-A Midnight
Decampment.- Unexpected Meeting With Old Comrades- Story of
Trappers' Hardships- Salmon Falls- A Great Fishery.- Mode of
Spearing Salmon.- Arrival at the Caldron Linn.- State of the
Caches. - New Resolution of the Three Kentucky Trappers.
IN retracing the route which had proved so disastrous to Mr.
Hunt's party during the preceding winter, Mr. Stuart had trusted,
in the present more favorable season, to find easy travelling and
abundant supplies. On these great wastes and wilds, however, each
season has its peculiar hardships. The travellers had not
proceeded far, before they found themselves among naked and arid
hills, with a soil composed of sand and clay, baked and brittle,
that to all appearance had never been visited by the dews of
heaven.
Not a spring, or pool, or running stream was to be seen; the
sunburnt country was seamed and cut up by dry ravines, the beds
of winter torrents, serving only to balk the hopes of man and
beast with the sight of dusty channels, where water had once
poured along in floods.
For a long summer day they continued onward without halting, a
burning sky above their heads, a parched desert beneath their
feet, with just wind enough to raise the light sand from the
knolls, and envelop them in stifling clouds. The sufferings from
thirst became intense; a fine young dog, their only companion of
the kind, gave out, and expired. Evening drew on without any
prospect of relief, and they were almost reduced to despair, when
they descried something that looked like a fringe of forest along
the horizon. All were inspired with new hope, for they knew that
on these arid wastes, in the neighborhood of trees, there is
always water.
They now quickened their pace; the horses seemed to understand
their motives, and to partake of their anticipations; for, though
before almost ready to give out, they now required neither whip
nor spur. With all their exertions, it was late in the night
before they drew near to the trees. As they approached, they
heard, with transport, the rippling of a shallow stream. No
sooner did the refreshing sound reach the ears of the horse, than
the poor animals snuffed the air, rushed forward with
ungovernable eagerness, and plunging their muzzles into the
water, drank until they seemed in danger of bursting. Their
riders had but little more discretion, and required repeated
draughts to quench their excessive thirst. Their weary march that
day had been forty-five miles, over a tract that might rival the
deserts of Africa for aridity. Indeed, the sufferings of the
traveller on these American deserts is frequently more severe
than in the wastes of Africa or Asia, from being less habituated
and prepared to cope with them.
On the banks of this blessed stream the travellers encamped for
the night; and so great had been their fatigue, and so sound and
sweet was their sleep, that it was a late hour the next morning
before they awoke. They now recognized the little river to be the
Umatilla, the same on the banks of which Mr. Hunt and his
followers had arrived after their painful struggle through the
Blue Mountains, and experienced such a kind relief in the
friendly camp of the Sciatogas.
That range of Blue Mountains now extended in the distance before
them; they were the same among which poor Michael Carriere had
perished. They form the southeast boundary of the great plains
along the Columbia, dividing the waters of its main stream from
those of Lewis River. They are, in fact, a part of a long chain,
which stretches over a great extent of country, and includes in
its links the Snake River Mountains.
The day was somewhat advanced before the travellers left the
shady banks of the Umatilla. Their route gradually took them
among the Blue Mountains, which assumed the most rugged aspect on
a near approach. They were shagged with dense and gloomy forests,
and cut up by deep and precipitous ravines, extremely toilsome to
the horses. Sometimes the travellers had to follow the course of
some brawling stream, with a broken, rocky bed, which the
shouldering cliffs and promontories on either side obliged them
frequently to cross and recross. For some miles they struggled
forward through these savage and darkly wooded defiles, when all
at once the whole landscape changed, as if by magic. The rude
mountains and rugged ravines softened into beautiful hills, and
intervening meadows, with rivulets winding through fresh herbage,
and sparkling and murmuring over gravelly beds, the whole forming
a verdant and pastoral scene, which derived additional charms
from being locked up in the bosom of such a hard-hearted region.
Emerging from the chain of Blue Mountains, they descended upon a
vast plain, almost a dead level, sixty miles in circumference, Of
excellent soil, with fine streams meandering through it in every
direction, their courses marked out in the wide landscape by
serpentine lines of cotton-wood trees, and willows, which fringed
their banks, and afforded sustenance to great numbers of beavers
and otters.
In traversing this plain, they passed, close to the skirts of the
hills, a great pool of water, three hundred yards in
circumference, fed by a sulphur spring, about ten feet in
diameter, boiling up in one corner. The vapor from this pool was
extremely noisome, and tainted the air for a considerable
distance. The place was much frequented by elk, which were found
in considerable numbers in the adjacent mountains, and their
horns, shed in the spring-time, were strewed in every direction
around the pond.
On the 10th of August, they reached the main body of Woodvile
Creek, the same stream which Mr. Hunt had ascended in the
preceding year, shortly after his separation from Mr. Crooks.
