Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu/98

88 went with the Governor to his camp of about forty men and one hundred animals.

I was with Governor Fremont about ten days. I had never known him personally before this trip. I knew he was on the way, but he traveled usually with his own company, and did not mingle much with the emigrants, as he could not properly do so, his men being under military discipline and our emigrants not. He was then about thirty years old, modest in appearance, and calm and gentle in manner. His men all loved him intensely. He gave his orders with great mildness and simplicity, but they had to be obeyed. There was no shrinking from duty. He was like a father to those under his command. At that time I thought I could endure as much hardship as most men, especially a small, slender man like Governor Fremont, but I was wholly mistaken. He had a small foot, and wore a thin calf-skin boot, and yet he could endure more cold than I could with heavy boots on. I never traveled with a more pleasant companion than Governor Fremont. His bearing toward me was as kind as that of a brother.

I returned with my family to Fort Vancouver on the 26th of November, 1843, and, as we passed the place of our encampment on the sand beach below the Cascades, the Canadian boatmen pointed toward it and laughed.

When we arrived at the Cascades on our return voyage we carried our baggage upon our shoulders three-fourths of a mile, when we reloaded and then "jumped" the rapids below. Until we had passed the rapids on our downward voyage, I had no adequate conception of the dangers we had passed through on the voyage from Walla Walla to the Dalles. During that perilous passage I was one of the oarsmen, and sat with my back to the bow of the boat, thus having no fair opportunity to observe well. My attention was mainly confined to my own portion of the work, and I had but little time to look up. But, in running the rapids below the Cascades, I had nothing to do but look on. It was almost literal "jumping."

There was then an Indian tradition that about a hundred years before the Cascades did not exist, but that there was a succession of rapids from the Dalles to where the Cascades are now. The whole volume of the Columbia is now confined to a narrow channel, and falls about thirty feet in the distance of a quarter of a mile. This tradition said that the river gradually cut under the mountain until the projecting mass of huge stones and tough clay slid into the river and dammed up the stream to the height of some thirty