On our return to Chehalis--that town of unsavory odors and
salmon-drying, salmon-smoking Siwashes--I at once employed two other
Indians, named John and Seymour, and, on the following day we started up
Ski-ik-kul Creek, to a lake of the same name, in which it heads ten
miles back in the mountains. The Indians claimed that goats, or sheep,
as they call them, were plentiful on the cliffs surrounding this lake,
and that we could kill plenty of them from a raft while floating up and
down along the shores. Seymour claimed to have killed twenty-three in
March last, just after the winter snows had gone off, and a party of
seven Siwashes from Chehalis had killed ten about two weeks previous to
the date of my visit.
Such glowing accounts as these built up my hopes again to such a height
as to banish from my mind all recollection of the bitter disappointment
in which the former expedition had ended, and, although the rain
continued to fall heavily at short intervals, so that the underbrush
reeked with dampness and drenching showers fell from every bush we
touched, I trudged cheerily along regardless of all discomforts.
The first two miles up the creek, we had a good, open trail, but at the
end of this we climbed a steep, rocky bluff, about 500 feet high, and
made the greater portion of the remaining distance at an average of
about this height above the stream. There was a blind Indian trail all
the way to the lake, but it led over the roughest, most tortuous,
outlandish country that ever any fool of a goat hunter attempted to
traverse. There are marshes and morasses away up among these mountains,
where alders and water beeches, manzanitas, and other shrubs grow so
thick that their branches intertwine to nearly their full length. Many
of these have fallen down in various directions, and their trunks are as
inextricably mixed as their branches, forming altogether a labyrinthine
mass, through which it was with the utmost difficulty we could walk at
all.
There were numberless little creeks coming down from the mountain into
the main stream, and each had in time cut its deep, narrow gulch, or
canyon, lined on both sides with rough, shapeless masses of rock, and all
these we were obliged to cross. In many cases, they were so close
together that only a sharp hog-back lay between them, and we merely
climbed out of one gulch 300 or 400 feet deep, to go at once down into
another still deeper, and so on. Fire had run through a large tract of
this country, killing out all the large timber, and many trees have
since rotted away and fallen, while the blackened and barkless trunks of
others, with here and there a craggy limb, still stand as mute monuments
to the glory of the forest before the dread element laid it waste.
We camped that night at the base of one of these great dead firs around
which lay a cord or more of old dry bark that had fallen from it, and
which, with a few dry logs we gathered, furnished fuel for a rousing,
all-night fire. Within a few feet of our camp, a clear, ice-cold little
rivulet threaded its serpentine way down among rocks and ferns, and made
sweet music to lull us to sleep. After supper, I made for myself the
usual bed of mountain feathers (cedar boughs), on which to spread my
sleeping-bag.
This old companion of so many rough jaunts, over plains and mountains,
has become as necessary a part of my outfit for such voyages as my
rifle. Whether it journey by day, on the hurricane deck of a mule, in
the hatchway of a canoe, on my shoulder blades or those of a Siwash, it
always rounds up at night to house me against the bleak wind, the
driving snow, or pouring rain. I have learned to prize it so highly that
I can appreciate the sentiments of the fallen monarch, Napoleon, on the
lonely island of St. Helena, when he wrote:
"The bed has become a place of luxury to me. I would not exchange it for
all the thrones in the world."
These Indians, like Pean, and, in fact, all others who have seen the
bag, are greatly interested in it. They had never seen anything like it,
and watched with undisguised interest the unfolding and preparing of the
article, and when I had crawled into it, and stowed myself snugly away,
they looked at each other, grunted and uttered a few of their peculiar
guttural sounds, which I imagined would be, if translated:
"Well, I'll be doggoned if that ain't about the sleekest trick I ever
saw. Eh?"
"You bet it's nice to sleep in, but heavy to carry."
[Illustration: DIAGRAM OF SLEEPING-BAG.]
By the way, some of my readers may never have seen one of these valuable
camp appendages, and a description of it may interest them. The outer
bag is made of heavy, brown, waterproof canvas, six feet long, three
feet wide in the centre, tapered to two feet at the head and sixteen
inches at the foot. Above the head of the bag proper, flaps project a
foot farther, with which the occupant's head may be completely covered,
if desired. These are provided with buttons and button-holes, so that
they may be buttoned clear across, for stormy or very cold weather. The
bag is left open, from the head down one edge, two feet, and a flap is
provided to lap over this opening. Buttons are sewed on the bag, and
there are button-holes in the flaps so it may also be buttoned up
tightly. Inside of this canvas bag is another of the same size and
shape, less the head flaps. This is made of lamb skin with the wool on,
and is lined with ordinary sheeting, to keep the wool from coming in
direct contact with the person or clothing. One or more pairs of
blankets may be folded and inserted in this, as may be necessary, for
any temperature in which it is to be used.
If the weather be warm, so that not all this covering is needed over the
sleeper, he may shift it to suit the weather and his taste, crawling in
on top of as much of it as he may wish, and the less he has over him the
more he will have under him, and the softer will be his bed. Beside
being waterproof, the canvas is windproof, and one can button himself up
in this house, leaving only an air-hole at the end of his nose, and
sleep as soundly, and almost as comfortably in a snowdrift on the
prairie as in a tent or house. In short, he may be absolutely at home,
and comfortable, wherever night finds him, and no matter what horrid
nightmares he may have, he can not roll out of bed or kick off the
covers.
Nor will he catch a draft of cold air along the north edge of his spine
every time he turns over, as he is liable to do when sleeping in
blankets. Nor will his feet crawl out from under the cover and catch
chilblains, as they are liable to do in the old-fashioned way. In fact,
this sleeping-bag is one of the greatest luxuries I ever took into camp,
and if any brother sportsman who may read this wants one, and can not
find an architect in his neighborhood capable of building one, let him
communicate with me and I will tell him where mine was made.