ill leave this
question for the naturalist, the geologist and the theorist. And the
passing of the "noble red man" to the gentleman in silk gown and
slippers--and to the sentimental novelist.

Oregon settlers now had leisure time for building up their homes, so
better houses were erected, fields were fenced and plowed, school houses
and churches built, scythes and axes were wielded in place of the rifle
that now rested in idleness above the cabin door. A new era had dawned
on the Oregon, and gentle peace like a brooding spirit hovered above the
erstwhile desolate land.

During the succeeding years, up to 1861, there was little to distract
the attention of the pioneers. My time was occupied during that period
in assisting on the farm during summer and attending the district school
during the winter. The loop holes in the wall of the old school house
for the rifles had been boarded up, and the larger boys no longer
"toted" their guns, and stacked them in the corner.

On the east side of the Cascade mountains, however, the gentle savage
was lord of all the lands over which he roamed. Here he was yet master,
and thereby hangs a tale. In 1845 an immigrant train attempted to enter
the Oregon by way of the "Meeks cut off." With them were the Durbins,
Simmons, Tetherows, Herrins and many others I cannot now recall. The
history of that journey is one of hardship, starvation, and death. After
enduring sufferings such as sicken one in the bare recital the remnant
staggered into the settlements, more dead than alive. They crossed the
Cascade mountains, coming down the Middle Fork of the Willamette river,
and somewhere west of Harney Valley they stopped on a small stream. An
old Indian trail crossed at that point, and the oxen in sliding down the
bank to water uncovered a bright piece of metal. It was picked up and
taken to camp, where a man who had been in the mines in Georgia
pronounced it gold. He flattened it out with a wagon hammer, and was
quite positive it was the precious metal. But men, women and children
subsisting on grasshoppers and crickets and fighting Indians most of the
day, had something else to think about.

The incident, therefore, was soon forgotten amid the dire stress of
their surroundings. But when gold was discovered at Sutter's Fort in
California, Sol Tetherow called to mind the finding of the piece of
metal on the banks of the stream not far from Harney Valley. He told
about it--told and retold the stor