Mount Rainier Part 6

Number one is the prize number in Loolowcan's lottery of life. He thinks of that number; he dreams of it alone. When he lies down to sleep, he plots what he will do in the morning with his prize and his possession; when he wakes, he at once proceeds to execute his plots.

Loolowcan knows that there are powers out of himself; rights out of himself he does not comprehend, or even conceive. I have thus far been very indulgent to him, and treated him republicanly, mindful of the heavy mesne profits for the occupation of a continent, and the uncounted arrears of blood-money owed by my race to his; yet I find no trace of grat.i.tude in my a.n.a.lysis of his character. He seems to be composed, selfishness, five hundred parts;--_nil admirari_ coolness, five hundred parts;--a well-balanced character, and perhaps one not likely to excite enthusiasm in others. I am a steward to him; I purvey him also a horse; when we reach the Dalles, I am to pay him for his services;--but he is bound to me by no tie of comradery. He has caution more highly developed than any quadruped I have met, and will not offend me lest I should resign my stewardship, retract Gubbins, refuse payment, discharge my guide, and fight through the woods, where he sees I am no stranger, alone. He certainly merits a "teapot" for his ability in guidance. He has memory and observation unerring; not once in all our intricate journey have I found him at fault in any fact of s.p.a.ce or time. He knows "each lane and every ally green" here, accurately as Comus knew his "wild wood."

Moral conceptions exist only in a very limited degree for this type of his race. Of G.o.d he knows somewhat less than the theologians; that is, he is in the primary condition of uninquisitive ignorance, not in the secondary, of inquisitive muddle. He has the advantage of no elaborate system of human inventions to unlearn. He has no distinct fetichism.

None of the North American Indians have, in the accurate sense of the term; their nomad life and tough struggle with instructive Nature in her roughness save them from such elaborate fetichism as may exist in more indolent climes and countries.

Loolowcan has his tamanous. It is Talipus, the Wolf, a "hyas skookoom tamanous, a very mighty demon," he informs me. He does not worship it; that would interfere with his devotions to his real deity, Number One.

It, in return, does him little service. If he met Talipus, object of his superst.i.tion, on a fair morning, he would think it a good omen; if on a sulky morning, he might be somewhat depressed, but would not on that account turn back, as a Roman brave would have done on meeting the matinal wolf. In fact, he keeps Talipus, his tamanous, as a kind of ideal hobby, very much as a savage civilized man entertains a pet bulldog or a tame bear, a link between himself and the rude, dangerous forces of nature. Loolowcan has either chosen his protector according to the law of likeness, or, choosing it by chance, has become a.s.similated to its characteristics. A wolfish youth is the _protege_ of Talipus,--an unfaithful, sinister, cannibal-looking son of a horse-thief. Wolfish likewise is his appet.i.te; when he asks me for more dinner, and this without stint or decorum he does, he glares as if, grouse failing, pork and hard-tack gone, he could call to Talipus to send in a pack of wolves incarnate, and pounce with them upon me. A pleasant companion this for lamb-like me to lie down beside in the den of the late Sowee. Yet I do presently, after supper and a pipe, and a little jargoning in Chinook with my Wolf, roll into my blankets, and sleep vigorously, lulled by the gratifying noise of my graminivorous horses cramming themselves with material for leagues of lope to-morrow.

No shade of Sowee came to my slumbers with warning against the wolf in guise of a Klickatat brave. I had no ghostly incubus to shake off, but sprang up recreate in body and soul. Life is vivid when it thus awakes. To be is to do.

And to-day much is to be done. Long leagues away, beyond a gorge of difficulty, is the open rolling hill country, and again far beyond are the lodges of the people of Owhhigh. "To-day," said Loolowcan, "we must go copa nika ilihee, to my home, to Weenas."

Forlorn Caudal is hardly yet a frisky quadruped. Yet he is of better cheer, perhaps up to the family-nag degree of vivacity. As to the others, they have waxed fat, and kick. Klale, the Humorous, kicks playfully, elongating in preparatory gymnastics. Gubbins, the average horse, kicks calmly at his saddler, merely as a protest. Antipodes, the spiteful Blunderer, kicks in a revolutionary manner, rolls under his pack-saddle, and will not budge without maltreatment. Ill-educated Antipodes views mankind only as excoriators of his back, and general flagellants. Klickitats kept him raw in flesh and temper; under me his physical condition improves; his character is not yet affected.

Before sunrise we quitted the house of Sowee.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Captain William Henry McNeill and Alexander Caulfield Anderson, Hudson's Bay Company men, then at Nisqually House. Captain McNeill was master of the famous old steamer _Beaver_. Mr. Anderson was in charge of Nisqually House. Both men were honored by having their names given to islands in Puget Sound.

[2] Pierre Charles, French Canadian, had been an employee of the Hudson's Bay Company.

[3] Simon Plomondon was an employee of the Hudson's Bay Company, who retired and settled in the Cowlitz Valley.

[4] Probably the Stone Creek of present usage.

[5] Carbon River.

[6] Meaning up the Carbon River and its branch called South Prairie Creek.

[7] Chehalis River.

[8] White River.

[9] White River.

[10] Lieutenant Richard Arnold, in Pacific Railway Reports, Volume XII, Part I, page 191, says: "Near the junction of Whitewater and Green rivers there is a remarkable peak called La Tete, from a large rock on its slope resembling the head and neck of a man. This is an important point, as it forms the gate of the mountains on the west."

Modern maps shift the "water" part of the names. They are now White and Greenwater rivers.

[11] White and Greenwater rivers.

[12] This is an error and should read 121 25' W. as Naches Pa.s.s is known to be 121 21' and Lieutenant Johnson's "Little Prairie" was a little west of the Pa.s.s.

[13] Greenwater branch of White River.

[14] Naches River.

[15] Wenatchee River.

[16] Mount Adams. The two peaks were frequently confused in early writings.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL AUGUST VALENTINE KAUTZ.

United States Army.]

V. FIRST ATTEMPTED ASCENT, 1857

BY LIEUTENANT A. V. KAUTZ, U.S.A.

August Valentine Kautz was born at Ispringen, Baden, Germany, on January 5, 1828. In that same year his parents came to America. On attaining manhood the son entered the army and served as a private soldier in the Mexican War. At its conclusion he was appointed to the Military Academy at West Point. Graduating in 1852, he was a.s.signed to the Fourth Infantry and soon found himself in the Pacific Northwest.

After going through the Indian wars here he achieved a brilliant record in the Civil War. Continuing in the army, he reached the rank of brigadier-general and was for a time in command of the Department of the Columbia. He died at Seattle on September 4, 1895.

It was while, as a lieutenant, he was stationed at Fort Steilacoom that he attempted to ascend Mount Rainier. His account of the trip was published in the Overland Monthly, May, 1875. It is here republished by permission of the editor. While the ascent was claimed to be complete the climber says there was still higher land above him, and it is now difficult to fix the exact alt.i.tude attained.

Professor I. C. Russell declares that Professor George Davidson made a statement before the California Academy of Sciences, on March 6, 1871, to the effect that when Lieutenant Kautz "attempted the ascent of Mount Rainier in 1857" he found his way barred by a great glacier. From this, says Professor Russell, it "seems that he first reported the existence of living glaciers in the United States." (See: Israel C. Russell: Glaciers of North America; Boston, Ginn & Company, 1897, p. 62). The portrait of General Kautz was furnished by his daughter, Mrs. Navana Kautz Simpson, of Cincinnati, Ohio.

In the summer of 1857 I was stationed at Fort Steilacoom, Washington Territory. This post was located near the village of Steilacoom, on the waters of Puget Sound. The post and the village took their names from a little stream near by, which is the outlet of a number of small lakes and ponds emptying into the sound. Quite a family of Indians made their permanent home in the vicinity of this creek in former years, and were known as "_Steilacoom Tillic.u.m_." According to the Indian p.r.o.nunciation of the name it should have been spelled "Steelacoom," dwelling long on the first syllable.

I was at that time a first-lieutenant, young, and fond of visiting unexplored sections of the country, and possessed of a very prevailing pa.s.sion for going to the tops of high places. My quarters fronted Mount Rainier, which is about sixty miles nearly east of Fort Steilacoom in an air line. On a clear day it does not look more than ten miles off, and looms up against the eastern sky white as the snow with which it is covered, with a perfectly pyramidal outline, except at the top, which is slightly rounded and broken. It is a grand and inspiring view, and I had expressed so often my determination to make the ascent, without doing it, that my fellow-officers finally became incredulous, and gave to all improbable and doubtful events a date of occurrence when I should ascend Mount Rainier.

My resolution, however, took shape and form about the first of July.

Nearly all the officers had been very free to volunteer to go with me as long as they felt certain I was not going; but when I was ready to go, I should have been compelled to go alone but for the doctor, who was on a visit to the post from Fort Bellingham.

I made preparations after the best authorities I could find, from reading accounts of the ascent of Mont Blanc and other snow mountains.

We made for each member of the party an _alpenstock_ of dry ash with an iron point. We sewed upon our shoes an extra sole, through which were first driven four-penny nails with the points broken off and the heads inside. We took with us a rope about fifty feet long, a hatchet, a thermometer, plenty of hard biscuit, and dried beef such as the Indians prepare.

Information relating to the mountain was exceedingly meagre; no white man had ever been near it, and Indians were very superst.i.tious and afraid of it. The southern slope seemed the least abrupt, and in that direction I proposed to reach the mountain; but whether to keep the high ground, or follow some stream to its source, was a question.

Leshi, the chief of the Nesquallies, was at that time in the guard-house, awaiting his execution, and as I had greatly interested myself to save him from his fate, he volunteered the information that the valley of the Nesqually River was the best approach after getting above the falls. He had some hope that I would take him as a guide; but finding that out of the question he suggested Wah-pow-e-ty,[17] an old Indian of the Nesqually tribe, as knowing more about the Nesqually than any other of his people.

Mount Rainier is situated on the western side of the Cascade Range, near the forty-seventh parallel. The range to which it belongs averages about 7,000 to 8,000 feet in height, and snow may be seen along its summit-level the year round, while Rainier, with its immense covering of snow, towers as high again above the range. In various travels and expeditions in the territory, I had viewed the snow-peaks of this range from all points of the compa.s.s, and since that time having visited the mountain regions of Europe, and most of those of North America, I a.s.sert that Washington Territory contains mountain scenery in quant.i.ty and quality sufficient to make half a dozen Switzerlands, while there is on the continent none more grand and imposing than is presented in the Cascade Range north of the Columbia River.

About noon on the 8th of July [1857] we finally started. The party consisted of four soldiers--two of them equipped to ascend the mountain, and the other two to take care of our horses when we should be compelled to leave them. We started the soldiers on the direct route, with orders to stop at Mr. Wren's, on the eastern limit of the Nesqually plains, ten or twelve miles distant, and wait for us, while the doctor and I went by the Nesqually Reservation in order to pick up old Wah-pow-e-ty, the Indian guide.

We remained all night at Wren's, and the next morning entered that immense belt of timber with which the western slope of the Cascade Range is covered throughout its entire length. I had become familiar with the Indian trail that we followed, the year previous, in our pursuit of Indians. The little patches of prairie are so rare that they const.i.tute in that immense forest landmarks for the guidance of the traveler. Six miles from Wren's we came to Pawhtummi, a little _camas_ prairie about 500 yards long, and 100 in breadth, a resort for the Indians in the proper season to gather the _camas_-root. Six miles farther we came to a similar prairie, circular in form, not more than 400 yards in diameter, called Koaptil. Another six or seven miles took us to the Tanwut, a small stream with a patch of prairie bordering it, where the trail crossed. Ten or twelve miles more brought us to the Mishawl Prairie, where we camped for the night, this being the end of the journey for our horses, and the limit of our knowledge of the country.

This prairie takes its name from the stream near by, and is situated between it and the Owhap on a high table-land or bluff, not more than one or two miles from where these enter the Nesqually. It is perhaps half a mile long, and 200 or 300 yards wide at the widest point. The gra.s.s was abundant, and it was an excellent place to leave our horses.

Fifteen months before, I had visited this spot, and camped near by with a small detachment of troops, searching for Indians who had hidden away in these forests, completely demoralized and nearly starving. A family of two or three men, and quite a number of women and children, had camped in the fork of the Mishawl and Nesqually, about two miles from this prairie, and were making fishtraps to catch salmon. When we fell in with them we learned that the Washington Territory volunteers had been before us, and with their immensely superior force had killed the most of them without regard to age or s.e.x. Our own little command in that expedition captured about thirty of these poor, half-starved, ignorant creatures, and no act of barbarity was perpetrated by us to mar the memory of that success.

We accordingly camped in the Mishawl Prairie. When I was here before it was in March, and the rainy season was still prevailing; the topographical engineer of the expedition and I slept under the same blankets on a wet drizzly night, and next morning treated each other to bitter reproaches for having each had more than his share of the covering. Now the weather was clear and beautiful, and the scene lovely in comparison. I can imagine nothing more gloomy and cheerless than a fir-forest in Washington Territory on a rainy winter day. The misty clouds hang down below the tops of the tallest trees, and although it does not rain, but drizzles, yet it is very wet and cold, and penetrates every thread of clothing to the skin. The summers of this region are in extraordinary contrast with the winters. Clear, beautiful, and dry, they begin in May and last till November; while in the winter, although in lat.i.tude 47 and 48, it rarely freezes or snows--often, however, raining two weeks without stopping a permeating drizzle.

On this 9th of July, 1857, the weather was beautiful; it had not rained for weeks. The Mishawl--a raging mountain torrent, when last I saw it--was now a sluggish rivulet of clear mountain-spring water. We started early on our journey, having made our preparations the evening before. We calculated to be gone about six days. Each member of the party had to carry his own provisions and bedding; everything was therefore reduced to the minimum. Each took a blanket, twenty-four crackers of hard bread, and about two pounds of dried beef. We took Dogue (a German) and Carroll (an Irishman) with us; they were both volunteers for the trip; one carried the hatchet and the other the rope. I carried a field-gla.s.s, thermometer, and a large-sized revolver. Wah-pow-e-ty carried his rifle, with which we hoped to procure some game. The soldiers carried no arms. Bell and Doneheh were left behind to take care of the horses and extra provisions, until our return.

We each had a haversack for our provisions, and a tin canteen for water. The doctor very unwisely filled his with whisky instead of water. Having sounded Wah-pow-e-ty as to the route, we learned he had once been on the upper Nesqually when a boy, with his father, and that his knowledge of the country was very limited. We ascertained, however, that we could not follow the Nesqually at first; that there was a fall in the river a short distance above the mouth of the Mishawl, and that the mountains came down so abrupt and precipitous that we could not follow the stream, and that the mountain must be crossed first and a descent made to the river above the fall.

That mountain proved a severer task than we antic.i.p.ated. There was no path and no open country--only a dense forest, obstructed with undergrowth and fallen timber. The sun was very hot when it could reach us through the foliage; not a breath of air stirred, and after we crossed the Mishawl, not a drop of water was to be had until we got down to low ground again. We toiled from early morning until three o'clock in the afternoon before we reached the summit. As the doctor had taken whisky instead of water in his canteen, he found it necessary to apply to the other members of the party to quench his thirst, and our canteens were speedily empty. The doctor sought relief in whisky, but it only aggravated his thirst, and he poured out the contents of his canteen. The severe exertion required for the ascent brought on painful cramps in his legs, and at one time, about the middle of the day, I concluded that we should be obliged to leave him to find his way back to camp while we went on without him; but he made an agreement with Wah-pow-e-ty to carry his pack for him in addition to his own, for ten dollars, and the doctor was thus enabled to go on.

Here was an ill.u.s.tration of the advantage of training. The doctor was large, raw-boned, and at least six feet high, looking as if he could have crushed with a single blow the insignificant old Indian, who was not much over five feet, and did not weigh more than half as much as the doctor; but, inured to this kind of toil, he carried double the load that any of the party did, while the doctor, who was habituated to a sedentary life, had all he could do, carrying no load whatever, to keep up with the Indian.