Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 14.djvu/393



REMINISCENCES OF CAPT. W. P. GRAY 353

boat would go on the rocks, break her wheel, and leave us dis- abled in the current. For a moment the boat hung where she was. It was a mighty anxious moment for me, for, with all steam on, she seemed only able to hold her own. She was neither going forward nor back, but slowly, inch by inch, she pulled away from the rapids and out into the open river. That was the first time a steamboat had ever been through Rock Island Rapids.

"The president of the company owning the boat was on board. His enthusiasm had ranged from fever heat to zero on most of the rapids. When I swung the boat over in the last effort, he wrung his hands and sobbed, 'You'll wreck her, you'll wreck her sure!' But when we began to gain headway and he was sure we were over Rock Island Rapids, he threw his arms around my neck and yelled, 'You've saved us I knew you would !' Then I thought, what a narrow line divides failure and success. Failure is 'I told you so' ; and success is, 'I knew it!'

"We continued on up the river, gathering driftwood for fuel, using lines to help us over Entiat, Chelan, Methow and other rapids, and ran six miles up the Okanogan river to Lumsden's ford and stuck on the bottom of the river. Then we unloaded freight and passengers and went back through Rock Island and the other rapids to Port Eaton at the mouth of Johnson's canyon, where the people of Ellensburgh had constructed a wagon road to the river in order to avoid the Wenatchee mountain. The road descended to the Columbia river over a cliff where the teamsters were obliged to cut large trees and hitch them by the tops behind the wagons to keep them from sliding on to the teams. The trees were left at the bottom of the cliff, and when the accumulation became so great as to obstruct the way they were burned. The use of the timber for brakes in the manner indicated had denuded the summit of the mountain for quite a distance.

"I made four more trips up and down through Rock Island and the other rapids between Port Eaton and the Okanogan river ; but when the water fell Rock Island rapids became im-