TRIP THROUGH THE NATCHESS PASS—[CONTINUED.]

People now traversing what is popularly known as Nisqually Plains, that is, the stretch of open prairie, interspersed with clumps of timber, sparkling lakes, and glade lands, from the heavy timber bordering the Puyallup to a like border of the Nisqually, will hardly realize that once upon a time these bare gravelly prairies supplied a rich grass of exceeding fattening quality and of sufficient quantity to support many thousand head of stock, and not only support but fatten them ready for the butcher's stall. Nearly half a million acres of this land lie between the two rivers, from two to four hundred feet above tide level and beds of the rivers mentioned, undulating and in benches, an ideal part of shade and open land of rivulets and lakes, of natural roads and natural scenery of splendor.

So, when our little train emerged from the forests skirting the Puyallup Valley, and came out on the open at Montgomery's, afterwards Camp Montgomery, of Indian war times, twelve miles southeasterly of Fort Steilacoom, the experience was almost as if one had come into a noonday sun from a dungeon prison, so marked was the contrast. Hundreds of cattle, sheep and horses were quietly grazing, scattered over the landscape, so far as one could see, fat and content. It is not to be wondered that the spirits of the tired party should rise as they saw this scene of content before them, and thought they could become participants with those who had come before them, and that for the moment rest was theirs if that was what they might choose.

Fort Nisqually was about ten miles southwesterly from our camp at Montgomery's, built, as mentioned elsewhere, by the Hudson Bay Company, in 1833.

In 1840-41, this company's holdings at Nisqually and Cowlitz were transferred to the Puget Sound Agricultural Company. This latter company was organized in London at the instance of Dr. William F. Tolmie, who visited that city to conduct the negotiations in person with the directors of the Hudson Bay Company. He returned clothed with the power to conduct the affairs of the new company, but under the direction of the Hudson Bay Company, and with the restriction not to enter into or interfere with the fur trade; he later became the active agent of both companies at Nisqually.

It was principally the stock of this company that we saw from our camp and nearby points. At that time, the Agricultural Company had several farms on these plains, considerable pasture land enclosed, and fourteen thousand head of stock running at large; sheep cattle and horses.

The United States government actually paid rent to this foreign company for many years for the site where Fort Steilacoom was located on account of the shadowy title of the company under the treaty of 1846.

During this lapse of time, from 1833 to the time our camp was established, many of the company's servants' time had expired and in almost every case, such had taken to themselves Indian wives and had squatted on the choice locations for grazing or small farming. Montgomery himself, near whose premises we were camping, was one of these. A few miles to the south of this place, ran the small creek "Muck," on the surface for several miles to empty into the Nisqually. Along this little creek, others of these discharged servants had settled, and all taken Indian wives. These were the settlers that were afterwards denounced by Governor Stevens, and finally arrested for alleged treason. Each of these had an abundance of stock and farm produce, and was living in affluence and comfort. One of them, reputed to be the rightful owner of thirteen cows, one summer raised thirty-three calves, the handy lasso rope having been brought into play among the company's herds in secluded places; yet, as the rule, these people were honorable, upright men, though as a class, not of high intelligence, or of sober habits.

Added to this class just mentioned, was another; the discharged United States soldiers. The men then comprising the United States army were far lower in moral worth and character than now. Many of these men had also taken Indian wives and settled where they had chosen to select. Added to these were a goodly number of the previous years' immigrants. By this recital the reader will be apprised of the motley mess our little party were destined to settle among, unless they should chose to go to other parts of the Territory. I did not myself fully realize the complications to be met until later years.

All this while, as we have said, settlers were crowding into this district, taking up donation claims until that act expired by limitation in 1854, and afterward by squatter's rights, which to all appearances, seemed as good as any. My own donation claim afterwards was involved in this controversy, in common with many others. Although our proofs of settlement were made and all requirements of the law complied with, nevertheless, our patents were held up and our title questioned for twenty years, and so, after having made the trip across the Plains, because Uncle Sam had promised to give us all a farm, and after having made the required improvements and resided on the land for the four years, then to be crowded off without title did seem a little rough on the pioneers.

I have before me one of the notices served upon the settlers by the company's agent which tells the whole story. [8] The then thriving town of Steilacoom was involved, as likewise part of the lands set apart for the Indian Reservation, and it did seem as though it would be hard to get a more thorough mix-up as to titles of the land, than these knotty questions presented.

All this while, as was natural there should be, there was constant friction between some settler and the company, and had it not been for the superior tact of such a man as Dr. Tolmie in charge of the company's affairs, there would have been serious trouble.

As it was, there finally came a show of arms when the company undertook to survey the boundary line to inclose the land claimed, although the acreage was much less than claimed on paper. But the settlers, (or some of them), rebelled, and six of them went armed to the party of surveyors at work and finally stopped them. An old-time friend, John McLeod, was one of the party (mob, the company called it), but the records do not show whether he read his chapter in the Bible that day, or whether instead, he took a double portion of whiskey to relieve his conscience.

It is doubtful whether the old man thought he was doing wrong or thought anything about it, except that he had a belief that somehow or other a survey might make against him getting a title to his own claim.

I had a similar experience at a later date with the Indians near the Muckleshute Reservation, while attempting to extend the sub-divisional lines of the township near where the reserve was located. I could not convince the Indians that the survey meant no harm to them.

The case was different in the first instance, as in fact, neither party was acting within the limits of their legal rights, and for the time being, the strongest and most belligerent prevailed, but only to be circumvented at a little later date by a secret completion of the work, sufficient to platting the whole.

All this while the little party was halting. The father said the island home would not do, and as he had come two thousand miles to live neighbors, I must give up my claim and take another near theirs, and so, abandoning over a year's hard work, I acted upon his request with the result told elsewhere, of fleeing from our new chosen home, as we supposed, to save our lives, upon the outbreak of the Indian War in two years from the time of the camp mentioned.

One can readily see that these surroundings did not promise that compact, staid settlement of energetic, wide awake pioneers we so coveted, nevertheless, the promise of money returns was good, and that served to allay any discontent that would otherwise arise. I remember the third year we began selling eighteen months' old steers at fifty dollars each, off the range that had never been fed a morsel. Our butter sold for fifty cents a pound, and at times, seventy-five cents, and many other things at like prices. No wonder all hands soon became contented; did not have time to be otherwise.

It came about though, that we were in considerable part a community within ourselves, yet, there were many excellent people in the widely scattered settlements. The conditions to some extent encouraged lawlessness, and within the class already mentioned, a good deal of drunkenness and what one might well designate as loose morals, incident to the surroundings. A case in point:

A true, though one might say a humorous story is told on Doctor Tolmie, or one of his men, of visiting a settler where they knew one of their beeves had been slaughtered and appropriated. To get direct evidence he put himself in the way of an invitation to dinner, where, sure enough, the fresh, fat beef was smoking on the table. The good old pioneer (I knew him well) asked a good, old-fashioned Methodist blessing over the meat, giving thanks for the bountiful supply of the many good things of the world vouchsafed to him and his neighbors, and thereupon in true pioneer hospitality, cut a generous sized piece of the roast for his guest, the real owner of the meat.

This incident occurred just as here related, and although the facts are as stated, yet we must not be too ready to scoff at our religious friend and condemn him without a hearing. To me, it would have been just as direct thieving as any act could have been, and yet, to our sanctified friend I think it was not, and upon which thereby hangs a tale.

Many of the settlers looked upon the company as interlopers, pure and simple, without any rights they were bound to respect. There had been large numbers of cattle and sheep run on the range and had eaten the feed down, which they thought was robbing them of their right of eminent domain for the land they claimed the government had promised to give them.

The cattle became very wild, in great part on account of the settlers' actions, but the curious part was they afterwards justified themselves from the fact that they were wild, and so it happened there came very near being claim of common property of the company's stock, with not a few of the settlers.

One lawless act is almost sure to breed another, and there was no exception to the rule in this strange community, and many is the settler that can remember the disappearance of stock which could be accounted for in but one way—gone with the company's herd. In a few years, though, all this disappeared. The incoming immigrants from across the plains were a sturdy set as a class, and soon frowned down such a loose code of morals.

For the moment let us turn to the little camp on the edge of the prairie, of seven wagons and three tents. There came a time it must be broken up. No more camp fires, with the fragrant coffee morning and evening; no more smoking the pipe together over jests, or serious talk; no more tucks in the dresses of the ladies, compelled first by the exigencies of daily travel and now to be parted with under the inexorable law of custom or fashion; no more lumps of butter at night, churned during the day by the movement of wagon and the can containing the morning's milk. We must hie us off to prepare shelter from the coming storms of winter; to the care of the stock; the preparations for planting; to the beginning of a new life of independence.