shouted the reformed miser, rushing forward to supper and his faithful wife."

"And how did Penelope explain the mystery?" I asked.

"If you mean the old lady," replied Hamitchou, "she was my grandmother, and I'd thank you not to call names. She told my grandfather that he had been gone many years;—she could not tell how many, having dropped her tally-stick in the fire by accident that very day. She also told him how, in despite of the entreaties of many a chief who knew her economic virtues, and prayed her to become mistress of his household, she had remained constant to the Absent, and forever kept the hopeful salmon-pot boiling for his return. She had distracted her mind from the bitterness of sorrow by trading in kamas and magic herbs, and had thus acquired a genteel competence. The excellent dame then exhibited with great complacency her gains, most of which she had put in the portable and secure form of personal ornament, making herself a resplendent magazine of valuable frippery.

"Little cared the repentant sage for such things. But he was rejoiced to be again at home and at peace, and near his own early gains of hiaqua and treasure, buried in a place of security. These, however, he no longer over-esteemed and hoarded. He imparted whatever he possessed, material treasures or stores of wisdom and experience, freely to all the land. Every dweller by Whulge came to him for advice how to chase the elk, how to troll or spear the salmon, and how to propitiate Tamanoüs. He became the Great Medicine Man of the siwashes, a benefactor to his tribe and his race.

"Within a year after he came down from his long nap on the side of Tacoma, a child, my father, was born to him. The sage lived many years, beloved and revered, and on his deathbed, long before the Boston tilicum or any blanketeers were seen in the regions of Whulge, he told this history to my father, as a lesson and a warning. My father, dying, told it to me. But I, alas! have no son; I grow old, and lest this wisdom perish from the earth, and Tamanoüs be again obliged to interpose against avarice, I tell the tale to thee, O Boston tyee. Mayest thou and thy nation not disdain this lesson of an earlier age, but profit by it and be wise."

So far Hamitchou recounted his legend without the palisades of Fort Nisqually, and motioning, in expressive pantomime, at the close, that he was dry with big talk, and would gladly wet his whistle.

[Chapter VIII, beginning at page 155 of the original publication, is entitled: "Sowee House—Loolowcan."]

I had not long, that noon of August, from the top of La Tête, to study Tacoma, scene of Hamitchou's wild legend. Humanity forbade dalliance. While I fed my soul with sublimity, Klale and his comrades were wretched with starvation. But the summit of the pass is near. A few struggles more, Klale the plucky, and thy empty sides shall echo less drum-like. Up stoutly, my steeds; up a steep but little less than perpendicular, paw over these last trunks of the barricades in our trail, and ye have won!

So it was. The angle of our ascent suddenly broke down from ninety to fifteen, then to nothing. We had reached the plateau. Here were the first prairies. Nibble in these, my nags, for a few refreshing moments, and then on to superlative dinners in lovelier spots just beyond.

Let no one, exaggerating the joys of campaigning, with Horace's "Militia potior est," deem that there is no compensating pang among them. Is it a pleasant thing, O traveller only in dreams, envier of the voyager in reality, to urge tired, reluctant, and unfed mustangs up a mountain pass, even for their own good? In such a case a man, the humanest and gentlest, must adopt the manners of a brute. He must ply the whip, and that cruelly; otherwise, no go. At first, as he smites, he winces, for he has struck his own sensibilities; by and by he hardens himself, and thrashes without a tremor. When the cortege arrives at an edible prairie, gastronomic satisfaction will put Lethean freshness in the battered hide of every horse.

We presently turned just aside from the trail into an episode of beautiful prairie, one of a succession along the plateau at the crest of the range. At this height of about five thousand feet, the snows remain until June. In this fair, oval, forest-circled prairie of my nooning, the grass was long and succulent, as if it grew in the bed of a drained lake. The horses, undressed, were allowed to plunge and wallow in the deep herbage. Only horse heads soon could be seen, moving about like their brother hippopotami, swimming in sedges.

To me it was luxury enough not to be a whip for a time. Over and above this, I had the charm of a quiet nooning on a bank of emerald turf, by a spring, at the edge of a clump of evergreens. I took my luncheon of cold salt pork and doughy biscuit by a well of brightest water. I called in no proxy of tin cup to aid me in saluting this sparkling creature, but stooped and kissed the spring. When I had rendered my first homage thus to the goddess of the fountain, Ægle herself, perhaps, fairest of Naiads, I drank thirstily of the medium in which she dwelt. A bubbling dash of water leaped up and splashed my visage as I withdrew. Why so, sweet fountain, which I may name Hippocrene, since hoofs of Klale have caused me thy discovery? Is this a rebuff? If there ever was lover who little merited such treatment it is I. "Not so, appreciative stranger," came up in other bubbling gushes the responsive voice of Nature through sweet vibrations of the melodious fount. "Never a Nymph of mine will thrust thee back. This sudden leap of water was a movement of sympathy, and a gentle emotion of hospitality. The Naiad there was offering thee her treasure liberally, and saying that, drink as thou wilt, I, her mother Nature, have commanded my winds and sun to distil thee fresh supplies, and my craggy crevices are filtering it in the store-houses, that it may be offered to every welcome guest, pure and cool as airs of dawn. Stoop down," continued the voice, "thirsty wayfarer, and kiss again my daughter of the fountain, nor be abashed if she meets thee half-way. She knows that a true lover will never scorn his love's delicate advances."

In response to such invitation, and the more for my thirsty slices of pork, I lapped the aerated tipple in its goblet, whose stem reaches deep into the bubble laboratories. I lapped,—an excellent test of pluck in the days of Gideon son of Barak;—and why? For many reasons, but among them for this;—he who lying prone can with stout muscular gullet swallow water, will be also able to swallow back into position his heart, when in moments of tremor it leaps into his throat.

When I had lapped plenteously, I lay and let the breeze-shaken shadows smooth me into smiling mood, while my sympathies overflowed to enjoy with my horses their dinner. They fed like school-boys home for Thanksgiving, in haste lest the present banquet, too good to be true, prove Barmecide. A feast of colossal grasses placed itself at the lips of the breakfastless stud. They champed as their nature was;—Klale like a hungry gentleman,—Gubbins like a hungry clodhopper,—Antipodes like a lubberly oaf. They were laying in, according to the Hudson's Bay Company's rule, supply at this meal for five days; without such power, neither man nor horse is fit to tramp the Northwest.

I lay on the beautiful verdant bank, plucking now dextrously and now sinistrously of strawberries, that summer, climbing late to these snowy heights, had just ripened. Medical men command us to swallow twice a day one bitter pill confectioned of all disgust. Nature doses us, by no means against our will, with many sweet boluses of delight, berries compacted of acidulated, sugary spiciness. Nature, tenderest of leeches,—no bolus of hers is pleasanter medicament than her ruddy strawberries. She shaped them like Minié-balls, that they might traverse unerringly to the cell of most dulcet digestion. Over their glistening surfaces she peppered little golden dots to act as obstacles lest they should glide too fleetly over the surfaces of taste, and also to gently rasp them into keener sensitiveness. Mongers of pestled poisons may punch their pills in malodorous mortars, roll them in floury palms, pack them in pink boxes, and send them forth to distress a world of patients:—but Nature, who if she even feels one's pulse does it by a gentle pressure of atmosphere,—Nature, knowing that her children in their travels always need lively tonics, tells wind, sun, and dew, servitors of hers, clean and fine of touch, to manipulate gay strawberries, and dispose them attractively on fair green terraces, shaded at parching noon. Of these lovely fabrics of pithy pulpiness, no limit to the dose, if the invalid does as Nature intended, and plucks for himself, with fingers rosy and fragrant. I plucked of them, as far as I could reach on either side of me, and then lay drowsily reposing on my couch at the summit of the Cascade Pass, under the shade of a fir, which, outstanding from the forest, had changed its columnar structure into a pyramidal, and had branches all along its stalwart trunk, instead of a mere tuft at the top.

In this shade I should have known the tree which gave it, without looking up,—not because the sharp little spicular leaves of the fir, miniatures of that sword Rome used to open the world, its oyster, would drop and plunge themselves into my eyes, or would insert their blades down my back and scarify,—but because there is an influence and sentiment in umbrages, and under every tree its own atmosphere. Elms refine and have a graceful elegiac effect upon those they shelter. Oaks drop robustness. Mimosas will presently make a sensitive-plant of him who hangs his hammock beneath their shade. Cocoa-palms will infect him with such tropical indolence, that he will not stir until frowzy monkeys climb the tree and pelt him away to the next one. The shade of pine-trees, as any one can prove by a journey in Maine, makes those who undergo it wiry, keen, trenchant, inexhaustible, and tough.

When I had felt the influence of my fir shelter, on the edge of the wayside prairie, long enough, I became of course keen as a blade. I sprang up and called to Loolowcan, in a resinous voice, "Mamook chaco cuitan; make come horse."

Loolowcan, in more genial mood than I had known him, drove the trio out from the long grass. They came forth not with backward hankerings, but far happier quadrupeds than when they climbed the pass at noon. It was a pleasure now to compress with the knees Klale, transformed from an empty barrel with protuberant hoops, into a full elastic cylinder, smooth as the boiler of a locomotive.

"Loolowcan, my lad, my experienced guide, cur nesika moosum; where sleep we?" said I.

"Copa Sowee house,—kicuali. Sowee, olyman tyee,—memloose. Sia-a-ah mitlite;—At Sowee's camp—below. Sowee, oldman chief,—dead. It is far, far away," replied the son of Owhhigh.

Far is near, distance is annihilated this brilliant day of summer, for us recreated with Hippocrene, strawberries, shade of fir and tall snow-fed grass. Down the mountain range seems nothing after our long laborious up; "the half is more than the whole." "Lead on, Loolowcan, intelligent brave, toward the residence of the late Sowee."

More fair prairies linked themselves along the trail. From these alpine pastures the future will draw butter and cheese, pasturing migratory cattle there, when summer dries the scanty grass upon the macadamized prairies of Whulge. It is well to remind ourselves sometimes that the world is not wholly squatted over. The plateau soon began to ebb toward the downward slope. Descent was like ascent, a way shaggy and abrupt. Again the Boston hooihut intruded. My friends the woodsmen had constructed an elaborate inclined plane of very knobby corduroy. Klale sniffed at this novel road, and turned up his nose at it. He was competent to protect that feature against all the perils of stumble and fall on the trails he had been educated to travel, but dreaded grinding it on the rough bark of this unaccustomed highway. Slow-footed oxen, leaning inward and sustaining each other, like two roysterers unsteady after wassail, might clumsily toil up such a road as this, hauling up stout, white-cotton-roofed wagons, filled with the babies and Lares of emigrants; but quick-footed ponies, descending and carrying light loads of a wild Indian and an untamed blanketeer, chose rather to whisk along the aboriginal paths.

As we came to the irregular terraces after the first pitch, and scampered on gayly, I by and by heard a welcome whiz, and a dusky grouse (Tetrao obscurus) lifted himself out of the trail into the lower branches of a giant fir. I had lugged my double-barrel thus far, a futile burden, unless when it served a minatory purpose among the drunken Klalams. Now it became an animated machine, and uttered a sharp exclamation of relief after long patient silence. Down came tetrao,—down he came with satisfactory thud, signifying pounds of something not pork for supper. We bagged him joyously and dashed on.

"Kopet," whispered Loolowcan turning, with a hushing gesture, "hiu kullakullie nika nanitch;—halt, plenty birds I see." He was so eager that from under his low brows and unkempt hair his dusky eyes glared like the eyes of wild beast, studying his prey from a shadowy lair.

Dismounting, I stole forward with assassin intent, and birds, grouse, five noble ones I saw, engaged in fattening their bodies for human solace and support. I sent a shot among them. There was a flutter among the choir,—one fluttered not. At the sound of my right barrel one bird fell without rising; another rose and fell at a hint from the sinister tube. The surviving trio were distracted by mortal terror. They flew no farther than a dwarf tree hard by. I drew my revolver, thinking that there might not be time to load, and fired in a hurry at the lowermost.

"Hyas tamanoüs!" whispered Loolowcan, when no bird fell or flew,—"big magic," it seemed to the superstitious youth. Often when sportsmen miss, they claim that their gun is bewitched, and avail themselves of the sure silver bullet.

A second ball, passing with keener aim through the barrel, attained its mark. Grouse third shook off his mortal remains, and sped to heaven. The two others, contrary to rule, for I had shot the lower, fled, cowardly carrying their heavy bodies to die of cold, starvation, or old age. "The good die first,"—ay, Wordsworth! among birds this is verity; for the good are the fat, who, because of their avoirdupois, lag in flight, or alight upon lower branches and are easiest shot.

Loolowcan bagged my three trophies and added them to the first. Henceforth the thought of a grouse supper became a fixed idea with me. I dwelt upon it with even a morbid appetite. I rehearsed, in prophetic mood, the scene of plucking, the scene of roasting, that happy festal scene of eating. So immersed did I become in gastronomic revery, that I did not mind my lookout, as I dashed after Loolowcan, fearless and agile cavalier. A thrust awoke me to a sense of passing objects, a very fierce, lance-like thrust, full at my life. A wrecking snag of harsh dead wood, that projected up in the trail, struck me, and tore me half off my horse, leaving me jerked, scratched, disjointed, and shuddering. Pachydermatous leggins of buckskin, at cost of their own unity, had saved me from impalement. Some such warning is always preparing for the careless.

I soon had an opportunity to propitiate Nemesis by a humane action. A monstrous trunk lay across the trail. Loolowcan, reckless steeplechaser, put his horse at it, full speed. Gubbins, instead of going over neatly, or scrambling over cat-like, reared rampant and shied back, volte face. I rode forward to see what fresh interference of Tamanoüs was here,—nothing tamanoüs but an unexpected sorry object of a horse. A wretched castaway, probably abandoned by the exploring party, or astray from them, essaying to leap the tree, had fallen back beneath the trunk and branches, and lay there entangled and perfectly helpless. We struggled to release him. In vain. At last a thought struck me. We seized the poor beast by his tail, fortunately a tenacious member, and, heaving vigorously, towed him out of prison.

He tottered forlornly to his feet, looking about him like one risen from the dead. "How now, Caudal?" said I, baptizing him by the name of the part that saved his life; "canst thou follow toward fodder?" He debated the question with himself awhile. Solitary confinement of indefinite length, in a cramped posture, had given the poor skeleton time to consider that safety from starvation is worth one effort more. He found that there was still a modicum of life and its energy within his baggy hide. My horses seemed to impart to him some of their electricity, and he staggered on droopingly. Lucky Caudal, if life is worth having, that on that day, of all days, I should have arrived to rescue him. Strange deliverances for body and soul come to the dying. Fate sends unlooked-for succor, when horses or men despair.

Luckily for Caudal, the weak-kneed and utterly dejected, Sowee's prairie was near,—near was the prairie of Sowee, mighty hunter of deer and elk, terror of bears. There at weird night Sowee's ghost was often seen to stalk. Dyspeptics from feather-beds behold ghosts, and are terrified, but nightwalkers are but bugbears to men who have ridden from dawn to dusk of a long summer's day over an Indian trail in the mountains. I felt no fear that any incubus in the shape of a brassy-hued Indian chief would sit upon my breast that night, and murder wholesome sleep.

Nightfall was tumbling down from the zenith before we reached camp. The sweet glimmers of twilight were ousted from the forest, sternly as mercy is thrust from a darkening heart. Night is really only beautiful so far as it is not night,—that is, for its stars, which are sources of resolute daylight in other spheres, and for its moon, which is daylight's memory, realized, softened, and refined.

Night, however, had not drawn the pall of brief death over the world so thick but that I could see enough to respect the taste of the late Sowee. When he voted himself this farm, and became seized of it in the days of unwritten agrarian laws, and before patents were in vogue, he proved his intelligent right to suffrage and seizure. Here in admirable quality were the three first requisites of a home in the wilderness, water, wood, and grass. A musical rustle, as we galloped through, proved the long grass. All around was the unshorn forest. There were columnar firs making the Sowee house a hypæthral temple on a grand scale.

There had been here a lodge. A few saplings of its framework still stood, but Sowee had moved elsewhere not long ago. Wake siah memloose,—not long dead was the builder, and viator might camp here unquestioned.

Caudal had followed us in an inane, irresponsible way. Patiently now he stood, apparently waiting for farther commands from his preservers. We unpacked and unsaddled the other animals. They knew their business, namely, to bolt instantly for their pasture. Then a busy uproar of nipping and crunching was heard. Poor Caudal would not take the hint. We were obliged to drive that bony estray with blows out to the supper-field, where he stood aghast at the appetites of his new comrades. Repose and good example, however, soon had their effect, and eight equine jaws instead of six made play in the herbage.

"Alki mika mamook pire, pe nesika klatawah copa klap tsuk; now light thou a fire, and we will go find water," said Loolowcan. I struck fire,—fire smote tinder,—tinder sent the flame on, until a pyre from the world's free wood-pile was kindled. This boon of fire,—what wonder that men devised a Prometheus greatest of demigods as its discoverer? Mortals, shrinking from the responsibility of a high destiny and dreading to know how divine the Divine would have them, always imagine an avatar of some one not lower than a half-god when a gift of great price comes to the world. And fire is a very priceless and beautiful boon,—not, as most know it, in imprisonment, barred with iron, or in sooty chimneys, or in mad revolt of conflagration,—but as it grows in a flashing pyramid out in camp in the free woods, with eager air hurrying in on every side to feed its glory. In the gloom I strike metal of steel against metallic flint. From this union a child is born. I receive the young spark tenderly in warm "tipsoo," in a soft woolly nest of bark or grass tinder. Swaddled in this he thrives. He smiles; he chuckles; he laughs; he dances about, does my agile nursling. He will soon wear out his first infantile garb, so I cover him up in shelter. I feed him with digestible viands, according to his years. I give him presently stouter fare, and offer exhilarating morsels of fatness. All these the hearty youth assimilates, and grows healthily. And now I educate him to manliness, training him on great joints, shoulders, and marrowy portions. He becomes erelong a power and a friend able to requite me generously for my care. He aids me in preparing my feast, and we feast together. Afterward we talk,—Flame and I,—we think together strong and passionate thoughts of purpose and achievement. These emotions of manhood die away, and we share pensive memories of happiness missed, or disdained, or feebly grasped and torn away; regrets cover these like embers, and slowly over dead fieriness comes a robe of ashy gray.

Fire in the forest is light, heat, and cheer. When ours was nurtured to the self-sustaining point, we searched to find where the sage Sowee kept his potables. Carefully covered up in sedges was a slender supply of water, worth concealing from vulgar dabblers. Its diamond drops were hidden away so thoroughly that we must mine for them by torchlight. I held a flaring torch, while Loolowcan lay in wait for the trickle, and captured it in a tin pot. How wild he looked, that youth so frowzy by daylight, as, stooping under the tall sedges, he clutched those priceless sparkles.

Upon the carte du jour at Restaurant Sowee was written Grouse. "How shall we have them?" said I, cook and convive, to Loolowcan, marmiton and convive. "One of these cocks of the mountain shall be fried, since gridiron is not," said I to myself, after meditation. "Two shall be spitted, and roasted; and, as Azrael may not want us before breakfast to-morrow, the fourth shall go on the carte de dejeuner."

"O Pork! what a creature thou art!" continued I, in monologue, cutting neat slices of that viand with my bowie-knife, and laying them fraternally, three in a bed, in the frying-pan. "Blessed be Moses! who forbade thee to the Jews, whereby we, of freer dispensations, heirs of all the ages, inherit also pigs more numerous and bacon cheaper. O Pork! what could campaigners do without thy fatness, thy leanness, thy saltness, thy portableness?"

Here Loolowcan presented me the three birds plucked featherless as Plato's man. The two roasters we planted carefully on spits before a sultry spot of the fire. From a horizontal stick, supported on forked stakes, we suspended by a twig over each roaster an automatic baster, an inverted cone of pork, ordained to yield its spicy juices to the wooing flame, and drip bedewing on each bosom beneath. The roasters ripened deliberately, while keen and quick fire told upon the fryer, the first course of our feast. Meanwhile I brewed a pot of tea, blessing Confucius for that restorative weed, as I had blessed Moses for his abstinence from porkers.

Need I say that the grouse was admirable, that everything was delicious, and the Confucian weed first chop? Even a scouse of mouldy biscuit met the approval of Loolowcan. Feasts cooked under the greenwood tree, and eaten by their cooks after a triumphant day of progress, are sweeter than the conventional banquets of languid Christendom. After we had paid our duty to the brisk fryer and the rotund roaster grouse, nothing remained but bones to propitiate Sowee, should he find short commons in Elysium, and wander back to his lodge, seeking what he might devour.

All along the journey I had been quietly probing the nature of Loolowcan, my most intimate associate thus far among the unalloyed copper-skins. Chinook jargon was indeed but a blunt probe, yet perhaps delicate enough to follow up such rough bits of conglomerate as served him for ideas. An inductive philosopher, tracing the laws of developing human thought in corpore viti of a frowzy savage, finds his work simple,—the nuggets are on the surface. Those tough pebbles known to some metaphysicians as innate ideas, can be studied in Loolowcan in their process of formation out of instincts.

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 gratitude in my analysis 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 space 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 God 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 tamanoüs. It is Talipus, the Wolf, a "hyas skookoom tamanoüs, 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 superstition, 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 tamanoüs, 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 assimilated to its characteristics. A wolfish youth is the protégé of Talipus,—an unfaithful, sinister, cannibal-looking son of a horse-thief. Wolfish likewise is his appetite; 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.

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 assigned 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 altitude 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 Tillicum." According to the Indian pronunciation 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 passion 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 superstitious 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 compass, and since that time having visited the mountain regions of Europe, and most of those of North America, I assert that Washington Territory contains mountain scenery in quantity 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 constitute 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 grass 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 sex. 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 latitude 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-glass, 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 anticipated. 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 illustration 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.

Early in the afternoon we reached the summit of the first ascent, where we enjoyed, in addition to a good rest, a magnificent view of the Puget Sound Valley, with Mount Olympus and the Coast Range for a background. Here on this summit, too, munching our biscuit of hard bread and our dried beef, we enjoyed a refreshing breeze as we looked down on the beautiful plains of the Nesqually, with its numerous clear and beautiful little lakes. There was nothing definite except forest—of which there was a great excess—lakes, and plains of limited area, the sound, and a great background of mountains. No habitations, farms, or villages were to be seen; not a sign of civilization or human life.

After a good rest we pushed on, taking an easterly course, and keeping, or trying to keep, on the spur of the mountain; the forest was so thick, however, that this was next to an impossibility. We were not loth to go down into ravines in the hope of finding some water, for we needed it greatly. It was a long time, and we met with many disappointments, before we could find enough to quench our thirst. Our progress was exceedingly slow on account of the undergrowth. At sundown we camped in the grand old forest, the location being chosen on account of some water in a partially dry ravine. The distance passed over from Mishawl Prairie we estimated at about ten or eleven miles. On good roads thirty miles would have wearied us much less.

We started early the next morning, and for a time tried to keep the high ground, but found it so difficult that we finally turned down to the right, and came upon the Nesqually River about the middle of the afternoon. There was no material difference in the undergrowth, but there was an advantage gained in having plenty of water to quench our thirst. We made about ten miles this day, and camped about sundown. There seemed nothing but forest before us; dark, gloomy forest, remarkable for large trees, and its terrible solitude. But few living things were to be seen. The Nesqually is a very wide muddy torrent, fordable in places where the stream is much divided by islands.

We already here began to suffer from the loss of appetite, which was to us such a difficulty throughout the entire trip. Even the four crackers and two ounces of dried beef, which was our daily limit, we found ourselves unable to master, and yet so much was necessary to keep up our strength. I have never been able to settle in my mind whether this was due to the sameness of the food or the great fatigue we underwent.

The third morning we made an early start, and followed up the stream in almost a due east direction all day until about five o'clock, when the doctor broke down, having been unable to eat anything during the day. With considerable cramming I managed to dispose of the most of my rations. We kept the north side of the river, and had no streams to cross; in fact, there did not appear to be any streams on either side putting into the river. The valley seemed several miles in width, densely timbered, and the undergrowth a complete thicket. Not more than ten miles were made by us. Just before we stopped for the night, we passed through a patch of dead timber of perhaps 100 acres, with an abundance of blackberries. Opposite our camp, on the south side of the river, there was the appearance of quite a tributary coming in from the southeast.

We did not get started until about eleven o'clock on the fourth morning. After cutting up a deer which Wah-pow-e-ty brought in early in the morning, we dried quite a quantity of it by the fire. As we anticipated, it proved of much assistance, for we already saw that six days would be a very short time in which to make the trip. By night we reached a muddy tributary coming in from the north, and evidently having its source in the melting snows of Rainier. The summit of the mountain was visible from our camp, and seemed close at hand; but night set in with promise of bad weather. The valley had become quite narrow. Our camp was at the foot of a mountain spur several thousand feet high, and the river close at hand. The gloomy forest, the wild mountain scenery, the roaring of the river, and the dark overhanging clouds, with the peculiar melancholy sighing which the wind makes through a fir forest, gave to our camp at this point an awful grandeur.

On the fifth morning the clouds were so threatening, and came down so low on the surrounding mountains, that we were at a loss what course to pursue—whether to follow up the main stream or the tributary at our camp, which evidently came from the nearest snow. We finally followed the main stream, which very soon turned in toward the mountain, the valley growing narrower, the torrent more and more rapid, and our progress slower and slower, especially when we were compelled to take to the timber. We often crossed the torrent, of which the water was intensely cold, in order to avoid the obstructions of the forest. Sometimes, however, the stream was impassable, and then we often became so entangled in the thickets as almost to despair of farther advance. Early in the evening we reached the foot of an immense glacier and camped. For several miles before camping the bed of the stream was paved with white granite bowlders, and the mountain gorge became narrower and narrower. The walls were in many places perpendicular precipices, thousands of feet high, their summits hid in the clouds. Vast piles of snow were to be seen along the stream—the remains of avalanches—for earth, trees, and rocks were intermingled with the snow.

As it was near night we camped, thinking it best to begin the ascent in the early morning; besides, the weather promised to become worse. The foliage of the pine-trees here was very dense, and on such a cloudy day it was dark as night in the forest. The limbs of the trees drooped upon the ground, a disposition evidently given to them by the snow, which must be late in disappearing in this region.

We followed thus far the main branch of the Nesqually, and here it emerged from an icy cavern at the foot of an immense glacier. The ice itself was of a dark-blue tinge. The water was white, and whenever I waded the torrent my shoes filled with gravel and sand. The walls of this immense mountain gorge were white granite, and, just where the glacier terminated, the immense vein of granite that was visible on both sides seemed to form a narrow throat to the great ravine, which is much wider both above and below. The water seems to derive its color from the disintegration of this granite. [18]

We made our camp under a pine of dense foliage, whose limbs at the outer end drooped near the ground. We made our cup of tea, and found the water boil at 202° Fahrenheit. Night set in with a drizzling rain, and a more solitary, gloomy picture than we presented at that camp it is impossible to conceive. Tired, hungry, dirty, clothes all in rags—the effects of our struggles with the brush—we were not the least happy; the solitude was oppressive. The entire party, except myself, dropped down and did not move unless obliged to. I went up to the foot of the glacier, and explored a little before night set in. I also tried to make a sketch of the view looking up the glacier; but I have never looked at it since without being forcibly reminded what a failure it is as a sketch.

On the morning of the sixth day we set out again up the glacier. A drizzling rain prevailed through the night, and continued this morning. We had a little trouble in getting upon the glacier, as it terminated everywhere in steep faces that were very difficult to climb. Once up, we did not meet with any obstructions or interruptions for several hours, although the slippery surface of the glacier, which formed inclined planes of about twenty degrees, made it very fatiguing with our packs. About noon the weather thickened; snow, sleet, and rain prevailed, and strong winds, blowing hither and thither, almost blinded us. The surface of the glacier, becoming steeper, began to be intersected by immense crevasses crossing our path, often compelling us to travel several hundred yards to gain a few feet. We finally resolved to find a camp. But getting off the glacier was no easy task. We found that the face of the lateral moraine was almost perpendicular, and composed of loose stones, sand, and gravel, furnishing a very uncertain foothold, besides being about fifty feet high. Wah-pow-e-ty and I finally succeeded in getting up, and with the aid of the rope we assisted our companions to do the same. When we reached the top we were a little surprised to find that we had to go down-hill again to reach the mountain side. Here a few stunted pines furnished us fuel and shelter, and we rested for the remainder of the day. I explored a little in the evening by ascending the ridge from the glacier, and discovered that it would be much the best route to pursue in ascending to the summit.

When night set in, the solitude of our camp was very oppressive. We were near the limit of perpetual snow. The water for our tea we obtained from the melting of the ice near by. The atmosphere was very different from what it was below, and singularly clear when not obstructed by fog, rain, or snow. There were no familiar objects to enable one to estimate distance. When I caught a glimpse of the top of Rainier through the clouds, I felt certain that we could reach it in three hours. The only living things to be seen were some animals, with regard to which we still labor under an error. These little creatures would make their appearance on the side of the mountain in sight of our camp, and feed upon herbage that grew on the soil where the snow left it bare. The moment anyone stirred from camp, a sound between a whistle and scream would break unexpectedly and from some unknown quarter, and immediately all the animals that were in sight would vanish in the earth. Upon visiting the spot where they disappeared, we would find a burrow which was evidently the creatures' home. Everywhere round the entrance we found great numbers of tracks, such as a lamb or kid would make. The animals that we saw were about the size of kids, and grazed and moved about so much like them, that, taken in connection with the tracks we saw, we jumped at once to the conclusion that they were mountain sheep, of which we all had heard a great deal, but none of our party had ever seen any. My report of these animals, which was published in the Washington Republican on our return, was severely ridiculed by some of the naturalists who were hunting for undescribed insects and animals in that country at the time. We are still at a loss to understand the habits of the creatures, and to reconcile the split hoofs which the tracks indicated with their burrow in the earth. [19]

On the following morning—the seventh day from our camp on the Mishawl—the sky showed signs of clear weather, and we began the ascent of the main peak. Until about noon we were enveloped in clouds, and only occasionally did we get a glimpse of the peak. Soon after midday we reached suddenly a colder atmosphere, and found ourselves all at once above the clouds, which were spread out smooth and even as a sea, above which appeared the snowy peaks of St. Helens, Mount Adams, and Mount Hood, looking like pyramidal icebergs above an ocean. At first we could not see down through the clouds into the valleys. Above, the atmosphere was singularly clear, and the reflection of the sun upon the snow very powerful. The summit of Rainier seemed very close at hand.

About two o'clock in the afternoon the clouds rolled away like a scroll; in a very short time they had disappeared, and the Cascade Range lay before us in all its greatness. The view was too grand and extensive to be taken in at once, or in the short time we had to observe. The entire scene, with few exceptions, was covered with forests, with here and there barren rocky peaks that rose up out of the ridges; now and then a mountain lake, much more blue than the sky, and the Nesqually, winding like a thread of silver through the dark forests. From the foot of the glacier for several miles the bed of the river was very white, from the granite bowlders that covered the bed of the stream. The water, too, was of a decidedly chalkier color near its source.

We had no time, however, to study the beauties that lay before us. We had already discovered that there was no telling from appearances how far we had to go. The travel was very difficult; the surface of the snow was porous in some places, and at each step we sunk to our knees. Carroll and the Indian gave out early in the afternoon, and returned to camp. The doctor began to lag behind. Dogue stuck close to me. Between four and five o'clock we reached a very difficult point. It proved to be the crest of the mountain, where the comparatively smooth surface was much broken up, and inaccessible pinnacles of ice and deep crevasses interrupted our progress. It was not only difficult to go ahead, but exceedingly dangerous; a false step, or the loss of a foot-hold, would have been certain destruction. Dogue was evidently alarmed, for every time that I was unable to proceed, and turned back to find another passage, he would say, "I guess, Lieutenant, we petter go pack."

Finally we reached what may be called the top, for although there were points higher yet, [20] the mountain spread out comparatively flat, and it was much easier to get along. The soldier threw himself down exhausted, and said he could go no farther. The doctor was not in sight. I went on to explore by myself, but I returned in a quarter of an hour without my hat, fully satisfied that nothing more could be done. It was after six o'clock, the air was very cold, and the wind blew fiercely, so that in a second my hat which it carried away was far beyond recovery. The ice was forming in my canteen, and to stay on the mountain at such a temperature was to freeze to death, for we brought no blankets with us, and we could not delay, as it would be impossible to return along the crest of the mountain after dark. When I returned to where I had left the soldier, I found the doctor there also, and after a short consultation we decided to return.

Returning was far easier and more rapid than going. The snow was much harder and firmer, and we passed over in three hours, coming down, what required ten in going up. We were greatly fatigued by the day's toil, and the descent was not accomplished without an occasional rest of our weary limbs. In one place the snow was crusted over, and for a short distance the mountain was very steep, and required the skillful use of the stick to prevent our going much faster than we desired. The soldier lost his footing, and rolled helplessly to the foot of the declivity, thirty or forty yards distant, and his face bore the traces of the scratching for many a day after, as if he had been through a bramble-bush.

We found the Indian and Carroll in the camp. The latter had a long story to tell of his wanderings to find camp, and both stated that the fatigue was too much for them. There was no complaint on the part of any of us about the rarity of the atmosphere. The doctor attributed to this cause the fact that he could not go but a few yards at a time, near the summit, without resting; but I am inclined to think this was due to our exhaustion. My breathing did not seem to be in the least affected.

We were much disappointed not to have had more time to explore the summit of the mountain. We had, however, demonstrated the feasibility of making the ascent. Had we started at dawn of day we should have had plenty of time for the journey. From what I saw I should say the mountain top was a ridge perhaps two miles in length and nearly half a mile in width, with an angle about half-way, and depressions between the angle and each end of the ridge which give to the summit the appearance of three small peaks as seen from the east or west. When viewed from north or south, a rounded summit is all that can be seen; while viewed from positions between the cardinal points of the compass, the mountain generally has the appearance of two peaks.

The night was very cold and clear after our return. We had some idea of making another ascent; but an investigation into the state of our provisions, together with the condition of the party generally, determined us to begin our return on the morning of the eighth day. The two soldiers had eaten all their bread but one cracker each. The doctor and I had enough left, so that by a redistribution we had four crackers each, with which to return over a space that had required seven days of travel coming. We, of course, expected to be a shorter time getting back; but let it be ever so short, our prospect for something to eat was proportionately much more limited. We had more meat than bread, thanks to the deer the Indian had killed, and we depended greatly on his killing more game for us going back: but this dependence, too, was cut off; the Indian was snow-blind, and needed our help to guide him. His groans disturbed us during the night, and what was our astonishment in the morning to find his eyelids closed with inflammation, and so swollen that he looked as if he had been in a free fight and got the worst of it. He could not have told a deer from a stump the length of his little old rifle.

Our camp was about 1,000 or 1,500 feet below the last visible shrub; water boiled at 199°, and, according to an approximate scale we had with us, this indicated an elevation of 7,000 feet. We estimated the highest peak to be over 12,000 feet high. I greatly regretted not being able to get the boiling-point on the top, but it was impossible to have had a fire in such a wind as prevailed round the summit.

As we returned we had more leisure to examine and clearer weather to see the glacier than we had coming up. There was no medial moraine; but an icy ridge parallel to the lateral moraines, and about midway between them, extending as far as we ascended the glacier. The lateral moraines were not continuous, but were interrupted by the walls of the spurs where they projected into the glacier; between these points the lateral moraines existed. The glacier sloped away from the ridge to the moraines, more or less sharply, and it was no easy matter to get off the ice, owing to the steepness of the moraine. The ice melted by reflection from the face of the moraine, and formed a difficult crevasse between it and the glacier. Bowlders of every shape and size were scattered over the face of the glacier. Large ones were propped up on pinnacles of ice; these were evidently too thick for the sun to heat through. The small bowlders were sunk more or less deeply, and surrounded by water in the hot sun; but they evidently froze fast again at night.

The noise produced by the glacier was startling and strange. One might suppose the mountain was breaking loose, particularly at night. Although, so far as stillness was concerned, there was no difference between day and night, at night the noise seemed more terrible. It was a fearful crashing and grinding that was going on, where the granite was powdered that whitened the river below, and where the bowlders were polished and partially rounded.

The great stillness and solitude were also very oppressive; no familiar sounds; nothing except the whistle of the animal before mentioned and the noise of the glacier's motion was to be heard, and if these had not occurred at intervals the solitude would have been still more oppressive. We were glad to get down again to the Nesqually, where we could hear its roar and see its rushing waters. The other members of the party were so tired and worn, however, that they seemed to observe but little, and as we were now on our homeward way, their thoughts were set only on our camp on the Mishawl, with its provisions and promise of rest.

The first day we passed two of the camps we had made coming up, and reached a point where we remembered to have seen a great quantity of blackberries. It was quite dark by the time we reached the little spot of dead timber—which seems to be the favorite haunt of the creeping bramble in this country—and to gather our supper of berries we built a fire at the foot of a large dead tree. Speedily the flames were climbing to the top of the withered branches, and casting a cheerful light for a hundred yards round. But what we found very convenient for gathering berries proved to be a great annoyance when we wanted to sleep. During the night we were constantly moving our place of rest, at first on account of the falling embers, and finally for fear of the tree itself.

Blackberries are refreshing so far as the palate is concerned; but they are not very nourishing. We took our breakfast on them, and continued down the Nesqually from six in the morning until six in the evening, traveling slowly because of the difficult undergrowth and our worn-out and exhausted condition. We passed another of our camps, and finally stopped at what evidently had been an Indian camp. The cedar bark, always to be found in such places, we anticipated would make a shelter for us in case of rain, which the clouds promised us.

No rain fell, however, and we resumed our march, continuing down the river five or six miles farther than where we first struck it, to a point where the hills came close up and overhung the water. There we camped, expecting that an easy march on the morrow would enable us to reach our camp on the Mishawl. We ate our last morsel, and the next morning I was awakened by the conversation of the two soldiers. They were evidently discussing the subject of hunger, for the Irishman said: "I've often seen the squaws coming about the cook-house picking the pitaties out of the slop-barrel, an' I thought it was awful; but I giss I'd do it mesilf this mornin'."

The morning of the eleventh day we left the Nesqually to cross over to the Mishawl, and traveled on the mountain all day, until we reached the stream at night completely exhausted. We should have stopped sooner than we did, but we were almost perishing with thirst, not having had any water since we left the Nesqually in the morning. What we took along in our canteens was exhausted in the early part of the day. We were not more than two miles from the camp in the prairie, and notwithstanding that we had had nothing to eat all day, except a few berries we had picked by the way, we were so exhausted that we lay down to sleep as soon as we had quenched our thirst.

We started up-stream the next morning, thinking we had reached the Mishawl below our camp; but soon discovering our mistake, we turned down. At this point the Irishman's heart sunk within him, he was so exhausted. Thinking we were lost, he wanted to lie down in the stream and "drownd" himself. He was assured that we should soon be in camp, and we arrived there very soon after, before the men left in charge of the horses were up.

Our first thought was of something to eat. I cautioned all about eating much at first; but from subsequent results am inclined to think my advice was not heeded. I contented myself with a half cracker, a little butter, and weak coffee; and an hour after, when I began to feel the beneficial effects of what I had eaten, I took a little more substantial meal, but refrained from eating heartily.

After a short rest we caught our horses, and the doctor and I rode into Steilacoom, where we arrived after a hard ride late in the afternoon. As we approached the post, we met on the road a number of the inhabitants with whom we were well acquainted, and who did not recognize us. Nor were we surprised when we got a glimpse of our faces in a glass. Haggard and sunburnt, nearly every familiar feature had disappeared. Since the loss of my hat, my head-dress was the sleeve of a red flannel shirt, tied into a knot at the elbow, with the point at the arm-pit for a visor. Our clothes were in rags; one of the doctor's pantaloon-legs had entirely disappeared, and he had improvised a substitute out of a coffee-sack. In our generally dilapidated condition none of our acquaintances recognized us until we got to the post. We passed for Indians until we arrived there, where we were received by the officers with a shout at our ludicrous appearance. They were all sitting under the oak-trees in front of quarters, discussing what had probably become of us, and proposing means for our rescue, when we came up.

I felt the effects of the trip for many days, and did not recover my natural condition for some weeks. The doctor and I went to the village next morning, where the people were startled at our emaciated appearance. We found that the doctor had lost twenty-one pounds in weight in fourteen days, and I had lost fourteen pounds in the same time. The doctor, while we were in the village, was taken with violent pains in his stomach, and returned to his post quite sick. He did not recover his health again for three months.

The two soldiers went into the hospital immediately on their return, and I learned that for the remainder of their service they were in the hospital nearly all the time. Four or five years after, Carroll applied to me for a certificate on which to file an application for a pension, stating that he had not been well since his trip to the mountain. The Indian had an attack of gastritis, and barely escaped with his life after a protracted sickness. I attribute my own escape from a lingering illness to the precautions I took in eating when satisfying the first cravings of hunger, on our return to camp.

We are not likely to have any competitors in this attempt to explore the summit of Mount Rainier. Packwood and McAllister, two citizens of Pierce County, Washington Territory, explored up the Nesqually, and crossed over to the head of the Cowlitz River, and thence by what was called Cowlitz Pass (since called Packwood Pass), to the east side of the mountains, searching for a trail to the mining regions of the upper Columbia. More recently, surveyors in the employ of the Pacific Railroad Company have been surveying through the same route for a railway passage.

When the locomotive is heard in that region some day, when American enterprise has established an ice-cream saloon at the foot of the glacier, and sherry-cobblers may be had at twenty-five cents half-way up to the top of the mountain, attempts to ascend that magnificent snow-peak will be quite frequent. But many a long year will pass away before roads are sufficiently good to induce any one to do what we did in the summer of 1857.