We were at this camp one day, and discovered that the river rose and fell two feet. We had reached tide water and were on the western margin of the continent. Our small fleet of boats had kept within supporting distance of each other on the way down the river, but here there was a parting of the ways.
The Applegate families, with the Straits and Naylors started across the river from the camp at Vancouver intending to go direct to the mouth of the Willamette River. But there came on such a storm of wind and rain it was thought best to land the boats at Sovey's Island, where two or three deserted houses acorded shelter. Our departure from Vancouver had been emphasized by an unpleasant circumstance. When the big family boat was passing under the bow of the schooner, the sailor boys tossed big red apples to the oldest of the young ladies. Cousin Lucy. She tried to catch the apples in her apron but they all bounded into the river and were lost. I heard Cousin Lucy speak of this experience when she was over seventy. She said it was the disappointment to the children, who had depended on her, that made her failure painful to her then, and unpleasant to remember.
The Straits and Naylors parted company with us at Sovey's Island, where we remained three or four days. Passing across from Sovey's Island and near a low point of land on our left, our boats entered the mouth of the Willamette River. Continuing up the stream we passed the place where Strait and Naylor had established a camp on the west bank of the river. They called the place Linton. They told us Mr. Strait's daughter had died there. Not long after passing Linton we landed on the west shore, and went into camp on the high bank where there was very little underbrush among the pine trees. No one lived there and the place had no name; there was nothing to show that the place had ever been visited except a small log hut near the river, and a broken mast of a ship leaning against the high bank. There were chips hewn from timber, showing that probably a new mast had been made there. We were at this place a day or two and were visited by two men from the prairie country up the river, then known as the "plains." These two men, Thompson and Doty, had been trappers but had taken native women for wives and
