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seemed like there was no end to it, and you jest got to face the music; for there warn't no other way.”

"How did this country strike you when you got through ?"

"Well, the old lady and me jest thought lots of it. We took up our claims in King's Valley-you know the place-jest the nicest kind of a place, with lots of grass and a nice river. You had all the timber you wanted on the mountains close by, and jest lots of deer and elk."

"Pretty lonely, though, wasn't it ?"

"Well, it was kinder lonely, but we had lots to do, and the time passed very quick. The country settled up quick, and we had all the neighbors we wanted."

"Any trouble with Indians, uncle ?"

"No; the Calapooyas would thieve a bit, but fifty of them cusses would jest scare from five or six of us settlers with our rifles. And the Klick-i-tats were good Injuns, and never troubled us any. Those were good old times, boys.' And the old man rose to go, with a sigh.

Think of the change the old gentleman has seenfor he lives there yet! Now, his white farmhouse, with good barn and out-buildings, fronts on a well-traveled road, leading past many a neighbor's house, and to the church and village. The woods on the hill-sides have disappeared, and the ruled furrows of the wheat-fields. have replaced the native grass; the elk and deer which found him food as well as sport have retired shyly away into the far-off fastnesses round Mary's Peak and in the "green timber," and the fleecy flocks have usurped their place. The thievish Calapooyas and good Klick-itats have lost their tribal connections, and their shrunk

en remnants have been shifted away north to the Indian reserve. As you stand on the hill above his house, and the vision ranges over the gentle outlines of King's Valley, dotted with farms and lined with fences, it is but the noble forms of the distant mountains that could identify the scene with that which he scanned with wayworn eye as he halted his weary oxen after his six months' journey from distant Illinois.

CHAPTER XVII.

State and county elections-The Chinese question-Chinese house-servants-Washermen - Laborers-A large camp-Supper-Chinese trading-The scissors-Cost of Chinese labor-Its results-Chinese treaties-Household servants-Chee and his mistress-"Heap debble-y in there"-The photo album-Temptation-A sin and its reward-Good advice on whipping-Chung and the crockery-Chinese New Year Gifts-" Hoodlums"-Town police-Opium.

IN the summer of 1880 there occurred an election of Senators and Representatives to the State Legislature, and also to the county offices of clerk, sheriff, assessor, coroner, surveyor, and commissioners.

The whole apparatus of caucuses and canvasses was put in operation, and the candidates nominated on both Republican and Democratic "tickets" perambulated the county, and addressed audiences in every precinct from the "stump.

The Greenbackers had the courage of their opinions and put candidates in the field. Indeed, one of the precincts in the burned-woods country, of which I have already discoursed, enjoyed the proud distinction of casting more votes for the "Greenback" candidate than for either of the two great parties.

I attended some of these meetings and listened to the stump-speeches with much interest. That which caused the current of eloquence on all hands to run fastest was the Chinese question. How vehemently have I heard denounced the yellow-faced, pig-eyed,

and tailed Mongolians who were spreading like locusts over the face of the country, and ousting the poor but honest and industrious white laborer from those employments to which he is specially adapted -how they sucked the life-blood of the people in order to carry their ill-gotten gains across the seas; how their barbarous language and filthy social habits "riz the dander" of these orators, while the audience loudly applauded every strong stroke of the brush! At the torch-light processions which closed some of the evening meetings, transparencies were carried about by citizens staggering under their weight, which depicted Chinamen in various conditions of terror flying from the boot-tips of energetic Americans; or, on the opposite back, the poor but honest white man prostrate on the ground, while a fat Chinaman sat heavily on his breast.

Such an obvious current of popular opinion set an on-looker to rub his eyes, and feel if he were dreaming.

For, go into nearly every house inhabited by a family, in or near any town in the State, and you will find one or more Chinamen doing the house-service. Walk through the streets, and you will meet a bluecoated Asiatic with a big clothes-basket of clean linen on his shoulders. Here and there in the streets hangs a sign: "Hop Kee," "Sam Lin," "Lee Chung,” “Ah Sin," "Washing," or "Chinese Laundry," and "Labor provided," or "Intelligence-Office," and through the steamy windows you catch a glimpse of white-shirted Chinamen, bending over their ironing, and a mixed gabble of strange "Ahs" and "Yahs" strikes the ear as you pass by.

I went up the Columbia River to the Dalles the

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other day. At the Dalles was a camp for the night of about five hundred Chinamen, being transferred by the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company from work higher up the river to some of the heavy rock-cutting and tunneling between the Dalles and the Lower Cascades. I stood and watched them at their suppers. Divided into messes of twelve or fifteen each, they had supplied themselves with beef in the town. Holes were

dug in the ground, sticks lighted in them, and large pans set on to boil, and, with plenty of salt and pepper, a savory smell soon arose. Large pans of rice were boiling by the side, and before long each man's portion was ladled out into a real China basin, which he held in one hand close to his mouth, while the chop-sticks moved at a terrible rate in the fingers of the other hand. Such uncouth figures !-bronzed in tint, short and heavy in form, clad in thick blanket-coats, with knee-boots; turbans round most heads made of heavy scarlet woolen comforters, and a few old hats among the crowd; and a constant gabble of voices, nearly deafening in the aggregate. Their little tents were pitched on the riverbank close at hand, and a huge pile of their unmistakable baggage lay heaped, with their shovels and axes, on the deck of the great scow hard by. The town was full of them, buying or bargaining in every store. I marked a group of four who wanted a pair of strong scissors. They were asked fifty cents in a store. They examined the scissors and tried to cheapen them in vain, and then left. They tried four stores in turn, but found no better article, and the same price; then returned to their first love, and strove hard for a reduction in vain. Again they went the round; again they came back : on the fourth visit the patience of the Jewish gentle