vertheless I slept
soundly and was up early, refreshed and ready to resume the journey.

Such a road as I found is difficult to imagine. How the pioneer
trail-blazers had made their way through it is a marvel. It seemed
incredible that forests so tall and so dense could have existed
anywhere on earth. Curiously enough, the heavier the standing timber,
the easier it had been to slip through with wagons, there being but
little undecayed timber or down timber. In the ancient days, however,
great giants had been uprooted, lifting considerable earth with the
upturned roots. As time went on the roots decayed, making mounds two,
three, or four feet high and leaving a corresponding hollow into which
one would plunge; for the whole was covered by a dense, short evergreen
growth that completely hid from view the unevenness of the ground. Over
these hillocks and hollows and over great roots on top of the ground,
they had rolled their wagons.

All sorts of devices had been tried to overcome obstructions. In many
places, where the roots were not too large, cuts had been taken out. In
other places the large timber had been bridged by piling up smaller
logs, rotten chunks, brush, or earth, so that the wheels of the wagon
could be rolled over the body of the tree. Usually three notches would
be cut on the top of the log, two for the wheels and one for the reach,
or coupling pole, to pass through.

In such places the oxen would be taken to the opposite side, and a chain
or rope would be run to the end of the wagon tongue. One man drove, one
or two guided the tongue, others helped at the wheels. In this way, with
infinite labor and great care, the wagons would gradually be worked over
all obstacles and down the mountain in the direction of the settlements.

But the more numerous the difficulties, the more determined I became to
push through at all hazards, for the greater was the necessity of
acquainting myself with the obstacles to be encountered and of reaching
my friends to encourage and help them.

[Illustration: _Edward S. Curtis_

In the heart of a Cascade forest.]

Before me lay the summit of the great range, the pass, at five thousand
feet above sea level. At this summit, about twenty miles north of Mt.
Rainier in the Cascade range, is a small stretch of picturesque open
country known as Summit Prairie, in the Natchess Pass.

In this prairie, during the autumn of 1853, a camp of immigrants had
encountered grave difficult