SIO 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Oct. 13, 1892. 



TROUTING IN THE COAST RANGE.-I. 

 The Nehalem Country. 



Less probably is known of the Coast Eange than of the 

 Cascade. The Cascades are between us and the great 

 world, while the Coast Range is between us and that 

 great, dreary waste of waters where none care to go ex- 

 cept those "who go down to the sea in ships." Naturally 

 enough, therefore, the disposition of man to communicate 

 with his fellow man, and the necessary pilgrimages to 

 that end across the mountains a.nd through the trackless 

 forests separating the West from the East have made it 

 possible to gather a very pretty thorough knowledge of 

 such ranges as the Rockies and the Cascades. Bat on to 

 the further West there are no incentives to pilgrimages 

 except those of a premeditated character in seared of fish, 

 game and minerals. Therefore, we find such ranges as 

 the Coast and Olympic almost tei-ra incognita. The Coast 

 Range is comparatively narrow and cramped, as if forced 

 back upon itself by the Pacific while being crowded west - 

 ward by the continent, and its streams as a matter of 

 course are short and furious. The Cascade Range, on the 

 contrary, is broader, and melts gradually away on either 

 flank until it becomes difficult to say where mountains 

 cease and valleys begin, and naturally its streams are 

 longer and not so impetuous. The trout of the Coast 

 Range are, as a rule, much larger than the trout of the 

 Cascades, probably in consequence of the fact that they 

 are not required to make such long trips from the rich, 

 natural feeding grounds of the ocean. The trout of the 

 larger streams of the Coast Range are not weighed by the 

 ounce, as you will find if you go into that country 'with 

 light tackle, as I did. 



A friend of mine. Dr. Wood, of St. Paul, bantered me 

 to take a trip with him to the Nehalem country in the 

 Coast Range (just a simple investigating tour, you know) 

 and as I seldom take water on such a proposition we soon 

 had our supplies and accoutrements on board the Geo.W. 

 Shaver, bound for the Claskanie. Although the Clas- 

 kanie was at least twenty-five miles short of our destina- 

 tion it was the nearest point reached by boat or convey- 

 ance of any kind, and as we were to take our time we 

 didn't much mind the prospect of so long a tramp. We 

 left Portland in the morning, but as the Shaver was a 

 trading boat it was plump night when we reached Clas- 

 kanie City, which is located on the west bank of the 

 Claskanie River, some four of five miles from its mouth. 



Claskanie City, as its name would imply, is a place of 

 some pretensions. It has a church, a saloon, a general 

 merchandise store and four or five modest dwelling 

 houses, and the whole city is painted with the best quality 

 of hope, tinted with anticipation. The youthful ambition 

 and springlike hopefulness of some of these little frontier 

 towns is truly exhilarating. After listening a whole 

 evening to the praises sung of Claskanie City by its mod- 

 est citizens I am pleased to say that there is not a moss- 

 back or pessimist within its Umits, and if courage, con- 

 cert of action and talk is what builds great cities, the 

 metropolis of the Northwest will some day be on the 

 banks of Claskanie River. 



By the way, the Claskanie affords fine fishing, but as 

 we were on a trip of discovery (an investigating tour as 

 it were), we wasted no time on these com"paratively 

 known waters. Now a twenty-five mile tramp across a 

 mountainous country with heavy packs on dim trails may 

 be entertaining enough, but I assure you it is no picnic, 

 and you can imagine how fatigued we were before we 

 reached the Nehalem Valley. 



The "divide" between the Claskanie and the Nehalem 

 is a broken piece of cauntry and every foot of it is cov- 

 ered with as fine evergreen timber as ever a lumberman's 

 eyes feasted upon. Miucli of the timber is cedar, but 

 there is a generous mixture of pine, spruce, yellow and 

 white fir, and between the two rivers we saw no burns, 

 so it is not surprising that lumbermen talk a great deal 

 about the Nehalem country. 



Our heavy packs and the blazing sun made our trip a 

 weary one indeed; but the trail was well shaded, and we 

 found numerous springs of the purest water, many of 

 which poured out of holes in the solid rock. One of 

 these springs seemed almost artificial in its construc- 

 tion. Five or six feet above the trail in the solid rock 

 was a basia half as large as an ordinary washtub and 

 probably a foot deep, brim-full of the purest, coldest 

 water, and which seemed to have been placed there by 

 kind nature for the special delectation of such poor way- 

 farers as the Doctor and I, 



How we did bathe the inner and outer man with its 

 sparkling nectar. 



The water of that country is the finest I ever saw. 

 There is a slight mineral smack to it, not the least un- 

 pleasant to the taste, but which seems to give it spark- 

 ling brilliancy. About 3 o'clock in the afternoon we 

 struck the Nehalem Valley to the southeast of Saddle 

 Mountain and probably twenty-five miles from the 

 ocean as the crow flies, but at least forty miles from 

 the mouth of the river as the stream runs. We fol- 

 lowed the river down to Vesper City Post- Office, situ- 

 ated at the pass of the river through the Coast Range. 

 Vesper, like Claskanie, is a city of gigantic aspirations, 

 but has fewer inhabitants to extol the many points of 

 vantage it possesses as the prospective metropolis of the 

 Northwest. 



The city, at present, consists of one house, of small 

 dimensions it is true, but in architectural design much 

 resembling a modern hen house. But this structure 

 answers very well, for the present, the many purposes of 

 post-office, city haU, church, school house and residence 

 for the worthy P. M, with his wife and numerous progenv, 

 so numerous, in fact, that the Doctor and I, for lack of 

 room in the house, had to seek refuge for the night under 

 a tree. All the inhabitants turned out to entertain us in 

 the evening, which they succ9eded in doing right royally , 

 for the postmaster was a good talker, and talk was what 

 we wanted. We wanted him to talk exclusively about 

 the country and the mountains, the streams, elk, deer, 

 cougar, wildcat, black wolves and black bear, but he had 

 a faculty of winding down to every period with some- 

 thing about the future of Ve«per City. Nothwithstand- 

 ing his old "chestnuts" and Vesper City prophecies we 

 succeeded in worming out of him cmsidprabie informa- 

 tion, so that by bed time we knew all about Frank Lusig- 

 mut, the guide and elk hunter, who lived three miles 



below, and who could, by lying flat on the ground and 

 smelling of an elk track, tell when it was made and about 

 where in the mountains his elkship could be found. We 

 knew about the terrible elk wolf, the most dangerous of 

 all the beasts of the Coast Range, and the only one that 

 will attack man without first being attacked. We knew 

 about 14-year-old Johnny Turpin across the river, who, 

 with an old muzzleloading rifle and his faithful but 

 bloodthirsty Towser had killed twenty wildcats the past 

 spi-ing in the swamp along Deep Creek, We knew, too, 

 that an Indian had never been seen by the whites in the 

 lovely Nehalem Valley, and we knew that the reason of 

 it was that the Indians entertained a superstitious dread 

 of the valley on account of some direful thing that had 

 happened there countless years before Oapt, Gray dis- 

 covered the mouth of the Columbia, 



But we knew so much more than we did before we 

 struck Vesoer City, that I will not attempt to give the 

 readers of Forest and Streajvi full particulars. Suffice 

 it to say that when we slept, our dreams were full of 

 black wolves and ghostly horrors, clouds of wildcats and 

 great herds of whistling' elk hounded hy a tireless dragon 

 whose sense of smell and instinct for blood were unerr- 

 ing, but all within the shadow of a great city on the 

 banks of the Nehalem River, called Vesper. 



One thing in particular that had been spoken of by the 

 postmaster not only harrassed me in my dreams, but an- 

 noyed me in my waking moments; that was the size and 

 general characteristics of Turpin'a dog Towser, We 

 must pass Turpin's on our way south into the mountains. 

 There was no way out of it, for Turpin was the only man 

 in that neighborhood who had a canoe, and the Nehalem 

 was deep and vicious, and besides, from what we could 

 learn, it was about the only place that afforded a decent 

 prospect of a trail out to the south. We were informed 

 that Towser had a disagreeable habit of tackling, without 

 the slightest provocation, everything (not so small as to 

 be beneath his dignity) that exhibited life south of the 

 Nehalem River, except the immediate members of the 

 Turpin family, and they were on their good behavior 

 when Towser wasn't feeling well. He had pulled down 

 elk, had been in numerous personal encounters with 

 bears, wolves and cougars, and had killed wildcats single- 

 handed and alone. As the natural result of such a dis- 

 position in such a country he was said to be a mass of 

 scars from his nose to his tail. He had never had a 

 mouthful to eat except what he had secured by his own 

 prowess in the forest; for the Turpins themselves had 

 flour and the other luxuries of civilization at only ex- 

 tremely rare intervals, and couldn't afford to "tote" a 

 sack of flour twenty-five miles to feed to a dog. 



Somehow I didn't like this Towser business. Mike was 

 with U3, and in all probability Towser would celebrate 

 our crossing of the Nehalem by wiping Mike from the 

 face of the earth, if he didn't get a smell of us before- 

 hand and swim the river to meet us. 



But after our morning coffee we shouldered our packs 

 and struck out for Turpin's, crossing as unconcernedly 

 as if we had no misgivings about Mike's safety and were 

 anxious to get acquainted with the whole Turpin family, 

 Towser and all. As we approached the river we could 

 see the little shake-roofed cabin on the other side, with 

 the blue smoke curling above as the good frontier people 

 prepared their frugal breakfast; but, thank goodness, 

 Towser was nowhere in sight. Little did he dream 

 that even then two strangers and a strange dog were 

 stealthily appi'oaching his lair. 



But here was the river with its roaring rapids and 

 shadowy jjools. and we sat down on the bank of the 

 stream to enjoy the scene and await events. While we 

 were sitting there admiring the beautiful stream and 

 listening to its deep melodies as it thundered down 

 toward the great ocean, a bpautiful dark-haired girl, with 

 rosy cheeks and the step of the doe, came tripping down 

 the path on the other side with a bucket on her arm. 

 Perceiving us she stopped short and stared at us as if 

 we were visitants from Fome other world. 



"Good mornine, Miss," said I, "where is Towser?" 



My plainness of manners and dress, addf d to my appa- 

 rent familiar acquaintance with the famUy, encouraged 

 her and she modestly answered: "I don't know, sir, 

 but expect he's up at the house," 



"Is he tied up?" I asked, 



"I don't know, sir," she answered. 



"Well," said I, " tell Johnny to tie him up, as we want 

 to cross over." That did settle it, for apparently I knew 

 the whole family from Towser down, so she disappeared 

 up the path like a deer and presently reappearing in- 

 formed us that Towser was tied. 



"Is he tipd with a chain or a rope?" I queried, to which 

 she responded : "He's tied with a boom chain, sir." 



Thanking the Miss for this eminently satisfactory con- 

 dition of affairs, I asked her to tell her father to please 

 come down and set us across. "I'll set you across, sir," 

 said she, and in a jiffy she had the old canoe headed for 

 our shore and was paddling it across in a way that would 

 make Hanlon ashamed of himself. How in the world she 

 could stand in that old dugout and handle it herself as 

 she did is a mystery to such a land-lubber as I. The 

 Doctor, Mike and I crowded into the frail concern and in 

 a twinkling we were on our journey across. The boat 

 commenced to rock and she quickly warned the Doctor 

 and me to sit down in the bottom or the boat would tip 

 over. Ye gods, what a picture! Two great, strapping 

 men and a dog sitting flat in the bottom of a canoe with 

 a 16-year-old girl standing up in the stern putting us 

 across. The Doctor tried to compromise with sentiment 

 by ofl:ering to pay the young lady, so that it mia;ht appear 

 that we were transferred by a chartered ferry company 

 that were bound to set us over for a legal compensation, 

 but she wouldn't have it, and laughingly remarked as she 

 turned to her water bucket: "Oh, that is nothing, I 

 wouldn't think of taking pay, sir." There was an opening 

 left for the Doctor, however, and he took advantage of it 

 by filling the water bucket and carrying it up the hill; 

 whereupon we met and introduced ourselves to the Turpin 

 family, consisting of the Mr. and Mrs., four pretty 

 daughters, two skookum boys and Towser, However, 

 Johnny was only nicely in his teens, while the other boy 

 was properly the baby and pet of the household. Annie, 

 the youngest girl, was one of the prettiest flaxen-haired 

 little girls I ever saw, while the eldest was now a Mrs, 

 Peterson, but still with her husband residing under the 

 Turpin paternal roof. Rather strange, but nevertheless 

 true, there was not one of the Turpin children tb it had 

 ever seen any of the world outside of the Nehalem Valley, 

 I believe that, as a family, it was one of the purest bred 



frontier families I ever met. One generation and a step 

 toward the second without knowledge of the world out- 

 side the narrow Nehalem Valley, except in so far as 

 knowledge might have been gathered by the family fire- 

 place when father and mother talked of their childhood 

 days. 



And yet I never met a set of girls more womanly and 

 modest, nor a boy for his years more brave and manly, 

 than the pretty Turpin girls and their strapping brother 

 Johnny, Sweet little Annie told me that she had never 

 seen a store doll baby, and after our return from the trip 

 back to Portland, a package containing one of those 

 modern dolls that closes its eyes when laid down and 

 onens them again when taken up was placed in the post- 

 office directed to Miss Annie Turpin, Vesper City P. O,, 

 Clatsop county. Ore., with kind regards of Mr. and Mrs. 

 Greene, and I will venture to say that that baby is 

 combed and dressed every morning and cradled to sleep 

 every night by one of the most tender and aft'ectionate 

 little mothers on earth. S. H. Greene. 



PoETLAND, Ore. 



"THE BIG BOULDER." 



Charlestown, N, H., Oct. 1.— Three weeks ago, on one 

 of the cool bright mornings which herald the coming of 

 actual autumn, after the fog had lifted from the valley 

 and the fresh air and bright sunshine temj)ted me for a 

 ramble, I struck out over the hills some three miles to 

 an outlying farm, to bear a verbal message to its owner, 

 one of "the boys in blue," who had "turned his sword 

 into a plowshare," and whose old Colonel, of the Thirty- 

 second Massachusetts, I had met a few days previously in 

 Lowell, and been charged by him with a greeting to his 

 favorite Corporal. 



J had been hearing for a week great stories of the 

 wonderful invasion of gray squirrels, so I got out the old 

 muzzleloader from its long retirement, replenished the 

 old shot-belt and flask and started again over " the old 

 squirrel route" I described a year or two since in Forest 

 AND Stream. The walk was uueventful. I climbed the 

 steep upper terrace, lingered a few moments under the 

 big oaks at the old gate, and then as before, bore up the 

 ravine of the little brook to the top of the ridge. 



The brook was voiceless, a few still pools in the deeper 

 holes among the recks showed that some underflow 

 through the gravel kept them from drying up entirely, 

 but there was no current and no need to clear the channel 

 of fallen brush, and when I reached the spring at the head 

 a shallow puddle offered no temptation to quench my 

 thirst. 



As I reached a little glade half way up the rise a ruffed 

 grouse or "patridge" in the vernacular as spoken by 

 Sam Lovel and "Antwine," whirred off out of a bunch of 

 little thorn-trees, heard but not seen, into undergrowth 

 of alders, as I climbed a rail fence, but gave me no chance 

 for a shot. I sauntered slowly and leisurely on, stopped 

 for a few moments at the " white stone " at the foot of 

 the tall pine, then again, at a point where some spring 

 storm had broken a big red oak 1 Sin . through square off at 

 the butt, and brought it down square across the path, 

 bringing a partly decayed chestnut of equal size with it in 

 its fall. Though clad in a "dead bark '^ suit, with a pair 

 of rubber soled tennis shoes on my feet, and moving as 

 quietly as possible through the woods, I neither saw nor 

 heard further sign of any game, and in due time reached 

 the old fallen chestnut among the beeches and sat down 

 for a smoke. As my eyes wandered over the old initials 

 on the beach trunk, which I have spoken of before, they 

 fell on another set, which I did not then notice, cut about 

 the same time and w^hich help to illustrate the migratory 

 and progressive spirit of the genuine " Yankee boys!" 



The boy who cut those letters, twenty years ago, is now 

 one of the leading citizens of Seattle, has built a " horse 

 raiload " there and is now projecting an electric line to 

 Tacoma, and it is highly probable that some of your 

 Pacific coast correspondents may be able to interpret that 

 " F. II, 0." cut on the old beech, here in New Hampshire 

 woods, 



1 reached my friend's house a little before noon, and as 

 I got to his gate, three young men with guns came across 

 the pasture, from a point some 300 or 400 yards beyond 

 where I left the wood, and met mo at his door. They 

 pulled eight fine, fat squirrels out of their pocketp, and I 

 found that they had preceded me about an hour over the 

 same path all the morning, which accounted for the 

 absence of game when I came along. 



George had just finished loading his wagon with corn 

 fodder, and was coming in to dinner, and it needed no 

 urging to induce me to accept his invitation to join bim 

 and his family in a good, old-fashioned, country "farmer's 

 dinner." Sweet corned beef, mealy potatoes and a 

 squash, and apple pie and cheese were most grateful to 

 the appetite, sharpened by my tramp in the cool air. 



My friend was hugely 'delighted to get the cordial re- 

 membrance of his old commander, and after dinner we 

 sat on "the porch" and smoked and talked over "war 

 times" for an hour or so, when I shouldered arms again 

 and started on, following the old route. 



As I crossed the top of the bridge I found the axe had 

 made further havoc among the oaks, and I soon came in 

 view of the valley to the west. The river, now quite in 

 its summer bed, sparkled in the bright sxinshine as it wound 

 its sinuous course through the meadow, now touching the 

 bluft's to the right and now to the left, and leaving broad 

 sweeps of rich mowiug-Iand, impartially and alteniately 

 in New Hampshire and Vermont. 



I say "mowing-land," for the valley is almost entirely 

 devoted to hay now, here and there the yellow of an oat- 

 stubble or the brighter green of a patch of tobbaco or 

 potatoes break the uniform grass tint, but the old 

 "checker-board" appearance of my boyish days is gone. 

 Every man then raised his own corn and rye, but they 

 now come more cheaply from "the West," and hay is the 

 most profitable crop. The autumn tints are just beginning 

 to show, here and there a Virginia creeper is turning to red 

 over a stone wall, and the suniachs began to be brilliant, 

 while in the wet swales on the hillside a swamp maple 

 glows in crimson now and then, or, perhaps, throws out 

 a single scarlet bough from a mass of green, like a torch 

 of defiance to inevitable winter. Instead of following the 

 old road down as I did two years ago, I bearshaiply down 

 the steep hillside, to a prominent landmark well known 

 all the country round as the "Big Boulder," The long 

 terrace of which ( have spoken here terminated by a 

 projecting spur from the hillside, and on the outer edge 

 1 ot the terraQe, caught by the point of the spur, rests a 



