Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 14.djvu/380



340 FRED LOCKLEY

order from the pilot house to get out a line on shore. You never saw such a universal willingness to get on shore with that line. Every deckhand, the mate, the chief engineer, the fireman and our two passengers, who were standing forward watching the boat, seized the line by both ends, the middle and wherever they could get a hold of it and jumped ashore. The only people left on the boat were Captain Stump and myself in the pilot house, the second engineer, who was below, and old Titus, the cook. Before they could make the line fast the boat was caught by the current and went down the river half a mile. Here Captain Stump succeeded in beaching her. We were joined here by the ambitious line- carriers who walked down the shore to where we were beached.

"Captain Stump set the mate and crew to work to repair the forward bulkhead which had been strained and showed signs of leaking. While the boat was being worked upon, Captain Stump, Mr. Vansyckle, my father and myself crossed the river in a small boat and started to climb the hill in an effort to see what the back country was like. We expected to be back at the boat within two hours, but it was a steady climb of four hours before we reached the crest of the hill. It was just sun-down when we looked over into the beautiful Wallowa Val- ley. Darkness overtook us before we could go very far down the bluff. The rocky slopes were too dangerous to try in the dark, so we stayed all night long on the side hill without blank- ets or food. Father was an old campaigner, however, and he showed us how to sleep with our heads downhill resting on a rock. This prevented our working downhill while asleep. Natural inclination is to wiggle forward and the rock at our head prevented us going down hill and we could wiggle all we wanted up hill we wouldn't wiggle very far.

"When the bulkhead was finished, we ran back to Lewiston, covering the distance it had taken us four and a half days to come up, in three and a half hours.

"In the summer of 1865, when I was 19 years old, I secured a job as watchman on the steamer John H. Couch, running from Astoria to Portland. I was young and ambitious, and