I visited Oregon City with my friend, and observed the beautiful falls of the Willamette and the waste of electrical and mechanical power. Returning to his humble home, I bade him the next day a regretful good-bye, and with my horses started for a point in Mill Creek Valley, six or seven miles south of Salem, to the home of a friend with whom I became acquainted on the plains. This friend had taken up a claim, and I found him busily engaged in the erection of a building which might be styled in architecture as a midway between a dwelling house and a cabin. He had determined, as soon as this structure was completed, to go to the mines in Southern Oregon. I also concluded to try my luck in digging for gold. In the latter part of October, 1852, in company with two other gentlemen, we started for the mines in Rogue River Valley, Southern Oregon. The habitations in the Willamette Valley at that time were few and far between. Large bands of Spanish cattle roamed over, and found ample food in the upper portion of the valley. It was dangerous for a footman to pass through that country. On horseback he was safe. But little of interest occured on this trip. My friend claimed to be and he was an expert rider. He had a large and powerful Spanish horse as his riding animal. While in the Umpqua Valley he mounted this horse one morning without saddle or bridle on a steep hill. The horse viciously resented this breach of etiquette and plunged with stiff-legged vaults downward and sideways on the steep incline, throwing his rider over his head. The rider struck with his full weight and the momentum of the horse's motion, on his right hand, throwing the small bones, to which some of the muscles of the inner arm are attached, out of their sockets at the base of the palm of the hand. The tendency was for these muscles still further to contract--thus aggravating his injury. The nearest doctor was fifty miles away. Upon examination, I concluded that these small bones ought to be forced into their proper place, if possible, before inflammation intervened. We accordingly placed the injured man upon his back on the ground, and as the operation would be very painful, the others held him securely while I forced these bones back into their sockets. Then we bound the wrist tightly, so as to keep them in place. When we arrived at the Doctor's he, after an examination, complimented me highly for my surgical skill, and gave me credit for saving the wrist of the injured man. On our way to the mines we passed through what is known as the Canyon in the mountain-spur that separates the Umpqua country from the Rogue River county. People now passing through this canyon scarcely appreciate the difficulties attending the passage which then existed. The canyon is formed by two streams, both heading in a small pond or lake at the summit of the mountain; the one that flows northward is called Canyon Creek. It was then crossed eighty-four times by the road.