Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/307

Rh in other words, the whole interest must be as one. The question then was simply as to the mastery, and here commenced the struggle. At this time the Bradford's means of transportation over their portage was a very indifferent wooden tramway from what was known a.s the Middle Landing to the upper Cascades on the Washington side.

Ruckle's means of transportation on the Oregon side was a wooden tramway the whole length of the portage, the lower half, or from the Middle Landing down, was of iron strap and over this portion of the road he ran a small engine. The cars on the upper part of the road were hauled by mules, as they were on the Bradford road. During the high stage of water, say from May to August, the steamers could not run to the Middle Landing, consequently Euckle transported the freight at such times over the entire portage, for which he received one-half the through freight from Portland to The Dalles, and as Bradford had no tramway below the Middle Landing, he could not claim from Ruckle a division of portage earnings on the lower half of his road. This annoyed Bradford exceedingly, as Ruckle's income from this source, with the immense freight that was then moving, was very great.

J. C. Ainsworth and those who were looking to the interest of the steamboat men, now absorbed The Dalles portage. They stocked the road with teams and wagons at a cost of about $100,000.00. This immense caravan was taxed to its utmost capacity, as was everything else that they owned. The next step was to bring the board of directors to see the necessity of building a railroad from The Dalles to Celilo and to convince them that the company could safely undertake it. J. C. Ainsworth was dispatched to San Francisco. He found that the house of Colman & Company had about twenty miles of railroad iron, which could be procured by paying freight and charges. He made arrangements to take all of the iron, as they would not divide the lot. The Dalles railroad would only require fourteen miles, so this would be enough for The Cas-