Blazing the Way; Or, True Stories, Songs and Sketches of Puget Sound. Emily Inez Denny
to whip up or they would not be able to cross for days if they delayed; they crossed, ascended the bluffs where there was a semicircle of trees, loosed the cattle and picketed the horses. By evening the storm reached them with lightning, heavy thunder and great piles of hail. The next morning the water had risen half way up tall trees.
The Indians stole the lead horse of one of the four-horse teams and Mrs. Low rode the other on a man’s saddle. Many western equestriennes have learned to be not too particular as to horse, habit or saddle and have proven also the greater safety and convenience of cross-saddle riding.
In the Black Hills while traveling along the crest of a high ridge, where to get out of the road would have been disastrous, the train was met by a band of Indians on ponies, who pressed up to the wagons in a rather embarrassing way, bent apparently upon riding between and separating the teams, but the drivers were too wise to permit this and kept close together, without stopping to parley with them, and after riding alongside for some distance, the designing but baffled redskins withdrew.
The presence of the native inhabitants sometimes proved a convenience; especially was this true of the more peaceable tribes of the far west. On the Umatilla River the travelers were glad to obtain the first fresh vegetable since leaving the cultivated gardens and fields of their old homes months before. One of the women traded a calico apron for green peas, which were regarded as a great treat and much enjoyed.
Farther on, as they neared the Columbia, Captain Low, who was riding ahead of the train, met Indians with salmon, eager to purchase so fine a fish and not wishing to stop the wagon, pulled off an overshirt over his head and exchanged it for the piscatorial prize.
The food that had sustained them on the long march was almost military in its simplicity. Corn meal, flour, rice (a little, as it was not then in common use), beans, bacon and dried fruits were the main dependence. They could spend but little time hunting and fishing. On Bear River “David” and “Louisa” each caught a trout, fine, speckled beauties. “David” and the other hunters of the company also killed sage hens, antelope and buffalo.
After leaving the Missouri River they had no opportunity to buy anything until they reached the Snake River, where they purchased some dried salmon of the Indians.
CHAPTER II
DOWN THE COLUMBIA IN ’51.
After eighty days travel over one thousand seven hundred sixty-five miles of road these weary pilgrims reached the mighty river of the West, the vast Columbia.
At The Dalles, the road Across the Plains was finished, from thence the great waterways would lead them to their journey’s end.
It was there the immigrants first feasted on the delicious river salmon, fresh from the foaming waters. The Indians boiled theirs, making a savory soup, the odor of which would almost have fed a hungry man; the white people cooked goodly pieces in the trusty camp frying pan.
Not then accustomed to such finny monsters, they found a comparison for the huge cuts as like unto sides of pork, and a receptacle for the giant’s morsels in a seaworthy washingtub. However, high living will pall unto the taste; one may really tire of an uninterrupted piscatorial banquet, and one of the company, A. A. Denny, declared his intention of introducing some variety in the bill of fare. “Plague take it,” he said, “I’m tired of salmon—I’m going to have some chicken.”
But alas! the gallinaceous fowl, roaming freely at large, had also feasted frequently on fragments no longer fresh of the overplus of salmon, and its flavor was indescribable, wholly impossible, as the French say. It was “fishy” fish rather than fowl.
At The Dalles the company divided, one party composed of a majority of the men started over the mountains with the wagons and teams; the women and children prepared to descend the river in boats.
In one boat, seated on top of the “plunder” were Mrs. A. A. Denny and two children, Miss Louisa Boren, Mrs. Low and four children and Mrs. Boren and one child. The other boat was loaded in like manner with a great variety of useful and necessary articles, heaped up, on top of which sat several women and children, among whom were Mrs. Sarah Denny, grandmother of the writer, and her little daughter, Loretta.
A long summer day was spent in floating down the great canyon where the majestic Columbia cleaves the Cascade Range in twain. The succeeding night the first boat landed on an island in the river, and the voyagers went ashore to camp. During the night one of the little girls, Gertrude Boren, rolled out of her bed and narrowly escaped falling into the hurrying stream; had she done so she must have certainly been lost, but a kind Providence decreed otherwise. Re-embarking the following day, gliding swiftly on the current, they traversed a considerable distance and the second night approached the Cascades.
Swifter and more turbulent, the rushing flood began to break in more furious foam-wreaths on every jagged rock, impotently striving to stay its onward rush to the limitless ocean.
Sufficient light enabled the observing eye to perceive the writhing surface of the angry waters, but the boatmen were stupified with drink!
All day long they had passed a bottle about which contained a liquid facetiously called “Blue Ruin” and near enough their ruin it proved.
I have penned the following description which met with the approval of one of the principal actors in what so nearly proved a tragedy:
It was midnight on the mighty Columbia. A waning moon cast a glowworm light on the dark, rushing river; all but one of the weary women and tired little children were deeply sunken in sleep. The oars creaked and dipped monotonously; the river sang louder and louder every boat’s length. Drunken, bloated faces leered foolishly and idiotically; they admonished each other to “Keep ’er goin’.”
The solitary watcher stirred uneasily, looked at the long lines of foam out in midstream and saw how fiercely the white waves contended, and far swifter flew the waters than at any hour before. What was the meaning of it? Hark! that humming, buzzing, hissing, nay, bellowing roar! The blood flew to her brain and made her senses reel; they must be nearing the last landing above the falls, the great Cascades of the Columbia.
But the crew gave no heed.
Suddenly she cried out sharply to her sleeping sister, “Mary! Mary! wake up! we are nearing the falls, I hear them roar.”
“What is it, Liza?” she said sleepily.
“O, wake up! we shall all be drowned, the men don’t know what they are doing.”
The rudely awakened sleepers seemed dazed and did not make much outcry, but a strong young figure climbed over the mass of baggage and confronting the drunken boatmen, plead, urged and besought them, if they considered their own lives, or their helpless freight of humanity, to make for the shore.
“Oh, men,” she pleaded, “don’t you hear the falls, they roar louder now. It will soon be too late, I beseech you turn the boat to shore. Look at the rapids beyond us!”
“Thar haint no danger, Miss, leastways not yet; wots all this fuss about anyhow? No danger,” answered one who was a little disturbed; the others were almost too much stupified to understand her words and stood staring at the bareheaded, black haired young woman as if she were an apparition and were no more alarmed than if the warning were given as a curious mechanical performance, having no reference to themselves.
Repeating her request with greater earnestness, if possible, a man’s voice broke in saying, “I believe she is right, put in men quick, none of us want to be drowned.”
Fortunately this penetrated their besotted minds and they put about in time to save the lives of all on board, although they landed some distance below the usual place.
A little farther and they would have been past all human help.
One of the boatmen cheerfully