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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 5, 1909)
THE SUNDAY OREGOXIAy,- - PORTLAND, SEPTEMBER 5, 1903. llsni ID, TP.KIDfP?CCT CASCADE fm NATIONAL? BT FRAXK JENKINS. DIGHT here in the beginning. I want to xnlaJn that the reason we didn't et any big game on our mountain trip was that we went at the wrong time of the year. We left Eugent right in the middle of the heated season when the A hurl lfft their ranges and gone their vacations taken to the deep can yons to recuperate for a month or so, you know. No decent person could expect a deer t come out and permit itself to be shot al n-ftw th thermometer at 90 in the shade "Weather conditions were very unfavor- hl AH the natives told us so. . Of course, I have been in the mountains hi It was cool and damp, and got deer, but that does not alter the basic facts in the case. The weather was against us. It always la. But here I am explaining away like the office boy when he comes down at 10 In the morning, before I have anything to explain about. The truth of the matter Is that T have been so busy for the last week telling why it was. that whenever I think of the mountains, I start to nlainin- lust as naturally and automatlo- ally a book agent starts to talk when von oDen the door. Now that I have the explanation out of my system. I will begin at the beginning. About a month ago a quartet of us Doc, rnn nrl and I ot our heads together, and made the discovery that the only tiling that would save us from senous m ri m-aa a vacation. It was four phys ical wrecks that gathered in Doc's office appetites gone, not able to work, eyes hollow we came near not getting up the stairs. We came down two steps at a time. The woods have wonderful tonic properties, even in absent treatment. Dur ing our session, we had decided to take a pack horse trip into the Cascades, the object to get as far from civilization as possible, and the date as soon thereafter as circumstances would permit. Early in the game of assembling our outfit we discovered a very annoy ing tendency in dealers, friends and others whom we approached. Although we had all been in the West more than a year, folks of whom we made in quiries Insisted on treating us as raw tenderfeet, and giving us information of the most elementary nature. In view of the fact that we had been reading Western storiea almost all our lives, and that we knew Frederic Rem ington's pictures by heart, this was very galling and annoying to us. We wanted the information, all right, but we objected to the way it was given. We felt that our extensive course of reading had taken us past the raw stage, and Instead of sitting and listen to First Reader lectures on the subject of packing, we wanted to enter Into professional discussions of it. Of course, we were a little shy on ex perience, but we felt that our vast amount of theory ought to make up for that. We soon saw that it was useless, however, and while we were obliged to put up with it when we asked for advice, we maintained a bold front of blase experience when we entered a tore to purchase a part of our outfit. We frequently entered with a good deal more assurance than we took away with us. For Instance: We knew by the pictures In the Wild West books that before a horse could reasonably be expected to carry a camp outfit, he would have to be supplied with a pack saddle, and we felt confident that we could identify one on sight. Accordingly we strolled around to a harness shop, and asked the dealer to show us some of his nicest pack" saddles. He disappeared into an upper gallery, and returned with a thing that looked like a cross between a clothes horse and a toy raft. We looked it over, and took mental stock of the outfit we had purchased to go on that pack animal. How canned goods, sacks of flour, sides of bacon a,nd sundries were to be attached to that drying rack was a problem for more mathematical minds than ours. "Haven't you er a valise, or some thing, to hang on and dump things in?" I ventured. "Sure, he replied, and vanished caln. .reappearing with a pair of big tanvas sacks liberally supplied with strnps. 1 "These are alforqueses." said he. I couldn't just see why he should have them there If they belonged to a man by the name of Forkas, but the more I looked at them, the better I could see that our expedition would be lame and impotent without them. We simply had to have them at any cost." "Would he sell them, do you sup pose?" I queried. "Or maybe he would lend them to us. anyway." -Would who sell them?" the dealer asked belligerently. "Mr. Forkas." said I. "Mr. Al Forkas, I think you said." Ha gave me Just one withering glance, and I felt that he knew all. "That's the name of them," said he. -What they call them, you know. Al-for-ques." I subsided. 1 would have subsided farther, but the floor unkindly lnter- 1 . rwi hM me there while Con sat down on a box. and acted Just as if h aw a joke. Alter a v nue uts rc- i with the bearing of an covered. .i ATnriAnrid Dackcr resumed old the negotiations. I assumed an air of scornful dignity, ana Degan 10 examine a new-fangled bridle. Con proceeded to purchase the bags in question, an outfit ot straps, a tarpaulin for the top of the pack, and hobbles, then af ter critical look around, declared that the list was complete. "You have forgotten a hook-cinch, haven't you?" said the harnessman. "hy sure." aays Con. "How care less of me. I never forgot a hook -cinch before in mv life. Better put in a half i . " ; n swered. with another of those Kansas hot wind expressions, "but It's a Job for the average man to put one of them on." That evened things up. We paid the bill and walked out In mutual humility. I find that the Western people are most exclusive about admitting a man to the outdoor fraternity. I almost think at times that he would ltave to have the goods before be could come in as a full member. Finally our outfit wa all purchased, a pack horse 6ecured, and the eventful morning for the start arrived. We had had everything delivered at Con's home, and we turned out at t in the morning to pack. When we saw the pile of stuff we had heart failure right there. We , A .n.nKnufT.vl tl,n fart that Tfl WPFQ going very light only the bare necessi ties of life, you know and tnere on xne back porch was what looked like the commissary department of the Seventh Cavalry prepared for a campaign. Just then the pack horse arrived. Like Eve, In her autobiography as written by Mark Twain, we didn't have to cast around for a name at all. One Just came to us out of our own head We christened It the Skate. We saw that we had been en tirely too hasty in purchasing a pack saddle. We could have hung things on the horse Just as nicely and saved all the expense end weight. "We did finally succeed In piling a larger part of the supplies on the horse than had looked possible, put on our tarpaulin, and were ready to tie the whole thing down. The evening before a friend had asked me at the club If we were going to use the diamond hitch. "Certainly we shall use the diamond hitch," I replied. "A man showed us Just how4o tie it the other day, and It strikes me as a very simple and con venient method of attaching a pack." We all remembered Just how he had done it. He had tied the pack rope to the hook-cinch, laid the rope along the horse's back and then thrown the cinch over the horse, Jtust like playing anti over. We dld all that carefully and methodically, throwing the cinch over so hard that it came around and hit her on the under side andemade her kick A Mt. - - ' ..j.t ...j. i i i . .. i , ' VINES GROWX BY MRS. J. D. SUTHERLAND, OF 213 COTTAGE STREET, SALEM. calkm Or Sent 4 -(Special. )-In the sweet pea competition held at this year's Cherry Fair at Salem. Mrs. J. D. Sutherland, of 212 Cot- SALLM. Or.. Sept 4 ,t ;li8e for the finest specimen. The vines grown by Mrs. Sutherland produced an unusually large number of h'EnT."" fitful C and texture were greatly praised during the competition. The seed was planted in March and the vines are now nearly 14 feet high. - . ..r- -rue CAVALiiY.ETC . and dislodge about half the pack. That bothered us. While wo were getting the pack back on, we forgot what to do next. We threw the cinch over, and tied th rope around every purt of the horse that we could think of, but it didn't seem to get results. Finally we tied the pack down in the way you rope a trunk, and got under way. If we hadn't been balked in our first attempt, we should have thrown the hitch perfectly. We knew that we could do it by taking time, but we wanted to get off. . In the saddle at last, and started! We realized right there that our trip was going to be a success, come what might. One look up at the emoky, blue hills, surmounted by the glittering pile of the SiEters, convinced us of that. Every canyon that opened up to our view hinted of .mystery, and the only thing that worried us was that we couldn't explore them all. We turned up the Willamette, and headed for Lowell, where we would strike the old Military Road, which we expected to follow as far as Hazel Dell. We stopped for dinner at Pleasant Hill, and as we lay under a clump of big flrs while the horses ate, and looked across at the blue hills, we were filled with the Joy that only the big woods can bring.. That afternoon we rode through the upper Pleasant Hill valley to Lowell. Pleasant Hill Is the oldest settled section in Lane County, and they still point out the chimney of the first cabin that was built. Those early settlers were men of discrimination. No more beautiful fields can be seen in Oregon than are located in Pleasant Hill. The second generation is now growing gray on the farms taken up by their fathers, and commodious houses have taken the place of the log and shake cabins. We arrived in Lowell a little after 6. and stabled our horses in the big Hyland barn, and went up to the house to eat a supper that it seemed to us we had been awaiting for a month at least. Lowell is now as lively a little place as you will find in Oregon. A big construc tion camp of the new Oregon Eastern Railroad is located Just below on the river, and the road is full of heavy freight teams from morning till night hauling supplies for the camps farther up SALEM SWEET PEAS WIN IN COMPETITIVE DISPLAY AT CHERRY FAIR. TOGE-TSICRj WITH SUNDSAD IN GETTING READY, INCLUDING TUSSlS the river. The people of the upper Wil lamette Valley are very deeply interested in the coming road. Every one of them can tell you the elevations, grades and plans for tunnels and stations as well as the surveyors. I was even tempted to think ' IctII i , PER 3 LB- INTO THE. . -l WITH THE, ti at times that some of them told me things that would have stumped the engineers themselves. This locality has so long been cut off from communication with the world in the Winter months that a railroad means more to them than a city dweller can well realize. The upper val ley has always been practically isolated from December until May. . The next morning when we went to the barn, a forest ranger was just packing his outfit to leave. We became an audi ence.Tight there. Of course, we knew that we could study the diamond hitch out all right, but our trip was becoming so pleasant that we didn't like to spare the time. We watched him lay the rope along the horse's back, throw the cinch over pass the rope around the bags, and pull 'it tight and fasten it with the beau tiful completeness of the diamond hitch. We looked at each other and nodded. "Perfectly eimple," said I. "I see now right where we went wrong, eaid Con. "Easiest thing ever." Doc chimed in. Dad said nothing. He had lived longer than we had. We got The Skate out, put on the pack saddle, hung the alforqueses on it. piled things on top. and prepared to throw the hitch. We Imitated the motions ot the ranger as closely as possible, and got clear around with the rope. We had a feeling that something was jrrong some where, but we pulled on the last rope with a first-class imitation of confidence. The whole thing came off in a knot that it took us 20 minutes to untie. We capit ulated and asked for help. Some one will be sure to tell you some day. if y yer make a pack trip, that the. diamond hitch is perfectly simple. Ask him what his game is right there. Compared to it the binomial theorem is scarcely fit for men tal gvmnastics for a two-year-old. and it has the forty-seventh problem of Euclid beaten eo far that the old man wou d die of shame If he ever came Wert and I saw the diamond hitch. And yet for do ns neatly, compactly and permanently the work fr which it is intended. I has up euperior among the devices of man. A short distance above Lowell we nassed over the boundary line of the Cascade National forest. One who has merely seen its outline on the map has no conception of the vastness of this piece of forest wealth that the Govern ment has set aside for the generations to come. iAter in the trip we climbed Dia mond Peak, and from Its top we could see a foresf empire covering a radius of approximately 40 miles. In all this vast domain the only visible break in the solid growth of timber were the mountain lakes The homes within the vast wil derness beneath our eyes could have been counted on tho fingers of one hand. Nor was it fit for anv more homes than were there. After leaving Hazel ien wb uiu not pass a single acre of land that could truthfully be said to be more valuable for agricultural purposes than for tim ber I may be a savage at heart, but I confess to a thrill of joy at the thought that here Is a land where the advance of settlement will be stayed and where we dwellers of the towns can always find the big woods untouched and unsullied. That night we made Hebert's place at Hazel Dell, the' end of our trip over the Military road, for the Salt Creek trail leaves Just beyond his house. The barn in which we stabled our horses that night would be a revelation to a pam pered Easterner. With the exception of five boards in the door, not a single stick of timber in it ever saw a mill. Frame work, flooring, siding, shingles, every stick of it was split from the virgin trees, and it is a square and symmet rical building, too. Many of the shingles are almost as thin and shapely as if they had been sawed. It takes the finest tim ber in the world to do that. When I was a small boy in the woodhouse we didn't have that kind. That night when we took off the pack we made a great and. solemn resolution. So help us, we would learn the diamond hitch, or stay right there in that barn trying till we were gray headed and had to buy our teeth. As we took it off the pack we studied every coil till we felt that we could make another like it with our eyes shut and our hands tied behind us. Every time we loosened a rope we promptly tightened.lt up, and tried it to see if it was right. After we got it off we put it back immediately, and by a miracle It came out right. We were prouder than a brand-new college gradu ate. After the pack was off we turned a wheelbarrow over on its back and prac ticed for an hour. It took brain work, but the next morning we had our reward. While we were packing up six grizzled old mountain men stood around with their hands in their pockets waiting to see the tenderfeet put on their pack. Every one of them had been packing -.HITCH . , horses since he was big enough to knn what one was, and we could fairly feel the scorn that would meet such a trunk rope hitch as we started with. We put on the saddle as If we had been doing that sort ot work ever since the time whereof the memory of man goeth, not to the contrary, piled on our outfit, and took up the rope with our hearts in our mouths. Right there was the proudest triumph of our lives. . We threw the hitch without a, mistake, and wound up according to Hoyle'by putting one foot against the skate's side and pulling till she groaned. Then we rode away before anything had time to happen. Just beyond Hebert's we entered Fairyland. The Salt Creek trail leaves the road, and leads off through a forest of tall straight iirs, and in five minutes you are beyond sight, sound and almost beyond memory of civilization. A quarter of a mile after you enter, and before you are done exclaiming over the trail, you strike the waters of the creek, green and foaming, and fairly shouting of trout. We came very near abandoning the whole trip and settling right down there to fish. For a half hour's ride we followed the water, and then the canyon became too narrow for the trail, which turned to the left, and began abruptly to climb the mountain. Some four years ago I crossed the Coast Range by the Wilson River stage road, and after I returned, wrote an article saying things about the cliffs Rround which the road ran. If anyone ever throws those remarks up to me I ' shall kill him in cold blood. That road Is a level, city street, with arc lights on both sides and a railing compared to I the Salt Creek trail. At one place I ' loaned from my horse and dropped a pebble into the waters of the creek 400 feet below. The trail was & narrow , lcrige some 18 Inches wide cut in the shale of the mountain side, and a mis step on tho part of one of the horses would have meant a side trip not in cluded In the original plans. From the moment one enters the Salt Creek trail he is In the midst of moun tains not to be surpassed for soenlo beauty anywhere in the United States. On the other side of the creek the moun tains rose so high that we never saw the top of them. We were afraid to take time to look clear to the top for fenr our horses would fall off the trail while we were star-gazing. To our left oner mighty crag rose Bheer 6i0 feet above Its fellows, its bare summit surmounted by a lone tree, so far above us that it looked like the Christmas trees you see In the shop windows In December. At " Its foot were two stone pillars, looking exactly like gate posts, even to the knobs on their tops. The minute we saw them ; we felt the gnawing of an almost un governable desire. Every other traveler in the West has felt it, and evidences of it are scattered all over the country. We felt as if we Just had to call tliHt place Castle Gate. It didn't look liku a castle gate, but that didn't matter. Ever since the West has been a West, people have been traveling around over It and calling places like that "Castle Gate," and it has got to be hereditary Instinct. We fought it, though, and con quered it. We wanted to make our trip different from other trip?, and we knew that to do it would require some sac rifice. The trail followed high up the moun tain for about in hour, then dipped again to the creek. At the water's edge it passed around the base of a tall cliff over which poured a tiny waterfall, and we rounded the point between tho rock and the greater part of the water, al though we got a plentiful shower bath. Below the waterfall was one of the most enticing trout pools I ever saw, but ' it was getting late In the fsrenoon and we had to find grazing before we could stop. We had been told that we would find horsefoed at some hot springs on the creek, and that it was about eight miles distant from Hazel Dell. Did you ever travel eight miles in the mountains when you were hungry? If you ever did, I'll wager you were ready to swear at the end of it that they had measured the distance with a crow, and that ho hadn't registered right at that. Those were long miles. We finally arrived at the hot springs, however, unsaddled the horses, and started out to find the pasture as per directions. We found the trail that had been described to us, followed it up the side ot a mountain so steep that it would have discouraged a goat, and arrived at the meadow, only to find that some mountain cattle had beaten us to It. There wasn't enough grass to sustain a good healthy katydid. We went back to camp with our faces so long that we tripped over our chins as we walked. When we got back, we found that our troubles were liglvt In deed. The Skate had lain down for a roll, and had got up so lame she couldn't walk. We made a little coffee and fried some bacon in moody silence, and sat down to this slim meal a dis couraged looking crowd. The cloud proved to have a little silver lining, at least, though, for the Skate's lameness proved to be only temporary, and we packed up and went on in search of grazing. It was a very sour and discouraged crowd that pulled out from the springs. For all we knew we might travel late into the night before we found feed. We had been told that there was a meadow some eighteen miles from Hazel Dell, but if the last ten miles were as long as the first eight, we thought we might travel clear to Eastern Oregon. Ima gine then, if you can, the feelings with which we came out onto the edge of a green, fresh little meadow of about an acre In extent! We almost fell off our horses and tried to eat the grass ourselves. I never saw a better sight than thtit grass. We spent the remainder of the day there, before resuming our trip Into one Vif the most beautiful regions in the West. The latter half of It, to gether with our experience with out door beds. I shall take up in another letter to follow soon. Eugene, Or., September 1. VACATION. Just now we ponder. As home we wander. Where we may.sq'ianier Vacation days. The seasons nigh u "When we must try us Some where to hie u In pleaaant ways. Were -purses fatter. It were no matter. Klurselves we'd scatter And hum our lays In mountain pajwe. Or where the baws Is, Or where no irrass t. But sand and spray. If too expensive. Such trips extensive. Bv. look too pensive Do not betray. Make no such blunder, But May In under. And he like thunder You were away. In the last 10 years r.25.000 persons have emigrated from England to the farms ot Canada. dozen OI mem. i