Page:The Columbia River - Its History, Its Myths, Its Scenery Its Commerce.djvu/315

Rh to produce one. After having got through his fit, the happy (?) purchaser would return the broom and go on his way.

Just as miners, cowboys, and traders were plunging eagerly into every form of enterprise, the famous "hard winter" of '61 descended upon the country. It was almost a Minnesota winter. There was snow on the ground from December 1st to March 22d, something never known before or since in the Columbia Basin. Cattle could find no food and perished by the thousands. Miners were found frozen into the stiff crust. In the rude cabins, with wide cracks into which the snow drifted, the few women and children in the Inland Empire fought a distressing and frequently losing fight. Even in the Willamette Valley where houses were more comfortable, supplies more plentiful, and the weather less severe, the conditions were hard enough. At Portland the price of hay was eighty dollars a ton. In Eastern Oregon it could not be obtained for any price, and the maintenance of life by cattle depended entirely on their endurance.

But with the coming on of tardy spring, the rush up the River was resumed, and the game went on. Seven millions in gold was reported in 1862, besides almost as much, as was estimated, taken out in ways of which no record was reported.

At Florence in February, 1862, flour was a dollar a pound; butter, three dollars; sugar, a dollar and a quarter; coffee, two dollars; boots, thirty dollars a pair.

The enormous profits, as well as enormous expense, of developing those mines hastened the coming of the