Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/257

Rh Dalles. Capt. William Shaw, Gilliam's brother-in-law, stopped on account of the sickness of his son, T. C. Shaw. G. W. Bush, one of the most efficient men on road, stayed all winter taking care of the live stock.

We left The Dalles December 26 with the running gear of three wagons in our boat and seventeen persons, young and old, on top of that, leaving also our Indian oarsmen at their home. We reached and passed the cascades in safety, delaying only to transfer our load at the portage and pass the bateau down the rapids by cordeling, in the same manner as in coming up. We met with no unusual difficulty until some distance below the rapids. But on the twenty -ninth, as we entered the narrower gorge of Cape Horn from the east, a storm of wind entered from the west. It was the most awful effect of w r ind that I have ever seen. It seemed to take solid water from the surface of the river and throw it upward as spray, and lift it still higher as fog and cloud. It came rapidly toward us with a perpendicular face of upward movement, in front of which were a number of eagles circling and driving crosswise and up and down, screaming as in delight at the suddenness and ferocity of the storm gust. We two oarsmen were caught with surprise by the suddenness of the approaching danger to our top-heavy boat, but Clark at the steering oar, having complete control of the course to pursue, decided to land on the north bank rather than on a sand spit near us on the south side. This made it necessary to cross the river in front of the storm. We had scarcely time by a few strokes of the oars to turn the boat, heading up stream, before we received the wind like a blow. It struck on the stern quarter, but careened the craft so as to ship water on the lee side without capsizing it, but much accelerating our speed. The first blow received was the