The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1889-08-09

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from the printing office down to
even the meanest boarding house
towel, l could only attribute the
laying in of so much of the above
mentioned article to the fact that
the Umatilla Indians, who, as all
the world knows. are notoriously
extravagant in the use Of soap, in
tended to boycott Pendleton, and
in the future draw their supplies
in this particular line from La
Grande. Be that as it may, this
doing business in such a wholesale
way speaks we'll for the town in
more than one respect. Eyeing
with suspicion this suave traveller
| hurriedly withdrew, lest he might
induce me to buy a carload of some
thing, and took my seat, in a re-
mote part of our coach.
At Baker City | expected to be
re- enforced, but the two armies
.'failed to connect and l travelled
on alone. The country between
Baker City and Huntington is one
which, when you have seen it once,
will ever remain impressed in your
memory, and you are filled with a
nameless yearning to see it again
ON the map, but only after you
have industriously removed two
or three handfulls of sand from
your eyes, ears, and nose. During
the day, so they told us, the ther-
mometer at Huntington had been
up TO 11O degrees, but upon our
arrival there, at five O'Clock p. m.,
it promptly dropped to 1O4, SO as
not to surprise OF scare us too much.
The town is hedged in on all sides
by mountains, apparently sterile
and barren, which, however, offer
excellent pastures to horses; SO
much so, indeed, that gentleman
living at Huntington assured us
that within radius of thirteen
miles of the town he could gather a
band Of 10000 head. At this
place they change from Pacific to
what is called ''mountalnoo time, SO
that | found my watch to be just
one hour behind time. Ats O'Clock
p. m., mountain time, we started,
crossed the Snake river. fingered
for about an hour in Idaho territory,
recrossed the river and arrived at
Ontario by Z O'Clock p. m. Ontario
Is a shard looking" place, as
some one told me | would find
it, and consists of but few houses,
the most prominent of which is
perhaps the saloon; but the most
prominent for me and the one
which | shall always be apt to re-
member is my first stopping place.
| had made mistake in the Sc
lection. In the wake of every
mistake follows its penalty, which
must be paid. | think | paid
mine in full. A stage coach con-
meets Ontario with Vale, the county
seat of Malheur county; the dis
tance is sixteen miles and the road
was assured to me TO be smooth
and level. Thought l l woald time
the coach and observe the peculi-
arities of the country, but by the
continued jolting and shaking my
nervous System was reduced to
such condition that | was totally
ipcapacitated from making any OBJ
servations or doing any figuring.
But if you can imagine a large
body of water, with now and then
a vessel appearing on the horizon,
ard replace this water by sage
brush and the vessels by houses or
barns your idea Of that portion of
Malheur county is tolerably fair
one. Along the road here and
there you see boxes nailed to fence
posts, such as you see in Corvallis,
nailed to shade trees, intended for
the milkman. Into these boxes
the stage driver throws letters
and packages, intended for the
owner of that particular farm, and
l was told that those letters, etc.,
sometimes remain there for days
together without being taken away
but also without being disturbed.
Before we entered the town of
Vale we forded the Malheur river,
the water supply of which at this
tune is exceedingly low. Vale
itself is town of 250 or 800 in
habitants, perhaps more, and pre-
Isents a neat appearance. The
"Atias'' is published there. an in
teresting and newsy sheet; its
editor, too, offered to do all in his
Ipower to advance the interests of
the agricultural college. At first,
indeed, he appeared to act rather
reservedly and seemed almost in
different, but soon warmed up and
gave me his undivided attention.
The reason was explained to me
afterwards. A minister had an