The giants of the forest here have drawn up their approach after them. So much scenery and so few habitations with people to enjoy it. Darkness came on and we got off the train at Snohomish instead of going on to Seattle to which we had paid our fare; walking over the high bridge over the Snohomish River, Mr. Gleason took us up to the hospitable home of some friends of his to spend the night. The next morning my son had his lessons as usual, and I have thought so many times since how queer it was that I could either instruct him or that he would settle down to study when we were so unsettled, so weary, and in so much anxiety and fear. But I was determined he should not grow up ignorant and untaught and he was always patient and willing to learn from me, his mother. IN THE PUGET SOUND COUNTRY ANOTHER WARNING. The Northern Pacific Railway runs a line from Seattle through Snohomish, Machias and Hartford to connect at the border town of Sumas with the Canadian Pacific Railway. It was this road that we took from Snohomish to Seattle the morning after our arrival from Spokane. The train runs through the dense forests, around beautiful lakes, and crosses magnificent rivers. We got off the train at Ballard, a suburb, before reaching the Central Depot and took a streetcar to Mr. Gleason's home. I protested, but I could not make my lawyer see that I was in the least bit of danger. I was very nervous and worried and the next day I told Mr. Gleason I could not stay another minute in the city. I did not know but any second some acquaintance would recognize me from a street-car. We could not stay shut up in a house. Western air is too bracing and health-restoring for that. One of Mr. Gleason's neighbors, an Internal Revenue Officer and his wife, took pity upon me and introduced me as the widow of their nephew, giving me their name. This Revenue Officer made many trips all around Seattle on official business bent. One morning he called for us with a buggy and fine team of horses and took us SNOQUALMIE FALLS, WASHINGTON. "No one can describe the beauty of a misty fall of water in those forests; like a bridal veil, with the heavy background of firs, spruce and cedars." across Lake Washington. We crossed Seattle's most beautiful lake, Lake Washington, in a buggy on a ferry boat. This lake is a picture never to be forgotten with snow-white Mt. Rainier overhead, dotted with pretty islands, thriving busy Seattle behind us. Reaching the quiet, deserted "boom-town" of Kirtland, we alighted from our vehicle and drove through the densest forest you ever saw across a slough to—well, the finest place ever-dear old Judge White's. He had been a chief-justice in the territory of Washington and is to-day one of the leading lawyers and one of the grand old men of the State of Washington. A veteran of the Civil War, going with a Southern Ohio regiment he had later taken up a "Soldier's Claim" in the wilderness of a Western forest. It was certainly a "Howling Wilderness" at that time, for the wild animals howled in the thick woods and the wind howled in the branches of the giant trees. The vast streams with their many cascades and falls howled so they could be heard many miles. Judge White's sister told me when her brother's cedar-shake" hut was built, and they went out to live on it, they had to go through such dark, thick woods on foot, not even a horse could get through, that it was only by looking up and up, that they could at last get a faint glimpse of the sky overhead. Their supplies were packed on a man's back until a trail could be hacked. In that country the first hut of the pioneer 66 |