Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail Part 11

"Oh, almost everybody has to buy. There are ships and timber camps and the hotels, and--"

"Where do they get the money?"

"Everybody seems to have money. Some take it there with them. Men working in the timber camps get four dollars a day and their board. At one place they paid four dollars a cord for wood to ship to San Francisco, and a man can sell all the shingles he can make at four dollars a thousand. I was offered five cents a foot for piles. If we had Buck and Dandy over there we could make twenty dollars a day putting in piles."

"Where could you get the piles?"

"Off the government land, of course. All help themselves to what they want. Then there are the fish and the clams and oysters, and--"

"But what about the land for the claim?"

That question was a stumper. The little wife never lost sight of that bargain made before we were married. Now I found myself praising a country for the agricultural qualities of which I could not say much.

But if we could sell produce higher, might we not well lower our standard of an ideal farm? The claim I had taken was described with a touch of apology, in quality falling so far below what we had hoped to acquire. However, we decided to move, and began to prepare for the journey.

The wife, baby, bedding, ox yoke, and log chain were sent up the Cowlitz in a canoe. Buck and Dandy and I took the trail. On this occasion I was ill prepared for a cool night camp, having neither blanket nor coat. I had expected to reach Hard Bread's Hotel, where the people in the canoe would stop overnight. But I could not make it, so again I lay out on the trail. "Hard Bread's," an odd name for a hotel, was so called because the old widower that kept the place fed his patrons on hardtack three times a day.

I found that my wife had not fared any better than I had on the trail, and in fact not so well. The floor of the cabin--that is, the hotel--was a great deal harder than the sand spit where I had pa.s.sed the night. I had plenty of pure, fresh air, while she, in a closed cabin and in the same room with many others, had neither fresh air nor freedom from creeping things that make life miserable. With her shoes for a pillow, a shawl for covering, small wonder that she reported, "I did not sleep a wink last night."

We soon arrived at the Cowlitz landing, the end of the canoe journey.

Striking the tent that had served us so well on the Plains and making a cheerful camp fire, we speedily forgot the hard experiences of the trail.

Fifty miles more of travel lay before us. And such a road! However, we had one consolation,--it would be worse in winter than at that time.

Our wagon had been left at The Dalles and we had never seen or heard of it again. Our cows were gone--given for provender to save the lives of the oxen during the deep December snow. So when we took account of stock, we had the baby, Buck and Dandy, a tent, an ox yoke and chain, enough clothing and bedding to keep us comfortable, a very little food, and no money. The money had all been expended on the canoe pa.s.sage.

Should we pack the oxen and walk, and carry the baby, or should we build a sled and drag our things over to the Sound, or should I make an effort to get a wagon? This last proposition was the most attractive, and so next morning, driving my oxen before me and leaving wife and baby to take care of the camp, I began the search for a wagon.

That great-hearted pioneer, John R. Jackson, did not hesitate a moment, stranger though I was, to say, "Yes, you can have two if you need them."

Jackson had settled there eight years before, ten miles out from the landing, and now had an abundance around him. Like all the earlier pioneers, he took a pride in helping others who came later. He would not listen to our proceeding any farther before the next day. He insisted on entertaining us in his comfortable cabin, and sent us on our way in the morning, rejoicing in plenty.

Without special incident we in due time arrived at the falls of the Deschutes (Tumwater) and on the sh.o.r.e of Puget Sound. Here a camp must be established again. The wife and baby were left there while I drove the wagon back over the tedious road to Jackson's and then returned with the oxen to tidewater.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A cat-and-clay chimney, made of small split sticks embedded in layers of clay mortar.]

My feelings may well be imagined when, upon returning, I found wife, baby, and tent all gone. I knew that smallpox was raging among the Indians, and that a camp where it was prevalent was less than a quarter of a mile away. The dread disease had terrors then that it does not now possess. Could it be possible my folks had been taken sick and had been removed?

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The question was soon solved. It appeared that I had scarcely got out of sight on my trip back with the oxen before one of those royal pioneer matrons had come to the camp. She pleaded and insisted, and finally almost frightened the little wife into going with her and sharing her house, which was near by, but out of danger from the smallpox. G.o.d bless those earlier pioneers! They were all good to us, sometimes to the point of embarra.s.sment, in their generous hospitality.

Oliver was to have had the cabin ready by the time I returned. He not only had not done that, but had taken the boat and had left no sign to tell us where either brother or boat could be found. Not knowing what else to do, I paddled over to the town of Steilacoom. There I found out where the boat and the provisions had been left, and after an earnest parley succeeded in getting possession. With my canoe in tow I soon made my way back to where my little flock was, and speedily transferred all to the spot that was to be our island dwelling. We set up our tent, and felt at home once more.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Crows breaking clams by dropping them on boulders.]

Steilacoom, three miles across the bay, had grown during my absence, and in the distance it looked like a city in fact as well as in name. Mt.

Rainier looked bigger and taller than ever. Even the songs of the Indians sounded better; the canoes looked more graceful, and the paddles seemed to be wielded more expertly. Everything looked cheerful; everything interested us, especially the crows, with their trick of breaking clams by rising in the air and dropping them on the boulders.

There were so many new things to observe that for a time we almost forgot that we were nearly out of provisions and money and did not know what had happened to Oliver.

Next morning Oliver returned to the village. Finding that the boat and provisions had been taken and seeing smoke in the bight, he surmised what had happened and came paddling across to the tent. He had received a tempting offer to help load a ship and had just completed his contract. As a result of this work, he was able to exhibit a slug of California gold and other money that looked precious indeed in our eyes.

The building of our second cabin with its stone fireplace, cat-and-clay chimney, lumber floor, real window with gla.s.s in it, together with the high-post bedstead made out of tapering cedar saplings, the table fastened to the wall, the rustic chairs, seemed but like a play spell.

No eight-hour day there--eighteen would be nearer the mark; we never tired.

It was in this same year, 1853, that Congress cut off from Oregon the region that now comprises the state of Washington and all of Idaho north of the Snake River. The new district was called Washington Territory, so we who had moved out to the Oregon Country found ourselves living in Washington.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Bobby carried me safely over the sixty crossings and more.]

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

MESSAGES AND MESSENGERS

AT last we were really settled and could begin the business for which we had come West; henceforth the quiet life of the farmer was to be ours, we thought. But again we had not reckoned with the unexpected.

While we were working on our new cabin, we received a letter from father, saying: "Boys, if Oliver will come back to cross with us, we will go to Oregon next year." The letter was nearly three months old when we received it.

Our answer was immediate: "Oliver will be with you next spring."

Then came the question of money. Would Davenport, who had bought the Columbia River claims, pay in the fall? Could he? We decided that we must go to the timber camp to earn the money to pay the expenses of Oliver's journey, that we must not depend altogether on the Columbia River a.s.set.

"What shall we do with the things?" asked my wife.

"Lock them up in the cabin," suggested Oliver.

"And you go and stay with the Dofflemires," I added.

"Not I," she returned. "I'm going along to cook."

All our well-laid plans were thus suddenly changed. Our clearing of the land was deferred; the chicken house, the inmates of which were to make us rich, was not built; the pigs were not bought to fatten on the clams, and many other pet schemes were dropped that Oliver might go back East to bring father and mother across the Plains.

We struck awkward but rapid and heavy strokes in the timber camp established on the bluff overlooking the falls at Tumwater. The little cook supplied the huckleberry pudding for dinner, with plenty of the lightest, whitest bread, and vegetables, meat, and fish served in style good enough for kings. Such appet.i.tes! No coaxing was required to get us to eat a hearty meal. Such sound sleep, such satisfaction! Talk about hardships--it was all pleasure as we counted the eleven dollars a day that the Tullis brothers paid us for cutting logs, at one dollar and seventy cents a thousand. We earned this every day. Yes, we should be able to make money enough together to pay Oliver's pa.s.sage to Iowa.

It was to be a long journey--over to the Columbia River, out from there by steamer to San Francisco, then to the Isthmus, then to New York.

After that, by rail as far west as there was a railroad, then on foot to Eddyville, Iowa, where the start was again to be made. It would take Oliver two months to reach Eddyville, and then at least seven more to lead the newcomers over the trail from Iowa to Puget Sound.

Oliver was soon speeding on his way, and again my wife and I were left without money and with but a scant supply of provisions. How we made out through the winter I can hardly remember, but we managed somehow and kept well and happy. Soon after Oliver's departure our second baby was born.

In the latter part of August, 1854, eight months after Oliver had left us, James K. Hurd, of Olympia, sent me word that he had been out on the immigrant trail and had heard that some of my relatives were on the road, but that they were belated and short of provisions. He advised me to go to their a.s.sistance, to make sure of their coming directly over the Cascade Mountains, and not down the Columbia River.

How my people, with Oliver's experience to guide them, should be in the condition described, was past my comprehension. However, I accepted the statement as true. I felt the particular importance of their having certain knowledge as to prevailing conditions of an over-mountain trip through the Natchess Pa.s.s. The immigrants of the previous year had encountered formidable difficulties in the mountains, narrowly escaping the loss of everything, if not facing actual starvation. I could not help feeling that possibly the same conditions still prevailed. The only way to determine the question was to go and see for myself, to meet my father's party and pilot them through the pa.s.s.

[Ill.u.s.tration: We struck awkward but rapid and heavy strokes.]