CHAPTER VII.

Building the U. F, and Central railroads.—A general rugged prospecting
tour of seven months in Nevada, Idaho and Montana.—On to Wash-
ington Territory.—The country, climate, soil, scenery, fishing, hunt-
ing, incidents, etc., etc. —Finding the true source of the fine gold in
the Snake and Columbia rivers.—The more famous of the Idaho
Placer mines.

IT was February, 1870. The U. P. and Central Pacific Rail-
roads were completed a few months previously. As the
Government had given these companies more money and other
means than was required to build the roads, they could afford
to, and they did spent it with an open hand in rushing them
through. This made times good and lively along the route, so
that money was made rapidly in various ways and channels of
trade, by live men, with but little money capital. For example:
one with a few pony teams could make a stake in a short time,
in grading or teaming on or along the road. The wages paid
were high—five dollars or more per day for a fifty or sixty
dollar team, and driver, to scrape, etc., and the wages were
doubled for night and Sunday work.

Several of my acquaintances had left the mines for the
railroad, and had done far better than we, who remained to dig
it out of the gronnd.

The Northern Pacific railroad had now been chartered by
Congress, with a land grant more than sufficient to build and
equip it, with a provision, that the road had to be built immedi-
ately, or the Empire of land would revert to the people. There-
fore, it was the talk and general belief that it would be pushed
through at once, and that the opportunities for earning money
on the N. P. would be good, if not equal, to that on the U. P.
and Central.

The glittering prospects in the mining regions were blasted
since the railroad was built, but I was not yet quite satisfied to
give up the chase; mainly, because of my love of travel and
adventure, and I would now have the advantage of my previous
three years’ active experience in quartz, making me somewhat

expert in the business.
(100)

(101)

A Canyon.

Pacific N. W. History Dapt.

PROVINCIAL LIBRARY
VICTORIA, B.S.

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102 IpaHo AND Montana.

So I concluded to nowmake an extensive, general prospect-
ing tour through the wild mountain ranges to the north, for
both quartz and placer diggings, and for the pleasure of travel;
and if unsuccessful in finding any ground enticing enough to
cling to, would terminate my travels at Puget Sound, or else
where near the proposed route of the Northern Pacific railroad.

Accordingly, during the succeeding seven months, I visited
several mining districts and camps in Nevada, Idaho and
Montana, and prospected, more or less, the mountain ranges
intervening. Was in the Owyhee, Upper Snake and Salmon
river regions, and in the mountains at the source of the Jeffer-
sov. Fork of the Missouri river.

I noticed some spots of pretty good farming land on the
Humboldt river in Nevada, about the northern line of the
state, and in Idaho, also in Lemhi and Bitter-root valleys, near
the summit of the Rockies in Montana, also much good grazing
country. But Isaw far more that is 1ugged, shaggy, barren
and forbidding, I talked with immigrants from good localities
in the Western States, and on asking one why they chose to
leave what I considered fairer sections of country to live in, to
settle in such a wild region, he answered: that these valleys
were like the places they had left—very enticing at a distance ;
or in his own words, “they are hell a good ways off.” Neither
had filled the pictures of their imaginations.

Was at the two great falls of Snake river, 175 and 260 feet
fall, and enjoyed some beautiful scenery, but the most of it is
dreary and distressing. Had good fishing sometimes,—in the
upper Snake there were plenty of salmon trout, weighing ten
or fifteen pounds, and very fat. Game—-including bear, wild-
cat, etc..—was likewise quite plentiful, though not by any
means as much so as we usually read about, and is generally
supposed.

Climbed over snow-clad mountains—wading and plunging
in the snow in July, and the next day or two would be suffer-
ing with heat in some valley below.

Generally found plenty of company in various prospecting
parties. Many of these men were highly learned and experi-
enced in the world, and of fine feelings, while even the others

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104 IpaHo AND Montana.
are agreeable companions for a time, to one who knows how to
take them.

I will note a little incident of many, I would like to give,
in illustration of the generous traits possessed by many who
despise the selfish, sign- and grisp-machine charity (?).

Meeting a party of miners with their pack animals on their
way to a settlement and store for supplies, (they being settled
and working a Placer claim) I borrowed a pocket knife of one
of them, as we stopped for a moment to talk, as I had lost my
own. He would not receive it back or any pay for it, “as he
would soon be where he could get another,” he said. It was a
fancy one, worth three dollars. They also furnished some of our
party with provisions in the same way. We had never met
before, and never expected to again. If we should go with
them to their rough cabin home, we could see gold dust in a
segar box on a Shelf, or in a powder keg, and as long as it lasted
no one would be allowed to pass them by in need.

Those who experience in themselves and appreciate in
others the pure pleasure in these unguilded, unselfish, genial
traits, should be judged in kind whenever they fall among pro-
fessional “charitable” brethren, as they are pretty sure to do
sometime, being neither cunning nor cruel.

Having a good outfit, permitting nothing to worry me, and
having no great expectations to be shattered, that season of
travel was mostly a picnic. The rugged side was in fording
rapid and rocky streams, and others having deceitful bottoms
of mire; crossing steep, rocky gorges, and thrcugh African
jungles, woven with fallen timber.

My horses became so accustomed to climbing, jumping
and sliding, that they were so reckless of danger, that their
often superior judgment could not be trusted. Sometimes,
however, they would pick their way and somehow get over or
through places, where one could not see any possible way,
when often a mis-step would send them tumbling to roaring
waters in the rocky gorges, hundreds of feet below, and when
weary, would jump at the opposite side of a ditch or against a
ledge, or fallen trees, when they knew they must fall back.

Sometimes flies and mosquitoes were so thick and masonic,
that we had to blanket our horses for a slight protection ; so it

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THE IpaHo PLacerR Mines. 1u5
was no wonder they would leave us alone with strange Indians,
to take up with their horses that were free. But a small
number of horses, if their leaders are kindly treated, are not
apt to leave a camp unless they know of better company near by.
And a siagle animal will hardly ever leave its rider in a strange
and lonely place. My pack-horse was no more trouble in
travelling, than a dog—being as sure to follow. Once on the
side of a deep gorge he fell, rolled over a time or two and
landed against a log. After he had climbed back, I, with my
foot, started the log tumbling to the bottom, which I could not
see. While more lost and separated than usual, I was twenty-
four hours without water; the day was hot, got past being
thirsty and became sick, so the water did not taste good when
I found it, which I did by my horses scenting it at a distance.

Found beaver quite plentiful in places. In their work is
displayed a reasoning faculty equal to that of some men. In
felling trees for dams, they cut them so as to fall where they
want them.

One night we were all awoke by the rumbling sound and
three distinct shocks of an earthquake, but could hear nothing
about it on reaching habitations.

Ice sometimes formed at night at our camps, in July and
August.

My whereabouts that season were so uncertain, that I re-
ceived letters which had been re-mailed half a dozen times.

As to the golden object in that season’s prospecting:—
Found several prospects in quartz, about equal to that [ had
left in Nevada, and in placer diggings many places that would
yield one to two dollars a day, but none that would probably
pay to work at that time. The whole country had been pretty
closely prospected, and the paying ground worked. I was
now satisfied as to this, and tired of the business, of the
mountains, and of rambling about in this way.

I learned, that times were pretty good in Washington
Territory, and horses were cheap in the Walla Walla section.
So I decided to go there and work at whatever I found to do,
and buy as many horses as I was able, to work with on theN.
P. railroad, whenever its construction was commenced in
earnest,

106 IpAHO AND MONTANA.

Arriving at Fort Owens, in Bitter-root valley, Montana—
which valley was then being settled and improved—I found
myself on one of the proposed routes of the N. P. R. R.

With a single companion struck West through the
mountains by the Lo Lo Indian trail for Lewiston, Idaho, and
the Walla Walla, Washington Territory country, fifty or one
hundred miles beyond it. Lewiston being situated on the
western verge of the pan-handle of Idaho, near the head of
navigation on Snake river, 400 miles from Portland, Oregon, and
495 miles by water from the mouth of the Columbia river.

On the way to Lewiston, we fell in with a couple of rail-
road surveying parties, who were hunting for a route; also
numerous Nez-Percé Indians, on their way home from hunting
buffalo and fighting the Sioux on their own or neutral hunting
grounds in the Yellowstone country.

The Grouse, or “fool hen,” is a bird of the same family,
it appears to me, as the partridge and pheasant. They differ
from each other in about the same degree as do the Chinamen,
Esquimaux and Indians. Inhabiting different climates, and
compelled to live by different modes and food, may account for
all the difference found in them. As to the difference in dialect,
this can be comprehended and accounted for by observing the
same in different local districts among the same race of
white men—in those of the East, South and West—after so
short a time and with such comparative free and frequent
communication and mingling with each other. We found this
bird so plentiful and tame at many places on this trip, that we
could kill most any amount of them with sticks, as we rode
along.

Camped by a hot sulphur flowing spring on this Lo Lo
trail, and enjoyed a bath in its blue waters where it formed a
pond, cool enough for comfort.

These mountains are craggy, but thickly wooded with much
good timber of fir, tamerack, spruce, cedar and pine.

On the western slope are some fertile prairie valleys, and
on approaching Lewiston (twenty-four miles east from where
I finally settled to make a home) found ourselves in a good
prairie farming country, though not inhabited, except by
Indians. Here we found a Government Indian Agency, also a

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Tue IpaHo Pracer Mines. 107

military post and the American flag. We called at the post for
information as to our whereabouts. Afterwards I sold grain
here that I had raised.

There is fine, light gold in the bars of Snake river, any-
where from near its source to its confluence with the Columbia
(150 miles below Lewiston), also in the Columbia and Salmon
rivers, which was supposed by many to come from some fabu-
lous rich fountain or quartz deposits in the rugged mountains
at the rivers’ source. But we had found this not to be the
case, but that the rivers flowing, as they do, through a gold-
bearing country, where a color can be found most anywhere,
got their supply from the natural washes and streams tributary
to them, with the annual wash of sand, gravel, mud and drift.
Hundreds of Chinamen and some white men mine, with rockers,
on the bars of these rivers, during the low stage of water, mak-
ing one or two dollars per day.

Orofino, Warrens, and other rich placer camps, which
created such excitement and brought Idaho into notice in the
states, in 1860, are in these Salmon river and Clearwater moun-
tains. Lewiston being their point of supply and wintering
place. Its climate nearly equals that of the valleys of Cali-
fornia.

For a year or two the lowest price for supplies was one
dollar a pound at the mines, and they created a splendid
market for many years; which started many into farming in the
Walla Walla country, and gave it and them a good start in the
world. The old Indian and packing trails to Walla Walla and
beyond are ten or fifteen in width, and tramped deep in the
fertile soil; and mining is still going on at those famous camps,
and pack trains are still trailing to and from Lewiston. I had
been acquainted with different ones in Nevada, who had
travelled through this country from California and Oregon,
and dug gold in these mines, so I had in advance quite an
accurate idea as to each.