BY LAUNCH THROUGH BOX CANYON
There was plainly something on Ike's mind all through breakfast, but
what it was didn't transpire until I asked him what time he would be
ready to push off. Then, like a man who blurts out an unpalatable truth,
he gave the free end of his "toga" a fling back over his shoulder and
announced that he had come to the conclusion that the raft was too big
and too loosely constructed to run Box Canyon; in fact, we could count
ourselves lucky that we got through Hell Gate without smashing up. What
he proposed to do was to take the biggest and straightest logs from both
the rafts and make a small, solid one that would stand any amount of
banging from the rocks. He never gave a thought to his life when working
on the river, he declared, but it would be a shame to run an almost
certain risk of losing so big a lot of logs and cordwood. The wreckage
would be sure to be salvaged by farmers who would otherwise have to buy
wood from him, so he would be a double loser in case the raft went to
pieces. I told him that I quite appreciated his feelings (about the wood
and logs, I mean), and asked how long he figured it would take to get
the logs out of the old rafts and build a new one. He reckoned it could
be done in two or three days, if we hustled. As I had already learned
that any of Ike's estimates of time had to be multiplied by at least
two to approximate accuracy, I realized at once that our rafting voyage
was at an end. We already had some very good raft pictures, and as a few
hundred yards of the run through Box Canyon would be all that could be
added to these, it did not seem worth anything like the delay building
the new raft would impose. As far as the sale of the wood and logs was
concerned, Ike said he would rather have the stuff where it was than in
Bridgeport.
So, quite unexpectedly but in all good feeling, we prepared to abandon
the raft and have the motor-boat take the skiff in tow as far as Chelan.
This would make up a part of the time we had lost in waiting for the
raft in the first place, and also save the portage round Box Canyon. It
was quite out of the question venturing into that gorge in our small
boat, Earl said, but he had made it before with his launch, and reckoned
he could do it again. We settled with Ike on a basis of twenty dollars a
day for his time, out of which he would pay for the launch. As his big
raft of logs and firewood was brought to its destination for nothing by
this arrangement, he was that much ahead. For the further use of the
launch, we were to pay Earl ten dollars a day and buy the gasoline.
We helped Ike get the raft securely moored, had an early lunch on the
rocks, and pushed off at a little after noon, the skiff in tow of the
launch on a short painter. A few miles along Ike pointed out a
depression, high above the river on the left side, which he said was the
mouth of the Grand Coulee, the ancient bed of the Columbia. I have
already mentioned a project which contemplates bringing water from the
Pend d'Oreille to irrigate nearly two million acres of semi-arid land of
the Columbia basin. A project that some engineers consider will bring
water to the same land more directly and at a much less cost per acre is
to build a dam all the way across the Columbia below the mouth of the
Grand Coulee, and use the power thus available to pump sixteen thousand
second-feet into the old channel of that river. Mr. James O'Sullivan, a
contractor of Port Huron, Michigan, who has made an exhaustive study of
this latter project, writes me as follows:
"A dam at this point could be built 300 feet high above low
water, and it would form a lake 150 miles long all the way to the
Canadian boundary. It is estimated that one million dollars would
pay all the flooding damages. A dam 300 feet high would be 4,300
feet long on the crest, and would require about 5,000,000 cubic
yards of concrete. It would cost, assuming bedrock not to exceed
100 feet below water, about forty million dollars. It is
estimated that the power-house, direct connected pumps, turbines
and discharge pipes would cost fifteen million dollars.... From
the Columbia River to the arid lands, a distance of less than
forty miles, there is a natural channel less than one mile wide,
flanked by rock walls on both sides, so that the cost of getting
water to the land would be primarily confined to the dam and
power. Such a dam would require about five years to build, and it
would create out of a worthless desert a national estate of four
hundred and fifty million dollars, and the land would produce
annually in crops two hundred and seventy-five million.... An
irrigation district is now being formed in Central Washington,
and it is proposed to proceed at once with the core drilling of
the dam-site, to determine the nature and depth of bedrock,
which seems to be the only question left unsettled which affects
the feasibility of the project. The Northwestern states are all
in a league for securing the reclamation of this vast area, and
there is no doubt that, if bedrock conditions prove to be
favourable, that in the near future the money will be raised to
construct this great project, which will reclaim an area equal to
the combined irrigation projects undertaken by the U. S.
Government to-day.... It is considered now that where power is
free, a pumping lift as high as 300 feet is perfectly feasible."
Which of these two great projects for the reclamation of the desert of
the Columbia Basin has the most to recommend is not a question upon
which a mere river _voyageur_, who is not an engineer, can offer an
intelligent opinion. That the possibilities of such reclamation, if it
can be economically effected, are incalculably immense, however, has
been amply demonstrated. From source to mouth, the Columbia to-day is
almost useless for power, irrigation and even transportation. The
experience of those who, lured on by abnormal rainfalls of a decade or
more ago, tried dry farming in this region border closely on the tragic.
And the tragedy has been all the more poignant from the fact that the
disaster of drought has overtaken them year after year with the Columbia
running half a million second-feet of water to waste right before their
eyes. I subsequently met a rancher in Wenatchee who said the only good
the Columbia ever was to a man who tried to farm along it in the dry
belt was as a place to drown himself in when he went broke.
[Illustration: THE SUSPENSION BRIDGE AT CHELAN FALLS (_above_)]
[Illustration: OLD RIVER VETERANS ON THE LANDING AT POTARIS. (CAPT.
McDERMID ON LEFT, IKE EMERSON ON RIGHT) (_below_)]
[Illustration: NIGHT WAS FALLING AS WE HEADED INTO BOX CANYON (_above_)]
[Illustration: THE COLUMBIA ABOVE BOX CANYON (_below_)]
The rock-littered channel of Moneghan's or Buckley's Rapids was easily
threaded by the launch, and Equilibrium or "Jumbo" Rapids, three miles
lower down, did not prove a serious obstruction. The official name is
the former, and was given the riffle by Symons on account of a
round-topped rock which rolled back and forth in the current because of
its unstable equilibrium. The local name of "Jumbo" derives from the
fact that this same rolling rock has something of the appearance of an
elephant, when viewed from a certain angle. Ten miles more of deep,
evenly-flowing water brought us to Mah-kin Rapids and the head of
Nespilem Canyon. The next twenty-four miles, terminating at the foot of
what is officially called Kalichen Falls and Whirlpool (Box Canyon in
local nomenclature), is the fastest stretch of equal length on the
Columbia except on the Big Bend in Canada. It is one continuous
succession of rapids, eddies and whirlpools all the way, and the much
feared Box Canyon is a fitting finale. I was distinctly glad to be
running through in a motor-boat rather than the skiff. As to the raft, I
never have been able to make up my mind as to just how she would have
fared.
The roar of the savage half-mile tumble of Mah-kin Rapids was a fitting
overture to the main performance. The river narrows down sharply between
precipitous banks, and most of the rocks from the surrounding hills seem
to have rolled into the middle of the channel. There was an awful mess
of churned water even where the river was deepest, and I wouldn't have
been quite comfortable heading into it even in the launch. Earl seemed
rather of the same mind, too, for he kept edging out to the right every
time one of the big combers lurched over at him. With the engine running
like a top, he kept her in comparatively good water all the way through.
It was a striking lesson in the value of power in running a rapid--as
long as the power doesn't fail you.
Rock-peppered rapids followed each other every mile or two from the foot
of Mah-kin, but--thanks to Earl's nose for the best channel--we were not
taking more than an occasional shower of spray over the bows where the
water was whitest. It was not too rough for reading, and, anxious to
prepare Roos for what he was about to experience at Kalichen Falls and
Collision Rock, I dug out Symons' report and ran rapidly through the
dramatic description of how his party fared in running the sinister
gorge ahead. It seems to me rather a classic of its kind, and I am
setting it down in full, just as I read it to Roos and Ike that
afternoon in the cockpit of the launch. I only wish I could complete the
effect with the diorama of the flying canyon walls, the swirling waters
of the river, and the obligato in duet by the roaring rapids and the
sharply hitting engine.
"The shores of Nespilem Canyon are strewn with huge masses of
black basaltic rock of all sizes and shapes, and this continues
for several miles, forming a characteristic picture of Columbia
River scenery. The complete ... lifelessness of the scene makes
it seem exceedingly wild, almost unearthly. And so we plunge
along swiftly through the rolling water, with huge rocks looming
up, now on one side and now on the other. Every stroke of the oar
is bearing us onward, nearer and nearer, to that portion of our
voyage most dreaded, the terrible Kalichen Falls and Whirlpool
Rapids. We hear the low rumbling of the water, and see the tops
of the huge half-sunken rocks and the white foam of the tumbling
waters. For a few moments the rowing ceases, while brave old
Pierre gives his orders to the Indians in their own tongue. He
knows that everything depends upon his steering and their rowing
or backing at the right moment, with all the strength they
possess. Years ago he was in a Hudson Bay Company _batteau_ which
capsized in these very rapids, and out of a crew of sixteen men
eight perished in the water or on the rocks.
"The Indians make their preparations for the struggle by
stripping off all their superfluous clothing, removing their
gloves, and each ties a bright-coloured handkerchief tightly
about his head; poles and extra oars are laid ready in convenient
places to reach should they become necessary, and then with a
shout the Indians seize their oars and commence laying to them
with all their strength. We are rushing forward at a fearful
rate, owing to the combined exertions of the Indians and the
racing current, and we shudder at the thought of striking any of
the huge black rocks near which we glide. Now we are fairly in
the rapids, and our boat is rushing madly through the foam and
billows; the Indians are shouting at every stroke in their wild,
savage glee; it is infectious; we shout too, and feel the wild
exultation which comes to men in moments of great excitement and
danger. Ugly masses of rocks show their heads above the troubled
waters on every side, and sunken rocks are discernible by the
action of the surf. Great billows strike us fore and aft, some
falling squarely over the bows and drenching us to the waist.
This is bad enough, but the worst is yet to come as we draw near
with great velocity to a huge rock which appears dead ahead.
"Has old Pierre seen it? The water looks terribly cold as we
think of his failing eyesight. Then an order, a shout, backing on
one side and pulling on the other, and a quick stroke of the
steering oar, and the rock appears on our right hand. Another
command, and answering shout, and the oars bend like willows as
the Indians struggle to get the boat out of the strong eddy into
which Pierre had thrown her. Finally she shoots ahead and passes
the rock like a flash, within less than an oar's length of it,
and we shout for joy and breathe freely again....
"For half a mile the river is comparatively good, and our staunch
crew rest on their oars preparatory to the next struggle, which
soon comes, as some more rocky, foamy rapids are reached. Here
the swells are very high and grand, and our boat at one time
seems to stand almost perpendicularly." ("Them's Eagle Rapids,"
Ike interrupted; "sloppier 'n 'ell, but straight.")
"For about nine miles further the river continues studded with
rocks and swift, with ripples every mile or so, until we reach
Foster Creek Rapids. Here the rocks become thicker ... and the
water fierce and wild. For a mile more we plunge and toss through
the foaming, roaring water, amid wild yells from our Indian
friends, and we emerge from Foster Creek Rapids, which appear to
be as rough and dangerous a place as any we have yet encountered.
We are now out of Nespilem Canyon and through all the Nespilem
Rapids, and we certainly feel greatly relieved...."
Ike, renewing his quid, observed that they didn't call it Nespilem
Canyon any more, for the reason that that sounded too much like "Let's
spill 'em!" and there was enough chance of that without asking for it.
Roos, in bravado, asked Ike if he was going to strip down like Symons'
Indians did. The old Roman replied by pulling on a heavy mackinaw over
his "toga," saying that he'd rather have warmth than action once he was
out in the "Columby." That led me to ask him--with a touch of bravado on
my own account--how long it would take him to "submarine" from Box
Canyon to Kettle Falls. He grinned a bit sourly at that, and started
slacking the lashings on the sweeps and pike-poles. Roos was just tying
a red handkerchief round his head when Earl beckoned him forward to take
the wheel while he gave the engine a final hurried tuning. Ike, saying
that we would be hitting "White Cap" just round the next bend, gave me
brief but pointed instructions in the use of sweep and pike-pole in case
the engine went wrong. He had spat forth his quid again, just as at Hell
Gate, and his unmuffled voice had a strange and penetrating _timbre_.
White Cap Rapids are well named. Two rocky points converge at the head
and force all the conflicting currents of the river into a straight,
steep channel, heavily littered with boulders and fanged with
outcropping bedrock. In that currents from opposite sides of the river
are thrown together in one mad tumble of wallowing waters, it is much
like Gordon Rapids, on the Big Bend. If anything, it is the rougher of
the two, making up in volume what it lacks in drop. It is a rapid that
would be particularly mean for a small boat, from the fact that there
would be no way of keeping out of the middle of it, and that is a wet
place--very. The launch had the power to hold a course just on the outer
right edge of the rough water, and so made a fairly comfortable passage
of it.
With the "intake" above Kalichen Falls full in view a half mile distant,
Earl went back to his engine as we shot out at the foot of "White Cap"
and gave it a few little "jiggering" caresses--much as a rider pats the
neck of his hunter as he comes to a jump--before the final test. Then he
covered it carefully with a double canvas and went back to the wheel.
Roos he kept forward, standing-by to take the wheel or tinker the engine
in case of emergency. The lad, though quite without "river sense," was a
first-class mechanic and fairly dependable at the steering wheel
providing he was told what to do.
The sounding board of the rocky walls gave a deep pulsating resonance to
the heavy roar ahead, but it was not until we dipped over the "intake"
that the full volume of it assailed us. Then it came with a rush, a
palpable avalanche of sound that impacted on the ear-drums with the raw,
grinding roar of a passing freight train. It was not from the huge
rollers the launch was skirting so smartly that this tearing, rending
roar came, but from an enormous black rock almost dead ahead. It was
trying to do the same thing that big island in the middle of Hell Gate
had tried to do, and was succeeding rather better. The latter had been
able to do no more than split the river down the middle; this one was
forcing the whole stream to do a side-step, and pretty nearly a
somersault--hence Kalichen Falls and Whirlpool. Collision Rock was
distinctly impressive, even from a launch.
The sun was just dipping behind the southern wall of Box Canyon (how
funky I became later, when I was alone, about going into a rapid in that
slanting, deceptive evening light!) as the launch hit the rough water.
There was dancing iridescence in the flung foam-spurts above the
combers, and at the right of Collision Bock the beginning of a rainbow
which I knew would grow almost to a full circle when we looked back from
below the fall. I snapped once with my kodak into the reeling tops of
the waves that raced beside us, and then started to wind up to have a
fresh film for the rock and the crowning rainbow. That highly artistic
exposure was never made.
Earl, instead of shutting off his engine as he did in running Spokane
Rapids, opened up all the wider as he neared the barrier and its
refluent wave. This was because the danger of striking submerged rocks
was less than that of butting into that one outcrop of ragged reef that
was coming so near to throwing the river over on its back. If the launch
was to avoid telescoping on Collision Rock as the Columbia was doing, it
must get enough way on to shoot across the current into the eddy on the
left. That was what Earl was preparing for when he opened up the engine.
With both boat and current doing well over twenty miles an hour, we were
literally rushing down at the rocky barrier with the speed of an express
train when Earl spun the wheel hard over and drove her sharply to the
left. That was when I stopped kodaking.
In spite of the rough water, the launch had been remarkably dry until
her course was altered. Then she made up for lost time. The next ten or
fifteen seconds was an unbroken deluge. With a great up-toss of wake,
she heeled all of forty-five degrees to starboard at the turn, seeing
which, the river forthwith began piling over her port or up-stream side
and making an astonishingly single-minded attempt to push her on the
rest of the way under. Failing in that (for her draught was too great
and her engine set too low to make her easily capsizable), the river
tried to accomplish the same end by swamping her. Fore and aft the water
came pouring over in a solid green flood, and kept right on pouring
until Earl, having driven through to the point he wanted, turned her
head down stream again and let her right herself.
The water was swishing about my knees for a few moments in the cockpit,
and it must have been worse than that forward. Then it drained down into
the bilge without, apparently, greatly affecting her buoyancy. The
higher-keyed staccato of the engine cut sharply through the heavier roar
of the falls. It was still popping like a machine-gun, without a break.
Reassured by that welcome sound, Earl orientated quickly as he shook the
water from his eyes, and then put her full at the head of the falls.
Just how much of a pitch there was at this stage of water I couldn't
quite make out. Nothing in comparison with the cataract there at high
water (when the river rushes right over the top of Collision Rock)
certainly; and yet it was a dizzy bit of a drop, with rather too
deliberate a recovery to leave one quite comfortable. For a few seconds
the launch's head was deeply buried in the soft stuff of the souse-hole
into which she took her header; the next her bows were high in the air
as the up-boil caught her. Then her propellers began striking into
something solider than air-charged suds, and she shot jerkily away in a
current so torn with swirls that it looked like a great length of
twisted green-and-white rope. We had missed Collision Rock by thirty
feet, and given the dreaded whirlpool behind it an even wider berth.
The next thirteen miles we did at a rate that Ike figured must have been
about the fastest travelling ever done on the Columbia. The current runs
at from ten to twenty miles an hour all the way from the head of Box
Canyon to Bridgeport, and Earl, racing to reach Foster Creek Rapids
before it was dark, ran just about wide open nearly the whole distance.
It was real train speed at which we sped down the darkening
gorge--possibly over forty miles an hour at times. Earl knew the channel
like a book, and said there was nothing to bother about in the way of
rocks as long as he could see. We were out of the closely-walled part of
the canyon at Eagle Rapids, and the sunset glow was bright upon the
water ahead. There is a series of short, steep riffles here, extending
for a mile and a half, and Earl slammed right down the lot of them on
the high. Ike was right about their being sloppy, but the beacon of the
afterglow gave the bearing straight through. Two miles further on the
river appeared suddenly to be filled with swimming hippos--round-topped
black rocks just showing above the water; but each one was silhouetted
against a surface that glinted rose and gold, and so was as easy to miss
as in broad daylight.
It was all but full night as the roar of Foster Creek Rapids began to
drown the rattle of the engine, with only a luminous lilac mist
floating above the south-western mountains to mark where the sun had
set; but it was enough--just enough--to throw a glow of pale amethyst on
the frothy tops of the white-caps, leaving the untorn water to roll on
in fluid anthracite. Earl barely eased her at the head, and then plunged
her down a path of polished ebony, with the blank blur of rocks looming
close on the right and an apparitional line of half-guessed rollers
booming boisterously to the left. For three-quarters of a mile we raced
that ghostly Ku-Klux-Klan procession, and Roos, who was timing with his
radium-faced watch, announced that we had made the distance in something
like seventy seconds. Then there was quieter water, and presently the
lights of Bridgeport. Earl put us off opposite the town, and ran down a
quarter of a mile farther to get out of the still swiftly-running
current and berth the launch in a quiet eddy below the sawmill.
Bridgeport, for a town a score of miles from the railway, proved
unexpectedly metropolitan, with electric lights, banks, movie theatres,
and a sign at the main crossing prohibiting "Left Hand Turns." The
people, for a country town, showed very diverting evidences of
sophistication. At the movies that night (where we went to get the
election returns), they continually laughed at the villain and snickered
at the heroine's platitudinous sub-titles; and finally, when word came
that it was Harding beyond all doubt, they forgot the picture completely
and gave their undivided attention to joshing the town's only avowed
Democrat. The victim bore up fairly well as long as his baiters stuck
to "straight politics," but when they accused him of wearing an
imitation leather coat made of brown oil-cloth, the shaft got under his
armour. With a ruddy blush that was the plainest kind of a confession of
guilt, he pushed out to the aisle and beat a disorderly retreat.
A prosperous apple farmer sitting next me (he had been telling me what
his crop would bring the while the naturally vamp-faced heroine was
trying to register pup-innocence and "gold-cannot-buy-me" as the villain
was choking her) sniffed contemptuously as the discomfited Democrat
disappeared through the swinging doors. "Seems to feel worse about being
caught with an imitation coat than about being an imitation politician.
Better send him to Congress!" Now _wasn't_ that good for a small town
that didn't even have a railroad? I've known men of cities of all of a
hundred thousand, with street cars, municipal baths, Carnegie libraries
and women's clubs, who hadn't the measure of Congress as accurately as
that. I wish there had been time to see more of Bridgeport.
It was down to twelve above when we turned out in the morning, with the
clear air tingling with frost particles and incipient ice-fringes around
the eddies. Fortunately, Earl had bailed both boats the night before and
drained his engine. Just below Bridgeport the river, which had been
running almost due west from the mouth of the Spokane River, turned off
to the north. In a slackening current we approached the small patch of
open country at the mouth of the Okinagan. The latter, which heads above
the lake of the same name in British Columbia, appears an insignificant
stream as viewed from the Columbia, and one would never suspect that it
is navigable for good-sized stern-wheelers for a considerable distance
above its mouth. On the right bank of the Columbia, just above the mouth
of the Okinagan, is the site of what was perhaps the most important of
the original Astor posts of the interior. As a sequel to the war of 1812
it was turned over to the Northwest Company, and ultimately passed under
the control of Hudson Bay. I could see nothing but a barren flat at this
point where so much history was made, but a splendid apple orchard
occupies most of the fertile bench in the loop of the bend on the
opposite bank.
The mouth of the Okinagan marks the most northerly point of the
Washington Big Bend of the Columbia. From there it flows southwesterly
for a few miles to the mouth of the Methow, before turning almost
directly south. We passed Brewster without landing, but pulled up
alongside a big stern-wheeler moored against the bank at Potaris, just
above the swift-running Methow Rapids. It was the _Bridgeport_, and Ike
had spoken of her skipper, whom he called "Old Cap," many times and with
the greatest affection. "Old Cap" proved to be the Captain McDermid, who
had run the _Shoshone_ down through Grand Rapids, and who was rated as
the nerviest steamer skipper left on the Columbia.
Captain McDermid was waiting on the bow of his steamer to give us a hand
aboard. He had read of our voyage in the Spokane papers, he said, and
had been on the lookout for several days. At first he had watched for a
skiff, but later, when he had heard that we had pushed off with Ike on
a raft, it was logs he had been keeping a weather eye lifting for. When
Ike described the raft to him, he wagged his head significantly, and
said he reckoned it was just as well we had changed to the launch for
Box Canyon. "It isn't everybody that can navigate under water like this
old rat here," he added, giving Ike a playful prod in the ribs.
As we were planning to go on through to the mouth of the Chelan River,
in the hope of getting up to the lake that afternoon, an hour was the
most I could stop over on the _Bridgeport_ for a yarn with Captain
McDermid, where I would have been glad of a week. He told me, very
simply but graphically, of the run down Grand Rapids, and a little of
his work with stern or side-wheelers in other parts of the world, which
included a year on the upper Amazon and about the same time as skipper
of a ferry running from the Battery to Staten Island. Then he spoke,
with a shade of sadness, of the _Bridgeport_ and his plans for the
future. In all the thousand miles of the Columbia between the Dalles and
its source, she had been the last steamer to maintain a regular service.
(This was not reckoning the Arrow Lakes, of course). But the close of
the present apple season had marked the end. Between the increasing
competition of railways and trucks, the game was no longer worth the
candle. He, and his partners in the _Bridgeport_, had decided to try to
take her to Portland and offer her for sale. She was very powerfully
engined and would undoubtedly bring a good price--once they got her
there. But getting her to Portland was the rub. There were locks at the
Cascades and the Dalles, but Rock Island, Cabinet, Priest and Umatilla,
to say nothing of a number of lesser rapids would have to be run. It was
a big gamble, insurance, of course, being out of the question on any
terms. The _Douglas_, half the size of the _Bridgeport_, had tried it a
couple of months ago, and--well, we would see the consequences on the
rocks below Cabinet Rapids. Got through Rock Island all right, and then
went wrong in Cabinet, which wasn't half as bad. Overconfidence,
probably, "Old Cap" thought. But he felt sure that _he_ would have
better luck, especially if he went down first and made a good study of
Rock Island and Priest; and that was one of the things that he had
wanted to see me about. If there was room for him in the skiff, he would
like to run through with us as far as Pasco, and brush up on the channel
as we went along. If things were so he could get away, he would join us
at Wenatchee on our return from Chelan. I jumped at the chance without
hesitation, for it would give us the benefit of the experience and help
of the very best man on that part of the Columbia in getting through the
worst of the rapids that remained to be run. I had been a good deal
concerned about how the sinister cascade of Rock Island was to be
negotiated, to say nothing of the long series of riffles called Priest
Rapids, which had even a worse record. I parted with Captain McDermid
with the understanding that we would get in touch by phone a day or two
later, when I knew definitely when we would return to the river from
Chelan, and make the final arrangements.
Leaving Ike on the _Bridgeport_ for a yarn with his old friend, we
pushed off in the launch for Chelan. Methow Rapids, just below the river
of that name, was the only fast water encountered, and that was a good,
straight run in a fairly clear channel. We landed half a mile below the
mouth of the Chelan River, where the remains of a road led down through
the boulders to the tower of an abandoned ferry. Earl put about at once
and headed back up-stream, expecting to pick up Ike at Potaris and push
on through to Bridgeport that evening.
We parted from both Earl and Ike in all good feeling and with much
regret. Each in his line was one of the best men I have ever had to do
with. Ike--in spite of the extent to which his movements were dominated
by the maxim that "time is made for slaves," or, more likely, for that
very reason--was a most priceless character. I only hope I shall be able
to recruit him for another river voyage in the not-too-distant future.