FTER making a hearty breakfast on Rocky Mountain kid, salmon, and sea biscuits, we began our return journey down the creek in a drizzling rain. Our burdens were increased by the weight of the three goat skins, and the walking was rendered still more precarious than before by the logs, grass, soil, pine needles, and everything else having become so thoroughly watersoaked. If we had had hard climbing up the steep pitches on our outbound cruise, we had it still harder now. We could not stick in our toe nails as well now as before, and even if we stuck in our heels going down a hill, they would not stay stuck any better than a second-hand postage-stamp. I remembered one hill, or cañon wall, that in the ascent made us a great deal of hard work, and much perturbation of spirit, because it was steep, rocky, and had very few bushes on it that we could use as derricks by which to raise ourselves. I dreaded the descent of this hill, now that the rocks were wet, but we made it safely. Not so, however, the next one we attempted; it was not so rocky as the other, and had a goodly bed of blue clay, with a shallow covering of vegetable mold for a surface, with a little grass and a few weeds. It was very steep, I think about what an architect would call a three-quarter pitch, but we essayed it boldly and fearlessly. Seymour was in the lead, his faithful partisan, John, followed, and I constituted the tail end of the procession. We had just got well over the brow, when the end of a dry hemlock stick caught in the mansard roof of my left foot; the other end was fast in the ground, and, though I tried to free myself, both ends stuck; the stick played a lone hand, but it raised me clear out in spite of my struggles. I uttered a mournful groan as I saw myself going, but was as helpless as a tenderfoot on a bucking cayuse. My foot was lifted till my heel punched the small of my back, and my other foot slid out from under me; I spread out like a step ladder, and clawed the air for succor, but there was not a bush or branch within reach. I think I went ten feet before I touched the earth again, and then I landed head first among John's legs. He sat down on the back of my neck like a trip-hammer, and we both assaulted Seymour in the rear with such violence as to knock him clear out. For a few seconds we were the worst mixed up community that ever lived, I reckon. Arms, legs, guns, hats, packs, and human forms were mingled in one writhing, squirming, surging mass, and groans, shouts, and imprecations, in English, Chinook, and Scowlitz, rent the air. Every hand was grabbing for something to stop its owner, but there were no friendly stoppers within reach; if one caught a weed, or a stunted juniper, it faded away from his herculean grasp like dry grass before a prairie fire. I seemed to have the highest initial velocity of any member of the expedition, and, though in the rear at the start, I was a full length ahead at the finish. We finally all brought up in a confused mass at the foot of the hill, and it took some time for each man to extricate himself from the pile, and reclaim his property from the wreck. Strange as it may seem, however, but little damage was done. There was a skinned nose, a bruised knee or two, a sprained wrist, and everybody was painted with mud. All were, however, able to travel, and after that, when going down steep hills, the Siwashes kept looking back to see if I were coming.
TRYING TO GET UP.