of railroads, giving them outlets to the Columbia and connection with the transcontinental lines.
Between the Touchet and the Snake Rivers, in Walla Walla County, is a strip of country twenty miles in breadth by fifty in length, lying on the top of a bench of the high hills south of the Snake, of which thirty by ten miles is a flat, called Eureka, of rich, loamy soil, constituting a region unsurpassed for fruitfulness, and through it the Hunt railroad is run. In this favored grain-land has sprung up recently the town of Fairfield, which promises to be able soon to compete with any of the older towns in the county in growth and prosperity.
From these brief observations on this part of the Inland Empire it will, perhaps, be possible to catch some general view of it and those features which contrast so strongly with the Puget Sound region. It is at the same time an admirable counterpart, each being necessary to the completeness of the other.
CHAPTER XXIX.
WHAT ABOUT SPOKANE?
The route of the Northern Pacific to Spokane from Walla Walla is a tortuous one, and for a large part of the distance an uninteresting one. It is haying-time, the weather is warm, and travel dusty. The road winds among hills after the manner of water seeking its level. Prescott, named after an officer of the company, is a pretty place between hills, the approach to it being along the Touchet River bordered by thickets of mockorange. From here to the Snake River there is little to attract the eye. The Palouse country north of the Snake appeared more thrifty. Along the streams were dense groves of poplar, birch, and willow, and thickets of wild roses. Endicott is in a good farming region, and well built for a small, new settlement. I observed several tree plantations along the route through Whitman County. About Colfax the hills are dotted with pines. I had a glimpse of Steptoe's Butte, where that officer was badly beaten by the Spokane and Coeur d'Alene Indians in 1858. On that butte he buried most of his command and
