EARLY DAY STORIES. 67 



where we left him when we took a canoe to go down the 

 Columbia. He paid us off well, however, for helping him 

 along, and gave us something to remember him by, for 

 every one of us got lousy sleeping with him. We did not 

 go by Walla Walla as had been intended, but cut off two or 

 three days' travel by leaving it to the north, and going on 

 straight to the Dalles. At the Dalles a settlement had been 

 commenced. There were one or two board shanties, quite 

 a large number of tents, and there were supplies of all kinds 

 for sale. We were entirely out of money, but had one large 

 smoked pearl button left, which, however, did not pass cur- 

 rent with the white traders, but did serve us well, however, 

 later on. We here sold our rifles, and nearly all our blan- 

 kets and got something to eat and supplies, as we supposed, 

 enough to last us to the Cascades of the Columbia. There 

 were Indians here with big Columbia river canoes, wait- 

 ing to take passengers down the river, the charge being 

 four dollars each and board yourself. We found five other 

 men, making nine in all of white men, and picking out a 

 good looking canoe, manned by two Indians, pushed off 

 down the Columbia. At the start it was a charming trip 

 — the smooth, deep river, with clear water and high, bluffy 

 shores — the bold range of the Cascade mountains in front, 

 and seeming to grow higher and higher as we neared them 

 — the bright sunshine overhead — the rocks and cliffs be- 

 coming bolder and higher as we approached the mountains, 

 and at last as we entered the gateway of the mountains the 

 evergreen trees, covering the sides and crowning the sum- 

 mits of the mountains nearest the river, and every now and 

 then a cascade where some mountain brook came tumbling 

 down from rock to rock, or poured over a high precipice, 

 dissolving into spray before reaching the river. 



Soon after entering the mountains it began raining 

 with a strong wind coming directly up the river from the 

 ocean. The home of the Indians who owned the canoe was 



