Part 2 (1/2)

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

In due time we arrived in the Willamette Valley. Over three months elapsed before I received a copy of The Free Press containing my letter.

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is not in the line of this narrative to marshal the reasons for, or against the probability, or improbability, of Indian legends. If I should depart from this rule in this instance, I would say that the similarity of the rocks on both sides of the great Columbia River gorge; the presence of submarine sh.e.l.ls embedded in the great eastern basin, as well as the formation of its converging ridges, and the character of its soil, lend a certain tinge of verification to a portion of this legend.

The other portion may be taken as a poetic description of volcanic action, with an attendant earthquake or seismic convulsion of great intensity, and of tremendous force.

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

Late in the fall of 1847 a large ox-train, with many loose cattle, attempted the ascent of the mountains by the eastern river, but were finally blockaded by the constantly-increasing depth of snow. There were many women and children, as well as stalwart men, in the train. The situation was perilous, threatening great suffering, and the possibility of starvation; hence, two men were deputed to cross the intervening snow-fields to the Willamette Valley for a.s.sistance. R. and B. were the men chosen for the difficult task; and with both of them I subsequently became well acquainted. Equipped with snow-shoes, they successfully pa.s.sed over the summit's ridges to the desolate base of old Mt. Hood.

Here they were enveloped in a dense fog--that most fearful of all calamities to a man in unknown woods, or mountains. Even to the experienced hunter or trapper, familiar with the topography of a mountain range, or a dense forest, the coming-in or settling-down of a fog envelopment, is viewed with apprehension, and alarm. A fog obliterates all the landmarks. Darkness has different shades of blackness;--the depth before you has an intensified blackness; the shadow of a mountain peak makes its huge column, or wooded side still darker. R. and B. became bewildered in the continuous fog. Their provisions were exhausted, and they were subsisting on snails. R. was six feet and well proportioned--brawny and enured to toil; B. was smaller and of a more delicate const.i.tution. R. was a p.r.o.nounced skeptic; B. was a man of faith and inclined to look for safety to a higher power when immediate danger was impending: hence, while R. was eagerly hunting for food, B. was engaged in prayer. One day, deep down under the snow, R. found the slimy trail of a snail; it led directly under B.'s knee. R. pushed B. aside, saying: ”Get out of my way--I am nearly frantic for that snail.” The game was soon captured, and R.

generously divided it with his starving companion. At the conclusion of their scanty feast, B. said to R.: ”You are much stronger than I am, and you will probably survive me: now, if I die, what will you do with me?”

”Eat you, sir: eat you!” was the emphatic reply. B., in his subsequent narration of the incident, said that the idea was so abhorrent to him that it nerved him up until their escape was made. The families were rescued, and they came down the Columbia River to the Willamette Valley, while most of the stock was left on good pasturage east of the mountains. R. and B. have long since been gathered to their fathers.

Their trials, difficulties and dangers are over. May they rest in peace!

Crossing the Sandy we arrived at Foster's, situated at the west end of the Barlow Road and at the western base of the Cascade Mountains. We were now in the great Willamette Valley. What a change presented itself!

Here were green fields, meadows and pasturage lands. The breezes were moist and balmy. For over three months we had been crossing over scorched and desolate plains, encountering quite a number of sunburnt, treeless and waterless deserts. In this valley vegetation of all kinds was luxuriant and the smaller fruits abundant. For over three months we had eaten no vegetable food, and we never before so warmly appreciated the beauty and poetry of beets, onions, cabbages, potatoes and carrots.

I remained in the vicinity of Foster's for four days. On the evening of the fourth day a rancher by the name of Baker, who lived on the Clearwater offered me employment. He had let in the sunlight on about ten acres of very fertile soil in the dense forest. This he cultivated in vegetables. He took a canoe-load every day to Oregon City, distant about five miles by his water route. My business was to prepare these vegetables for transportation, for which I received five dollars per day; but one morning he set me to rail making and after working a day at it I struck. He was much amused at my rail making performance. He asked me if I could shoot well; I answered that that was just to my hand. So the next day we took our rifles and went up the creek-bottom and found deer very plentiful. I shot two fine bucks while they were bounding away, and Baker was much pleased by my ability in this line; so he offered me six dollars a day for every day that I would furnish him, on the bank of the creek, two deer. I successfully did this for ten days, when, the game becoming somewhat scarce in that vicinity, he wanted me to go out some six or seven miles into the foothills of the mountains.

This proposition carried with it so much loneliness and isolation, that it was declined.

While wandering through the valley of the Clearwater and the adjacent hills, I was much struck with the wonders of petrification. I saw huge fir-logs, petrified. I can never think of what I then saw without recalling a story which I heard while delegate to Congress, and at Was.h.i.+ngton City. Congress always makes liberal appropriations for the investigation of the flora and fauna, and the mineral indications, as well as the water supply or rainfall, in the territories, and in the desert portions of the United States. Rugged old Ben Wade, while a Senator from Ohio, always opposed these appropriations as a waste of the people's money in what he styled, bug-hunting expeditions. Two scientists, eminent for their learning, and known as Major Hayden and Captain Powell, were usually employed in these explorations. The Major was said to be something of a martinet, while the Captain was an excellent judge of human nature, and had plenty of what the Philosopher Locke called ”round-about common-sense.” While on one of these scientific exploring expeditions these two gentlemen were in the mountains near Pike's Peak. That country abounds in fine specimens of petrification. One day the Major met a company of miners, and related to them the wonderful specimens of petrification seen by him that day. The miners listened with eloquent, but I fear insincere, attention to the Major's statement. When he had concluded, one of them said: ”If you will go with me, Major, to the other side of the ridge, I will show you a specimen of petrification that discounts anything you have seen today.”

The Major listened while the miner said, that at the base of a nearly perpendicular wall of rock, extending upward several hundred feet, there was an Indian with a rifle in his hand pointing at an angle upward towards the rock; that both Indian and rifle were petrified; that the smoke around the muzzle of the gun was petrified; and, what was more wonderful, that a short distance from the muzzle of the gun a cougar was petrified right in the air. The Major showed some uneasiness as the story proceeded, and said at its conclusion: ”I was inclined to believe you when you began, but now I know you are lying.” The miner softly put his hand to his pistol, but, relenting, said: ”You are a tenderfoot and I forgive you; but why did you say I was lying?” ”Because,” said the Major, ”I know that the laws of gravitation would bring that cougar down.” ”The laws of gravitation be d.a.m.ned,” said the miner, ”they were petrified too.”

I visited Oregon City with my friend, and observed the beautiful falls of the Willamette and the waste of electrical and mechanical power.

Returning to his humble home, I bade him the next day a regretful good-bye, and with my horses started for a point in Mill Creek Valley, six or seven miles south of Salem, to the home of a friend with whom I became acquainted on the plains. This friend had taken up a claim, and I found him busily engaged in the erection of a building which might be styled in architecture as a midway between a dwelling house and a cabin.

He had determined, as soon as this structure was completed, to go to the mines in Southern Oregon. I also concluded to try my luck in digging for gold. In the latter part of October, 1852, in company with two other gentlemen, we started for the mines in Rogue River Valley, Southern Oregon. The habitations in the Willamette Valley at that time were few and far between. Large bands of Spanish cattle roamed over, and found ample food in the upper portion of the valley. It was dangerous for a footman to pa.s.s through that country. On horseback he was safe. But little of interest occured on this trip. My friend claimed to be and he was an expert rider. He had a large and powerful Spanish horse as his riding animal. While in the Umpqua Valley he mounted this horse one morning without saddle or bridle on a steep hill. The horse viciously resented this breach of etiquette and plunged with stiff-legged vaults downward and sideways on the steep incline, throwing his rider over his head. The rider struck with his full weight and the momentum of the horse's motion, on his right hand, throwing the small bones, to which some of the muscles of the inner arm are attached, out of their sockets at the base of the palm of the hand. The tendency was for these muscles still further to contract--thus aggravating his injury. The nearest doctor was fifty miles away. Upon examination, I concluded that these small bones ought to be forced into their proper place, if possible, before inflammation intervened. We accordingly placed the injured man upon his back on the ground, and as the operation would be very painful, the others held him securely while I forced these bones back into their sockets. Then we bound the wrist tightly, so as to keep them in place.

When we arrived at the Doctor's he, after an examination, complimented me highly for my surgical skill, and gave me credit for saving the wrist of the injured man. On our way to the mines we pa.s.sed through what is known as the Canyon in the mountain-spur that separates the Umpqua country from the Rogue River county. People now pa.s.sing through this canyon scarcely appreciate the difficulties attending the pa.s.sage which then existed. The canyon is formed by two streams, both heading in a small pond or lake at the summit of the mountain; the one that flows northward is called Canyon Creek. It was then crossed eighty-four times by the road. The other stream flowed southward and was crossed by way of the road over sixty times. In the rainy season, and especially when the mountains were covered, or blockaded with snow, the pa.s.sage was almost impossible. The pa.s.sage was strewn with the wrecks of wagons and the bones of horses and mules. Subsequently, Congress made an appropriation of $40,000 for a military road through this mountain gorge. This money was faithfully expended by General Hooker. The distance through the canyon is about nine miles. General Hooker built the military road on the side of the mountain. In quite a number of places you can sit in the stage and look down into a nearly perpendicular and sunless abyss hundreds of feet in depth. Large sums of money have since been expended by toll corporations, to keep this military road pa.s.sable and in repair.

We arrived at Jacksonville, in Southern Oregon, in the first part of November.

To a person who prior to that time had always been accustomed to a different order of society, and who had never visited the mines in the palmy days of California, a new social order was manifest. I state the facts and the impression they made upon me as a tenderfoot; but I ought to add that since that time, having become somewhat familiar with such scenes, my moral sense has toughened, so that my ability to ”endure” is far greater now, than then, though my judgment as to the ultimate moral result of such a social order has never changed.

There were in Jacksonville and its immediate vicinity from seven to eight thousand men, possibly more. The coat as an article of dress had fallen into ”innocuous desuetude.” Soft slouch hats were universally worn. There were but a few women, and most of them not angelic. The mines were rich, money was abundant, and gambling rampant. I ought not to omit the dance-halls that pointed the lurid way to perdition. I said that money was abundant; I do not mean by this that much United States gold coin was in circulation. There was a five-dollar gold piece that had its origin in Oregon. It was stamped on one side with the words ”United States of America,” and on the reverse side with the impress of a beaver; hence, it was called ”beaver money.” It was of the same size of the minted half-eagle, but contained more of gold. The other piece of money in circulation was octahedron in shape or form. It was stamped on one side the same as the beaver money, and on the reverse side were the words ”Fifty Dollars.” It contained more gold than the same weight of minted coin; but the money used in nearly all transactions was gold dust; hence, every merchant, saloonkeeper or gambler had his gold scales at command. Gold dust had a standard value of sixteen dollars per ounce, and purchases were paid for in gold dust. There was some silver in circulation, but the lowest denomination was twenty-five cents. A drink of milk, gla.s.s of beer or any other liquor, was twenty-five cents.

Sunday was partly a laundry day, but mostly a gala day. Mining ceased on that day. All came to town to see the sights, to hear the news, to try their luck at the gambling tables, or to purchase supplies for the coming week. This day was a harvest day for the gambler, the saloonkeeper, and the merchant. While there was a large quant.i.ty of alcoholic beverages consumed, drunkennes was at a minimum. Nearly everyone carried a pistol in his belt, and a sheath-knife in his boot.

Homicides were not frequent; this was due to the character possessed by the great body of miners, who acted on the great law of honor, and to the fact that to call a man a liar or to impeach the honor of his origin, or to use towards him any epithet imputing dishonor, was to invite the contents of a pistol into the accuser's physical economy. The laws of chivalry and honor were the only laws obeyed in such matters.

This kind of society, rough and uncouth in its exterior, had a strong basis in the n.o.bler principles of a chivalric manhood. It had also a poetic side, being composed princ.i.p.ally of young men; it did not suppress the finer impulses and feelings of their better nature. As an ill.u.s.tration: there was located in the valley a family, consisting of husband and wife and two children. They had quite a number of cows and kept milk for sale. A large number of young men used to visit this family every Sunday for the ostensible purpose of buying milk, when the real purpose was to see someone who had the form, the purity and the affection of a mother. When they left the humble abode of this mother, they talked of their own mothers, of home and its sweet recollections.

The strong ligaments of a mother's love serves as a moral anchor to them in the billowy storms of life, even far away from that mother.

Personal property of great value, such as gold in sluice boxes, though unguarded, was perfectly secure. The sneak thief, the burglar and the robber were conspicuous by their absence. Probably the certainty, promptness and severity of the punishment deterred their visitation.