grandmother; girls from fashionable boarding schools, their finery and diplomas packed away in the depths of the big wagons; yellowed youths from the malaria belt; matrons accustomed to the conveniences of comfortable homes, others from humble backwoods cabins; lean Kentucky men and bronzed Missourians. And always trailing were a few questionable adventurers, shiftless and dangerous to the train.

Bells tinkled as the caravan's cattle moved, and youth laughed. Women wept as day by day they slipped farther and farther from childhood playground and parental roof. Men grew silent and gaunt with the added miles.

Babies were born in the wagon boxes and beneath the trees. Death left the long trail bordered with graves into which the wolves and Indians dug and scattered the bones. Cattle died and for miles the stench of mortifying flesh never was out of the nostrils. One might have followed the route by the carrion birds. In places dust rose in smothering clouds but there was no escape from the deep-rutted road. Insolent and often a murderous savagery hung on the flanks of every train, stealing cattle or killing drivers. There were dangers of buffalo and cattle stampedes; of death in rivers; of oxen and horses drifting away in the night not to be found, and leaving wagons stranded. Vexatious insects goaded cattle and humans almost to a fury.

Judge Lynch held court along that old trail and men were hanged to uprighted wagon tongues, or, for the crime of insulting women, were tied to wagon wheels and their bared backs cut by every oxwhip in the company. Fever-tossed children moaned in hammocks that swayed beneath the wagon bows, and died there alone, grimed with dust.

Men's faces became unrecognizable in neglected beards; children wore clothing to tatters, and a few became naked; women, beginning the great journey in roomy. skirts, reefed and tucked or cut them to knee length. Necessity, not vanity, dictated the styles. A few resorted to trousers. Shoes were laid away. Barefooted man and maid courted around the campfires, vows were plighted there, and marriages were celebrated.

Rollicking evenings of music and story-telling initiated the journey. The violins whined; the trumpet's notes echoed back from the hills; the dreamy guitar and saucy banjo were strummed, the one to old songs, the other to young feet, and mothers wept in the wagons while their children danced. Weariness began to chill spontaneity. The company soberly cooked its frugal supper and went to bed. Fatigue and foreboding repressed the lighter mood. Men drew closer to one another and yet their independence of spirit grew. As the weeks lengthened into months footsore cattle grew emaciate and slow; vehicles required constant repairing, and the food supply fell lower and lower. Could they make their destination before it was entirely exhausted? before their teams succumbed? before the Indians destroyed them? Among the weaker apprehension became anxiety; haunting anxiety became unrelenting fear. Tumultuous haste overthrew restraint, and men and women wasted and, half-crazed, died. The strong pressed on, with a concourse of widows, widowers, orphan children, and parents whose lives were blackened by the memory of little nameless graves lost to them forever.

In many cases the discard began early. In others it was delayed almost to the Cascades. The bride's box of wedding dishes is set by the roadside, later to

adorn a savage tepee. Out goes father's toolchest and mother's prized clock. Even clothing is cast away-anything to lighten the burden of the ox and to hasten the journey. For 2,000 miles the old trail was strewn with properties which the owners no longer could carry and which those behind could not pick up. Furniture, old pewters, bedding, dishes, kitchenware, carpets, looms, musical instruments and favorite books marked the trail all through the Rocky Mountains to the Grande Ronde and the Columbia with a profligacy that described the straits of desperation.

Having mastered the hourly perils of half a year they came to their destinations only to face further privations and added perils. Impoverished in many cases by the unexpected exigencies of the journey these pioneers depended upon the grace of friends or resorted to Indian foods until better times. They were housed primitively, in the wilderness, often far from a neighbor and a day's journey to the postoffice. Savages lurked in the woods. The forest seemed a merciless. obstacle to successful husbandry.

Yet in the precious recitals of that period there scarcely is a syllable of complaint. There were hard conditions to be met. A virile Americanism met them. The savage was pacified with the rifle; the forest was razed with the ax; houses supplanted cabins. The truest neighborliness ever developed on the continent-and its generous loveliness still is observable wherever pioneers are gatheredwas born here, the offspring of the long trail's sacrifices and vicissitudes, and it was the saving anchor of pioneer life. These men and women, undaunted and unafraid, set themselves to the task of doing that thing for which they had come, and seventy years of unprecedented development followed them. But the immigrants paid well for all they won in the Arcadia they sought.

Washington, West of the Cascades

CHAPTER I

IN THE BEGINNING

EUROPEAN NAVIGATORS FIRED BY STORIES OF COLON'S DISCOVERIES

THE STRAIT OF

ANIAN, A MYTH OF GREAT VALUE TO THE WORLD JUAN DE FUCA, WAS HE A REALITY OR A DREAM CHARACTER?-OF INTEREST TO GREAT BRITAIN TO THROW DOUBT ON JUAN DE FUCA DISCOVERIES-DRAKE'S VOYAGES-SPANISH PUSH EXPLORATION-CAPT. JAMES COOK SENT OUT BY ENGLAND CAPTAIN GRAY ON THE SOUND VANCOUVER'S EXPLORATORY WORK-GRAY FINDS THE COLUMBIA RIVER AND EXPLORES IT FOR ABOUT THIRTY MILES.

The report that Don Christoval Colon, the Genoese, had discovered the coasts of India, "where the spices growe," as Sebastian Cabot wrote it in about 1497, fired the hearts of European navigators with the desire to reach that distant realm by a route shorter than by way of Good Hope. Colon's accounts thrilled the court of King Henry VII "in so much that all men," said Cabot, "with great admiration, affirmed it to be a thing more divine than human to saile by the west into the east, where spices growe, by a way that was never known before."

For centuries India's riches enticed the crowns of Europe and taunted daring mariners in caravel and bark. John Vaz Cortereal, exploring under direction of the Portuguese King, Alfonso V, discovered Terra de Baccalhaos, "the land of codfish," which now appears on the maps as Newfoundland. It was the Portuguese who first had found the way to India by way of Good Hope, and now they sought a shorter route. In 1496, Sebastian Cabot "began to saile toward the northwest, not thinking to find any other land than that of Cathay, and from thence to turn toward India." Gaspar Cortereal, also a Portuguese, made two voyages, one in 1500, the other in 1504. On the second voyage Greenland was reached, and later on Cortereal was given the distinction of having discovered a strait named Anian— one of the puzzles of history, and a phantom which for many years consumed the hopes of fearless men, and over-tempted the weak. The Strait of Anian was a myth, but of an inconceivable value to the world. The navigators of England, Russia, Portugal and Spain again and again essayed to find the strait and little by little unfolded the map of the New World, and in 1905 an Amundsen, after many months imperiled, actually did discover what all these navigators had sought -a Northwest Passage.

Vol. 1-1

Out of the voyaging, and the discussion of the Strait of Anian, sprung the recital of Michael Lok, Sr., British Consul at Aleppo, in which the name of Juan de Fuca first appears in history. Lok said that in April, 1596, while he was in Venice, he met an old man, a Greek, named Apostolos Valerianus, commonly known as Juan de Fuca, a pilot. He described to the credulous Lok a remarkable voyage which he professed to have made along the west coast of America, while serving as a pilot for an expedition sent out by the Viceroy of Mexico "to discover the Strait of Anian." The Greek's story included the discovery of a broad inlet between latitude 47 and 48, and into this inlet the expedition sailed for twenty days. "He saw some people on land clad in beasts' skins; * * * the land is very fruitful, and rich of gold, silver, pearls and other things, like Nova Spania,” as Lok quoted the Greek. Many historians believe that Lok was imposed upon. Little in de Fuca's defense has been found after more than 300 years. The passage that joins what we now call Puget Sound with the Pacific Ocean bears the name of a man who possibly never existed at all, or, if he did, it may not be unjust to assume that he was a fun-loving sailor who tricked the guileless Lok and the world; and by the performing of it, gained for himself a lasting fame which he might not have won had he actually done all that Lok related. Juan de Fuca's recital was accepted as the truth in 1788 when Meaco named the strait, and it may yet be established that de Fuca story is true.

The fact that official records verifying the Juan de Fuca story cannot be found is not sufficient entirely to condemn it. Cabrillo, sailing north from Mexico in 1542 touched the shore of California. In San Diego Bay he unfortunately broke an arm and was forced to return to one of the islands where he died. One of his last requests was that his pilot, Bartolome Ferralo, sail northward and continue the voyages he had begun. Ferralo carried out this instruction and in February, 1543, reached, according to his record, the forty-third parallel. This has been disputed; but there seems to be sufficient evidence to substantiate the allegation that Ferralo was the first white man to reach a point on the coast of Oregon. Other navigators, sailing under orders from the Mexican governors, undertook voyages to the northward and it is well within the limit of the possible that Juan de Fuca really existed and really did make the voyage he professed to have made. Spanish officials of American colonies were notorious for their carelessness about rewarding those who made new discoveries. Jealousies were aroused and even Cortez was supplanted by a more fortunate favorite of the crown.

To brand the de Fuca story as a myth possessed an advantage, from the British point of view. During the settlement of the boundary question the United States appeared as the successor of Spain to any territories which that country might have acquired on the shore of the North Pacific. To disprove the story of Juan de Fuca strenghtened the British claim to prior rights through the voyage of Drake in 1579. The report of this voyage does not show that Drake ever touched the shores of Oregon. After he had filled his vessel, the Golden Hind, with the stolen treasure of a large number of captured Spanish ships, this freebooter deemed it unsafe to try to return to England by way of the straits of Magellan but sought a new route to the northward. In June he encountered such severe cold that he turned south "til we came within thirtie-eight degrees toward the line," when he entered "a faire and good Bay." His report says that "there is no part of earth here to be taken up, wherein there is not some speciall likelihood