and perhaps the latter intended to do so when he should be sufficiently reënforced. But when Gray returned from the United States in the autumn of 1838, he found the place already occupied by the Methodists.
About the middle of March 1838, Perkins and Lee proceeded by canoe to the Dalles, and selected a site three miles below the narrows, and half a mile from the Columbia River on the south side, where there was good land, springs of excellent water, a plentiful supply of pine and oak timber, and a fine view of the Columbia for several miles. Back of the chosen site the ground rose rather abruptly, and was lightly wooded with lofty pines. Standing like a watchtower in the south-west was Mount Hood, whose icy cliffs wrapped in the silent sky flung back the sun's rays defiantly.
Assisted by the natives, who at first labored with zeal, hoping now to realize the good which their interviews with Parker had taught them to expect, a house was built in which Mrs Perkins came to live in May. Unlike the natives of the Willamette, those at the Dalles showed a willingness to be taught religion, assembling on Sundays, and listening with a sober demeanor to sermons preached through an interpreter, and this to the great encouragement of their teachers.
After several journeys by river to transport supplies, each of which took three weeks to perform, early in September Daniel Lee undertook the serious task of bringing cattle from the Willamette to the Dalles by an Indian trail over the Cascade Mountains,[1] being assisted in this labor only by the natives.
Lee's description of his squad of savages might be compared with Falstaff's remarks in mustering his recruits. There was an old Chinook, blind in one eye;
- ↑ Daniel Lee calls these mountains the President's Range, after Kelley; nor were they as a range ever otherwise formally named. It was from the circumstance that travellers so often said 'the Cascade Mountains,' to distinguish them from other ranges in the country, that they obtained their present name.
