Expedition to John Day River 179 



bacon, and coffee, I shall not soon forget his 

 hospitality. 



When all was ready, we were taken across the 

 river in Mr. Mascall's boat, swimming our horses. 

 Then the packs were adjusted, and the wearisome 

 climb up the face of the mountains began. It usu- 

 ally took us half a day to reach the summit. Then 

 we climbed down steep slopes and over spurs of the 

 hills, until we reached Uncle Johnnie Kirk's hospi- 

 table cabin, a 12 x 14 structure of rough logs with a 

 shake roof. He kept bachelor's hall and lived all 

 alone, except when some cowman or fossil hunter 

 came along. We pitched our tent near his house. 



Not far away there was a tract of bad lands, 

 called the Cone, the largest in the John Day Basin, 

 covering, I should judge, a section of land. It was 

 cut into the usual fantastic forms, peaks, ridges, and 

 battlements, and slender spires sometimes a hundred 

 feet high, and as thickly clustered as those of some 

 old Gothic cathedral. Their summits were crowned 

 with hard concretions, which protected their almost 

 perpendicular sides from destruction by the ele- 

 ments. 



The drainage canals spread out through this ter- 

 ritory like the ribs of a fan, converging at the en- 

 trance, and woe to the man who chanced to be 

 caught in one of them during a rain, for the steep 

 slopes shot the water down into them with such 



