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your name, if you please. How many in the family? What do you desire?" and so of each the questions were asked and orders made out.
"Here, gentlemen, take these to the clerks; they will supply your immediate needs. The rest you can obtain later. All can be paid at our house in Oregon City when your crops come in."
Profoundly moved, one by one they bowed themselves out from the presence of that "old barbarian in his den on the Columbia," whose generosity had rescued them and their families from suffering, starvation, and possibly death.
Standing on the porch of his residence, Dr. McLoughlin beckoned to a group of young men waiting irresolute below.
"Our ship sails to-night," he said. "If any of you wish to write home, you 'd better do so. It 's the last chance you'll get for six months."
"Thank you," answered John Minto; "we would like to write, but we have no material."
"Go over there," said the doctor, pointing to Bachelors' Hall. "The clerk will furnish stationery." Pulling out his gold watch "You have just twenty minutes before dinner."
In Bachelors' Hall the lads indited the first letters since leaving St. Joe in May, letters to apprise the dear ones at home of their safe arrival at Oregon-by-the-Sea. Scarcely had they finished when a servant entered with roast beef and potatoes, and the boys dined like guests in the home of a friend.
Says one of those boys, a gray-haired grandsire now: " Mr. Douglas was urbane, civil, gentlemanly, but he could not disguise his chagrin at each addition to the number of American settlers."
