On a steep, rocky trail along the Cowlitz River, Denny was following along not far behind a big, yellow ox that was scrambling up, trying vainly to get a firm foothold, when Low, foreseeing calamity, called to him to “Look out!” Denny swerved a little from the path and at that moment the animal lost its footing and came tumbling past them, rolling over several times until it landed on a lower level, breaking off one of its horns. Here was a narrow escape although not from a wild beast. They could not then stop to secure the animal although it was restored to the flock some time after.
From Ford’s prairie, although footsore and weary, they kept on their way until Olympia was reached. It was a long tramp of perhaps two hundred fifty miles, the exact distance could not be ascertained as the trail was very winding.
As described by one of our earliest historians, Olympia then consisted of about a dozen one-story frame cabins, covered with split cedar siding, well ventilated and healthy, and perhaps twice as many Indian huts near the custom house, as Olympia was then the port of entry for Puget Sound.
The last mentioned structure afforded space on the ground floor for a store, with a small room partitioned off for a postoffice.
Our two pioneers found here Lee Terry, who had been engaged in loading a sailing vessel with piles. He fell in with the two persistent pedestrians and thus formed a triumvirate of conquerors of a new world. The pioneers tarried not in the embryo city but pushed on farther down the great Inland Sea.
With Captain Fay and several others they embarked in an open boat, the Captain, who owned the boat, intending to purchase salmon of the Indians for the San Francisco market. Fay was an old whaling captain. He afterwards married Mrs. Alexander, a widow of Whidby Island, and lived there until his death.
The little party spent their first night on the untrod shores of Sgwudux, the Indian name of the promontory now occupied by West Seattle, landing on the afternoon of September 25th, 1851, and sleeping that night under the protecting boughs of a giant cedar tree.
On the 26th, Low, Denny and Terry hired two young Indians of Chief Sealth’s (Seattle’s) tillicum (people), who were camped near by, to take them up the Duwampsh River in a canoe. Safely seated, the paddles dipped and away they sped over the dancing waves. The weather was fair, the air clear and a magnificent panorama spread around them. The whole forest-clad encircling shores of Elliott Bay, untouched by fire or ax, the tall evergreens thickly set in a dense mass to the water’s edge stood on every hand. The great white dome of Mount Rainier, 14,444 feet high, before them, toward which they traveled; behind them, stretched along the western horizon, Towiat or Olympics, a grand range of snow-capped mountains whose foothills were covered with a continuous forest.
Entering the Duwampsh River and ascending for several miles they reached the farther margin of a prairie where Low and Terry, having landed, set out over an Indian trail through the woods, to look at the country, while Denny followed on the river with the Indians. On and on they went until Denny became anxious and fired off his gun but received neither shot nor shout in answer. The day waned, it was growing dark, and as he returned the narrow deep river took on a melancholy aspect, the great forest was gloomy with unknown fears, and he was alone with strange, wild men whose language was almost unintelligible. Nevertheless, he landed and camped with them at a place known afterward as the Maple Prairie.
Morning of the 27th of September saw them paddling up the river again in search of the other two explorers, whom they met coming down in a canoe. They had kept on the trail until an Indian camp was reached at the junction of Black and Duwampsh Rivers the night before. All returned to Sgwudux, their starting point, to sleep under the cedar tree another night.