Perhaps in the early history of no part of our country were greater difficulties overcome in moving from one place to another than in the mining districts of Oregon and Idaho. Essentially a mountain region, and in all portions of it away from the narrow valleys formed by the streams filled with the remains of extensive volcanic action, its surface, besides being broken into deep cañons, lofty ridges, inaccessible precipices, impassable streams, and impenetrable lava beds, was also covered everywhere with the sharp points and fissured hummocks which were cast out during a long and active period of primeval eruption. There were no natural roads in any direction. The trail of the Indian was full of obstacles, often indirect and generally impracticable. To travel with vehicles of any sort was absolutely impossible. The pack-animal was the only available resource for transportation. The miner would bind all his earthly gear on the back of a mule or a burro and grapple with obstructions as they appeared, cutting his way through forests almost interminable, and exposing himself to dangers as trying to his fortitude as to his ingenuity. The merchant who wished to transport goods, the saloon-keeper who had liquors and billiard tables, the hotel-keeper whose furniture was necessary, all had to employ pack-animals as the only means of transportation from the towns on the Columbia to the mining camps of the interior. The owner of a train of pack-animals was always certain of profitable employment. His life was precarious, his subsistence poor, his responsibilities enormous. He threaded the most dangerous passes, and incurred the most fearful risks,—for all of which he received adequate compensation. The pack train was always a lively feature in the gigantic mountain scenery of Oregon and Idaho. A train of fifty or one hundred animals, composed about equally of mules and burros, each heavily laden, the experienced animal in the lead picking the way for those in the rear amid the rocks, escarpments, and precipices of a lofty mountain side, was a spectacle of thrilling interest. At times, the least mis-step would have precipitated some unfortunate animal hundreds of feet down the steep declivity, dashing him to pieces on the rocks below. Fortunately the cautious and sure tread of these faithful creatures rendered such an accident of very rare occurrence, though to the person who for the first time beheld them in motion the feeling was ever present that they could not escape it. The arrival of one of these large trains in a mining camp produced greater excitement among the inhabitants than any other event, and the calculations upon their departure from the Columbia River and their appearance in the interior towns were made and anticipated with nearly as much certainty as if they were governed by a published time-table.