and crossing the little prairie entered the timber. After winding over
hilly ground for about three miles, we descended into the Nisqually
bottom and forded a fine brook at the foot of the hill. For the next
ten miles our route lay across the bottom, and along the bank of the
river, passing around logs, following old, dry beds of the river and
its lateral sloughs, ankle-deep in loose sand, and forcing our way
through dense jungles of vine-maple. The trail was scarcely visible,
and much obstructed by fallen trees and underbrush, and its
difficulties were aggravated by the bewildering tracks of Indians who
had lately wandered about the bottom in search of berries or rushes.
We repeatedly missed the trail, and lost hours in retracing our steps
and searching for the right course. The weather was hot and sultry,
and rendered more oppressive by the dense foliage; myriads of gnats
and mosquitoes tormented us and drove our poor animals almost frantic;
and our thirst, aggravated by the severe and unaccustomed toil, seemed
quenchless. At length we reached the ford of the Nisqually. Directly
opposite, a perpendicular bluff of sand and gravel in alternate strata
rose to the height of two hundred and fifty feet, its base washed by
the river and its top crowned with firs. The stream was a hundred
yards wide, waist-deep, and very rapid. Its waters were icy cold, and
of a milk-white hue. This color is the characteristic of glacial
rivers. The impalpable powder of thousands of tons of solid rocks
ground up beneath the vast weight and resistless though imperceptible
flow of huge glaciers, remains in solution in these streams, and
colors them milk-white to the sea. Leading the animals down the bank
and over a wide, dry bar of cobblestones, we stood at the brink of the
swift, turbulent river, and prepared to essay its passage. Coleman
mounted behind Van Trump on the little saddle-mule, his long legs
dangling nearly to the ground, one hand grasping his Alpine staff, the
other the neck-rope of the pack-mule, which Longmire bestrode.
Longmire led in turn the pack-horse, behind whose bulky load was
perched the other member of the party. The cavalcade, linked together
in this order, had but just entered the stream when Coleman dropped
the neckrope he was holding. The mule, bewildered by the rush and
roar of the waters, turned directly down-stream, and in another
instant our two pack animals, with their riders, would have been swept
away in the furious rapids, had not Longmire with great presence of
mind turned their erratic course in the right direction and safely
brought them to the opposite shore. Following the bottom along the
river for some distance, we climbed up the end of the bluff already
mentioned, by a steep zigzag trail, and skirted along its brink for a
mile. Far below us on the right rushed the Nisqually. On the left the
bluff fell off in a steep hillside thickly clothed with woods and
underbrush, and at its foot plowed the Owhap, a large stream emptying
into the Nisqually just below our ford. Another mile through the woods
brought us out upon the Mishell Prairie, a beautiful, oval meadow of a
hundred acres, embowered in the tall, dense fir forest, with a grove
of lofty, branching oaks at its farther extremity, and covered with
green grass and bright flowers. It takes its name from the Mishell
River, which empties into the Nisqually a mile above the prairie.
We had marched sixteen miles. The packs were gladly thrown off beneath
a lofty fir; the animals were staked out to graze. A spring in the
edge of the woods afforded water, and while Mr. Coleman busied himself
with his pipe, his flask, his note-book, his sketch-book, and his
pouch of multifarious odds and ends, the other members of the party
performed the duties incident to camp-life: made the fire, brought
water, spread the blankets, and prepared supper. The flags attached to
our Alpine staffs waved gayly overhead, and the sight of their bright
folds fluttering in the breeze deepened the fixed resolve to plant
them on Takhoma's hoary head, and made failure seem impossible. Mr.
Coleman announced the altitude of Mishell Prairie as eight hundred
feet by barometer. By an unlucky fall the thermometer was broken.
The march was resumed early next morning. As we passed the lofty oaks
at the end of the little prairie, "On that tree," said Longmire,
pointing out one of the noblest, "Maxon's company hanged two Indians
in the war of '56. Ski-hi and his band, after many depredations upon
the settlements, were encamped on the Mishell, a mile distant, in
fancied security, when Maxon and his men surprised them and cut off
every soul except the two prisoners whom they hanged here."
For eight miles the trail led through thick woods, and then, after
crossing a wide "burn," past a number of deserted Indian wigwams,
where another trail from the Nisqually plains joined ours, it
descended a gradual slope, traversed a swampy thicket and another mile
of heavy timber, and debouched on the Mishell River. This is a fine,
rapid, sparkling stream, knee-deep and forty feet wide, rippling and
dashing over a gravelly bed with clear, cold, transparent water. The
purity of the clear water, so unlike the yeasty Nisqually, proves that
the Mishell is no glacial river. Rising in an outlying range to the
northwest of Takhoma, it flows in a southwest course to its confluence
with the Nisqually near our previous night's camp. We unsaddled for
the noon-rest. Van Trump went up the stream, fishing; Longmire crossed
to look out the trail ahead, and Coleman made tea solitaire.
An hour passed, and Longmire returned. "The trail is blind," said he,
"and we have no time to lose." Just then Van Trump returned; and the
little train was soon in readiness to resume the tramp. Longmire rode
his mule across the stream, telling us to drive the pack-animals after
him and follow by a convenient log near by. As the mule attempted to
climb a low place in the opposite bank, which offered an apparently
easy exit from the river, his hind legs sank in a quicksand, he sat
down quickly, if not gracefully, and, not fancying that posture, threw
himself clear under water. His dripping rider rose to his feet, flung
the bridle-rein over his arm, and, springing up the bank at a more
practicable point, strode along the trail with as little delay and as
perfect unconcern as though an involuntary ducking was of no more
moment than climbing over a log.
The trail was blind. Longmire scented it through thickets of salal,
fern, and underbrush, stumbling over roots, vines, and hollows hidden
in the rank vegetation, now climbing huge trunks that the animals
could barely scramble over, and now laboriously working his way around
some fallen giant and traveling two hundred yards in order to gain a
dozen yards on the course. The packs, continually jammed against trees
and shaken loose by this rough traveling, required frequent
repacking--no small task. At the very top of a high, steep hill, up
which we had laboriously zigzagged shortly after crossing the Mishell,
the little packhorse, unable to sustain the weight of the pack, which
had shifted all to one side, fell and rolled over and over to the
bottom. Bringing up the goods and chattels one by one on our own
shoulders to the top of the hill, we replaced the load and started
again. The course was in a southerly direction, over high rolling
ground of good clay soil, heavily timbered, with marshy swales at
intervals, to the Nisqually River again, a distance of twelve miles.
We encamped on a narrow flat between the high hill just descended and
the wide and noisy river, near an old ruined log-hut, the former
residence of a once famed Indian medicine man, who, after the laudable
custom of his race, had expiated with his life his failure to cure a
patient.
Early next morning we continued our laborious march along the right
bank of the Nisqually. Towards noon we left the river, and after
thridding in an easterly course a perfect labyrinth of fallen timber
for six miles, and forcing our way with much difficulty through the
tangled jungle of an extensive vine-maple swamp, at length crossed
Silver Creek and gladly threw off the packs for an hour's rest.
A short distance after crossing Silver Creek the trail emerged upon
more open ground, and for the first time the Nisqually Valley lay
spread out in view before us. On the left stretched a wall of steep,
rocky mountains, standing parallel to the course of the river and
extending far eastward, growing higher and steeper and more rugged as
it receded from view. At the very extremity of this range Takhoma
loomed aloft, its dome high above all others and its flanks extending
far down into the valley, and all covered, dome and flanks, with snow
of dazzling white, in striking contrast with the black basaltic
mountains about it. Startlingly near it looked to our eyes, accustomed
to the restricted views and gloom of the forest.
After our noon rest we continued our journey up the valley, twisting
in and out among the numerous trunks of trees that encumbered the
ground, and after several hours of tedious trudging struck our third
camp on Copper Creek, the twin brother to Silver Creek, just at dusk.
We were thoroughly tired, having made twenty miles in thirteen hours
of hard traveling.
Starting at daylight next morning, we walked two miles over rough
ground much broken by ravines, and then descended into the bed of the
Nisqually at the mouth of Goat Creek, another fine stream which
empties here. We continued our course along the river bed, stumbling
over rocky bars and forcing our way through dense thickets of willow,
for some distance, then ascended the steep bank, went around a high
hill over four miles of execrable trail, and descended to the river
again, only two miles above Goat Creek. At this point the Takhoma
branch or North Fork joins the Nisqually. This stream rises on the
west side of Takhoma, is nearly as large as the main river, and like
it shows its glacial origin by its milk-white water and by its icy
cold, terribly swift and furious torrent. Crossing the Takhoma branch,
here thirty yards wide, we kept up the main river, crossing and
recrossing the stream frequently, and toiling over rocky bars for four
miles, a distance which consumed five hours, owing to the difficulties
of the way. We then left the Nisqually, turning to the right and
traveling in a southerly course, and followed up the bed of a swampy
creek for half a mile, then crossed a level tract much obstructed with
fallen timber, then ascended a burnt ridge, and followed it for two
miles to a small, marshy prairie in a wide canyon or defile closed in
by rugged mountains on either side, and camped beside a little rivulet
on the east side of the prairie. This was Bear Prairie, the altitude
of which by the barometer was 2630 feet. The canyon formed a low pass
between the Nisqually and Cowlitz rivers, and the little rivulet near
which we camped flowed into the latter stream. The whole region had
been swept by fire: thousands of giant trunks stood blackened and
lifeless, the picture of desolation.
As we were reclining on the ground around the campfire, enjoying the
calm and beatific repose which comes to the toil-worn mountaineer
after his hearty supper, one of these huge trunks, after several
warning creaks, came toppling and falling directly over our camp. All
rushed to one side or another to avoid the impending crash. As one
member of the party, hastily catching up in one hand a frying-pan
laden with tin plates and cups, and in the other the camp kettle half
full of boiling water, was scrambling away, his foot tripped in a
blackberry vine and he fell outstretched at full length, the
much-prized utensils scattering far and wide, while the falling tree
came thundering down in the rear, doing no other damage, however, than
burying a pair of blankets.
The following day Longmire and the writer went down the canyon to its
junction with the Cowlitz River, in search of a band of Indians who
usually made their headquarters at this point, and among whom Longmire
hoped to find some hunter familiar with the mountains who might guide
us to the base of Takhoma. The tiny rivulet as we descended soon
swelled to a large and furious torrent, and its bed filled nearly the
whole bottom of the gorge. The mountains rose on both sides
precipitously, and the traces of land-slides which had gouged vast
furrows down their sides were frequent. With extreme toil and
difficulty we made our way, continually wading the torrent, clambering
over broken masses of rock which filled its bed, or clinging to the
steep hillsides, and reached the Cowlitz at length after twelve miles
of this fatiguing work, but only to find the Indian camp deserted.
Further search, however, was rewarded by the discovery of a rude
shelter formed of a few skins thrown over a framework of poles,
beneath which sat a squaw at work upon a half-dressed deerskin. An
infant and a naked child of perhaps four years lay on the ground near
the fire in front. Beside the lodge and quietly watching our approach,
of which he alone seemed aware, stood a tall, slender Indian clad in
buckskin shirt and leggings, with a striped woolen breech-clout, and a
singular head garniture which gave him a fierce and martial
appearance. This consisted of an old military cap, the visor thickly
studded with brassheaded nails, while a large circular brass article,
which might have been the top of an oil-lamp, was fastened upon the
crown. Several eagle feathers stuck in the crown and strips of fur
sewed upon the sides completed the edifice, which, notwithstanding its
components, appeared imposing rather than ridiculous. A long Hudson
Bay gun, the stock also ornamented with brass-headed tacks, lay in the
hollow of the Indian's shoulder.
He received us with great friendliness, yet not without dignity,
shaking hands and motioning us to a seat beneath the rude shelter,
while his squaw hastened to place before us suspicious-looking cakes
of dried berries, apparently their only food. After a moderate
indulgence in this delicacy, Longmire made known our wants. The
Indian spoke fluently the Chinook jargon, that high-bred lingo
invented by the old fur-traders. He called himself "Sluiskin," and
readily agreed to guide us to Rainier, known to him only as Takhoma,
and promised to report at Bear Prairie the next day. It was after
seven in the evening when we reached camp, thoroughly fagged.
Punctual to promise, Sluiskin rode up at noon mounted upon a stunted
Indian pony, while his squaw and pappooses followed upon another even
more puny and forlorn. After devouring an enormous dinner, evidently
compensating for the rigors of a long fast, in reply to our inquiries
he described the route he proposed to take to Takhoma. Pointing to the
almost perpendicular height immediately back or east of our camp,
towering three thousand feet or more overhead, the loftiest mountain
in sight, "We go to the top of that mountain to-day," said he, "and
to-morrow we follow along the high, backbone ridge of the mountains,
now up, now down, first on one side and then on the other, a long
day's journey, and at last, descending far down from the mountains
into a deep valley, reach the base of Takhoma." Sluiskin illustrated
his Chinook with speaking signs and pantomime. He had frequently
hunted the mountain sheep upon the snow-fields of Takhoma, but had
never ascended to the summit. It was impossible to do so, and he put
aside as idle talk our expressed intention of making the ascent.
We had already selected the indispensable articles for a week's tramp,
a blanket apiece, the smallest coffee-pot and frying-pan, a scanty
supply of bacon, flour, coffee, etc., and had made them up into
suitable packs of forty pounds each, provided with slings like a
knapsack, and had piled together under the lee of a huge fallen trunk
our remaining goods. Longmire, who although impatient to return home,
where his presence was urgently needed, had watched and directed our
preparations during the forenoon with kindly solicitude, now bade us
good-by: mounted on one mule and leading the other, he soon
disappeared down the trail on his lonely, homeward way. He left us the
little pack-horse, thinking it would be quite capable of carrying our
diminished outfit after our return from Takhoma.
Sluiskin led the way. The load upon his shoulders was sustained by a
broad band, passing over his head, upon which his heavy, brass-studded
rifle, clasped in both hands, was poised and balanced. Leaving behind
the last vestige of trail, we toiled in single file slowly and
laboriously up the mountain all the afternoon. The steepness of the
ascent in many places required the use of both hand and foot in
climbing, and the exercise of great caution to keep the heavy packs
from dragging us over backwards. Coleman lagged behind from the start,
and at intervals his voice could be heard hallooing and calling upon
us to wait. Towards sunset we reached a level terrace, or bench, near
the summit, gladly threw off our packs, and waited for Coleman, who,
we supposed, could not be far below. He not appearing, we hallooed
again and again. No answer! We then sent Sluiskin down the mountain to
his aid. After an hour's absence the Indian returned. He had
descended, he said, a long distance, and at last caught sight of
Coleman. He was near the foot of the mountain, had thrown away his
pack, blankets and all, and was evidently returning to camp. And
Sluiskin finished his account with expressions of contempt for the
"cultus King George man." What was to be done? Coleman carried in his
pack all our bacon, our only supply of meat, except a few pounds of
dried beef. He also had the barometer, the only instrument that had
survived the jolts and tumbles of our rough trip. But, on the other
hand, he had been a clog upon our march from the outset. He was
evidently too infirm to endure the toil before us, and would not only
be unable to reach, still less ascend Takhoma, but might even impede
and frustrate our own efforts. Knowing that he would be safe in camp
until our return, we hastily concluded to proceed without him,
trusting to our rifles for a supply of meat.
Sluiskin led us along the side of the ridge in a southerly direction
for two miles farther, to a well-sheltered, grassy hollow in the
mountain-top, where he had often previously encamped. It was after
dark when we reached this place. The usual spring had gone dry, and,
parched with thirst we searched the gulches of the mountain-side for
water an hour, but without success. At length the writer, recalling a
scanty rill which trickled across their path a mile back, taking the
coffee-pot and large canteen, retraced his steps, succeeded in filling
these utensils after much fumbling in the dark and consequent delay,
and returned to camp. He found Van Trump and the Indian, anxious at
the long delay, mounted on the crest of the ridge some two hundred
yards from camp, waving torches and shouting lustily to direct his
steps. The mosquitoes and flies came in clouds, and were terribly
annoying. After supper of coffee and bread, we drank up the water,
rolled ourselves in our blankets, and lay down under a tree with our
flags floating from under the boughs overhead. Hot as had been the
day, the night was cold and frosty, owing, doubtless, to the altitude
of our camp.
At the earliest dawn next morning we were moving on without breakfast,
and parched with thirst. Sluiskin led us in a general course about
north-northeast, but twisting to nearly every point of the compass,
and climbing up and down thousands of feet from mountain to mountain,
yet keeping on the highest backbone between the headwaters of the
Nisqually and Cowlitz rivers. After several hours of this work we came
to a well-sheltered hollow, one side filled with a broad bed of snow,
at the foot of which nestled a tiny, tranquil lakelet, and gladly
threw off our heavy packs, assuaged our thirst, and took
breakfast,--bread and coffee again. Early as it was, the chill of the
frosty night still in the air, the mosquitoes renewed their attacks,
and proved as innumerable and vexatious as ever.
Continuing our march, we crossed many beds of snow, and drank again
and again from the icy rills which flowed out of them. The mountains
were covered with stunted mountain-ash and low, stubby firs with
short, bushy branches, and occasionally a few pines. Many slopes were
destitute of trees but covered with luxuriant grass and the greatest
profusion of beautiful flowers of vivid hues. This was especially the
case with the southern slopes, while the northern sides of the
mountains were generally wooded. We repeatedly ate berries, and an
hour afterwards ascended to where berries of the same kind were found
scarcely yet formed. The country was much obscured with smoke from
heavy fires which had been raging on the Cowlitz the last two days.
But when at length, after climbing for hours an almost perpendicular
peak,--creeping on hands and knees over loose rocks, and clinging to
scanty tufts of grass where a single slip would have sent us rolling a
thousand feet down to destruction,--we reached the highest crest and
looked over, we exclaimed that we were already well repaid for all our
toil. Nothing can convey an idea of the grandeur and ruggedness of the
mountains. Directly in front, and apparently not over two miles
distant, although really twenty, old Takhoma loomed up more gigantic
than ever. We were far above the level of the lower snow-line on
Takhoma. The high peak upon which we clung seemed the central core or
focus of all the mountains around, and on every side we looked down
vertically thousands of feet, deep down into vast, terrible defiles,
black and fir-clothed, which stretched away until lost in the distance
and smoke. Between them, separating one from another, the
mountain-walls rose precipitously and terminated in bare, columnar
peaks of black basaltic or volcanic rock, as sharp as needles. It
seemed incredible that any human foot could have followed out the
course we came, as we looked back upon it.
After a few hours more of this climbing, we stood upon the summit of
the last mountain-ridge that separated us from Takhoma. We were in a
saddle of the ridge; a lofty peak rose on either side. Below us
extended a long, steep hollow or gulch filled with snow, the farther
extremity of which seemed to drop off perpendicularly into a deep
valley or basin. Across this valley, directly in front, filling up the
whole horizon and view with an indescribable aspect of magnitude and
grandeur, stood the old leviathan of mountains. The broad, snowy dome
rose far among and above the clouds. The sides fell off in vertical
steeps and fearful black walls of rock for a third of its altitude;
lower down, vast, broad, gently sloping snow-fields surrounded the
mountain, and were broken here and there by ledges or masses of the
dark basaltic rock protruding above them. Long, green ridges projected
from this snow-belt at intervals, radiating from the mountain and
extending many miles until lost in the distant forests. Deep valleys
lay between these ridges. Each at its upper end formed the bed of a
glacier, which closed and filled it up with solid ice. Below the
snow-line bright green grass with countless flowers, whose vivid
scarlet, blue, and purple formed bodies of color in the distance,
clothed the whole region of ridges and valleys, for a breadth of five
miles. The beautiful balsam firs, about thirty feet in height, and of
a purple, dark-green color, stood scattered over the landscape, now
singly, now in groves, and now in long lines, as though planted in
some well-kept park. Farther down an unbroken fir forest surrounded
the mountain and clad the lower portions of the ridges and valleys. In
every sheltered depression or hollow lay beds of snow with tiny brooks
and rivulets flowing from them. The glaciers terminated not gradually,
but abruptly, with a wall of ice from one to five hundred feet high,
from beneath which yeasty torrents burst forth and rushed roaring and
tumbling down the valleys. The principal of these, far away on our
left front, could be seen plunging over two considerable falls, half
hidden in the forest, while the roar of waters was distinctly audible.