Three leading questions occupied the attention of all parties while we were in this little ambitious city, the new Territorial organization so soon to be inaugurated, the question of an overland railroad, and of an over mountain immigrant wagon road. The last was the absorbing topic of conversation, as it was a live enterprise dependent upon the efforts of the citizens for success. Meetings had been held in different parts of the district west of the Cascade Mountains and north of the Columbia River, and finally subscription lists were circulated, a cashier and superintendent appointed, with the result, as stated elsewhere, of opening the way for the first immigration over the Cascade Mountains via the Natchess Pass, but the particulars of this work are given in other chapters following.
As the tide drew off the placid waters of the bay at Olympia with just a breath of air, our little craft behaved splendidly as the slight ripples were jostled against the bow under the pressure of the sail and brought dreams of a pleasure trip, to make amends for the tiresome pack across the country. Nothing can be more enjoyable than favorable conditions in a boating trip, the more specially to those who have long been in the harness of severe labor, and for a season must enjoy enforced repose. And so we lazily floated with the tide, sometimes taking a few strokes with the oars, and at other times whistling for the wind, as the little town of Olympia to the south, became dimmed by distance.
At this southern extremity of the Sound without the accumulation of water to struggle for passage, as through the channel to the north, the movement is neither swift, nor disturbed with cross currents to agitate the surface—more like the steady flow of a great river.
But we were no sooner fairly out of sight of the little village and out of the bay it was situated upon (Budd's Inlet), than the query came up as to which way to go. Was it this channel or that or yet another one we should take? Let the tide decide; that will take us out toward the ocean we urged. No, we are drifting into another bay; that cannot be where we want to go; why, we are drifting right back almost in the same direction from which we came, but into another bay. We'll pull this way to that point to the northeast. But there seems a greater opening of waters to the northwest; yes, but I do not see any way out there. Neither is there beyond that point (Johnson's Point); and so we talked and pulled and puzzled until finally it dawned upon us that the tide had turned and we were being carried back to almost the spot from whence we came, into South Bay.
"Now the very best thing we can do is to camp," said the senior of the party of two, to which the junior, your humble writer, readily assented, and so our first night's camp was scarcely twelve miles from where we had started in the morning.
What a nice camping place this. The ladies would say lovely, and why not? A beautiful pebbly beach that extended almost to the water's edge even at low tide with a nice grassy level spit; a back ground of evergreen giant fir timber; such clear, cool water gushing out from the bank near by, so superlative in quality as to defy words to adequately describe; and such fuel for the camp fire, broken fir limbs with just enough pitch to make a cheerful blaze and yet body enough to last well. Why, we felt so happy that we were almost glad the journey had been interrupted. Oliver was the carpenter of the party, the tent builder, wood getter, and general roust-a-bout, to coin a word from camp parlance, while I, the junior, was the "chief cook and bottle washer," as the senior would jocularly put it.
At the point a little beyond where we landed we found next morning J. R. Johnson, M. D., with his cabin on the point under the pretentious name of "Johnson's Hospital," opened as he said for the benefit of the sick, but which, from what I saw in my later trips I think his greatest business was in disposing of cheap whisky of which he contributed his share of the patronage.
An Indian encampment being near by, a party of them soon visited our camp and began making signs for trade. "Mika tik-eh clams?" came from out the mouth of one of the matrons of the party as if though half choked in the speaking, a cross between a spoken word and a smothered guttural sound in the throat.
"What does she say, Oliver?" the junior said, turning for counsel to the superior wisdom of the elder brother.
"I'm blessed if I know what she says, but she evidently wants to sell some clams."