Читать книгу Vigilante Days and Ways. The pioneers of the Rockies; the makers and making of Montana and Idaho онлайн

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Perhaps in the early history of no part of our country were greater difficulties overcome in moving from one place to another than in the mining districts of Oregon and Idaho. Essentially a mountain region, and in all portions of it away from the narrow valleys formed by the streams filled with the remains of extensive volcanic action, its surface, besides being broken into deep cañons, lofty ridges, inaccessible precipices, impassable streams, and impenetrable lava beds, was also covered everywhere with the sharp points and fissured hummocks which were cast out during a long and active period of primeval eruption. There were no natural roads in any direction. The trail of the Indian was full of obstacles, often indirect and generally impracticable. To travel with vehicles of any sort was absolutely impossible. The pack-animal was the only available resource for transportation. The miner would bind all his earthly gear on the back of a mule or a burro and grapple with obstructions as they appeared, cutting his way through forests almost interminable, and exposing himself to dangers as trying to his fortitude as to his ingenuity. The merchant who wished to transport goods, the saloon-keeper who had liquors and billiard tables, the hotel-keeper whose furniture was necessary, all had to employ pack-animals as the only means of transportation from the towns on the Columbia to the mining camps of the interior. The owner of a train of pack-animals was always certain of profitable employment. His life was precarious, his subsistence poor, his responsibilities enormous. He threaded the most dangerous passes, and incurred the most fearful risks,—for all of which he received adequate compensation.