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eyes, and when Mrs. Polk spoke to me I could n't think of anything to say in return." .
The White House was full of his relatives, from cousins and nephews down to the mulatto servant he played with when a boy. In short order the barber and the tailor transformed the unkempt, buckskin-clad Oregon trapper into a fashionable "Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary from the Republic of Oregon to the Court of the United States! "
The handsome trapper, no longer "old," returned to Oregon with the star of a United States Marshal on his breast. With him came General Joe Lane, the " Marion of the Mexican War," with the sword of Santa Anna at his belt, appointed by President Polk to be the first United States Governor of Oregon Territory.
That same month a company of United States troops were stationed at Fort Vancouver. At last the little colony had been heard, but it was only after Whitman was dead and homes had been desolated by an Indian war. The Whitman massacre awakened and united the settlers of the sparsely peopled valleys, it roused Congress from her dreams, and brought recognition to the first American settlement on the Pacific.
Congress admitted Oregon to territorial rights, and ratified the laws and acts of the Provisional Government the very day that schooner brought in the news of gold from Yerba Buena. Before the trapper-marshal could get back presto! change! Gold brought in the world!
The Acadian days were ended. Governor Abernethy handed over the gavel to Governor Lane, and the technically illegal, yet efficient, Provisional Government was no mor
