"With two women and a wagon across the Rocky Mountains."
"How did you return?"
"On horseback over the snow."
An hour they talked, but the subject was ever the same, Oregon, the paradise by the sea.
"I want the President and Cabinet to hear what you have said to me," said the great statesman, visibly impressed with the heroic effort of Dr. Whitman.
They were called together, and Dr. Whitman spent an evening answering their questions on Oregon, its importance and its resources.
President Tyler listened attentively. "Dr. Whitman," he said, "your frozen limbs and leather breeches attest your sincerity. Can emigrants cross the mountains in wagons?"
"My own wagon went across."
"Is there likely to be an emigration this year?"
"They are already gathering on the frontier. I am publishing a pamphlet to help it on. I came to the States for that express purpose."
"Very well," answered the President. "Go ahead with your wagons. This question can rest till we see if you get them through."
"That is all I ask," said Whitman, rising.
Promising to forward to his old school friend, the Secretary of War, a synopsis of a bill for a line of posts to Oregon, he hastened away.
Twenty years before, Senator Benton had urged the occupation of the Columbia. "Mere adventurers may enter upon it as Æneas entered upon the Tiber, and as our forefathers came upon the Potomac, the Delaware, and the Hudson, and renew the phenomenon of individuals laying the foundation of future empire."
