Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu/97

Rh increase. At first, I thought it might rain as much as it pleased without wetting through my blankets, but before day it came down in torrents, and I found the water running under me, and into the pockets of my pantaloons and the tops of my boots. It was a cold rain, and the fire was extinguished. I could not endure all this, and I sat up during most of the remaining portion of the night upon a log of wood, with one pair of blankets thrown over my head, so as to fall all around me. In this way I managed to keep warm, but the weight of the wet blankets was great, and my neck at last rebelled against the oppression. I finally became so fatigued and sleepy that just before day, when the rain had ceased, I threw myself down across some logs of wood, and in that condition slept until daylight. As for Governor Fremont, he never moved, but lay and slept as well as if in comfortable quarters. My position was in a lower place on the beach than his, and this was the reason why the water ran under me and not under him.

Next morning we rose fresh and fasting and ascended to the Indian encampment, where the Governor found our Indians comfortably housed in the lodge, cooking' breakfast. He was somewhat vexed, and made them hustle out in short order.

It took us some days to make the portage, it raining nearly all the while. At the head of the Cascades there were several large, projecting rocks, under one side of which the Indians could lie on the clean, dry sand, secure from the rain. They would build a fire in front and sit or lie under the projecting rocks; and, as they were at home with their kindred and families, they were in no hurry to go forward and were not much disposed to go out in bad weather. At the Cascades there is a celebrated salmon fishery, where the Indians then lived in considerable numbers, supporting themselves in the summer upon fresh, and in the winter upon dried, salmon.

We were anxious to proceed, as Governor Fremont had still to make the perilous journey to California, but there were only some five to eight whites to several hundred Indians. But the cool, determined, yet prudent, Fremont managed to command our Indians and induce them to work. When nothing else would avail, he would put out their fires. Finding it necessary to work or shiver, they preferred to work.

When we had reloaded our craft, we set forward for The Dalles, and we had not gone more than ten miles before we could see clear out and beyond the clouds into the pure, blue sky. We were almost vexed to think we had been so near to a sunny region all the time we had been suffering so much from the rain. We soon reached a point on the river above where there had been no rain, and from that point to The Dalles we had cold, clear, frosty nights. We arrived in The Dalles about ten days after leaving Vancouver. I