Cruisings in the Cascades Part 5

By the way, some of my readers may never have seen one of these valuable camp appendages, and a description of it may interest them. The outer bag is made of heavy, brown, waterproof canvas, six feet long, three feet wide in the centre, tapered to two feet at the head and sixteen inches at the foot. Above the head of the bag proper, flaps project a foot farther, with which the occupant's head may be completely covered, if desired. These are provided with b.u.t.tons and b.u.t.ton-holes, so that they may be b.u.t.toned clear across, for stormy or very cold weather. The bag is left open, from the head down one edge, two feet, and a flap is provided to lap over this opening. b.u.t.tons are sewed on the bag, and there are b.u.t.ton-holes in the flaps so it may also be b.u.t.toned up tightly. Inside of this canvas bag is another of the same size and shape, less the head flaps. This is made of lamb skin with the wool on, and is lined with ordinary sheeting, to keep the wool from coming in direct contact with the person or clothing. One or more pairs of blankets may be folded and inserted in this, as may be necessary, for any temperature in which it is to be used.

If the weather be warm, so that not all this covering is needed over the sleeper, he may shift it to suit the weather and his taste, crawling in on top of as much of it as he may wish, and the less he has over him the more he will have under him, and the softer will be his bed. Beside being waterproof, the canvas is windproof, and one can b.u.t.ton himself up in this house, leaving only an air-hole at the end of his nose, and sleep as soundly, and almost as comfortably in a snowdrift on the prairie as in a tent or house. In short, he may be absolutely at home, and comfortable, wherever night finds him, and no matter what horrid nightmares he may have, he can not roll out of bed or kick off the covers.

Nor will he catch a draft of cold air along the north edge of his spine every time he turns over, as he is liable to do when sleeping in blankets. Nor will his feet crawl out from under the cover and catch chilblains, as they are liable to do in the old-fashioned way. In fact, this sleeping-bag is one of the greatest luxuries I ever took into camp, and if any brother sportsman who may read this wants one, and can not find an architect in his neighborhood capable of building one, let him communicate with me and I will tell him where mine was made.

CHAPTER XIV.

Long after the Indians went to sleep I lay there, looking into the fire and thinking. Many and varied were the fancies that chased each other through my restless brain--some pleasant, some unpleasant. I pondered on the novelty, even the danger, of my situation. I was away up there in that wild, trackless, mountain wilderness, alone, so far as any congenial companionship was concerned. Yes, I was worse than alone, for the moment I might close my eyes and sleep I would be at the mercy of these two reckless red men. True, they are not of a courageous, warlike race, but what might they not do for the sake of plunder? They could crush my skull at a blow and conceal my body beyond all possibility of discovery; or they could leave it and, saying I had killed myself by a fall, reveal its resting place to anyone who might care to go in search of me. I had some property with me, especially my rifle, sleeping-bag, and a small sum of money, that I knew they coveted, and I reflected that they might already have concocted some foul scheme for disposing of me and getting possession of my effects.

In their native tongue of strange, weird gutturals, hisses, and aspirations, they had conversed all the evening of--I knew not what.

John had rather an honest, frank face, that I thought bespoke a good heart, but Seymour had a dark, repulsive countenance that plainly indicated a treacherous nature. From the first I had made up my mind that he was a thief, if nothing worse. He pretended not to be able to speak or understand English, although I knew he could. John spoke our tongue fairly, and through him all communication with either or both was held. Should they contemplate any violence I would welcome them both to an encounter, if only I could have notice of it a second in advance.

Their two old smooth-bore muskets would cut no figure against the deadly stream of fire that my Winchester express could pour forth. But I dreaded the treachery, the stealth, the silent midnight a.s.sault that is a characteristic of their race. Yet, on further consideration, I dismissed all such forebodings as purely chimerical. These were civilized Indians, living within the sound of the whistle of a railroad engine, and would hardly be willing to place themselves within the toils of the law, by the commission of such a crime, even if they had the courage or the desire to do it, and I hoped they had neither.

Then my fancies turned to the contemplation of pleasanter themes. I thought of the dear little black-eyed woman, whom I had parted with on board the steamer nearly a week ago. She is homeward-bound and must now be speeding over the Dakota or Minnesota prairies, well on toward St.

Paul. Will she reach home in safety? G.o.d grant it--and that in due time I may be permitted to join her there. Then other familiar images pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed my mental ken. The kind acts of dear friends, the hospitalities shown me by strangers and pa.s.sing acquaintances in distant lands and in years long agone came trooping through my memory, and a feeling of grat.i.tude for those kindnesses supplanted for the time that of solitude. Gradually and sweetly I sank into a profound slumber and all was stillness and oblivion.

Several hours, perhaps, have pa.s.sed, and I am thirsty. I get up and start to the little brook for water; to reach it a log, lying across a deep fissure in the rocks, must be scaled. With no thought of danger I essay the task by the dying fire's uncertain light and that of the twinkling stars. I have not counted on the heavy covering of frost that has been deposited on the log since dark, and stepping out upon the barkless part of the trunk, my moccasins slip, and with a shriek and a wild but unsuccessful grasp at an overhanging limb I fall twenty feet and land on the ma.s.s of broken and jagged granite beneath! The Indians, alarmed by my cries, spring to my relief, carry me to the fire, give me stimulants, bind up my broken arm, and do all in their power to alleviate my sufferings.

They are not the crafty villains and a.s.sa.s.sins that my fancy had painted. They are kind, sympathetic friends. I realize that my right collar-bone and three ribs on the same side are broken, and when I remember where I am, the deplorableness and utter helplessness of my condition appal me.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EN ROUTE TO THE INDIAN VILLAGE.]

The long hours until daylight drag slowly by, and at last, as the sun tips the distant mountain tops with golden light, we start on our perilous and painful journey to the Indian village and to the steamboat landing. The two red men have rigged a litter from poles and blankets, on which they carry me safely to their homes, and thence in a canoe to the landing below. How the long, tedious journey thence, by steamer and rail, to my own home is accomplished; how the weary days and nights of suffering and delirium which I endure _en route_ were pa.s.sed, are subjects too painful to dwell upon. I am finally a.s.sisted from the sleeper at my destination. My wife, whom the wire has informed of my misfortune and my coming, is there. She greets me with that fervent love, that intensity of pity and emotion that only a wife can feel. Her lips move, but her tongue is paralyzed. For the time she can not speak; the wells of her grief have gone dry; she can not weep; she can only act. I am taken to my home, and the suspense, the anxiety, having been lived out, the climax having been reached and pa.s.sed I swoon away. Again the surgeon appears to be racking me with pain in an effort to set the broken ribs, and seems to be making an incision in my side for that purpose, when I awake.

The stars shone brightly above me, the frost on the leaves sparkled brightly in the fire-light. It took me several minutes to realize that I had been dreaming. I searched for the cause of the acute pain in my side, and found it to be the sharp point of a rock that my cedar boughs had not sufficiently covered and which was trying to get in between two of my ribs. I got up, removed it and slept better through the remainder of the night.

CHAPTER XV.

Ski-ik-kul, or Chehalis Creek, as the whites call it, is surely one of the most beautiful streams in the whole Cascade Range. Its size may be stated, approximately, as two feet in depth by fifty feet in width, at or near the mouth, but its course is so crooked, so tortuous, and its bed so broken and uneven that the explorer will seldom find a reach of it sufficiently quiet and undisturbed to afford a measurement of this character. At one point it is choked into a narrow gorge ten feet wide and twice as deep, with a fall of ten feet in a distance of thirty.

Through this notch the stream surges and swirls with the wild fury, the fearful power, and the awe-inspiring grandeur of a tornado. At another place it runs more placidly for a few yards, as if to gather strength and courage for a wild leap over a sheer wall of frowning rock into a foaming pool thirty, forty, or fifty feet below. At still another place it seems to carve its way, by the sheer power of madness, through piles and walls of broken and disordered quartz, granite, or basalt, even as Cortes and his handful of Spanish cavaliers hewed their way through the ma.s.sed legions of Aztecs at Tlascala.

Farther up, or down, it is split into various channels by great ma.s.ses of upheaved rock, and these miniature streams, after winding hither and thither through deep, dark, narrow fissures for perhaps one or two hundred yards, reunite to form this headlong mountain torrent. Viewing these scenes, one is forcibly reminded of the poet's words:

"How the giant element, From rock to rock, leaps with delirious bound."

Series of cascades, a quarter to half a mile long, are met with at frequent intervals, which rival in their beauty and magnificence those of the Columbia or the Upper Yellowstone. Whirlpools occur at the foot of some of these, in which the clear, bright green water boils, sparkles, and effervesces like vast reservoirs of champagne. The moanings and roarings emitted by this matchless stream in its mad career may be heard in places half a mile. At many points its banks rise almost perpendicularly to heights of 300, 400, or 500 feet. You may stand so nearly over the water that you can easily toss a large rock into it, and yet you are far above the tops of the ma.s.sive firs and cedars that grow at the water's edge. Looking down from these heights you may see in the crystal fluid whole schools of the lordly salmon plowing their way up against the almost resistless fury of the current, leaping through the foam, striking with stunning force against hidden rocks, falling back half dead, and, drifting into some clear pool below, recovering strength to renew the hopeless a.s.sault.

The time will come when an easy roadway, and possibly an iron one, will be built up this grand canon, and thousands of tourists will annually stand within its walls to gaze upon these magic pictures, absorbed in their grandeur and romantic beauty. Nor does the main stream afford the only objects of beauty and interest here. It is a diamond set in a cl.u.s.ter of diamonds, for many of the little brooks, already mentioned as coming down the mountain on either side, are only less attractive because smaller. Many of them tumble from the tops of rocky walls, and dance down among the branches of evergreen trees, sparkling like ribbons of silver in the rays of the noonday sun.

Theodore Roosevelt, in his excellent work, "Hunting Trips of a Ranchman;" says: "Thirst is largely a matter of habit." So it may be, but I am sadly addicted to the habit, and I found it one from which, on this trip, I was able to extract a great deal of comfort, for we crossed one or more of these little brooks every hour, and I rarely pa.s.sed one without taking a copious draught of its icy fluid. The days, were moderately warm, and the hard labor we performed, walking and climbing, made these frequent opportunities to quench thirst one of the most pleasant features of the journey. I was frequently reminded of Cole's beautiful tribute to the mountain brook:

"Sleeping in crystal wells, Leaping in shady dells, Or issuing clear from the womb of the mountain, Sky-mated, related, earth's holiest daughter; Not the hot kiss of wine, Is half so divine as the sip of thy lip, inspiring cold water."

We arrived at our destination, the foot of Ski-ik-kul Lake (and the source of the creek up which we had been traveling), at four o'clock in the afternoon of the second day out. We made camp on the bank of the creek, and John and I engaged in gathering a supply of wood. After we had been thus occupied for ten or fifteen minutes, I noticed that Seymour was nowhere in sight, and asked John where he was.

"He try spear salmon."

"What will he spear him with?" I said. "Sharp stick?"

"No. He bring spear in him pocket," said John.

We were standing on the bank of the creek again, and as he spoke there was a crashing in the brush overhead, and an immense salmon, nearly three feet long, landed on the ground between us. Seymour had indeed brought a spear with him in his pocket. It was made of a fence-nail and two pieces of goat horn, with a strong cord about four feet long attached. There was a sort of socket in the upper end of it, and the points of the two pieces of horn were formed into barbs. As soon as Seymour had dropped his pack he had picked up a long, dry, cedar pole, one end of which he had sharpened and inserted between the barbs, fastening the string so that when he should strike a fish the spear point would pull off. With this simple weapon in hand he had walked out on the vast body of driftwood with which the creek is bridged for half a mile below the lake, and peering down between the logs, had found and killed the fish. We made a fire in the hollow of a great cedar that stood at the water's edge. The tree was green, but the fire soon ate a large hole into the central cavity, and, by frequent feeding with dry wood, we had a fire that roared and crackled like a great furnace, all night. It

"Kindled the gummy bark of fir or pine, And sent a comfortable heat from far, Which might supply the sun."

[Ill.u.s.tration: SUPPER FOR THREE-SAUMON RoTI.]

Seymour cut off the salmon's head, split the body down the back, and took out the spine. Then he spread the fish out and put skewers through it to hold it flat. He next cut a stick about four feet long, split it half its length, tied a cedar withe around to keep it from splitting further, and inserting the fish in the aperture, tied another withe around the upper end. He now stuck the other end of the stick into the ground in front of the fire, and our supper was under way.

I have often been reduced to the necessity of eating grub cooked by Indians, both squaws and men, and can place my hand on my heart and say truthfully I never hankered after Indian cookery. In fact, I have always eaten it with a mental reservation, and a quiet, perhaps unuttered protest, but I counted the minutes while that fish cooked. I knew Seymour was no more cleanly in his habits than his kin--in fact, he would not have washed his hands before commencing, nor the fish after removing its entrails, had I not watched him and made him do so; but even if he had not I should not have refused to eat, for when a man has been climbing mountains all day he can not afford to be too scrupulous in regard to his food. When the fish was thoroughly roasted on one side the other was turned to the fire, and finally, when done to a turn, it was laid smoking hot on a platter of cedar boughs which I had prepared, and the savory odors it emitted would have tempted the palate of an epicure. I took out my hunting knife, and making a suggestive gesture toward the smoking fish, asked John if I should cut off a piece; for not withstanding my consuming hunger, my native modesty still remained with me, and I thus hinted for an invitation to help myself.

"Yes," he said. "Cut off how much you can eat."

You can rest a.s.sured I cut off a ration that would have frightened a tramp. Good digestion waited on appet.i.te, and health on both. I ate with the hunger born of the day's fatigue and the mountain atmosphere, and the Indians followed suit, or rather led, and in half an hour only the head and spine of that fifteen-pound salmon remained, and they were not yet in an edible condition. Near bedtime, however, they were both spitted before the fire, and in the silent watches of the night, as I awoke and looked out of my downy bed, I saw those two simple-minded children of the forest, sitting there picking the last remaining morsels of flesh from those two pieces of what, in any civilized camp or household, would have been considered offal. But when a Siwash quits eating fish it is generally because there is no more fish to eat. After such a supper, charmed by such weird, novel surroundings, lulled by the music of the rushing waters, and warmed by a glowing camp-fire, I slept that night with naught else to wish for, at peace with all mankind. Even "mine enemy's dog, though he had bit me, should have stood that night against my fire."

CHAPTER XVI.

Before going to bed, Seymour cautioned me through his interpreter, the faithful John, against getting out too early in the morning. He said the goats did not commence to move around until nine or ten o'clock, and if we started out to hunt before that time we were liable to pa.s.s them asleep in their beds.

But I read the hypocrite's meaning between his words; he is a lazy loafer and loves to lie and snooze in the morning. It was his own comfort, more than our success in hunting, that he was concerned about.

Goats, as well as all other species of large game, are on foot at daylight, whether they have been out all night or not, and from that time until an hour after sunrise, and again just before dark in the evening, are the most favorable times to hunt. The game is intent on feeding at these times and is not so wary as at other times. I told Seymour we would get up at four o'clock, get breakfast, and be ready to move at daylight. And so we did.

The night had been clear and cold; ice had formed around the margin of the lake, and a h.o.a.r frost a quarter of an inch deep covered the ground, the logs, and rocks that were not sheltered by trees. Ski-ik-kul or Willey's Lake, as it is termed by the whites, is a beautiful little mountain tarn about a quarter of a mile wide and four miles long. It is of gla.s.sy transparency, of great depth, and abounds in mountain trout, salmon, and salmon trout. It is walled in by abrupt, rocky-faced mountains that rise many hundreds of feet from the water's edge, and on which a scanty growth of laurel, currant bushes, and moss furnish food for the goats. Stunted cedars, balsams, spruces, and pines also grow from small fissures in the rocks that afford sufficient earth to cover their roots.

The craft on which we were to navigate this lake was an interesting specimen of Indian nautical architecture. It was a raft Seymour had made on a former visit. The stringers were two large, dry, cedar logs, one about sixteen feet long, the other about twenty; these were held together by four poles, or cross-ties, pinned to the logs, and a floor composed of cedar clapboards was laid over all. Pins of hard, dry birch, driven into the logs and tied together at the tops, formed rowlocks, and the craft was provided with four large paddles, or oars, hewed out with an ax. In fact, that was the only tool used in building the raft. The pins had been sharpened to a flat point and driven firmly into sockets made by striking the ax deeply into the log, and instead of ropes, cedar withes were used for lashing. These had been roasted in the fire until tough and flexible, and when thus treated they formed a good subst.i.tute for the white sailor's marline or the cow-boy's picket rope.

We boarded this lubberly old hulk and pulled out up the north sh.o.r.e of the lake just as the morning sun gave the first golden tints to the mountain tops. Our progress was slow despite our united strength applied to the oars, but it gave us more time to scan the mountain sides for game. I did not find it so plentiful as I had been promised, for I had been told by the Indians that we should see a dozen goats in the first hour, but we had been out more than that length of time before we saw any. Finally, however, after we had gone a mile or more up the lake sh.o.r.e, I saw a large buck goat browsing among the crags about four hundred feet above us. He had not seen us, and dropping the oar I caught up my rifle. The men backed water, and as the raft came to a standstill, I sent a bullet into him. He sprang forward, lost his footing, came bounding and crashing to the foot of the mountain, and stopped, stone dead, in the brush at the water's edge not more than twenty feet from the raft. We pushed ash.o.r.e and took him on board, when I found, to my disappointment, that both horns had been broken off in the fall, so that his head was worthless for mounting.

We cruised clear around the lake that day and could not find another goat. In the afternoon it clouded up and set in to rain heavily again in the canon, while snow fell on the mountains a few hundred feet above us.

The next morning I went up a narrow canon to the north, and ascending a high peak hunted until nearly noon, when I found two more goats, a female and her kid (nearly full grown), both of which I killed, and taking the skins and one ham of the kid, I returned to camp. It continued to rain at frequent intervals, which robbed camp life and hunting of much of their charm, so I decided to start for home the following morning. In the afternoon I rigged a hook and line, cut an alder pole, and caught five fine trout, the largest seventeen and a half inches long. Seymour speared three more salmon and roasted one of them, so that we had another feast of fish that night. We also roasted a leg of goat for use on our way home, and spent the evening cleaning and drying the three skins as best we could by the camp-fire, to lighten their weight as much as possible.

Meanwhile, I questioned John at considerable length regarding the nature of his language, but could get little information, as he seemed unable to convey his ideas on the subject in our tongue. The language of the Skowlitz tribe, to which he and Seymour belong, is a strange medley of gutturals, aspirates, coughs, sneezes, throat sc.r.a.pings, and a few words. I said:

"Your language don't seem to have as many words as ours."

"No; English too much. Make awful tired learn him."