anking movement, and more bowlders and
nearly a riot! And so it went, until the top was reached, and there
being no more hillside to maneuver upon, and no inclination to start
over again, the two groups called quits and spent the balance of the day
playing seven-up, leaving settlement of their burlesque to courts of
law. And there were times when "coyote holes"--which are tunnels of
dynamite--exploding on one side of the river, somehow sent shattered
rock and pebbles in a dangerous deluge upon the tents across the stream.

The struggle for transportation supremacy was bitter enough, and comic,
too, in spots. But the stage set for its acting was superb beyond
compare.

Not without reason, the defile of the Deschutes has been called the
"Grand Canyon of the Northwest." For a full one hundred miles the river
races at the bottom of a steep-walled canyon, its sides here and there
pinching in to the water's very edge, and often enough with sheer
cliffs towering mightily, their bases lapped by the white foam of
rapids. Great rounded hills, green in spring, brown in summer, and white
under the snows of winter, climb into the sky a thousand feet and more
on either hand. Their sides are ribbed with countless cattle trails,
like the even ripples of the wind and tide on a sandy beach. Strange
contorted rock formations thrust forth from the lofty slopes, and
occasional clutters of talus slides spill down into the water. Rich hues
of red and brown warm the somber walls, where prehistoric fires burned
the clay or rock, or minerals painted it. White-watered, crystal springs
are born miraculously in the midst of apparent drought, offering arctic
cold nectar the year around. The river winds sinuously, doubling back
upon itself interminably, seeking first one, and then another, point of
the compass, a veritable despair for railroad builders whose companion
word for "results" must be "economy." Despite the stifling
oppressiveness of that canyon bake-oven in July, with breezes few and
far between and rattlesnakes omnipresent, the ever-changing grandeur was
enough to repay for near-sunstroke and foot weariness.

However, enjoyment of the scenery was not my mission. I was supposed to
discover, authentically, who was backing that other road--where the
millions were coming from. If it was Hill, it meant much to Oregon, for
as yet the "Empire Builder" had never truly invaded the state, and if
now he planned a great new line to California the r