Page:Recollections of My Boyhood.djvu/62

Rh settled down to steady habits. Doty had gone to the mountains with the Ashley party when a hoy. Father and Doty were boys together and had started to the mountains with Ashley at the same time, but father, falling sick, had to return home.

Where we should locate? was the all-absorbing topic of conversation at this camp in the woods. It seemed to be difficult to decide where to settle down in such a vast unappropriated wilderness. We were then actually encamped on the site of the city of Portland, but there was no prophet with us to tell of the beautiful city that was to take the place of that gloomy forest.

From this camp we were two days getting up the river to Tum-Chuk, now Oregon City. We passed the Klackamas rapids on our first day up the river. The men, women and children not needed in the boats went ashore at the foot of the rapids, and followed along the river bank, while men with the boats, some poling and others on shore towing, brought the boats safely through the rapids. The camp that night was near the bank of the Klackamas River. The second day we reached Tum-Chuck, and the boats were hauled around the falls to the river above by a French-Canadian with one yoke of long-horned steers. We made camp on the east shore nearly opposite the main cataract. There were less than a dozen houses at Tum-Chuk including a tinshop, blacksmith shop, saw mill, and probably a grist mill. We spent one night at this place. In the morning two or three Kanakas helped to launch the boats above the falls and to clear the rapids. In the evening of the same day we landed at Champoeg and remained there one night in a long shed in one end of which was a bin of peas. I never saw our boats again, and do not remember how they were disposed of.

From Champoeg we traveled by land. The baggage was hauled on a cart drawn by one yoke of oxen. I think the cart was hired from a French settler. Mrs. Charles Applegate and four small children rode in the cart while the rest of our party followed on foot. All day we traveled and it was quite dark