Feb. 5, 1801.J 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



few Btm come late and go very early, and aiter sunset 

 one may hear the good-natured waeic, wach, imck, of the 

 black ducks and the sharper umk, icee-eek of the wood- 

 ducks as thev feed among the moose-ear. 



Fannie P. Hardy. 



COBBECTION.— In issue of Jan. 29, Sabao for Sahas; 

 most school maps erroneously print Snbac. Also I wrote 

 AInmssiifi (Penobscot Indian for bear) when ahwasus 

 would be more accurate, since it is pronounced ahwaysoos; 

 but the shorter form, perhaps more commonly heard in 

 conTersation, is nmssus, pronounced M'assoos.— Fannie P. 

 Hardy. [This is manifestly the name "Awahsoose, 

 familiar to readers of "Uncle Lisha's Shop" as the mm, de 

 plume of Mr. Rowland E. Robinson.] 



THROUGH THE OLYMPICS ON AN ELK 

 TRAIL.-IL 



BEFORE dawn the sky was again clouded, and again 

 in the early morning we set out in the pouring rain 

 up the mountain side and'lhrough the thick woods. 



By and by an occasional gleam of sunlight through 

 the branches showed us that the rain was over. We kept 

 straight up hill— almost perpendicularly up hill— climb- 

 ing with hands and feet, crawling over and under the 

 fallen trunks: and about 10 o'clock in the morning sud- 

 denly came out in the open. We turned to the south- 

 ward; behind us were the dark and dripping woods; be- 

 fore us abroad green slope of meadowland, here glisten- 

 ing bright green in the sun, there brown with heather; 

 and a little below us lay a little valley on the hillside 

 with a clear pool of water. We made for the valley and 

 lay there in the warm heather. The place was full of a 

 spring-like fragrance. Low blueberry bushes with ex- 

 ceedingly sweet fruit grew here and there. (In the 

 woods the blueberries are very large— nearly as large as 

 cherries, but sour for want of the sun.) 



We lit a fire aud feasted, and spent an hour or more in 

 the valley drying our clothes and looking about for 

 tracks of animals. The one drawback to perfect happi- 

 ness was a yellow jacket's nest situated inconveniently 

 near the little pool. 



A little before noon we took up our packs and went on 

 over a hill into another valley: but before we had gone 

 far Vick and Joe saw another bear, which they pursued. 

 The Marine, the Oayuse and I rested well content under 

 the shade of a lone cotton wood, for the sun was hot when 

 it had a chance. 



Straight above us towered a sharp peak of rock sugges- 

 tive of a wide view into the mysterious land beyond— the 

 unexplored region in the heart of the Olympics, where 

 the Indian dare not go, and where white men had never 

 been, or liad left no record if they had. The Si wash have 

 a legend of a fierce interior tribe, who slay, and perhaps 

 eat at sight, the way-worn traveler— a tribe strong in 

 magic arts and invincible in war. But this I fear is 

 merely an excuse to avoid climbing the mountains, for 

 the Siwash is probably the laziest savage on the face of 

 the earth. His legs are small and weak and his head 

 large and heavy, and as soon would a poUy wog take a 

 salmon leap as an ordinary coast Indian a good healthy 

 climb. 



But to return to our own sufferings. Chris and I went 

 on up the peak, and the Cayuse, stimulated by tha-t 

 emotion which in the other sex is curiosity, but in ours is 

 that praiseworthy love of exploration that leads to all 

 great discoveries, came with us. The Marine lay for 

 awhile content with his surroundings, but soon joined us 

 on the peak. What a sight it was! The air was clear, 

 for the long rain had driven off the heavy cloud of smoke 

 that covers the Olympics in summer for months at a 

 time, and the sun was bright. It shone on the Sound, far 

 away to the eastward, gleaming like polished steel, and 

 Hood's Canal like a narrow silver ribbon threading the 

 dark wilderness of forest. Beyond them, the old volca- 

 nic shafts of Rainier and Baker raised their towering 

 forms, mantled in white, like gods in peace and purity 

 and majesty, and the slender cone of another mighty 

 peak stood on the horizon, circled just below its summit 

 with one wreath of rosy cloud. 



Below us the north and south forks of the Skokomish, 

 with their several branches, wound away between the 

 hills, their course marked by the brighter green and ful- 

 ler foliage of water-loving trees and bushes— a pleasant 

 contrast to the fir and cedar. On the further side of the 

 peak, looking eagerly, we saw the frowning wall of the 

 main divide— the great range that parts the waters of the 

 Pacific from the waters of the Sound — on one side of 

 which the rivers flow east, on the other west. The peak 

 whereon we stood was the end and summit of a long spur 

 projecting southward from the main range. Parallel to 

 this ran another higher spur, ending in a sheer wall of 

 black rock, that rose thousands of feet straight from the 

 bottom. This was connected with our peak by a lower 

 and heavily-wooded hill, and between the rock wall oppo- 

 site and the base of the hill was a deep chasm. 



Within the inclosure formed by these two spurs, and 

 the main range lay as fair a valley as the eyes of man 

 has ever seen— warm in the sunlight— green with the 

 moisture of the later snows, the snows that yield only to 

 the heat of midsummer. From the meadows below rose 

 a light steam here and there, to seek the clouds or hang 

 in mist wreaths round the crags above. 



A stream ran through the valley, rippling and splash- 

 ing down from the main range, then in the valley spread- 

 ing out into a chain of little lakes, clear and green as 

 emerald, then through the chasm at the base of the 

 immense cliff, in white rapids to the Skokomish with a 

 rush. We sat and looked. 



Presently our comrades joined us— they had not come 

 up with the bear. And they sat and looked too. But by 

 and by, with a parting glance at the eastern side of the 

 Olympic slope, at the dark sea of forest and gleaming 

 water, and the mighty peaks of the Cascade Range 

 beyond, we went down upon the long ridge which con- 

 nected it with the divide. During the afternoon we saw 

 two large bears, neither of them within range. One, 

 indeed, offered the possibility of a shot; but it is hard to 

 judge the distances in such places, and though Vick took 

 all due care in aiming, there is small reason to suppose 

 that he hit him. The bear, however, abandoned the 

 delights of a blueberry thicket where he had been sitting 

 and revelling in the bei'ries, and went off to the valley 

 through the brush in huge jumps, with a loud squeal of 

 eminent disappioval. He looked for aU the world like a 

 gigantic flea on the caraggy back of tiie moantaiii. 



We rested a while, later in the afternoon, on one of the 

 open slopes that now became frequent as the hiUs grew 

 more precipitous— places where the woods years ago had 

 lost their footing and fallen away into the valleys, leav- 

 ing sunny pastures for the deer. We split up and hunted 

 in the open among the rocks, but found no deer that day, 

 though the tracks were many; and toward evening 

 descended into the valley and encamped near its head. 

 The valley was full of the tracks of animals— bear and 

 deer, but especially cougar — and those of the others were 

 so frequent and so much fresher than the deer tracKs, that 

 it seems probable the savage brutes had driven the deer 

 out of the valley altogether. Several of us went out to 

 look for the CaVuse who had disappeared, and as I went 

 down the valley I saw a bear vanish with a crash up the 

 mountainside. 



There was a slight knoll in the lower valley above one 

 of the little lakes, and it was thickly crowded with bushes. 

 I could distinctly hear a large animal moving about 

 through the brush. I could see nothing of the beast, and 

 was almost teased into firing at the sound as it dodged me 

 round and round the knoll, but remembering a former 

 occasion, when I had looked for the cause of such a noise 

 for a long time and found it to be the Cayuse, I refrained. 

 On tbe occasion to which I refer, the Cayuse and I, each 

 firmly believing the other to be a bear, and thirsting for 

 his life, had spent a large part of an afternoon in trying 

 to locate one another in the brush, and had finally come 

 face to face, one on each side of a clearing; with cocked 

 Winchesters ready to fire. Our wrath was great and last- 

 ing—and I take this opportunity to warn the reader that 

 in this kind of hunting it is most important that each 

 member of the party should tell the others where he is 

 going to hunt, and that they should give each other a 

 wide berth. For it would be excessively difficult to carry 

 a wounded or deceased comrade down the Olympics, and 

 under such circumstances mortifying as well. Nothing 

 came of my hunt— the noise stopped suddenly and I could 

 find no trace of the animal. 



Meanwhile Vick and Joe had found the Cayuse, who 

 had been having a little hunt all by himself; and we went 

 back to camp, where we thoroughly enjoyed supper, and 

 made our plan for the next day— to stay in the valley and 

 hunt and rest before trying the divide. 



As the night was clear we did not pitch the tent, but 

 used it as a blanket. Accordingly, as soon as we went to 

 sleep the clouds crept softly up and the wind came 

 sweeping down from the cold heights: and we woke to 

 find it raining heavily. The climate of the Pacific coast, 

 among its other superior characteristics, possesses great 

 cunning in thus catching a man at a disadvantage and 

 thoroughly soaking him when he is trying to sleep and 

 has neither a roof over his head nor a change of rai- 

 ment. In this respect it )S the Eternal Spring that Puget 

 Sound real estate advertisements boast of, but not that 

 part of spring which the phrase generally is intended to 

 suggest to the mind of the reader. 



We got up early and spent much of the day in getting 

 together the pitch-knots that lay on the hillside opposite 

 —relics of the fallen woods— and piling them on our huge 

 fire. During the morning I hunted; so I beheve did the 

 Marine; but the game apparently had the good sense to 

 stay indoors in such weather. Chris and Joe, however, 

 went out later and came back toward evening with a doe 

 which Joe had shot. He had also killed a buck, but it 

 fell in an almost inaccessible place; and when he went 

 back for it next morning either wolves or cougars had 

 torn it to pieces. 



An old raven flew back and forth over the camp and 

 croaked dismally. But when we had the deer dressed 

 and cooking we cared not for the weather or the melan- 

 choly prospect, for it was the first time for a month or more 

 that any one of us had tas'-ed fresh meat, except the mar- 

 mot above mentioned; and fresh meat, after a few weeks 

 of bacon and ham and fish, is a luxury that surpasses the 

 masterpieces of the most inspired culinary genius. It's 

 worth starving a while to try it. Such was the principle 

 that guided the actions of the famous old gentleman who 

 was seen once a week at Parker's eating salt viands with 

 dogged Anglo-Saxon perseverance. When impertinent 

 curiosity got the better of an observer, who asked his 

 motive," the answer was: "I begin to eat salt meats, sir, 

 at seven o'clock, and by doing so persistently— persist- 

 ently, sir— I acquire by ten o'clock a thirst that I would 

 not take fifty dollars for." I doubt if that man would 

 have bought one of our appetites when Joe's doe appeared. 



That night I found a little cave in the rocks, and hav- 

 ing carried coals there from the camp-fire in the two 

 frying-pans, I soon warmed the i-ocky walls with a bright 

 blaze, and had a more peaceful night, far from the snor- 

 ing and kicking of which only a camp is capable. 



The next morning after a search for the lost buck, we 

 went on up the main divide. At the head of the valley 

 was an easv ascent to a narrow opening between two 

 peaks. Here we rested and looked down on the western 

 side of the range. 



Thousands of feet below us. in a deep gorge, ran and 

 roared (like Sir John) a good-sized stream, which from 

 our bearings and from the fact that there was but one 

 river on that side that could spring from so large a source, 

 we knew^ to be the QuinaiuU. So we were really on top 

 of the wall. A spur of the mountain on which we stood, 

 divided into five or six peaks, formed a horseshoe bend at 

 the head of the gorge. Directly across the river from our 

 position was a huge mass of a mountain , several of whose 

 tops were higher than those of the main divide. This 

 stood within the bend of the spur, and stretching away to 

 the north in a gradually declining range, was broken sev- 

 eral miles further down by a deep gap. The river ran 

 nearly round this mountain, flowing from the other side 

 of it, and following the horseshoe bend eastward toward 

 our point of view, then turning northward along the 

 range and finally flowing westward through the dis- 

 tant gap, and southwestward to seek Lake Quinaiult 

 and the Pacific. We proposed to cross this stream, and 

 stood for some time gazing down upon its deep channel 

 and listening to its sound— not in a sentimental way, but 

 because we did not know how to get down there. 



Finally we turned back a little and kept northward 

 along the main range, following the course of the stream 

 below us and hoping to find some possible way of descent. 

 I soon found one, not only possible, but inevitable. 

 We were somewhat scattered now, looking for a way 

 along the ridge— above us sheer rock, below a steep slope 

 of thousands of feet, broken here and' there by shelves. 

 I went too high and lost the rest of the party, and in look- 

 ng about in slipperv places for their trail, lost footing 



and found myself shooting down the track of an old land- 

 slide. Bits of loose rock rattled about my ears and the 

 little bushes tore out of the loose soil as I clutched them; 

 but I landed, after a coast that put tbe best kind of tobog- 

 ganing in the shade— breathless, hot, slightly bruised, . 

 disgracefully tattered, but otherwise all right, on a shelf 

 below, 



"OhI how unlike the place from whence I fell." 

 But I was in a worse position than the hero of Milton's 

 narrative, for my companions had not shared my fall, and 

 were not soon discerned. A '*shelf" here does not mean 

 a nan-ow ledge of rock, but a comfortable stretch of 

 level ground that breaks the slope. Here was a bright 

 moist little meadow, surrounded by woods. The soft 

 ground was full of the tracks of elk and deer. Where 

 were my friends? 



I shouted. No words can tell the bitter mockery that 

 the echoes can put into their tones when they answer a 

 man who has lost his way and finds himself alone in an 

 utterly xmexplored country — where the foothills are 

 mountains and the trees are towers.* 



All this immensity gives a man an indescribable sense of 

 his own insignificance, when he is left alone and has time 

 to think of it, and the echoes rub it in. I shouted, and 

 every mountain seemed to have a great voice of its own, 

 echo after echo came ringing back, from near and far, 

 sharp and clear from the rocks above, deep and loud from 

 the sounding woods, and far below me the river laughed. 

 After the tumult — and that phrase is no exaggeration — 

 had subsided, I gave up calling. A very belated echo 

 came back from the valley, and thinking it might be an 

 answer I went in that direction. A good elk trail led to- 

 ward it, and it seemed likely that the others had dis- 

 covered the trail further up the mountain somewhere, 

 and had descended by it. But this proved a mistake; for 

 they could not have done so without leaving a track here 

 and there; and nothing had passed over this trail for days 

 apparently. I called again with the former result, and it 

 turned out afterward that the others never heard a sound, 

 having gone round to the other side of a peak which 

 entirely cut them off from my voice and its echoes, and 

 having been pushing through brush at the time which 

 would have prevented them in any case from hearing. I 

 turned back to the foot of my slide and waited, for as I 

 carried certain provisions highly important to the cuisine 

 of the expedition, I knew that they would want me at 

 lunch time. If not, I could push along down the Qui- 

 naiult to the reservation. 



In a very few minutes I heard Chris far above me. He 

 had come back to pick up the pieces, and I had a hard 

 climb to reach him, up a place where the soil was pretty 

 firm, digging heels and rifle- butt into the ground and 

 pulling up by the bushes, testing each one first, for many 

 of them came out. 



The rest of the party were rather discouraged. They 

 were still running about on top of the ridge looking for a 

 place to get down and they would not profit by my dis- 

 covery and slide. The Cayuse had hurt his knee severely 

 but kept bravely on, refusing to lighten his pack or take 

 any assistance. 



We followed the elk trail, that ran along the ridge, for 

 a while, hoping it would take a turn toward the valley. 

 Vick suddenly came upon a bear in an open space among 

 the bushes. His rifle proved to be out of order, and for 

 the first time since he had had it missed fire and the*bear 

 ran off with a grunt. At last we took our necks in our 

 hands (not literally but as one does his life) and trickled 

 (if I may use the expression in connection with solids) 

 down the steep descent. The Marine had secured a firm 

 hold of the bushes and a slight rest for his feet. Revel- 

 ling in the unwonted security of his position he looked 

 up and saw the Cayuse, who was descending triumph- 

 antly, sliding at a comfortable angle. The Marine thought 

 he was falling and calling out, '-You're all right old boy, 

 I'll stop you!" caught him by the leg as he came. The 

 Cayuse kicked like the beast from whom he takes his 

 name, and down they came, tumbUng and rolling through 

 the brush. They brought up on my shoulders and I 

 joined the avalanche, which proceeded merrily till a tree 

 stopped us. The other three were far ahead, but at last 

 we found them by the side of the Quinatult. There we 

 had a hasty meal. 



It was growing very cold, and had begun to rain again 

 so we started up the opposite slope. This was the hard- 

 est work— except the alders on the foothills — that we had 

 — so steep that we were obliged to stop and rest at about 

 every 30yds. When we had made a thousand feet or so 

 Joe became aware that he had left his cartridge belt by 

 the stream. The Cayuse, the IVIarine and I would almost 

 have given our ears not to have heard his remarks. 

 There is no imagining what he would have said had not 

 Vick produced the belt, which he had seen and saved. 



All the rest of that day we climbed and climbed; and 

 the work grew harder as we went. Not that we could 

 get more tired or the hill much steeper without our fall- 

 ing off, but the brush was thicker than ever — dense blue- 

 berry bushes growing seven or eight feet high sometimes, 

 with gnarled tough twigs locked together. And every 

 bush was dripping, for the rain had now poured heavily 

 for hours. 



As we came toward each successive shelf we thought 

 it must be the top; and at each one we were disap- 

 pointed. When at last it grew too late to go on, not a 

 single level spot could we find for a camp. The best 

 place that presented itself was good in every respect but 

 one. There was plenty of comparatively di-y wood ; there 

 was balsam for our bed and running water near by, but 

 the pitch of the ground was so steep that we had to drive 

 stakes and lay a log against them on which to brace our 

 feet when we lay down, which we did as usual six in a 

 row. It was comfortable enough for a while. But in 

 the night the camp-fire, originally built at a safe distance, 

 transgressed and burnt off the stakes, so we had to get 

 up and brace our log all over again. Francis Dana. 



*My friend, the Marine, was ia his early yonth a mighty 

 hunter of egg", and would climb trees where none of us, his 

 comrades, dare aspire, and would enchant us when he came 

 down with tales of what he saw at the top. Soon after he settled 

 in the West he wrote home that "there was just one trouble with 

 the cotmtrv, that, although there were plenty of trees, they were 

 quite useless, as not one of them was small enough to he climbed, 

 even with irons!" 



[TO BE OONTIKTUED.] 



A Book About Indians.— The Forest and Stream -will mail 

 free on application a descriptive circular of Mr. Grinnell'B boolct 

 ''Pawnee Hero StorieB and folk-Tales," givme a taWe of conta«t[| 

 asd Bpaestmen IQaatntloae from the volmaoe,— ,4.de. 



