Lost in the Quinault Wilderness
After a three-week search, the fate of a Tacoma hunter who vanished into the mountains is finally understood.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Footsore and tired, Harry Frazer and William Miner returned yesterday from a three-week tramp over knolls and crags in the forest reserve along the Quinault River, in search of their friend, Rudolph Richfield, who left this city last January for a hunting expedition. Somewhere in the wilds along the Quinault he lost his life. Richfield had made his home in a small cabin near the South Fork of the Quinault River. When the searching party reached the lonely shack, indications plainly showed that he had gone on his daily hunt weeks before and never returned. His provisions were untouched and beginning to show signs of age; his gun was gone and none of his hunting paraphernalia could be found. The searchers believe that he may have fallen into the Quinault River, which is a rapid mountain stream and unsafe to navigate. When Richfield departed, he left his pet dog in South Tacoma, thinking the animal might be useful in tracking him. Frazer and Miner took the dog with them, but the animal met his death in the Quinault after being swept by the current against the rocks. It is probable that the dog's master met death in the same way.
“The dog started to swim across the stream and was carried by the swift current against the rocks and his body dashed to pieces. It is probable that the dog's master met death in the same way.”
The Quinault region remains a rugged, unforgiving wilderness where visitors can easily become disoriented. Today's search and rescue teams often encounter the same treacherous river conditions that claimed the lives of both man and dog in 1904.
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