Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/331

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Reminiscences.
315

Crosby's. He was now cooking at the hotel. He afterwards settled at Mount Solo, on the Columbia.

Bradbury met with the misfortune of losing his blankets as he was off looking for work at Dick McKay's, which was something of a hardship, as every man carried his own bedding, and he was now left with only a mattress, and a Sandwich Island rush mat for cover. By George Gay, however, he was very kindly taken, without charge, up the Willamette River, and to French Prairie, where he looked for work.; he was entertained there by a Frenchman. His destitution and still lingering illness were the main troubles.


A JOB AT LAST.

Drifting down once more to Portland, he was there delighted to find the track of work. This was with Henry Hunt, who had brought sawmill machinery across the plains in 1843, and had set it up at a fine waterfall at Cathlamet Point, on the Oregon side of the Columbia, a little above the present town of Clifton. The pay was to be $20 a month, in "script and grindstones.' There was no specie in the country at the time, and the medium of exchange consisted simply of orders on the merchants; Allen & McKinley, Pettygrove, Abernethy, and the Hudson's Bay Company at Oregon City, being then the principal dealers. Some of them were accused of keeping nothing but grindstones in full stock when holders of script appeared to draw orders.

Bradbury was promptly dubbed "The Yankee," by Hunt, who was a Western man and used the term somewhat contemptuously. But once he was at the mill, the name was made honorable. He was given an ax to fell timber. The first tree to be attacked was a yellow fir, and the day January 15, 1847. He began after dinner,