face, so many thousand miles from home, with men and women of culture, who were carrying the older civilization across the continent. Here were the camps, store, and equipments of the American Fur Company, and beyond them, for six miles up the stream, were the camp-fires and lodges of Bannacks, Nez Perces, and Flatheads, the homes of the last named a month's journey to the northward. Everything indicated that it was an armed truce; every tribe and company maintained strict guard, and was prepared at any moment to arm in self-defense. The different tribes united to give the strangers a view of savage display by turning out in all their paint and feathers, armed with all sorts of weapons, and ornamented with every kind of barbarous finery, mounted on their horses, marching in procession five hundred strong, and indulging in the whoops and yells that suit ed the wilderness. Such was the wild scene our travelers came upon as they journeyed to ward the setting sun, and we may believe that they wondered to find themselves so far from all their kind, and so removed from all culture and social arts.
But we must pass over in haste the final settlement of the missionaries, the jealousy of the Catholic priesthood, the generous conduct of Governor Ogden and Dr. McLoughlin, of the Hudson's Bay Company—the latter of whom especially deserves well of all Americans, for the kindness shown the early comers; that, too, when reproached by the Company for favors shown them, and held responsible therefor. We have to do with a period six years later, during which time the missions appeared to do much good, and conferred great benefit on the Indians.
It was in the fall of 1842 that rumors reached Whitman that the Columbia River region was about to be abandoned to Great Britain. Such was the boast of the Catholic priests, and such the cautious acknowledgment of the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company, and such was the actual fact. Whitman was at his mission of Wailatpu, near the present site of Walla Walla. He held in high esteem the country we now occupy, though he had no adequate conception of its worth; he did not know the value of the land around him, where to-day the waving wheat fields and exuberant crops speak of the richest fertility; but he knew that this wide domain was priceless in its value to coming generations. All the patriotism in his nature was stirred at the thought that the ignorance of the Government might lead to its abandonment, and he and others find themselves residents on foreign soil. It was winter, but men of his class care nothing for seasons; snow covered the middle continent, but he was determined to save the Pacific north-west to his country, and there fore adventured this midwinter journey across a frozen world, daring all that Nature could do to bar the. way, desperate in his determination that the Oregon should flow toward the sea only past shores protected by his country's flag. That was the ruling motive, and the man who planned and executed this expedition, and clutched this grand region, by so doing, from the grasp of Britain, deserves an honorable name in that connection as long as his country has a history.
Dr. Whitman's companion on this terrible winter journey was General A. L. Lovejoy, one of the oldest residents of Oregon, who furnishes Mr. Gray an account of this memorable journey. He says: "I often had conversations with the doctor, touching the prospects of this coast. He was alive to its interests, and manifested a warm desire to have this country properly rep resented at Washington, and, after some arrangements, we left Wailatpu October 3, 1842 overland for the Eastern States. We reached Fort Hall in eleven days, made some purchases, took a guide, and left for Fort Wintee, changing from a direct route to one more southern, through the Spanish country, via Taos and Santa Fe" On their way to Wintee they met terribly severe weather, and heavy snows retarded progress. Thence they proceeded to the waters of Grand River, in Spanish territory, procured supplies, and took a guide for Taos, New Mexico, and, vainly baffling with terrific snow storms on table lands, found refuge in a deep ravine. After vain efforts to proceed, Whitman returned, and procured a better guide, who knew the country, when they fought their way, at a snail's pace, to Grand River. This stream was frozen on each side, had a rapid current, and was crossed by leading their animals to the brink of the ice, pushing them into the stream, and leaping in after them. Battling across to the farther side, they scrambled upon the ice, dragging the animals out as they could; after which perilous feat their frozen garments and half frozen limbs were thawed and warmed by a comfortable fire. It was thus they worked their way southward and east ward through New Mexico, to the headwaters of the Arkansas River, at Bent's Fort, where they arrived in January, 1843. Great physical strength and iron constitutions carried them through it all.
Tyler was President and Webster was Secretary of State. The Ashburton treaty was in progress, and not much interest was felt in the north-western boundary. Little was known of hat distant region, and from English sources
