"Where's DeLacy?" became a byword after weeks of earnest inquiry of the uninitiated as to what was transpiring out at the front, where supposed work was going on to construct a trail leading through the Cascade Mountains to the mouth of Thompson River, that emptied into the Fraser one hundred and fifty miles easterly from Whatcom. If a trail could be constructed through the mountains from Whatcom, then the town would at once bloom into a city, and the fortunes of townsite proprietors would be made, and all might go to the mines whose spirit moved them. It all looked very feasible on paper, but several obstacles not taken into account by the impatient crowd defeated all their hopes. A fund had been raised by subscription at the inception of the excitement to send out parties to search for a pass, and W. W. DeLacy, an engineer of considerable note, started out early in the season, and so far as I know never came back to Whatcom.
Directly this party was sent out to search for a pass through the mountains another party was set to work to follow and cut the trail. All seemingly went well for awhile, and until there came no word to the public from DeLacy. The trail workers were yet at work, but did not know what was ahead of them. DeLacy had to them become a sort of myth. The fact was he had failed to find a pass, and when he arrived at a point that he thought was the summit, he had yet fifty miles or more of the worst of the mountains ahead of him. Meanwhile, the trail out from Whatcom for forty or fifty miles became well worn by men and animals going and returning. I saw sixty men with heavy packs on their backs start out in one company, everyone of whom had to come back after floundering in the mountains for weeks. So long as there could be kept up a hope that the trail would be cut through, just so long a complete collapse of the townsite boom might be averted, and so DeLacy was kept in the mountains searching for a pass which was never found.
About the time I landed in Whatcom, H. L. Yesler and Arthur A. Denny headed a party to go through the Snoqualmie Pass, but they did not reach the open country. W. H. Pearson, the intrepid scout, who won such laurels with Governor Stevens in his famous ride from the Blackfeet country, conducted a party of eighty-two persons, sixty-seven of whom packed their bedding and food on their backs, through the Snoqualmie Pass to the Wenatchee, where they were met by the Indians in such numbers and threatening mood that nearly all beat a hasty retreat.