ot a high price, else we could not have purchased.

The following day we could see Mt. Rainier, with its reflection in the
placid waters of the bay. Theodore Winthrop, the observant traveler who
came into these same waters a few months later and wrote of it as Mt.
Tacoma, described it as "a giant mountain dome of snow, seeming to fill
the aerial spaces as the image displaced the blue deeps of tranquil
water." A wondrous sight it was and is, whatever the name.

Next day we entered the mouth of the Puyallup River. We had not
proceeded far up this stream before we were interrupted by a solid drift
of monster trees and logs, extending from bank to bank up the river for
a quarter of a mile or more. The Indians told us that there were two
other like obstructions a few miles farther up the river, and that the
current was very strong.

We secured the services of an Indian and his canoe to help us up the
river, and left our boat at the Indians' camp near the mouth. It took a
tugging of two days to go six miles. We had to unload our outfit three
times to pack it over cut-off trails, and drag our canoe around the
drifts. It was a story of constant toil with consequent discouragement,
not ending until we camped on the bank of the river within the present
limits of the thriving little city of Puyallup.

The Puyallup valley at that time was a solitude. No white settlers were
found, though it was known that two men had staked claims and had made
some slight improvements. An Indian trail led up the river from
Commencement Bay, and another led westward to the Nisqually plains. Over
these pack animals could pass, but wagon roads there were none; and
whether a feasible route for one could be found, only time and labor
could determine.

We retraced our steps, and in the evening landed again at the mouth of
the river after a severe day's toil. We were in no cheerful mood. Oliver
did not sing as usual while preparing for camp. Neither did I have much
to say; but I fell to work, mechanically preparing the much-needed meal.
We ate in silence and then went to sleep.

We had crossed the two great states of Illinois and Iowa, over hundreds
of miles of unoccupied prairie land as rich as anything that ever "lay
out of doors," on our way from Indiana to Oregon in search of land on
which to make a home. Here, at what we might call the end of our rope,
we had found the land, but with conditions that seemed almost too
adverse to overcome.

It w