15. Chapter 15
Ski-ik-kul, or Chehalis Creek, as the whites call it, is surely one of the most beautiful streams in the whole Cascade Range. Its size may be stated, approximately, as two feet in depth by fifty feet in width, at or near the mouth, but its course is so crooked, so tortuous, and its bed so broken and uneven that the explorer will seldom find a reach of it sufficiently quiet and undisturbed to afford a measurement of this character. At one point it is choked into a narrow gorge ten feet wide and twice as deep, with a fall of ten feet in a distance of thirty. Through this notch the stream surges and swirls with the wild fury, the fearful power, and the awe-inspiring grandeur of a tornado. At another place it runs more placidly for a few yards, as if to gather strength and courage for a wild leap over a sheer wall of frowning rock into a foaming pool thirty, forty, or fifty feet below. At still another place it seems to carve its way, by the sheer power of madness, through piles and walls of broken and disordered quartz, granite, or basalt, even as Cortes and his handful of Spanish cavaliers hewed their way through the massed legions of Aztecs at Tlascala.
Farther up, or down, it is split into various channels by great masses of upheaved rock, and these miniature streams, after winding hither and thither through deep, dark, narrow fissures for perhaps one or two hundred yards, reunite to form this headlong mountain torrent. Viewing these scenes, one is forcibly reminded of the poet's words:
"How the giant element,
From rock to rock, leaps with delirious bound."
Series of cascades, a quarter to half a mile long, are met with at frequent intervals, which rival in their beauty and magnificence those of the Columbia or the Upper Yellowstone. Whirlpools occur at the foot of some of these, in which the clear, bright green water boils, sparkles, and effervesces like vast reservoirs of champagne. The moanings and roarings emitted by this matchless stream in its mad career may be heard in places half a mile. At many points its banks rise almost perpendicularly to heights of 300, 400, or 500 feet. You may stand so nearly over the water that you can easily toss a large rock into it, and yet you are far above the tops of the massive firs and cedars that grow at the water's edge. Looking down from these heights you may see in the crystal fluid whole schools of the lordly salmon plowing their way up against the almost resistless fury of the current, leaping through the foam, striking with stunning force against hidden rocks, falling back half dead, and, drifting into some clear pool below, recovering strength to renew the hopeless assault.
The time will come when an easy roadway, and possibly an iron one, will be built up this grand cañon, and thousands of tourists will annually stand within its walls to gaze upon these magic pictures, absorbed in their grandeur and romantic beauty. Nor does the main stream afford the only objects of beauty and interest here. It is a diamond set in a cluster of diamonds, for many of the little brooks, already mentioned as coming down the mountain on either side, are only less attractive because smaller. Many of them tumble from the tops of rocky walls, and dance down among the branches of evergreen trees, sparkling like ribbons of silver in the rays of the noonday sun.
Theodore Roosevelt, in his excellent work, "Hunting Trips of a Ranchman;" says: "Thirst is largely a matter of habit." So it may be, but I am sadly addicted to the habit, and I found it one from which, on this trip, I was able to extract a great deal of comfort, for we crossed one or more of these little brooks every hour, and I rarely passed one without taking a copious draught of its icy fluid. The days, were moderately warm, and the hard labor we performed, walking and climbing, made these frequent opportunities to quench thirst one of the most pleasant features of the journey. I was frequently reminded of Cole's beautiful tribute to the mountain brook:
"Sleeping in crystal wells,
Leaping in shady dells,
Or issuing clear from the womb of the mountain,
Sky-mated, related, earth's holiest daughter;
Not the hot kiss of wine,
Is half so divine as the sip of thy lip, inspiring cold water."
We arrived at our destination, the foot of Ski-ik-kul Lake (and the source of the creek up which we had been traveling), at four o'clock in the afternoon of the second day out. We made camp on the bank of the creek, and John and I engaged in gathering a supply of wood. After we had been thus occupied for ten or fifteen minutes, I noticed that Seymour was nowhere in sight, and asked John where he was.
"He try spear salmon."
"What will he spear him with?" I said. "Sharp stick?"
"No. He bring spear in him pocket," said John.
We were standing on the bank of the creek again, and as he spoke there was a crashing in the brush overhead, and an immense salmon, nearly three feet long, landed on the ground between us. Seymour had indeed brought a spear with him in his pocket. It was made of a fence-nail and two pieces of goat horn, with a strong cord about four feet long attached. There was a sort of socket in the upper end of it, and the points of the two pieces of horn were formed into barbs. As soon as Seymour had dropped his pack he had picked up a long, dry, cedar pole, one end of which he had sharpened and inserted between the barbs, fastening the string so that when he should strike a fish the spear point would pull off. With this simple weapon in hand he had walked out on the vast body of driftwood with which the creek is bridged for half a mile below the lake, and peering down between the logs, had found and killed the fish. We made a fire in the hollow of a great cedar that stood at the water's edge. The tree was green, but the fire soon ate a large hole into the central cavity, and, by frequent feeding with dry wood, we had a fire that roared and crackled like a great furnace, all night. It
"Kindled the gummy bark of fir or pine,
And sent a comfortable heat from far,
Which might supply the sun."
SUPPER FOR THREE-SAUMON RÔTISeymour cut off the salmon's head, split the body down the back, and took out the spine. Then he spread the fish out and put skewers through it to hold it flat. He next cut a stick about four feet long, split it half its length, tied a cedar withe around to keep it from splitting further, and inserting the fish in the aperture, tied another withe around the upper end. He now stuck the other end of the stick into the ground in front of the fire, and our supper was under way.
I have often been reduced to the necessity of eating grub cooked by Indians, both squaws and men, and can place my hand on my heart and say truthfully I never hankered after Indian cookery. In fact, I have always eaten it with a mental reservation, and a quiet, perhaps unuttered protest, but I counted the minutes while that fish cooked. I knew Seymour was no more cleanly in his habits than his kin--in fact, he would not have washed his hands before commencing, nor the fish after removing its entrails, had I not watched him and made him do so; but even if he had not I should not have refused to eat, for when a man has been climbing mountains all day he can not afford to be too scrupulous in regard to his food. When the fish was thoroughly roasted on one side the other was turned to the fire, and finally, when done to a turn, it was laid smoking hot on a platter of cedar boughs which I had prepared, and the savory odors it emitted would have tempted the palate of an epicure. I took out my hunting knife, and making a suggestive gesture toward the smoking fish, asked John if I should cut off a piece; for not withstanding my consuming hunger, my native modesty still remained with me, and I thus hinted for an invitation to help myself.
"Yes," he said. "Cut off how much you can eat."
You can rest assured I cut off a ration that would have frightened a tramp. Good digestion waited on appetite, and health on both. I ate with the hunger born of the day's fatigue and the mountain atmosphere, and the Indians followed suit, or rather led, and in half an hour only the head and spine of that fifteen-pound salmon remained, and they were not yet in an edible condition. Near bedtime, however, they were both spitted before the fire, and in the silent watches of the night, as I awoke and looked out of my downy bed, I saw those two simple-minded children of the forest, sitting there picking the last remaining morsels of flesh from those two pieces of what, in any civilized camp or household, would have been considered offal. But when a Siwash quits eating fish it is generally because there is no more fish to eat. After such a supper, charmed by such weird, novel surroundings, lulled by the music of the rushing waters, and warmed by a glowing camp-fire, I slept that night with naught else to wish for, at peace with all mankind. Even "mine enemy's dog, though he had bit me, should have stood that night against my fire."