Cascades

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13. Chapter 13



On our return to Chehalis--that town of unsavory odors and salmon-drying, salmon-smoking Siwashes--I at once employed two other Indians, named John and Seymour, and, on the following day we started up Ski-ik-kul Creek, to a lake of the same name, in which it heads ten miles back in the mountains. The Indians claimed that goats, or sheep, as they call them, were plentiful on the cliffs surrounding this lake, and that we could kill plenty of them from a raft while floating up and down along the shores. Seymour claimed to have killed twenty-three in March last, just after the winter snows had gone off, and a party of seven Siwashes from Chehalis had killed ten about two weeks previous to the date of my visit.

Such glowing accounts as these built up my hopes again to such a height as to banish from my mind all recollection of the bitter disappointment in which the former expedition had ended, and, although the rain continued to fall heavily at short intervals, so that the underbrush reeked with dampness and drenching showers fell from every bush we touched, I trudged cheerily along regardless of all discomforts.

The first two miles up the creek, we had a good, open trail, but at the end of this we climbed a steep, rocky bluff, about 500 feet high, and made the greater portion of the remaining distance at an average of about this height above the stream. There was a blind Indian trail all the way to the lake, but it led over the roughest, most tortuous, outlandish country that ever any fool of a goat hunter attempted to traverse. There are marshes and morasses away up among these mountains, where alders and water beeches, manzanitas, and other shrubs grow so thick that their branches intertwine to nearly their full length. Many of these have fallen down in various directions, and their trunks are as inextricably mixed as their branches, forming altogether a labyrinthine mass, through which it was with the utmost difficulty we could walk at all.

There were numberless little creeks coming down from the mountain into the main stream, and each had in time cut its deep, narrow gulch, or cañon, lined on both sides with rough, shapeless masses of rock, and all these we were obliged to cross. In many cases, they were so close together that only a sharp hog-back lay between them, and we merely climbed out of one gulch 300 or 400 feet deep, to go at once down into another still deeper, and so on. Fire had run through a large tract of this country, killing out all the large timber, and many trees have since rotted away and fallen, while the blackened and barkless trunks of others, with here and there a craggy limb, still stand as mute monuments to the glory of the forest before the dread element laid it waste.

We camped that night at the base of one of these great dead firs around which lay a cord or more of old dry bark that had fallen from it, and which, with a few dry logs we gathered, furnished fuel for a rousing, all-night fire. Within a few feet of our camp, a clear, ice-cold little rivulet threaded its serpentine way down among rocks and ferns, and made sweet music to lull us to sleep. After supper, I made for myself the usual bed of mountain feathers (cedar boughs), on which to spread my sleeping-bag.

This old companion of so many rough jaunts, over plains and mountains, has become as necessary a part of my outfit for such voyages as my rifle. Whether it journey by day, on the hurricane deck of a mule, in the hatchway of a canoe, on my shoulder blades or those of a Siwash, it always rounds up at night to house me against the bleak wind, the driving snow, or pouring rain. I have learned to prize it so highly that I can appreciate the sentiments of the fallen monarch, Napoleon, on the lonely island of St. Helena, when he wrote:

"The bed has become a place of luxury to me. I would not exchange it for all the thrones in the world."

These Indians, like Pean, and, in fact, all others who have seen the bag, are greatly interested in it. They had never seen anything like it, and watched with undisguised interest the unfolding and preparing of the article, and when I had crawled into it, and stowed myself snugly away, they looked at each other, grunted and uttered a few of their peculiar guttural sounds, which I imagined would be, if translated:

"Well, I'll be doggoned if that ain't about the sleekest trick I ever saw. Eh?"

"You bet it's nice to sleep in, but heavy to carry."

DIAGRAM OF SLEEPING-BAG

By the way, some of my readers may never have seen one of these valuable camp appendages, and a description of it may interest them. The outer bag is made of heavy, brown, waterproof canvas, six feet long, three feet wide in the centre, tapered to two feet at the head and sixteen inches at the foot. Above the head of the bag proper, flaps project a foot farther, with which the occupant's head may be completely covered, if desired. These are provided with buttons and button-holes, so that they may be buttoned clear across, for stormy or very cold weather. The bag is left open, from the head down one edge, two feet, and a flap is provided to lap over this opening. Buttons are sewed on the bag, and there are button-holes in the flaps so it may also be buttoned up tightly. Inside of this canvas bag is another of the same size and shape, less the head flaps. This is made of lamb skin with the wool on, and is lined with ordinary sheeting, to keep the wool from coming in direct contact with the person or clothing. One or more pairs of blankets may be folded and inserted in this, as may be necessary, for any temperature in which it is to be used.

If the weather be warm, so that not all this covering is needed over the sleeper, he may shift it to suit the weather and his taste, crawling in on top of as much of it as he may wish, and the less he has over him the more he will have under him, and the softer will be his bed. Beside being waterproof, the canvas is windproof, and one can button himself up in this house, leaving only an air-hole at the end of his nose, and sleep as soundly, and almost as comfortably in a snowdrift on the prairie as in a tent or house. In short, he may be absolutely at home, and comfortable, wherever night finds him, and no matter what horrid nightmares he may have, he can not roll out of bed or kick off the covers.

Nor will he catch a draft of cold air along the north edge of his spine every time he turns over, as he is liable to do when sleeping in blankets. Nor will his feet crawl out from under the cover and catch chilblains, as they are liable to do in the old-fashioned way. In fact, this sleeping-bag is one of the greatest luxuries I ever took into camp, and if any brother sportsman who may read this wants one, and can not find an architect in his neighborhood capable of building one, let him communicate with me and I will tell him where mine was made.