Seven years on the Pacific slope

Front matter

the library

BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY PROVO, UTAH

SEVEN YEARS

II The Far West at Close Range

Fate takes up my challenge — The “dashing adventurer” — Travelling through forest fires — Silence, the first lesson of the West — A steamerette on the Columbia — Snags, cliffs, and rapids — The mail bag and the mail carrier — I “hit” the hotel — “Farewell, beloved umbrella!” — Rivers in flood — Sixty miles of stage over switchback trails — A tight place — The pious brigand — Mother and son — The shanty on the hill — A lonely night — My landlady and her philosophy — A bachelor’s cabin — His menu — A prosperous invalid — My study in the hay loft — Summer gold and Winter splendours.

Ill

A Neck of the Woods .

The Winter One’s arrival — Company in the stoke hole — Pi¬ oneers and stay-at-homes — An arctic ride — Frozen! — The good Samaritan at the half-way house — A cold welcome to the Valley — Amazing scenery — Solitary homes — The spirit of madness — A ghostly saraband — The abiding menace — Voices in the cook-stove ! — “ Get me another ! ” — The triumph of Winter — The burden of the unknown — What the rancher has to face — Cayuses and their ways — On the home grade in the dark — Snow light and snow music — South — and North !

IV Page

An alarming visitor — The schoolmaster’s dilemma — Granma and Co. to the rescue — “Think you can handle all this truck?” — A shivaree — Counselling the doubtful — Mr. Hasketh’s wedding — A hunt for a minister — Too tempting a dinner — A stormy wedding trip — “ One o’clock, and rain¬ ing cats and dogs!” — The bride and the lantern — The cream of society — “Something in the cornfield!” — A mid¬ night chase — Four-legged visitors — The circus on the porch — Marauding cattle — Retribution! — The cat-ranch — “Gwendolen” and the musk-melons — Halloween celebra¬ tions — An epidemic of lawlessness — Confiscated fire-arms — Borrowers and their ways — The travels of a cook-stove — The mysterious adventures of a yellow-wheeled buggy —

An outburst of flowers — The story of the Pilot daisy — Sentimentality and dandelions — Captured streams — An irrepressible crop.

V

The Chief of the clan starts a town of his own — A popular store — “A quiet mare and a light rig” — The Mackenzie shack — Pictures through the door-frame — One sad evening — Mother Flanagan — A baby’s funeral — Chan philosophises — Ruth makes a break for freedom — “I want my shoes!”

— “Never again!” — Ira goes courting — A treacherous parent and a bag of feathers — Pete’s reparation — Granma entertains the wedding party — Chan the changeling — Flor¬ ence and Eve — A waiting bride — The preacher’s good ad¬ vice — “Congratulations are in order!” — Phased! — The cream of the day — A lantern, a blanket — and the barn!

VI

How Mrs. Dick teamed back to Nebraska — A waggon-load of children — One more? — Huckleberry hunting — The moon, the berries, and the big brown bear — When school is out — Girls and horses — The sleigh omnibus — Teachers and their trials — A loyal wife — The Pecksniffian element — A terrible fire — The horses saved — “Senator” refuses to for¬ sake the family.

VII

Luck’s revenges — A riotous evening — The Winter One nar¬ rates — Bill’s dreadful discovery — The skeleton Hand!

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Page

— How the news was broken to the family — “Someone stayed!” — Too complete — A little parlour ornament of the Mehalahs — “Take me home!” — A survival of feudalism

— How the carpenter became a permanency.

VIII

Our popular berry patch — Half shares — A carnival of fruit — The Judge has the blues and explains why — An expensive hat — Splitting up the spring — Hudson’s only vice — The Judge prophesies — A nervous moment in the printing office — “The devil’s broke loose” — That black bull of Chap¬ man’s! — The snow in advance of the schedule — The bear tries the gate — Tracks in the snow — The coyotes’ Jacob’s ladders — Women and guns.

IX

A powder headache — The stuff that “comes in handy”

— Kitty takes command — Gramophones and ranchers — The New England conscience — A great expedition — The fairy woods — A hothouse in the open air — The white log cabin — A bachelor host — Methodist and Cosmopolitan — A night with the stars — A whisk of fur — Tom and Polly — A doomed cat — How Polly was fixed up for the winter.

X

In dark places — A troubled mind — A single shot — Lend a hand! — A sad procession — The genial drummer — “Beer for mine” — Dick’s bad joke — The sawmill and the Owner — A fad gone mad — New wine in old bottles — A record morning’s work — The Owner resolves to better it — A danger sign — Silent noon — In the engine-room — The Boss tidies up — The steam gauge climbs out of sight — “ Get out, boys!” — “Where’s the safety valve?” — The boiler be¬ haves like a perfect lady.

XI

Our first conflagration — The bag of salt — Fireworks — A haunted chimney — Desolation Hill — An enthusiast — The colour scheme — Solitude and peace — Bridges in general and ours in particular — Condemned but left standing — The in¬ evitable happens — How the freighter’s life was saved by his overalls.

IX

XII

Page

The adaptable cayuse — We decide to improve the breed — The Percheron arrives — A dazzling apparition — Illusive prosperity — A wave of optimism — A lost fine gentleman — An interlude at the creamery — Lye — inside the churn — Mr. Robinson’s opinion of double entry — The “ lil ” horse that never stood up — Poor Percheron ! — A horse-tamer’s meth¬ ods — Breaking a “ bucker ” — A four-footed hypocrite — Beauty and Saidie — A fight for the mastery — Coquetries of a septuagenarian.

XIII

A man of mark — Philosophers of the mountains — Dick’s boys — The man who brought a lawsuit against himself — Boers and ranchers — A favourite diversion — A challenge — A trading comedy — Dick wins his dollar — Our education comes upon the stage — The new bank and its popular manager — A colossal spree, and how it was paid for — The black year — The best of good fellows.

XIV

Family politics — The girl who deserved a piano — How she got it — The golden-mouthed agent — An empty victory — A typical Texan — “A hundred dollar horse for a ten dollar man” — The Temperance movement — The cold water bri¬ gade — A real reform — Brother B - ’s stratagem — The

baseball dance and what came of it — “A slight argument”

— The warm twins — How we got our charter.

XV

We get a real live lawyer — He kindly takes us in charge — A caretaker has to be found for him — The caretaker retires — “A magazine full of thirty-thirties ! ” — The deputy sheriff is called in — But refuses to give battle alone — The insur¬ gent is captured and deported — Peace, perfect peace — till he returns — The J. P.’s advice — “Manage him by kind¬ ness!” — A fashionable charity — We start a newspaper of our own.

x

XVI

Page

The hatching of the “Eagle” — Its warlike editor — The “Demon Rum” — The owners’ protest — Waiting for Fri¬ day — Trouble at the Duck Brand — “Booze champions, be¬ ware!” — The “formality of a license” — The siege of the newspaper office — The besiegers are repulsed — The rank and fashion of the town under arrest — A perplexed sheriff and a distracted constable — The amazing trial — The judge’s great opportunity — “ Guns ? Shucks ! ” — “ Pass ’em up, boys! ” — The closing of the case — The fell discovery in the cellar — Our lawyer takes his leave.

XVII

Fair game — Tight fingers — Options — The Mackenzie end of the business — A Britisher is wished upon us — The de¬ serving young man — Mr. Hasketh obtains another perma¬ nency — The ex-clerk prophesies — “A real business man ” — A pergola to think in — Who rode the black horse — Restless ranchers — The apple fever.

XVIII

Evening on Desolation Hill — The moments that pay for all — Footsteps! — Mountain hospitality — The visitor explains himself — “Me and old Pieface!” — The habits a man gets into! — Misfits — The star and the tenderfoot — A proud moment — “ An open-faced Kid ” — “ There’s your pay ” — A life for every five dollars — The story of “the Kid” — His capture — His escape — His end.

XIX

Indians and horse-traders — A hardened sinner — The squaws take a hand — Dick’s defeat — Gold seeking — “Horses’ Heaven” — The “Momma Vein” — A surprise in the cook-stove — Bill the water wizard — The time-fuse — An obstinate well digger — What happened to Bert — “A little common sense” — Man — or beast? — An ugly story — Charlie’s vic¬ tory — The sheriff’s jewel — A modern Sameson — The empty prison.

xi

XX Page

Old “Lady Tiler” — Baptist theology — The smile of one year — A tragedy in a back yard — Dolly hands in her checks — What a situation! — Friendly strangers — A sad farewell — The blue horse — A sensational drive home — A real great lady.

XXI

Faithful under difficulties — The building of the church — Our padre — His parish — The size of Holland — American pa¬ gans — A harried bridegroom — Where is Ben? — The Judge has to fetch the bride — Flowers and bridesmaids — The be¬ witched ring — “ Something like a minister ! ” — A crowded party — Willie and the ice cream — “ Hallo, Sis! ” — Poor old Ben! — The wedding journey — Dumped on the “Summit”

— Spokane at last — “Professional people?”

XXII

Where the heart turns ever — Valhalla on earth — The star-dusted mood — Rain in the mountains — A mad condottiere — Will the end come so? — Our comrades’ chances — The white benediction — An ideal town — One spot on the map — The happiest city in the world.

Xll

ILLUSTRATIONS

Sheep grazing high up on the National Forest at the head of the Methow River . . Frontispiece

In the Upper Methow Valley, Winthrop, Wash- FAp™° ington . . .8

On the Methow River . 26

At the head of the Twisp, Upper Methow Valley . 40

Cattle watering in the Methow River ... 62

Columbia River steamboat bound for Pateros, Washington, “ The Gateway to the Methow Valley.” This boat is now, 1914, superseded by the railway . 84

Dick drives “the Comrade” to town . . .110

The “Winter One” in town . 126

Harvesting, Methow Valley, Washington . .158

Memorial Day, I. O. O. F., Winthrop, Washington 188

Twisp in winter . 198

The “ Comrade ” and her dog . 234

Log-driving in the Upper Methow Valley . .278

The Methow Valley Railroad . 296

In the “ City of Homes ” . 372

* i

The incorporation of Washington in the Union — Quarrels over bound¬ ary lines — Its unique geographical position — Twenty-three million acres of forest and five rivers — The call of free spaces — Life in the raw — A man-sized country — “ Live and let live ” — Conflicting valuations — Daniel Webster’s mistake — The Home Valley, a true Republic — How we came to the Methow — Why we stayed.

JUST twenty-five years ago, a rather irregular square, occupying the extreme northwest corner of the United States territory, was promoted, as “ Washington,” to the honour of being the twenty-ninth of the now existing forty-five States of the Union. Its sixty-nine thousand square miles of rich, unexplored surface had been quar¬ relled over for many years, and it was only in 1846 that a boundary line was definitely drawn up and agreed upon by the High Contracting Litigants, Great Britain and the United States. It is a country which seems to have yielded unwillingly to the advancing tide of immigration, and this for natural reasons, since, beyond the towering

1 Every State has its characteristic name as well as its official one. That of Wash¬ ington refers to the warm moist wind which the Indians call the Chinook. It blows capriciously generally towards the spring, and will clear the country of many feet of snow in twenty-four hours.

I barrier of the Rocky Mountains, which it shares with Idaho and Montana, it has a whole chain of its own, the Cascades; a procession of wild and formidable peaks which, parting from the great spine of the Rockies in Canada, shoots down through Washington and intersects it in a straight line almost to the southern boundary, forming a solid escarpment against incursions from the direction of the Pacific. It was a costly and complicated business to carry the railway through the Cascades to the beautiful port of Seattle on their further side, and even now, as my tale will show, snowslides in winter and forest fires in summer do away with any fear of monotony for the travellers on that line.

Between the Cascades and the Rockies proper, sheltered by both and enriched by uncounted ages of sun and rain, and snow as kindly and fostering as the dew, lies a district as large as England, where beautiful new cities have indeed sprung up, and there are townships by the hundred — very prosperous ones, too — but where, when I first visited it in 1905, there were over thirteen million acres of unappropriated land, of which eight million acres had not even been surveyed. The forests cover twenty-three and a half million acres of Washington — and there are no less than five full strong rivers that water and drain it roy¬ ally. The Columbia, the greatest of all, rushes down from Canada at the northeast corner, and then, after making, with the help of the tributary Okanogan, almost an island of the vast Indian Reservation called Colville, seems un¬ willing to leave the State, and twists and turns bewilderingly before it issues on the southern side and constitutes itself the boundary line between Washington and Oregon, for nearly three hundred miles, ere it tosses its travelled stream out into the Pacific Ocean.

If there is any one among my readers who has heard year after year, through all the buzz and tumult of our modern life, the persistent call of great free spaces, ring¬ ing still through a hundred generations, of that desire of conquest which drove our ancestors from Europe to the New-born West — let him come over the Rockies into Washington and find content. To only a few comes the call. Here and there — to some restless, vigorous scion of an old stock, as a rule — but, once heard, it becomes an ache, a cry, a hunger, which it is good to heed and parlous to neglect. Some of us who hear it have first been driven through all that modern life has to give of show and colour, ambition, beauty, interest; but a day comes when all these things fall into a kind of dusty nothingness around us, and the entity we brought into the world refuses to be sustained by them any longer. Then — what? In such temperaments the sense of self-preservation is abnor¬ mally strong, and the same instinct that makes one rush to open the windows in some long closed, evil-smelling room drives them forth, scandalously careless of the opinion of friends and foes, to get what they need and will have, life in the raw.

Ah, the sweet wild health and strength of it! Like a young recruit, or a novice being tested by keen-eyed superiors, we are put through our paces, and pretty strenu¬ ous ones they are. At first the hardness and roughness mean suffering, and we cry out, and whimper for the padded walls of our old prison sometimes; but that soon passes away, and then the very hardness of the existence becomes a joy. We have been received as members of the advance guard, and every turn of the spade that helps the soil to yield up its riches, every handgrasp between neighbour and neighbour, all looking one way and desir¬ ing good to the land and to one another — the depend¬ ence of life itself on mutual good-will, where no ready¬ made methods prevail — all these things set one growing into a man-sized human being at last, and once known and loved, forbid content with anything less than a man-sized job and a man-sized country for the rest of one’s life.

And a man-sized country breeds tolerance. There is so much room that the cranks and the quitters do not really get in anybody’s way except their own, and along that their neighbours watch them go, with large-minded and mostly silent compassion, knowing the hard condi¬ tions and that not all men are equal to them. A. drinks — when he has a chance; it is his own affair, we do not reproach him with it when he is sober. B. was born with an unconquerable aversion to work; that makes it hard for his wife and family, certainly, but it is no reason why we should not enjoy his racy and illuminating talk when circumstance throws us together. The road is wide enough for all, and there is a general feeling that it will not speed us on it to stop and pick up stones to throw at those who do not foot it to our own trim and gallant quick-step. Besides, life in the raw is full of surprises; the strongest may trip over some unexpected obstacle and find himself for a time among the stragglers and in need of pity. So one abstains from judging and learns to be indulgent and more ready to find excuses than condemna¬ tions.

And that is what we must ask from kind readers for the men and women spoken of in this book. They will find few wholly admirable — for these are all real living people, not characters manufactured to suit the reading public; also very few who are wholly to be condemned. There is generally some saving grace in our common humanity, after all. Even the least satisfactory had left everything behind, and faced the enormous West with all its huge, blind chances of good and ill; and it takes courage to do that; they had had the nerve to try; and, whatever the result, we may be sure Heaven loves a trier.

There are conflicting opinions even now on the value of that part of Washington State which forms a much elongated triangle between the frontiers of British Co¬ lumbia on the north, and the Okanogan and Methow 1 rivers, which empty themselves, within a few miles of one another, into the Columbia, on the South. The enthusiasts claim a splendid future for it; the pessimists declare that since the Great Northern Railway has found no use for it yet, it will live unstoried and “ peter out ” unmourned. As I am among the enthusiasts I would remind our opponents that Daniel Webster, whom they as well as we rank among America’s great statesmen, thus regarded the whole of the West. In Congress he fiercely opposed the acquisition of the Oregon Territory,

1Prounounced Met-hon.

which at that time embraced all the country now covered by the State of Washington, and over which America was quarrelling violently with Great Britain. Daniel Webster, in a famous speech, said, “What do we want with those barren wastes, this uninhabitable region filled with icebergs (!) and mountains covered with eternal snow? Mr. President, I will not vote for the Government of the United States to spend one dollar to bring the Pacific coast a single foot nearer than it is to-day ! ”

When one realises that if the United States had lis¬ tened to Daniel Webster then, and to those who opposed the Louisiana Purchase later, Great Britain and France would now be owning vast territories — some of the richest on our Continent — within our own borders, one shivers retrospectively at the disasters avoided and re¬ joices at the enthusiasm which carried the hard-fought days. I think that all else being equal, it is better, more profitable, in the long run, to risk chances with the enthusi¬ ast than to sit down and croak with the pessimist. The latter is always fearfully dull company, and the former does supply us occasionally with a pleasant surprise. He has the courage of his convictions, at any rate, and whether he succeed or fail, stands much higher in per¬ sonal value than the indolent prophet of evil who never raises a hand to help the world along and whose only satisfaction comes in the sour triumph of saying “ I told you so ! ”

It is a pleasing occupation to watch the pessimist worsted, to see him openly convicted of false prophecy; and this amusement was afforded me several times during the years of my residence in the Methow Valley. The enthusiast’s schedule was, one must admit, often at fault; the good results did not always arrive on time; but they did come in their own slow, sure way, and when I look back on things as they were in the Valley in 1905 and then contemplate the immensely improved conditions now, I can nail my flag tighter than ever to the optimist’s flag¬ staff, for the years have shown that we were right — right to trust the good country, right in believing that her hard-handed, clear-eyed sons and daughters could and would carry through what they had begun.

In this book it has been necessary to give, as it were, two individual stories, which sometimes merge into one, sometimes take their separate ways. In no other fashion could the account of the place and our experiences there be made in any way complete. There are always, in primitive places, two little worlds, the one of the men, the other of the women. They have many points of contact, but the fact remains that women will open their hearts to a woman and men to a man in a fashion quite distinct from that which one sex will accord to the other. So, to give any true impression of the only bit remaining of the Far West, it was necessary that my, son and I should describe things as they were shown to us individ¬ ually. The result may be that we have both sometimes touched on the same event, but we trust that this will not be charged to us as repetition — since it only occurs where we witnessed reverse scenes and heard the different sides of a story. Of one thing, gentle reader, be sure — we are telling the truth. Some names have been changed, for obvious reasons; some stories that worked out slowly (as stories of human lives will) condensed into a con¬ tinuous narrative; but facts, language, portraits are all as veraciously described as possible, and nothing has been set down in malice. To the dear people themselves, who may imagine that we are holding them up to ridicule now and then, I would say, as I once said to a friend who accused me of laughing at her, “ No, that is not true — I only smile with you ! ”

So, “here they are, our fifty men and women”; to most of them our hearts go back a hundred times a day, for their kindliness and strength and sturdy humanity. Many a time we have been asked in these long seven years, by old friends in the populous places, “ Why on earth do you live in the Methow?” In answer to that ques¬ tion we say, “ Because it is what its people call it, * God’s Country.’ Because of the green glory of its summer mornings, the awesome beauty of its winter nights, the bloom of its unrifled soil; because our tired souls can breathe more freely under the vast circle of the Methow sky; because every star and tree and hilltop has become a landmark on a journey of rejuvenation for minds deaf¬ ened by the warring noises of the world; because (per¬ haps, the strongest reason of all) the mental atmosphere of the ‘ Home Valley ’ is as untrammelled as its airs. There the only claim to respect is founded on character. The honest man and the worker, whether he be a strug¬ gling settler who has walked hundreds of miles to get there and then has set himself single-handed to conquer the wilderness, or a public-spirited citizen with a big bank

IN THE UPPER METHOW VALLEY, WINTHROP, WASHINGTON account, is a prince among his peers. And the women — hats off, gentlemen ! — are heroines of devotion and cour¬ age; because, in all this great world, swayed by the love of money and the baseness of snobbery, there is one — perhaps the only true — Republic, where a man is judged by what he is, not by what he has.”

We were drawn to the Methow by a series of appar¬ ently unmeaning accidents and impulses which ended by crystallising into a chain and held four of us in the coun¬ try for years. My own count seven, but my younger son, he who writes this book with me, had preceded me by nearly two years. I was a little uncertain of his where¬ abouts when, one icy January morning in New York, I received a wire from Vancouver announcing that he would land at Seattle the next day. He was coming from the soft warmth of the East, and New York, that Jan¬ uary, was a pneumonia factory, dangerous even to sea¬ soned Yankees; so a wire flew back bidding him wait for instructions in Seattle, where an old friend of one of his uncles was requested to find a possible spot where he could pass the remainder of the winter. The friend was kind, but he gave not much thought to the matter, and finally sent off my son to another friend, the one hereafter mentioned in these pages as the “ Owner.” The “ Owner,” kind in intention but not highly gifted with insight, was feeling cold and lonely, and at once became convinced that cold and loneliness and every kind of unnecessary hardship constituted the best recuperative treatment for a man who had been invalided out of the Army (after having gone through the entire three years of the South African war) because he had been shot three times, twice clean through the body, had marched again and again thirty miles on his feet, had been sent at the end of one such march to swim a river in flood and mount picket in an icy wind, with soaked clothes, the same night. It is amusing how trifling such things look to men who have never had to put up with a moment’s discomfort unless they chose !

“ What you need, my dear boy,” said the “ Owner,” “ is hardening! You Englishmen take life too easy! ”

The “ Owner ” professed to have had some trials and fatigues on first coming into the country seventeen years earlier, and though these were long past, the queer little streak of vengefulness that runs in the back of most peo¬ ple’s heads made him like “ to see the young ones at it.” He never quite admitted this to himself, but he used to tell me frankly that, to his sorrow, he recognised a strong streak of the Puritan in his make-up, and this scourged him into hardnesses that the other man in him shuddered at secretly. But the Puritan held out, and, where circum¬ stances supplied the power, could not resist acting as a “ hanging Judge ” to other people’s frailties. So the boy had a pretty tough time at starting.

In the summer of that year, 1905, I was on my way to Japan from New York, and he came down to pass a couple of days with me in Seattle. I found him very thin and very quiet, but no word passed his lips that could make me feel anxious about his daily welfare and general contentment. It was a queer country up there, he said, but he had come to like it; the people were friendly and amusing, life presented no serious difficulties, and he was perfectly satisfied with it. My youngest son has probably as many faults as other women’s sons, but he has a marvellous command of silence, and that is such a rare virtue that I must be forgiven for noting it to his credit. He never whines. I was deceived and went off to Japan with a quiet heart. A year later I returned, as I then thought, to spend a two months’ holiday with Hughie and, when it should be ended, to go back to Japan, where much interesting work had been planned for me. But fate put up the shutters on work. For six months and more I battled with the misery known to brain-workers as “ broken-head.” My correspondence piled up unread — it gave me fever to read a letter. There was nothing for it but to give in and trust that rest in this strange, wild, peaceful place would cure the malady. It did, in time, but there remained from it such an overpowering horror of the old crowded life, where one elbows one’s painful way through the din and the throng, that no cure known to civilisation could ever draw me back into it.