CHAPTER XXII
THE HOMEWARD ROAD
At the Dalles the travellers had changed from steamer to train, and,journeying all night on the cars, reached Walla Walla early nextmorning. Here they found a beautiful town of about five thousandinhabitants, situated in a section possessing a fertile soil and adelightful climate. Gardens were growing and fruit ripening, and allthings were bright and green. Twelve miles from Walla Walla was thealmost deserted town of Wallula. Here a branch line of the NorthernPacific Railroad took the party on to South Ainsworth on Snake River.Nothing could have presented a greater contrast than the two townswhich were seen on the same day, Walla Walla and Ainsworth. The firstwas from every point of view attractive, the second a sand waste onthe banks of the Snake River, a hopeless straggling little town of adozen or twenty houses set down in the midst of a dreary desert of sagebrush, utterly monotonous and uninteresting. Here the travellers wereobliged to pass one day, and all through that day and all through thenight the wind blew with steady, persistent force, carrying with it thesands of the plain, which it piled up here and there in great dunes andthen lifted again and carried on to some other point. The sandhillswere constantly shifting and being tossed backward and forward, asrestless and inconstant as the waves of the ocean. Often the sand ispiled high upon the sparse vegetation, and again it is carried away sothat the roots of that vegetation are uncovered.
After one day here they boarded a train and left for Spokane Falls,which was just about at the end of the track which was being builteastward. As they jogged slowly along in the caboose of the freighttrain, which moved unsteadily over the newly laid track, they had anopportunity to see much of the country. At first there was little toit that was attractive, but after leaving Snake River the quality ofthe land seemed to improve, and Hugh frequently called attention to thegood grass, and declared that he believed that some day this countrywould be full of cattle.
Jack, who had been thinking of what his uncle had said two or threedays before, said to Mr. Sturgis: "You don't think, Uncle George, thatany part of this country like Ainsworth will ever be good for anything,do you?"
"Yes, my boy, I do," said Mr. Sturgis; "of course we cannot see now howthis country will ever be made use of, but fifty years ago who wouldhave thought that the Salt Lake Valley was capable of cultivation, orthirty or forty years ago that Walla Walla would ever be a town. Ibelieve that this country will fill up with cattle and for a littletime will be a grazing country, and then I think that it will come tobe a farming country. The winters here are mild, the soil is good, andthere is plenty of water. There are going to be people here, and towns,but I don't know when."
A little distance after leaving a station called Summit they passed BigLake, and here entered a territory where there were already farms. Theycould see frequently houses with good barns, and the fields were dottedwith haystacks. There were also herds of cattle and horses, all fat andin good condition.
It was nearly night when they reached Spokane. As court was in sessionthe town was thronged with people, and they had great difficulty insecuring rooms. At last, however, a loft was found where they spreadtheir blankets and passed a good night. Before dark, however, they tooktime to walk along the Spokane River to see the Falls, a series ofbeautiful cascades which were well worth looking at.
Mr. Sturgis had provided himself with letters from the officials ofthe Northern Pacific Railroad to the employees along the road, andthe next morning they left for Lake Pend d'Oreille. Thirty-five milestravelling took them to Westwood, the end of the track, and there theytook a stage for the Lake. The three were the only passengers, and theride was long and dusty, yet possessed many features of interest. Theroad ran for the most part along the railroad's right of way, and theycould see all the various operations of the building of this greattransatlantic highway. After they had passed the end of the track theycame to one of the enormous railroad camps which always precede theiron of a new road. Here was a real canvas city, and its inhabitantswere white men, Chinese, horses, mules, and dogs. Everything was ona large scale. The eating tents covered an area equal to that of agood-sized town. There were hundreds of sleeping-tents. There weregreat forges at which many blacksmiths worked, and huge water troughsat which twenty-five horses could drink at a time. The bread-pan inthe cook tent was large enough to serve a full-grown man as a bathtub. Hugh and Jack could only stare and wonder and point out to eachother one astonishing thing after another; and even Mr. Sturgis, whoseexperience had been much wider than that of either of his companions,was much impressed.
As the stage approached the lake, the road became constantly rougher.They passed from the railroad camp and saw first the bridge workers,next the graders, and then the "right of way" men, whose business itwas to chop their way through the forest and clear off all the timberalong the line of the track for a width of fifty feet. After the timberwas felled it was left to dry and was then set on fire.
"That's bad business," said Mr. Sturgis; "these men think of nothingbut the convenience of the moment. All these fires that they arekindling and that they are leaving to burn here may set the hills onfire, and large tracts of country may be burned and much valuablestanding timber destroyed."
"Yes," said Hugh, "these men think of nothing but the quickest way ofgetting rid of anything that they don't use."
"It's the fault of the contractors," said Mr. Sturgis, "and some meansshould be found to stop such a destruction of timber."
A little later, as the stage approached the lake, they could see thewoods on fire everywhere. The stage-driver told them that this had goneon for some time, and that on two or three occasions recently the fireshad been so extensive that the stage had been unable to get through tothe lake, and had been forced to turn around and return.
On this day the driver went carefully and succeeded in picking outplaces where he could get through, though more than once the stagedrove between piles of blazing logs which made it uncomfortably warmfor the passengers. The timber was largely pine and hackmatack, butthere was also some white and some yellow birch.
Not long after the fire had been left behind they came into an opencountry, from which, ahead of them, they could see a large sheet ofwater; and presently from a hill they looked down upon beautiful LakePend d'Oreille, surrounded on all sides by towering, timbered hills.
At the end of the stage line there was an engineer's camp; and here, toMr. Sturgis' great surprise, he met among the engineers two friendswhom he had not seen for years and whom he little expected to meet inthis far off spot. The surprise was a mutually delightful one. Hisfriends seized him, and Jack, and Hugh, and insisted on their sharingthe hospitality of their camp, and a very delightful evening was spentthere.
Some distance down Pend d'Oreille River, or as it is often called,Clark's Fork of the Columbia, and so some miles from the engineer'scamp, was a place known as Siniaqueateen, which in the Flatheadlanguage means "the place where we cross." Here was the supply depotfor the engineer department of the Northern Pacific railroad, and herewere the headquarters of Mr. Galbraith, the commissary, who had chargeof the advance transportation of the railroad. To him Mr. Sturgis had aletter from the railroad officials; and to Siniaqueateen the travellerswent the next morning. It was a small settlement, consisting of atrader's store and house, and two or three other stores and houses,and the office buildings belonging to the railroad. Here is the fordacross the river which gives the place its name; and here is where thetrail between the Flathead Lake and the Kootenay District of BritishColumbia, distant over two hundred miles, crosses the stream. From timeimmemorial this has been a crossing place for the Indians, travellingnorth and south through the country. Now on the bank of the river therewas a camp of Kutenai Indians.
About the ferry were lounging many Indians, who, to Jack's eye seemedquite different from the Coast Indians, and much more like the peopleof the plains to whom he was accustomed. He asked Mr. Galbraith aboutthese people, and Mr. Galbra
ith, who knew a number of the individualsof the two tribes, told him something about them.
"These Flatheads that you see here belong in the country as do alsosome Kutenais, but not those that have just come in, and are in camphere. They are from the north and are bringing down their furs totrade."
"Why do they call them Flatheads, Mr. Galbraith?" asked Jack. "Theydon't seem to have their heads flattened as the Coast Indians have. Theheads of these people are shaped like those of any one."
"Well," said Mr. Galbraith, "I don't know why they are calledFlatheads, but that is the name for them in this country. They do notcall themselves by that name. They call themselves Kallispelms. Theyare pretty good Indians, hunt all through this region, farm a little,and have plenty of horses. In July or August they always come downto the lake shore, because then, when the water is low, and the bigmeadows on the edge of the lake are exposed, the camas grows up, andthey dig the roots which form a considerable portion of their vegetablefood."
"I have heard of camas," said Jack, "but I don't think I ever saw itgrow to know it. What is it like?"
"Why," said Mr. Galbraith, "I don't know what the books call it; butit is a root that grows in damp places, has two long leaves like alily, and a slender stalk that bears a blue flower. The root is shapedsomewhat like an onion or a tulip. The women gather them in greatquantities. Then, after they are gathered, they are cooked and thendried for use in the winter. After they have been dried the roots areabout as big as the end of your finger; and just after cooking they aresweet, something like a chestnut. The Indians make a very good bread bysqueezing a lot of the newly cooked bulbs together."
"How do they cook them?" asked Jack.
"Oh, in the usual way," said Galbraith. "They dig a big hole in theground; build a fire in it in which they heat stones and then spreadgrass over the hot stones. They then pile in a great quantity of theroots, covering them with grass, and next with hot stones. Then thewhole thing is covered with earth, and the pit is left alone for threeor four days. The women know when to open it, and when they do so andtake off the stones and the grass the heat of the stones has cooked theroots which have turned dark brown in color and are ready to use. It'sfun to see the children cluster around when the pit is opened, and tosee them struggle to get the grass which has covered the roots. Thisgrass is covered with a sweet syrup and the children delight to suckit. I suppose there are a lot of roots and berries which the Indiansknow of and use, of which we know nothing at all."
"Yes," said Jack, "I know that is so in my country. There is hardly anytime in the summer but there is some vegetable food ripening that theIndians know of and use."
"There's another root called kaus, that the Kutenais know of," said Mr.Galbraith. "They dry and pound up these roots and then mix them withwater and bake them in cakes, and they make a good bread. These rootsare sweet and aromatic. Of berries, the sarvis berry is perhaps themost important, and it grows abundantly all through the mountains, butthere are a number of other berries, fruits, and roots."
That night Mr. Sturgis had a talk with Mr. Galbraith, who said that hecould very easily take them across the lake in the company's sailboat,and then would give them saddle and pack horses to take them up thePend d'Oreille River, to the Jocko or any other point that they mightwish to go to. At the Jocko, they could hire some Indian or half-breedto drive them on to Deer Lodge, and from Deer Lodge they could takethe stage to Missoula or Silver Bow, which he understood was then theend of the track of the narrow-gauge road running up from the South.To all hands this seemed the best way to get home; and as they werenow on the very borders of Montana it seemed that they had but a shortdistance to go before they would once more be in their own country.
The next morning early, accompanied by Mr. Galbraith and with a crew ofthree or four voyageurs, they started out from Siniaqueateen for theLake. The river gradually became more and more wide and the scenery wasvery beautiful. The stream valley was broad, and smooth grassy meadowsdotted here and there with willows and other small trees sloped gentlyup to the higher land from the water's edge.
Before they had reached the lake, a number of Indians were seenpaddling close along the shore in their canoes, which were of atype entirely new to Mr. Sturgis as well as to Jack and Hugh. Thesestructures were sharply pointed at both ends, and as much as anythingresembling cylinders of bark.
"These canoes are different from anything I ever saw before," saidHugh. "I know the birch canoes of the North, and I have just come backfrom a voyage in the wooden canoes of British Columbia, but I never sawanything like this. What are they made of, and how are they made?"
"They are made of pine bark," said Mr. Galbraith, "and they are queercanoes. I never saw them anywhere except in the country west of theRocky Mountains and about two or three hundred miles north and south.The Indians take the bark from the white pine in very large sheets andmake rolls of it, which they stow away dry until they need it. Thenthey soak the bark in water until it becomes soft and pliable and easyto handle. Then they make a frame of small cedar poles lashed togetherwith strips of cedar bark, and this frame is then covered with sheetsof this pine bark, which are sewed together with tamarack roots, andpatched with resin from the fir tree. The outside of the bark is onthe inside of the canoe, and the Indians paddle on both sides. Thesecanoes are mighty cranky, and upset very easily. Of course sails arenever used in them, but the Indians keep close to the shore, and do notdare to cross over from point to point."
The next morning there was a good breeze. They started to cross theLake and soon after noon reached the Northern Pacific's camp at themouth of Clark's Fork. The company's surveyors were laying out the lineup this river; and their supplies and mail were ferried across the lakeand carried east along the line of the road which led up toward theCoeur d'Alene Mountains. Here Mr. Galbraith, with great energy gottogether an outfit of pack and saddle animals, and the next morning alittle train of seven animals filed out of the camp and took the trailfor Missoula.
The journey up Clark's Fork was a delightful one and took about sevendays. The party travelled fast, stopping neither to hunt nor fish. Deerand bear signs were plenty, and in a few cases white-tailed deer wereseen, but none were killed. The daylight hours were spent in ridingthrough the beautiful river valley and among the great cinnamon-coloredtrunks of giant pines that formed the chief timber of the country, andat night the party was always ready for supper and bed.
Hugh and Mr. Sturgis were enthusiastic about the prospects of thisregion, where there was much fine land and unlimited grazing.
At the Jocko, the wagon road began; and here the pack train wasdismissed and the travellers' guns and blankets were transferred to awagon driven by one of the large tribe of McDonalds, descendants ofsome old Hudson's Bay trader who had married a Flathead woman. Theywere then taken to Missoula, and from there to Deer Lodge, _Le logis dechevreuils_, as their driver called it.
From Deer Lodge it was a matter of a little staging to Melrose,which was then the terminus of the Utah and Northern railroad. HereMr. Sturgis, Jack, and Hugh found themselves back again in bustling,hurrying America, and oppressed by the feeling that they must at onceget back to their work. They were soon once more on the cars, flying athigh speed toward their destinations.
Three days later on the Union Pacific railroad Mr. Sturgis and Hughshook hands with Jack and left him alone, and three days later he wasonce more in New York.
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Transcriber's note:
Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible. Some minor corrections of punctuation have been made.
A number of minor spelling errors have been corrected without note.
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