"How on earth did you make a raft big enough?"
"Well, we just cut the logs in the woods on the edge of the river, and rolled them in and pegged them together with lighter trees laid across. It took us about all the morning to get out into the current, and all the afternoon to get back again. But, after all, we got to the Cascades."
"How did you get past them?"
"We had to just put the wagons together, and cut a road for ourselves, six miles round the portage, till we could take to the river again. Then we got boats and came all right down the Columbia and up the Willamette past where Portland now stands."
"Where was Portland then?"
"There was no Portland, I tell you—just a few houses and cabins. I forget what they called the place. Anyhow, we got pretty soon to the Tualitin Plains, where Forest-grove Station is now, and there we passed that first winter in Oregon."
"Was it rough on you?"
"Well, no—not particularly. All the lot of us crowded into one little cabin; but we lived pretty well."
"What did you live on?"
"Well, there was a little grist-mill near by, and the folks had raised a little wheat and some potatoes and peas. We got no meat at all that winter. The next spring we came on into King's Valley and took up the old place—you know where I showed it you—under the hill."