The surrounding country is a fit setting for such a wild and turbulent scene. On either hand lie monotonous plains, now brown with sunburned grass and studded with gray sagebrush. To the north rise the rugged peaks of Washington and eastward is the long sweep of the river valley guarded by rounded hills. Westward we see the broad bright river, released from the dreadful turmoil of The Dalles, vanish into the giant hills over which the majestic white-robed form of Mount Hood stands, an eternal guardian. It is a scene that never failed to arrest the eye of the observant traveler from the earliest day and even before his time the “untutored mind” of the poor Indian was impressed with the weirdness and beauty of the spot. To account for the strange phenomena of The Dalles and explain how the mighty river was compressed into the three deep narrow channels, the savage mind was busy with myth and legend and, like most of the myths of our aboriginees, there appears to have been a sub-stratum of truth.
The story tells of the fierce volcanic action once common in this section when Hood, Adams, and St. Helens were lurid fire mountains and when a great range of hills ran across the valley where The Dalles now are, damming the waters of the river into a great inland sea. Naturally enough, fiends of great power and malignancy were fabled to have congregated in such a spot and to have had much to do with the manifestations of fire and water. Here, too, is a hint of geologic truth, for the fiends were huge monsters with very powerful tails, probably the dinosaurs and mud pythons of the reptilian age, of which remains have been found in this region.
These fiends, according to the legend, congregated here when the volcanic furies were subsiding and chief among them was a master fiend or devil who had been first in malignancy and hatred. Whether he was sick and would be a monk, as in the old proverb, we do not know, but the story is that he proposed to the lesser fiends to give up their wicked revels and assume the role of beneficent spirits and friends of man. The increasing peacefulness of the elements, he declared, foreshadowed better things. Why should they not give up wars and cannibalism, to which they were so terribly addicted, and seek the quieter pastimes of peace?
A strange story and a strange sentiment to put in the mouth of a devil, but the consequence was stranger still. Instead of receiving the beneficent proposal with favor, the fiends turned on their leader in a furious rage; pacifism was no more popular in that mythical time than it is now. “He would beguile us into a crafty peace,” they shrieked as one, “that he may kill and eat us at leisure. Death to the traitor!”
Alarmed at such a sudden and unanimous uproar, which was followed by an onslaught of all the legions of fiends, this pre-historic Prince of Darkness lost no time in taking to his heels, pursued by the howling pack that thirsted for his blood. Swiftly he sped toward the great ridge of land that held back the inland sea, seeking doubtless to hide in the rugged hills to the north. But he was pressed too closely by his enemies, to whom he seemed sure to fall victim unless saved by some desperate expedient. Summoning all his vast powers as he crossed the spot where the river now rages among The Dalles, he smote with his huge tail upon the smooth flat rocks. A great chasm opened, down which poured a dreadful torrent from the waters of the inland sea, tearing boulders to fragment. This frightful performance stopped the greater part of the fiends, but some of the more venturesome were not to be deterred. With a bound they crossed the chasm and were again on the heels of the fleeing devil. In desperation he smote once more upon the rocks and another and still vaster chasm was opened up and a still greater torrent poured down it. Still the villains pursued him, for some of them were agile enough to vault across the second rent, and the Indian Satan was again in danger. With one last and desperate effort he dealt the rocks a third smashing blow with his caudal appendage and a third chasm, twice the width of either of the others, split the rocks behind him and with the speed of lightning the wild waters rushed in to fill it.
Only a few of the hardiest of the pursuing fiends dared attempt this awful maelstrom and they fell far short and were ground to powder by the furious stream. The fiends who leaped the first and second torrents now essayed to return, but lacking the zeal of pursuit they, too, fell short and were swept to destruction. Evidently determined to make a clean sweep, the myth-makers even doomed the hesitating demons who refused the first leap, for the bank on which they stood gave way, precipitating them into the mad stream.
And so the whole race of these troublesome fiends perished. The devil himself had escaped, however, and paused, panting and overcome, on the opposite bank to take inventory of himself. He was not unscathed by any means. His tail, the powerful weapon that had wrought his salvation, was hopelessly crippled by his last gigantic effort. It was of little consequence, since his enemies were all dead; he was now free to pursue the peaceful policy which he had advocated. So, leaping back over the torrents, he went to his home—wherever that may have been—to found a new race of demons, all of whom, like himself, had flaccid tails.
THE DESCHUTES RIVER CANYON
From photo by The Weister Co., Portland, Oregon