tions concerning tips country. It was not the company's horses he was after, but the earth under the feet of that powerful corporation, whose officers had reason to wish him away.
At Linnton there is a smelter for reducing ores from the mines of Eastern Oregon and other districts. The Northern Pacific Railroad (Portland branch) runs along the river here, and passes through Linnton, on its way north to the crossing of the Columbia at Kalama, on the Washington side. I took a ride over it early in May, when the tall cherry orchards of the farms and the dogwoods of the forest vied in the snowy whiteness of their abundant flowering, and the rounder-topped plum-trees filled in the spaces, while golden dandelions spangled the road-side, and away across the reaches -of river and wood symmetrical St. Helen rose grandly from the horizon, half veiled in the mists of early morning.
Along the margin of the Wallamet are groups of handsome oak-trees, which grow and thrive on the bottom-lands where a fir-tree cannot live. In fact, a fir is built to shed even the rains from about its roots, while its foliage is so full of pitch that water cannot penetrate it. Thus cunningly has nature provided for the safety of its creations.
It is about six miles from St. John to Portland, but does not seem so far, the shores being inhabited, and the evidences of business increasing with every revolution of the steamer's sternwheel.
Portland.
The chief city of Oregon is set in an amphitheatre of hills, which rise abruptly at a distance of little more than a mile from the river at its widest part. But for the low nature of the ground it might be extended down as far as Linnton and its manufactories; probably will be when the necessity for more room forces business down river. The town will also grow up river, where there are choice sites for residences, and back over the heights, which are already being quite thickly built up. But the overflow of population will go to the east side of the river, where East Portland and Albina, with their numerous additions, are even now spreading over a wide area, the land on this side being level across to the Columbia, a distance of six miles.
