MOUNT RAINIER 



matic grove of balsam firs. A grouse, the fruit of Slu- 

 iskin's rifle, broiled before the fire, and impartially 

 divided gave a relish to the dry bread and coffee. After 

 supper we reclined upon our blankets in front of the 

 bright, blazing fire, well satisfied. The Indian, when 

 starting from Bear Prairie, had evidently deemed our 

 intention of ascending Takhoma too absurd to deserve 

 notice. The turning back of Mr. Coleman only deep- 

 ened his contempt for our prowess. But his views had 

 undergone a change with the day's march. The affair 

 began to look serious to him, and now in Chinook, 

 interspersed with a few words of broken English and 

 many signs and gesticulations, he began a solemn ex- 

 hortation and warning against our rash project. 



Takhoma, he said, was an enchanted mountain, 

 inhabited by an evil spirit, who dwelt in a fiery lake on 

 its summit. No human being could ascend it or even 

 attempt its ascent, and survive. At first, indeed, the 

 way was easy. The broad snow-fields, over which he 

 had so often hunted the mountain goat, interposed no 

 obstacle, but above them the rash adventurer would 

 be compelled to climb up steeps of loose, rolling rocks, 

 which would turn beneath his feet and cast him head- 

 long into the deep abyss below. The upper snow- 

 slopes, too, were so steep that not even a goat, far less 

 a man, could get over them. And he would have to 

 pass below lofty walls and precipices whence avalanches 

 of snow and vast masses of rocks were continually 

 falling ; and these would inevitably bury the intruder 

 beneath their ruins. Moreover, a furious tempest 

 continually swept the crown of the mountain, and the 

 luckless adventurer, even if he wonderfully escaped the 

 perils below, would be torn from the mountain and 

 whirled through the air by this fearful blast. And the 

 awful being upon the summit, who would surely punish 

 the sacrilegious attempt to invade his sanctuary, 

 who could hope to escape his vengeance ? Many 

 years ago, he continued, his grandfather, a great chief 



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