Fortunately this penetrated their besotted minds and they put about in time to save the lives of all on board, although they landed some distance below the usual place.
A little farther and they would have been past all human help.
One of the boatmen cheerfully acknowledged the next day that if it “hadn’t been fur that purty girl they had a’ gone over them falls, shure.”
The other boat had a similar experience; it began to leak profusely before they had gone very far and would soon have sunk, had not the crew, who doubtless were sober, made all haste to land.
My grandmother has often related to me how she clapsed her little child to her heart and resigned herself to a fate which seemed inevitable; also of a Mrs. McCarthy, a passenger likewise, becoming greatly excited and alternately swearing and praying until the danger was past. An inconvenient but amusing feature was the soaked condition of the “plunder” and the way the shore and shrubbery thereon were decorated with “hiyu ictas,” as the Chinook has it, hung out to dry. Finding it impossible to proceed, this detachment returned and took the mountain road.
A tramway built by F. A. Chenoweth, around the great falls, afforded transportation for the baggage of the narrowly saved first described. There being no accommodations for passengers, the party walked the tramroad; at the terminus they unloaded and stayed all night. No “commodious and elegant” steamer awaited them, but an old brig, bound for Portland, received them and their effects.
Such variety of adventure had but recently crowded upon them that it was almost fearfully they re-embarked. A. A. Denny observed to Captain Low, “Look here, Low, they say women are scarce in Oregon and we had better be careful of ours.” Presumably they were, as both survive at the present day.
From a proud ranger of the dashing main, the old brig had come down to be a carrier of salt salmon packed in barrels, and plunder of immigrants; as for the luckless passengers, they accommodated themselves as best they could.
The small children were tied to the mast to keep them from falling overboard, as there were no bulwarks.
Beds were made below on the barrels before mentioned and the travel-worn lay down, but not to rest; the mosquitos were a bloodthirsty throng and the beds were likened unto a corduroy road.