One winter night, grown weary of drowsing by his bright, warm fireplace in his little cabin, he began to walk back and forth in an absent-minded way, when suddenly his hair fairly stood on end; there were two stealthy shadows following him every where he turned. In what state of mind he passed the remainder of the night is unknown, but soon after he related the incident to his friends evincing much anxiety as to what it might signify. Probably he had two lights burning in different parts of the room or sufficiently bright separate flames in the fireplace. Doubtless it remained a mystery unexplained to him, to the end of his days. The pioneer merchants who traded with the Indians, and swapped calico and sugar for butter and eggs, with the settlers, pioneer steamboat men who ran the diminutive steamers between Olympia and Seattle, pioneer editors, who published tri-weeklies whose news did not come in daily, pioneer milliners who "did up" the hats of the other pioneer women with taste and neatness, pioneer legislators, blacksmiths, bakers, shoemakers, foundry men, shipbuilders, etc., blazed the trails of commerce where now there are broad highways. CHAPTER IV BUILDING OF THE TERRITORIAL UNIVERSITY. Early in 1861, the University Commissioners, Rev. D. Bagley, John Webster and Edmund Carr, selected the site for the proposed building, ten acres in Seattle, described as a "beautiful eminence overlooking Elliott Bay and Puget Sound." A. A. Denny donated eight and a fraction acres, Terry and Lander, one and a fraction acres. The structure was fifty by eighty feet, two stories in height, beside belfry and observatory. There were four rooms above, including the grand lecture room, thirty-six by eighty feet, and six rooms below, beside the entrance hall of twelve feet, running through the whole building. The president's house was forty by fifty, with a solid foundation of brick and cement cellar; the boarding house twenty-four by forty-eight, intended to have an extension when needed. A supply was provided of the purest spring water, running through one thousand four hundred feet of charred pump logs. Buildings of such dimensions were not common in the Northwest in those days; materials were expensive and money was scarce. It was chiefly through the efforts of John Denny that a large appropriation of land was made by Congress for the benefit of the new-born institution. Although advanced in years, his hair as white as snow, he made the long journey to Washington city and return when months were required to accomplish it. By the sale of these lands the expense of construction and purchase of material were met. The land was then worth but one dollar and a half per acre, but enough was sold to amount to $30,400.69. At that time the site lay in the midst of a heavy forest, through which a trail was made in order to reach it.