The old donation claim having become valuable city property, the taxation was heavy to meet the expenses of extravagant and wasteful administration partly, and partly incidental to the phenomenal growth of the city, consequently both Mr. and Mrs. D. T. Denny have paid into the public treasury a considerable fortune, ten or twelve thousand a year for ten years, twenty thousand for grades, six thousand at a time for school tax and so on--much more than they were able to use for themselves. * * * * * A fascinating volume would recount their hunting adventures, as all, father and sons, are fine shots; game, both large and small, swarmed about the present site of Seattle in the early days. Indeed, for many years the bounty of Nature failed not; as late as 1879, ruffed grouse or "pheasants," blue grouse, brown and black bears were numerous seven or eight miles north of Seattle, a region then untenanted wilds. The women folk were not always left behind on hunting expeditions, and the pioneer mother, and daughters, too, quite often accompanied them. Into this primeval wilderness, to a mineral spring known and visited by the Indians in times past and called by them Licton, came the father, mother and eldest son to enjoy all they might discover. The two hunting dogs proved necessary and important members of the party by rousing up a big black bear and her cubs near the spring,--but we will let the pioneer mother, Mrs. Louisa Denny, tell the tale as she has often told it in the yesterdays: