CHAPTER XXV
AN INTERVIEW WITH ULMER BALASCO
"Here we are on the Columbia at last!" cried Dale, in the morning, a couple of days later. The train had come up from Pendleton and struck the river at Umatilla. Again they saw a broad sheet of water, but this time hemmed in by a gorgeous cañon, overgrown with heavy brushwood and trees of large size. The railroad runs along the south bank of the river, through the cañon, and passes over Willow Creek, John Day and Deschuttes rivers, and numerous other streams.
Portland is the great lumber center of Oregon, and the distance to this city from Umatilla is about a hundred and seventy-five miles, as the river runs. But the young lumbermen were not going to Portland. Instead they were to stop off at a small station called Tunley, at a point where the Columbia made a slight turn to the northward. Here there was something of a cove, and beyond this a creek running up to the property owned by the Wilbur-Balasco Company, who also had a large "yard" at this point on the big waterway.
The ride along the riverside to Tunley was a picturesque one, and the young lumbermen were astonished when the brakeman called out the name of the station for which they were bound.
"Here we are, Dale!" cried Owen, as he reached for his valise. "We'd better step lively, for they don't stop over an hour at such a settlement as this."
They were soon on the depot platform, and their trunks were handed out after them. Their arrival was unexpected, and the station master and the half dozen rough-looking men standing around gazed at them speculatively. Then the express went on its way, leaving them to do for themselves in this strange spot, three thousand miles from their home in Maine.
Tunley consisted of a depot, a general store, a combination hotel and barroom, and half a dozen cabins, the homes of the men who looked after the lumber in the yard and along the creek. It was a flat, hot place, with the cañon wall to the east and the west, the broad river in front, and the split of the creek in the rear. The creek was a winding one, and on either side grew clumps of small firs. There had been big firs there years before, but these had all been cut down for timber long ago.
"This is the station for the Wilbur-Balasco Company's camp, isn't it?" said Owen to the station master, by way of an opening.
"It is," was the answer, and the railroad man looked them over with a keen eye. "Bound for that place, I reckon?"