MOUNT RAINIER 



teen miles from where we left Van Trump, and we were 

 only some six hours in traveling it, while it took seven- 

 teen hours of terribly severe work to make the moun- 

 tain-route under Sluiskin's guidance. 



Without his help on the shorter route, too, it would 

 have taken me more than twice the time it did. For 

 the manner in which, after entering the defile of the 

 Nisqually, Sluiskin again took the lead and proceeded 

 in a direct and unhesitating course, securing every 

 advantage of the ground, availing himself of the wide, 

 rocky bars along the river, crossing and recrossing the 

 milky flood which rushed along with terrific swiftness 

 and fury, and occasionally forcing his way through the 

 thick timber and underbrush in order to cut off wide 

 bends of the river, and at length leaving it and striking 

 boldly through the forest to Bear Prairie, proved him 

 familiar with every foot of the country. His objections 

 to the route evidently arose from the jealousy so com- 

 mon with his people of further exploration of the 

 country by the whites. As long as they keep within 

 the limits already known and explored, they are faith- 

 ful and indefatigable guides, but they invariably inter- 

 pose every obstacle their ingenuity can suggest to deter 

 the adventurous mountaineer from exposing the few 

 last hidden recesses that remain unexplored. 



Mr. Coleman was found safe in camp, and seemed too 

 glad to see us to think of reproaching us for our sum- 

 mary abandonment. He said that in attempting to 

 follow us he climbed up so precipitous a place that, 

 encumbered with his heavy pack, he could neither 

 advance nor recede. He was compelled, therefore, to 

 throw off the pack, which rolled to the very bottom of 

 the mountain, and being thus delivered of his necessary 

 outfit, he was forced to return to camp. He had been 

 unable to find his pack, but having come across some 

 cricketer's spikes among his remaining effects, he was 

 resolved to continue his trip to, and make the ascent 

 of, Rainier by himself; he had just completed his 



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