Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 12.djvu/176

168 . J. NEILSON BARRY where a fair valley spread out before them, of great extent and several leagues in width, with a beautiful stream meander- ing through it." Here they obtained food from the Indians and rested in the famous Grande Ronde Valley, which in Chap- ter XLIV is described as "a vast plain, almost a dead level, sixty miles in circumference, of excellent soil, with fine streams meandering through it in every direction, their courses marked out in the wide landscape by serpentine lines of cottonwood trees and willows, which fringed their banks, and afforded sus- tenance to great numbers of beavers and otters. In traversing this plain, they passed, close to the skirts of the hills, a great pool of water, three hundred yards in circumference, fed by a sulphur spring, about ten feet in diameter, boiling in one corner," where now the Hot Lake Sanatorium is situated. "In the course of the following morning the Dorion family made its appearance. Pierre came trudging along in the ad- vance, followed by his valued, though skeleton steed, on which was mounted his squaw with her new-born infant in her arms, and her boy of two years old wrapped in a blanket and slung at her side. The mother looked as unconcerned as if nothing had happened to her." Previously, in Chapter XXXIV, Irving says of her, "and here we cannot but notice the wonderful patience, perseverance and hardihood of the Indian women, as exemplified in the conduct of the poor squaw of the inter- preter. She . . . had two children to take care of; one four and the other two years of age. The latter, of course, she had frequently to carry on her back, in addition to the bur- den usually imposed upon the squaw, yet she had borne all her hardships without a murmur, and throughout this weary and painful journey had kept pace with the best of the pedes- trians. Indeed, on various occasions in the course of this en- terprise, she displayed a force of character that won the ap- plause of the white men." There is a lesson in this woman's story, So brave, yet meek, whose love did never fail, Undaunted courage was her crown and glory, The foremost mother on that famous trail.