of the world, supposed to forever shut the East from the West.
The magical word flew over the mountains—hundreds of Nez Percés, Flatheads, Snakes, and Bannocks came out to meet them.
Two Nez Percé chiefs went up on the heights to escort them down. There, on the summit of the continent, the flag was unfurled. Under its starry folds, facing the west, the little band knelt, and like Columbus took possession in the name of God.
The moment the two brides alighted at the trader's rendezvous on Green River, scores of Indian women pressed to grasp their hands and kiss their cheeks. A handful of bronzed mountaineers, so long in the wilds they had forgotten the looks of a white woman, pulled off their caps in memory of their mothers.
"Thar!" said Joe Meek, an American trapper, "thar are immigrants that the Hudson's Bay Company cannot drive out."
"You must leave your wagon here," said everybody at the rendezvous—everybody but the Indians. They followed with wonder the musical chick-a-chick clattering over the rocks. They waved their arms toward the hills, they chattered and jabbered and put their shoulders to the wheels.
"We can take it through," said Dr. Whitman. The Indians went ahead and helped him hunt the road that afterward became the great overland route to the West. Night after night, late and tired, the doctor came puffing into camp.
The wagon stuck in the creeks, it upset on the steep hillsides, and then—the axle-tree broke.
"Leave it, Marcus," said Mrs. Whitman, reining up her beautiful bay. "Let us have no more trouble with it."
