Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/171

From Youth to Age as an American. 153 plentiful on the plains. In and around the French settlement wolves, panthers, bears and coyotes were more plentiful than deer and the ' ' multitude of hogs, ' ' which Sir George Simpson of the Hudson's Bay Company reported to Captain Wilkes in 1842, as products of the Canadian engagees of his company farming for wheat— 15,000 bushels of which was used by his company as rental to the Russians for the Alaskan coast as fur-bearing country. Swine, w^hich at first lived on the grasses, camas and oak mast, were the chief destroyers of the roots which were the chief foods of the natives, and small game decreased by the expanding and increasing of the American settlements. On the west face of the Cascades the Molallas claimed dominion, and fire was their agency in improving the game range and berry crops. The Molalla, the Pudding River, Butte Creek, the Ahiqua, Silver Creek and the Little North Santiam do not reach the true summit of the Cascade Range. The Clackamas, the main North Santiam, the McKenzie and the middle fork of the Willamette draw their sources from the west slopes of the true summits of the range, and are, there- fore, the chief power and salmon streams, although all the streams are valuable. All along the west side of the Cascades to within four to six miles of the summit there are openings of coarse grass land on filled-up lake beds, commonly desig- nated as beaver dams." They are the result of checks to outflow by the dams which the beaver makes to hold the water around his house as a protection against carnivori. The muskrat is the most troublesome neighbor the beaver has, in that he digs his hole of refuge under the dam and fre- quently drains the lake or pond, partly at least, thus making the upper part of it ready for grass seed. Hence, the Wasco- pam Indians, before the missionary came, counted the muskrat the ' 'maker of land. ' ' The tribe now called the Warm Springs Indians used the lake beds for hunting grounds and summer pastures for their ponies, and have, I understand, rights there by treaty. It is a land of lakes and mighty springs all along to within about ten miles of the summit on either side, with