Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu/393

 made a noise that caused her to stop and look back. " Who are you, and where did you come from?" she asked in a loud voice. He informed her that he was one of a party of one hundred and fifty men, who were on their way from Oregon, with wagons and ox teams, to the California gold mines. "Have you got any flour?" "Yes, madam; plenty." "You are like an angel from heaven!" And she raised a loud and thrilling shout that rang through that primeval forest.

Lassen and our pilot followed the trail of the packers for some twenty or thirty miles, as it passed over good ground, but through heavy timber. We had from sixty to eighty stout men to open the road, while the others were left to drive the teams. We plied our axes with skill, vigor, and success, and opened the route about as fast as the teams could well follow.

At length the pack trail descended a long, steep hill, to a creek at the bottom of an immense ravine. Old Peter Lassen insisted that our wagons should keep on the top of the ridges, and not go down to the water. When the first portion of the train arrived at this point, they had to stop some time on the summit of the hill. How to get out of this position without descending into the ravine below was a perplexing question. Our pilots had been to the creek, and would not let us go down the hill. In looking for a way out of this dilemma they discovered a strip of ground, about thirty feet wide, between the heads of two immense and impassable ravines, and connecting the ridge we were compelled to leave with another. It was like an isthmus connecting two continents. Over this narrow natural bridge we passed in safety.

That evening a large portion of our company camped on the summit of a dry ridge, among the intermixed pine and oak timber. They had traveled all day, under a hot October sun, without water. This was the first time those