it took the old lady a long time to write the message. The boy comes out, looking kind o' scared, and Joe says to him, 'What's the matter?' 'Oh, that's all right, Joe,' says the boy; 'I'm in a big hurry, and will tell you all about it when I get back.' Then he got on the horse and was gone like the wind. In about an hour another boy came out, crying. Joe thought it was the girl in disguise, trying to get away. He nabs her, because the clothes are too big, and give her dead away. But who should it be but the messenger boy?"
Casserly was aghast.
"And the other boy—"
"Was no boy at all, but the young girl. The old lady—she's a terror!—when she got the boy up stairs, put a pistol under his nose, and told him if he cried out she would shoot him like a dog. Then she made him take off his clothes, and gave him some of her son's to put on, and made the girl dress in the boy's uniform. The boy says the girl was scared, but the old lady made her drink some brandy, and made the boy tell Joe's name, and then took the girl into the hall and whispered to her. Then the girl went down stairs, and the old lady wouldn't let the boy go for an hour. She just sat there by the body, looking at the boy, and playing with the pistol, and didn't say a single word."
"Did you start any one after the girl?"
"Two or three; but it was so late in the night that nobody was out, and they came back with out striking the trail."
"Did you telegraph?"
"No."
"How long has she been gone?"
"Over three hours."
"A big start, but we must catch her."
"But wasn't that a sharp trick, though?"
"Yes. I am afraid the woman is too much for me."
The Chief was silent a minute, and then said, reflecting on the words of the old man:
"It proves one thing, Captain."
"What is that?"
"Howard is guilty."
DID DR. WHITMAN SAVE OREGON?
A reference to the Ashburton treaty, which occurs in an article, "How Dr. Whitman Saved Oregon," in the July number of the Californian, suggests the thought of how little may be understood of the nature of our treaties with foreign nations. The author of that article, in recounting the services of Dr. Whitman, imputes to him some influence in forming one of a series of treaties and conventions concerning the boundary of the United States; and without, apparently, having examined the subject, connects the settlement of the north-eastern boundary with the boundary of Oregon, when, in fact, they are distinct, and were settled by different treaties. The following are the facts relative to the Ashburton treaty of August 9, 1842:
On the conclusion of our War of Independence a treaty was held at Paris, November 30, 1782, when the Provisional Articles of Peace were signed, and the boundaries of the new power, so far as our possessions bordered on those of Great Britain, were defined as well as they could be without a more perfect knowledge of the geography of the region through which the line passed, but not "by metes and bounds" that could be understood by all. Therefore, in September, 1783, a second treaty was made and signed at Paris, called the Definitive Treaty of Paris, in which his Britannic Majesty acknowledged "the said United States" to be "free, sovereign, and independent States," and that he treated with them as such, relinquishing all claims to the government, and proprietary and territorial rights; and that disputes which might arise in future on the subject of the boundaries of the United States might be prevented, it was agreed and declared that the north-west angle of Nova Scotia should be at a point where a line drawn due north from the source of the St. Croix River should strike the highlands that divide the waters of the rivers falling into the St. Lawrence River and the Atlantic Ocean respectively, and along said high lands to the most north-western head of the Connecticut River; thence down the middle of that river to the forty-fifth degree parallel of latitude; thence due west on that parallel to the St. Lawrence River; thence along the middle of that river to Lake Ontario; and thence along the middle of all the lakes and rivers connecting, to the most north-west point of the Lake of the Woods; and thence on a due west course to the Mississippi River, down which river to the thirty-first degree parallel of north latitude the line extended, where it deflected to the east till
