432 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[May 30, 1896, 
while we trampers stretched our legs, and by cross-cutting 
trails reached the river and the bridge well ahead of it. 
The Elwa River will prove a very important factor in 
the future development of this region, for the time must 
come when the market will demand the lumber which 
the back country, drained by this river, furnishes in 
abundance, and which the Elwa will carry cheaply to the 
sea, where it can deliver it at points that will save lumber 
vessels long journeys. 
A sawmill at Port Crescent could save a raft of logs 
from the Ilong tow to Seattle or Tacoma, and the sailing 
vessel a journey of perhaps three or four days' time or 
pxpense in towing; and atNeah Bay, just inside of Cape 
Flattery, there is very good shelter, available for loading 
timber and lumber brought down by the Elwa. And an- 
other stream, the Solduck, emptying into the Pacific 
south of Cape Flattery, has a little harbor, quite as good 
as many on the Pacific coast, where commerce thrives, 
and the western parts of the timber belts adjacent on the 
east to the Elwa could be easily handled by it. 
We found a camp of Siwash Indians, probably from 
Neah Bay, on the banks of the stream; they were collect- 
ing salmon— a mere matter of wadiner, gaffing and club- 
bing. They were evidently prosperous, and well outfitted 
with tents, wagons, horses, dogs, canoes and whisky, 
judging by some who came close to us. 
The ascent on the western side of the river is longer 
and stepper than that on the eastern, and going up a short 
cut is a very different thing from going down, but when 
we did arrive at the summit we had the consolation that 
we were nearly as high up as we would have to go. 
A few miles from the Elwa there appeared on our left 
a white signboard; on it we read "Lake Road," and we 
knew our journey to be nearly ended, for it was "but 
three miles" by this road to the lake. We turned into it, 
and for I am sure five miles we had a bit of as rough 
teaming as the Adirondacks or Maine woods can furnish. 
I have tramped them both and I know, and I have never 
encountered more rocks, stumps, roots, pitch holes, rotten 
corduroy, which with burned and burning logs, their 
ends projecting well into the road, made it lively driving 
for Mr. Mallette, who was equal to the emergency and 
came out smiling. 
Just before sunset we reached a summit from which 
some hundreds, eleven or twelve I believe, feet below we 
should have been able to enjoy this view, and a very 
charming bit of scenery it is reported to be. What we 
did see was simply a chaos, a great bowl full of smoke 
through which here and there, a few miles away, a 
mountain top dimly peeped, and at various altitudes 
from 100 to perhaps 2,000ft. smoke dimmed, semi-lumin- 
ous spots, in which we could at times discern a shadow 
like tracing of the trees, which were as unhappily so 
many throughout the Olympians yielding to the forest 
fires. 
We were told that down in that hidden basin there 
were lakes, and bouses and supper, so on faith we trampere 
again cut across by a trail, while Mallette guided the 
horses down the series of zigzags of the road, at the foot 
of which there emerged from the smoke the clearing and 
buildings of where we were strongly tempted to tarry, 
for Wilson has repute for well-cooked trout, venison and 
bear, potatoes, onions and coffee; but there was already 
a party of guests in possession of the most of the accom- 
modations; so, although our stomachs urged, we resisted 
and drove on another mile to the "Hotel de Fisher," as I 
found it described in a blank book used as register; less 
pretentious than Wilson's in magnitude, but as we found 
it clean, cosy and comfortable. 
Except that this hotel is somewhat smaller and has a 
less number of rooms than Wilson's, the style of archi- 
tecture of the two hostelries is very similar. Both are 
fair specimens of the "proving-up cabins" of which I 
have written. I will, in consideration of the ingenuity of 
Mr. Fisher in utilizing space, give a pen sketch of his 
hotel. 
The order of architecture is one-story log cabin ; in 
character and style, sleeping and buffet car combined. 
The interior contains one room 16 X 12ft., and if a lean-to 
can be considered also as interior, another about 8 ft. 
square. On the left the side of the principal room was 
devoted to bunks, of which there were six in two sections, 
on« above another, the bottom ones being double. In 
front of each section a calico curtain insured privacy. 
There were no springs or slats to these beds, but the bot- 
tom was of canvas and very like a sailor's hammock; 
there were plenty of warm.coverlids and blankets, all very 
clean. On the right a 10ft. oilcloth-covered table fur- 
nished space for meals, cards and tackle repairing. On the 
right of the dopr a little wood-burning stove, which 
would, in five^nimutes from the time the match was ap- 
plied to the balsam sticks, send out such glowing heat 
that we were thankful for certain elusive cracks in the 
roof, through which came ventilation and peeps at the 
stars. In the spare square feet there, were lockers, 
benches, chairs and a passageway; the logs of the sides 
were well fitted with pegs and antlers to hang things on, 
while overhead a skeleton of a plow made storage room 
for odds and ends. Eight of us slept and lived in that 
single room with great comfort — that is comparatively. 
The lean-to had also bunks, three of them, and a cooking- 
stove with outfit of utensils, over which the landlord pre- 
sided — the landlord, dog and cat. Verily, it was multum 
inparvo, which means snug and comfortable by a liberal 
translation. 
At the front of the cabin there was a porch, covered, 
and it held a bench, a tin basin, a bar of soap, a hair 
brush, a tin bucket of fresh water and a towel. What 
could a man ask more? especially if he had with him his 
own toilet outfit. 
Fronting the house there was a garden; this consisted 
of a square shack fence inclosing about 300sq. ft., in 
which quite a flourishing crop of weeds was growing. 
Thus the requirements for "proving up" were met, and 
these requirements are not simple, one must in trying to 
meet them steer a fine course "between the devil and the 
deep sea." A certain amount of improvement must be 
done by a pioneer to make good his claim to a piece of 
land taken up under the "homestead" allowance from the 
Government, but every dollar's worth he does his county, 
or it may be his State, taxes; if he puts $100 worth of im- 
provement on his land, he has to pay every year $2.75 for 
the privilege. Not much encouragement for a man with 
whom dollars are not plentiful, lots though of encourage- 
ment for the sharks who prey on their fellow men, grow- 
ing rich on the labor and sacrifices of others who grow 
poor in, proportion, who whea men who. have slashed and 
burned and labored for years, living alone in the wilder- 
ness "proving up" their claims, need a few dollars, lend 
it to them for a bonus and at extravagant usurious 
interest, feeling sure that when the note is due their 
"pound of flesh" will be forthcoming, blood or no blood, 
there is no difference to them. 
I have in my mind as I write an instance of just this; 
A pioneer owning, for he had made good his claim, a few 
hundred dollars with which to make improvements, bor- 
rowed that money from a friend in business, giving his 
note for a year for just double the amount he received, 
binding himself to pay 2 per cent, a month for the money, 
and securing the note by a bond and mortgage on a very 
valuable timber lot worth ten times the face of the note. 
In one year the lender owned the property. Call for ex- 
ample the amount borrowed $500, the note was for $1,000, 
and he paid in interest $240, in taxes $il=?£fa, and he 
had nothing left. 
But the shark owns the land now, which has cost him 
but $250, and which he can afford to sell or lease at low 
figures, but which it is more likely he will hold, as he can 
afford to sell for high prices. A community in which 
such crushing of energy can be safely effeoted cannot 
thrive until it cures itself. 
I sat up late that evening chatting with my host, Mr. 
Fisher, who is an intelligent man and knows a great deal 
about the lakes. He says that Lake Sutherland abounds 
in trout of many varieties, which in spring take the fly 
readily; and he poiuted out to me in his "register" quite a 
number of records of extraordinary catches, several of 
which I copied and promptly lost the paper. From what 
. he told me, and what I learned subsequently and pre- 
' viously from others, I have gotten up quite an hypothesis 
in regard to lakes Sutherland and Crescent, their origin 
and history, which I shall give after I shall have posted 
my readers on my facts by a description of the lakes. 
Sutherland and Crescent lie in the same line, nearly east 
and west. The eastern lake, Sutherland, is about three 
miles long, one-half broad; Crescent about eight or 
nine long, one to three miles wide. They are separated 
by a ridge of moderate height, 400 or 500ft., and two or 
three miles wide; lind densely covered with large trees. 
This ridge is a famous resort for deer and bears. The sur- 
face of Lake Crescent, the westernmost lake, is about 70ft. 
higher than that of Lake Sutherland. 
There are quite a number of mountain streams that 
empty into Lake Crescent, a few into Lake Sutherland, 
from valleys in the high and precipitous mountains to the 
southward — the Olympian foothills. These streams all 
contain many trout of several varieties, notably rain- 
bow, Dolly Varden, mountain, cutthroat, silver and 
speckled. 
All of these are found in both lakes, and in addition 
some nondescripts that the lake people call "half-breeds," 
and in Lake Crescent others called "blue-backs," which are 
not found in the streams. 
There is no known stream or communication of water 
from one lake to the other. Sutherland has at its eastern 
end one outlet which flows into the Elwa, and through 
which, when the water is high enough, salmon run into 
the lake; Crescent has no known outlet, excepting by a 
fall of over 70ft. at its western end. At one portion of 
this outlet there is a contraction forming what they call a 
flume, through which the current is a very heavy one, 
nearly perpendicular, up which no salmon could go. 
So far I give facts. Now the idea based upon these facts 
is that at some remote period the two lakes were one, and 
before that they were a part of a stream which flowed 
through a deep cafion; that there occurred landslides 
which dammed the stream in two places, some twelve 
miles apart, leaving it a single long deep lake, or rather a 
long dammed trough which in time by the accession from 
the streams became a lake into which the salmon entered; 
that then subsequently occurred another slide which 
divided the one lake and made two of it. Into the 
smaller eastern lake salmon could still come, and do; into 
the westernmost they could not; but when this slide took 
place, if , as is probable, there were salmon imprisoned in 
the upper lake, there was but one of two things for them 
. to do, stay there or die. If they stayed it is probable 
that then ensued modifications of form and color due to 
their environments, and it is possible that the new fish 
hybridized more or less with some of the many varieties 
of trout in the lake, and that the results are the blue-back 
trout and others of the nondescripts. There is, I admit, 
considerable speculation in all of this, but it is a plausible 
theory I believe to account for there being in Lake 
Crescent strange trout, which fact, however, I did not 
find out on this trip, for Sutherland gave me such ex- 
cellent sport the next day that I was well satisfied to stay 
there. 
After a good night's rest and a warm up of coffee and 
bread, we at an unnecessarily early hour the next morn- 
'ing Btarted in for a day's trolling, premising with a little 
unsuccessful fly-casting. I am not sure but if we had 
been better equipped we might have caught a few trout, ' 
but not one rose. 
My outfit, and it was the only one for use of all, con- 
sisted of small gnats, caddis, ante, etc., procured for use 
in the Truckee, American and other streams in the 
Sierras, and were utterly useless here, although in all 
directions and constantly trout were taking insects, all of 
one kind, viz., a medium sized white moth or butterfly, 
with black spots on wings. These were hovering over the 
lake in great numbers, and every now and then a tired 
one would, probably deceived by the film of ashes which 
covered much of the surface, alight. We counted quite 
a number of times, and these averaged about four wing 
flutters before something came up from below, and 
quietly the butterfly disappeared. Occasionally we could, 
when near get sight of the head of the something, and it 
was a trout, generally of good size. There was no leap 
or anything that could be justly called a strike; there was 
a feebly fluttering butterfly, a slight ripple and it disap- 
peared. It was as though it were a salmon, not a trout, 
that took them, and I called to mind the Brackett's famous 
' painting, "The Rise." Since leaving Port Angeles a 
young gentleman of Victoria, an adept at fly-tieing, the 
son of Mr. Dennis Harris, the grandson of Sir James 
Douglas, formerly Governor-General of Canada, has sent 
to me a Card of flies of his own make which he thinks 
will sediice these trout. They are good imitations of the 
butterfly, and he says that if cast well out and very gently 
moved the wings will flutter. I'm sure I hope so and 
long to give them a trial. 
We trolled with four lines, two on rods with no sink- 
.ersj two hand lines, one of which was of twisted, <jopper. 
and drew its spoon, a 4in. Tahoe ; at from 20 to 30ft. 
under. We had also on our rod lines large spoons. 
The weather was not favorable; it was raw and chilly, 
the air full of fog and smoke, so much so tba.t we could 
hardly see the shore when 100yds. away, but we had 
rowed hardly 50yds. when a lively trout — it proved to be 
a 2lb. mountain trout — took the Tahoe spoon and I took 
him. Hardly was my line out again when on the same 
spoon I got so heavy a strike that but for assurances of it 
being impossible I could have pronounced it a snag which 
broke a double gut leader and cost me the spoon, which 
indicated that there were some big trout in Lake Suther- 
land. Having no other Tahoe, I substituted a large fluted 
black bass Skinner spinner, and during two days that we 
trolled this line and spoon took more large fish than the 
other three together, among them our largest, a 241b. 
silver trout. 
Lieut. Stoney, of the Navy, a few days after took a 41b. 
mountain trout, and Mr. Wilson one of 4^1bs. Our sur- 
face spoons did little good until after several changes, 
each of which decreased the size of spoon and increased 
the size of catch. We found out just what the trout liked 
and we gave it to them. viz. : small Akron & Emerich 
spoons No. 2, about fin. long, silver and copper; then we 
had to reduce our lines to two, for we could not attend to 
four, and we preferred the rods. This of course made the 
boating of a fish comparatively slow work, for our rods 
were light ones. With my favorite bass fly rod of split 
bamboo it cost me nearly half an hour to get one trout 
into the boat. Yet our catch was a good one, consisting 
altogether of 149 trout, weighing over 75lbs. Our catch 
was principally mountain, speckled and silver trout, but 
we got two Dolly Vardens, one cutthroat I know of — per- 
haps more, for the mark don't show very plainly without 
close examination — and quite a number called locally 
"half-breeds." Our fish ranged from ^lb. to S^lbs., and 
there were twenty above 21bs., and many between 1 and 
21bs. 
There seems to be little difference, except a bit in the 
coloration, between the mountain, speckled and silver 
trout. All were strong fighters, leaping as they struck 
and quite a number of times during the struggle. I won't 
say how high, for I bear in mind the attacks upon the 
judgment or veracity which in your columns were made 
upon a gentleman who gave his figures as to the leap of a 
bass. I think they jumped higher than I am willing to 
say. 
To wind up, I can only say that we had a most success- 
ful and enjoyable trip, and after our return to Port Ange- 
les — and sfaveral of the Sound papers devoted much space 
to the chronicling of our success, remarkable principally 
on account of the lateness of the season, and the preva- 
lent belief of a large majority that our trip would prove a 
failure through this cause — I shall devote the rest of this 
article to a second trip, on which I did Lake Crescent and 
discovered the big blue-backs. Piseco. 
[to be concluded.] 
UNCLE LISHA'S OUTING.— XXIII. 
The Caravan. 
Toward the middle of the afternoon Uncle Lisha and 
his friends entered the outskirts of the little city, where 
the unusual appearance of a camping outfit attracted con- 
siderable attention and was generally believed to be one of 
the side shows belonging to the coming caravan. 
It presently gathered a following of boys, and when 
Sam drew rein in front of Cousin Ohace's tidy house 
these were joined by several grown up and no less curi- 
ous idlers, and all surrounded the wagon in an interested 
group. 
"It's a nigger show, I bet ye," one boy confidently 
asserted. 
"Yah. What you talkin' 'bout?" cried another, con- 
temptuously. "It's the Injinshow! Don't you see the 
canew? An' that black feller up there 's one of 'em; the 
oP chief he is." 
"My, don't he look ugly, though?" loudly whispered 
another, staring in fascinated horror at Antoine, who, 
overhearing these remarks, at once fell into humoring 
them. 
"Yes, sah, Ah'll was big Injin, mel A'n'tyou see haow 
Ah'll was sca'p dis hoi' mans?" He lifted Uncle Lisha'e 
hat, displaying the shining bald pate, and then alter a 
moment's impressive silence continued, "Wal, seh, boy, 
Ah was tore.off you hairs jes' lak dat 'f you'll aVt ta' 
careful. You want for hear me spik Injin more better as 
Angleesh? 
"Cangra musquash nawah alamose woisoose^e^unkamug 
pesksgan. Ooop!" 
His audience listened with deep admiration to the first 
specimen of aboriginal eloquence which they bad ever 
heard. 
"You want to go on and turn to the left to get to the 
show ground," said a florid gentleman of leisure, dressed 
in a drab fur hat, blue coat and tightly strapped trousers,, 
and he pointed up street with his cane, which he then 
tucked under his arm, while he took a pinch of snuff and 
meditatively surveyed the occupants of the wagon. "1 
hope you folks don't have any tight rope dancing and the 
like," he continued with a deprecatory air. "That's con- 
trary to the laws of the State, you know." 
"Wal, naow, that's tew bad," said Uncle Lisha in a 
grieved voice, and indicating Joseph with a jerk of the 
thumb, "for this 'ere young man is turrible hefty on the 
wires." 
The florid gentleman thought he recognized the blush 
of modest merit in Joseph's abashed face, and with a sly 
wink at Uncle Lisha said in a husky undertone: 
"We might fix up a leetle private entertainment — in a 
barn — you know, to-night. Select and quiet, you know." 
"No, sir! We're law-abidin' folks," said Uncle Lisha, 
with virtuous decision. "Say, can any on ye tell me 
whet'er no Ab'm Chace lives in this 'ere haouse. Good 
airtu an' seas! If he don't come an' tell us where tu go 
pooty soon we sh'U hef ter hev a show tu git red o' the 
folks." 
"Say, mister," an eager boy whispered, clutching Sam's 
knee, "if I'd fetch water for your hosses, won't ye let me. 
go in for nothin', me an' my little brother; he ain't 
bigger 'n nothin'! We hain't got no money. Will ye, 
mister?" 
"Why, bub," said Sam, "we hain't no show. We jest 
come tu see the show, that's all," 
The boy stared incredulously into the honest face till 
assured there was no guile in it, and ^hen, retired in disap-. 
pointrflent, leading his Uttle brother, " 
