REMINISCENCES OF CAPT. W. P. GRAY 327
a boat 91 feet long with 12-foot beam, drawing empty 12 inches of water. The next thing was caulking her, but I never saw my father stumped yet. He hunted around and found a big patch of wild flax. He had the children pick this and break it to use as oakum to caulk the cracks in the boat. We also hunted all through the timber and found gum in the trees, which we melted up for pitch to be used in the caulking. He had no canvas for sails, so he made some large sweeps. Father chris- tened her the Sarah F. Gray, for my youngest sister. He launched her on May 2, 1861, and started on his trip down the river on May 10.
"To give you an idea of the determination; of my father, he sent that boat, without machinery, sails or other equipment ex- cept the sweeps, through the Rock Island rapids and through the Priest rapids, both of which he negotiated successfully. He arrived on the Deschutes on May 23. He left me to bring the family down, and I certainly had a very exciting time doing so.
"Father left Asoyoos Lake, at the head of the Okanogan river, with the boat we had built there, for his dangerous trip through the Rock Island rapids and the Priest rapids, on May 10, 1861.
"A. J. Kane had joined our family to go with us from our ranch to The Dalles. My mother, sisters and brothers, with Mr. Kane and myself, started July 4, 1861. The first day out Mr. Kane's horse became restive and threw him against the saddle horn, rupturing him badly. We bound him up, but for the rest of the trip he could hardly ride and was practically helpless. This threw the responsibility of bringing the family through safely on me, but I was 16 years old and felt quite equal to it.
"We swam the Columbia at the mouth of the Okanogan, came through the Grand Coulee and arrived at what is now White Bluffs. We planned to go to The Dalles by way of the Yakima and Simcoe valleys. We crossed the Columbia and camped on the Yakima side. That night a cattleman came to our camp. He said that a man and his wife had just been killed at Moxee Springs the night before and that it would be
