CHAPTER XX.
Eastern Oregon—Going "east of the mountains"—Its attractions— Encroaching sheep—First experiments in agriculture and planting —General description of Eastern Oregon—Boundaries—Alkaline plains—Their productions—The valleys—Powder River Valley— Description—The Snake River and its tributaries—The Malheur Valley—Harney Lake Valley—Its size—Productions—Wild grasses —Hay-making—The winters in Eastern Oregon—Wagon-roads—Prineville —Silver Creek—Grindstone Creek Valley—Crooked River—Settlers' descriptions and experiences—Ascent of the Cascades going west— Eastern Oregon towns—Baker City—Prineville—Warnings to settlers —Growing wheat for the railroads to carry.
While Western Oregon and the Willamette Valley in particular have been settled up, the valleys, plains, and hill-sides of Eastern Oregon are only just now beginning to attract population.
But the reports of that country have spread far and wide through the valley, and half the young men are burning to try their fortunes "east of the mountains." When a youngster has been brought up in a wide valley, the eastern sky-line of which has been marked out, from his very infancy, by a line of rugged hills, over which the snow-peaks tower; when he has been used to see the mountains stand out clear and majestic, rosy in the glow of the setting sun, and then putting on their winter garments of purity, and shining cold in the clear moonlight of the winter nights; when he has watched them disappear as the mists of the autumn rains filled the valley, to be hidden for weeks from his gaze, and then suddenly revealed as the drying and vigorous west wind dispelled the veil which the warm south wind had only served to thicken—I can sympathize with the longing felt, even if unexpressed, to climb this barrier and find if there be in verity a Canaan beyond.
And then, until lately at all events, to the young and bold there was a strong attraction in the life on horseback, in the gallop after the straggling cattle over those rolling plains; in the bachelor life of freedom, where home was just where night found him, and where his comrades had made their fire and picketed their horses; and, though last not least, where the wealthy stockmen had started from the exact point where he stood, their capital good health, readiness to rough it, and a determination to get on.
But a few years ago this was what life east of the mountains meant. Then men found that sheep paid better than cattle; and the sheep-herder, with his band of merinos, took possession of the rocky hill-sides, on which the thick bunch-grass was already beginning to fail to hold its first vigor and abundance, and his peaceful but not unresisted invasion pushed the cattle-men farther into the wilderness.
The loathing and contempt of the stockmen for these encroaching sheep! Some of them actually encouraged, and refused to permit the slaughter of, the prairie-wolves, which did not molest the cattle, but waged war on the flocks. But the tide would not be turned back, and mile after mile the sheep pushed on.
The bunch-grass which the cattle lived on, and which only overstocking injured, gave way before the sheep; for these eat out the hearts of the young grass, and their range grew wider as the feed became more sparse.
And then the farmer followed the sheep-herder, and the eaten pastures were turned up by the plow. True, the soil was alkaline in many places, and rocky and stony to an extent strange to the eyes of the valley farmer, who hardly ever sees a stone. But there were streams on many a hill-side which only needed a little work to be turned on to and to irrigate the soil below; and many a valley was explored, whose level land gave promise of numberless farms.