra- 18 TWO TEARS IN OREGON. tion necessary, or in the opinion of any of my friends and acquaintances even desirable, yet I did not like it to be possible to be accused rightly of recommending a course so serious as a change of dwelling-place and even of nationality, without being willing to prove by my own acts the genuineness of the advice I had given. And this, among other motives and inducements, had a strong influence in overcoming the crowd of hesitations and difficulties which spring up when so great a change begins to be contemplated as possible. And it is no more than natural that now, having had two years' experience in Oregon, I should desire to have it known if it be necessary to recall the general advice given in the former book, advocating, as un- doubtedly I then did advocate, Oregon as a desirable residence. But, as this involves my putting into some kind of literary shape our experiences for the past two years in this far Western land, it is better to begin by some general relation of our plans. When I undertook to come out with my wife and children and see to the settlement and disposal of the tract of land we had purchased, as one result of my visit in 1877, I was applied to by a good many fathers to take some superintendence of their sons, who desired to emigrate to Oregon. Next, one or two married couples expressed a wish to join us. Then several ac- quaintances, who were practical mechanics, had heard a good report of Oregon, and desired to accompany us. And I was busy in answering letters about the place and people to the very moment of sailing. I was not at all willing to have the company indefi- nitely numerous, not having graduated in Mr. Cook's PLANS OF COLONIZING. 19 school for tourists, and knowing something of the em- barrassments likely to attend a crowd of travelers. We found our party of twenty-six fully large enough for comfort. "We were kindly and liberally treated by the Allan Steamship Company, the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada, and the Chicago and Northwestern Rail- way ; but our lines did not fall to us in pleasant places when we experienced the tender mercies of the Union and Central Pacific. Our party was broken up into different cars, and our strongest portmanteaus were shattered by the most atrocious handling. It was a serious question if we should try to found an English colony here, in the usual sense of the word. That would have involved a separate life from the American residents ; it would have fostered jealousy here, and we should have committed numberless mis- takes and absurdities. We should have had to buy all our experience, amid the covert ridicule of our neigh- bors. And I was confident that many members of our party would have played at emigrating, and treated the whole business as picnicking on a large scale. Moreover, I was not sure that, even if we succeeded in transplant- ing English manners, customs, and institutions, they would take hold in this new soil. The fact was always before my eyes that the country was only thirty years old, in a civilized sense, and I doubted the wisdom of trying to transport thither a little piece of the old country. I believed the wiser course to be to plant ourselves quietly among the Oregonians with as little parade and fuss as possible, and to let our own experience dictate to others whether to join us or not. It has been our practice throughout to answer freely, 20 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. and as fully as possible, the many letters of inquiry as to place and people that we have had, but to offer no advice ; leaving those who were thinking of coming out to take the responsibility on themselves of deciding to come or to stay away. Under this system our numbers have grown to up- ward of a hundred, and now rarely a month passes with- out additions. Of course, a process of natural selection goes on all the time. Not every one who comes remains ; but we have every reason to be satisfied with the repre- sentatives of the mother-country who are making Ore- gon their permanent home, and the same feeling is shared, as I am confident, by the original residents. Shall I try to describe what sort of people we live among here, a hundred miles from Portland, the chief city in the State ? What the notions of some of our party were you will understand when I mention that all I could say could not prevent the young men of the party from arming themselves, as for a campaign in the hostile Indian country, so that each man stepped ashore from the boat that brought us up the Willamette with a revolver in each pocket, and the hugest and most uncompromis- ing knives that either London, New York, or San Fran- cisco could furnish . As ill luck would have it, just as we arrived, the sheriff had returned to town with an escaped prisoner, and had been set upon by the brother, and a pistol had been actually presented at him. I should say in a whisper that the sheriff, worthy man, had proposed to return the assault in kind, but had failed to get his six- shooter out in time from the depths of a capacious pocket, where the deadly weapon lay in harmless neigh- OUR LANDING AT CORVALLIS. 21 borhood, with a long piece of string, a handful or so of seed- wheat, a large chunk of tobacco, a leather strap and buckle, and a big red pocket-handkerchief. So I fancy he had not much idea of shooting when he started out. But the incident was enough to give a blood-color to all our first letters home, and I dare say caused a good many shiverings and shudders at the thought of the wild men of the woods we had come to neighbor with. The worst of it was, that it was the only approach to a tragedy, and that we have had no adventures worth speaking of. " Story, God bless you ! I have none to tell, sir." Still we did know ourselves to be in a new world when we stepped ashore from the large, white-painted, three-storied structure on the water that they called a stern-wheel river-boat, and in which we had spent two days coming up the great river from Portland. It was the 17th of May, just a month from leaving Liverpool, that we landed. The white houses of the little city of Corvallis were nestled cozily in the bright spring green of the alders and willows and oaks that fringed the river, and the morning sun flashed on the metal cupola of the court-house, and lighted up the deep-blue clear- cut mountains that rose on the right of us but a few miles off. When we got into the main street the long, low, broken line of booth-like, wooden, one-storied stores and houses, all looking as if one strong man could push them down, and one strong team carry them off, grated a little, I could see, on the feelings of some of the party. The redeeming feature was the trees, lining the street at long intervals, darkening the houses a little, but clothing the town, and giving it an air of age and re- 22 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. spectability that was lacking in many of the bare rows of shanties, dignified with the title of town, that we had passed in coming here across the continent. The New England Hotel invited us in. A pretty plane-tree in front overshadowed the door ; and a bright, cheery hostess stood in the doorway to welcome us, shaking hands, and greeting our large party of twenty-six in a fashion of freedom to which we had not been used, but which sounded pleasantly in our travel- worn ears. The house was tumble-down and shabby, and needed the new coat of paint it received soon after but in the corner of the sitting-room stood a good parlor-organ. The dining-room adjoining had red cloths on the tables, and gave a full view into the kitch- en ; but the "beefsteak, mutton-chop, pork-chop, and hash " were good and well cooked, and contrasted with, rather than reminded us of, the fare described by Charles Dickens as offered him in the Eastern States when he visited America thirty-nine years ago. The bedrooms, opening all on to the long passage up- stairs, with meager furniture and patchwork quilts, the whole wooden house shaking as we trotted from room to room, were not so interesting, and tempted no long delay in bed after the early breakfast-gong had been sounded soon after six. Breakfast at half-past six, din- ner at noon, and supper at half -past five, only set the clock of our lives a couple of hours faster than we had been used to ; and bed at nine was soon no novelty to us. The street in front was a wide sea of slushy mud when we arrived, with an occasional planked crossing, needing a sober head and a good conscience to navigate safely after dark ; for, when evening had closed in, the THE BARBERS SHOP. 23 only street-lighting came from the open doors, and through the filled and dressed windows of the stores. Saloons were forbidden by solemn agreement to all of us, but the barber's shop was the very pleasant substi- tute. Two or three big easy-chairs in a row, with a stool in front of each. Generally filled they were by the grave and reverend seigniors of the city each man re- posing calmly, draped in white, while he enjoyed the luxury, under the skillful hands of the barber or his man, of a clean shave. At the far end of the shop stood the round iron stove, with a circle of wooden chairs and an old sofa. And here we enjoyed the par- liament of free talk. The circle was a frequently chang- ing one, but the types were constant. The door opened and in came a man from the coun- try : such a hat on his head ! a brim wide enough for an umbrella, the color a dirty white ; a scarlet, collar- less flannel shirt, the only bit of positive color about him ; a coat and trousers of well-worn brown, canvas overall (or, as sometimes spelled, " overhaul "), the trou- sers tucked into knee-high boots, worn six months and never blacked. His hands were always in his pockets, except when used to feed his mouth with the constant "chaw." "Hello, Tom," he says slowly, as he makes his way to the back, by the stove. " Hello, Jerry," is the instant response. " How's your health? " " Well ; and how do you make it?" "So-so." "Any news out with you?" "Wall, no; things pretty quiet." And he finds a seat and sinks into it as if he intended growing there till next harvest. We all know each other by our "given" names. I asked one of our politicians how he prepared himself for a canvass in a county where I knew he was a stran- 2 24: TWO YEARS IN OREGON. ger this last summer. " Well, I just learned up all the boys 7 given names, so I could call them when I met them," was the answer. " I guess knowing 'em was as good as a hundred votes to me in the end." It was a little startling at first to see a rough Oregonian ride up to our house, dismount, hitch his horse to the paling, and stroll casually in, with " Where's Herbert ?" as his first and only greeting. But we soon got used to it. But the barber's shop was, and is, useful to us, as well as amusing. The values and productiveness of farms for sale, the worth and characters of horses, the prices of cattle, the best and most likely and accessible places for fishing, and deer-shooting, and duck-hunting all such matters, and a hundred other things useful for us to know, we picked up here, or " sitting around" the stoves in one or other of the stores in the town. Another good gained was, that thus our new neigh- bors and we got acquainted : they found we were not all the "lords" they set us down for at first, with the exclusiveness and pride they attributed to that maligned race in advance ; while we on our side found a vast amount of self-respect, of native and acquired shrewd- ness, of legitimate pride in country, State, and county, and a fund of kindly wishes to see us prosper, among our roughly dressed but really courteous neighbors. There was a good deal of feminine curiosity dis- played on either side, by the natives and the new-com- ers. When we went to church the first Sunday after our arrival, there were a good many curious worshipers, more intent on the hats and bonnets of the strangers than on the service in which we united. We hoard afterward how disappointed they were that the stranger ladies were so quietly and cheaply dressed. We could RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 25 not say the same when callers came, which they speed- ily did after we were settled in our new home such tight kid gloves, and bright bonnets, and silk mantles ! It was a constant wonder to our women-folk how fheir friends managed to show as such gay butterflies, two thousand miles on the western side of everywhere. We found here, in a little town of eleven hundred inhabitants, all kinds of religious denominations repre- sented Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Eoman Catholics, Methodists North, and Methodists South, Evangelicals, and Baptists but very little rivalry and no rancor. I shall have something more to say about the religious life later on, but I think I will reserve the description of our home, and of those of some of our neighbors, for a fresh chapter. CHAPTER II. Where we live Snow-peaks and distant prospects Forest-fires The Coast Mountains and Mary's Peak Sunset in Oregon Farmhouses : the log-cabin, the box-house, the frame-house Dinner at the farm Slay and eat A rash chicken Bread-making by amateurs Thrift and unthrift Butter and cheese Products of the "range," farm, and garden Wheat-growing. You might look the world over for a prettier spot than that on which this house stands. Just a mile from Corvallis, on a gently rounded knoll, we look east- ward across the town, and the river, and the broad val- ley beyond, to the Cascade Mountains. Their lowest range is about thirty miles off, and the rich flat valley between is hidden by the thick line of timber, generally fir, that fringes the farther side of the Willamette. Against the dark line of timber the spires of the churches and the cupola of the court-house stand out clear, and the gray and red shingled roofs of the houses in the town catch early rays of the rising sun. The first to be lighted up are the great snow-peaks, ninety, seventy, and fifty miles off a ghostly, pearly gray in the dim morning, while the lower ranges lie in shadow ; but, as the sun rises in the heavens, these same lower ranges grow distinct in their broken out- lines. The air is so clear that you see plainly the colors of the bare red rocks, and the heavy dark, fir-timber clothing their rugged sides. Ere the sun mounts high SUNSET IN OREGON. 27 the valley often lies covered with a low-lying thin white mist, beyond and over which the mountains stand out clear. For some weeks in the late summer heavy smoke- clouds from the many forest and clearing fires obscure all distant view. This last summer fires burned for at least fifty miles in length at close intervals of distance, and the dark gray pall overlay the mountains through- out. Behind the house, and in easy view from the windows on either side, are the Coast Mountains, or rather hills. Mary's Peak rises over four thousand feet, and is snow-crowned for nine months in the year. The out- lines of this range are far more gently rounded than the Cascades, and timber- covered to the top. Save for the solid line of the heavy timber, the outlines of the Coast Eange constantly remind us of our own Dartmoor ; and the illusion is strengthened by the dark-red soil where the plow has invaded the hills, yearly stealing nearer to their crowns. Mary's Peak itself is bare at the top for about a thousand acres, but the firs clothe its sides, and the air is so clear that, in spite of the seventeen miles' distance, their serrated shapes are plainly and in- dividually visible as the sun sinks to rest behind the mountain. Such sunsets as we have ! Last night I was a mile or two on the other side of the river as night fell. Mount Hood was the first to blush, and then Mount Jefferson and the Three Sisters in turn grew rosy red. From the valley I could not see the lower Cascades, but these snowy pyramids towered high into the sky. One little fleecy cloud here and there overhead caught the tinge, but the whole air on the eastern side was lumi- 28 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. nously pink. Turning westward, the pale-blue sky faded through the rainbow-green into the rich orange sur- rounding the departing sun ; and the westward moun- tains stood solidly and clearly blue in massive lines. One great peculiarity of the Oregon landscape, as distinguished from an English rather than a New Eng- land scene, is in the number of white farmhouses that catch the eye. We see many from our windows. I suppose it is that the roads are so bad in winter that the farmers must live on the farms, instead of in the English-village fashion. So it is that you may travel by railroad up and down this valley for two hundred miles between farmhouses every quarter or half mile all the way. Nearly every farmhouse has its orchard close by ; but one big barn is all the out-buildings they boast, and farm-yard, in the English sense, one never sees. Our own house is not a fair specimen, because of our large family and its corresponding habitation ; but the regular farmhouse is by no means an uncomfortable abode . There are three kinds : log-cabin, box-house, frame- house. The first, by far the most picturesque type, is fast becoming obsolete, and on most of the good farms, if not pulled down, is degraded into woodhouse or pig- gery. But to my eye there is something rarely comfort- able in the low, solid, rugged walls of gray logs, with overhanging shingled roof ; the open hearth, too, with its great smoldering back-log and wide chimney, in- vites you to sit down before it and rest. By the side of the fireplace, from two deers' horns fastened to the wall, hangs the owner's rifle generally an old brown veter;m with -bullet-pouch and powder-horn. Over the hi FARMHOUSES. 29 mantel-shelf stands the ticking clock,, suggesting " Sam Slick, the clock-maker." Curtained off from the main room, with its earthen or roughly-boarded floor, are the low bedsteads of the family, each covered with its patch- work quilt. A corner cupboard or two hold the family stock of cups and plates, and the smell of apples, from the adjoining apple-chamber, pervades the house. Eound the house is the home-field, generally the orchard, sown with timothy-grass, where range four or five young calves, and a sow or two, with their hungry, rooting youngsters. The barn, log-built also, stands near by, with two or three colts, or yearling cattle, grouped around. The spring of cold, clear water runs freely through the orchard, but ten yards from the house-door, hastening to the "creek," whose murmur is never absent, save in the few driest weeks of summer- time. Snake-fences, seven logs high, with top-rail and crossed binders to keep all steady, divide the farm from the road, and a litter of chips from the axe-hewed pile of firewood strew the ground between wood-pile and house. Here and there, even in the home-field, and nearly always in the more distant land, a big black stump disfigures the surface, and betrays the poverty or possibly the carelessness of the owner, who has carved his homestead from the brush. But as the farmer prospers, be it ever so little, he hastens to pull down his log-cabin and to build his "box "or more expensive "frame" house. In each case the material is "lumber." By this is signified, be it known to the uninitiated, fir boards, one foot wide, sixteen feet long, and one inch thick. The "box" house is built of boards set upright, and 30 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. the cracks covered with strips of similar board, three inches wide. The "frame " house is double throughout, the boards run lengthwise, and there is a covering outside of an outer skin of planking. With the box or frame house comes the inevitable stove. The cooking and eating of the family go on in a lean-to room, and the living-room is furnished with some pretensions, always with a sewing-machine, and often with a parlor-organ or piano. Muslin curtains drape the windows ; a bureau is generally present, and chromos, or very rough engravings, hang on the walls. The political tendencies of the owner betray themselves. General Grant, with tight-buttoned coat and close-cut beard, or President Lincoln and his family, show the Eepublican. Strangely enough, General Lee, with a genial smile on his attractive face, is affected by the Democrats. The followers of the greenback heresy de- light in Brick Pomeroy, with clean-shaven, smug, and satisfied look. It is not the fashion to carry provisions with you on journeys in Oregon. "When meal-time draws near, and hotels are many miles away, you ride boldly up to the nearest farm, dismount, throw your horse's rein over the paling, and walk in. The lady of the house ap- pears, from the cooking department at the rear, and you say : " Good-morning, madam ; can I get dinner with you ? " Unless there is grave reason to the con- trary, she considers a moment, and then answers, " I guess so," with a hospitable smile. The next question is as to your horse, which one of the children leads into the barn, and then fills out a goodly measure of oats, and crams the rack with hay from the pile filling the DINNER AT THE FARM. 31 middle of the barn. While your hostess adds a little to the family meal, you turn over the newspapers in the sitting-room, generally finding a " Detroit Free Press," or a "Toledo Blade," or a New York "World" or " Tribune," or a San Francisco "Bulletin " or " Chron- icle," besides the local weekly. If you want books, you must take to the "Pacific Coast Eeader," the last school-book, which you are sure to find on the shelf ; unless you chance on a " Universal History," or the "History of the Civil War," or the "Life of General Jackson," or the "Life of General Custer," or a collec- tion of poetry in an expensive binding, all of which signify that the book-peddler has been paying a recent visit. Then your hostess returns, saying, "Will you come and eat ? " If you go into the back room where, gen- erally, the master of the house and you, the visitor, and perhaps a grown-up son, or a farming hand, sit down and dine, while the mistress and her daughter serve you will not starve. In front of you is a smoking dish of meat, either pork or mutton, salted, cut into square bits and fried ; rarely beef, more often venison, or deer-meat, as it is called here. By it is piled up a dish of mashed pota- toes, and a tureen of white, thick sauce. A glass dish of stewed apples, or apple-sauce, and one of preserved pears or peaches, and a smaller dish of blackberry or plum jam, complete the meal, with the constant coffee, and generally a big jug of milk. The bread is brought you in. sets of hot, square rolls, fresh from the stove. It is not always that you can get cold bread, and a look of surprise always follows the request for it. Generally, a good supply of white beans, boiled soft, 32 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. and with a slice or two of bacon, is an important item. Apples, and the best of them, too, you can have for the asking too common to be offered to you. This regime applies to breakfast, dinner, and supper, with but slight variations. I forgot, though, the saucer of green, sharp, vinegary gherkins, which the Oregoni- ans seem not to know how to do without, and also the honey, and trout, which are the frequent and welcome additions to the meal among the hills. My wife and I dropped in once to a dinner of this kind. We were sitting, cooling ourselves on the ve- randa, watching some pretty, black Spanish chickens scratching among the scanty rose-bushes in front. The farmer's wife came quickly out and addressed me : " Have you got your revolver ? " I stared for a moment, thinking of tramps, and bears, and I know not what. " I never carry one on horseback," I answered. " Oh," said she, " I would have had you shoot the head off one of them chickens, for I've got no fresh meat." In- wardly I congratulated ourselves that our dinner did not altogether depend on my skill with that common, but, to my mind, very unsatisfactory weapon. One of my friends bought out an Oregonian farmer, and paid him for stock and lot, including some fine fowls. Dropping in to dinner two days afterward, he found a smoking chicken on the board. I suppose he eyed it askance, for the farmer observed : "That's one of your chickens I killed by accident. I saw some wild- geese feeding on the wheat, and fetched the rifle, and that there foolish rooster got right in the way of the bullet." If any friends of yours think of coming out, send them to the school of cookery, I implore you. It is BREAD-MAKING BY AMATEURS. 33 the greatest possible quandary to be in, to be set down with flour, water, and a tin of saleratus or baking- powder, and to haye to make the bread or go with- out. Then, to convert chickens running about your house into food for man is not so easy as it looks ; nor is cooking beans or potatoes a matter of pure in- stinct, I assure you. Shall I ever forget riding up at nearly three in the afternoon, to one of our English- men's farms, to find the proprietor standing, coat off and sleeves turned up, before a huge, round tin of white slush ? When he saw me come in, he lifted out his hands and rubbed off the white dripping mess, say- ing : " I'll be hanged if I'll try any longer ; since eleven o'clock have I been after this beastly bread ! Can you make it ? Is this stuff too thin or too thick, or what ? " It is true that he makes fine bread now ; but if you could but know the stages of slackness, heaviness, sod- denness, flintiness, that he and his friends passed through, you would see that I was giving a useful hint, and one that applies to the feminine emigrant quite as much as to the masculine. Another thing strikes us out here, namely, the waste that pervades an average Oregon farmer's household. Does he kill a deer ? He leaves the fore half of the creature, and all the inter- nals, in the wood where he killed it, taking home only the hind-quarters and the hide. If he kills a hog, the head is thrown out, to be rolled round and gnawed at by the dogs ; the same with a sheep or a calf. Half of them will not even take the trouble to have butter, letting the calves get all the milk, but just a lit- tle for the' meals. You rarely see eggs on the table, though there may be scores of hens about. You will hardly believe that large quantities of but- 34: TWO TEARS IN OREGON. ter and cheese are imported into this valley, both from California and from Washington Territory, and cheese even from the East, though there can not be a finer dairy country than this, if they would but look a little ahead and provide some green food for the cows for the interval between the hay-crop off the timothy-grass and the fresh growth of the same from the autumn rains. It is still more inexcusable among the hills, where the grass keeps green all the year round. The exclusive devotion to wheat is what will very shortly and most surely impoverish the country ; and therefore it is that, in the interests of Oregon, I am so anxious that many farmers should come here who are familiar with mixed farming, and will apply it to our deep, rich, stoneless soil, and will thus avert the inevitable consequences of wheat, wheat, wheat, continuously for fifteen, twenty, ay, and thirty years. It is not that other crops and other pursuits do not answer here. Sheep, cattle, and horses thrive and mul- tiply. Oregon valley wool ranks among the very best. The Angora goat takes to Western Oregon as if it were his native home, and produces yearly from three to four pounds of hair, worth from sixty to eighty cents a pound. Beans, peas, carrots, parsnips grow as I have never seen them elsewhere. Swedish turnips have suc- ceeded well in this valley, and nearer the coast the white turnips I have seen nearly as big as your head, and good all through. I saw a large heap of potatoes the other day that averaged six inches long, and per- fectly clean and free from all taint. Carrots we grew ourselves that weighed from one and a half to two pounds all round. Barley thrives splendidly, with a full, round, clear-skinned berry. Oats I need hardly WHEAT-GROWING. 35 mention, as the export of this cereal is very large, and the quality is undeniable. The common red clover grows in a half-acre patch in my neighbor's field waist-high, and he cut it three times last year. We have the humble-bee (or, at any rate, a big fellow just like the English humble-bee for I never handled one to examine it closely) to fertilize the clover. The white Dutch clover spreads wherever it gets a chance. But the temptation to grow wheat is very strong. It is the staple product of the State, and hardly ever fails in quality. The farmers understand it ; their sys- tem of life is organized with a view to it. A thousand bushels of wheat in the warehouse is as good as money in the bank, and is in reality a substitute for it. There is a clear understanding of what it costs to plant, har- vest, and warehouse, and it involves the lowest amount of t'rouble and anxiety. Therefore, Oregon grows wheat, and will grow it ; and men will grow nothing else until the consequences are brought home to them. CHAPTER III. The land-office ; its object and functionaries How to find your land Section 33 The great conflagration The survivors of the fire The burnt timber and the brush The clearing-party Chopping by begin- ners Cooking, amateur and professional The wild-cat Deer and hunting Piling brush Dear and cheap clearing The skillful axe- man Clearing by Chinamen Dragging out stumps What profits the farmer may expect on a valley farm On a foot-hills farm. BY the time we had been here about a month and had settled down a little, we set about clearing a tract of wild land called section 33, situated nearly twenty miles away. You will ask, What does section 33 mean ? Oregon is divided into several districts. For the Wil- lamette Valley the land-office is at Oregon City, one of the most ancient towns in the State, having a history of forty years, dating from the rule of the Hudson's Bay Company. The chief officer is called the "register.'' He is supplied with maps of the surveys from the cen- tral office at Washington. Each map is of one town- ship, consisting of a square block of thirty-six sections of a square mile or six hundred and forty acres each. Each township is numbered with reference to a base- line and a meridian, fixed by the original survey of the State, thus giving a position of latitude and longitude. From the land-office duplicates of the maps for each county are furnished to the county-seat and are depos- ited in the county clerk's office for general inspection. Each year a certain sum is set aside for new survi . THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 37 and contracts are given by the Surveyor-General of the State to local surveyors for the work. The corners of each square-mile section are denoted by posts or large stones, and the neighboring trees are blazed or marked so as to direct attention to the corner post or stone. Thus for years after the surveying-party have passed through wild land, there is but little difficulty in finding the corner-posts, and thence by compass ascertaining the boundary-lines of any section or fraction of a sec- tion in question. Surveys being officially made, bound- ary disputes are avoided, or easily solved and set at rest by reference to the county surveyor, who for a few dol- lars' fee comes out and " runs the lines " afresh of any particular plot. Section 33, then, is the section thus numbered in township 10, south of range 7, west of the Willamette meridian. It lay just on the edge of the burned woods country. Although forest-fires in Oregon are still of yearly occurrence, since settlement by the white men the range of the devastation has been by degrees narrowed and confined. Formerly the Indians started fires every year to burn the withered grass in the valleys and on the hillsides, and thence fire spread into the woods and rav- aged many miles of timber. The " great fire" is to have occurred about forty years ago, when many Indians perished in the flames, and others had to take refuge in the streams and rivers, till the destroying element had passed them in its resistless fury. Standing on the top of one of these Coast Mountain?, the eye ranges for many miles over hill and dale, dotted everywhere with the huge black trunks, the relics of 38 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. the great conflagration. Many standing yet, some towering high into the sky, testify of their former gracefulness by the symmetrical tapering of the tall trunk, and the regular positions of the broken limbs and branches. But Nature is busily at work repairing damages ; each winter's rains penetrate more deeply into the fabric of the trunk ; each winter's gales loosen yet more the roots in which the living sap was long ago destroyed ; each spring the wind brings down additions to the graveyard of trees, rotting away into mold ; while a few young successors to the former race of firs are showing themselves clothed in living green, and a dense growth of copse-wood, hazel, cherry, vine-maple, arrow-wood, and crab-apple is crowding the hollows of the canons on the hill-sides. The brake-fern covers the hills, attaining a growth of five, six, or eight feet, and sheltering an undergrowth of wild-pea and native grass. Section 33 lies between the burned timber and the living forest, but its chief value is in the valley of some three hundred acres of alluvial land forming its center, through which winds here and there the Mary Eiver, at this distance from its mouth scarcely more than a clear and rapid brook. Eight of us started on the clearing-party with two light wagons, and a good supply of food, blankets, and axes and saws. A squatter had settled on one corner and built himself a hut and a little barn, and had got four or five acres of land cleared and plowed. But he had abandoned his improvements and gone some ten miles off, to clear another homestead among the thick woods. The first night we camped out in a grassy corner by the wood-side, while the horses were tethered near. CHOPPING BY BEGINNERS. 39 The next day we began. Two or three of us had some little knowledge of the virtue of an axe, but the rest were new to the art. It was amusing to watch their eager efforts to hit straight and firm. One or two of our Oregonian neighbors came and looked on with rather scoffing faces, but advised us how to lay the brush we cut in windrows, with a view to the future burning, We cut young firs, up to a foot thick, cherry poles from fifteen to thirty feet high, vine-maple as thick as the cherry but only half as tall, and here and there a tough piece of crab-apple. The brush was so thick that what was cut could only fall one way, so that the patch each man had cut by dinner-time was ridicu- lously small. Of course, the whole valley was not brush- covered very far from it ; there were great open spaces of clear grass, with here and there a tuft of blue lupin and rose-bushes. The firs once cut off were done with, and the stump would rot out of the ground in a year or two. The cherry-brush was no bad enemy, either ; the young shoots would sprout from the root next year, but sheep would bite them off and kill the cherry out in a couple of seasons. But by all accounts the vine-maple was as tough in life as in texture, and that it was tough in texture our poor arms testified when night came. For a few days we tried to be our own cooks, one of the party in turn being detailed for the purpose ; but much good victuals was spoiled. So I sent into town for a Chinaman cook. That too much Chinaman is bad, I am prepared to support my neighbors in believ- ing ; but enough Chinaman to have one at call when- ever you think fit to send for him is a comfort indeed. 40 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. So Jem, as he called himself, came out to us. He wore a smile all day long on his broad face ; and he was caught reading earnestly in a poetry-book he must have found left out of one of our bags ; so I conclude he was a learned Chinaman. But he had strange fancies for his own eating. He cooked a wild-cat that was shot, and we laughed ; but he proceeded next to skin and eat a skunk that had fallen a victim to its curiosity to see how white men lived, and had tres- passed inside the hut ; and that was too much. We tasted, or thought we tasted, skunk in the bread for a day or two, so we sent Jem back. Turn out at five, breakfast over by soon after six, work till noon ; then from one till six ; then supper, and camp-fire, and pipes and talk till nine, and then to bed. Such was our regular life, certainly a healthy and not an unpleasant one. We had an excitement one night. The hut stood at the corner of the clearing, with a couple of good- sized firs in front of the door. A wood-covered hill came close to it on the right and rear. We were going to bed, when there was a howl outside, followed by a chorus from our three hounds. Out rushed a couple of us into the starlight with rifles in hand. The dogs had sent whatever creature it was up into one of the fir-trees and bayed fiercely round. Nothing could be seen among the thick branches. One of the party, an enthusiast, though a novice in woodland sport, got right close to the tree-trunk and managed to make out a form against the sky some twenty feet above his head. At once he fired, and down came the creature almost on his head ; fortunately for him, the hounds attacked it at once, and a royal fight and scrimmage went on DEER AND HUNTING. 41 in the dark. Presently the intruder fought its way through the dogs to the rail-fence, but mounting it showed for an instant against the sky, and a second rifle-shot brought it down. Dragged to the light, some called it a catamount, but others more correctly a wild- cat (Lynxfasciatus). A right handsome beast it was, with short tail, and tufted ears, and spotted skin. It was and remains the only one that has been seen. It was attracted, no doubt, by some mutton we had hung up in the fir to be out of the way of the dogs. For- tunate, indeed, was our friend to escape its claws and teeth, as it has the reputation of being the fiercest and hardest to kill of all the cats found in Oregon. The. woods in front of the hut across the valley were a sure find for deer, and we could kill one almost any day by planting a gun or two at points in the valley which the deer would make for, and then turning the hounds into the woods above. It is a poor kind of hunting at the best, this hiding behind a bush and watching, it may be for hours, for the deer. You hear the cry of the hound far away, gradually growing nearer, and presently the deer breaks cover, and either swims or runs and wades down the river toward your stand ; occupied solely with the trailing hound, and ignorant of the ambushed danger in front, the shot is generally a sure and easy one at a few paces' distance, often within buck-shot range from an ordinary gun. Before the summer had passed, enough brush had been cut to clear some fifty acres of the valley, and we left the cut stuff piled in long rows to dry till next sum- mer, that the burning might be a complete one when we did put fire to it. The fires would need tending for a day or two, and feeding with the butt-ends of the long 42 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. poles, to finish the work ; grass-seed sown on the ashes with the first autumn rains would speedily make excel- lent pasture in that deep and fertile soil. The fencing of the cleared acreage, and the plowing up and sow- ing with oats and wheat of some eight or ten acres of land from which the roots and stumps had been care- fully grubbed out, would complete a "ranch," accord- ing to the Oregon fashion, and section 33 would lose that name and assume that of its first owner. The transformation from wild land to tame would be com- plete, and my work in connection with it would be done. So much for one way, and that the simplest, of making a home in Oregon. Longer experience taught us cheaper methods. For the large clearing-party with its attendant expense and need of oversight may be substituted clearing by contract; when some one or two of the poorer and more industrious homesteaders will contract to cut and clear at so much the acre or the piece, boarding themselves, and taking their own time and methods of doing the work. Some of the Indians are masters of the axe, and will both make a clearing bargain and stick to it, provided you are care- ful to keep always a good percentage of their pay in hand till the work is finished : fail to do this, and some rainy day you will find no ringing of the axe amid the trees, and their rough camp will be deserted, its inhab- itants gone for good. I like to watch a skillful axe- man. Set him to one of the big black trunks, six feet through. Watch how he strolls round it, axe on shoul- der, determining which way it shall fall. He fetches or cuts out a plank, six or eight inches wide, and four feet long, and you wonder what he will do with it. A few quick blows of his keen weapon, and a deep notch TEE SKILLFUL AXEMAN. 43 is cut into the tree four feet from the ground; the plank is driven into it, and he climbs lightly on it. Standing there, another notch is cut four feet still high- er from the ground, and a second plank inserted. Then watch him. Standing there on the elastic plank, which seems to give more life and vigor to his blows, it springs to the swing of the axe and the chips fly fast. As you look, he seems to be inspired with eager hurry, and the chips fly in a constant shower. Soon a deep, wedge- like cut is seen eating its way into the heart of the trunk. In an hour or so he has finished on that side, and leaves it. Taking the opposite side of the tree, he is at it again, and a big wound speedily appears. Long before the heart is reached, a loud cracking and rend- ing is heard. The axeman redoubles his efforts. The tree shakes and quivers through all its mass, and then the top moves, slowly at first, then faster, and down it comes, with a crash that wakes the echoes in the hills for miles and shakes the ground. Then send him into the thick brush, where the stems are so crowded that they have shot high up into the sky. Two cuts on one side, and one on the other, an inch or two from the earth, and he drops his axe, and leans all his weight against the stem. It cracks and snaps ; he shakes it, and gently it sways, bending its elastic top till it touches the ground before the stem has left its hold on Mother Earth. Before it has had time to fall its neighbor is attacked, and a broad strip of sunlight is soon let into the wood. Hard work ? Of course it is : a day's chopping will earn you sore wrists and ach- ing arms, but a fine appetite and the soundest of sleep. Unless a new-comer has had experience in the art and practice of wood-cutting, he will find it too slow work 44 TWO TEARS IN OREGON. to undertake with his own hands the clearing of wild land to make his homestead. Let him buy a place where some of the rough early work has been already done, and there are plenty to be had, and by all means let him by degrees, and as time serves, enlarge his clear- ing and extend his fields. Or, let him contract for the clearing at so much the acre. Some of the very best wheat-land in this valley is covered with oak-grubs which have sprung up within the last twenty years to a height of from ten to twenty feet. Chinamen are gen- erally used to clear this land, being engaged at the rate of from eighty to ninety cents a day ; that is, from three shillings fourpence to three shillings tenpence English. They want looking after closely to get full value from their work. They come in gangs of any size wanted, and have to be provided with a rough hut to sleep in ; they furnish their own food and cooking. The oak- wood is not only cut, but the roots are grubbed out, and the land left ready for the plow. The wood is cut into four-feet lengths and stacked ready for carting away. It is worth almost anywhere in the valley not less than three dollars a cord ; that is, a pile eight feet long, four feet wide, and four feet high. Thus the farmer who has a little capital and so can afford the first outlay, need not hesitate to clear this oak-grub land, as the value of the cord-wood and the first year's crop should more than defray the expense of the grub- bing. In England it is usual to bring into farming course gradually woodland that has been cleared, sowing oats first. Here, on the contrary, the farmer may expect a good wheat crop from his cleared woodland the first year. PROFITS ON A VALLEY FARM. 45 Yet another method of clearing is very effective and economical, especially at a distance from the haunts of Chinamen. A strong wooden windlass is made and fitted with a long lever for one horse. The windlass is anchored down near the oak-grub or cherry-brush to be got rid of. A strong iron chain is caught round the bush and attached to the windlass. The horse marches round and round, and winds up the windlass-rope ; the roots soon crack and tear. The farmer stands by, axe in hand, and one or two strokes sever the toughest roots, and the bush is torn up by main force, root and branch. One man and a horse can thus do the work of six men, and do it effectually too. Before we turn to other subjects let me give some idea of what a newly arrived farmer may expect to get, if he settles on a valley farm. Suppose the farm to consist of 400 acres, of which 150 acres are plowed land, the remainder being rough pasture, and 30 acres brush. Of the 150 acres, 90 acres would be in wheat and 60 in oats and timothy-grass. The wheat-land would produce 26 bushels to the acre, or 2,340 bushels in all. The value may be taken to be 90 cents the bushel, on an average of years, or $2,106 in all. The farmer would have a flock of 250 sheep, the produce from which in wool and lambs would not be less than $300 a year. He would breed and sell two colts a year, yielding him certainly $125, probably half as much more. He would have ten tons of timothy-hay to sell, producing $75. He should fat not less than a dozen hogs, worth $10 each, or $120. We will say noth- ing of milk, butter, eggs, fruit, and garden produce ; but, from the souces of profit we have enumerated, you will find the return to be $2,726. 46 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. The necessary expenses would be the wages of one hired hand, say $300 a year ; harvesting, $150, and other expenses, such as repairs to implements, horse- shoeing, and wheat-bags for the grain, $276, leaving a net return of $2,000. Supposing that the cost of the farm was $25 an acre, or $10,000 in all, I think the return is a pretty good one on such a figure, even if an- other $1,000 or $1,500 has to be added for implements, farm-horses, and sheep, to start with. The figures I have given are from the actual work- ing of a thoroughly reliable man, but relate to a year slightly above the general average of profit. You will see a large possibility of improvement in bringing more of the unbroken land into cultivation, either in grain or in tame grasses, and better sheep and cattle feed. So much for a valley farm at present prices. Naturally, the figures will alter as time goes on, as I do not im- agine that the present prices of land will continue sta- tionary, in the face of new railroads, improved commu- nications, and growing population. Let us look at the opportunities of an emigrant with less capital and greater willingness to dispense with some of the valley advantages. His 400 acres would probably give him only 50 acres of farming, cleared land ; but adjoining, or at any rate near by, he would find land belonging still to the Government, or untilled and unfenced, for his cattle to range over. He would have, say, 20 acres of wheat, giving him 500 bushels, and 30 acres of oats and timothy-hay, yielding 600 bushels of oats, of which 200 would be for sale, and the rest for use and seed, and 30 tons of hay. He would have, say, 40 cattle, of which 15 would come into market each year. The average value PROFITS ON A FOOT-HILLS FARM, 47 of these would be $18, or $270 in all. Add 20 hogs at $10, or $200 in all. He must also raise and sell three colts a year/ giving him $150. Looking to smaller items of profit, the farmer's wife should have ten pounds of butter a week to sell, at any rate, through the sum- mer months, which at 20 cents a pound would give her $2 a week for 25 weeks, or $50 in all. Eggs should yield also not less than $40 in the year. This all totals to $1,240, against an original outlay of $10 an acre, or $4,000 in all for the farm, and $1,500 for implements and stock. If the farmer is a sportsman, he may add a good many deer in the course of the year to the family larder, and also pheasants and partridges and quail, from Au- gust to November. I use the local names, the ruffed grouse and the common grouse being in question. CHAPTEK IV. A spring ride in Oregon The start The equipment Horses and saddlery Packs The roadside Bird fellow-travelers Snakes The near- est farm Bees The great pasture The poisonous larkspur Market- gardening The Cardwell Hill The hill-top The water-shed Mary Eiver Grain's The Yaquina Valley Brush, grass, and fern The young Englishmen's new home A rustic bridge u Chuck- holes" The road supervisor Trapp's The mill-dam Salmon-pass law Minnows and crawfish The Pacific at rest Yaquina Newport. SOME months ago I noticed an observation in the "Spectator," in a critique of a book of the Duke of Argyll's on Canadian homes, to the effect that what was wanted was such a description of roadside, farm, and woodland as should cause far-away readers to see them in their ordinary, every-day guise. I have often felt the same need in books of travels, when I little thought it would ever fall to my lot to try to bring a land thousands of miles away before untrav- eled eyes. So, take a ride with me, in May, from our town to Yaquina Bay, just sixty-six miles off. I have already said enough of the valley lying here, in the early morning, calm and quiet, with the light mist tracing out the course of the great river for miles into the soft distance, and the Cascade Eange standing out clear above. But we turn our backs on the town and face toward the west. One word on mount and equipment. The horse is a light chestnut sorrel we call it here about fifteen HORSES AND SADDLERY. 49 hands high, compact and active, with flowing mane and tail. He cost a hundred dollars six months back ; in England, for a park hack, he would be worth three fourths as many pounds. He has four paces a walk of about four miles an hour, a jog-trot of five, a lope or canter of six or seven, and a regular gallop. He passes from one pace to another by a mere pressure of the leg against his sides, and the gentlest movement of the reins. To turn him, be it ever so short, carry the bridle-hand toward the side you want to go, but put away all notion of pulling one rein or the other. He will walk unconcernedly through the deepest mud or the quickest flowing brook, and climb a steep hill with hardly quickened breath ; if he meets a big log in the trail, he will just lift his fore-legs over it and follow with his hind-legs without touching it, and hardly mov- ing you in the saddle. And he will carry a twelve-stone man, with a saddle weighing nearly twenty pounds, and a pack of fifteen pounds behind the saddle, from eight in the morning till six in the evening, with an hour's rest in the middle of the day, and be ready to do it again to-morrow, and the next day, and the day after that. The saddle is in the Mexican shape, with a high pommel in front, handy for a rope or gun-sling, and a high cantle behind ; it has a deep, smooth seat, and a leather flap behind and attached to the cantle on which the pack rests ; huge wooden stirrups, broad enough to give full support to the foot, and wide enough for the foot to slip easily in and out. A horse-hair belt, six inches wide, with an iron ring at each end, through which runs a buckskin strap to attach it to the saddle, and by which it is drawn tight, forms a "sinch," the 50 TWO TEARS IN OREGON. substitute for girths. The word "sinch" is a good one, and has passed into slang. If your enemy has in- jured you and you propose to return the compliment in the reverse of Christian fashion, "I'll sinch him/' say you. If a poor player has won the first trick by accident, "I guess he'll get sinched soon," says the looker-on. I advise no Englishman to bring saddlery to Oregon. He will save no money by doing so, and will not be fit- ted out so well for the hours-long rides he will have. I have only heard one Englishman out of fifty say that he prefers the English saddle, after getting used to the Mexican, and he had brought one out with him and used it out of pride. Behind the saddle is the pack. Just a clean flannel shirt and a pair of socks, a hair-brush, a comb and tooth-brush, fit us out for a week or two ; baggage be- comes truly "impedimenta" when you have to carry it on your horse. You need not carry blankets now, for there are good stopping-houses at fit distances apart. But you may, if you wish, bring your Martini carbine, or Winchester rifle, for we may meet a deer by the way. So we start. The first mile or two is along the open road. A brown, rather dusty track in the center, beaten hard by the travel ; on either side a broad band of short grass ; and snake-fences, built of logs ten feet long, piled seven high, and interlaced at the ends. In the angles of nearly every panel of the fence grows a rose-bush, now covered with young buds, just showing crimson tips. As we canter by, a meadow-lark gives us a stave of half- finished song from the top of the fence, and flits off to pitch some fifty yards away, in the young green wheat, SNAKES. 51 and try again at his song. The bird is nearly as large as an English thrush, with speckled breast, and a bright- yellow patch under the tail. Just in front of us, on the fence, sits a little hawk, so tame that he moves not till we pass him, and then by turns follows and precedes us along the road, settling again and again upon the tallest rails. He is gayly dressed indeed, with a russet-brown back and head, and a yellow and brown barred and speckled chest, and all the keenness of eye one looks for in his tribe. Early as it is, here and there in the road is one of the little brown snakes that abound in the valley ; se- duced from his hole by the warm sun, he is enjoying himself in the dust, and only just has time to glide hastily away as the horse-hoofs threaten his life. Their harmlessness and use in waging war on beetles, worms, and frogs, ought to save their lives ; but they are snakes, and that suffices to cause every passer-by to strike at them with his staff. The face of the country is vivid green, the autumn- sown wheat nearly knee-high, and the oats running the wheat a race in height and thickness. The orchard- trees close to the farmhouse we are approaching stand clothed from head to foot in flower ; the pear-trees, whose branches are not now curved and bent with fruit, tower as white pyramids above the heads of the blushing apples. Close by the orchard-fence the ewes and lambs feed, the little ones leaping high and throwing themselves away with the mere joy of warm sun and young life. The farmer sees us coming, and scolds back the rough sheep-dog noisily barking at the strangers as he comes to his gate to shake hands. "Won't you hitch 52 TWO YEARS IN OREGON'. your horse and come in ? " he says ; " I want you to look at these bees I have got six swarms already." And under the garden-fence stands a long, low-boarded roof, and under it a whole row of boxes and barrels, of all ages and sizes, with a noisy multitude coming and going. Straw hives are unknown, and any old tea-chest is used. Not much refinement about bee-keeping in Oregon ; but honey fetches from thirty to fifty cents a pound. We mount again, and, passing through a couple of loosely made and carelessly hung gates, we enter the big pasture. Not very much grass in it; it is wet, low-lying, undrained land. The wild-rose bushes are scattered here, there, and everywhere in clumps, and the face of the field is strewed with the dull, light-green, thick and hairy leaves of a wild sunflower, whose bright-yel- low flowers with a brown center, all hanging as if too heavy for the stalk, have not yet matured. The cattle are very fond of this plant, and do well on it. An en- emy of theirs is the lupin, here called the larkspur, one of the earliest of spring plants. Its handsome, dark-blue flowers do not redeem it, for the cattle are deceived by it, eat, and are seized with staggers, and will sink down and die if not seen to and treated. One of our friends tells us that he cures his larkspur-poisoned cattle with fat pork, lumps of which he stuffs down their throats. This information we submit to an unprejudiced public, but we do not guarantee that this remedy will cure. It is generally two-year-old cattle which partake and sicken perhaps the calves have not enterprise enough, and the older cattle too much sense. The plant is not so very common, but it has to be watched for and extirpated when found. Between tin* pasture and the wheat-fields stands another snake-fence THE CARD WELL HILL. 53 and a gate. Alas ! by the gate, and to be crossed before we reach it, is the Slough of Despond a big, deep, un- compromising pool of black, sticky mud. The horses eye it doubtfully, and put down their noses to try if it smells better than it looks, and then step gravely in, girth-high almost, till we open and force back the heavy gate. Skirting the wheat-field, between it and the creek, hardly seen for the undergrowth of rose-bushes and hazel, with here and there a big oak-tree, the road brings us out into a patch of garden-ground, filled with vegetables for the town housekeepers. Just now there is little to be seen but some rows of early peas and spring cabbage. Later on, the long beds of onions, French beans, cauliflowers, and all the rest, with the melons, squashes, or vegetable marrows, pumpkins, cu- cumbers, and tomatoes (which were the glory of the gardener), showed the full advantages of the irrigating ditches, fed by the higher spring, which are led here, there, and everywhere through the patch. For, remem- ber, we had almost continuous fine weather, with hot sun and few showers, from the middle of May till the middle of October. But here is the main road again, which we left to turn across the fields, and we are at the foot of the Card well Hill. The wood lies on both sides of us, and we mount rapidly upward. The wild-strawberry creeps everywhere along the ground, its white flower and yellow eye hiding modestly under the leaves. The catkins on the hazel-bushes dangle from each little bough. The purple iris grows thickly in the frequent mossy spots, and the scarlet columbine peers over the heads of the bunches of white flowers we knew not wheth- 54 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. er to call lilies-of- the- valley or Solomon's seal, for they bear the features of both. The purple crocuses have not yet all gone out of bloom, though their April glory has departed, and the tall spear-grass gives elegance all round to Dame Nature's bouquets. We have ample time to take in all these homely beauties, for the road is too thickly shaded by the wood for the sun to dry the mud, and our horses painfully plod upward, with a noisy "suck, suck," as each foot in turn is dragged from the sticky mass. But the undergrowth is thinner as we mount ; first oak-scrub and then oak-trees growing here and there, with grass all round, take the place of the copse, and the mountain air blows fresh in our faces as we near the summit. Halting for a moment to let the horses regain their breath, we turn and see the whole broad valley lying bright in sunshine far below. So clear is the air that the firs on the Cascades, forty miles away, are hard- ly blended into a mass of dark, greenish gray ; and the glorious snow-peaks shining away there twenty miles behind those firs, look to be on speaking terms with the Coast Range on which we stand. But we pursue our westward course along a narrow track following the hill-side near the top, leaving the road to take its way down below, to round the base of the hill which we strike across. This hill is bare of trees, and is covered now with bright, young, green grass, soon to be dried and shriveled into a dusty brown by the summer sun. We wind round the heads of rocky clefts or canons, down each of which hastens a murmuring stream. There the oaks and alders grow tall, but we look over their heads, so rapid is the de- scent to the vale below. THE YAQUINA VALLEY. 55 The mountains on the distant left of us are Mary's Peak and the Alsea Mountain ; the former with smooth white crown of snow above the dark fir timber; and away to the right, among lower, wooded hills, we catch one glimpse of the burned timber, the thick black stems standing out clear on the horizon-line. Passing down the hill and by the farmhouse at the foot, with its great barn and blooming orchard, we strike the road once more, passing for a mile or two between wheat-fields, with the Mary Eiver on the left closed from our sight by the screen of firs that follow it all the way along ; then by a bridge and by other farms, and between fir-woods of thickly standing trees, and up and down hill, with here and there a level valley in between, we strike the Mary River again for the last time, and climb the Summit Hill. We are twenty-two miles from our starting-point, and claim a meal and rest. We are among old friends as we ride up to Grain's to dine, and the noonday sun is hot enough for us to enjoy the cool breeze among the young firs behind the house, as we stand to wash hands and face by the bench on the side of the dairy built over the stream close by. The horses know their way to the barn, to stand with slackened sinches, and nuzzle into the sweet timothy-hay with which the racks are filled. On our way once more, in half an hour we stand on the edge of the water-shed, and look down far into the Yaquina Valley, lying deep between rugged and broken hills below. As we dip below the crest, the character of the vegetation changes at once. We have left the thick woods behind. The last of the tall green firs clothes the crest we have passed, 56 TWO TEARS IN OREGON. and the black burned timber is dotted along the hill, sides. Last year's brake-fern clothes the hills in dull yel- low and brown, except where patches of thimble-berry and salmon-berry bushes have usurped its place. The wild-strawberry has been almost entirely left behind, and instead there is the blackberry- vine trailing every- where along the rough ground, and casting its purple- tinged tracery over the fallen logs. There is plenty of grass among the fern, and the wild-pea grows erect as yet, not having length enough to bend and creep. The river Yaquina comes down from a wild, rough valley to the right, to be crossed by a wooden bridge close to a farmhouse on rising ground. Two of our recently ar- rived Englishmen have bought this place, and are well satisfied with their position. About eight hundred acres of their own land, of which quite three hundred are cultivable in grain, though not nearly all now in crop, and really unlimited free range on the hills all round for stock ; some valley-land which produces everything it is asked ; a garden-patch where potatoes grew this year, one of which was six pounds in weight ; a comfortable house and substantial barn ; a trout- stream by their doors ; a railroad in near prospect to bring them within two hours of a market at either end ; and, meanwhile, a demand at home for all the oats and hay they can raise for sale it would be strange, indeed, I think, if they who had supposed they were coming into a wilderness with everything to make, were not well pleased. The only things they complain of are the scarcity of neighbors and bad roads both, we hope, in a fair way to be overcome. They look contented enough, as they " CHUCK-HOLES." 57 stand by their house-door to bid us good-day as we ride by. The yalley widens out and narrows again in turn. In each open space stands a farmhouse, or else the site demands one. As we get nearer to the coast, the river forces its way through quite a narrow gorge, following round the point of a projecting fern-covered slope, and under the shadow of the high hill on the northern side. The great blechnum ferns, with fronds three or four feet long, are interspersed with the thimble-berry bushes, and border the road. Syringa and deutzia plants and two varieties of elder, which bear black and red berries, but are now bright with abundant flowers, clothe the steep bank overhanging the river, which here widens out into calm pools, divided by ripples, and runs over rocks. And see, here is a natural bridge ; a huge fir has fallen right across, and the farmer has leveled the ground up to the top of the trunk, some six feet high, and has set up a slender rail on each side of his bridge, and over it he drives his sheep into the less matted and tangled ground on the far side. The road, cut into the steep hill-side, never gets the sunshine ; the mud clogs the horse's feet and fills the "chuck-holes" traps for the unwary driver. Be it known that oftentimes a great log comes shooting down the hill in winter, and brings up in its downward course on the ledge formed by the road. Notice is sent to the road supervisor by the first passer-by, and this functionary, generally one of the better class of farm- ers, who has charge of the road district, calls out his neighbors to assist in the clearing of the road. He has legal power to enforce his summons, but it is never dis- regarded, and the "crowd" fall on with saws, axes, and 58 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. levers. They soon cut a big " chunk" out of the log, some ten feet long, wide enough to clear the center of the road, and roll it unceremoniously away down the hill, or lodge it lengthwise by the roadside. There they leave matters, deeming spade-and-shovel work beneath them. Next winter's rain lodges and stands in the dint made by the trunk when it fell, and in the depression left by the men who rolled the middle of the log away. Never filled up, or any channel cut to run the water off, a ' ( chuck-hole " is formed, which each wagon en- larges as it is driven round the edge to escape the center. Woe betide the stranger who does not altogether avoid, or boldly " straddle," the " chuck-hole " with his wheels ! The side of the wagon whose fore and hind wheels have sunk into the hole dips rapidly down, and he is fortu- nate who escapes without an upset, and with only show- ers of liquid mud covering horses, driver, and load, as the team struggles to drag the wagon through. But, pressing through the gorge, we emerge into a more open stretch. On the right of us rises a smooth, round hill, fern-covered to the top ; and on the opposite side, next the river, planted on a pretty knoll just where the val- ley turns sharply to the north, thereby getting a double view, is Mr. Trapp's farmhouse, our resting-place for the night. We have made our forty-four miles in spite of the muddy road and steep grades, and there is yet time before supper to borrow our host's rod and slip down to the river for a salmon-trout. Excellent fare and comfortable beds prepare us for the eighteen miles we have yet before us on the morrow, and we get an early start. Two miles below Trapp's is Eddy's grist- mill, with its rough mill-dam, made on the model of a beaver-dam, and of the same sticks and stones, but not MINNOWS AND CRAWFISH. 59 so neatly ; the ends of the sticks project over the mill- pool below, and prove the death of numberless salmon, which strike madly against them in their upward leaps, and fall back bruised and beaten into the pool again. An effort was made to pass a law, this last session of the Legislature, compelling the construction of fish- passes through the mill-dams ; but it was too useful and simple a measure to provoke a party fight, and there- fore was quietly shelved. Better luck next time. Presently we leave the Yaquina Eiver, which, for over twenty miles, we have followed down its course ; for never a mile without taking in some little brook, where the minnows are playing in busy schools over the clean gravel, and the crawfish are edging along, and staggering back, as if walking were an unknown art practiced for the first time. The river has grown from the burn we first crossed to a tidal watercourse, with a channel fifteen feet in depth, and, having left its youth- ful vivacity behind, flows gravely on, bearing now a timber-raft, then a wide-floored scow, and here the steam-launch carrying the mail. But we climb the highest hill we have jet passed, where the aneroid shows us eleven hundred feet above the sea-level, and from its narrow crest catch our first sight of the bay, glittering between the fir-woods in the morning sun. We leave the copse-woods behind, and canter for miles along a gently sloping, sandy road ; the hills are thick in fern and thimble-berry bush, with the polished leaves and waxy- white flowers of the sallal frequently pushing through. We have got used by this time to the black, burned trunks, and somehow they seem appro- priate to the view. But the sound of the Pacific waves beating on the rocky coast has been growing louder, 60 TWO YEAES IN OREGON. and as we get to the top of a long ascent the whole scene lies before us. That dim blue haze in the distance is the morning fog, which has retreated from the coast and left its out- lines clear. On the right is the rounded massive cape, on the lowest ledge of which stands Foulweather Lighthouse. The bare slopes and steep sea-face tell of its basaltic formation, which gives perpendicular outlines to the jutting rocks against which, some six miles off, the waves are dashing heavily. Between that distant cape and the Yaquina Light- house Point the coast-line is invisible from the height on which we stand, but the ceaseless roar tells of rocky headlands and pebble-strewed beach. Below us lies the bay, a calm haven, with its narrow entrance right before us, and away off, a mile at sea, a protecting line of reef, with its whole course and its north and south ends distinctly marked by the white breakers spouting up with each long swell of the Pacific waves. Under the shelter of the lighthouse hill, on the northern side, stands the little town of Newport, its twenty or thirty white houses and boat-frequented beach giving the suggestion of human life and interest to the scene. Away across the entrance, the broad streak of blue water marking the deep channel is veined witli white, betraying the reef below soon, we trust, to be got rid of in part by the engineers whose scows and barges are strewed along the south beach there in the sun. On that south side a broad strip of cool, gray sand NEWPORT. 61 borders the harbor, and there stand the ferry-house, and its flag-staff and boats. Looking to the left, the fir-crowned and fern-cov- ered hills slope down to Ford's Point, jutting out into deep water, which flows up for miles till the turn above the mill shuts in the view. But we must not wait, if we mean to catch any flounders before the tide turns, and so we hurry down to the beach and along the hard sand bordering the bay under the broken cliffs, and are soon shaking hands with the cheery landlord of the Sea- View Hotel, who has been watching us from his veranda ever since we descended the hill from Diamond Point. CHAPTER V. Hay-harvest Timothy-grass Permanent pasture Hay-making by ex- press The mower and reaper Hay-stacks as novelties Wheat-har- vest Thrashing The " thrashing crowd " " Headers " and " self- binders" Twine- binders and home-grown flax Green food for cows Indian corn, vetches Wild-oats in wheat Tar-weed the new enemy Cost of harvesting By hired machines By purchased ma- chines Cost of wheat-growing in the Willamette Valley. NEITHER the first nor the second year did hay-har- vest begin with us till after the first week in July. We did not shut the cattle off the hay-fields till the end of February, so that there was a great growth of grass to be made in four months and a half. How different our hay-fields are from those in the old country ! I should dearly like to show to some of these farmers a good old-fashioned Devonshire or Wor- cestershire field, with its thick, solid undergrowth and waving heads. I should like them to see how much feed there was after the crop was cut. Here timothy-grass is everything to the farmer. Certainly, the old -country man would open his eyes to see a crop waist-high, the heavy heads four to seven inches long, and giving two tons to the acre. And he would revel in laying aside for good and all that anxiety as to weather which has burdened his life ever since he took scythe and pitchfork in hand. We expect nothing else but dewy nights and brilliant sunshine, so that the habit is to cut one day, pile the grass into huge cocks TEE MO WEE AND REAPER. 63 the same day, and carry it to the barn the next. Hay- stacks are unknown ; the whole crop is stored away in the barn ; and you may see sixty, eighty, or a hundred tons under the one great roof, and no fear of heating or burning before the farmer's eyes. The glory of the scythe has departed. Every little farmer has his mower, or mower and reaper combined ; or else, if he can not afford to pay two hundred dollars or thereabout for his machine, he hires one from his more fortunate neighbor, and pays him "six bits" that is, seventy-five cents per acre for cutting his crop. Wood's, McCormick's, or the Buckeye, are the favorites here. Our own machine, with one pair of stout horses, cuts from nine to twelve acres a day, according to the thick- ness of the crop and the level or hilly nature of the ground. It looks easy just riding up and down the field all day but try it, and you will find you have to give close attention all the time, to be ready to lift your knives over a lumpy bit of ground or round a stump, and to cut your turns and corners clean ; and there are no springs to your seat, and a mower is not the easiest carriage in the world. Nor is it light work to follow the horse hay-rake all day, lifting the teeth at every swath. Pitching hay is about the same work all the world over, I think ; but at home one does not expect to make acquaintance with quite so many snakes, which come slipping down and twisting and writhing about as the hay is pitched into the wagon. It is true they are harmless, but I don't like them, all the same. We put up a big hay-stack each year, in spite of the most dismal prophecies from our neighbors that the 64: TWO YEARS IN OREGON. rain would mold the hay, that it would not be fit to use, and that even a "town-cow" would despise it (and they will eat anything from deal boards to sulphur- matches, I declare). But the event justified us, and the whole stack of 1879 was duly eaten to the last mouthful. Wheat and oats follow close on the heels of the hay. We finished our stack on the 17th of July, and began cutting wheat on the 27th. There is one harvest, and only one, on record in Oregon, where rain fell on the cut grain and injured it. The rule is to feel absolutely secure of cutting your grain, thrashing it in the field as soon as cut, and carry- ing it from the thrashing-machine straight to the ware- house. There is lively competition to get the thrasher as soon as the grain is cut. The "thrashing crowd," of some seven or eight hands, which accompany the thrasher, have a busy time. They get good wages from the $2.50 for the experienced "feeder" of the machine, to the $1.50 for the man who drives and loads the wagon, or pitches the sheaves. They travel from farm to farm, setting up the thrasher in a central spot, and "hauling" the sheaves to it. The quantity passed through the machine in one long day varies from one thousand to fifteen hundred bushels with horse-power ; driven by steam, the quantity will run up to upward of two thousand bushels. These quantities seem very large by the side of those yielded by English machines, but they are too well authenticated to be open to doubt. A great wheat-field of a hundred acres, with headers and thrasher going at once, is a lively scene. The "header "is a huge construction ten feet wide. Ke- volving frames in front bend the wheat to the knives, "HEADERS" AND "SELF-BINDERS." 65 where it is cut and delivered in an endless stream into a great header-wagon, driven alongside the cutting- machine. Six horses propel the header in front of them, and move calmly along unterrified by the revolv- ing frames and vibrating knives. As soon as the head- er-wagon is filled, it is driven off to the thrasher, whir- ring away in the center of the field, and an empty one takes its place. Six horses to the header, two each to three header- wagons, eight to the horse-power on the thrasher, and one to the straw-rake, are all going at once. One man driving the header, one each to the three wagons, two feeding and tending the thrasher, one fitting and tying up the wheat-bags as the cleaned and finished grain comes pouring from the machine, and one hand at the straw-rake, are all busily at work. Very speedily the field is cleared, and the just now waving grain lies piled in a stack of wheat-bags in the center, waiting the de- parture of the "thrashing crowd," to be hauled by the farmer to the warehouse. A little of the straw is taken to the farmhouse, for use as litter in stable and pig-sty ; the rest is set fire to as soon as the wheat is gone, and a great, unsightly, black patch is the last record in the field of the year's crop. The worst features of the "header" are that the wheat has to be much riper than for the reaper or self- binder, and consequently more is strewed about the field and lost ; the machine cuts the wheat higher up also, and consequently leaves more weeds to ripen and leave their seed. Its advantage is the greater breadth of its cut and more rapid rate of work. In more general use is the reaper or self-binder. 66 TWO TEARS IN OREGON. Several of our farmers' wives and daughters can take their turns on these machines, and give no des- picable help to the hardly-worked men. This year it is expected that twine will be substituted for wire, thus removing one great objection. A twine-binder was exhibited at the State Fair at Salem, in full operation, and worked well. Besides getting rid of the damage and danger of the wire getting into the thrashing- machines, an additional advantage will be the fostering the growth of flax in the State, and its working up into the harvest-twine. Be it known that these counties of the Willamette Valley produce the finest and best of flax, samples of which secured the highest premium at the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia in 1876. The culture of flax and its manufacture afford, as far as I can judge, one of the very best of the various openings at present attracting both labor and capital to the State. As a mere experiment I had twenty-two acres of flax sown on the 17th of June, on some land about three miles from Corvallis which unexpectedly came un- der my control. In seven weeks from that day I gathered a handful, indiscriminately, from an average spot in the field ; the fiber of this was seventeen inches long. The flax that was grown in Linn County, ten miles from here, and used in the twine-factory there, produced fiber from two feet and a half to three feet in length. In January last we saw it hackled, and the workman, a northern Irishman of long experience, told us, as he gave the hank he held in his hand a dexterous and affectionate twist, that he had never handled better in ould Ireland. I should dearly like to see linen-works established here ; not only are linen goods unreasonably dear on GREEN FOOD FOR COWS. 67 the Pacific coast, but it goes against the grain to see a splendid raw material produced and not turned to the best account. Flax is not found here to be an ex- hausting crop. The farmers who haye grown it say, on the contrary, that their best wheat-crop has followed flax ; while to neither one crop nor the other is any fertilizing agent used. One of the great difficulties the farmer finds here is to keep green food going for his cows during the har- vest months. One successful expedient is to grow a patch of Indian corn or maize. Well cultivated, and the ground kept stirred and free from weeds, the absence of rain does not prevent its growth, and its succulent green leaves are eagerly munched at milking-time by the sweet-breathed cows. Another crop just introduced here is the vetch, better known as tares, for the same purpose. Two friends of mine in Marion County, forty miles north of this place, have found the experiment a very successful one ; the appearance of the two or three acres I put in this last winter goes far to justify them. Sown in December, about two bushels to the acre, the growth is very vigorous and the produce heavy. Continuous cropping in wheat for many years has fostered the growth of the wild-oats, now a great dis- figurement and drawback to the wheat-crop in this valley. Traveling north to Portland by train, this last harvest, it was sometimes even hard to say whether wheat or wild-oats were intended to be grown. Noth- ing but summer fallowing, thoroughly applied and regularly followed, can remedy this. I have known a farmer to send his wheat to the mill, and get back half the quantity in wild-oats. 68 TWO TEARS IN OREGON. To the timothy-hay fields a noxious plant called "tar-weed" is the great enemy on all damp or low- lying spots. The plant was new to us, but, once seen, is never forgotten. Fortunately, it matures later than the timothy, and so does not get its seeds transferred ; but it is almost disgusting to see the skins and noses of the horses and cattle turned into the field when the hay is off, coated with a glutinous, viscid gum, to which every speck of dust, every flying seed of weeds, sticks all too tightly. Plowing up the field, and summer fal- lowing, are the only remedies when the tar- weed gets too bad to endure. Tar-weed is an annual which grows some eight or ten inches high, one stalk from each seed ; short, narrow, hairy leaves of a dingy green and a tiny colorless flower offer no compensation in beauty for the annoyance it occasions as you pass through the field, and find boots and trousers coated with the sticky gum. It is a relief to know that it affects the valley only, and does not mount even the lower hills of the Cascade and Coast Eanges. Before leaving the subject of harvesting I ought to give the cost. It is not now the question of the capitalist who can afford to pay from $750 to $1,200 for his thrashing- machine in addition to $320 for his self-binding har- vester to cut his grain ; but of the struggling farmer, who has to make both ends meet by economy and fore- thought. We will suppose that he has seventy acres of wheat to harvest, and that it will produce twenty bushels to the acre, a moderate suggestion. The cutting and binding in sheaves of the crop by a neighbor's self-binder will cost him $1.25 per acre, COST OF HARVESTING. 69 the contractor supplying the wire. The machine will cut and bind nearly ten acres a day ; the cost, there- fore, for the seventy acres will be $87.50, or say $90, to be safe. The thrashing will cost him six cents a bushel for his wheat, or $84 for his fourteen hundred bushels ; and the farmer has to supply food for the men and horses whose services he hires. This expense will natu- rally vary according to the liberality and good manage- ment of the farmer and his wife. It falls heavily on the hostess to provide for seven or eight hungry men, in addition to her own family ; but plentiful food, well cooked, is no bad investment, for it reacts strongly on both the quantity and the quality of the work done. A fair average cost is fifty cents a day for each man, and the same for each horse. The expense of keep of the cutting and binding, man and three-horse team for seven days, will, therefore, be $15. On a similar basis the keep of the "thrashing crowd" and twelve horses, for a day and a half and something over, will cost just The total outlay, therefore, on harvesting a wheat- crop of twenty bushels per acre on seventy acres, when all services and all machines have to be hired, will be $205. Or an average of just fourteen and two-thirds cents per bushel. A glance will show what a good investment the self- binding harvester is, if only well cared for when harvest is over. The farmer who has a machine of his own saves more than six cents a bushel, and, on a crop of fourteen hundred bushels only, would pay for the ma- chine in less than four years. Let us see, then, what wheat-growing in the Willa- 70 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. mette Valley costs a matter of deep interest to the in- tending emigrant, and to farmers in other parts of the world who ha^ e to compete with Oregon-grown wheat. "We will take the same seventy acres, as a reasonable extent for a small valley farm. Once plowing, at the rate of two acres a day with a three-horse team, or one and a half acre for a two-horse team that is thirty- five days' labor for man and three horses. Twice har- rowing, at the rate of fourteen acres a day that is ten days' labor for a man and two horses. Sowing, at the rate of twenty-one acres a day, or three and a third days' labor for a man and four horses. The seed will cost $98, at the rate of two bushels per acre and sev- enty cents a bushel. The cost, therefore, of growing the crop will be $98 in money, and the labor of one man for forty-eight days and a third, and of a pair of horses for sixty-nine and a quarter days. Putting the farmer's labor into money at the rate of a dollar a day, and that of his team also at the rate of half a dollar a day for each horse (and these are here the regular rates of wages), the result will be $117.50 ; add the $98 for the seed, and you arrive at a total of $215.50 ; or, on seventy acr.es, an average of three dol- lars and eight cents an acre ; or, on fourteen hundred bushels, of fifteen and four-tenths cents per bushel. To this add the fourteen cents and two-thirds for har- vesting and thrashing, and add twelve days' labor for man and one team of horses hauling the grain to the warehouse : this represents an additional cost of one cent and seven tenths per bushel, and the total cost then is thirty-one cents and seven tenths per bushel. Remember that this wheat is grown on the farmer's COST OF WHEAT-GROWING. 71 own freehold, which may have cost him twenty or twenty-five dollars per acre. Do not forget also a taxation of about fifteen thousandths a year on the total value of the farmer's estate, as arranged between him and the assessor land, stock, implements, and everything else he has beyond about three hundred dollars' worth of excepted articles. But add no rent or tithe, and recollect that in this calculation the farmer's own labor and that of his team are charged at market price against the crop. The charge for warehousing the wheat till it is sold is four cents a bushel ; and the wheat-sacks, holding two bushels each, will cost from ten to twelve cents each. Add, therefore, still nine and a half cents a bushel for subsequent charges, and the farmer who kept ac- counts would find his wheat, in the warehouse and ready for market, represented to him an outlay of forty-one cents and a quarter a bushel. If he sells at eighty-five cents a bushel, that gives him a profit of $8. 75 per acre on the portion of his farm in wheat. CHAPTER VI. The farmer's sports and pastimes Deer-hunting tales A roadside yarn Still-hunting Hunting with hounds An early morning's sport Elk The pursuit The kill Camp on Beaver Creek Flounder- spearing by torchlight Flounder-fishing by day In the bay Eock oysters The evening view The general store Skins Sea-otters Their habits The sea-otter hunters Common otter The mink and his prey. THE Oregon farmer has one great advantage over his Eastern or European brother. Starting from the first of January, he has until July comes a good many days wherein he can amuse himself without the detestable feeling that he is wasting his time and robbing his fam- ily. The ground may be either too hard or too soft for plowing ; or he may have sown a large proportion in the autumn and early winter, and so have little ground to prepare and sow in spring ; and he has little, if any, stock-feeding to do as yet. A good supply of hay is the only addition to the pasture-feed that he need provide ; so long, that is, as he is content to work his farm in Oregon fashion. Many a one is within reach of the hills where range the deer, and shares in the feeling strongly expressed to me the other day, " I would rather work all day for one shot at a deer, than shoot fifty wild-ducks in the swamps." As I was riding out to the hills not long since, I met an old friend of mine returning from a week's hunt in the regions at the back of Mary's Peak, His long-bodied farm- wagon held some cooking- A ROADSIDE YARN. 73 utensils, the remains of his store of flour and bacon and coffee, his blankets, his rifle, and the carcasses of his deer. With him were two noble hounds, Nero and Queen powerful, upstanding dogs ; stag-hounds with a dash of bloodhound in them ; black and tan, with a fleck of white here and there. " Had a good time, John ? " we asked, as we stopped at the top of a long hill for a chat. " Well, pretty good ran four deer and killed three ; got my boots full of snow, and bring home a bad cold," he answered. "Where did you camp ?" " Away up above Stillson's, there " pointing to the mountain-side just where the heavy fir- timber grew scat- tering and thin, and the clean sweep of the sloping crest came down to meet the wood. " We was there inside of a week, hunting all the time." "See any bear ? " " Just lots of sign, but I guess my dogs haven't lost any bear ; the old dog got too close to one a bit ago, and came home with a bloody head and a cut on his shoulder a foot long. " ' ' Eind many deer ? " " Had two on foot at once one day : killed one, and hit the other^ but he jumped a log just as I shot, and I guess I only barked him ; I ran after him to try for another shot before he got clear off down the canon, but I tumbled over a log myself in the snow, and just got wet through, and my boots all filled with it." "Pretty rough up there, isn't it?" "Well, it wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fallen timber ; but you can't get through them woods fast when you have to run round the end of one big log one minute and then duck under an- other, and then scramble on to the next for dear life, and half the time get only just in time to see the last of the deer as he gets into the thick brush." "Better come out with us after the ducks, John." "Blamed if 74 TWO TEARS IN OREGON. I do ! " came out with an unction and energy that star- tled us. " Can't understand what you fellers can see in that duck-hunting." And, with a cheery good-by, the old boy spoke to his horses, and off they went down the hill, the brake hard held, and the wagon pushing the team before it on the rough corduroy road. Still-hunting is the more sportsmanlike way; but the deadlier fashion is this hunting with two or three hounds : the slower they run, the more chance for the guns. One day last summer, returning from the bay, we stopped for the night at a farm by the roadside, among the burned timber. The fern had not grown up yet, but the hillsides were green and thick with salmon-berry and thimble-berry growth. Two or three hounds not of the very purest breed, but still hounds were lounging about the door, and greeted us with a noisy welcome as we dismounted. The sons of the house were telling, round the fire before we went to bed, of the hundred and thirty deer they had already killed this season. They urged us to have a hunt in the morning, promising to get all done, so that we might be on the journey again by nine in- stead of seven. Breakfast was over by a quarter to six, and we started. Four in the party two farmers' sons and two travelers and three hounds. The huntsman carried a Henry rifle of the old model ; his younger brother a rifle of the old school long, brown, heavy-barreled, throwing a small, round bullet. Round the huntsman's neck hung an uncouth cow's horn, to recall the hounds if they strayed too far away. The sun was just driving off the early mist as we HUNTING WITH HOUNDS. 75 tramped along the road by the side of the river, toward the spot where they intended throwing off. But before we reached the place a quick little hound threw up her head, and, with a short, sharp cry, dashed into the brush between us and the riyer ; the other hounds fol- lowed, and we heard the plunge and splash as the deer, so suddenly roused from his lair, took to his heels. The hounds took up in full cry along the opposite caflon, which led high up the hill-side, and the hunts- man followed, his jacket changing color at once as he pushed through the dew-laden brush. Under the guidance of the younger brother, we crossed the river also, and, following the farther bank, soon came to an open, grassy spot, from the upper side of which a view was got of the course of the river as it wound round the lower side in a graceful sweep. The trees, willow and alder, were thick on the bank, but here and there we caught more than a glimpse of the brown water as it hurried along. One of us being posted here, our guide took the other still higher up the stream. Sitting down under the lee of a big old log, its black- ness hidden under the trailing brambles and bright ferns, we waited and watched. The cry of the hounds came faint on the air from the hill-side above us, hounds and quarry alike invisible, and, as the sides of the caflon caught the sounds, echo returned them to us from all points in turn fainter and still fainter, until we thought the chase had gone clear over the mountain into the distant valley beyond ; and we sat watching the two little chipmunks, grown hardy by our stillness, which were chasing each other 76 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. in and out among the brambles, then stopping to watch us with their bright-black, beady eyes. No sounds at all, and then a far-off music, just audi- ble and no more. But it comes nearer, and we see our guide creeping toward us, rifle in hand, his face white with excitement and suspense. He can not resist the temptation of passing us to get command of the lower reach of the stream, and we have sympathy with his nineteen years, and take no notice. Presently a dis- tant splash in the river, and then a scrambling and splashing along the water's edge, and we catch a glimpse of a bright-yellow body flitting rapidly between the trees. The young hunter's rifle cracks, but the deer only gains in speed and dashes by. There is a clear space of ten or fifteen yards between the tree- trunks on our right, and, as the deer rushes past, we get a quick sight, almost like a rabbit crossing a ride in cover at home, and the Winchester rings out. Whether by luck or wit we will not say, but the splash ceases suddenly, and, running to the bank, there lies the deer, shot through the neck close to the head, drawing his last long breath. He was soon dragged out on to the grassy bank, and a feeling of pity was uppermost as we admired his graceful limbs, neat hoofs, and shapely head. In about ten minutes' time came the hounds, their eager cry ceasing as they caught sight of their quarry, lying motionless before them. The last hunters' rites were speedily paid, and we went a mile higher up the stream, to where a brook joined it, flowing quickly down from the southern hill. The hounds were again thrown into the brush, and before long were once more in full cry. This time the shot fell to the young huntsman's share, and we saw STILL-HUNTING. 77 toothing of the chase till, hearing his rifle, and noticing the ceasing of the voices of the hounds, we pushed our way to the spot, to find the obsequies of a second deer already in progress. Leaving one deer on a log by the roadside, with a note attached to it, asking the stage-driver to pick it up and bring it for us into Corvallis, when he passed, in a couple of hours' time, we retraced our steps, mount- ed our horses, and were on our road, according to prom- ise, by very soon after nine o'clock. Still-hunting is a more arduous business. The hunter has the work to do of finding the deer ; his rifle must slay it ; if he wounds it, he must follow it on foot ; the imly help he can get is that of one steady old dog, which must never stray from his side. Starting from his camp in the early dawn, he mounts the hill-side, carefully examining each likely spot of brush as he passes it, taking special note of each shel- tered patch of fern. Very carefully he climbs the logs, avoiding every dead branch that may crackle under his weight, and parting the brush before he pushes through. When he reaches the crest, he follows it along, scruti- nizing every cation closely, for his prey lies very wisely hidden. At last, he sees a gentle movement in the brush, and the deer rises from his lair, stretches his neck, arches his back, and snuffs round at each point of the compass to try if there be danger in the air. The hunter sees his chance, judges his distance as cleverly as he can, remembering that in this clear mountain air he is almost sure to underestimate the range ; the shot rings out, and the deer springs high into the air, to fall crashing down the steep cafion-side. The common deer of Western Oregon is the black- 78 TWO TEARS IN OREGON. tailed Cervus Columbianus. In the early spring many of them leave the mountains and traverse the valley- land to the closely timbered sloughs and brush border- ing the Willamette River. But, as the valley has been more closely cultivated and the farms_spread in a nearly unbroken line, the deer have but a poor chance. Some settler is almost sure to get a glimpse of the visitor as he tops the snake-fence into the oat-field for his morn- ing feed, and the rifle, or worse, the long muzzle-load- ing shot-gun which carries five buckshot at a charge, hangs by or over the wide fireplace. If not killed out- right, the poor beast carries with him a lingering and dangerous wound. But, away in the hills, I do not hear that the number is appreciably diminished ; many of the hunters get a deer almost every time they go out. So wasteful are they that they carry off only the hind quarters, which they call the hams, and the hide, leaving the fore quarters and head to taint the air. The white-tailed deer (Cervus leucurus) is now very rare. lie frequents the more open spots ; he chooses the bare slopes. at the top of Mary's Peak and the Bald Mountain ; he is not so shy as his black-tailed brother, and so falls an easier victim to the rifle. He abounds in the Cascade Range on the eastern side of the Wil- lamette Valley, where he is found in the same haunts as the larger mule-deer. The noblest deer we have in Oregon is the wapiti (Cervus Canadcnsis), invariably known in this country as elk. A day or two ago I saw a pair of fresh horns stand- ing in front of one of the stores in the town, which were quite four feet six inches long, spread three feet six inches at the tips, and weighed forty pounds by scale. ELK. 79 As we handled them, a dry-looking, bearded, long-boot- ed fellow joined the group. " Those horns are nothing much," said he ; "I killed an elk some time back in the Alseya country, back of Table Mountain, that when we set the horns on the ground, tips downward, a feller could walk upright through them." "Oh, yes," said we ; " did you walk through them, stranger ? " " Wai, no, I guess not," said he, "but a feller might, you know." The elk go in bands of from seven to twenty in number, and their tracks through the woods are tram- pled as though a drove of cows had passed along. To kill an elk you can not go out before breakfast and return to dine. You must secure a good guide, who knows the mountains well ; you must take a pack-horse, with food and blankets, as far into the wilds as the last settlement reaches, and there leave him. Then slinging your blankets round your shoulders, and packing some flour, bacon, and coffee, a small fry- ing-pan and coffee-pot, and tin cup, into the smallest possible compass, and taking your rifle in your hand, not forgetting the tobacco, you must strike into the woods. When night comes on, build your fire, fry your ba- con, make some damper in the ashes, smoke the pipe of peace, and lie down under the most sheltering bush. No snakes will harm you, nor will wolf or cougar mo- lest you, and the softness of your bed will not tempt you to delay long between the blankets after the first streak of dawn. Eise and breakfast, and then on again. All that day, perhaps, you will have to tramp on and on, seeking one mountain-slope after another ; here skirting brush too 80 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. thick to penetrate, there walking easily through the low fern among the massive red and furrowed trunks of the gigantic firs. Your guide finds "sign," and reports that it is not fresh enough to follow ; so pursues his course till, look- ing back on the devious miles of weary wandering, you can hardly credit it that you have been but eight-and- f orty hours on the trail. But your camp is pitched once more, and dawn has again roused you from your ferny bed. Listen ! the branches are crackling and rustling close by. You and your guide race for the spot, rifle in hand, too eager almost to duly remember woodland rules of caution. Crouching and crawling as you get closer to the sounds, peering through the fern, you see what ? Six, eight, ten, twelve, seventeen great beasts ; one with enormous head, two others with smaller but still imposing antlers ; the rest the mothers of the herd. Unconscious of danger, they browse round ; both rifles speak together, and the monarch and one of the smaller stags lie prostrate. You stay hidden ; the deer group together in a confused crowd, too foolish and excited to think of flight. Again your comrade fires, and an- other falls, and yet another, till, in disgust at the need- less slaughter, you step from your shelter, and the sur- vivors rush madly away, crashing through the wood as if a herd of cattle were in flight. I have known men, not usually cruel or excitable, get so maddened in a scene like this, that seven great elk lay dead together before they thought of stopping firing ; and yet they knew that from the wilderness they stood in it was impossible to carry off the meat of even one ! Many hunters prefer elk-meat to any deer ; others CAMP ON BEA VER CREEK. 81 think the fawn of the white-tailed deer the best eating in the world. One night last summer we camped out on Beaver Creek, nine miles south of the Yaquina, along the beach. We had been trout-fishing all day from a canoe, and were glad to stretch out before the fire limbs that had been somewhat cramped from the need of balancing the rocking craft with every cast of the fly. Before the fire stood roasting a row of trout, held in place over the hot embers by a split willow wand. We heard voices approaching through the wood, and presently a half- breed hunter and two friends of ours came in sight. They had been out two days after elk, but failed to find. On the way back they came across a doe and well-grown fawn ; the latter they had killed, and brought it in. It was speedily skinned and cut up, and a loin, shoulder, and leg were skewered on sticks and roasting in the blaze. No bad addition to our fish sup- per, deer-meat and trout ; the coffee was the only con- tribution of civilization to the meal, and a merry even- ing, extended far into the night, followed, as the logs were piled on, and the ruddy glow and showers of sparks lighted up the wild but comfortable scene, danc- ing in the lights and shadows of the overhanging trees. Did you ever hear of flounder-spearing by torch- light ? I have tried it, and do not propose to try it again. Yaquina Bay abounds in flounders a flat fish resembling the turbot more than the flounder ; red- spotted like the plaice, and weighing from one pound ,up to five or six. After nightfall, when the evening tide has just turned to come in, and the sandy channels and banks are all but bare, away from the main deep-water, channels of the bay, you may see tiny specks of distant 82 TWO TEARS IN OREGON. lights moving on the black water. These are the Ind- ian canoes. Take a skiff from the beach by the hotel at Newport, and row out to sea. Here are two or three lights near together, under Heddon's Point, on the south shore. Row on till the lights in the hotel are blended into one, and the dark outlines against the sky of the overhanging cliffs are lost to sight. No sound reaches you in the darkness, but the recurring rattle of the sculls in the rowlocks, and the soft lapping of the tide. The lights you are seeking grow brighter, and you distinguish the glare of the fire and the moving, dim form of the fisherman. The canoe, some sixteen feet long, is boarded roughly across amidships, and on a thin layer of sand and wood-ashes burns a pine-knot fire. The Indian stands in the bows, his back to the fire ; as you look, he poles himself along by driving the handle of his long spear into the sand underlying the shallow channel. His fire burns dim for a moment, and he turns and with the same spear-handle he trims it ; then, stooping, throws on it a fresh lump of the resinous pine. The fire dulls for an instant, then flares with a bright light, and a thick puff of smoke rises into the air, on which the glare falls strongly. The short, athletic form of the Indian, and his swarthy, flattened features, glittering eyes, and bushy hair, stand out for a moment in strong relief. He turns, and again looks keenly into the black water. A moment, and he strikes, the spear making the water flash as it dips swiftly in. Yes, he has it, and the frail boat quivers as he balances it ere he lifts out his struggling prey, and, with a deft, quick motion, throws the fish off, flapping and bouncing on a heap of victims in the stern of the canoe. Without a smile or word, or an FLOUNDER-SPEARING BY TORCHLIGHT. 83 instant's respite, he turns again and resumes his keen watch, moving to the shallower waters as the tide makes. I had a friend who was an enthusiast in the sport, and he beguiled me to join him. About eight we started, and about two in the morning we returned. Warm as the weather was, I was chilled to the bone ; and the worst of it was, I had not succeeded in striking one single fish. My friend armed me with a long spear and a lantern, and deposited me in the stern of the boat ; similarly provided, he knelt in the bow and pushed the skiff along from bank to bank of sand and mud. My light did not burn brightly enough to show more than the dimmest outlines of the fish, just off the sandy bottom of the bay. Here scuttled an old crab, scared by the novel light, and hurrying for shelter, crab-fashion, to the nearest bunch of weeds. There was a school of tiny fish, their silver sides glancing as the ray reached them ; and there, again, a quick, white flash betrayed the sea-perch, not waiting to be spoken to. Every now and then my friend darted his long spear at what he said were the flounders, but I could see nothing with my untrained eyes but a gray cloud and a gentle stirring of the sand. He did get one fish at last ; and I, being too proud to say how bored and tired I was, waited sleepily for the rising tide to drive us home. How glad was I when he announced that the water was now too deep to see distinctly, and how thankfully I stumbled up the slimy steps by the little wharf and in to bed ! Flounder-fishing in the daytime is good sport. Find out the nearest camp of Indians there on the beach, crowded under a shelter of sea- worn planks, a few fir- 84 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. boughs, and a tattered blanket ; the smell of tainted fish pollutes the air, and a heap of flounders, each with the triangular spear-mark, attests the skill of last night's fishermen. " Any fish, muck - a - muck ? " say you, blandly. Without turning her head, or raising herself from her crouching posture by the old black kettle, stewing on a tiny fire of sticks in the center of the hut, the old crone grunts out, "Halo" (none). "Want two bit ? " you say, nowise discouraged. Money has magic power nowadays, and she rises slowly and shuffles past you to where a rag or two are drying in the sun on a stranded log. From under the clothes she brings out a dirty basket of home make, and in it is a heap of greenish, struggling prawns. She turns out two or three handfuls into the meat-tin you haye providently brought, holds out her skinny hand for the little silver pieces, and buries herself in her shanty without another word. Fit out your fishing-lines and come aboard ; the tide has turned, and the wind blows freshly across the bay. The surf keeps up its continuous roar on the rocky reefs outside. On the sand-bank in front of you sits a row of white and gray gulls preening themselves in the morning sun ; a couple of ospreys are sailing overhead in long, graceful, hardly-moving sweeps, and away out by the north head hangs an eagle in the air, watching the ospreys, that he may cheat them of the fish he looks to see them catch. Set the sail and let her go free, and away rushes the little boat, tired of bobbing at her moorings by the pier away across the bay, to where the south beach sinks in gentle, sandy slope. Take care of that waving weed, or we shall be on the edge of the bank ! Here FLOUNDER-FISHING BY DAY. 85 we are, and down goes the kedge in six feet of water, close to but just clear of that same edge. Now for the bait ; tie it on tightly with that white cotton, or the flounders will suck it off so fast that you will have nothing else to do but keep replacing it. Keep your sinkers just oft 2 the bottom, and a light hand on the line. A gentle wriggle, a twitch, and you have him ; haul him in steadily. Up he comes, a four-pound- er, tossing and flopping in the bottom of the boat. Here comes a great crab, holding on to the bait grimly, and suffering you to catch him by one of his lower legs and toss him in. Now for a sea-perch ; what a splendid color ! bands of bright scarlet scales, interlaced with silver. But what is this ? A stream of water flows from the fish's mouth, and in it come out five or six little ones, the image of their parent. I wonder if it is true (and I think it is) that the little ones take refuge inside their parent in any time of need ? The fishermen on this coast call this the "squaw-fish," from this shel- tering, maternal instinct. But we have been here long enough ; the water is too deep, the fish have gone off the feed, and we shall have to beat back, lucky if we do in two hours the dis- tance we ran in half an hour on our way. The tide has run nearly out this evening : a good chance for some rock-oysters. Get your axe and come along. Where ? Along the coast toward Foulweather ; we shall find those long reefs almost bare. We climb over the big reef on the north head of the harbor, under the lighthouse hill, and wind in and out on the hard Band among the rough rocks, all crusted over their sides with tiny barnacles. There is little kelp or sea- weed here. The surf beats too powerfully in this 86 TWO TEARS IN OREGON. recess, away from the shelter of the great outer reef. See that group of Indian women and children away out there, barelegged, digging with their axes in the rock. They are after the rock-oysters too. Now is our chance. Jump on to that rock before the next wave comes in, and climb on to the reef beyond it and get out to low-water mark. Here we are. Do you see that crevice ? Chip in and wrench the piece oS ; the rock is soft enough sandstone to cut with that blunt old axe. Here is the spoil soft mollusks, are they not, and not pretty to look at ? But wait for the soup at dinner to-morrow before you pronounce on them. And we dig, and then venture farther out and farther, till the turn of the water warns us to get back. The evening is closing in ; the sun has set, leaving a hot, red glow, where his copper disk has just sunk beyond the Pacific horizon ; and the eye wanders out from the infant waves, at foot just tinged with red, and reflecting the light as they move up in turn to catch it, to the blue and still darker blue water beyond, out to the sharp indigo line where sky and water meet. No land between us and the Eastern world ; the mind can hardly grasp the idea of the vast stretch of sea across which this new world reaches forth to join hands with old China and Japan. Before we go to bed, step for a moment into the quaint general store all but adjoining the hotel. What a medley ! Flour and axes ; bacon and needles and thread ; fishing-lines and bullock-hides ; writing-paper and beaver-traps ; milk-pails and castor-oil ; tobacco in plenty, and skins ; and a smell compounded of all these and more, but chiefly the product of that batch SEA-OTTERS. 87 of skins hanging from that big nail in front of you, and lying piled on the bench by your side. Take them down, and turn them over ; Bush won't mind. And we shake hands with the proprietor, coming from the darkness at the back. He has borne an honorable limp ever since the war, and has never yet quite recovered from illness and wounds. He swears by Newport as the best, and healthiest, and most promising place in the world. " Say," he whispers in our ear, "got a sea- otter skin to-day 1 " " Where did you get it. Bush, and who from, and how much did you have to pay for it ? " "Got it from the Indians," he says; "they shot it away up by Salmon Eiver, beyond Foulweather, and had to give more dollars for it than I care to say." "Where did they get it ?" "Where they always do, away out in the kelp among the surf." "Don't they ever come to land?" "No," he answers, "they live, and sleep,' and breed out in the kelp. But if you want to know all about them, why don't you ask Charlie here ? He has been trading this summer, and last winter and spring, up by Gray's- Inlet in Washington Territory, where they are plenty." So saying, he calls up the captain of the steam-schooner lying at her moorings by the quay. From this man, and from hunters and Indians all along the coast, I have gathered many a tale of the habits of the sea-otter, and of the fate of those that have been killed ; for the rarity of the beast, and the beauty and value of its skin, interest these men, both from their hunters' instinct and from the mere money business of it. I know also that scientific naturalists desire all the facts they can get, that such facts may be placed on record before this connecting link between 88 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. the seals and the otters perishes from the earth. I be- lieve that the sea-otter (Enliydra marina) -is only met with on this north Pacific coast, along which it is gradually being driven northward by constant hunting. Thirty years ago they were common along the Oregon sea-line ; now the killing of a single speci- men is noted in the newspapers ; and hardly more than one a year is generally met along the coast. They in- habit the belt of tangle and kelp, which is found a few hundred yards from the beach, beyond the shore-line of sand or rock. They are never seen ashore, or even on isolated rocks ; when the sea is warm and still, they live much on the surface, playing in the weed ; some- times, supporting their fore-feet on the thickest part of the wavy mass, they raise their head and shoulders above the weed, and gaze around. Parents and children live together in the weed ; I have not heard of more than two young ones being seen in the family group. The skeleton is about four feet long : the fore-paws are short, strong, and webbed; almost in the same pro- portions as a mole's ; the hinder extremities are flap- pers, like the seal's. The hide is twice the size of the common otter's ; the fur the most beautiful, soft, thick, and glossy in the world dark-brown outside, and almost yellow beneath, like the seal's. They are sometimes shot from a steam-schooner, like my friend's, lying-to at a safe distance, but much more commonly from the shore. Along the coast of Gray's Inlet several hunters make a regular business of it. Quite high watch-towers of timber are built just above high- water mark, and on these the hunter climbs with his long- range rifle, and watches. He provides a man on horse- back to follow any otter he may be fortunate enough to COMMON OTTER. MINK. 89 kill, up or down the coast, and take possession of it when thrown up on the beach by the tide. These men seem to prefer the Sharp rifle for accuracy of long- range fire. That they are no mean proficients may be judged when I mention that one hunter killed upward of sixty last year ; the skins, or most of them, my friend the captain bought, at prices, varying with size and condition, of from fifty to one hundred dollars each. I am told that about August the young ones are seen in company with their parents ; but that the otters may be met with at almost any time in the year when the sea is calm enough for them to be marked among the tangle. The common otter (Lutra Californica) abounds in the tidal portions of the rivers along this coast. Two Indians, whom I know, shot six in an hour or two among the rocks bordering a little cove some eight miles north of the Yaquina, into which a little river empties itself. The skins are not quite so large as those of the English otter, but the fur is valuable. The mink (Putorius visori) resembles the polecat, but is nearly twice as large, with nearly black fur ; it fre- quents the borders of the streams, and takes to the water with the greatest readiness. We have rabbits in Oregon (Lepus Washingtonii) not much more than half the size of the common rabbit of Europe, but similar in habits and place of residence. It is on these that the mink chiefly preys. I was walking my horse along a quiet stretch of sandy road, between thick bushes, returning from the Yaquina one day in sum- mer, when a rabbit darted out before my horse and down the road for a hundred yards as hard as he could go ; then into the bushes, then back into the 90 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. road, and up the other side, close to me, evidently in the greatest fear. I stopped to see. Presently, a mink came out where poor Bunny first appeared nose to the ground, and hunting like a ferret. He followed the rabbit's track step by step down the road, into the bushes, back again close to me, then into the brush ; and then out came poor rabbit again, the heart gone out of him. Stopping an instant, then going on a few steps, stopping again, and at last, trembling, he bunched himself into his smallest com- pass in the middle of the road, and there awaited his fate. Not losing one twist or turn, patient, fierce, in- exorable, the enemy followed, not raising his nose from the trail till he was almost on his prey. Then a quick bound ; the rabbit was seized by the head, almost with- out a struggle, and dragged nearly unresisting into the bushes down toward the river's edge, while I passed on, musing on the points of resemblance between cousins on opposite sides of the world. Fortunately, these rabbits are very scarce. They are hardly seen in the valley ; they live solely in the woods, never in or about the cultivated ground. CHAPTER VII. Birds in Oregon Lark Quail Grouse Buffed grouse "Wild-geese Ma- noauvres in the air Wild-ducks Mallard Teal Pintail Wheat- duck Black duck Wood-duck Snipe Flight-shooting Stewart' s Slough Bitterns Eagles Hawks Homed owls Woodpeckers Blue-jays Canaries The canary that had seen the world Blue- birds Bullfinches Snow-bunting Humming-birds at home. I HAYE read comments on the scarcity of birds in America. This may be true in some parts ; here, in Oregon, we have abundance, except of singing-birds. Of these last the meadow-lark is almost the sole exam- ple ; and his song, in its fragmentary notes and minor key, does not even remind one distantly of his English cousin, who always seems to express by his gush of com- plete and perfect melody the joy that fills his being : "... In a half sleep we dream, And dreaming hear thee still, singing lark ! That singest like an angel in the clouds." The quail (Oreortyx pictus) has one long, sweet whistle, with the peculiarity that it is almost impossi- ble to follow up and find the bird by his note ; it sounds so close that you expect the bird is standing on the near- est log, but you look in vain ; then it calls you from a hundred yards off, among the brush ; again from the other side, and you try to drive him out of the left- hand thicket ; but all the while your dog is working in the wood twenty yards ahead. You turn your head 92 TWO TEARS IN OREGON. just in time to see a dark-brown bird flit like a flash across the road and disappear. In the shooting-season the quail is one of the hard- est birds to kill. They run in front of the dog in the brushwood with the greatest speed, then rise and fly for fifty or a hundred yards like lightning, and then take to their heels again. In harvest- time the grouse (Tetrao olscurus), here called the partridge, come down from the fir-woods to the grain-fields and give good sport. They frequent the corners of the fields, nearest to the brush, and as the brood rise, ten or a dozen in number, and wing quickly across to shelter in the wood, it reminds one of old times and of partridge-shooting in Norfolk or Suf- folk ten years ago. When the grain is cleared off, the grouse keep to the slips and corners of brush nearest to the field for some weeks. As the season advances, they take to the fir- woods again, and lose their interest to the sportsmen by becoming in the first place almost impossible to find, and next worthless for the table from their turpentine taste. After the grouse have left the harvest-fields and got back into the woods, the shot-gun sportsman must be quick indeed to shoot as the bird rises and makes for the nearest tall fir. There he perches and defies you. The rifle-shot waits till the bird has taken up its place on the bough and peers over to look after the dog ; then he shoots and often kills, though the head and neck of a grouse thirty or forty yards off is not a very big mark. The ruffed grouse (Bonassa SaMnensis), here called the pheasant, is a fourth larger than the common grouso, with beautiful bright-brown plumage, dashed with yel- low, and a spreading tail. He frequents the oak-grubs WILD-GEESE. 93 and scattering brush of the foot-hills, and is found all through the less dense portions of the woods of the Coast Eange. He gives good sport, rising to the dog and giving a longer flight, and offering the sportsman a fairer chance. As soon as the first half of October has passed by, the cry of the wild-geese is heard far away in the sky, and their V-shaped companies are seen winging their southward course. These first advance-guards do not stay, and scarcely ever descend low enough to tempt even the most sanguine shot. But in a week or so the main army arrives. Following up the general course of the Willamette Eiver, they betake themselves to the sand- and gravel-bars of the river to spend the night, leaving in the early morning for the bare harvest-fields, where, after a vast amount of debate and consideration, and many long, circling flights, they descend to feed. Now every kind of firearms sees the light, and the gun- maker of the town begins to reap his harvest. As you ride along the country roads in the valley, you see a lurking form behind almost every fence. It is a kind of sport exactly suiting the average Oregonian, who likes his game to come to him, and is great at watch- ing for it. Following with your eye the line of timber that be- tokens the river's course, you see six or seven great flocks of geese (Bernicla Canadensis) on the wing at once ; some in the far distance, mere specks in the air, others near enough for you to overhear their conversation, which goes on continually. However confused the crowd that rises from the river, it is but a few seconds until order is taken. One flies to the head to guide the band, others take places on either side behind him ; regu- 94 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. lar distances are kept, leaving just enough room for free motion, but no more. Inside the head of the V, and generally on its left side, fly two or three geese in a little independent group. I think it is from these that the officer appears in turn to lead the van. How many times have I watched their evolutions with delight ! all the keener that the band was coming my way ; that the quick, regular beats of the wings had nearly stopped, and the spread pinions showed they were about alighting in the very field under the snake- fence of which I crouched, double-barrel in hand. The voices grow louder ; the conversation and debate is perfectly confusing ; they are near enough for you to note the outstretched necks and quick eyes glancing from side to side ; the blue-gray colors on the wings, with the black bars, are plain. Waiting till they have passed over, some thirty yards to the right for it is of no avail to shoot at them coming to you (the thick feathers turn the shot) here go two barrels at the nearest birds. What a commotion ! There is a perfect uproar of voices all declaiming at once, and away they scatter as hard as they can, resuming regular order in a hundred yards, but leaving one poor bird flapping on the ground. My dog runs to pick him up, but can't make out the big bird, and comes inquiringly back to know what on earth I mean by shooting at birds he surely has seen " Yes, about the home-pond, master what are you about ? " The geese are sorely destructive to the autumn-sown wheat ; the farmer welcomes the sportsman from selfish motives, as well as from his usual hospitality, when he sees him, gun in hand. The wild-geese are nearly all of one variety (Bernicla Canadensis) ; a few white ones (Anser hyperboreus) ap- FLIGHT-SHOOTING. 95 pear now and then, prominent among their gray breth- ren by their snowy plumage. Wild-ducks come next, and by the end of the first week of November the sports- man's carnival is in full swing. First come the mallard and his mate (Anas boschus), in small bands ; next fol- low the whistling and the common teal (Querquedula cyanoptera and Nettion Carolinensis) ; then the pintail (Dafila acuta) in great bands ; following these, the wheat- duck, or gad wall (Chaulelasmus streperus), in multi- tudes ; then, at a short interval, the redhead (Fuligula Athya Americana) and the black duck (Fulix a finis). These stay with us all the winter, as do also the wood- duck (Dix sponsor), and until the crocuses cover the wild ground once again. We have the snipe ( Gallinago Wilsonii) in our marsh-lands, but not in large numbers, and one specimen of the great solitary snipe has been killed. The snipe have a curious instinct for knowing ex- actly how many one piece of marsh will support. Near this house is a wet corner, fed by springs and also by ditches. The extent is about an acre ; it is covered with rose-bushes and alder-shoots, and with rushes. In this are usually three snipe, never more. Several times each winter we have cleared the three out, but in a week or so successors fill their places. Our favorite sport in winter is "flight-shooting" killing the geese and ducks as they fly round the swamps at evening, preparing to settle for their night's feed. This comes in after the day's work is pretty nearly done. Mounting our ponies about four o'clock, we canter off to a big swamp about three miles off. Through this flows a little stream, whose water swells with the winter rains into two little lakes. Long grass and sedges cover 5 96 TWO TEARS IN OREGON. the ground, and a good many patches of reeds give shelter. Arriving just as the sun is setting behind the moun- tain south of Mary's Peak, his departing rays strike in brilliant red and yellow light along the surface of the pools, filling the valley with quivering, purple haze. We post ourselves at long intervals along the marsh, crouching while the light lasts, among the reeds. Just as the red light fades away, a group of black specks is seen against the sky, rising from the fir-timber that bounds the distant river. They grow quickly larger, and presently the rapid beat of wings is heard, as they whistle through the air overhead. The first flight round is high up in the sky, as they take a general view. Circling at the far end of the swamp, back they come, this time nearer to the ground. Just as you are debat- ing if you dare risk the shot, whish ! whish ! comes the big band of teal close behind you, dashing by with a swoop worthy of the swiftest swallow, and defying all but a chance shot into the thick of them. By this time the big ducks are past, your chance at them is gone, and you hear in a second or two the ban:: ! hang ! from lower down the swamp, telling of one of your comrades' luck. Here come some more right, left, overhead, behind till an unlucky cartridge sticks in your gun, and the scene falls on an unhappy wreteh cursing his luck, and devoting himself, his gun, his powder, the ducks, the swamp, and all Oregon to the infernal deii tea 1 Night has fallen ; the pale gold-and-green light has faded from the sky ; the dark purple line of mountains has turned into a solid mass of the darkest neutral tint ; one star after another has shown out overhead, to he re- flected in the still, shallow water in which you stand. EAGLES, HAWKS, HORNED OWLS. 97 A low voice calls out of the darkness, "Time to go home, I suppose." And a quick canter along the mud- dy road, possible only because the horses know every step of the way, soon brings us home to a late meal, where all our battles are fought over again, and the spoils, in their various beauty, are proudly shown. Among the game-birds may be included the blue crane, which flies in bands of from ten to twenty, high in the air. But it does not remain here, and is only killed by chance. The other day a bittern (Ardeidce minor) was shot a bird somewhat larger than the European bittern, but exactly resembling it in all essentials. Eagles and hawks we have in abundance, and of all sizes. The former are destructive to the young lambs even in the valley. How bold they are, too ! One flew into a bush the other day as I rode across a wide past- ure, and watched me as I came close by him, never taking to flight, though I passed within twenty yards of him near enough to note the defiant, proud ex- pression of his great black eye. Last summer we lost chicken after chicken. I could not make out the rob- ber, having taken precautions against rats, et id genus omne. One night, about ten o'clock, our English ser- vant burst into the sitting-room with " Sir, sir, bring your gun ; here's a heagle come down on to the roof of the barn ! " One of us ran out with a gun, and made out a big bird against the starlit sky. A shot, and down it came on the roof of the stable, making the horses jump and rattle their halter-blocks. It turned out to be a splendid specimen of the great horned owl. After his death the depredations among the chickens ceased for the time. Very often a pair of owls, just like the 98 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. English barn-owl, are seen beating the swampy ground, I suppose after rats ; quartering the ground, and exam- ining every sedgy patch like a setter-dog. Two kinds of woodpeckers are common ; the smaller sort abounds in the burned timber, and again and again in the course of the day's ride you hear the tap, tap, and see the little fellow propping himself against the black trunk with his strong tail. The larger wood- pecker is a beautiful bird, with a bright brown-and-gray speckled and barred chest, and a scarlet head and top- knot. These birds are eagerly sought by the Indians, who adorn themselves with the red feathers, and use them also as currency among themselves in various small transactions. The blue- jays are as noisy in our woods as in other parts of the world, and as inquisitive and impertinent. In summer we have flights of little yellow-birds just like canaries. One of my boys brought his pet canary from England in a little cage. He cared for and tended it all the long journey, and until we were on board the steamer coming up the "Willamette. In the course of the morning he thought he would clean out his bird's cage. The open door was too strong a temptation. Out slipped the captive, and, after a short flight or two in the cabin, away he went into the outer air and perched on the upper rail of the pilot-house. After a moment he caught sight of a flock of little yellow-birds flitting round a big tree by a farmhouse on the bank. Off flew the little traveler to join them, and the last we saw of him was that he was joyfully joining the new company, while his master stood disconsolately watch- ing the escape of his favorite. Flocks of little bluebirds (Si alia Mexicana) frequent HUMMING-BIRDS AT HOME. 99 the town, the whole of their plumage a bright metallic blue. Among them is sometimes seen the golden ori- ole (Icterus Bullockii}, making, with his orange jacket and black cap, a brilliant contrast with his blue com- panions. Along the fences, and in the clumps of bushes fill- ing their angles, is the favorite haunt of a pretty bird (Pipilo Oregonus), in plumage almost exactly resem- bling the European bullfinch ; like him too in habit, as he accompanies you along the road in little, jerky flights. "When the winter day has closed in, and the lamps are lighted, several times the little snow-bunting (lunco Oregonus) has come tapping at the window, attracted by the light, and seeking refuge in the warmth within from the rough wind and driving rain without. In the honeysuckle, which covers the veranda and climbs over the face of the house, two sets of humming-birds (Selasphorus rufus) made their home. It was pretty to watch them as they poised themselves to suck the honey, and then darted off to one flower after another among the beds, returning every instant to their nests, close to our heads, as we sat out in the cool evening air. We were taken in several times by the humming-bird moths, which imitated exactly the motions of the birds. CHAPTER VIII. Up to the Cascades Farming by happy-go-lucky The foot-hills Sweet Home Valley Its name, and how deserved and proved The road by the Santiam Eastward and upward Timber Lower Soda Springs Different vegetation Upper Soda Springs Mr. Keith Our re- ception His home and surroundings Emigrants on the road The emigrant's dog Off to the Spokane Whence they came Where they were bound Still eastward Fish Lake Clear Lake Fly-fishing in still water The down slope east Lava-beds Bunch-grass The val- leys in Eastern Oregon Their products Wheat-growing there Cattle-ranchers Their home Their life In the saddle and away Branding-time Hay for the winter The Malheur reservation The Indians' outbreak The building of the road When, how, and by whom built The opening of the pass The history of the road Squatters The special agent from Washington^-A sham survey. AFTER recovering from a sharp attack of illness last fall, I was sent away for change of air. I fancied the mountain air would revive me speedily ; so we resolved to travel up to the Upper Soda Springs, in the Cas- cades. It was two days' journey from the valley. The first twenty miles led us across the rich valley portion of Linn County. We had to pass through the little town of Lebanon. Near here we saw an illustration of farming careless- ness that I must mention. The harvest of 1879 was marked by the first recorded instance of rust attacking the spring-sown wheat. The spring was unusually late, and when the rains ceased, about the 25th of May, the summer sun broke forth at once with unclouded warmth and splendor. The lately sown grain sprang up in mar- SWEET HOME VALLEY. 101 velous vigor, and the crop promised abundantly for the farmer, when, just before the wheat hardened in the ear, the rust seized it, the leaf took a yellow tinge, and the grain shriveled up. The valley portions of Linn, Lane, Marion, and Benton Counties suffered, the first- named the most severely. In our ride across the valley .we passed several fields which were standing abandoned and unreaped ; the preparations for next year's crop were in active prog- ress ; in one great wheat-field we saw the farmer, with his broad-cast grain-distributor fixed in his wagon, sowing his seed among the untouched, shriveled crop ! And the wonder is that the crop of this year, all through this stricken district, was unusually fine for both qual- ity and quantity of wheat. I do not know that a stronger fact could be adduced in proof of the still wonderful fertility of this Willa- mette Valley than that it should be possible this year to reap a good crop, grown on ground that was neither reaped, plowed, nor rolled nothing done but to cast abroad the seed and harrow it lightly in. Soon after passing Lebanon, eighteen miles from here, we reached the foot-hills of the Cascades ; round, swelling, sandy buttes ; sometimes covered with short pasture-grass ; generally bearing a growth of oak-brush, sprinkled with firs of a moderate size. We slept at the first toll-gate, at the other side of Sweet Home Valley. This pretty vale deserved its name. Some five or six miles long by about two in width, there was a good expanse of fertile bottom- land, plowed and cultivated ; all round the hills rose, lightly timbered in part, affording pasture for the cat- tle. We were told that the first five settlers were bach- 102 TWO TEARS IN OREGON. elors, and called the valley "Sweet Home" to induce their lady-loves to follow them so far into what was then a wilderness. That their invitation succeeded, I judge from the fact that the valley has now three hun- dred inhabitants ; that the settlement was a permanent one, I judge from the fact that a neat schoolhouse, well filled with scholars, is now the chief ornament of the valley. The road followed on along the course of the San- tiam Kiver, now becoming a rapid mountain-stream, with many a rock and ripple. By the side of every farmhouse stood one or two "fish-poles," betokening that the river was of use as well as ornament to the dwellers by its banks. The road now led us straight eastward to the moun- tains, whose fir-crowned summits frowned on us from every side. Here and there a little valley nestling among the hills had been reclaimed to the use of man ; and many a neat little farm and well-grown orchard, with fenced grain-fields and hay-fields, witnessing to the successful labor of the owner, smiled on us as we passed. On nearly all appeared the magic words : " Hay and oats sold here. Good accommodation for campers " ; betokening that we were on the main road of travel, and that the farmers found a ready market for their produce at their very door. At one farm stood a set of Fairbanks's scales, for weighing and apportioning the wagon-loads before un- dertaking the passage of the mountains. The ascent was soon commenced ; indeed, we had mounted several hundred feet before we were well aware of it, so good was the engineering of the road. LOWER SODA SPRINGS. 103 The timber grew larger on either side and ahead ; no burned timber here, but massive, heavy growths, ex- tending mile after mile, of spruce, hemlock, and pine, interspersed with many a cedar, tall, straight, and strong. Very little undergrowth of brush ; a good deal of brake-fern and of grass ; and by the sides and along the edges of the little gullies and canons that we crossed, the large maidenhair-fern grew in beautiful profusion. We were never far from the Santiam, and now and again the roar and rush of water told us of little falls and rapids in the stream. Always ascending, here with a long, straight stretch of grading cut into the hill-side, there with a winding course to cheat the hill that rose to bar our road ; down a short distance, then along the little valley with its farm, then up again, till we gained the brow overlooking the settlement at the Lower Soda Springs. The little wooden houses, with galleries overhanging the rocky stream ; the heavy fir- woods clothing the hill-sides ; the abundant ferns and creeping plants growing down to the water's edge ; the abrupt outlines of the rocks in places too steep for vegetation all reminded us of Norway, and of happy tours in bygone years. And the welcome we received from the hospitable innkeepers served to strengthen the remembrance. "We went down to drink at the soda-springs. Long, inclined ledges of white and gray rocks lead down to the river's edge ; there, within a few feet of the sweet, running water, so near that the rise of one foot in actual level of the stream would overrun the spring, we found the alkaline spring, welling out from a hole six inches across in one of the wide ledges of gray rock. I never yet tasted a mineral water that was nice, and it seems 104 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. as if the medical value of a spring varied exactly with its nastiness ; so judged, I should say that the Lower Soda Springs were very valuable. A few hours more, over broken country, which grew wilder as we ad- vanced, brought us in twelve miles' travel to our desti- nation. The last few miles entered a burned timber- patch, where the black trunks either towered high into the air or lay supine, rotting by degrees into yellow mold. The vegetation had a different aspect from the Coast Eange ; a great feature in the brush was the abundance of elder-bushes, then covered with blue-gray berries, and the nourishing dogwood - trees, whose branches bore a quantity of large, white flowers and also of scarlet fruit. We had crossed the Santiam sev- eral times, here by timber bridges, there by fords. The excellence of the road, its freedom from rocks and "chuck-holes," alike surprised and pleased us, and my poor bones would have told a sad tale if all the stories of "mere wagon-track" had been founded in even the semblance of fact. We mounted the little rise which brought us in sight of Upper Soda Springs. On the left of the road stood a barn ; on the right, three little detached wooden huts, from one of which the thin, blue smoke was rising and betokened the habitation of the owner. A thin, bent, elderly man issued from the barn with a big bun- dle of hay in his arms, as we drove up, and came across to meet us. "Mr. Keith ?" I asked. "I have a loi- ter of introduction from a friend of yours, and we wish to stay with you for a week or ten days." "You read it to me," was the answer ; "I haven't got my spec- tacles." So I read it. "Well, sir, can we stay?" "I don't mind men, but I can't abear women," was the MB. KEITH. 105 somewhat forbidding response, as my wife smiled across from the back of the carriage. "I don't think you need mind my wife, Mr. Keith ; she won't give you any extra trouble." "I don't mind cooking for men they don't know any better ; but, as for the women, they are always thinking how much better they could do it." However, we settled it amicably, and took possession of the third little hut, where the bundle of hay was soon shaken out on to the two standing bed-places on either side. We made great friends with the old gentleman, whose roughness was all on the outside, and who slew his chickens, and cooked his cabbages, and stewed his dried plums and apples for us without stint, and in a manner that no woman could object to. The situation was most romantic just under the shadow of a huge body of rugged rocks on one side, while on the other Mr. Keith's little fields, from which all the dogwood and elderberry bushes had not been grubbed out, led to the edge of the bank overhanging the Santiam. The river here is a beautiful stream, rocky and broken, deep and shallow, by turns, with a trout under every stone. Mr. Keith's garden was a few steps from the house, in a little bottom ; although so high up above sea-level (about twenty-five hundred feet, I believe), the vege- tables were as fine as I ever saw, and the grape-vines, trained over a trellis in front of the house, were loaded with fruit. Here, among the hills, trout-rod for me and sketch- book and water-colors for my wife, we spent ten happy days. There was no lack of company, for, besides our old host, all the passers-by stopped at the house. Hard- ly a day went, even at that late period of the season, 106 TWO TEARS IN OREGON. without from six to ten wagons passing, on their way from Western and Southern Oregon to the wide plains and fertile valleys of Eastern Oregon and Washington Territory. The self-reliance, the absolute trusting to the future, of all these good people was impressive. The whole family were together : beds, chairs, stove, blankets, clock, saucepans, and household stores were all packed or piled into the wagon ; underneath hung a box or basket with a couple of little pigs or a dozen cocks and hens. A couple of cows were driven along or took their parts as a yoke of oxen in draught ; a colt or two and a few young cattle ran by the side, and the family dog, presiding over the cavalcade, seemed to have more of a burden on his mind than the human heads of the expedition. Many stopped to camp for the night, al- most all for at least one meal, and all without exception to get a drink from the effervescing soda-spring. One wagon was driven by a pleasant-spoken man ; with him were his wife and a sick baby of a year old. They had nothing for the baby but potatoes and flour. Their stores were but scanty. "Where are you go- ing? "said I. "To the Spokane, I guess," was the reply. "Where do you come from?" "Well, I had a valley-farm, and we were doing pretty well, but I hadn't my health good, and I thought we'd try the Spokane." " Do you know where it is you are going ? " "No, but they told us to take this road and we'd find our way." " Have you any idea how far it is ? " " Not much ; a hundred miles or two, isn't it ?" "Put five hundred or so on, and you'll get there." "You don't say so ! Well, I dare say we shall get through all right." "What do you mean to do?" "Well, I OFF TO THE SPOKANE. 107 haven't money enough to buy a farm, so I shall just take up a place." " You mean to homestead, then ?" "I guess so." "How many miles can you make in a day ?" "Not more than ten or fifteen with this old scrub team." " Have you thought that this is the first week in October, and that you can't expect to get there much before January ? " "I guess not ; but I dare say we shall get on very well." "You told me just now you had not much money ; have you thought how long it will last you, spending two dollars a day on the road ?" "No, I haven't rightly figured it. I knew we shouldn't have much left when we got there." " What makes you want to go to the Spokane ? " " Well, I've heard it's good land up there." "Isn't Oregon good enough for you ?" "I don't know but what it is. I didn't know the place was so far off." I fetched him a large scale map, and left him to think it over after supper. They were off in the morning before we were out, and I have no idea whether they reached the Spo- kane ; my only consolation was, that the baby was the better for the care and food it got that night, and for the additional stores they carried away for it. This conversation was, perhaps, an extreme one ; but it is absolutely true to facts. All that we talked to were equally hopeful, and few much better instructed as to their course. Certainly no people in the world could be better qualified to make a little go far, to take cheerily all the inevitable discomforts of both the long journey and the new home, and to make the best use of every advantage they found or made. Only a few were going to this Spokane country, away north in Washington Territory ; the rest were bound for Eastern Oregon, which is being settled up marvelously fast, 108 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. when the difficulties of getting there, and of getting their produce out from there, are taken into account. The stretch of burned timber country ended about the Upper Soda. All round it, and on from there eastward, grew miles upon miles of magnificent fir, hemlock, spruce, and cedar-trees, averaging three feet through, and, I judged, a hundred and fifty feet in height. I measured several of the dead trees on the ground, which ran from two hundred and twenty to two hundred and fifty feet in length, and the tops of all of them were gone. A few miles farther on eastward are Fish Lake and Clear Lake. The former merits its name from the abundance of trout from one to three and four pounds in weight. In summer the water shrinks away to little more than a stream in the middle of the depression which forms the lake, and a growth of rich, succulent grass follows the subsidence of the waters. Clear Lake, some four miles off, is vastly different. It evidently oc- cupies the place of a great and sudden depression of timber-covered country, for, looking down into the deep, clear water, the great firs are seen still standing erect on the bottom, far, far below. Fly-fishing on this lake is wonderfully good. Throw the flies on to the still water, oh ! so quietly, and there let them lie motionless ; in a moment or two a dim form shines deep down, rising wi i h a quick, vibrating motion, and up comes your friend : with a greedy snatch he takes the fly, and bolts down- ward with it, to be speedily checked and brought to book. Soon begins the descent, much more gradual than the ascent, and not so prolonged, since all Eastern Oregon is a kind of plateau, elevated from one to two thousand feet above sea-level. VALLEYS IN EASTERN OREGON. 109 A stretch of lava-bed is soon reached, the acme of desolation, where the road has been painfully worked by crushing down the rugged blocks, or laboriously moving them with levers from the path. Two or three miles carry us across, and then the bunch-grass country begins. Great tussocks of succulent feed for spring and early summer, dried by the hot sun into natural hay for autumn and winter use, afford pasture for count- less herds of cattle. Even here there are watercourses and springs a few miles apart. The valleys namely, Des Chutes, Crooked River Valley, Ochoco, Beaver Creek, Grindstone Creek, Silver Creek, Harney Lake, and Malheur stretch in a practically unbroken line across the whole of the remainder of Oregon to the east- ern boundary of Snake Eiver. Take Crooked Eiver Valley as a specimen. It varies from one to three miles in width, but is bounded, not by the steep and rugged hills we are used to in the Coast Range, but by gently swelling bluffs, covered with bunch-grass to and over their tops. The valley-land is rich and fertile, and wherever cultivated yields abun- dantly in potatoes, cereals, vegetables, and small fruits of all kinds. Sixty and eighty bushels of oats to the acre is not an unusual crop. And tame grasses take firm hold of the country wherever opportunity is given them. The bunch-grass slopes, with occasional sage- brush scattered among the grass, are not to be always set apart for such common use as at present. Precisely the same character of land has been plowed up and put into wheat during the last few years round Walla Walla, just north of the northeast corner of Ore- gon, and produces forty bushels of wheat to the acre. Indeed, it is from country like this that the great crops 110 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. of Northeastern Oregon and "Washington Territory are produced ; crops yielding a magnificent return, if not to the farmer whose enterprise and industry have served to raise them, yet to the recently formed transportation company called the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, by whose boats plying on the Columbia the wheat is carried to Portland to be shipped. At present these vast stretches of rolling hill and dale are the home of the cattle-rancher a strange and wild life. A suitable site is fixed on, commanding am- ple water privilege, with some valley-land near by to grow sufficient hay, and to raise the desired quantity of oats and vegetables ; here the house is built, the lumber being hauled by wagons perhaps fifty or a hun- dred miles from the mill. The rancher's family con- sists of his wife and children, and possibly five or six herdsmen. While looking after cattle, these men al- most live in the saddle. Horses abound, and form as good a source of revenue as cattle, in proportion to the capital engaged. The Eastern Oregon horse is taller and bigger-boned than the valley horse, but natu- rally his education is not so well attended to, and he is apt to be "mean" and to buck. Little recks his rider, and after a bout of bucking, in which the horse has not dislodged the man, but has shaken up every bone in his body till he is sore all over with the con- stant jar, as the horse comes to the ground all four feet at once after a mighty jump, then it is the man's turn. Driving in the heavy Mexican spurs, with their rowels two or three inches across, the rider starts wildly out, and mile after mile the open country is crossed at a hand-gallop. The herd is soon seen and ridden round, and a close lookout is kept to see if any strag- TEE MALHEUR RESERVATION. HI glers have joined the band, and if the calves and year- lings are all right. Branding-time comes twice a year, in spring and autumn, when the cattle of a whole "stretch " of country are driven together, separated according to the various ownerships determined by marks and brands. In spring come in the Eastern buyers, who travel through the country, collecting a huge drove of perhaps from ten to twenty thousand head. The three-year-old steers fetch about fifteen or seventeen dollars a head ; no wonder the ranchers prosper, considering that the cost from calfhood was only that of herding. Some of the provident ones collect one or two hun- dred tons of natural hay against the severities of win- ter. It may be that for two or three years the hay will stand unused ; then comes the stress. Deep snow will cover the face of the country and lie for weeks, too deep for the cattle to live, as in ordinary winters, on the dry bunch-grass protruding from the snow, or easily reached by scratching a slight covering away. Even an abundant store will not save all, for many of the herd will have taken refuge in distant valleys, or perhaps have retreated far off the whole range in the face of the driving storm. And even those that are found will move very unwillingly from any poor shelter they may have secured toward the life-saving food. There is a large Indian reservation called the Mal- heur Eeserve ; the road crosses its southwest corner. These Indians are quiet enough now, but only three years ago there was an outbreak among them. One rancher had built a fine stone house, just outside the reservation bounds, and there lived in comfort, sur- rounded by all the necessaries and many of the luxu- ries of life. He had six or eight thousand head of cat- 112 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. tie and some three hundred horses in his band. One morning a friendly Indian rode up in haste, telling him to get away, as the hostiles were coming to kill them all. Mounting their horses, the rancher and his wife took to flight ; they looked back from the hill-top to see the flames and smoke rising from their comfortable home, telling how narrow had been their escape. A hurried ride of fifty miles took them to safe refuge ; and the speedy repulse of the Indians, and their being driven once again within their own boundaries, enabled the rancher to rebuild his house, and restore once more his household gods. This road was built by men who were sent out from Albany, and spent years in the work, rifles by their side ; for the country fourteen years ago was not the safe domain it has now become. The first idea was to use the pass through the Cascades (which is the lowest and safest in Oregon, so far as I can learn), to build a road to open the plains of Eastern Oregon to the Willa- mette Valley. After a good deal of the work had been accomplished, a suggestion was made to the owners of the road that if they would undertake to extend it clear across the State to the Idaho boundary, a distance from Albany of some four hundred and fifty miles by the necessary deviations from a straight line, a land grant might probably be procured from Congress to aid the work. Whatever may be said of the general policy of granting the national lands to corporations to aid wagon-road and railroad enterprises, there may surely be cases where the effect is not only to secure the exe- cution of the work, but also to encourage the settling up of a district, and the consequent increase of the population and wealth of a State. BUILDING OF THE ROAD. 113 Here was the state of affairs in Eastern Oregon prior to 1866 : A vast country, adapted for the gradual set- tlement and ultimate habitation of a prosperous race, was lying at the mercy of a few roving bands of Ind- ians, who made the lives and property of even casual travelers their speculation and sport. What was the value then of all that country ? Could any purchaser for it have been then found, at even a few cents an acre ? The projectors of the road took their lives in their hands when they ventured forth to work. They risked themselves, their horses and equipments. Every pound of food consumed had to be brought in wagons from their starting-point. As they progressed, their danger and difficulty increased with every mile they traversed ; and the last section of the road was built by men who had suffered themselves to be snowed in and shut off from families and friends, and to give up every chance of succor in distress, that the work might not stand still. And it was no light work, even judged by us who travel the road at ease, and have hardly a passing glance for the rocky grade, the deep cutting, the pon- derous lava-block, the huge black trunk. How appall- ing must the undertaking have appeared to those who had first to face the dangers and difficulties of a moun- tain-chain, to plan for and survey out the most favor- able route among heavy timber and rocky precipice, be- side rushing waters and through deep gorges ; and then across those wide and then silent plains, where the timid antelope ranged by day, and the skulking wolf by night made solitude hideous with his melancholy howl ! No roadside farms to welcome them, no little towns to mark, as now, the stages of their journey, but farther 114 TWO YEARS IN" OREGON. and farther into the wilderness, till four hundred miles lay between the workers and the valley-homes they had left months before. And this was no wealthy corporation, which has but to announce its readiness to receive, and dollars are poured into its lap by a public hungry for dividends, until it has to cry, " Hold, enough ! " Here were no regi- ments of yellow workmen, trained to labor in many a ditch and grade ; but citizens of Oregon, who desired to build up their State ; who believed the records of their fellows as to the miles of country that could be forced to contribute their quota of productions if but the way were opened in and out ; who, having them- selves prospered in the sound and moderate way in which Oregon encourages her children, were ready to risk what they had gained in a cause they knew was good these men combined their energies to the com- mon end. It was an enterprise which roused and main- tained the kindly interest of all. The working parties in the Cascade Eange were followed up by the teams of those who desired the first choice of settlement in the promised land beyond. By the time the last great log that barred the pass was reached, a long string of wagons stood waiting its removal. While the long saws were plied, and then the levers brought, all stood in expectation ; willing hands lent their eager aid : the great wooden mass rolled sul- lenly away, and the tide of settlement poured through the gap. Between that day in 1867 and 1880 upward of five thousand wagons have made the journey, and, to the honor of the original locators be it said, all with- out accident arising from the road. The first few years all went merry as a marriage-bell. SQUATTERS. 115 The road naturally followed the fertile valleys ; and small blame to the road-makers if, having the whole country before them, they chose the smoothest and cheapest route. No man will climb a hill and cut his way along its side if he can find good level ground at the bottom. The road-makers were entitled under their congres- sional grant to alternate mile-square sections in a wide belt on either side of their road ; the intervening sec- tions were, of course, opened to settlement by the con- struction of the road. The open-valley sections were soon seized on, and a band of settlements justified, even so soon, the principle of the road-grant. But to many men in this world, and Oregon has her share, the descriptive motto is not, " Labor is sweet, and we have toiled," but the antithesis, "Other men have labored : let us enter into the fruits of their labor." So squatters entered with the legitimate settler, or close 011 his heels, and took possession of many a section of the road company's land, "taking the chances," as they would express it, of something happening to help them to hold. To aid matters, these men fenced across the road near their houses, and carried the road round on the hill-sides above their farms. The settlers were not slow to follow so promising an example, and, to have the benefit of the bottom-land through which the road ran, they also pushed the road away up the hills. On more than one occasion the road company sent and had these fences removed and opened the original road afresh. But travelers did not aid them ; for here came in a trait of American character I have often noticed, namely, unwillingness to insist on strict right against their neighbors, and a readiness to make any 116 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. shift, or agree to and use any detour, when to keep the old, straight road would involve a question. So the valley road got disused in places, and travel went round by the hills. Next, the squatters bethought them that they might in time upset the road grant, and get good title to their neighbors' vineyard. So they sent on a petition to Washington, alleging that the road had never been made ; that there was no road at all ; that there had been a colossal fraud. But the matter was investigated, and discovery made that the United States authorities had ceased to have any jurisdiction so long ago as 1866. Still, those who were agitating thought something might be made of it. So, somehow or other, the Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Carl Schurz, was induced to interfere, not deterred by the knowledge that the land depart- ment had declined to act twelve months before ; and so, a year after the squatters' complaint had been re- fused, an agent was sent out to report ; he was well armed with the assailants' stories in advance, and he need be a man of superexcellent straightforwardness and hardihood unless he too could "see something in it." In this case the phoenix was not discovered, and the eyes, ears, and common-sense of hundreds of men who knew the road well were outraged by a report that no road existed or had been made except for about sixty miles at the western end ; and that the road, if road it could be called, was a mere wagon-track, capable of use only for a short time and under exceptionally favorable circumstances ! It was of course assumed that, at so great a distance from headquarters, a hostile report would end matters, HARNEY LAKE VALLEY. and that all the advantages hoped for by the squatters, and by any and all who had espoused their cause, would be forthwith enjoyed. We have yet to learn that the American Congress will consent to be made parties to such an outrageous conspiracy ; to cast an infamous slur on the characters of American citizens who ventured much in an under- taking for the public good ; in violation of plain and acknowledged principles of law, to hamper and delay an enterprise relying on the title gained in 1871, and quietly enjoyed for ten years. The largest of the valleys through which this road passes is Harney Lake Valley, only about eighty miles from the eastern boundary of the State, which will receive fuller description farther on. CHAPTER IX. Indian fair at Brownsville Ponies The lasso Breaking-in The pur- chase " Bucking " extraordinary Sheep-farming in Eastern Oregon Merinos The sheep-herder Muttons for company A good offer refused Exports of wool from Oregon Price and value of Oregon wool Grading wool Price of sheep Their food Coyotes The wolf-hunt Shearing Increase of flocks "Oorraling" the sheep Sheep as brush-clearers. SOME of our people wanted to buy ponies this last fall, and heard that the Indian pony fair at Brownsville, about twenty-five miles from here, was the best place. They rode off one fine October morning, and returned the next day but one, with a handsome four-year-old. The scene as they described it was exciting and inter- esting. I should say that the town of Brownsville is a lively little place, with seven or eight hundred inhabi- tants, and some fine woolen-mills. It is the nearest valley town to the mountains accessible by the wagon- road to those crossing from Eastern Oregon. Near the town was the fair-ground, a large, fenced inclosure, with from two to three hundred ponies careering about it in a state of wild excitement. Nearly all the In- dians were Warm Springs, some few Nez-Perces. Both these tribes are far finer-looking and better grown than our coast Indians. They wear white men's clotho^, but deerskin moccasins on their feet. Except for the absolute straightness of the black hair, these men al- BEEAKING-IK 119 most exactly resemble the gypsies as seen in Europe ; they are very like them too in many habits of mind and life equally fond of red and yellow handkerchiefs for neck- wear for the men or head-gear for the women. Several of the Indians were on foot, others on horse- back in the inclosure where the horses ran. On our friends telling one of the Warm Springs chiefs who was standing there of their wish to buy a horse, he questioned them as to the kind they wanted, and the price they were willing to give. Then, on giving some directions to one of the Indians on horseback, that wor- thy unslung his lasso from his saddle-horn and rode into the crowd of horses. The whole wild band were kept on a rapid gallop round and round. The Indian soon selected one, and flinging his lasso over its head he turned and stopped his horse abruptly, and the captive was brought to the ground with a shock enough to break every bone in his body. He was quickly secured by an- other rope or two by other Indians standing near, and was then carefully inspected. Not being altogether approved, he was set free again, and quickly rejoined the band. Another was caught, and another, and at last a trade was arrived at, subject to the breaking- in of the horse in question. The horse, carefully held by lasso-ropes, was quickly saddled, a hide bridle with sharp and cruel curb-bit was slipped over his head, a young Indian mounted, and all the ropes were let go. Away went the horse like an arrow from a bow ; then as suddenly he stopped ; then buck-jumping began, while the Indian sat firm and unmoved, seemingly immovable. This play lasted till the horse tired of it, and then off he went at a gallop again. Before he got too far away the rider managed to turn him, and he 6 120 TWO YEARS IN OEEGON. was kept going for an hour and more till lie was utterly exhausted, and the white foam lay in ridges on his skin. By this time all the bucking had gone out of him, and he suffered himself to be brought quietly back to the corral, and he was handed over to the purchaser as a broken horse. A long negotiation as to price had ended in sixteen dollars being paid in silver half- dollar pieces (the Indian declined a gold ten-dollar piece), and a red cotton handkerchief which happened to peep from our friend's pocket, which clinched the bargain. The average size of the ponies was just under four- teen hands ; the shape and make were exceedingly good. There was one splendid coal-black stallion, a trifle larger than the rest, whose long mane and tail adorned him ; for this the Indians declined all moderate offers, and got as high as fifty dollars, and would hardly have sold at that. There was a considerable proportion of the spotted roan, which is the traditional color for the In- dian "cay use." Sheep-farming in Eastern and Northern Oregon has become a very important pursuit ; it is also followed largely in the southeastern portion of the State. As sheep advance cattle retire, and many a growl have I lis- tened to from the cattle-men, and most absurd threats as to what they would do to keep back the woolly tide : even to the length of breeding coyotes or prairie-wolves for the special benefit of the mutton. The merinos, French. Spanish, and Australian, thrive better in the drier climate east of the Cascades than in this Willam- ette Valley. The vast expanse of open country covered thinly with grass involves the herding system. One of our fellows undertook this business near Ileppner in THE SHEEP-HERDER. 121 Umatilla County. He had entire charge of a flock of 1,700 merinos. There was an old tent for him to sleep in, but he preferred to roll himself in his blankets on the open ground. No company but his dog, and no voices but the eternal "baa, baa" of the sheep, which almost drove him mad. His "boss" came out to him once in three weeks with a supply of coffee, flour, beans, and bacon ; and, if meat ran short, there was abun- dance of live mutton handy. About once in three weeks, on the average, a stray traveler would cross his path, and have a few minutes' talk and smoke a pipe. He had not the relaxation of sport, for the sheep have driven deer and antelope from the country. Early in the morning his sheep were on the move ; he had. to follow them over the range ; about noon they lay down on the hill-side, and he stopped to eat his scanty meal. All the afternoon they wandered on, till evening fell, by which time they were back on the sheltered hill-side, which stood for headquarters, and where the tent was pitched. Day in, day out, the same deadly round of monotonous duty, until he hated the look, the smell, the sound of a sheep, and I think has an incurable dis- like to mutton which will last him all his life. Don't you think that his forty dollars a month was earned ? When October came, and a few flakes of snow her- alded the coming winter, the "boss" came, and warned him that he must now elect whether or not to spend the winter with the sheep, as the way out would shortly close. If he would stay, he could have a share in the flock to secure his interest, and could also take his pay in sheep, which would thus start his own individual flock. The offer was a tempting one ; the path was the same that all the successful self-made sheep-men had 122 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. followed ; cold and privation alone had not many ter- rors to a hardy man ; but one look at the sheep de- cided him ; he could not stand their society for six months longer. So he left, and returned to the valley, like a boy from school. I know one or two men, who, forced to accept a situation of this sort, have used the time for the study of a language, and, after a few months with the sheep, have come out accomplished Spanish, Italian, or German scholars. But it takes some reso- lution to overcome the temptation to drift along, day by day, in idleness of mind and body more and more complete. . The Portland Board of Trade reports that, for the year 1879, 766,200 pounds of wool were received at that city from Eastern Oregon, and 2,080,197 pounds from the Willamette Valley, showing in value an increase of about thirty-five per cent, over the previous year. But Messrs. Falkner, Bell & Co., of San Francisco, reported that the receipts at that city of Oregon wool aggregated 7,183,825 pounds for the clip of 1879. The figures for 1876 were only 3,150,000 pounds. It should be noticed also that Oregon wool commands an excellent price in the market, even six cents higher than California, pos- sessing greater strength and evenness, and being free from burs. The valley wool is clearer from sand and grit than that from Eastern Oregon. But much remains to be done in this valley. Far too many of the farmers are absolutely careless about scab ; and sheep, infested with this noxious parasite, are suffered to run at large and poison the neighbors' flocks. It is true that a law intended to extirpate this curse now exists ; but neither is legislation as suffi- PRICE OF SHEEP. 123 cient nor its enforcement so strict as in Australia, though the necessity for both is full as great. There is but little encouragement either to the valley farmer to expend labor and money in improving the quality of his flock, when he sees his neighbors' inferior fleeces command just as high a price, the wool from perhaps ten or twenty farms being " pooled" without regard to quality. The remedy is of course found in grading the wool ; steps for this purpose are being talked over by many intelligent farmers, and I expect soon to see them carried out. The exhibit at Philadelphia of Oregon wool received medals and diplomas from the Commissioners of the Centennial of 1876, with high and deserved praise. And the show at the Paris Exhibition of 1878 was also splendid ; the Oregon fleeces equaling the Australian in length, strength, evenness, and beauty of fiber. I shall have a little more to say as to the breeds of sheep when the State Fair at Salem is described, where the best specimens were supposed to be, and I believe were collected. Sheep in this valley are worth from $1.25 to $1.75 for store-sheep for the flock, and from $2 to $3 for mutton-sheep in winter. The wool of a sheep may be taken to fetch $1 on an average of sea- sons. The sheep eat grass all the year round; they have never seen a turnip or cole-seed. I know many farmers who have kept sheep successfully for twenty years on nothing whatever but the natural wild grasses. The great enemy of the sheep in these foot-hills, where the pasture is intermixed with brush, and borders on the thicker brush and timber of the mountains behind, is the coyote. Two or three of these little wolves will keep half a county on the alert, destroying far more 124: TWO YEARS IN OREGON. than they eat. This "varmint" is somewhat larger than a Scottish sheep-dog, and of a tawny color ; he has long hair like a colley, and is much more cowardly than fierce. He lives in the thick brush, whence he steals out at dusk on his murderous errand. He hunts generally alone, though one of our friends saw three together one evening this winter. His pace is a long, untiring gallop, and it takes a very good hound to run him down. The usual plan of the hunt is for several rifles to command the outlets from a piece of woodland, and then to take into the brush a collection of five or six of the best hounds that can be got together. When the scoundrel breaks cover he may go fast, but the rifle-bul- let or buckshot goes the faster, and it would not do to miss. The sheep killed by the coyote is identified by the two little holes on either side of the throat, where the wolf has struck and held to drink the fast-flowing life- blood. The carcass is rarely torn. But the worse and more common coyote is the mongrel hound. Every now and again one of these impostors takes to murder- ing, and, demure and quiet as he looks by day, slouch- ing around the barn, spends his nights killing the neighbors' sheep. There is not much chance for him if he is but once seen ; his life is a very short if a merry one. When shearing-time comes round there are plenty of applicants for the job. The price is usually five cents a head, the farmer providing food, but the shearer find- ing his own tools. Some of these fellows will clip a hundred sheep a day, or even more : true, you must look after them to prevent scamping, in the shape of "CORRALING" THE SHEEP. 125 cuts on your sheep, and wool left on in thick ridges, in- stead of a clean, good shear. We expect an increase of at least one hundred per cent, on the ewes at lambing- time, even though so little cared for ; those farmers who are good shepherds too, improve greatly on this average. The lambs must be well looked after, unless the wild- cat, eagle, and coyote are to take their toll. Not half the sheep are kept in this valley that ought to be, and that will be, when change or succession of crops are universally practiced. The amusing part of sheep-keeping in our coast-hills is "corraling," or gathering them for the night. By day they roam freely over the hill-sides, and you would be surprised to see how they thrive in brushwood and among fern, where the new-comer could hardly de- tect a blade of grass. These mountain-sheep, too, are more hardy and independent than the valley flocks. But, when the lambs are about, I am sure it is wise to undertake the labor of collecting them in the "corral" for the night. Without your sheep-dog you would be lost, for you would not have a chance on the hill-sides, and over and under the occasional logs, with sheep that jump and run like antelopes. But the dog cures all that, and you can stand in the road and watch Dandy or Jack collect your flock just as well as if he were in the cairns and corries of old Scotland, whence he or his grandfather came. I like to see them march demurely in at the open gate, and then run to the log where you have scattered a handful of salt for them, every grain and taste of which is eagerly licked up. And they are excellent brush-clearers ; they love the young shoots of the cherry and vine-maple, and keep them so close down that in one or two seasons at most the stub dies, 126 TWO TEARS IN OREGON. and can be plowed out and burned. Therefore every settler who takes up land, or buys a partly cleared farm, will find both pleasure and profit in his sheep, and that to him they are a necessity, even more than to the val- ley farmer. He must expect a percentage of loss from the wild animals, but his vigilance and love of sport to- gether will reduce that percentage to the lowest point. CHAPTER X. The trail to the Siletz Eeserve Eock Creek Isolation Getting a road The surveying-party Entrance at last Eoad-making Hut- bull ding in the wilds What will he do with it? Choice of homestead Fencing wild land Its method and cost Splitting cedar boards and shingles House- building The China boy and the mules Picnick- ing hi earnest Log-burning Berrying-parties Salting cattle An active cow A year's work Mesquit-grass on the hills. I traveled through Oregon in 1877, we visited the Siletz Indian reservation. To get there from the district called King's Valley, where we were, we had to take the mountain-trail first cut out by General Sheri- dan, when, as a young lieutenant, twenty years ago, he was stationed on this coast. The trail went up one mountain and down another, and crossed this river and that creek, till, at the foot of one long descent from a lofty ridge, which we thought then, and which I know now is, the water-shed between two great divisions of this county, we entered a valley entirely shut in. At the southeastern end, where we entered it, it was a narrow gorge, down which a quick stream hurried, with many a twist and turn, and over many a rocky ledge. The hill-sides above were thick with fern and berry-bearing bushes, and the black trunks of the burned timber stood as records of the great fire ; but the stream ran through a leafy wilderness, where maple, alder, and cherry shut in the trail, and the maiden-hair and blechnum ferns grew thickly along the banks. The 128 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. valley widened out as we advanced, and we found it in shape almost like an outspread hand, the palm repre- senting the central level bottom, and the fingers the narrow valleys and canons between the encompassing hills. The trail led us by turns along the bottom and the lower steps of the hill-sides. We camped to dine, and explored some distance up the side-valleys, coming on old Indian camping-places, with the bones of deer and beaver scattered round. The isolation of the place, hidden away there among the hills, the fresh abundance of the vegetation, the mellowness of the thick, fat soil shown where we crossed again and again the creek dividing the valley down its entire length, all charmed me ; the steep yet rounded outlines of the hills often recurred to me when I was very far away. When I came back to Oregon, in 1879, I took the first chance I had of going over this old ground. The question was, if it were possible to run in a road out of the main Yaquina road, which I knew lay but some five or six miles off. So I sent out a surveying-party to ascertain, and a rough time they had. It rained almost incessantly ; the brush was thick ; they lost their way ; it got dark, and they went wandering on till they struck a trail which led them to a river. "Now we're all right," said the leader; "this is the Yaquina; the road is on the other side of the creek." So they struck into the rushing water, then running in flood, and waded across waist-deep. But no road on the other side ; only a dark trail leading into thick brush. Presently it was pitch-dark, and the surveyor confessed he did not know where he was ; that this was certainly not the Yaquina, ROAD-MAKING. 129 and apparently there was no road. The rain still fell heavily, and saturated them and their packs. Then one of the horses, which they were leading along, slipped from the bank into the flooded stream, and nearly dragged his owner after him. At last they determined to camp. Not a dry spot and no dry wood could they find. So they lay down under the shelter of the big- gest log, and ate a supper of raw bacon and an odd lump of stale crust. Not even a match would light, and they staid out the weary hours of darkness as best they could, wishing for dawn. With the earliest light they were on foot once more, and, after wandering a little farther, the leader identi- fied the Eock Creek Valley, and pointed out the Siletz trail. They had found a route, but certainly not the route I wanted. Next I went out myself and questioned the settlers down the road as to the trails across. At last we struck on what looked from a distance the lowest gap in the encircling mountains, and made up our minds to keep on trying for a road through that till we got it, or were satisfied it was impossible. Perseverance answered, and we struck a trail up the course of the Yaquina River nearly to its source, and then through some thick wood to the foot of the mountain, on the other side of which was the Rock Creek Valley ; then up the mountain to the low gap, and thence the way was plain down into Rock Creek. Road-making in Oregon is like road-making else- where. We had a party of twelve or fourteen men at work, and had to build three huts at intervals before the road got through. The huts only took a few hours to construct. Cut down a dozen cherry poles, straight 130 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. and long ; saw off a cedar log and split it up again and again, till you get planks out of it four feet long and about an inch or so thick. Drive your cherry poles into dug holes, and set up the frame of your hut ; build a recess five feet wide and two feet deep at one end for a chimney ; board the whole in, and double the boarding on the roof ; line the inside of the chimney with damp earth for about two feet up, and then carry that up above the roof of your house also by boards ; hang a door on a couple of wooden hinges made by choosing strong forked pieces of crab-apple which will not split ; beat down the floor level and hard, and, if you are very luxurious, set up standing bed-places, or bunks, of cherry -pole legs and cedar boards for the beds, and your habitation is complete as soon, that is, as you have brought in a huge back-log and set a great fire blazing. Cut off a few chunks of wood level for chairs, and fix two or three boards against the walls for shelves, and you have no idea of the comfort you can get out of your house. We dug, and graded, and moved logs, and built bridges, and laid corduroy crossings over wet places, and in about three months the way into Eock Creek was clear. I confess to a little pride when the first wagon went safely in, and down into the level bottom below. The next question was the hard one, What will he do with it ? The wilderness was before us ; how were we to civilize it ? Gazing down into the val- ley, with here a ferny slope, there a copse filling acres of bottom, then a deep caflon with green trees, there a beaver-dam flooding the best piece of land at every high water, and everywhere the great black trunks, standing or lying prostrate, in some places heaped to- FENCING WILD LAND. 131 gether in the wildest confusion it was a case that called for the " stout heart to the stiff brae." The first thing was to settle the place for a home- stead, supplied with water, but out of the reach of flood. And a rising ground, some hundred yards from the river, along one side of which ran a clear little stream at right angles to the creek, supplying a chain of three beaver- ponds, overhung with trees and shrubs, was chosen. The next thing was to find out the most open spaces, free from logs and brush, and which could be plowed for oats and hay. Three such were soon set apart, lying far distant from each other, and therefore giving three distinct centers from which clearing should spread. Then the plow was set to work to tear up the ferny ground, and what few logs there were had to be cut in pieces and split for burning. Next came the fencing. It takes five thousand rails, ten feet long and five or six inches thick, to make a mile of snake-fence. A man can split from one to two hundred rails a day, accord- ing to the soundness and straightness of grain of the timber ; and good hands will contract to saw the logs, split the rails, and keep themselves the while, for about a dollar and a quarter the hundred rails. The difficulty was, that not one in forty of the fallen logs was sound, and the rail-splitters had to wander all up and down the valley and far up the hill-sides to get the right ma- terial. However, eleven thousand rails were provided and gradually hauled to their places, and the fields and the intervening spaces of wild lands all fenced in. Meanwhile, as we were too far from a mill to haul lumber to any advantage, we had to rely on the cedar, which splits more evenly and easily than the fir ; and some five thousand boards, six inches wide and from 132 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. four to six feet long, were got ready ; while the tim- bers for the house and barn were split from straight- grained, tough fir. Then came the shingles, and a contract at two and a half dollars a thousand set two excellent workmen going, and first fifty thousand and then twenty thousand more were made on the spot. Then the house-building and barn-raising went on mer- rily, though with constant grumbling at the expense of time in preparing the rough materials, instead of hav- ing ready-sawed lumber from the mill. We sent to the saw- and planing-mill, fifteen miles away, for doors and windows, and one wagon brought in all that were needed for a nine-roomed house, at a cost of just eighty dollars ; the doors and door-frames ready, and the win- dows duly glazed. At last the house was barely habit- able, and we moved in in patriarchal procession. We treated ourselves to one China boy to cook and wash. For his benefit a cooking-stove was sent out, and set up in a handy kitchen, close to but detached from the house. These China boys are well off for sense. The wagon was heavily laden with stores, and the mules were struggling up a muddy hill. "Get out, John, and walk," said the Scotch driver, and John had to obey. Long before the top was reached, John got in again at the rear, and scrambled back into his place. " Get out, John, I tell you ! " ' ' Never mind, Kenzie ; horsee no see me get in ; they know no better." But a good deal of the cooking went on over a bright fire of logs down on the ground in front of the house, where the tripod of sticks stood, with the black kettle depending. For the children it was a continuous picnic ; two or three times a day they were bathing in the river ; and whenever they were not tending the fires, LOG-BURNING. 133 which were burning up the logs and brushwood all the time, they were off, fishing down the creek. There was abundant employment for every hour of the day, and a comfortable assurance that the work once done was done for good ; that is, that each patch of ground cleared and sown was so much actual visible gain. At night the scene was most picturesque bright stars overhead, and great fires going in twenty places, lighting up the whole valley with a crimson radiance. Some of the huge trunks, fifty or sixty feet high, were lighted by boring two auger-holes so as to meet a couple of feet deep inside the tree ; the fire would lay hold of the entire mass, and cataracts of sparks burst out in unexpected places high up the stem, pouring out in a fiery torrent at the top. And then, when the tree had been burning for a day or more, it would fall with a heavy crash, and a great spout of fire would start forth. And then there were the berrying-parties. All the women and children would start for the hills, and come back, their baskets laden with ripe blackberries, and the crimson thimble-berries, and yellow salmon-berries, and scarlet huckleberries, and later on with the black, sweet sal-lals. And they filled their nut-bags and pock- ets with the wild hazels. If it rained too hard, and it did once or twice, the pocket-knives were all in use, and candlesticks, and salt-cellars, and other trifles, were cut out of the ever- useful cherry and crab-apple. And the cattle had to be salted. This went on near the house, and in the great corral, to get them to recog- nize their headquarters, a most necessary knowledge for them before the winter set in. They were quick to 134 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. learn, and, after a time or two, a short excursion down the valley, with a pocketful of salt, and the long- drawn cry of "Suck, su-uck, su-u-uck," would bring a speedy gathering from distant hills and tall patches of valley-fern, and a long procession would follow the caller back to the corral. These cattle, most of them mountain-bred, do tricks that would make a valley-cow's hair stand on end. We got one fine young heifer into the narrow branding-cor- ral, to milk her. This was shut off from the large cor- ral by a fallen log five feet thick, which looked high enough to keep the idea of scaling it out of any cow's mind. But I saw her make a standing high jump on to the top of the log, and over, as neatly as the best- trained hunter could possibly have done it, even if his rider had the hardihood to put him at it. Even while getting their own livelihood on the wild feed on the mountain-sides, where you and I could see nothing but fern and thimble- berry bushes, the cows grew fat and yielded abundance of milk, and that very rich. And even through the rainy months of winter the cattle have kept themselves fat and flourishing. The work has now been going on nearly eleven months, and this is the position to-day : The road is made. The house is built, but not quite finished in- side. The big barn is finished, with stable attached. The orchard is cleared, plowed, planted with trees, which have now nearly a year's growth, and is in part seeded down into permanent pasture ; as to the other part, it is in potatoes and onions. Two fields one of four, the other of eight acres are cleared and plowed, and will be in oats this spring. Another field, across the river, is cleared, but not yet plowed. The garden round MESQT7IT-GRASS ON THE HILLS. 135 the house is prepared. Another field, near the house, of about three acres, is cleared, plowed, and now being sowed down in cloyer. Another clearing, of about two acres, on old beayer-dam land by the river, is planted in cabbages in part, and the rest will be in carrots and beets. About two hundred acres are fenced in for sheep, and about ninety head are on it, helping out the brush- cutting by eating the shoots. About fifteen hundred acres of hill-land were burned and sowed down in mes- quit-grass, which is now, at one year old, about three inches high. Some forty head of cattle, chiefly cows and calves, and a few two-year-olds, are in the valley and all doing well ; the steers were sold fat to the butcher in December last. The building work has been done by one carpenter and an assistant, and he has had occasional help in preparing boards. The doors and windows came from the mill; and the timbers and boards were got out of the rough logs by separate con- tract. The outside work has been done by three men, and an occasional fourth. The place will support itself this year, if all goes well, and next year should yield a fair profit. No doubt a more experienced deviser, and more constant supervision, might have shown a speed- ier profit. But I have given these details by way of ex- ample in bringing wild land in, and making a "ranch" of it. CHAPTER XL The Indians at home The reservation The Upper Farm Log-ca bins- Women must work while men will play The agency The board- ing-house Sunday on the reservation Indian Sunday-school Galeese Creek Jem The store Indian farmers As to the settle- ment of the Indians Suggestions A crime Its origin Its history The criminals What became of them Indian teamsters Num- bers on the reservation The powers and duties of the agent Special application. AT Rock Creek we are only ten miles from the Siletz Indian agency, and I have paid many visits there, and have seen a good deal of the working of the agency, and also know a good many of the Indians pretty well. First, as to the place itself. There is no question that on the reservation is some of the best land in the country, and the most easily improved. At some not very distant geological date, the valley must have con- sisted of a series of lakes, connected by rivers. On the sides of the hills are two clearly defined terraces, and the flat bottoms are not covered with heavy timber, either alive or dead. There must have been one con- vulsion which let the waters out and reduced the level to the lower terrace, and then a subsequent one which abolished the lakes altogether, leaving the Siletz River for the water-course of the whole district. Entering the reservation from the Rock Creek trail, there is about six miles of rough and tangled country to get through, where the hills are broken, and the river foams THE RESERVATION. 137 and breaks every now and again over rocky ledges. The brush, is thick along the river-banks, and the thimble- berries grow so high and strong that, as you ride by, you can pluck the berries from the level of your face. Mounting a hill, which closes the gorge ahead of you, the whole valley known as the Upper Farm lies before you. At this point Rock Creek joins the Siletz itself, which here is a wide and rushing stream, and divides the valley along its entire length into two un- equal parts. The hills fall back on either side of you and lose their broken forms, becoming long slopes, draped thickly with the heavy brake-fern. Here and there stand the houses of the Indians, each with its grain- and hay-fields ; while of cattle of all ages, and little groups of ponies, there is no lack. Except in one or two instances, the houses are log- cabins, and you miss the staring white paint so com- mon in this country. The barns also are log-built. There is not much show of neatness about the houses, fences, or the inhabitants. As you ride along, you pass an old crone or two, with bare feet, and rag- ged, dirty petticoats, each with a large basket on her back, supported by a broad band across the forehead, in which she is carrying home the potatoes she has been digging in the field. Round one or two of the doors you see a group of lazy ones, men and children, lying or squatting on the grass or in the dust of the bare patch in front the women you see through the open door at work inside the house. The voices cease as you come in sight, but your salutation, either in Chinook or English, is civilly returned, and a quick glance takes in at once your personal appearance and that of your horse, and 138 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. every detail of your equipment. You see a few men at work in the fields, but only a few. The men are bet- ter dressed than the women ; torn or ragged clothes are very rare, and nearly every man has a red or red and yellow handkerchief loosely knotted round his head. Here come two cantering after you on their ponies ; one carries a rifle, and you recognize him as one of the reservation Indian police. He asks you your destina- tion and business, and, as you are bound straight for the agency, he lets you go on without a pass. They are bound to be strict, and to see that unauthorized visitors do not enter, and, above all, that no whisky comes within the reservation boundaries. Four miles more along the road, nearly all the way through farms, or by open pasture-fields, where grass and fern dispute possession, but all through fine bot- tom-land, varying in width from one to two or three miles across, brings you to the agency on the Middle Farm. What timber is left standing are huge firs, splendid specimens of trees. Here is the agency, the central spot of the reservation-life. The prominent building there, two stories high, with overhanging eaves, spick and span in new white paint and red shin- gles, is the boarding-house. Here some forty or fifty Indian children of all ages are collected from the out- lying portions of the reservation, and are clothed, fed, and trained ; their actual teaching goes on in the ad- joining school-house. The low, gray house in the or- chard, behind the boarding-house, is where the agent lives ; those other two white houses, each in its gar- den, are inhabited by the farmer and the builder or head-carpenter and millwright. In front of the board- ing-house is a pretty, open grass-field of six or seven INDIAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 139 acres ; and that neat, white structure at the lower cor- ner of it is the store. The Indians' houses are dotted round ; the fields are better kept and cultivated than the Upper Farm ; there is a notable absence of loafers and stragglers round, and more farming going on ; sev- eral teams of horses are in sight. The agent receives us kindly, and shows us round everywhere with interest in his work and its results. One Sunday I was there, and, hearing the church-bell calling to service, went in. The Sabbath-school was just beginning in the school-room behind the boarding- house. It was a mixed assembly of all ages, some ninety or a hundred in all. The women were better dressed, and the little children had been treated to all the com- forts and care in the way of dress their parents could muster. There was a great variety of type apparent, for the remnants of thirteen tribes of the coast and Klamath and Rogue River Indians are collected on this reservation. Nearly all could speak a little, and under- stand more, English and I think we could have got on quite as well without the help of the Indian inter- preter, who turned our English into fluent Chinook. This man, named Adams, is an excellent fellow, well instructed, capable, civil, and, I believe, an earnest Christian man. The agent asked me to take the Bible- class at the far end of the room, and soon I was the cen- ter of the observant eyes of a dozen Indian men of all ages. Certain of them were friends of mine. Old Ga- leese Creek Jem, a little fellow about five feet high, wi.th a broad face and a pair of twinkling, laughing eyes, had brought us some salmon in Rock Creek a few days before, and was under promise to bring us some more on Monday. Two or three of the others always 140 TWO TEARS IN OREGON. stopped for a chat as they passed through. All of them, I noticed, were curious to see how King George's man would act in this new capacity. I am bound to say that they showed considerable knowledge and some reflection in the answers they gave. Perhaps this is not to be wondered at, considering the resolute efforts made now for several years past to instruct and Chris- tianize the Indians here. At the store I found an excellent stock of all things that the Indians need, and marked at prices which en- abled them to lay their money out so as to get its fullest value. The assistant told me that they were all keen traders, and alive to minute differences in quality and texture of their purchases. The great majority of the men now heads of fami- lies on this reservation, engaged in farming a little, and sufficiently instructed in methods of labor to add con- siderably to their resources by working during a part of the year for the outside farmers, who are very ready to employ them, do not, I consider, either wish or require to be treated any longer as children or wards of the United States Government. In my judgment, the time has come to apply a far different rule. Many to whom I have talked, and others whose opinions I have gath- ered from trustworthy sources, desire earnestly to be relieved from the restrictions and to abandon the privi- leges of their present condition. If the lands they now farm, the houses they now dwell in, could become their private property, I believe that they would support themselves and their families in respectability. It may be desirable, it probably is, to prevent their having now the power of free sale and disposal of such lands, so as to guard them at the outset from designing pur- SUGGESTIONS. 141 chasers; but I believe the larger part by far would prize earnestly their separate estate. Why should not an independent officer have power to establish such families on homesteads of their own, on sufficient evi- dence of character and capacity such men ceasing thenceforth to have claims for support on the agency as a whole, but still entitled to all the common benefits of the school, the church, and the store ? The open land of the reservation would be diminished, of course, but how could it be put to better purpose ? I am per- suaded that the sight of their neighbors established on homes of their own would operate as a strong stimu- lus to those growing up and entering on life, to decent and orderly behavior. And as one district of a reser- vation became thus settled up, I think the boundaries of the open land devoted to general Indian purposes might be proportionately removed and contracted. Naturally, this plan would be of slow operation, but I think it would be sure. I am aware of the powers given to Indians by the homestead act to obtain land, but the plan differs in important respects from that set out above. The Indians on the Siletz reservation, of which alone I know anything from personal observation, are not all of the desirable class to whom I have referred. Some mistiness on the moral law yet remains. For instance, a murder was committed by three of them a month or two ago. It took place on the northern and remote part of the reserve, far away from the agency itself. Here lived one who, being a quack-doctor, claimed the character of a mighty medicine-man, having power to prescribe for both the bodies and souls of his patients. 142 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. To him resorted many of his neighbors, whose faith in his charms and spells was boundless. He undertook the cure of the wife of one Charlie, and the poor thing endured his remedies patiently. But the woman grew worse and worse. Charlie and his friends debated the case, and at last concluded that, if the medicine-man could not cure the woman accord- ing to his contract, and that she died, it would prove to them that the doctor was a humbug, and deserved to die the death. The catastrophe arrived, for the woman died. A council was held, and due inquiry made. The decision was fatal to the doctor, and Charlie and two friends undertook to secure that no one else should be misled and defrauded by the quack. Proceeding to his house, away up north by Salmon Eiver, near the sea-coast, the 'three fell on the medicine- man with clubs, and, despite threats, prayers, and en- treaties, they beat him to death. The news soon spread, and was carried to the ears of the agent. I can not help confessing to a half sympathy with the murderers, though I am fully aware of the enormity of the crime. It would be a satisfaction to feel justified in conscience in calling for a bodily expiation of the false pretenses and ignorant mummeries that did one's ( wife to death. And I hear that the Indians in question, while acknowledging that they knew they were sinning against the laws that governed life on the reservation, yet evidently had no consciousness of intrinsic wrong. However, they were arrested by the agent, and car- ried off to Fort Vancouver for detention and trial. Hence they escaped, but were pursued by the soldiers. One, being caught, refused to submit, and was shot by POWERS AND DUTIES OF THE AGENT. 143 the corporal in charge of the party in the act of flight ; the others were recaptured, and what their fate is or will be I do not yet know. But, as one stands on the beach at Newport, and sees a long string of wagons and teams coming down from the reservation for supplies, each in charge of its owner, a respectable-looking Indian, it is impossible not to wish for them the separate life and property they themselves desire u The number of Indians on the Siletz reserve is most variously stated ; the estimates range between twenty- four hundred and four hundred. I should fancy the truth to be nearer the smaller than the larger figures. It is obvious that the conditions of life, the stage of civilization, the state of education, the desire or readi- ness to acquire or own separate and individual property, must vary in every reservation. It is impossible to ap- ply the same rules to each, and I do not presume even to have an opinion regarding reservations other than the one in our immediate neighborhood. I had no idea till lately of the overwhelming power held by the agent. No Indian can leave the reserva- tion, however well established his good character, and for however temporary a purpose, without the pass of the agent. No one can enter the reservation, even to pass through it, or to stay a night with one of the In- dians at his house, without the same leave. Work on the roads or in the fields of the reservation is at the absolute order of the agent ; no corvee in ancient France could press more crushingly on the peasant than could the order of a harsh or stern agent on his charge. In the choice and erection of houses, in the furnishing and distribution of stores, in matters of internal police of 144 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. all sorts, his word is law. If any one desires to study the working of an instructed despotism in a partly civ- ilized community, he can see it carried to its logical extreme on an agency. So long as the Indians possess the attributes of chil- dren it may be right so to treat them. But I presume it was intended by the framers of the existing system that at some date the pupils should put away childish things and emerge from the condition of tutelage. The question is, whether that time has not come already in many instances. My observations have all had reference to a reserva- tion honestly governed, as I believe, with the best inten- tions toward its inhabitants. But how the system would lend itself to dishonest measures and arbitrary, even cruel, treatment, it is not hard to imagine. CHAPTER XII. The Legislative Assembly The Governor His duties Payment of the members Aspect of the city ; the Legislature in session The lobby- ist How bills pass How bills do not pass Questions of the day Common carriers Woman's suifrage Some of the acts of 1878 Judicial system of the State Taxes Assessments County officers The justice of the peace Quick work. THE Legislative Assembly of the State of Oregon meets for a session of forty days once in every two years, at Salem, the capital of the State. The Assembly consists of a Senate of thirty members and a House of Representatives of sixty members. Sena- tors are elected for four years and Representatives for two years ; but half the whole number of Senators go out of office every two years, so that at every biennial election the whole number of Representatives and half the whole number of Senators are chosen. The proportion of Senators and Representatives per- taining to any county may be varied after each United States or State census, in accordance with the results of that census, as showing the number of white inhabitants in the county or district and their proportion to the total white population of the State. The executive power of the State rests in the Gov- ernor, who is chosen by the white voters in the State every four years. His duties are various and important. They are denned by the Constitution as follows : He is commander-in-chief of the military and naval forces of 146 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. the State, which forces he may call out to suppress in- surrection or to repel invasion. He must take care that the laws be faithfully executed. He must inform the Legislative Assembly as to the condition of the State, and recommend such measures as he deems expedient. He may, on extraordinary occasions, convene the Legis- lative Assembly by proclamation, and must state to both Houses, when assembled, the purpose for which they are convened. He must transact all necessary business with the officers of government, and may require infor- mation in writing from the officers of the administrative and military departments upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices. He has power to grant reprieves, commutations of sentences, and par- dons for all offenses except treason this last offense being under the direct control of the Legislative Assem- bly. He has power to remit fines and forfeitures subject in all these cases to his reporting to the Legis- lative Assembly his exercise of such powers, and his reasons therefor. He must sign all bills, and has the power of veto. The Houses of the Legislative Assembly may, on recommittal, pass bills over such veto by votes of two thirds of members present. He has power to fill vacancies occurring in any State office during the recess of the Legislative Assembly. He must issue writs of election to fill vacancies occurring in the Legislative Assembly, and all commissions must issue in the name of the State, signed by the Governor, sealed with the seal of the State, and attested by the Secretary of State. In case of vacancy in the office of Governor the Sec- retary of State has to discharge his duties till the next election-time comes round. Oregon manifests a good deal of pride in her various THE LEGISLATURE. 147 Governors ; the portraits of several of them adorn the Capitol building. Members of the Legislature receive pay at the rate of three dollars a day during the session. The Presi- dent of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Eepresentatives receive five dollars a day. In addition, they all get mileage for their journeys to and from Salem. During the session of the Legislature the capital city is crowded and busy ; a strong and intelligent interest is shown in the meetings of this miniature Congress, all of which are open to the public. The preservation of order, of course, depends largely on the character and influence of the presiding officers ; but the members of both Houses appeared to me re- markably amenable to discipline. The debates in the Senate were generally decorous, even to dullness ; the House presented a more lively scene, a good many mem- bers being sometimes on their feet at once. The great faults appeared to an outsider to be the tendency to make very unnecessary speeches, and the constant calling for divisions, by name, on the most trivial points. Thus, much time was wasted. The objectionable feature was the presence of a numerous " lobby." The persons constituting this institution made themselves seen and heard in season and out of season ; no man or corporation having any bill to promote could leave it to the uninfluenced con- sideration of the members, but sent to Salem paid re- tainers, to attend the sittings, to haunt the members, to study their proclivities and intentions, and to get together and cement such alliances as should secure the passage of the various bills. Bills may be introduced in either House, but may 148 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. be amended or rejected in the other ; save only that bills for raising revenue must be introduced in the House of Representatives. It becomes a matter for grave consideration in which House a bill should be introduced, as the prestige of success in one House may help to carry it through the other. Oregon as a State voted Democratic for some years, and that party commanded a majority in the Legisla- ture. But, prior to the last elections, namely, those held in 1880, various splits or dissensions in the Repub- lican party, or among its managers, were got rid of, and a Republican majority in the Legislature, and the election of a Republican Representative to Congress, followed. The first struggle when the Legislature meets is over the choice of presiding officers. The chief reason for this interest is that on the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House devolves the duty of nominating the various committees to which bills shall be referred. There are committees on finance, Federal relations, commerce, railroads, and several others. The Houses pay some respect to the report of a commit- tee on a bill especially if it be unanimous ; but the chief province of the committees appeared to me to be to obtain possession of a bill, and then according to the private views of the committee or of a majority of its members to expedite, or hinder, and perhaps entirely prevent, its passage. And thus, again, the power or rather the influence of the presiding officers was felt. Every kind of parliamentary tactics was practiced ; no device that I ever heard of was unknown and un- THE LUNATIC ASYLUM. 149 used by these far- Western politicians. One thing was very noticeable, namely, that the great fights of the session were over matters involving, or supposed to involve, private interests. Thus, for many years it has been the custom in Oregon for the State to let out to a physician the care of the insane, he receiving from the State so many dollars for each patient, the cost to the State being collected from the responsible relatives or from the estate of the insane person. As the population of the State increased, of course, the number of the insane grew also, till about three hundred patients were in the doctor's care. Not a whisper was heard against the management : there was good supervision ; the patients were well and wisely treated, and the percentage of cures quite up to the average of the most successful public asylums. But many persons thought the time had come to have a State asylum, with its buildings, and committee of management, and its staff. So a bill was introduced to this end ; the physician who was then contracting, and for many years had contracted, with the State for the care of the insane, objected. Then rushed in the lobbyists, and every stage in the struggle was watched, and wrangled over, and schemed for, as if the whole future of the State depended on the result. In spite of the efforts of the doctor and his following, the State- asylum advocates won the day, and ultimately the bill passed. Plans for the new asylum have since been prepared, and the building is begun. Another vast question, which divided the Legislature into two hostile camps, was whether or not the narrow-gauge railway company 150 TWO TEARS IN OREGON. should carry an act giving it the use of a piece of ground at Portland, called the levee, which had been presented to that city a few years ago, but now lay practically unused. The railroad company had marked the ground for its terminal purposes ; the city of Port- land objected. This fight was most bitter, but ended by the country members joining in support of the bill, and carrying it over the heads of the Portland members by swinging majorities animated largely by a spirit of resentment at the Portland members having been very active in striving to defeat a bill for preventing unfair discrimination by railroad and steamboat corporations throughout the State. This was another of the burning questions. The transportation business of the State is now largely con- trolled by one great corporation, called " The Oregon Eailway and Navigation Company," formed by amal- gamating divers ocean and river steamboat companies, and purchasing or constructing detached lines of rail- road. The two lines of railroad running north and south up and down the Willamette Valley not being as yet absorbed, a lively competition existed so far as river and railroads ran parallel. Outside the limits of com- petition the corporations took it out of the people by what they thought were oppressive exactions. Further, the headquarters of both companies being in the city of Portland, and their course of transpor- tation carrying all the traffic of the State in and out through the Portland gate, the continuance of this state of things, and the support of the Eailway and Navigation Company, became the great object of the Portland members of the Legislature, as well as of COMMON CARRIERS. 151 those members who were for any reason influenced by the corporations. Hence a deep-lying division of inter- est between them and the country members. These last desired to pass the bill in question, not only to rectify existing unfairness, and to prevent the repetition of former oppressions, but as rendering more easy the task of whoever should propose to create com- peting lines, which might connect with or intersect those of the present companies. This end was to be gained by providing that all transportation agencies, of whatever kind, should convey, without preference in time, rates, or method of delivery, all passengers and goods presented for transit over the whole or any por- tion of their lines. It left the hands of all companies entirely unfettered as to what rates they should charge on fares or freights, but insisted that all traffic should be evenly and proportionately charged. The bill was introduced in the Senate, and passed its earlier stages triumphantly. Then the corporations and the Portland merchants awoke to the possibilities of competition ; stimulated also by the knowledge that the passage of the bill was desired by the promoters of the Oregon Pacific Railroad, designed to bisect the State from east to west, and to have its outport at Yaquina Bay. What an outcry arose ! Every argu- ment that could be tortured by the lobbyists into a criticism of the bill was openly and secretly brought to bear on the members. Its enemies got it referred to a hostile committee, from which it was with great difficulty recalled. Time was asked to understand a bill which consisted of but twenty-four lines. Motions for ad- journment were made, and divided on again and again to waste time. But the most ridiculous scene was 152 TWO TEARS IN OREGON. reached when after the debate on the third reading had virtually closed, and the final vote to determine the fate of the bill under the "previous question" was just going to be put, the President of the Senate, a stout Jewish gentleman from Portland, of German ex- traction, descended to the floor of the Senate to de- liver a panting, incoherent tirade of abuse, not on the merits of the bill, but against the Oregon Pacific Kail- road and every one connected with it ; denouncing as a "lie, and a fraud of the first wat her, ghentelmen," a statement made by a body of traders and farmers in the valley, and submitted by them to the United States Board of Engineers, that the grain which would seek an outlet over the proposed road would amount to six million bushels annually which statement had been quoted by the Oregon Pacific Eailroad Company in their prospectus. Shall I ever forget the look of blank amazement on the faces of the Senators while the Presi- dent's five minutes lasted, and he gesticulated and foamed ! However, the bill was lost by a vote of 16 to 14 ; one Senator having "ratted" at the last moment, to the disgust of a large body of the members of the House, who were waiting to seize the bill and carry it up-stairs into their chamber. Among other resolutions carried was one in favor of woman suffrage a triumph celebrated immedi- ately by a supper and reception given to the members of the Legislature in the Opera-House at Salem by the ladies who had been pressing forward the resolu- tion, and advocating it in some cases by a form of lobbying which, however legitimate, I should fancy some of the members must have found it hard to resist. Heaven forbid that it should ever fall to my lot to hold SOME LEGISLATIVE ACTS. 153 opposing views and bring forward hostile argument to a group of ladies whose heads were as full of logic and sense as their faces and forms of smiles and attractive- ness ! To give some general idea of the scope of the State legislation, let me quote the titles of a few of the acts of the session of 1878 : "An act to amend an act entitled ' An Act to pro- vide for the Construction of the Willamette Valley and Coast Railroad.' "An act to promote medical science. "An act to protect the stock-growing interests of the State of Oregon. "An act to regulate salmon-fisheries on the waters of the Columbia River and its tributaries. "An act to secure creditors a just division of the estates of debtors who convey to assignees for the bene- fit of creditors. "An act for the support of the State University. "An act defining the rights and fixing the liabilities of married women, and the relation between husband and wife. "An act to authorize foreign corporations to do business and execute their corporate powers within the State of Oregon. "An act to provide for liens for laborers, common carriers, and other persons on personal property. " An act to prevent the spread of contagious and infectious diseases among sheep." Before finishing this chapter I wish to add a few words on the judicial system of the State. The judicial power of the State is vested in the Supreme Court, circuit courts, and county courts. The Supreme Court sits at Salem, to hear appeals from the 154 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. circuit courts. It now consists of three judges, elected in 1880 to serve six years, four years, and three years respectively, their successors holding office for six years. The State is divided, I believe, into five circuits, and for each a judge is elected to serve for six years. The circuit courts have all judicial power, author- ity, and jurisdiction not specifically vested in any other court, and have appellate jurisdiction over the county courts. The county court consists of the county judge, who holds office for four years, and two county commission- ers. Together they transact county business, and have a jurisdiction over civil cases where not more than five hundred dollars is in issue, and over the smaller class of criminal offenses where the punishment does not ex- tend to death or to imprisonment in the penitentiary. The Supreme Court of the United States has a dis- trict judge presiding over a court at Portland. That court is the arena for trying all cases where one of the parties is not a citizen of the State, and also all c,: in which the Federal laws and Constitution, as distin- guished from the State system, are involved. The police of the State is in the hands of the sher- iffs and their deputies, the sheriff bein^r elected by popular vote every two years. The city of Portland has a regular police force of its own. The other towns in the State appoint marshals, who perform police du- ties within the city limits. The sheriffs are also tax-collectors. It should he added that the State and county revenue, a< distinct from Federal revenue, is collected in one payment by an assessment of so many mills (or thousandths) in the dollar on the total amount of property of (.-very kind COUNTY OFFICERS. 155 owned in the State by the tax-payer. The amount on which each man has to pay is ascertained by the county assessor, in consultation with the tax-payer. No form of property is allowed to escape, but a reasonable valua- tion is placed on possessions of a doubtful or fluctuating nature ; and exemptions are allowed for household fur- niture and clothes and small possessions to the extent of three hundred dollars. The county clerks have also to stand the racket of election every two years. In Benton County we are fortunate enough to have the services of a gentleman who has been reflected eight times. His long experi- ence in the office makes him an absolute dictionary of information on the history of every farm in the county. He is, to my mind, an illustration of the absurdity of this election and reelection. Every two years he has to waste a month in going over the county, spouting on every stump, to please the electors. He has had to endure several contests, evoked by the sayings, "It's well to have a change now and then," " He's been there long enough ; let some one else have a show," etc. But any new-comer into his office would have to spend a year or two in getting up the very information about the county which the experienced official has at his very finger-ends. And his long enjoyment of the office is the only reason I have heard given for a change. In the county clerk's office are kept the record- books for the county, and also the maps of the various townships, received from the chief office at Oregon City. In the record-books are copied all deeds affecting the title to land in the county. The chief effect of thus recording deeds is to give such public notice of the object of the deed that no man subsequently deal- 156 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. ing with a fraudulent vender can be treated as an inno- cent purchaser without notice, to the injury of the real purchaser. All deeds affecting land have to be exe- cuted in the presence of two witnesses, and acknowl- edged before a county clerk or a notary public. The interest of a wife in her husband's property is care- fully guarded ; and, in order to give proper title, the wife has to join in conveying land to a purchaser. In addition to the various judicial officers above de- scribed, there are the not-to-be-omitted justices of the peace. Their functions are extensive : among others, they can perform marriages, and at short notice, too. I have heard of one justice, known for his expedi- tious ways, before whose house a runaway couple halted on their wagon. The man shouted for the justice, who appeared. "Say, judge, can you marry us right away?" "I guess so, my son." "Well, then, let's have it." Whereupon the justice mounted the wagon- wheel, and there stood with his foot on the hub. " What's your name ? " " Jehoshaphat Smith." " Well, then, wilt thou have this woman, so help you ? " " Yes. " " My fee's a dollar ; drive on." The justice in the city tries for assaults and drunkenness, and administers for the latter seven days in the cala- boose a hole of a place in a back alley detention there no trifle, especially if, like a tipsy little friend of mine, he finds, on awaking with his customary headache, thatj his room-mate is a big countryman, very drunk, who has the reputation of "smashing everything up" when he has got what some here call "his dibs." CHAPTER XIII. Land laws Homesteads and preemption How to choose and obtain Government land University land School land Swamp land Kailroad and wagon-road grants Lieu lands Acreages owned by the various companies. To make this book useful, I must run the risk of making it tedious by some account of the land system relating to the preemption and homestead laws applica- ble to the public lands of the State. It is true that, long since, the prairie-lands of the Willamette Valley have all been taken up and are in private ownership. But there are very large tracts in- deed of public lands in the hilly and wooded portions of Western Oregon still open ; there is also an abun- dance of open land in the fine valleys of Eastern and Southern Oregon available. There are still upward of thirty million acres unsurveyed out of the sixty million nine hundred thousand which the State contains. There are five United States land-offices in Oregon : namely, at Oregon City, for the upper and central parts of the Willamette Valley, including also Northwestern Oregon generally ; at Roseburg, for Southwestern Ore- gon ; at Linkville, for the southeastern portion ; at La Grande, for Eastern Oregon, strictly so called ; and at the Dalles, for the great counties of W^asco and Uma- tilla the northern part of the State. At each of the land- offices a register and a receiver are stationed ; and the maps of the district are also deposited there for general reference. 158 TWO TEARS IN OREGON. When the settler has ascertained that a piece of land is eligible that is, that it will suit him not only for clearing and farming, but also to build his house on and live there he goes to the neighbors to find out the nearest corner posts or stones, and thence by compass he can determine roughly the boundary-lines. The' land must lie in a compact form, not less than forty acres wide ; thus he can take his one hundred and sixty acres in the shape of a clean quarter of a section or of an L, or in a strip across the section of forty acres wide ; but he can not pick out forty acres here, and a detached forty there, and so on. He then goes to the county clerk's office, where du- plicates of the land-office maps are kept. He finds out there with sufficient correctness if the piece he wants is open to settlement. The land-office is the only source of quite certain information, because it is possible that a claim may have been put on file at the land-office, particulars of which have not yet reached the county clerk. Being satisfied that the land is open, the in- tending settler must next determine whether to pre- empt or homestead. If he desires to preempt, and by payment to Government of $1.25 per acre for public land outside the limits of railroad and wagon-road grants, or $2.50 per acre for land within those limits, to obtain an immediate title, he must be sure that he does not fall within the two exceptions ; for no one can acquire a right of preemption who is the proprietor of three hundred and twenty acres of land in any State or Territory, nor can any one who quits or abandons his residence on his own land to reside on the public land in the same State or Territory. But, first of all, he or she must have one of the HOMESTEADS AND PREEMPTION. 159 following personal qualifications : the settler must be the head of a family, or a widow, or a single person ; must be over the age of twenty-one years, and a citizen of the United States, or have filed a declaration of in- tention to become such. Further, the settler must make a settlement on the public land open to preemp- tion, must inhabit and improve the same, and erect a dwelling thereon. No person can claim a preemption right more than once. But the settler on land which has been surveyed, and which he desires to preempt, must file his state- ment as to the fact of his settlement within three months from the date of his settlement, and he must make his proof and pay for his land within thirty-three months from the date of his settlement. The fee of $1.50 is payable to the register, and a similar fee to the receiver at the land-office on filing the declaratory statement above mentioned. It should be added that, if the tract has been offered for sale by the Government, payment must be made for the preempted land within thirteen months from the date of settlement. If the settler desires to obtain a homestead, he must come within the following description : the head of a fam- ily, or who has arrived at the age of twenty-one years, and is a citizen of the United States, or who has duly filed his declaration of intention to become such. The quantity of land thus obtainable is 160 acres, which is, at the time his application is made, open to preemption, whether at $1.25 an acre or at $2.50 an acre. There was until recently a distinction between land within the limits of railroad or wagon-road grants or outside of such limits, only 80 acres of the former class being obtainable, but the distinction is now done 160 TWO TEARS IN OREGON. away. The applicant has to make affidavit, on enter- ing the desired land, that he possesses the above quali- fications, that the application is made for his exclusive use and benefit, and that his entry is made for the pur- pose of actual settlement and cultivation, lie has also to pay fees of $22 for 1(>0 acivs when entry is made, and $12 when the certificate issues ; and of $11 for 80 acres when entry is made, and $(> when certificate issues. Such fees apply to land of the $2.50 price. They are reduced to totals of *-.>:> for 160 acres and $11 for 80 acres, for land of the *l.2:> price. Before a certificate is given or a patent issued fora homestead, live years must have elapsed from the date of entry. Affidavit has to be made that the applicant has resided upon or cultivated the land for the term of live years immediately succeeding the time of filing the affidavit, and that no part of the land has been alien- ated. The patent giVM an absolute title. In 08ft the death of the settler before the title to the preemp- tion or homestead is perfected, the grant will he made to the widow, if she continues residence and complies with the original conditions ; it' l.oih father and mother die, leaving infant children, they will be entitled to the right and fee in the land, and the guardian or executor may at any time within t u < after the death of the surviving parent, and in accordance with the laws of the State, sell the land for the benefit of the children ; and the purchaser may obtain the United States patent. Krom what has been stated, it will be seen that no title to land can be obtained from preempt or or home- steader who has not perfected his title. Nothing can be done to carry out such a transaction except for the holder to formally abandon his right, which can be done SCHOOL AND RAILROAD LAND. 101 by a simple proceeding at the land-office, and for the successor to take the chances of commencing an entirely fresh title for the land in question. Another point to be noticed is that the homestead is not liable for the debts of the holder contracted prior to the issuing of the patent. The law allows but one homestead privi- lege : a settler relinquishing or abandoning his claim can not thereafter make a second homestead entry. If tier has settled on land and filed his preemption declaration for the same, he may change his filing into a homestead, if he continues in good faith to comply with the preemption laws until the change is effected ; and the time during which he has been on the land preemptor will be credited to him toward the five for a homestead. The above information is obtained from the statutes of the United States, and is generally applicable. The rates of fees given are those which apply to Oregon, and v ly in differci des the public lands open to homestead and pre- emption, a settler may purchase school lands, univer lands, State lands, or railroad or wagon-grant la In each township of thirty-six sections of 640 a each, the two numbered 10 and 30 are devoted t purposes, and are sold by the Board of 8 Commis- sioners for the State to settlers in quantities not exceed- ing 320 acres to any one applicant, and at the best prices obtainable ; such lands are valued by the county ol superintendents for the information of the com- ut the minimum price is two dollars an acre. A further number of sections has been granted by the United States to :' n for the sup] of the University and of the Agricultural College. The 162 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. greater part of these lands has been sold ; some still remains ; the average price of previous sales is some- what under two dollars an acre. The State also pos- sesses some further lands donated by the United States for various purposes, but the quantity is not extensive except of lands known as swamp lands. Where the greater portion of a section is properly describable as wet and unfit for cultivation, it is called swamp land. Such lands have been granted by the United States to the State of Oregon, and are not open to preemption or homesteading. A very free interpretation is put on the words "wet and unfit for cultivation," and a very large acreage is included. The State has given rights of purchase over large bodies of these lands to different parties, and at prices which I have heard bear but a small proportion to their real value. At every session of the Legislature some fresh bills are brought in for dealing with the swamp lands, and a vast amount of "lobbying" goes on, which I suppose some people or other find a profit in. The great bulk of these lands are situated in Southeastern Oregon, in the vicinity of the lakes, such as Klamath Lake and Goose Lake ; but a good many acres are scattered throughout Eastern and Southern Oregon. The largest land-owners in the State are the railroads and the military wagon-road companies. The great grant to the Oregon and California Eailroad extends over the alternate sections within twenty miles on either side of the road, to the extent of 12,800 acres for each mile of railroad. The total estimated amount of this grant is 3,500,000 acres. The West-side Eailroad, called properly the Oregon Central, has a grant estimated at 300,000 acres. The prices at which these companies ACREAGES OWNED BY COMPANIES. 163 Bell these lands do not exceed seven dollars per acre ; and the amount may be spread over ten years, carrying seven per cent, interest. The wagon-roads have grants the amounts of which are stated as follows : loam. Oregon Central Military Road Company 720,000 The Dalles Military Koad Company 656,800 Corvallis and Yaquina Bay Wagon-Road Com- pany 76,800 Coos Bay Military Road Company 50,000 The Willamette Valley and Cascade Mountains Military Wagon-Road Company 850,000 This last grant is attached to the road company de- scribed in a previous chapter. The Willamette Valley and Coast Railroad Company also has a grant of all the tide and overflowed lands in Benton County, the amount being estimated at about 100,000 acres of alluvial land. In many cases the companies were unable to obtain the full amount of acreage which their grants give them out of the odd-numbered sections within the belt cov- ered by the grant. The alternative is for them to get what are called "lieu-lands," outside of their declared limits. So rapid is the tide of settlement, especially in East- ern Oregon, that the land -offices are thronged with applicants. A young Englishman who came out with me wrote from the Dalles to us last spring that on three successive Fridays he had come in from his range to file his homestead application, and after waiting the whole day he had been unable to get the business done, and had to return to his quarters disappointed. CHAPTER XIV. The "Web-foot State" Average rainfall in various parts The rainy days in 1879 and 1880 Temperature Seasons Accounts and figures from three points Afternoon sea-breezes A u cold snap" Winter Floods Damage to the river-side country Bare thunder Earer wind-storms The storm of January, 1880. I SHOULD think that no State is so much scoffed at as Oregon on the score of wet weather. Our neighbors in California call us "Web-feet," and the State is called "The Web-foot State." Emigrants are warned not to come here unless they want to live like frogs, up to their necks in water, and much more to the like effect. And this question as to the quantity of rain is one always asked in the letters of inquiry we get here from all parts of the world. It is impossible to give a general answer, because the rainfall varies in the State from seventy-two inches at Astoria, at the mouth of the Columbia River, to twelve inches on some of the elevated plains of ex- treme Eastern Oregon. Western Oregon also varies in its different parts ; the rainfall of seventy-two inches at Astoria sinking by pretty regular stages southward to thirty-two inches at Jacksonville. The average rainfall for four years reported by the United States Signal-Service Station at Portland is 52 T 8 ^j- inches. At Eola near Salem the average of seven years is 37^ inches. At Corvallis the average of the last three years, taken at the Agricultural College by Pro- fessor Hawthorne, is 31 T V 5- 1-2 July 1*8 o 24 Ausrust . 2-1 o 14 3-4 78 October . 7'4 o 2'93 November ... 12'2 58 5'56 12'5 1 6-13 The next question is as to temperature. The fol- lowing figures speak for themselves the highest and lowest temperature in each month, and the monthly range, reported by the United States Signal-Service Station, Portland, Oregon : 1S74. 1S75. 1876. MONT3S. I | i 1 | i 1 1 1 a 3 H >-* M a 3 i January 56 26 30 53 3 50 68 20 38 February 60 31 29 54 24 30 59 32 27 March 65 33 32 55 34 21 59 00 26 April . . 77 37 40 83 28 55 67 33 34 May 83 43 40 75 40 35 82 36 46 June 82 45 37 82 39 43 99 45 54 July 88 49 39 95 -5 46 49 '5 90 49 41 August 84 46 38 88 46 42 84 43 51 September. . . 88-5 42 46 86 44 42 90 44 46 October 77 32 45 78 36 42 79 42 37 November. . . . 63 27 36 63 28 35 63 34 29 December. . . . 57 31 26 63 33 30 56 24 32 TEMPERATURE. 167 For comparison's sake we give a similar table for 1878, 1879, and 1880, kept at the Corvallis Agricultural College : 1878. 1879. 1880. MONTHS. 1 i > t 3 e j> | & e 1 n 1 I jjji 5 I 1 January 65 20 35 46 20 26 50 24 26 February .... 60 34 26 52 25 27 44 25 19 March . . 67 32 3 5 66 32 34 54 24 30 April 71 31 40 67 32 35 76 29 47 Mav 80 34 46 72 36 36 72 32 40 rr*' June 92 42 50 73 42 31 85 40 45 July.. . 79 53 26 90 45 45 81 42 39 August 81 52 29 83 43 40 84 42 42 September.. . . 73 38 35 84 42 42 80 38 42 October 61 32 29 64 28 36 68 28 40 November. . . . 65 30 25 55 18 37 56 12 44 December .... 64 19 35 56 8 48 56 20 36 The averages of temperature for the four seasons at these three points, Portland, Eola, and Corvallis, are as follows : POINTS. Spring 1 . Summer. Autumn. Winter. Portland. 51-9 65*3 52-8 40-1 Eola 48'3 63 '7 51*2 oo . o Corvallis 52 67 53 41 The difference between the extremes is therefore for Portland, 25-2; for Eola, 25 '5 ; for Corvallis, 26. Contrast this with similar figures from Davenport, in the State of Iowa. The winter mean there is 19 '9, the summer 75 -2 ; showing a difference of 55 '3. At Corvallis, throughout the summer months and till late in the fall, a daily sea-breeze springs up from 8 168 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. the west about one o'clock in the afternoon, and con- tinues till night closes in, and then dies off gradually. However pleasant this is to the settler heated in the hay- or harvest-field, it brings its perils too. I give an earnest caution not to be betrayed into sitting down in the shade to cool down, with coat and vest off, while this sea-breeze fans a heated brow, or a sore attack of rheumatism or its near relative, neuralgia, will very likely make you rue the day. Rather put on your warm coat and button it close, and let the cooling process be a very gradual one. But if, by your own forgetfulness of simple precautions, you have taken cold, and rheu- matism has you in its grip, do not turn round and abuse a climate which is one of the most delightful in the whole temperate zone, but blame yourself, and your- self only. In the winter of 1879-'80 we had a "cold snap." The day before Christmas the west wind suddenly veered round northward. What a bitter blast came straight from the icy north ! The cattle set up their poor backs, and crowded, sterns to the wind, into the warmest corners of the open fields, and there stood with rough coats and drooping heads, the pictures of passive endurance. In two days the ice bore, and everything that could be called a skate was tied or screwed on to unaccustomed feet ; and a beautiful display of fancy skating followed, as all the "hoodlums" of the town sought out the Crystal Lake or Fisher's Lake. Then came the snow ; and every one left off skating and took to sleighing. The livery-stable keepers made fortunes by hiring out the one or two real sleighs ; but poor or economical people constructed boxes of all shapes and fastened them on runners, making up in the FLOODS. 169 merriment of the passengers for the uncouthness of the vehicles. But the snow, too, only lay a few days, and we were glad when our old friend the rain fell and restored to us the familiar prospect. For houses here are not con- structed for extremes of temperature in either direc- tion ; and hot, dry air in the sitting-room, where the close stove crackles and grows red-hot, is a bad prepara- tion for a bedroom with ten degrees of frost in it, or the outside air with the icy wind bringing a piece of Mount Hood and its glaciers into your very lungs. The only good thing was, that it lasted so short a time. And during this last winter of 1880-'81 we have had no such experience. Instead, we have had trial of floods the highest since 1860-'61, the year of the great flood. After about twenty-four hours' snow, the wind went round to the south, and a soft, warm rain followed for nearly thirty-six hours more. This melted the snow, both on the Cascades and on and round Mary's Peak. The Mackenzie, which is the southeast fork of the Willa- mette, and comes straight from the Cascades, brought down a raging torrent into the more peaceful Willa- mette. All the tributary streams followed in their turn. Telegrams brought news from Eugene City, forty miles up the river, every hour, "Kiver rising, six inches an hour." Soon the banks would not hold the water, which spread over the surrounding country. Corvallis stands high on the river's bank ; but look- ing across over the low-lying lands in Linn County, nothing but a sea of moving, brown water appeared, in which the poor farmhouses and barns stood as islands in the midst. The settlers who were warned in time 170 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. cleared their families out of their houses, and left their dwellings and furniture to their fate. The horses and cattle that could be reached in time were swum across the river to safety on this side, and an excited crowd lined the river-bank, watching the swimming beasts and helping them to land, while every skiff that could be pressed into the service was engaged in bringing across the women and children and their most valued posses- sions. One man lost fourteen horses which had been turned out on some swampy land four miles below the city ; others cattle, sheep, and pigs ; and none within reach of the inundation that is, within a belt of low land averaging two miles from the river in extent but had their fences moved or carried away and heaped in wild confusion. The worst case I heard of was of a poor fellow from the East, who had just invested his all in a farm of fat and fertile bottom-land a few miles from Salem. He had repaired his house and furnished it, had stocked his farm, and had written for wife and family to join him. The rain descended, the flood came ; higher and higher it rose, sweeping off fences, drowning cattle ; it entered the house and spoiled all of its contents. The unlucky owner had to betake himself to a tree, whence he was picked by a passing skiff the next morning, be- wailing his fate, and offering his farm as a free gift to any one who would give him enough dollars to return to the Eastern State whence he had just come. But nearly all the mischief to stock came from neglect of timely warning. No one but could have driven all off to safety, for the water-worn belt was a very narrow one. Some men gained largely by the de- posit left by the flood on their land, serving to renew for many years the productive qualities ; others were in THE " CHINOOK." 171 a sad plight the soil being washed away, deep gullies plowed, and a thick coating of stones and river-grayel left. The river rose high enough to flood the lower floors of the wheat warehouses from Kosebury to Portland, and in the river-side towns caused a great deal of dis- comfort and some loss ; but no loss of life resulted. It carried away the new bridges over the Santiam River just built by the narrow-gauge railroad, and washed away several miles of their new track. It also broke through several viaducts on the East-side Railroad, and stopped postal communication for a day or two. The winter of 1880-'81 has proved disastrous to stock in Eastern Oregon. As a general rule, the sheep and cattle ranges are covered with bunch-grass, which grows from ten to twenty-four inches high during the summer months, and is dried by the sun into natural hay. When winter comes it brings with it snow from six to eighteen inches deep, and this lies light and powdery over the face of the country. The cattle and sheep scratch the covering off, and feed on the hay beneath. The prevailing winds in the winter there are north and south, and neither melts the snow. But now and again comes the west or southwest "Chinook." It breathes softly on the snow, and a quivering haze rises from the melting mass. When the "Chinook" blows long enough to melt the snow away, all goes well. But this last winter, after blowing for a day or two and melting the surface, it gave place to a biting blast from the north, which froze all hard again. The unfortu- nate sheep and cattle tried in vain to scratch through the icy crust, and died from starvation within but a few inches of their food. 172 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. In speaking of the rainfall of the State it is right to mention a considerable stretch of land lying on the east side of, and directly under the lee of, the Cascade Mountains. Here there falls but six or eight inches of rain in the year. The residents have, therefore, to depend on irrigation for fertility of soil. They have abundant facilities for this, as many streams and creeks flow down from the Cascades. With irrigation, very heavy crops of grain (as much as forty bushels of wheat to the acre) are produced. Western Oregon enjoys a remarkable immunity from thunder-storms. They are of very rare occurrence, and when the thunder is heard it is rumbling away in the mountains many miles off. We have seen some sum- mer lightning on a few evenings, gleaming away over the hills. Wind-storms, too, very seldom visit us. In Janu- ary, 1880, one curiously local storm swept from the south through the valley. It bore most severely on Portland. A friend there told me that he was looking across the river to East Portland, where the Catholic church stood with its spire, a prominent object. As he looked, the blast struck it, and, as he expressed it, the building melted away before his eyes. Eiding through the green fir-timber in the hills a few days after the storm, I saw several places where the limbs were torn off, and even great trees blown down in a straight line, their neighbors within but a few feet of them standing unhurt. The Government records in twenty-five years only show three winds blowing over the State with a velocity of forty-five miles an hour and a force of ten pounds to the square foot. But what a spring we have had this PLEASANT SPRING WEATHER. 173 year 1881 ! While the papers have been full of snow- storms and floods in other places, here we have had balmy sunshine and mild nights, with occasional show- ers. The old residents call it real Oregon weather, and say it always was like this till two or three years ago. CHAPTER XV. The State Fair of 1880 Salem The ladies' pavilion Knock-' em-downs a V Americaine Self-binders Thrashing-machines Eates of speed Cost Workmanship Prize sheep Fleeces Pure versus graded sheep California short-horns Horses American breed or Perche- ron Comparative measurements The races Eunners Trotters Cricket in public Unruly spectators. ABOUT two miles from the city of Salem, the capi- tal of the State, are the fair-grounds. Bound a large inclosure of some fifteen acres of grass-land there runs a belt of oak-wood. Here, inside the boundary-fence, are camping-places without end. Until 1880 the State Fair has been held in October, but it was then changed to July, in the interval between the hay- and the grain-harvest, and so as to take in the great national festival on the 4th of July. Every one goes to the fair, which lasts a week, for every one's tastes are consulted. The ladies have a pavilion with displays of fruit and flowers ; of needle-work and pictures ; of sewing-ma- chines and musical instruments of all kinds ; of house- hold implements and " notions " various. The chil- dren delight in an avenue of booths and caravans, where the juggler swallows swords, and a genius in academic costume and mortar-board hat teaches arithmetical puz- zles and the art of memory in a stentorian voice. Here is the wild-beast show, and there the American substi- tute for the Old World knock-'em-downs. A canvas- SELF-BINDERS. 175 sided court, five-and-twenty feet across, contains the game. At the farther side, on a continuous ledge, stands a row of hideous life-size heads and shoulders labeled with the names and painted in the supposed likeness of the prominent political characters of the time. A great soft-leather ball supplies the place of the throwing-sticks ; and for a quarter (of a dollar) you can have a couple of dozen throws at the pet object of your aversion. As fast as the doll is knocked over his proprietor sticks him up again ; while an admiring crowd applaud the hits, or groan, according to their political colors. Here is a great opening for skill, and also (say it in a whisper) for trifling bets. A man I know was " dead broke " when he went to the knock-'em-down, but by straight throws and cunning he gained a couple of dol- lars in a quarter of an hour, and so got another day in the fair. The real business of the fair appeals straight to the farmer and mechanic. The long rows of lumber-built sheds are filled with choice sheep, cattle, horses, pigs, poultry. The race- track on the farther side of the grounds is crowded also every afternoon, while many a rivalry between the run- ning or trotting horses of the various counties is decided. The implements, too, are a fine show. The " self- binders" display their powers by catching up and tying over and over again the same sheaf of grain before a curious crowd, far better instructed than you would suppose in the intricacies of construction and neatness and rapidity of performance of the various machines. Last year the great attraction was the Osborne twine- binder, for every one was interested in getting rid of 176 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. the wire that has been injuring the thrashers and hurt- ing the digestion of the stock. It was voted a good worker, but complicated, as far as we could judge ; and the general verdict seemed to be that greater simplicity of make and fewer parts to get out of order would soon be brought to bear either by these or other makers. There were two or three thrashing-machines dis- played the Buffalo Pitts, the Minnesota Chief, and one or two others. The great distinctions between these and the machines of English makers, such as Clayton and Shuttleworth, lie in the American drum and cylinder being armed with teeth and driven at a rate of speed from twice to three times that used in the English machine. The straw is, of course, beaten here into shreds between the revolving teeth, and its length and consistency far more completely destroyed than in the Clayton and Shuttleworth, and so loses much of its value for storing and feeding purposes. On the other hand, the grain is better cleaned, and the product per hour in clean grain is double that of the English machine. The American makers authorize as much as fifteen hundred bushels per day with horse- power, and up to three thousand with steam. There were several horse-powers shown, for use with the thrashing-machines ; these left nothing to be desired for simplicity and economy of power. The thrashing- machines are of various sizes and prices, ranging from 8750 to $1,500 in value. An idea prevails in some parts that the mowers and reapers of American make are slighter and more fragile than those of English construction. Such is not the result of our observation and experience here. On the contrary, our "Champion" mower and reaper com- PRIZE SHEEP. 177 bined did work over rough ground, baked hard with the summer's sun, which demonstrated both strength and excellence of work beyond what we should have expected from any English machine we know of. There was a very poor show of chaff-cutters and root- pulpers, because our farming friends here have not yet required these indispensable aids to mixed farming and succession of crops. After spending a couple of profit- able hours among the machines, now come and inspect the stock. We turn first into the long alley of sheep-pens. The first attraction is the prize lot of Spanish merinos. Huge, heavy sheep clothed with wool almost to their ankles ; ungainly to an English eye, from their thick necks, and large heads, and deep folds of skin. The shearer was at work, and fleeces weighing from seven- teen to twenty pounds were displayed. We examine eight or ten pens of these merinos, including Spanish, French, and German, mostly in use in Eastern and Southern Oregon, where the dry climate and wide range suit these sheep exactly. There were one or two pens of graded sheep, merinos crossed with Cotswold or Vermont bucks. The crosses maintained the weight in wool and decidedly showed improved mutton, but the quality of the wool, of course, betrayed the admix- ture of the coarser fiber. There were two or three pens of improved Oxfordshires, the breed of which has been kept pure by a well-known fancier in Marion County, on the uplands east of Salem. The sheep were in many points very pretty, but seemed to us now to require fresh blood, as the wool-bearing surfaces were evidently reduced. Several pens of pure Cotswolds were exceed- ingly good, both in shape, size, and wool. The Ver- 178 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. mont crosses which had been tried in a few instances did not seem to us to have been profitable. One thing pleased us, namely, that the best sheep, as a rule, came from those farmers who bred sheep in inclosed lands and fed them well, as part of a general system of farm- ing, rather than from the huge flocks of the sheep-men who range the wilds. The only cattle worth looking at were some Dur- hams brought up by one of the successful California breeders for exhibition and sale. The prices he got must have been very satisfactory to him, and proved that some Oregon farmers at any rate have the pluck and foresight to give full value for good stock. Next came the horses. The stamp varied from nearly thoroughbred to Clydesdale and Percheron stud- horses, with a fair number of mares and foals. The parade of the horses each day, as they were led round the ring each by its own attendant, was a very pretty sight. Nothing special need be said of the well-bred stock that is much the same the world over ; only the size proved how well adapted Oregon is for the home of horses of a high class. What interested us most were very fine specimens of what are called here heavy horses for farm-work. Standing fully sixteen hands high, with long but compact bodies, good heads, with large, full eyes, and hard, clean legs, fit to draw a light wagon six or seven miles an hour over muddy roads, and to drag a sixteen-inch plow through valley soil, they seemed to us the very models of the horse the valley farmers should breed in any number. We regretted to notice the large number of Clydesdales and Percherons ; the latter type of horse especially we deprecate tall grays, with thick necks, heavy heads, upright shoulders, THE RACES. 179 slim, round bodies, hairy, clumsy legs, huge flat feet covered with the mass of hair depending from the fet- lock. Just such you may see any day in the farm-carts in the north of France a team of four in a string, the shaft-horse overshadowed by the huge cart with wheels six feet high ; the carter plodding by the side, in his blue blouse with his long whip. Just to settle a con- troversy with some Percheron-mad Oregonian friends, we had several horses of the two different types meas- ured then and there. We found the Oregon mare girthed nearly a foot more round the body behind the shoulders than the Percheron horse. The girth of the forearm below the shoulder was greater. The Per- cheron was the taller at the shoulder, the thicker round the fetlock, and, I should think, carried two extra pounds of horse-hair in mane, tail, and fetlock- tufts. The Oregon mare showed just those points which every horse-lover seeks, to testify to activity, strength, endurance, and intelligence ; the Percheron was lacking in such respects, but instead had a certain cart-horse comeliness, looking more suitable for a brew- er's van in a big city than for our farms and roads. Like the rest of the world, we answered to the call of the bell, and crowded through into the grand stand to see the races. A circular track of half a mile, the surface of which was already churned into black mud, did not look promising for the comfort of either driv- ers or riders. The benches of the grand stand were crowded with eager spectators, ladies predominating the men were lining the track below, while the judges looked down from a high box opposite. The din of the men selling pools on the impending race was deafening, and each of the little auctioneers' boxes where the sales 180 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. went on was surrounded by a throng of bidders. The first race was for runners, that is gallopers, ridden by boys thirteen or fourteen years old. It was not a grand display to see three or four horses galloping away, dragging their little riders almost on to their necks, and their finishes showed no great art. Then came the trotting races, and these were worth seeing. Three sulkies came on the track, the driver sitting on a lit- tle tray just over his horse's tail, and between two tall, slender wheels. Catching tight hold of his horse's head, and sticking his feet well in front of him, each driver sent his horse at a sharp trot round the track to open his lungs. Then the bell rang again, the course was cleared, and the drivers turned their horses' heads the same way, and tried to come up to the judges' box in line. Once, twice, they tried ; but the bell was silent, and back they had to come, the horses fretting at the bit, and getting flecked with foam in anxiety to be off. The third time the three sulkies were abreast as they passed the line, the bell sounded once, and off they tore. The drivers sat still farther back, and the horses laid themselves down to their grand, far-reaching trot. Before two hundred yards was covered one broke into a gallop, and had to be pulled back at once, his adversaries gaining a yard or two before he could be steadied to a trot again. Here they come in the straight run-in, the little black horse slightly in front, the big bay next, but hardly a head between them ; the crowd shouts wildly, and the bay breaks trot just at the criti- cal moment, and the black wins the heat, his legs going with the regularity and drive of a steam-engine. The horses are surrounded by admirers as they are taken out of the sulkies, and led off to be rubbed down CRICKET IN PUBLIC. 181 and comforted before the next heat comes on. Then follows a running race, and then another heat of the trotting race. This time the bay wins, hard held, and forbidden by a grasp of iron to break into the longed- for gallop. Soon comes the deciding heat, and the excitement grows intense ; the pools are selling actively, and speculation is very brisk. Our sympathies are with the little black ; half a hand shorter than his antagonist, and more like a trot- ting-horse than the tall, thoroughbred bay. But the fates are against him size and breeding tell, and the bay wins. Then the band strikes up, and the crowd disperses. Most get back to the city by one of the miscellaneous wagons, or hacks, or omnibuses pressed into the service of the fair ; the rest betake themselves to their camping- places among the oak-grubs, after supplying themselves with meat and bread from one or other of the temporary stores set up at one side of the grounds. This year the visitors had a new sensation in seeing cricket played on the fair-ground, to most of them a new sight. Portland is blessed with a cricket club, mostly supported by the emigrants from the old coun- try. Corvallis has a similar advantage. The Portland- ers, in the pride of their strength, and heralded by a paragraph in the "Oregonian" newspaper, that the "team selected to beat the Corvallis athletes" had gone up to Corvallis, had come for wool and gone home shorn . So, as a return-match was under discussion, it was de- termined to accept the invitation of the fair committee and play the return on the fair-grounds for the amuse- ment of the visitors. Accordingly, the game was duly played out, and ended again in a one-innings defeat of 182 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. proud Portland, to the delight of the spectators from the valley, who are generally a little jealous of the airs and graces of the bustling town which calls herself the metropolis of the Northwest. There was some diffi- culty in keeping the ground clear ; the ladies particu- larly could not comprehend the terrible solecism they were committing in tripping bravely across, to speak, to " point," and chat with the wicket-keeper. If you could but have seen the horror-stricken faces of one or two of our eleven, accustomed to the rigor of the game at Cambridge, Kugby, or Cheltenham ! CHAPTER XVI. History of Oregon First discoverers Changes of government Kecogni- tion as a Territory Entrance as a State Individual histories " Jot- tings" "Sitting around" A pioneer in Benton County How to serve Indian thieves The white squaw and the chief Immigration in company Eafting on the Columbia The first winter Early set- tlement Indian friends Indian houses and customs The Presby- terian colony The start Across the plains Arrival in Oregon The "whaler" settler A rough journey " Ho for the Umpqua!" A backwoodsman Compliments School-teacher provided for Uncle Lazarus Eoguo River Canon Valley of Death Pleasant homes Changed circumstances. TAKING note of the civilized and settled condition of so large a part of this State, it is hard to credit that it was only in 1831 that the first attempts at farming in Oregon were made by some of the men in the Hudson Bay Company's service, and that in 1838 the first print- ing-press arrived . This valued relic is now preserved in a place of honor in the State Capitol building at Salem more accordant with the spirit of the times than rusty armor or moth-eaten banners. The early history is somewhat misty, but the follow- ing slight sketch is, I believe, accurate : The coast of Oregon was visited both by British and Spanish navigators in the sixteenth century. In 1778 Captain Cook sailed along the coast. In 1775 Heceta, and in 1792 Vancouver, both suspected the existence of the Columbia River from the appearance of its estu- 184: TWO YEARS IN OREGON. ary. But in 1792 Captain Gray, of Boston, and after- ward, in the same year, Captain Baker, an English- man, entered the estuary itself. It was on Captain Gray's discovery that the United States Government afterward rested its claim to the whole country watered by the great river, the mouth of which he had discov- ered. But Lieutenant Broughton, of the British Navy, in 1792 or 1793, a very few months after Captain Gray's visit, actually ascended the Columbia for one hundred miles, and laid claim to the country in the name of King George III. In 1804 the American Government expe- dition of Lewis and Clark crossed the Eocky Mountains, descended the Columbia, and passed the winter of 1805-' 6 at its mouth ; and the records of their discov- eries first drew public attention to the country. In 1810 Captain Winship, also from New England, built the first house in Oregon. Astoria was founded in 1811 by John Jacob Astor, of New York, as a trading-port. The British, while the war was raging in 1813, took possession of the post and named it Fort George. Then followed the Hudson Bay Company, who claimed the sovereignty of the country under the terms of their wide charter. They established their headquarters for the North Pacific coast at Vancouver, on the north bank of the Columbia, about one hundred miles from its mouth. There the fort was built, the settlement formed, farming began, and the Governor of the Hud- son Bay Territory had his Western home. In 1832 the first school was opened. Between 1834 and 1837 missionaries of various denominations arrived, bringing cattle with them; and in 1841 Commodore Wilkes visited Oregon on an exploring expedition by order of the United States Government. From 1816 ENTRANCE AS A STATE. 185 to 1846 the "joint occupancy" of Oregon by the American and British Governments lasted under treaty. In 1843 the people were for the first time recognized, and united in forming a provisional government, for- mally accepted at a general election in 1845. By the year 1846 the white population numbered about ten thousand souls, and in that year the Oregon Territory, including both the present State of Oregon and also Washington Territory, was ceded, under the Ashbur- ton Treaty, by the British Government to the United States. Congress formally recognized the Territory of Ore- gon in 1848, and in 1849 GeneralJoe Lane entered office as the first Territorial Governor. His portrait now adorns the Capitol building. And the old general, still erect and in full preservation, in spite of his years and services, has been until this spring of 1881 yet seen and respectfully greeted at many a public gathering. In 1859 Oregon was admitted into the Union as a sovereign State ; the population was 52,465. In 1880 the census gave a total of 174,767 souls, showing an increase of 122,302 in twenty-one years, and an increase of 74,767 over the State census in 1875. But, after all, the history of a State is the history of its people. Nowadays we enter Oregon within twenty days from Liverpool, having been speeded on our journey by steamships and railroads in continuous connections. Within two years the State expects to have two direct lines of Eastern communication one by the Northern Pacific, the other by a line through the southeastern 186 TWO YEARS IN OREQOX. corner of the State to Reno, on the Central Pacific shortening the twenty to sixteen days. Within two years more it is hoped that the Oregon Pacific will make communication at Boise City, Idaho, with independent Eastern lines, and open a still more direct course out to the centers of population and enterprise. But in the early days, from 1846 to 1851, when the tide of set- tlement ran first this way, their experiences were widely different. Listen to the tales some of these men tell not old men yet by any means ; the vigor and power of life still burn in most of them, for the dates are but thirty years back. But what a different life these pioneers led then ! Let me sketch the scene and its surroundings where these "jottings round the stove" are made. It is rather a dusty old room, and a rusty old stove in the middle, and rather a dusty and rusty company are gath- ered round it. Winter-time is upon us ; the rain falls in a ceaseless drizzle, and the drops from the eaves patter on the fallen leaves of the plane-trees round the house. The time is after the noon dinner-hour ; no work presses, for the fall wheat is all in, and there is a sense of warmth and comfort within, which contrasts with the dim scene without, where the rain-mists obscure the hills and fill the valley with their slowly driving masses. Five or six of us "sit around "mostly on two legs of the chairs, and our boots are propped up on the ridge round the stove. We don't go much on broad- cloth and "biled" shirts, but we prefer stout flannel shirts and brown overalls, with our trousers tucked inside our knee-high boots. Tobacco in one form or the other occupies each one. Carpets we have no use A PIONEER IN BENTON COUNTY. 187 for, and it is good that the arm-chairs are of fir, as the arms are so handy for whittling, there being no loose pieces of soft wood by. But we are all good friends, and I, for one, do not wish for better company for an hour or two " around the stove." " So the old man came into Benton County in 1845, did he?" " Yes, he and his wife and two young children, and took up a claim there three or four miles from town. " " Was there a town then ? " "Not much just three log-cabins and a hut or so ; they called it Marysville ; it did not get the name of Corvallis till years after." " How about the Indians ? " " "Well, there were plenty in the valley, Klick-i-tats and Calapooyas these last were a mean set at that. The valley was all over bunch-grass waist-high, and the hills were full of elk and. deer." " Had the old man any stock ?" " He had just brought a few with him from Mis- souri over the Plains, and fine store he set by them. You see the Indians used to come and beg for flour and o sugar, and a beef now and then. Some of the neigh- bors would give them a beef at times, but the old man used to say he hadn't brought no cattle to give to them varmints." " How did they manage to live at first ? " "Well, the old man used to go off for a week at a time to Oregon City to work on the boats there at his trade of a ship-carpenter. He had to foot it there and back, and pack flour and bacon on his back for his folks, and a tramp of sixty miles at that." " Did the Indians bother any while he was gone ? " 188 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. " One time a pack of them came round the cabin and got saucy, finding only the old lady at home. They crowded into the house and began to help themselves, but the old lady she took the axe and soon made them clear out. When the old man came back she told him about it. 'Well,' says he, 'I reckon I shall have to stop at home a day or two and fix these varmints.' So three or four days afterward back they came. "The old man he kept out of sight, and the buck they called the chief came in and began to lay hold of anything he fancied. "Then the old man showed himself in the doorway with his old rifle on his arm. He looked the chief up and down, and then he says to his wife : ' Do you see that bunch of twigs over the fireplace ? You take them down, and go through that fellow while the twigs hold together!' And he says to the Indian, 'You raise a finger against that woman, and I'll blow the top of your head off ! ' So the old lady takes down the willow-twigs, and goes for the Indian for all there was in it, and beats him round and round the house till there wasn't a whole twig in the bunch. Lord ! You should have seen the whole crowd of twenty or thirty Indians splitting with laughter to see the white squaw go for the chief. I tell you, sir, that Indian made the quickest time on record back to the camp as soon as she let him go, and that crowd never bothered that cabin any more. Now, wasn't that much better than shooting and fighting, and kicking up the worst kind of a muss ? " "Well, I guess so. Did he have any more bother with the Indians ? " "Not a great deal. You see they were a mean lot, and would lay hands on anything they could steal ; RAFTING ON THE COLUMBIA. 189 but there wasn't a great deal of fight in them. One time they had been robbing one of the neighbors of some cattle, and they went and told the old man. He went up all alone to the Indian camp with his rifle, and picked out the man he wanted out of a crowd of fifty of them ; and he took him and tied him to a white- oak tree, and laid on to him with a sapling till he thought he'd had enough, and not one of the whole crowd dared raise a hand against him. Now the old gentleman's got three thousand acres of land and all he wants. How's that for an early settler ? " "Why, pretty good. But you came over the Plains yourself, didn't you ? " " Yes ; I was but a little shaver then, in 1845. We came by way of the Dalles." "What sort of a crowd had you ?" " Well, there was my father, Nahum his name was, and my four brothers, all older than I was, and there was the Watsons and the Chambers and their families in the company. We crossed the Plains all right and got to the Dalles. There were thirteen wagons in the party, and we rafted them and the cattle and all the rest of it down the Columbia." "How on earth did you make a raft big enough ?" "Well, we just cut the logs in the woods on the edge of the river, and rolled them in and pegged them together with lighter trees laid across. It took us about all the morning to get out into the current, and all the afternoon to get back again. But, after all, we got to the Cascades." " How did you get past them ? " " We had to just put the wagons together, and cut a road for ourselves, six miles round the portage, till 190 TWO YEARS IN OREGON. we could take to the river again. Then we got boats and came all right down the Columbia and up the Willamette past where Portland now stands." "Where was Portland then ?" "There was no Portland, I tell you just a few houses and cabins. I forget what they called the place. Anyhow, we got pretty soon to the Tualitin Plains, where Forest-grove Station is now, and there we passed that first winter in Oregon." " Was it rough on you ? " "Well, no not particularly. All the lot of us crowded into one little cabin ; but we lived pretty well." "What did you live on?" " Well, there was a little grist-mill near by, and the folks had raised a little wheat and some potatoes and peas. We got no meat at all that winter. The next spring we came on into King's Valley and took up the old place you know where I showed it you under the hill." "Weren't there plenty of Indians there ?" " Indians ! I should think so ; about two or three hundred Klick-i-tats were camped in that valley then. Good Indians they were, tall, and straight as a dart." " Who was the chief ?" " A man they called Quarterly. When we came in and camped, that Indian came up to my father and said, ' What do you want here ? ' My father said, ' We have come here to settle down and farm and make homes for ourselves.' 'Well,' says the Indian, ' you can; if you don't meddle with us, we won't hurt you.' No more they did ; we never had a cross word from them." " Was the country theirs ? " INDIAN HOUSES AND CUSTOMS. 191