she bit her lips and felt generally absurd and miserable, although something within her made her feel a vague and undefined sense of justification.
"My little friend," he presently said, very gravely, "I thank you for your earnestness, but I owe it to myself to say that you wrong me, at least in the spirit of my actions, even if the letter was unworthy of you. I am a very simple sort of man. I really have no notion of what women like or dislike. I act only at the dictation of my feelings. I never felt this way be fore, and hence I never acted so before. It is all new to me; I'm sorry I made a mistake. But," after a pause, "do you think you can trust me now?"
"Certainly. I shall be glad to meet you on the old ground during the rest of our journey," said Nell, feeling that her ready phrases were no match for this man's quiet simplicity, and that her fears had outrun her judgment. "And now I must go in, as Elsie has gone to, sleep, and I'm afraid she will take cold," continued Nell, preparing to rise.
"One minute, Miss Grey. May I suggest to you that these shabby words and acts of today are not fair representatives of what is behind it all—a power that has courage to try some day for a victory?"
It was the man's turn now to flush, and she was very still and held her colors well. Then both arose, and the movement broke the charm, and, in a voice harsh with a sudden bitter self-scorn, he cried, "A fool, an arrant fool, to stand and talk to you of victory with one foot in my grave!" adding, in a voice full of tenderness, "I keep forgetting it somehow, child; since I met you I feel that life must be meted out to me as it is to other men. Run in now, little girl. You are sure we are friends?"
"Sure," she answered, very quietly.
He stooped and kissed the sleeping child in Nell's arms, and then she went in.
HOW DR. WHITMAN SAVED OREGON.
The name of Dr. Marcus Whitman is not found in the American Cyclopaedia, strange to say, and yet it is one that should be inscribed upon the roll of the nation's patriots. It has made its mark in history, and saved the United States a rich empire on the North Pacific that was on the verge of being lost to us from want of knowledge and interest on the part of those in authority at Washington. Only for his patriotic efforts and personal sacrifices, the Ashburton treaty would most likely have disposed of the great region of the Columbia as of trifling importance, and, knowing his services and recognizing his patriotic devotion, his name will be ever held in tender regard by the people and States of the great Columbian valley.
I remember well, a third of a century ago, reading of the "Whitman massacre," not thinking that shortly after my own life would be located on the far western shore, and the history of Whitman be a household word with me and mine. But so it is; and while my pen often indites sketches of the history of the Western Coast, there is no theme it can find more interesting than to trace the causes of early settlement, and the careers of those adventurous souls who were first in threading the pathless wilds of the middle continent, and were sometimes martyrs to both faith and patriotism. The romance of history lies in these opening chapters that offer views of the future, where man and nature are in wildness, and civilization itself comes in half savage garb to conquer barbarism.
It may be interesting to cultured minds to look back through almost half a century, and see what changes time and man have wrought on the North Pacific—to glance down the vistas, from the era of savagery to the present time, and study the romance of history, as well as the grand results of civilization. There is no romance to compare with the adventures, and often with the sorrows, of those who have led the march of empire westward, and that it flowed hither as it did in 1843 was due chiefly to Dr. Marcus Whitman; and thenceforward it has swept, as in a resistless tide, that to-day makes the Columbian region great in its present and imperial in the promise of its future.
Half a century ago this vast region was in its aboriginal condition, occupied by native tribes and undisturbed by the hand of man, except that the Hudson's Bay Company had its stations and its hunters, agents, and trappers everywhere, doing their best to make money out of traffic with the natives, and carefully avoiding
