e new country. This rest, however, could not last long. Preparations
must be made without delay for shelter from the coming storms of winter;
the stock must be cared for, and other beginnings made for a new life of
independence.

After surveying the situation, father said the island home would not do.
He had come two thousand miles to live neighbors; I must give up my
claim and take up another near his, on the mainland. Abandoning the
results of more than a year's hard work, I acted upon his request, and
across the bay we built our third cabin.

[Illustration: The night ride to the fort.]

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

INDIAN WAR DAYS

ONE of the saddest chapters in the early history of Washington Territory
was the trouble with the Indians, which led finally to open war.

On October 28, 1855, word came that all the settlers living on White
River had been killed by the Indians and that the next day those in the
Puyallup valley would be massacred. At the risk of his life a friendly
Indian brought this news to us in the dead hours of the night.

The massacre had occurred less than twenty miles from where we lived.
For all we knew the Indians might be on us at any moment. There were
three men of us, and each had a gun.

The first thing we did was to harness and hitch the team to the wagon.
Then we opened the gates to let the calves get to their mothers, turned
the pigs loose, and opened the chicken-house door--all this without
light. Then the drive for our lives began, the women and babies lying
close to the bottom of the wagon, the men with guns ready for action.

We reached Fort Steilacoom unmolested. But we could not in safety stop
there. The place was really no fort at all, only an encampment, and it
was already filled with refugees from the surrounding settlements. So we
pushed on into the town and stayed there until a blockhouse was built.

This building was about fifty feet wide and nearly a hundred feet long.
It was bullet-proof, without windows, and two stories high. A heavy door
swung at the front entrance to the lower story, while an inclined walk
from higher ground in the rear enabled us to reach the upper story;
inside, a ladder served the purpose of a stairway between the two
stories.

The blockhouse proved a haven of safety during the Indian trouble, not
only to our own family but to many of our neighbors besides.
Seventy-five such houses were built during these troublous times.
Numbers of sett