Two Years in Oregon

-?Its name, and how deserved and proved-?The road by the Santiam-?Eastward and u

er-?The down slope east-? Lava-beds-?Bunch-grass-?The valleys in Eastern Oregon-?Their products -?Wheat-growing there-?Cattle-ranchers-?Their home-?Their life-?In the saddle and away-?Branding-time-?Hay for the winte

vive me speedily; so we resolved to travel up to the Upper Soda Springs, in the Cascades. It was two days' journey from the valle

he rains ceased, about the 25th of May, the summer sun broke forth at once with unclouded warmth and splendor. The lately sown grain sprang up in marvelous vigor, and the crop promised abundantly for the farmer, when, just

progress; in one great wheat-field we saw the farmer, with his broad-cast grain-distributor fixed in his wagon, sowing his seed among the untouched, shr

illamette Valley than that it should be possible this year to reap a good crop, grown on ground that wa

he Cascades; round, swelling, sandy buttes; sometimes covered with short pasture-gra

nd the hills rose, lightly timbered in part, affording pasture for the cattle. We were told that the first five settlers were bachelors, and called the Valley "Sweet Home" to induce their lady-loves to follow them so far into what was then a wilderness. Tha

tream, with many a rock and ripple. By the side of every farmhouse stood one or two "fish-p

re a little valley nestling among the hills had been reclaimed to the use of man; and many a neat little farm and well-grown

odation for campers"; betokening that we were on the main road of travel, an

ore undertaking the passage of the mountains. The ascent was soon commenced; indeed, we had moun

profusion. We were never far from the Santiam, and now and again the roar and rush of water told us of little falls and rapids in the stream. Always ascending, here with a long, straight stretch of grading cut into the hill-side, there with a winding course to cheat the hill that rose to bar our road; down a short distance, then along the little valley with its farm, then up again, till we gained the brow overlooking the settlement at

r that was nice, and it seems as if the medical value of a spring varied exactly with its nastiness; so judged, I should say that the Lower Soda Springs were very valuable. A few hours more, over broken country, which grew wilder as we advanced, brought us in twelve miles' travel to our destination. The last few miles entered a burned timber-patch, where the black trunks either towered high into the air or

rprised and pleased us, and my poor bones would have told a sad tale if all th

and we wish to stay with you for a week or ten days." "You read it to me," was the answer; "I haven't got my spectacles." So I read it. "Well, sir, can we stay?" "I don't mind men, but I can't abear women," was the somewhat forbidding response, as my wife smiled across from the back of the carriage. "I don't think you need mind my wife, Mr. Keith; she won't give you any extra trouble." "I don't mind cooking for men-they don't know any better; but, as for the women, th

little fields, from which all the dogwood and elderberry bushes had not been grubbed out, led to the edge of the bank overhanging

e sea-level (about twenty-five hundred feet, I believe), the vegetables were as fine as I ever

besides our old host, all the passers-by stopped at the house. Hardly a day went, even at that late period of the season, without from six to te

th hung a box or basket with a couple of little pigs or a dozen cocks and hens. A couple of cows were driven along or took their parts as a yoke of oxen in draught; a colt or two and a few young cattle ran by the side, and the family dog, presiding

so on, and you'll get there." "You don't say so! Well, I dare say we shall get through all right." "What do you mean to do?" "Well, I haven't money enough to buy a farm, so I shall just take up a place." "You mean to homestead, then?" "I guess so." "How many miles can you make in a day?" "Not more than ten or fifteen with this old scrub team." "Have you thought that this is the first week in October, and that you can't expect to get there much before January?" "I guess not; but I dare say we shall get on very well." "You told me just now you had not much money; have you thought how long it will last you, spending two dollars

lified to make a little go far, to take cheerily all the inevitable discomforts of both the long journey and the new home, and to make the best use of every advantage they found or made. Only a few were going to this Spokane countr

fir, hemlock, spruce, and cedar-trees, averaging three feet through, and, I judged, a hundred and fifty feet in height. I measured several of th

subsidence of the waters. Clear Lake, some four miles off, is vastly different. It evidently occupies the place of a great and sudden depression of timber-covered country, for, looking down into the deep, clear water, the great firs are seen still standing erect on the bottom, far, far below. Fly-fishing on this lake is wond

nd not so prolonged, since all Eastern Oregon is a kind of pl

n the bunch-grass country begins. Great tussocks of succulent feed for spring and early summer, dried by the hot sun into natural hay for autumn and winter use, afford pasture for countless herds of cattle. Even here there are watercourses and springs a few miles

and over their tops. The valley-land is rich and fertile, and wherever cultivated yields abundantly in potatoes, cereals, vegetables, and small fruits of all kinds. Sixty and eighty bushels of oats to the acre is not an unusual c

re. Indeed, it is from country like this that the great crops of Northeastern Oregon and Washington Territory are produced; crops yielding a magnificent return, if not to the farmer whose enterprise and industry

. Horses abound, and form as good a source of revenue as cattle, in proportion to the capital engaged. The Eastern Oregon horse is taller and bigger-boned than the valley horse, but naturally his education is not so well attended to, and he is apt to be "mean" and to buck. Little recks his rider, and after a bout of bucking, in which the horse has not dislodged the man, but has shaken up every bone in his body till he is sore all over with the constant jar, as the horse comes to the ground all four feet at once after a mighty jump, then it is the

s from ten to twenty thousand head. The three-year-old steers fetch about fifteen or seventeen dollars

e for weeks, too deep for the cattle to live, as in ordinary winters, on the dry bunch-grass protruding from the snow, or easily reached by scratching a slight covering away. Even an abundant store will not save all, for many of the herd will have

necessaries and many of the luxuries of life. He had six or eight thousand head of cattle and some three hundred horses in his band. One morning a friendly Indian rode up in haste, telling him to get away, as the hostiles were coming to kill them all. Mounting their horses, the rancher and his wife took to flight; they looked back from the hill-to

e Willamette Valley. After a good deal of the work had been accomplished, a suggestion was made to the owners of the road that if they would undertake to extend it clear across the State to the Idaho boundary, a distance from Albany of some four hundred and fifty miles by the necessary deviations from a straight line, a land grant might probably be procured from Con

a prosperous race, was lying at the mercy of a few roving bands of Indians, who made the lives and property of even casual travelers their sp

to give up every chance of succor in distress, that the work might not stand still. And it was no light work, even judged by us who travel the road at ease, and have hardly a passing glance for the rocky grade, the deep cutting, the ponderous lava-block, the huge black trunk. How appalling must the undertaking have appeared to those who had first to face the dangers and difficulties of a mountain-chain, to plan for and survey out the most favorable route among heavy timber

uild up their State; who believed the records of their fellows as to the miles of country that could be forced to contribute their quota of productions if but the way were opened in and out; who, having themselves prospered in the sound and moderate way in which Oregon encourages her children, were ready to risk what the

ht, all stood in expectation; willing hands lent their eager aid: the great wooden mass rolled sullenly away, and the tide of settlement poured through the gap. Between that

mall blame to the road-makers if, having the whole country before them, they chose the smoothest and cheapest

ide of their road; the intervening sections were, of course, opened to settlement by the construction of the road. The ope

legitimate settler, or close on his heels, and took possession of many a section of the road company's land, "taking the chances," as they would express it, of something happening to help them to hold. To aid matters, these men fenced across the road near

trait of American character I have often noticed, namely, unwillingness to insist on strict right against their neighbors, and a readiness to make any shift, or ag

discovery made that the United States authorities had ceased to have any jurisdiction so long ago as 1866. Still, those who were agitating thought something might be made of it. So, somehow or other, the Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Carl Schurz, was induced to interfere, not deterred by the knowledge that the land de

traged by a report that no road existed or had been made except for about sixty miles at the western end; and that the road, if ro

le report would end matters, and that all the advantages hoped for by the squatt

s slur on the characters of American citizens who ventured much in an undertaking for the public good; in violation of plain and ack

asses is Harney Lake Valley, only about eighty miles from the eastern b