Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 22.djvu/26

 inent peak since called Spencer's Butte. In a little valley near the butte, on the south side, we discovered Indians digging camas. On perceiving us, most of them secreted themselves in the timber. One of our party succeeded in capturing an old Indian, and representing to him by signs the course we wished to follow, the old fellow preceded us two or three miles, and put us on a dim trail which had been marked by twisting the tops of the brush along the route. It had only been used as a foot-trail and but seldom at that. It led us into a prairie at the base of the main Calapooia chain. Crossing the prairie, we found the little trail where it entered the mountains with dif- ficulty, and being guided by the broken brush, reached at sun- down a little stream on the Umpqua side, where we camped for the night in a beautiful little valley where the grass was good and the ground almost covered with the finest straw- berries I had ever seen. The next morning, June 23, we moved on through the grassy oak hills and narrow valleys to the north Umpqua river. The crossing was a rough and dangerous one, as the river bed was a mass of loose rocks, and, as we were crossing, our horses occasionally fell, giving the riders a severe ducking. On the south side we encamped for the night. On the morning of the 24th, we left camp early and moved on about five miles to the south branch of the Umpqua, a con- siderable stream, probably sixty yards wide, coming from the eastward. Traveling up that stream almost to the place where the old trail crosses the Umpqua mountains, we encamped for the night opposite the historic Umpqua canyon. The next morning, June 25th, we entered the canyon, fol- lowed up the little stream that runs through the defile for four or five miles, crossing the creek a great many times, but the canyon becoming more obstructed with brush and fallen tim- ber, the little trail we were following turned up the side of the ridge where the woods were more open, and wound its way to the top of the mountain. It then bore south along a narrow