the misty past of the Oregon Country,
in a quaint legend.

[Illustration: Celilo Falls on the Columbia

Copyright 1902 by Benj. A. Gifford, The Dalles, Ore.]

[Illustration: The north abutment of the Bridge of the Gods

Copyright 1902 by Benj. A. Gifford, The Dalles, Ore.]

In the late 'fifties Theodore Winthrop made his way 'cross country from
Port Townsend, on Puget Sound, to The Dalles on the Columbia. His book,
_The Canoe and the Saddle_, describes that pioneer excursion through
Indian land, traversing what was in reality an untrodden wilderness. Its
charm of literary expression is in no whit less fascinating than the
wealth of its adventurous material, but the two, like the writer, are
far behind us, and all of the pleasant account I would refer to here is
the last chapter, which concerns the arrival at The Dalles, then an
outpost of civilization.

Looking down upon the valley of The Dalles, Winthrop writes a half
century ago:

Racked and battered crags stood disorderly over all that rough
waste. There were no trees, nor any masses of vegetation to soften
the severities of the landscape. All was harsh and desolate, even
with the rich sun of an August afternoon doing what it might to
empurple the scathed fronts of rock, to gild the ruinous piles with
summer glories, and throw long shadows veiling dreariness. I looked
upon the scene with the eyes of a sick and weary man, unable to
give that steady thought to mastering its scope and detail without
which any attempt at artistic description becomes vague
generalization.

My heart sank within me as the landscape compelled me to be gloomy
like itself. It was not the first time I had perused the region
under desolating auspices. In a log barrack I could just discern
far beyond the river, I had that very summer suffered from a
villain malady, the smallpox. And now, as then, Nature harmonized
discordantly with my feelings, and even forced her nobler aspects
to grow sternly ominous. Mount Hood, full before me across the
valley, became a cruel reminder of the unattainable. It was
brilliantly near, and yet coldly far away, like some mocking bliss
never to be mine, though it might insult me forever by its scornful
presence.

[Illustration: Columbia River. The land of Indian legends

Copyright 1909 by Benj. A. Gifford, The Dalles, Ore.]

[Illustration: Where the