[6] Since these lines were penned the good lady died at the age of 88.
CHAPTER XX.
TRIP THROUGH THE NATCHESS PASS—[CONTINUED].
It is strange how the mind will vividly retain the memory of some incidents of no particular importance, while the recollection of other passing events so completely fades away. I knew I had to cross that ugly stream, White River, five times during the first day's travel, but cannot recall but one crossing, where my pony nearly lost his balance, and came down on his knees with his nose in the water for the moment, but to recover and bravely carry me out safely.
The lone camp well up on the mountain had chilled me, but the prospect before me and that I had left behind brought a depressed feeling most difficult to describe. I had passed through long stretches of forest so tall and so dense that it seemed incredible that such did exist anywhere on earth. And then, the road; such a road, if it could be called a road. Curiously enough, the heavier the standing timber, the easier it had been to slip through with wagons, there being but little undecayed or down timber. In the ancient of days, however, great giants had been uprooted, lifting considerable earth with the upturned roots, that, as time went on and the roots decayed formed mounds two, three, or four feet high, leaving a corresponding hollow in which one would plunge, the whole being covered by a dense, short, evergreen growth, completely hiding from view the unevenness of the ground. Over these hillocks and hollows the immigrants had rolled their wagon wheels, and over the large roots of the fir, often as big as one's body and nearly all of them on top of the ground. I will not undertake to say how many of these giant trees were to be found to the acre, but they were so numerous and so large that in many places it was difficult to find a passageway between them, and then only by a tortuous route winding in various directions. When the timber burns were encountered the situation was worse. Often the remains of timber would be piled in such confusion that sometimes wagons could pass under legs that rested on others; then again others were encountered half buried, while still others would rest a foot or so from the ground. These, let the reader remember, oftentimes were five feet or more in diameter, with trunks from two to three hundred feet in length. All sorts of devices had been resorted to in order to overcome those obstructions. In many cases, where not too large, cuts had been taken out, while in other places the large timber had been bridged up to by piling smaller logs, rotten chunks, brush, or earth, so the wheels of the wagon could be rolled up over the body of the tree. Usually three notches would be cut on the top of the log, two for the wheels and one for the reach or coupling pole to pass through.
In such places the oxen would be taken to the opposite side, a chain or rope run to the end of the tongue, a man to drive, one or two to guide the tongue, others to help at the wheels, and so with infinite labor and great care the wagons would gradually be worked down the mountain in the direction of the settlements. Small wonder that the immigrants of the previous year should report that they had to cut their way through the timber, while the citizen road workers had reported that the road was opened, and small wonder that the prospect of the road should have as chilling effect on my mind as the chill of the mountain air had had on my body.
But, the more difficulties encountered, the more determined I became, at all hazards, to push through, for the more the necessity to acquaint myself with the obstacles to be encountered and to be with my friends to encourage and help them. Before me lay the great range or pass, five thousand feet above sea level, and the rugged mountain climb to get to the summit, and the summit prairies where my pony could have a feast of grass. It was on this summit hill the immigration of the previous year had encountered such grave difficulties. At the risk of in part repeating, I am tempted to quote some of my own words to a select party of friends, the teachers of the county in which I have lived so long, prepared for that special occasion.
"About twenty miles north of the great mountain of the Cascade range is a picturesque, small scope of open country known as Summit Prairie, in the Natchess Pass, some seventy miles southeasterly from this city (Tacoma). In this prairie, fifty years ago this coming autumn, a camp of immigrants was to be seen. * * * Go back they could not; either they must go ahead or starve in the mountains. A short way out from the camp a steep mountain declivity lay square across their track. As one of the ladies of the party said, when she first saw it: 'Why Lawsee Massee! We have come to the jumping off place at last!' This lady felt, as many others of the party felt, like they had come to the end of the world (to them), and the exclamation was not for stage effect, but of fervent prayer for deliverance.