MOUNT RAINIER 



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 pro- 

 posed 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 pantomine. 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 knap- 

 sack, 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, 



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