530 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Oct. i, 1910. 
than any other quadruped that man has ever 
domesticated, but after he has been brought into 
subjection he is the most valuable acquisition 
the mountain man can have. On the trail the 
Indian cayuse can walk an American horse to 
death, and when feed is scarce he can live on 
less than a burro, and like the latter he per¬ 
forms his duty uncomplainingly, unless it should 
be on some frosty morning when he is feeling 
particularly fit he sets in and bucks the first 
sixteen of your vertebra up through the crown 
of your hat. That is only a little by-play and 
should be taken in the spirit in which it is in¬ 
tended. After his bucking the cayuse wi.l toddle 
off down the trail as demure as a goat with a 
look of child-like innocence in his eye. 
The steed assigned me was of a white ground 
color with large irregular blotches of maroon 
that resembled the map of Africa of our school 
days. That he had ^passed through several hands 
was evident by the owners’ brands covering his 
hips and shoulders until the scheme resembled a 
Japanese sketch of the siege of Port Arthur. 
That animal had a mild expression of counte¬ 
nance that, to put it charitably, was hypocritical, 
for he evinced all the inherited deviltry of a 
long line of range-bred ancestors, and it was 
days before we could feel any degree of safety 
in his immediate presence. In time he became 
tractable, and I grew to love his homely skin, 
for he was a good horse. 
The day \ye set out on our journey was hot. 
It is not warm on a summer day in that valley. 
The term does not express the condition in the 
slightest. It is simply hot. The sun’s rays beat 
down in regular waves. The heat shimmers on 
the hills until it dazzles the eye to watch it. In 
midsummer it is the custom in the Kooskia coun¬ 
try to rest during the middle of the day. We 
toiled up the steep, rocky canon of the Oro Fino. 
At the point where Whiskey Creek comes in to 
it we rested beneath the shade of the cotton¬ 
woods and breathed our reeking horses. 
Whiskey Creek obtained its name forty years 
ago when Pierce—a mining town of some 3,000 
souls, and a few Chinamen — was the metropolis 
of Idaho. Lewiston, at the confluence of the 
Kooskia with the Snake, was the steamboat 
landing and general supply depot for all the 
mining region. The principal articles of com¬ 
merce were beans, bacon, flour; rubber boots and 
whiskey. The supplies were brought into Pierce 
on pack animals over the Oro Fino trail. One 
day a long pack train pulled out of Lewiston 
headed for the mines, laden with wet goods in 
kegs. All went we'l until it reached the point 
where we sat down to rest. The men were eat¬ 
ing their lunch when three men stepped out of 
the timber, covered the packers with guns and 
told them to throw up their hands. They did. 
The road agents bound the men to the trees and 
made off up the creek with the pack train. 
Somewhere in the depths of the forest they un¬ 
loaded the whisky, secreted it and turned the 
animals loose. Later that day another pack train 
came along, released the men and both parties 
hurried on to Pierce. 
A posse was immediately organized to return 
to the place and seek the stolen liquor. Had it 
been a few pounds of gold dust that had been 
stolen not much attention would have been paid 
to the incident, but Pierce was nearly dry. They 
found where the bandits had entered the timber 
and fol'owed the : r tracks for several miles, but 
could not locate the cache. The men who stole 
the liquor were found encamped on a little 
meadow on the headwaters of the creek and all 
were killed. The stuff lies buried somewhere 
in the mountains to-day. Pierce suffered much 
privation until the arrival of the next pack train 
which brought relief. The stream was named 
Whiskey Creek and hundreds of dollars have 
been spent seeking the hidden treasure. 
After leaving Whiskey Creek the trail winds 
rapidly up out of the canon. It was a toilsome 
journey, but when we entered the deep aisles 
of the virgin forest, the cool shade was delight¬ 
ful. Now and then as th’e trail rounded a bold 
point we could look back upon the Kooskia, a 
ribbon of silver, winding across a carpet of 
brown. Everything looked hot and dry save 
where a blotch' of green marked an Indian or¬ 
chard. We jogged along at a very good pace 
and before night reached Red’s Prairie. 
Red’s Prairie is off the Indian reservation and 
here many years ago a solitary white man, re¬ 
alizing the possibilities of the p'ace as a cattle 
range, settled. We made camp on the edge of 
the meadow just beyond his house. Before we 
had our camp made he came stalking down to 
order us away, but when he saw my companion 
he changed his mind. I asked Charley why, and 
like a woman he answered “ko-ots” (because) — 
all the information I got. 
All Indians are superstitious. It is a part of 
their religious teaching. The Indian sees a spirit 
in nearly every object in life. Generally these 
are good spirits, though quite often an evil one 
creeps in. These spirits continually war with 
each other, the good against the evil. Generally 
they walk at night. One hardly ever sees one 
in the broad daylight. In that the Indian ghost 
is very similar to the white. Nobody ever heard 
of a white man seeing a ghost in open day. 
We slept that night beneath the shelter of a 
dense grove of black pine. Behind our camp lay 
the deep timber, in front the open meadow. It 
was not yet daybreak when something awoke me. 
I looked up fo find Charley lying on his elbow, 
his hand on his rifle, peering into the gloom of 
the forest. A heavj r fog hung over the place, 
half concealing half revealing things in a truly 
ghostly perspective. ’I looked in the direction 
indicated by Charley’s gaze. A white object was 
creeping slowly out of the gloom. It would 
pause, stoop down an instant, then move on 
again in a half upright position. Charley cau¬ 
tiously raised his rifle until it lay across his 
knee. 
“What is it, Charley?” I asked. 
“I don’t know. It looks like a spirit,” was 
his reply. 
The gun came up to his shoulder, his eye along 
the sights. 
I laid my hand on his shoulder. “Wait.” 
He lowered the arm and we watched. The 
intruder crept nearer. Strain our eyes as we 
would we could not make out more than the 
dim outlines. The apparition sidled off, made a 
sudden dart at something, then came cm again. 
The thing was getting on my nerves. I do not 
believe in ghosts, but I do not like to have 
things I cannot explain prowling about my camp 
before daylight. 
I saw that Charley was becoming decidedly 
nervous. He coil’d not stand the suspense any 
longer. His gun leaped into place and I had 
just time to throw the muzzle up when the shot 
rang out. The ghost cried out when he heard 
the bullet hum three feet above his head. It 
was our hermit friend gathering mushrooms in 
nearly the style of dress affected by our first 
parents. I was glad that I had interfered, for 
Charley always sped his bullet true to the mark. 
We nooned at a deserted' miner’s cabin on 
Swamp Creek. One of the men who formerly 
lived in that cabin told me an interesting inci¬ 
dent of a moose that took place while he and 
some others were developing their placer claims. 
It is so out of the ordinary that it will bear 
repetition here, more especially as the truthful¬ 
ness of the story can be authenticated. 
It was in midwinter and all the larger game 
had long since departed for the breaks of the 
canons where there was but little snow. One 
of the men was out in front of the cabin cutting 
fire wood. He heard a strange noise and looked 
up in time to see an immense bull moose charg¬ 
ing down the hill, his hair on end, scattering the 
soft snow like a rotary plow. The man hurled 
his ax at the animal and ran to the house which 
he reached a few feet in advance of his adver¬ 
sary. The moose halted and pawed the snow 
over his back, bellowing all the while. The only 
weapon in the cabin was a single barreled gun. 
the only ammunition some shells loaded with 
bird shot. Of course they could not kill him 
with the fine shot, even if he were only a few 
yards distant. Finally they hit upon the plan 
of drawing the shot from one shell, combining 
it with that in another, melting sufficient tallow 
to run the whole into a solid mass. They pro¬ 
ceeded to carry this plan into execution. It took 
several minutes, during which time the angry 
animal marched around in the yard, eyeing the 
door as though he contemplated following the 
man into the house. When the charge was ready 
one of the men stepped to the door and shot the 
animal dead. The men brought the head out 
with them next spring and it was truly a mon¬ 
ster spread of antlers. 
We were now in the mountains nearing the 
old worked-out placers of the Pierce country. 
Miles and miles of deserted flume stretched on 
every side, great unsightly dumps of tailings lay 
along the streams, and tumble-down cabins dot¬ 
ted the country—all evidences of a once busy 
community. The cabins are now given over to 
the woodrats, the ditches furnish nesting sites 
for the sandpipers. The old dumps furnish em¬ 
ployment for a few Chinese who patiently rock 
the gravel for the few grains of gold that were 
left from the prodigal methods of a time when 
a few ounces of gold dust were of little conse¬ 
quence. 
Sixteen miles across the hills we reached 
Pierce, the one-time mining center of Idaho. 
Gold was discovered on Rhodes Creek early in 
the 6o's. Spanish Town sprang up around the 
site of the original discovery and flourished for 
a time. Then James Pierce located a store on 
the headwaters of the Oro Fino and named it 
in honor of himself. Spanish Town was de¬ 
serted. To-day it is a tumble-down mass of 
rotting logs without an inhabitant. Pierce grew. 
All through the period of our Civil War the 
place numbered its inhabitants by thousands. 
Like all mining towns, it was filled with the law¬ 
less and reckless who follow up gold excite¬ 
ments. The placers yielded rich returns, and 
money, in the shape of gold dust, flowed like 
water. The country was ruled by miner's law— 
